Assassin's Tripwire by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460349359
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2014-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

11

“That is a minefield,” Yenni said. “There are many like it out here in the wastes, their purpose forgotten, their explosives remaining to maim and to kill. We are fortunate this one is clearly labeled. Many are not. It is children, most often, who find the mines, when they go out and play.”

Bolan nodded. He massaged the bridge of his nose. “We’ll stay clear of it,” he said. “I just want to run parallel to it, up and down this dirt road, while I chat with our friend Azhul.”

Their captive had given his name as Anren Azhul. They knew little else about him except that he was Syrian. Bolan intended to correct that.

He would have to walk a fine line here. Bolan hated torture and those who engaged in it. He had seen too many good people reduced to quivering carved turkeys by those he fought. But he needed the prisoner to believe he would do anything, commit any atrocity, to make him talk. A prisoner who truly feared his captor would give up what he knew in hopes of saving himself. And Bolan would be able to tell if that man were lying, because there was no better lie detector than bald-faced terror.

So how to induce this state in a man without actually torturing him? Bolan knew that one of the principles of physical coercion was this: you never threatened to break a man’s arm. You broke the arm and threatened to break the other one. But Bolan would no more break a captive’s arm than he would remove his fingernails. It just wasn’t what he did. He was a soldier, first, foremost and always.

“Get me the chains from the truck,” Bolan told Yenni. “The ones for the tires.”

She clearly did not understand how this was helpful, but she didn’t argue. Since Azhul had awakened, she’d been careful to say little. She understood that Bolan had to appear to be in complete control. Undermining him through banter would not help their cause in making the prisoner fear the big American.

Bolan thought Azhul would be a reasonably easy nut to crack. The man was terrified. There was no way to know what sort of function he might have played at the weapons emplacement, but at the very least he knew which of the various Syrian factions claimed his loyalty. That alone would go a long way toward telling Bolan what he had to do here to fulfill the parameters of his mission.

“Time to pay the piper, Sleepy,” Bolan said. He brought the chains over, hooked them tightly around Azhul’s arms and dragged him to the rear of the Mahindra. There he connected the chains to the truck’s back bumper.

“What is this?” the man demanded. “What are you doing?”

“Oh,” Bolan said. “You speak English. Maybe you should start by telling me what you do for a living. Who do you work for?”

“I will tell you nothing,” Azhul said defiantly.

“I was hoping you would say that.” Bolan opened the driver’s door of the truck, reached in and started the engine.

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