Seven Grams of Lead by Thomson Keith

Author:Thomson, Keith [Thomson, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780307949912
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-02-25T05:00:00+00:00

26

Rounding the corner, Thornton had the sensation of plunging into a black void. A moment later, Captain South caught up to him, the guard’s flashlight revealing yet another filthy corridor. After about fifty feet, the captain’s beam showed another numeric keypad and Flattop again entering a code. Bolts released with a hydraulic hiss. Flattop pulled open a door, took Thornton by the collar, and jerked him into the fifteen-by-ten-foot “interview room,” in which an overhead fluorescent panel illuminated a traditional gritty concrete that was as devoid of color as it was of hope. Thornton suspected that the long mirror on the opposite wall was not a decorative element.

“Sit,” Flattop said, pointing him to the nearer of two chairs at the center of the room.

“Thanks.” Thornton lowered himself into the wobbly desk chair—wobbly by design, he suspected. The ideal was a swivel rocking chair, on wheels, with movable armrests. “Behavioral amplifier,” such a piece of equipment was known as in interrogation circles, because it magnified movements of the parts anchoring the subject, for example, his feet to the floor or his elbows to the arms of the chair. Since people dissipate anxiety through this type of movement, interrogators are given an indicator of nonverbal deceptive behavior. Thornton had learned of a few such behaviors when interviewing with a CIA polygraph examiner. People unconsciously put their hands in front of their mouths and eyes, literally covering lies, the woman had told him. They also involuntarily shifted into fight-or-flight mode, rerouting blood from regions that can temporarily do without it—especially the face—to the major muscle groups. The resulting sensation of cold causes subjects to rub their faces.

Unfortunately, what knowledge Thornton had of detecting deception would be of little use in deceiving an interrogator. Even veterans at questioning admitted to being as susceptible to being caught in a lie as their subjects. In fact they were often more susceptible since there were so many involuntary cues they needed to take into consideration. “It would be like a golfer trying to keep in mind eighty different improvements to his swing while hitting the ball,” the polygraph examiner had told him.

Captain South brought in a big Styrofoam container labeled SOUPER MEAL. He peeled off its lid to reveal noodles and vegetables in a broth. Steam rising from the top carried an aroma of chicken and spices, making Thornton’s mouth water. The captain set the container on the floor beside his chair along with a two-liter bottle of water, ice-cold if the condensation were any indication. Thornton was parched to the point that speaking required first unsticking his tongue from the sides of his mouth, and after at least thirty hours without food, it felt as if gastric acid were dissolving his stomach lining. He hesitated to touch the Souper Meal or the water, however, for fear that they’d been spiked with “truth juice,” a mixture of narcotics such as sodium amytal, thiopental, or seco-barbital and methadrine. As a result of their training, most covert intelligence officers could withstand enemy interrogation while under narcosis.

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