William Bernhardt - Capitol Conspiracy

Marshall’s jaw dangled open. He had resisted so long, had endured so much. But who could possibly have the strength to let this sadist burn him alive?

“Samson,” he whispered, weeping, tears somehow managing to seep out of his swollen and bloodied eyes.

“Samson,” the General repeated, and again Marshall could sense him running the possibility through his head. “Yes, that I can believe. It would flatter his ego.” The General pressed himself close to Marshall’s broken face. “And the other?”

“The…other?”

“Do not play games with me. You know what I want. Samson and-what? What is the other name?”

“Delilah. I-isn’t it-” He found it impossible to catch his breath, the pungent scent of gasoline was so pervasive. “Isn’t it…obvious?”

“Ah.” Again, the General considered. “Yes, it is obvious.” Another pause. “Much too obvious.”

Marshall heard a flicking noise, then felt heat on his cheek. Even with his eyes sealed shut, he knew his torturer had just ignited a lighter.

“Juliet!” Marshall shouted. “Samson and Juliet!”

The General emitted a soft chuckle of appreciation. “Clever.” And then he dropped the lighter.

Flames encircled Marshall. He could feel fire licking the hair on his broken legs.

“But-but you said-”

“Now you will give me the defense formation,” the General said calmly. “Every detail you know.”

“But-I can’t!”

“Must we go through all that again? Your feet are already black. You are burning like a chicken on a rotisserie spit. Is that not enough? Fine.” Marshall heard a sudden splashing noise that told him the bastard was adding more gasoline to the flames.

He heard a sudden whooshing sound that signaled the floor erupting with fire.

“Nooooo!” Marshall screamed as he felt his own flesh peeling away. His feet were already dead, gone, and the flames were working their way up his legs.

“You will be dead in seconds,” the General said, “if I do not douse the flames.”

“And…you’ll never get…what you want…”

In one rapid movement, the General brandished the knife used to mutilate Marshall’s face and cut free the ropes that held Marshall’s arms to the ceiling hook. Marshall tumbled into the inferno. He cried out and gagged as his lungs filled with smoke and his flesh began to swell and bloat. His assailant was right-he would be dead in seconds. And he was glad.

To his great disappointment, the General hauled him out of the flames. “Tell me what I wish to know!” he bellowed.

Marshall wanted to laugh. He knew he would be gone soon. What more could the man do to him? “Never.”

The dark man pressed both thumbs into the most tender and seared part of his thigh. The pain was like nothing Marshall had ever experienced, not even throughout this entire unbearable ordeal. It was as if his body had been turned inside out and a branding iron had been thrust into his heart.

“I do not have time for this!” the General bellowed. “Tell me!”

“It-won’t help. I’ll be missed-”

“We know about your meeting with the senator. Arrangements have been made.” He pressed several fingers deep down in the same open festering third-degree burn. “Tell me!”

“No!”

Marshall felt himself being hauled by the neck, his exposed scalp and one remaining ear dragged bleeding across the floor. He sensed he was moving closer to the window. But his attacker did not bother to open it. He hoisted Marshall’s broken body into the air and heaved him through it.

Marshall felt himself falling-then jerked to a sudden stop.

The General held him by one charred foot dangling limply from a shattered kneecap. “You are forty-five feet in the air. After you fall, I will take what is left of you and feed it to your wife. And then I will do to her everything I have done to you. Except more slowly.”

“No. God, no,” Marshall cried, whimpering.

“Then tell me!” the General shouted.

And then the information spilled out, one detail after another, everything Marshall had. He knew he was betraying his country and so many who trusted and relied upon him. He could not help himself.

“And the defense formation?”

“Domino Bravo! It’s…Domino Bravo!”

The General slowly drew in his breath. “At last. I was beginning to think-well, I’ve never done this before.”

Through his clouded brain, Marshall tried to understand. “Never…tortured?”

He heard a soft chuckle. “Never tortured the director of Homeland Security.” And then he released Marshall’s foot and listened to his final screams as he plummeted to the concrete embankment that would shatter each of the few bones in his body that remained intact.

“Still no word from Marshall?” Senator Robert Hammond, D-Iowa, asked his secretary of thirty-two years.

“No,” Marjorie replied, pushing her wide-rimmed translucent pink eyeglasses up the bridge of her nose. “But he’s only ten minutes late.”

“The man has never been late for a meeting in his life, Marjorie. He’s a former marine, you know.”

“I think you could give him five minutes before you call out the search and rescue dogs.”

“Are you suggesting that I’m overreacting?” Hammond replied, with mock irritation, tugging at his vest. Hammond was perhaps the only senator left who still wore three-piece suits every day he went to work. He felt they worked better with the bow tie.

“As I recall, when Bill Clinton was ten minutes late for a meeting, you were on the phone to the Secret Service.”

Hammond grinned. “And as it turned out, they didn’t know where he was, either. Should’ve called his intern.”

“When former President Bush was late, you called the secretary of defense, suspecting some dastardly plot. What was it again?”

“Decided to jog another lap around the Rose Garden with Barney. His dog.”

“And if I’m not mistaken, when they first allowed female pages in the Senate, you predicted the end of the world.”

“You’ve made your point, Marjorie.” Hammond gazed out the window of his premium office in the Rayburn Building. As Senate minority leader and the official liaison with Homeland Security, he was entitled to a perk like this view of the smooth green expanse of the Capitol lawn with the Supreme Court building in the background. Beyond that he could just barely make out the Potomac as it flowed from Georgetown on the west all the way to Anacostia on the east.

There were other more tangible privileges for a man in his position. Twice as many hideaways as any other senator. The best illegal Cuban cigars, the first-cut Kentucky bourbon…and a few other perks that kept him very warm at night. He’d had a good career and he didn’t plan to see it end any time soon, thank you. Many had tried to bring him down-from LBJ to Ben Kincaid. But guess what? He was still here.

That last conversation with Marshall had troubled him, though. And now with this on top of everything else…

He ran a hand through his silver pomaded hair. “I’m still concerned, Marjorie. Particularly given-” He turned back to face her. “Call his cell phone.”

“As you wish. Oh-have you seen this?”

“Seen what?”

She handed a sealed letter to him. “Something from Marshall. Courier brought it over early this morning. Probably explains why he’s not here.”

“Hmmph. Couldn’t the man just pick up the phone?”

“He probably could, but I don’t think you’d be allowed to talk unless you knew the password. And with your memory…”

“Ha-ha.” He placed a wrinkled finger under the envelope flap, but before he had it half open, a white powder spilled onto his hands.