Siege of Silence Read online

  I was lifted and laid down on my back. I could feel the studs under the layers of cloth and could imagine the pain had they been unpadded. The blanket was pulled away and there was light and Fombona’s face leering over me.

  “First his ankles. Hold him tight.”

  I felt something being wrapped around my left ankle.

  “Bandages,” Fombona remarked. “They will stop the leather from chafing your delicate skin.”

  I had an inconsequential realization. Fombona, who normally spoke with grunts and words of one syllable, was now articulate. His pleasure at the proceedings had made him so.

  I kept still as they bandaged my ankles. It lulled them and, as they fumbled with my right wrist, I abruptly jerked it towards my face, turned my head and bit deeply into the arm of the guard holding me. He screamed shrilly, pulling away and leaving skin on my teeth. I saw his other wrist raised and then a crack as Fombona smashed the side of his hand across his face. I heard him hit the floor with a thud and Fombona’s growled order, and a slithering as they dragged him out. They were no longer lulled and quickly finished the bandaging. I gasped in pain as my arms were forced backwards and down over the slopes of the barrel, and Fombona murmured, “Wait, pig. Just wait.”

  With the thongs tied, I was stretched as though on a rack, and after only seconds began to feel the aching pain spreading; moving from my arms into my shoulders and across my chest and back. I heard Fombona dismiss the guards; the tramp of feet and the closing of the door. Silence. It was about to happen. The pain in my arms and shoulders was almost unbearable. Desperately I tried to prepare my mind. Repeated to myself that I would not utter a word, no matter what. I could hear and feel my short breathing, every sound magnified in the stillness, but suddenly his face was above me and I had not heard him approach. He must have moved like a cat. The associated thought made my breathing even faster. I thought again of Solzhenitsyn’s thesis. I was dead already. I’d ceased to exist. Nothing mattered.

  The end of the stethoscope was swinging gently, inches above my nose. I was mesmerized by it. Then he moved. Its round flat end was lowered on to my chest with his finger on it. A horrible parody: he listened intently, moved it a little and listened again. His lips were pursed in his broad dark face; cruel eyes narrowed in concentration. There were fine beads of sweat on his forehead below the black brush-cut hair. He nodded slowly.

  “Good. Beating fast but sound. A good heart. It will stand much.”

  He disappeared from my view. I strained my ears for a sound but heard nothing. Then a slight scrape and suddenly my chin was pulled roughly back and fingers were digging in on each side above my jaw, forcing open my mouth. Something hard was pushed in between my teeth and below my tongue. I gagged as I tasted rubber.

  “A bone for the dog.” His voice was very quiet but very clear. “To stop you biting your tongue . . . and to muffle your screams. Now we make it secure.”

  He pulled my head up by my hair. I could feel the cloth strips being pulled tight under my ears and fingers fumbling at the nape of my neck as he tied the knots. The rubber tasted foul. I could hardly move my mouth and had to breathe through the nose.

  Another mind-screaming hiatus. I closed my eyes, squeezing the lids together, praying for strength. I felt something on my belly and my eyes unwillingly opened.

  He was standing on my right: white coat, stethoscope still hanging. In his left hand he held the two thick grey cords. I strained my head up. He was swinging the cords slowly. The crocodile clips were softly caressing my belly. I looked up at his face. It was horribly serene.

  He moved, laying one cord across my chest and taking the other further down. I put my head back trying to control the shaking in my limbs. I felt his hand on my right foot and the grip of metal on my big toe. I strained against the leather, and rivulets of agony travelled up and down my arms and shoulders. I was secured like a pin-stuck butterfly. I was dead. Nothing mattered.

  He was at my left arm. The clamp of metal on my thumb. I lay still. He was alongside me again, talking in a soft, intimate voice.

  “We will begin. Only the yellow sector. In later sessions we will go higher. Remember that. The clips are on easy places. Later it will be different. They will be on your penis, your lips, your tongue. Even in your anus. After those sessions you will know that this one was nothing.”

  His fingers were on my body; just the tips, moving lightly across my belly and chest as he talked; like snakes sliding over my skin.

