Warlord: Dervish (5 page)

Espada stared back at him in disbelief, deafened from the rifle’s report.

They were all looking at him. Espada in the car. Mook on the radio. The Gift and Meech and Tucker. The crowd. The old man’s head lolled to the side against the remains of a head rest, mouth open, eyes vacant.

“Okay.” Jason flipped the selector on his M-4 to three-round burst and fired into the crowd. There were screams. Bodies fell and people ran. Mook tackled him, bearing him to the ground.

“Jason! Jesus Christ—what the fuck!”

Private Jason Aaron hadn’t been feeling well for a long time. He lay on his back in the street amid the dirt and the sand. Mook and the Gift were holding him down. The crowd screamed at them and Meech screamed back. Espada cried, his hands clasped over his ears, and Tucker considered the contents of the car, nodding his head approvingly. Well above them, in the limpid blue sky, the aerostat hung over the city.

Interference Seen in Redtide Inquiry

By Deirdre Fowler

Washington
—Officials at the United States Embassy in Iraq have told prosecutors that they believe State Department officials attempted to block any serious investigation into last spring’s shooting incident in which Redtide security guards were accused of murdering thirty seven Iraqi civilians, according to court testimony made public on Thursday….

.…Redtide became a multimillion-dollar contractor as the United States escalated its wars in Afghanistan, Iran, and openly renewed its operations in Iraq, providing protection for State Department officials and covert work for the Central Intelligence Agency. The contractor is also suspected of operating in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya and the occupied territories.

Its critics have accused the company of maintaining inappropriate ties to the intelligence and diplomatic agencies with which it worked….
In a statement released to the press shortly after the closing bell on Wall Street Friday afternoon, Redtide denied any attempted….

No Rain

“Jason.”

With the hood removed, the light was blinding.

He snapped his eyes shut and turned his head from the glare. He tried to twist his body but found it secured to a chair. His feet scrabbled against the floor, seeking a purchase from which he could turn his seat, but his legs were bound to the chair. And the chair was bolted to the floor.

“Remain still now, Jason…”

A hand clasped the side of his face none too delicately, a smack, the vise-like grip jerking his head to the side, exposing his neck.

“Way—wait—
wait
!”

He blinked against the light, attempting to catch sight of his assailant. A sting in his neck and Jason cried out involuntarily. The hand withdrew from his face as a shadow stepped away to stand near the table.

A feint tingling sensation remained in his neck.

“What did you—” Jason stammered, his throat dry, his voice hoarse, “—what did you just do to me?” He had no idea where he was or how long he had been there.

“Tsk..tsk..tsk…”

The voice did not emanate from the shadowy figure, which remained silent. Jason squinted against the unrelenting light, finding that if he kept his head turned and his right eye mostly shut, he could make out some details. The room, what little he could see of it, appeared bare save for his chair and the table. The walls looked concrete and the floor was solid. It was cool, almost cold.

He no longer felt anything in his neck.

“Where am I? What—what are you doing to me?”

“Are you feeling anything yet?” The voice came from the other side of the table, a man’s voice. It carried an accent Jason couldn’t place. Something faintly European. He craned his neck and squinted further, trying to discern his interlocutor, the severity of the light prohibiting it.

“Allow me to repeat, and know I do not enjoy repeating myself. Are you feeling anything yet, Jason?”

“You know my name…”

“Of course we know your name.” It was as if the voice came from the light.

“Where am I? What is this place? What did he do to me? My neck…”

“Any answers I divulge,” the voice asserted, “will only prompt more questions,” the man sounded like he had recited this before, to others, “and you are not in a position to demand answers.”

“What the…?”

“Let us try this, shall we? I am going to turn off the light.” Jason felt a rush of relief at the mere promise. “I want you to close your eyes and count to ten. It will help your eyes adjust. You will do that.”

“What—”

“It was not a question, Jason.”

“Okay, yes!”

“Very well.”

The light extinguished. Stars danced in Jason’s eyes.

“Close your eyes.”

Against his better judgment, he did so.

