The Book of Truths (12 page)

Colonel Johnston raised a hand and the two merks stopped, one with the towel hovering over the detainee’s face, the other with a bucket in hand.

“It’s Doctor Upton’s turn.”

Johnston had a rough, gravelly voice that went with his imposing stature. Every inch of him emanated warrior, and his leathery face was lined with the creases of worry a good commander bore from years of leading men into battle. He had a square jaw and his hair was gray barbed wire, trimmed short every week. With a wave of the same hand, Johnston invited the scientist and his assistant to the prisoner, as if allowing them to enter the foyer of a grand mansion.

Upton turned to the black glass. “I am the head of Project Cherry Tree. This”—he held up the syringe case—“is the result of five difficult years of research and development.” His first lie, but the truth would not serve here. Upton nodded over his shoulder at the detainee. “Which is less time consumed by the other methods used on that man, and he has not once ever given up any useful information. He has been waterboarded”—Upton paused—“what is it, Colonel? One hundred and sixty or so times?”

Colonel Johnston’s jaw remained square. “One hundred and eighty-seven.”

“I stand corrected. One hundred and eighty-seven times. And never said a word. Truly remarkable.” Upton turned from the glass and walked over to a small table. The detainee was strapped to a heavy wood chair with an adjustable back. Right now it was almost horizontal to the floor to allow the water-soaked towel to press against the man’s mouth and nose to simulate drowning. Upton gestured and the two merks put down their
towel and bucket and roughly pulled the chair upright, locking it in place. The detainee was blinking, eyes on Upton, waiting for the next chapter in the tragedy his life had become. His forearms were strapped to the arms of the chair, his ankles to the front legs, and a thick leather strap wound about the chair and his chest.

The scientist reached into his pocket for a pair of gloves, and his assistant, a young man named Rhodes, also put on a pair. Rhodes went to the detainee’s left arm and efficiently strapped yellow tubing around it. Then he walked around and waited on the other side.

Upton opened the case. The syringe glittered against black velvet. It was the smallest gauge, 32, and the best metal, designed to have deep penetration and minimal drag force. At least that’s what the ad said. Almost a work of art.

“This is the first clinical trial of Cherry Tree on a human.” Another lie, but it sounded more dramatic for this to be the first.

Only an idiot would walk in here not having tested it, and Upton was many things but not an idiot.

Upton lifted the needle up, higher than needed, so that the audience could see. “We’ve tested it for toxicity and other side effects on rats, but rats can’t tell the truth, can they?” He laughed, alone, at what he thought was a joke. There was no way to tell if those on the other side of the glass got it. He didn’t realize he’d just made a serious logic flaw, underestimating his audience.

Upton lowered the needle, eye level to the suspect whose head was pivoted left, focused on the glittering spike of steel.

Thus he didn’t see as Rhodes pricked him with a small needle in the right forearm, the same used for TB tests, a short 27 gauge, right under the skin.

He reacted though, body jerking away. He spit at Rhodes and glared about, his last refuge of defiance.

“My assistant,” Upton said, “has just injected point-one milliliters of Cherry Tree intradermally into the subject’s forearm.” He waved the fancy syringe. “This was just a distraction.” He put it back in the case and snapped it shut. Then he made a show of looking at his watch. “Cherry Tree is quick acting. Less than one minute.” He stepped back. “All yours, Colonel.”

Johnston came forward, stopping out of spitting distance. “Wahid.”

The prisoner’s eyelids were fluttering as if trying to pull a curtain call on the softening glare.

“Wahid,” Johnston repeated.

The glare was gone. “Osama,” the detainee said with the rasp of a voice that had not spoken in a long time. “He’s in Pakistan. They always, always ask, so there is the answer.”

Johnston straightened in surprise.

“Water,” Upton said with a sharp nod at Rhodes. The assistant peeled off his gloves and went to a table in the corner of the room, grabbing a plastic bottle. He brought it over to Wahid. The prisoner arced his head back and Rhodes dribbled some into his open mouth.