  “I want no names now. Don’t try to tell me names. This is only to introduce you to ‘El Abrazo’ and ‘El Rompecabezas’. Don’t spoil it by trying to tell me names . . . listen for the click.”

  The fingers were gone. The scrape of a shoe and then silence. I drew a breath and held it- and held it and held it. Then the air had to come out. It whistled loudly down my nostrils- but still I heard the click.

  The pain was a memory of a millisecond after it ended. A memory enclosed in a scream. A searing, cold memory.

  In Brazil I once saw gold being smelted. A huge vat of yellow viscous heat. Someone dropped into such a vat would have the same last memory, and be lucky it was the last. The scream ended. I felt it dying in my raw throat. The utter relief of ended pain highlighted the memory. I was sobbing in my throat. I could feel my teeth embedded in rubber. I could feel every square millimetre of my flesh shrieking from shock. The lesser pain that followed- torn muscles from the spasms- was a relief; a pleasurable comparison.

  Then he was bending over me, the flat of the stethoscope on my chest. I couldn’t see. Sweat stung my eyes. I turned my head and shook it, trying to stop sobbing. He listened for a long time and then straightened. My vision cleared. He was smiling as though at a recovering patient.

  “Good. Your Excellency has an excellent heart. Strong enough to take you to the very bottom of hell . . .”

  Of its own volition, my skin cringed against his stroking fingers. “That was only two seconds . . . a little introduction. Next time it will be longer. Maybe five seconds, maybe ten . . . maybe longer . . . listen for the click.”

  I tried to shut my ears again. I waited and waited and waited, my body quivering. It came loud as a gun shot. Then again. One searing spasm- a scream building and then relief. I heard him chuckling. He was beyond evil. He wanted no name. Nothing but the pleasure.

  For half an hour he tortured and teased. The agony was matched to the degradation. At one point he splashed me with water from a bucket explaining in that sick, intimate voice how it improved the contact and overall effect. He could have been describing the allure of a new perfume.

  When it was over and they lifted me limp from the barrel his attitude reverted. I was a pig again. He watched as they tied my hands and feet with cloth and informed me that nourishing food would be brought. They would spoon-feed me. If I refused it he would put a tube down my throat and force-feed me. He wanted me healthy. With a sneer he informed me that the next day was to be the twentieth day- the Cuban’s twentieth day. Where the Cuban failed he would succeed. On that day I would go on to “El Abrazo” and stay there. I would come off dead- after I talked. From the canvas bag he took a plastic box, opened it and showed me the contents- a hypodermic needle glistening on a bed of cotton wool.

  “That is your release, pig. That is your passage out of hell. By this time tomorrow you will beg for it.”

  I took the food. A rich vegetable and meat soup. The guards had been ordered not to say a word to me. It was a relief. No words from them. No words from me.

  A guard was always in the room sitting on a chair by the door. Eyes always on me; changing every two hours or so. Fombona is taking no chances that I will mark myself.

  I woke about an hour ago, astounded that I had fallen into sleep. Now I wish I had slept longer. I lie on the palliasse in the centre of the room, the silent guard eight feet away. My body aches- throbs. Every rhythmic pulse sends the message up to my brain: “No more! No more of that.”

  There is a faint lig
ht at the barred window. He will come again soon. Hopelessly I try to think of something else, but always the barrel and the box and the wires push out other thoughts. I pass through moments of enraged bitterness. What are they doing about me? Those bastards back home? First they try to kill me- then they just leave me here. For Christ’s sake we’ve got over three million people in our armed forces. Why can’t even a few of them be here? What the fuck are they doing?

  The moments of bitterness come and go. So do moments of profound self-pity. Also, at times when I can force away thoughts of the coming torture, I review my life- both with bitterness and self-pity. What a mockery of a life. Almost all of it wasted. I made a smartly pressed suit more important in my life than a caring thought; a perfect cup of coffee superior to a human emotion; a vintage claret preferable to love. Too late now. The twentieth day has dawned.