“Let us count together.” The man began. “One.”

Jason didn’t know where he was or who these men were. But he knew this wasn’t good. They had him tied to a chair for Christ’s sake.

“Two.”

It was definitely cold in the room.

“Three.”

He could hear the breathing of one of the men in the room—he assumed it was the man who had jabbed him with the needle—the breathing moving away from him.

“Four.”

How did he get here? Where was
here
?

“Five.”

Gotta think back
. What was the last thing he remembered?

“Six.”

A hot morning with Mook and Tucker and the Gift. There was a kid…

“Seven.”

…there was the kid, Rudy, his torso in the vehicle, his limbs in the dirt.

Don’t think about that
.

“Eight.”

A kid hawking bootlegs. Mook wanted a horror movie. Come back tomorrow.

“Nine.”

A kid in the car, a little girl.

“Ten.”

She’d been crying, shot to shit. Her arm hung by a string.

Don’t think about that either
.

He was told to open his eyes and Jason did so.

Though it did not appear wide, the room was deep. Dim lights in the ceiling illuminated the chamber. The table was placed two yards from where Jason was secured. One man was seated behind the table while another stood next to it. Past the table, on the far side of the room behind the two figures, there was a windowless door. Jason had no idea how far back behind him the room stretched.

“You can see now, yes?”

Jason looked at his captors. The seated man’s accent was rich. He was older, his hair short and neat, going white. His skin was deeply tanned and lined. His jaw was prominent and rigid. He did not look pleasant. The standing man appeared even less so. He was a giant, six and a half feet tall, barrel-chested in his black t-shirt. His arms were crossed over his chest and one ham-sized hand gripped an elbow. The man’s shaven head bore a scar that ran from the top of his scalp to just above an eye. His black mustache looked incongruous, lending him a circus strongman’s appearance.

“I asked you if you can see now, Jason.”

“Yeah—yes, I can. I can see. Where am I—is this hell?”

The man behind the table bared his teeth, a smile devoid of warmth. “No, you are not in hell.”

“Where am I?”

“I will extend you this one courtesy and remind you again, Jason: it is best that I ask the questions and you answer. Agreed?”

Jason pressed his upper lip to his lower and nodded his head. This was bad. This was real bad.

“Good. Now, are you feeling anything yet?”

Jason shook his head. What did the man mean? What should he be feeling?

“Very well. Your name is Jason. You may be wondering who I am. You may call me Dr. Kaku, yes?”

“Okay.” Jason looked at the giant man.

“He has no name or title that concerns you,” explained Dr. Kaku. “Our time together, Jason, is limited. Though I suspect it will feel an eternity to you. The fickle nature of time. But we shall speak of that later, yes?”

Jason nodded because he thought it was what was expected of him. The big man next to the table watched him.

“Fourteen billion years ago, Jason—the age of the universe—all this was set in motion. I should say, the probability of our chance occurrence was initiated, though its realization in the present moment is no less unique. In this current moment, it is of the utmost importance that you listen to what I say and answer the questions I pose. You understand me, yes?”

“Yes. What are you? CIA?”

The man
tch-tch-tch
’ed again, holding up a finger and pointing at him. The giant crossed from the table to Jason’s chair faster than Jason thought he would be able to and one ham-hock of a hand—open-palmed—caught Jason in the side of the face. Images exploded in his head: Rudy—Aspen—the little girl bleeding out in the car.

When his head stopped reeling, when the images faded to bright lights in his head and then the lights to blackness, Jason opened his eyes and worked his jaw, trying to see if it or any of his teeth were broken.

“Consider me the Grand Inquisitor.”

“The Grand…” Jason rasped, his jaw apparently unbroken, “… the Grand Inquisitor.”

“Do you recognize the reference?”

Jason looked from Dr. Kaku to the giant now standing within arms reach of his own chair.

“You may answer,” assured Kaku.

“No.” He could taste blood in his mouth.

“You were a teacher, correct?”

“Yes.” The side of his face throbbed.