Wahid swallowed. He started nodding, as if memories were flooding his brain. “Osama moved there”—he paused, at a loss for how long he’d been a prisoner—“in 2006. Abbottabad. A compound. I can show you. Pigsty.” Wahid shook his head in disgust. “It’s not even wired to explode. My house was wired. You were lucky to catch me away from it. Very lucky for you. Very unlucky for me. Such is Allah’s will. I cannot fight the will of God. No man can. But why does he curse me so? Why is not all his will and not luck? Good or bad?” Wahid looked at Johnston as if he expected an answer to the question.

Johnston took a step back and glanced over at the glass. “Wahid. We know about Osama. Tell us—”

But Wahid wasn’t listening. His eyes were blinking fast, tears forming. “Please take me back to my cell. My home cell. Not the one here. I miss him. I miss him so much.”

“Miss who?” Johnston asked, but it was like a pebble thrown into a waterfall of words.

“The Jell-O. The lime Jell-O. They must stop serving it. It is disgusting. Not fit for a man or even a beast. I do like the pizza. They serve it every Thursday and that is how I know a week has passed. I should not eat it as it is food for capitalists, but I like it. Not the mushrooms though. I think that is part of the torture. But I eat them to show that you cannot break me. But I am speaking now. Why am I speaking now?” Wahid’s entire body shook as if it were fighting the words pouring out of his mouth.

He shifted into Arabic, the words flowing, the tape recorders capturing every one. Johnston gave up for the moment, stepping farther back, letting the man who had never spoken, speak, with the recorders catching it all. The moment went to minutes. Three times Rhodes had to come forward and give Wahid some water, a dark twist considering the waterboarding. Minutes passed into an hour and then a second hour.

There was no doubt somewhere in that flow was information that was going to lead to a Predator drone or two, letting loose Hellfire somewhere in the world.

By now, even the ones in the interrogation room could sense the impatience of those in the viewing room. Wahid might be giving up every element of Al Qaeda, but they had places to be and things to do. Cherry Tree worked. That was obvious.

Then Wahid shifted into English once more. “He watches me.”

Johnston jumped into the slight pause. “Who does?”

“The man in the next cell.” Tears began to stream down Wahid’s face. “He watches me all the time. I cannot stop him. I cannot stop myself. He watches me in the shower. He watches me when I please myself, late at night, between the guards coming through. I cannot stop myself.”

The watching-room audience, which had first listened with rapt attention, then some impatience during the Arabic, shifted with unease.

“But I do not really mind,” Wahid continued. “I watch him too. He is beautiful.”

Johnston looked at Upton. The truth was good, but perhaps too much was too much? Everyone fears unadulterated truth, the cutting edge of it ripping into a man’s soul, his darkness and his despair, and worse, his longings.

Wahid slipped back into Arabic, his voice rattling to a rough whisper.

Johnston definitely knew enough was enough. He turned to the glass, stepping between the muttering prisoner and the observers. Upton stood by his side.

“Gentlemen, do you have any questions for Doctor Upton?”

A disembodied voice came out of the speaker. “How long does the effect last?”

“Four hours,” Upton said. “Give or take a deviance of two percent, which is very precise overall.”

“Aftereffects?” a different voice asked.

Upton shrugged. “None that we’ve seen but we’ll be monitoring the subject at a max security facility.”

“Outstanding,” a third voice echoed out of the speaker, startling even Johnston with its easily recognizable Boston accent.
General George “Lightning Bolt” Riggs, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the number-two ranking military officer in the country and the man who did the dirty work for the chairman. He had not been noted on the attendance list in the memorandum for the experiment.

That’s the way Riggs worked. Be where no one expected him to be, keep his finger on the pulse of the darkest of secrets, looking for opportunity and also for danger.

The door next to the glass opened and Riggs stepped into the room with a man in civilian clothes next to him—the Joint Chiefs of Staff scientific adviser, Brennan. No one else who’d been behind the glass mattered now.

Colonel Johnston took an involuntary step back, perhaps some genetic memory of his ancestors facing Riggs’s “damn Yankee” ancestors on battlefields during the War of Northern Aggression. Perhaps just a normal reaction to Riggs’s imposing presence. Angry with himself, Johnston reclaimed the lost step.

“Good morning, General.”

Riggs walked over to Wahid, who was muttering in Arabic. “Broke the son of a bitch and didn’t have to touch a hair on his head. Outstanding,” he repeated. “The bleeding-heart cowards who wail about rights won’t have dick to say about this. A little prick of the skin to get the prick talking.” His coarse language betrayed his Beacon Hill accent, a strange combination. The result was something Riggs had practiced since his upper-class years at West Point upon realizing it kept others off balance, not sure who or what they were dealing with.