  My heart shudders at the sound of the outer door. But the footsteps in the office are not his. I know his footsteps well. The door opens and a guard enters carrying a bowl and spoon. The other guard pushes me into a sitting position and they squat beside me and spoon-feed me like a child. I swallow painfully but absently. My throat is still raw from the screaming. The screaming is automatic . . . psychosomatic . . . thoughtless. I am trying to come to terms with the coming ordeal. Come to terms with death. I am arranging mental building blocks to create a fortress in which to face death. The blocks are a jigsaw. Who do I know who has actually looked at death in the face? On the last spoonful the blocks fall into place- the jigsaw complete- Jorge. I will face death like Jorge!

  “Fombona said he is coming soon. Be patient.”

  The squatting guard is grinning at me. He will get no words from me. I will be as Jorge. I clear my throat and spit the phlegm straight into his monkey face.

  He leaps up with a curse and swings back his boot. I don’t move as the other guard screams: “No! Fombona!”

  Slowly the boot is lowered. He looks across at the barrel and then down at me. He wipes a hand across his face and his voice rides on waves of hatred.

  “I pray for your pain- may death be a slow messenger!”

  What would Jorge have done? I smile at him and nod as if in thanks. He turns away clutching the bowl, his eyes baffled. I feel the power and understand it. The secret is to be better- superior to the one who threatens or torments you. That was Jorge’s secret. He believed it until the witch destroyed him. I will believe it now. No witch will destroy it- and no warlock in the guise of Fombona. If I have to die then I will die in the manner of Jorge: with contempt for the inferiors who torment me.

  He leaves me for several hours -I cannot count. The guards change frequently. He thinks he is torturing my mind. He is wrong. My fortress is built. I am not at peace, but I am no longer terrified. His mental dominance has withered. When finally I hear his footsteps I push myself to a sitting position and face the door. It opens, and as our eyes meet I send him a silent message. “Not one word, filth.” He pauses as though receiving the message, then advances, followed by his piglets. I offer no resistance as they lift me but I manage to hold my knees back. As they manoeuvre me towards the barrel I jack-knife my feet out. One piglet was careless. I feel my heels crunch into his testicles and he goes down with a squeal. Fombona laughs and I smile at him. The laugh fades and he looks puzzled. I am superior. They are careful now of my feet and my teeth. They are preparing me for death but they are careful of me. Even when I am strapped on the barrel they are careful of me. Jorge, if you could see me you would laugh with pride.

  We are alone. The rubber is against my teeth. He shows me a knife and then moves down. I lift my head and watch as he cuts away my shorts. I am naked. He looks at me and I look back steadily. For a moment he is out of my vision, then he reappears holding the crocodile clips; trailing the fat, grey cords. I feel his fingers on my penis, then the clamp of the metal. He laughs. “Puny. Very puny. We’ll liven it up.”

  No words. I just look at him.

  He brings up the other clip and fastens it to my lower lip. Again he moves out of sight. I hear the scrape of the bucket and a moment later the shock as the water sluices over me.

  I blink it from my eyes and snort it from my nostrils. He is standing over me. Again the chameleon change. His voice soft, almost seductive. “Excellency, it is noon on the twentieth day. It goes on now until you call for the needle. No respite. We start on the blue sector. Every once in a while I will take out your rubber bone. You have five seconds to ask for the needle- then it goes back. Later we will move to the green zone. I promise you, Excellency, by midnight you will ask for the needle.”

  Once more his fingers are caressing my body, but my skin doesn’t cringe: I am superior. He moves away saying, “Listen for the click, Excellency.”

  I set my mind. I listen for nothing. I try to imagine Jorge standing in the corner watching. You would have saved me from this, Jorge. Watch me bear it.

  The click explodes in my mind. Agony, agony, agony. A life in a molten vat. A never-ending scream.

  Over. My body is quivering uncontrollably, my mind screaming at me. A thousand times worse. A million times. What can be superior to that agony? In a mist I see Fombona crouching over me listening through his tubes to my racing heart. He straightens. The mist vaporizes. He is nodding in satisfaction.

