Frank drove us to SIS’s unofficial
headquarters. Though we said unofficial, the building outside of Washington,
D.C. was our primary location. However, any building we occupied for the
purpose of advancing our mission would be considered our headquarters and
always labeled unofficial. The SIS was an agency that didn’t exist. The primary
focus of the group was counter-terrorism. We had complete and total autonomy.
We could push any other agency to the back of the line if we felt our cause
took precedence. The agents in our group were considered elite, and often
handpicked from among the top recruits of the CIA, FBI and DEA. Only a handful
of politicians and higher ups in the military knew of the agency’s existence,
and if you asked them, they’d flat out deny it. Even if there was a gun to
their head.
We pulled up around the rear of the
building. Frank stopped in front of what appeared to be a wall. If you stood
close enough, and in the right, spot you’d see a tiny crack that ran up its
center, then turned to the right and met another thin crack. Frank pulled a
device out of his pocket and pushed a button. A wide door opened out and Frank
drove into a dark garage. The place was empty except for my car, a large SUV,
and a four door maroon Lexus that belonged to the doctor.
I waited in the back seat after
Frank parked and cut the engine. He got out, walked around the back and opened
the door next to the man. I removed the handcuff from his left wrist and pushed
the man out while Frank pulled. The guy stumbled out and fell to the ground. He
groaned and clutched at his broken arm.
“Get up,” Frank told the guy.
I slid through the open door. The
guy was on his knees, bent over with his forehead resting on the concrete
floor. I grabbed him by his shirt collar and pulled the man’s upper body
straight up. Frank reached under his left arm and started pulling. I grabbed
his collar and the waistband of his pants. We got him to his feet, then led him
to the only door in the garage.
Frank swiped an access card through
a security card reader and the light changed from red to green. He then placed
his thumb on a pad. There was a series of beeps, and another light turned from
red to green. Then the lock clicked and Frank turned the door handle. We walked
down a short hall and came to the area of the main floor that we called the
lobby. There were two doors on the far wall. Each door led to an interrogation
room. A four by six foot mirrored window was placed a foot away from each door.
Opposite the interrogation rooms was our infirmary, a state of the art medical
facility that was equipped for everything from bee stings to surgery. There were
six offices in the lobby, three on the north wall, three on the south. My
office was next to Frank’s. The third office on our side was designated for all
of team B.
The stale air of the lobby
enveloped us. The smell of ammonia hardly affected me anymore, but the guy we
were dragging down the hall coughed and gagged as he breathed in the fumes.
The doctor stood in the doorway of
the infirmary. He was tall and middle aged. His full head of hair was half
brown, half gray. His long, pointy nose was the only distinguishing feature on
his face. He nodded toward our prisoner. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Broken arm,” I said. “Maybe a
concussion, too. But that shouldn’t matter.”
The doctor shrugged and nodded over
his shoulder. “Drop him in there.”
“You want one of us to stay?” I
asked.
“Him.” The doctor pointed at Frank.
“You ask too many questions, Mr. Noble.”
Frank laughed and the doctor joined
in. I said nothing. He had a point. I did tend to ask a lot of questions when
he was working on one of us. I often thought that if my life had gone a bit
differently when I was young, I could have ended up a doctor or trauma surgeon.
I left the infirmary and went to my
office. I stacked a few manila folders and moved them to the corner of the
desk, then started a pot of coffee. The rich aroma of the dark grinds soaked
the air in my office. I didn’t feel like waiting for the full pot to brew, so I
emptied it into a stained mug as soon as there was enough. I held the mug in
both hands and leaned back in my chair. The caffeine coursed through my veins,
providing the jolt I needed.
I got up and left my office and
walked back to the infirmary. Frank glanced at me and said nothing. He
concentrated on the guy’s broken arm. I took a few more steps and stopped
inside the doorway and leaned against the frame.
“Out,” the doctor said.
I could tell by his tone that he
was serious. We tried hard to not piss Doc off, because you never knew when you
were going to need him to treat you. I shrugged and backed up a few feet.
