Dead Reckoning by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2015-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

Lahij, Yemen

“BEFORE WE START AGAIN,” the interrogator said, “I give you one more chance to speak without persuasion, yes? It’s only fair, don’t you agree?”

Naseem Damari raised his head, an effort in itself, and viewed the man through his good right eye. The left was swollen nearly shut. He said nothing but spit a little blood, missing the man’s boots and khaki trousers by a foot or more. The interrogator cocked his head and smiled.

“We know you are police,” he said. “You asked about us at the marketplace in Aden. Very nosy of you, but you’ll say it is you job, yes?”

Damari lowered his head, letting his chin come to rest on his chest. He was weary and hurting. His head seemed to weigh fifty pounds. Yet when his tormentor placed two fingers, sheathed in a rubber glove, underneath his chin and his sagging head again, it felt weightless.

“What’s this?” the man asked, his free hand dangling a red plastic whistle in front of Damari, tied to a string.

Damari thought he recognized the whistle. Was it his? Something he carried with him on a daily basis? And if so, what for?

The man tried to help with his next question. “Do you think that if you blow this long and hard enough, your friends will come and save you?”

When Danari said nothing, the interrogator raised the whistle to his lips, leaned forward, fingers still beneath Danari’s chin and blew a shrieking note out of the whistle, holding it until his breath ran short. When he was done, he sat and waited, his eyes rising toward the ceiling.

“Anyone?” the man asked. “I don’t think so.”

Damari made the only move he could, with arms and legs all tightly bound. Tipping his head, he tried to bite the man’s fingers, catching just a taste of latex as the hand whipped out of range.

And came back as a fist, striking his swollen eye again.

“Bad dog,” the man scolded him. “You should not bite the hand that holds your life. Now you require more discipline. What should it be? Perhaps some electricity?”

The man left his chair and walked around somewhere behind Damari, coming back a moment later, trailing a small handcart with a car battery and thick, looping jumper cables attached. Their copper jaws resembled those of hungry moray eels. Damari could imagine how they’d feel, biting his flesh.

He found the strength to speak, although it cost him further pain from battered ribs. “No...please.”

“Ah, so polite now,” the monster man said. “I’m afraid it will not help you, dog. You must be punished for your rudeness. Then you’ll have another chance to answer questions, yes?”

“I’ll tell you...whatever...you wish to know.”

“I have no doubt of it,” the man said. “But first, you have to learn a lesson.”

Reaching up with blue-gloved hands, the man ripped Damari’s shirt open, baring his chest. He studied the expanse of flesh, as if deciding where to start.

“I think one minute should be adequate,” he said at last. “I warn you, though, it may seem like an hour.

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