  “Excellent. It will take you easily into the green. Maybe to a little of the red. Listen for the click.” He moves away. God, Jorge, what would you be thinking now? I know- “Fuck you, Solzhenitsyn!”

  SLOCUM

  USS “Nimitz”

  Night 20

  On boarding the liner Queen Mary in New York, Mae West was reported to have asked the Captain: “When does this place get to Europe?”

  I get the same kind of feeling whenever I’m on one of our big carriers. I’m standing on a city of over six thousand people. During dinner I asked a naval officer next to me how he got over to people, who didn’t know, the sheer size of the carrier. He had replied seriously, “I just tell ‘em that our bakery produces three thousand loaves of bread a day. They kinda get the picture.”

  I’m standing under the island beside the folded wing of a Tomcat. It’s a dark night just after eleven o’clock. There’s not a lot of activity on the acres of flight deck. I came up here to be alone for a while and to try and control my frustration. It’s chipping away at me like a goddam woodpecker. San Carlo and the compound are just twelve miles away. I’m facing towards it swaying a little in the gusts of wind caused by that contrary bitch “Olga”. She’s slide-assing around down south. I restrain the urge to go to the met .office again. Those guys are already pissed off with my badgering. But being alone is doing nothin’ for my frustration. They’re loading a Tomcat on to the port side elevator so I walk over and get a ride down to the hangar.

  The great cavern is filled with noise and movement. There are mechanics working on a couple of A6s and more on a Sikorsky Sea King. The Ultralights are in three groups at the far end. They look like a flock of black crows crowding together for protection amongst eagles and hawks. My boots clatter on the steel floor and the mechanics look up and watch me pass. Extra silencers are being fitted to the Ultralights and I’m glad to see a lot of my guys there including all four squad leaders. Newman and Allen are also there covered in oil and enjoying themselves hugely. I nod to Greg Dobson, the ship’s chief engineering officer, and remark, “A little different to what you’re used to.”

  He grins. “Sure is, Colonel. Never even seen one before but I tell you they’re engineered real good.”

  Newman picks up a black, round object from a bench, hefts it in his hand and says, “Just baffles and an expansion chamber, but it works like a dream and weighs in under two kilos. No one’s going to hear you out there. Greg and his boys have done a beautiful job. Greg, if you ever return to civvy street, you come and work with us- you hear.”

  Modestly Dobson says, “Well we got access to some real light alloys- come on, let’s fit the last of them.”

&
nbsp; As he turns away, the Tannoy blares, “Hear this, hear this, Colonel Slocum to report to the Admiral’s sea cabin.”

  The message is repeated as I hurry across to the elevator. I make my way through the maze of corridors feeling a little apprehensive. Admiral George J. Barnet could be a clone of General Mathew Grant and at our first meeting gave the impression that the presence of me and my men and our flying machines caused him extreme pain. What does the cat want of me now?

  The senior met. officer is sitting on a chair outside the cabin with his chart case between his knees.

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  He gives a “search me” look. I tap on the door, hear the barked “enter” and go in.

  The Admiral’s sitting at the head of the table. The “Nimitz’s” Captain is on his left and next to him is the Executive Officer. Al Simmons is sitting on the Admiral’s right. They are looking mighty serious. The Admiral indicates a chair at the front of the table. I sit down and shoot Al an anxious look. He sighs and says to the Admiral, “Allow me to do this please.”

  The Admiral looks unhappy but nods. I’m suddenly relieved that Al’s three stars make him senior to the Admiral’s equivalent rank. There is a little pile of signals flimsies in front of him. He shuffles them for a moment, sighs again and says, “Silas, there’s been a development . . . an ominous development. As you know the Agency has an increasingly strong presence in San Carlos. Reports are flowing into Langley in growing numbers. We have a lot of the official buildings in the city under surveillance. Well, two mornings ago an open truck was observed pulling into the police compound on Avenida de Santanda. A large object and several smaller ones were loaded on to it. Fortunately before the object was covered by a tarpaulin it was photographed. It was identified a few hours ago as being an instrument of torture known in that area as ‘El Abrazo’- the embracer. Victims are strapped on to it in a very painful manner and then abused.”