Turned around and leaned back against the wall a couple yards from the door. I
lifted the coffee to my face and inhaled. Steam singed the inside of my nose,
just for a second. I took a sip. It was strong. Perhaps a bit too strong, if
there was such a thing. I decided it didn’t matter. The brew helped clear the
cobwebs from my head, and that was always welcome.
Behind me, I heard the sound of
bone grating against bone. The doctor was setting the fracture. The man
screamed as his ulna and then radius were placed in their natural positions. I
took his cries of pain as a sign that the doctor hadn’t bothered to numb the
guy up. I was OK with that, and apparently Frank was too. Why waste our
supplies on a criminal?
With the doctor almost finished, I
started to think about what questions to ask the man. We didn’t know much about
him, except that he showed up at a place that our intel indicated would be a
spot where something would happen. But we had no idea who this guy was. What
was he doing near the bus stop? Was he a part of the group we were tracking, or
just doing business with them? Why did he run from us? Why did he try to kill
me?
Both Frank and I had a feeling we
were closing in on something big. Every piece of evidence we had gathered so
far pointed to this being a terrorist cell. The only good thing about that was
that we didn’t have to turn it over to the FBI or DEA. These guys had been
running drugs and guns and smuggling people in and out of the States for
months. If it were just one of those activities, we’d be out of the loop. But
it wasn’t just one activity, it was the full gamut.
It also appeared that they had
funding from some big businesses in hostile places, as well as possible
connections with powerful people in the U.S. Homeland tried to take over
on account of this, but Frank managed to push them back.
The men themselves were a mix of
U.S. citizens, Colombians, and guys from the Middle East. That was the only
thing that clouded our initial assumption. Why were so many different groups
working together? I hoped that this guy, who looked like he might be Colombian,
could tie some of those loose ends together for us. Assuming he talked, that
is.
“OK, Mr. Noble,” the doctor said
from the other side of the wall. “He’s all yours.”
I drank the last of my coffee and
pushed off of the infirmary wall. Met Frank and the man at the entrance. The
doctor had set the bone and placed an air cast over the man’s forearm. The guy
sat on the edge of the gurney, shoulders slumped, head hanging, and eyes
focused on the floor.
“Take him to room one,” I said to
Frank. Then I turned to the doctor. “Can he hold up?”
The doctor shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll
stick around. I’ve got a few things that can help keep him up and awake through
whatever you do to him.”
“You won’t want to watch if it gets
to that.”
“With what you guys pay me, I can
watch anything.”
“Go wait in your office. We’ll get
you if we need you.”
The doctor held up his hands. He
then crossed the room and went into his office, which was on the wall opposite
of mine. He closed his door and took a seat behind his computer. I glanced in
as I passed and saw the familiar green game board of computer solitaire.
Frank had placed the guy in the
interrogation room and now stood on the outside, watching the man through the
smoky mirrored glass.
“What do you think?” I said as I
stopped next to him, a few feet separating us.
“No doubt he’s got information. And
if our intel was right, he was at that bus stop for a reason.”
I nodded. Said nothing, waiting for
Frank to continue.
“Something was about to go down,”
Frank said.
I nodded again. Remained quiet.
“Question is what, Jack? And is he
one of them? Or was he there to meet them?”
“Great questions, Frank,” I said.
“Only one way to find out.”
He nodded and smiled. “You ready?”
“Not quite.” I took two steps to
the right and adjusted the thermostat, turning it down to fifty degrees. “Let’s
freeze him out for a bit.”
Half an hour passed while we downed
two cups of coffee each and smoked a few cigarettes. Neither of us said much.
After two years of working together, there was no need for idle banter between
us. Both of us knew what needed to be done. We each had our own tactics, and
they played well off one another.
I got up and went to check on the
man. He looked considerably uncomfortable. “Let’s go, Frank.”
Frank entered the room ahead of me.