“Of history.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“Perhaps, if you had taught English, the following little demonstration would be unnecessary, or even…” mused Dr. Kaku “…
ineffective
. You may not understand why you are here, but you do understand the severity of the situation you find yourself in, yes?”

“Yes,” Jason licked his lip, the copper-taste rich in his mouth. He actually had no clue what was going on, but he knew it was as Kaku said, that he was in no position to ask.

“Good. Earlier, you felt a prick to your neck.” The man reached down to the table before him and lifted something for Jason to see. A syringe. “You have been injected with a variety of pharmacological agents. The specific ones are beyond your concern. And, honestly, even if I humored you with the clinical pharmacology, I think it would do little to edify you.”

“But—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Dr, Kaku held up a finger. “No questions, yes?”

“Yeah, yeah no questions, right.” Jason kept his eyes on the giant. “It’s just—I don’t know anything. I mean, you can torture me, but—”

“Yes, yes, yes, Jason.” Kaku again looked and sounded like he had had this conversation many times before. “You know…” He placed the needle down, Jason noticing for the first time that there were several objects on the table. “For all our sophistication, for all our ‘advancements’ in
enhanced interrogation techniques
…” Kaku’s voice barely hid his scorn as he spoke the phrase “…we have nothing on the ancients and pre-moderns.” He retrieved a revolver from the table.

“Flaying, denailing, abacination.” As he spoke, Kaku shook the gun in his hand for emphasis. “What is sleep deprivation to the iron maiden of Nuremberg? What are stress positions to the Judas Cradle? We attempt to impose a veneer of humanity to an endeavor that is by definition inhumane, all in attempt to placate modern sensibilities. To remind ourselves, at every turn, that we—are—civilized.”

Kaku depressed the latch on the revolver and swung the cylinder free.

“Do you recognize the signs of an acute stress reaction, Jason? Much like the contents of your most recent injections, I could explain to you the myriad ways in which catecholamine hormones trigger physical reactions. I could detail the effects of epinephrine release on the medulla and the sympathetic nervous system. But, again, I doubt that would be satisfying.”

Kaku spun the cylinder. “I doubt that would be
sexy
.”

He thumbed the extractor rod and started to pluck individual rounds from the cylinder.

“The symptoms of shock, Jason—perhaps you are familiar with them? A daze or fog, a constriction in the field of consciousness, an inability to comprehend stimuli…”

As he removed the rounds, Kaku lined them up on the table in a row.

“…a withdrawal from one’s surrounding situation. Agitation and impaired judgment. Detachment and confusion. A continued re-experiencing of an event. I ask you this, Jason—” Kaku focused his attention solely on the man across from him “—do you know the difference between an acute stress reaction and what is today labeled post traumatic stress disorder?
Hmmm
?”

The doctor did not wait for an answer.

“
Nothing
.” Kaku sounded amused, as though he had just delivered the punchline of a joke. “If an acute stress reaction continues for more than a month, then it is classified PTSD.”

He placed the revolver on the table before him.

“So tell me, Jason…” Kaku held up two clenched hands, palms down “acute stress reaction…” he turned one hand palm up, opening it “…or post traumatic stress disorder,” he opened his second hand, “which one, do you think, is you?”

Jason gulped.

Kaku continued to hold his hands out and up, as if he were weighing something only he could see. The giant waited beside Jason’s chair.

An answer was expected.

“PTSD?” Jason guessed, his voice low, unsure.

“What was that?” Kaku leaned forward as if to hear him better.

“PTSD?”

The middle, ring and pinky fingers of Kaku’s right hand curled up, his index finger extended. He turned his hand right-side up, motioning from the giant to Jason.

Before he could react, Jason’s head exploded anew. Aspen—a little girl in a bee’s costume—a scorpion—Tucker—the giant’s open palm, fingers like sausages—this room—Dr. Kaku sitting across from him. Jason reeled but remained in place.

“When I ask you a question, Jason,” the doctor’s accented voice reached him from some distant place, “I wish to hear conviction in your answers, yes?”