Riggs snapped his attention from Wahid to Upton. “I assume you have more of this… what did you call it?”

“Cherry Tree, sir.”

Riggs smiled. “Cute, very cute. We have more trees to chop down. Do you have to inject it?”

Upton blinked. “Well, we’ve, uh, always injected, but it could probably pass through the stomach lining and have an effect. Perhaps even be absorbed through the skin. It doesn’t take much in the bloodstream, as long as it gets to the mind.”

“Can you put it in a drink?” Riggs asked. “Drop some in a glass of water?”

Upton’s eyes shifted to Rhodes and Riggs didn’t miss it, turning his imperious gaze to the younger scientist. “You were the grunt on this, weren’t you, son? You did all the dirty work?” He didn’t wait for an answer, indicating he believed his suspicion was correct, and whether it was or not in reality, it now was in this room.

“I did the lab work, sir,” Rhodes managed to get out.

“So can we?” Riggs pressed.

“I don’t know, sir.”

Riggs frowned. “Okay, listen to me.” He glared at Upton and then Rhodes. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You’ve used this on a human before. You had to, because as you pointed out with your dipshit, not-funny joke, rats can’t tell the truth. All you could tell by injecting them was whether they’d fucking die or grow a second head, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “How many times have you tested it on humans before this and how?”

Upton swallowed. “Three times under tight lab protocol.”

“On who?”

“Subjects supplied by the Agency.”

“Subjects supplied by the Agency’s merks from Deep Six you mean,” Riggs corrected. “Which means people that were snatched somewhere and are never going to see the light of day again and we don’t think hold any useful information.”

“I guess, sir,” Upton said.

“You didn’t ask?”

“No, sir.”

“Did that right at least,” Riggs said. “I don’t do dog and pony shows. So if you know it fucking works coming in, tell me it fucking works, then show me it fucking working, but don’t fucking lie to me, understand?”

Upton nodded, but a small flicker of defiance still flared up. “We weren’t ready, sir. We anticipated more trials and at least six months of analysis before field deployment.”

“Then maybe you should have waited,” Brennan said in a calm voice, trying to smooth the storm-tossed waters in the room.

“I was
ordered
by directive to do this,” Upton argued. He belatedly added: “Sir.”

“By who?” Brennan asked.

Upton spread his hands in surrender. “A directive from the head of DORKA. I tried getting clarification. I sent a memo telling him we weren’t ready. I was told to do this anyway.”

Riggs had already moved on, ignoring Upton’s excuses. “We need to take this to the next level ASAP. Slip it to the Russian ambassador. If it doesn’t go through the stomach, then we jab him with a fucking umbrella like the Russkies used to do to assassinate people.

“We need to find out if they’re as full of shit as I suspect they are about the nuke treaty. Pulling a fast one on us to make up for their crappy-ass military. Couldn’t beat us fair, so no doubt the sons of bitches will cheat like they’ve been doing ever since Truman wouldn’t let George S. loose on them.” He used Patton’s first name, as if they had an intimate relationship, which he actually believed, given Patton had also felt he’d served in other armies at other times.

“The Cold War is over,” Upton said without thinking, chagrined that Riggs had jumped from him to Rhodes so quickly with the credit and then getting his ass reamed for his stupid ploy—it was accepting that the show had been stupid he couldn’t get past. On top of the fact he hadn’t wanted to do this in the first place.

The room froze, even Wahid in his drug-induced state picking up the momentary arctic blast from the general and pausing in his monologue of truth.

Riggs, strangely enough, smiled. He walked up to Upton, who surrendered four steps until he bumped against the table, unable to retreat, like Custer upon his final hill.

“The Cold War was never cold,” Riggs said. “Do you know what the life expectancy of a second lieutenant commanding an armored platoon in the Fulda Gap was if World War Three broke out? Eleven seconds. I was there. We didn’t think it was cold at all. When a T-72 tank mirrored your every move with its main gun? When an ‘accidental’ round comes across all the barbed wire and tank traps and blows up a track full of your soldiers and everyone hushes it up because the Cold War is supposed to be cold?”