He sat at the far end of a rectangular wooden table. I sat in the middle,
opposite our prisoner. The man looked between us. His lips quivered and his
teeth chattered. He sniffled and shivered.
“Can we get you anything?” Frank
asked.
“A coat,” the man replied.
“We can do that,” Frank said.
“Can’t we, Jack?”
I nodded. “Sure, but first you need
to answer a few questions for us.”
The man stared at a spot on the
table and said nothing.
“What’s your name?” I said.
The man said nothing.
“Your name?” I said again.
“Pablo,” he said without looking
up.
“What were you doing at that bus
stop?” I said.
The man slowly turned his head. His
teeth stopped chattering as he clenched his jaw. Muscles rippled at the bottom
corners of his face. He licked his lips and calmly said, “I want my lawyer. I’m
not saying anything until my lawyer is here.”
Frank laughed. “I’m sorry. Do you
think you have rights down here? Jack, did you read this guy his rights?”
I shook my head. Said nothing.
Frank stood and positioned himself
next to me, across the table from the guy. “OK, asshole, here are your rights.
You have the right to sit in that chair. You have the right to answer every
friggin’ question we ask you. You don’t have the right to remain silent. Your
efforts to remain silent are going to be met with a pain so intense you’ll wish
we had amputated your arm instead of just breaking it. You don’t get a lawyer
or a chaplain or your mommy. That doctor over there, he’s on our side. He can
give you medication to keep you awake through any amount of pain we put you
through. You won’t pass out, asshole. You’ll cry until you have no more tears.
You’ll puke until all your stomach is barren and all you can do is dry heave.
So answer my partner’s question or your pain is going to start in about thirty
seconds.”
The man clenched the fist of his
good arm. His eyes watered. I assumed the reality of the situation hit him at
that moment. We weren’t the cops and there was nothing legal about us, at least
not in any sense that he, or most people, understood. Frank and I were
authorized to do our jobs, no matter what it took. We could come and go and
shoot to kill without asking questions, and without having questions asked of
us.
Frank placed both hands on the
table and leaned over until he was no more than a foot from the guy’s face. “So
what’s it gonna be?”
The man pulled his head back a few
inches. His lips thinned and his cheeks puffed out. Frank jerked to the side
just in time to avoid most of the spittle that flew out of the guy’s mouth.
Frank reached out and grabbed the
man’s right wrist and yanked up, then down. The man screamed as the jagged
edges of his broken bones grated against one another.
Frank pulled out a knife. “The
bones are already broken. Shouldn’t be tough to cut through. Then there’s just
a mess of veins and nerves and meat and flesh. You want to see what it’s like
to hold your own severed arm?”
“Enough,” the man said through
clenched teeth. “I’ll talk. I’ll talk.”
The left side of Frank’s mouth
turned upward in a smile. He broke the guy down fast. While we’d seen some turn
faster, we expected this guy to last a few rounds before caving in.
Frank let go and the man pulled his
broken arm to his chest. Cradled it with his left arm. He let out a couple
sobs, then wiped his eyes dry. Tears stained his cheeks and settled into his
thin facial hair.
“What do you want to know?” he
said.
“I want to know what you were doing
at the bus stop,” I said.
He licked his lips and leaned back
in the chair and let out a loud exhale. “Got a cigarette?”
I looked at Frank and nodded. Frank
reached into his pocket and pulled out a soft pack. He tapped the open end
against his palm and retrieved three cigarettes. He lit two and handed one to
the man. Rolled the third across the table to me. I tucked it behind my ear,
choosing to save it for later.
“The bus stop is where the pick up
was going to be made,” the guy said.
“What pick up?” I said.
He shifted his eyes from the table
to me. “The kid.”
I felt Frank’s eyes settle on me,
but I didn’t look back at him. “What kid?”
The man’s facial expression
changed. The pain and anger lifted, and a bemused look crossed his face. “What
did you pick me up for, man?”
“We’ve been tracking you guys for
months. We’ve got you for drugs, guns, and smuggling terrorists in and out of
the country.”