Alex Berenson - The Secret Soldier

A bilious dread rose up Kurland’s throat. These men had only one reason to lie. And that was to justify — to themselves, to him, to Allah — whatever they were about to do.

The translator unzipped his bag, took out the tripod and camera he’d used earlier, along with another bottle of Coke. “Would you like?”

“No, thank you.”

“You should drink. You’ll need your strength.”

The fear crept out of Kurland’s throat and into his mouth, as real and bitter as month-old milk. He thought of Barbara sitting with him at Wrigley Field. She didn’t like baseball, but she humored him a couple of times a year, the same way he humored her at the Art Institute galas. She wouldn’t let him beg. He wouldn’t beg.

The translator set up the tripod and camera as the commander put the stepladder beside Kurland’s chair. Now that the ladder was next to him, Kurland noticed that it had some unusual features. Its feet were welded to heavy metal plates. And two notches were cut into its top step.

Despite, or because of, his fear, Kurland found himself semi-calmly puzzling over the ladder’s purpose. Its meaning . I’ll take Obscure Torture Devices for one thousand dollars, Mr. Trebek. Were they planning a poor man’s hanging? What was a poor man’s hanging, anyway? He felt his breathing get shallow. No. He couldn’t lose his cool. They hadn’t even touched him yet.

THEN THE COMMANDER SPREAD the contents of his bag on the cell’s concrete floor. He turned toward Kurland and waved his hand over them like a magician unveiling his best trick. Six items lay on the ground. Five were merely frightening. The sixth was terrifying.

A fat hypodermic needle. A thick gauze bandage. Two sturdy steel clamps. A tourniquet.

And a circular saw, big and mean, its steel teeth shining brightly under the overhead bulb.

“You don’t want to do this.” Kurland kept his voice even. “You don’t have to do this. Let’s talk about this.”

The commander answered in a long stream of Arabic.

“Would you like to know what he’s saying?”

“Okay. Yes.” I’ll buy every second I can.

“He says that for two generations the United States has stolen the oil that belongs to the people of the Arabian Peninsula—”

“We haven’t stolen it, we paid for it—”

The translator slapped Kurland’s face with five stinging fingers, ending the argument. “Again. He says that for two generations the United States has stolen the oil that belongs to the people of the Arabian Peninsula. He says that the whole world knows this crime, and that the only reason no one stopped you is your army and your air force and all your tanks and bombs. He says that America is a thief.”

The commander pulled latex gloves from his pocket and tugged them on his strong, brown hands. When he was satisfied with their fit, he spoke again.

“He asks if you know the penalty in sharia ”—Muslim law — for theft.

“No.” Though Kurland did.

“It is amputation of the hand of the thief.”

“I’m not a thief.”

“Your country is. This is the law. This is justice.”

Kurland nodded, as if they were in the middle of the sanest conversation he’d ever had. “Justice. So I’m to have my hand amputated. For the sins of the United States. He’s going to do it. And you’re going to videotape it. And then you’re going to upload it or FedEx it or whatever to Al Jazeera so the whole world can watch.”

“Correct. Are you left-handed or right-?”

“Right.”

“Then the major will take your left.”

“Kind of you.”

The translator either didn’t recognize the sarcasm or ignored it. He and the commander had a rapid-fire conversation in Arabic. “We’re going to give you morphine to make you sleepy and make the operation easier.”

“I don’t want any morphine.”

“You do. Believe me.” He reached down, picked up the needle.

Behind his back, Kurland squeezed his hands together, clenched and unclenched his fingers. His left hand. He’d better get as much use of it as he could. “At least wait for the deadline to pass.” He couldn’t believe he was negotiating this way, as if the end of the deadline would somehow justify what they were planning to do to him. But those extra hours sounded more than pretty good about now.

“We both know your country won’t agree. This way, the next video will be ready as soon as the deadline passes.”

“I applaud your understanding of the demands of the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Though I guess I won’t be applauding anything much longer.”

If the translator understood the joke, he didn’t smile. He uncuffed Kurland’s arms and recuffed his right hand to the chair leg. The commander grabbed Kurland’s left arm with his thick gloved hands and pulled it around the chair and slapped it against the ladder’s top step, the metal cool under his forearm.

Kurland didn’t resist. He’d wondered sometimes when he saw the brief announcements that a death-row prisoner had been executed, why didn’t the guy resist? Why didn’t he fight instead of walking to his fate like a sheep? But now he knew. His own dignity was all he had left. And his voice.

“No religion justifies this. No law. You know that, right? You’re just a couple of psychopaths with a saw. And whatever your plan is, whatever you’re hoping to accomplish, it won’t work, it’s going to end with both of you dead, sooner, not later—”

The translator put a hand over Kurland’s mouth, squeezed his nose shut. “Keep talking and there won’t be any morphine. You won’t like that.”

The commander moved Kurland’s arm until his wrist was dangling just off the edge of the ladder. With the translator’s help, he slid the vises into the notches and wound them tight around Kurland’s forearm, squeezing the muscles and the bone against the ladder’s top step. And then squeezed tighter still, pinching the skin, immobilizing Kurland’s arm well and truly.

The commander tied the tourniquet around Kurland’s biceps and tapped the crook of Kurland’s elbow until the vein rose. He aspirated the needle to make sure the morphine was free of air bubbles and slid it deep into Kurland’s vein and sank the plunger. After the prick of the needle, pleasure flowed into Kurland’s arm. Despite his knowledge of what was about to happen, he couldn’t help but ride away on the rush that filled his body, as if the room and the very air he breathed were warm and liquid. His head lolled forward, and he sighed, and all the pressure left him. He hoped for an overdose. Better to die this way than from a bullet.

He didn’t die, though. And the peace didn’t last. The translator put the camera on the commander, and he spoke for a minute in Arabic. No doubt the same justifications he’d just given Kurland. Then he pulled on a surgical mask and goggles — goggles, as if he were about to prune a tree — and picked up the saw.

Its scream filled the room, and tears streamed down Kurland’s cheeks. No, Kurland said . Don’t. It was time for the cavalry, time for men in American uniforms to burst in and end this madness. Time and past time. He wouldn’t complain at their tardiness—

But the cavalry didn’t come. Only the commander, crossing the room in four slow steps. Kneeling beside the ladder. Lining up the protective housing around the saw’s blade with the edge of the top step. Sliding the saw forward and backward, making sure the blade was where he wanted it. All the morphine in the world couldn’t help Kurland now. His fear and adrenaline had burned through it. Even in the commander’s tight grip, the saw was vibrating madly, shaking the ladder, shaking Kurland’s poor left arm.