James Barrington - Overkill

Orlov knew the rules just as well as Richter did, and as far as Richter could see the best thing he could do, bearing in mind that they were going to kill him anyway, was to try to mislead them as much as he could. Unfortunately for Richter, it was going to be a painful process, because before he could spill the fake beans, to confuse a metaphor, he was going to have to be ‘persuaded’ by Yuri. If Richter had been in Orlov’s position, he would have been very suspicious indeed of a rapid surrender.

‘Once again, Richter. Tell me what you know.’

Richter shook his head. Yuri was smiling again and Richter realized he was just beginning to enjoy himself. Two more blows rocked Richter’s head from side to side, and the stars started getting brighter. Despite what may be seen in films, there is a limit to the number of severe blows to the head that can be tolerated before unconsciousness supervenes. Yuri was very big and very strong, and Richter could feel himself getting near the point where the blackness would envelop him.

He was dimly aware of hands lashing his arms to the side of the chair, and then the work began in earnest. After the fifth or sixth blow Richter stopped counting and concentrated on keeping awake. When Yuri finally stopped, after a sharp command from Orlov, Richter hung his head and played dead. The way he was feeling, it wasn’t any effort at all. Someone grabbed Richter’s hair and pulled his head back. ‘He’s out. You want me to wake him?’

‘Leave him for a few minutes. I doubt,’ Orlov added, chuckling, ‘if a few slaps across the face are going to bring him round. There are some smelling salts in my bathroom cabinet, on the bottom shelf. Get them. Oh, and bring some towels and put them on the carpet. He’s bleeding quite a lot.’ Richter’s face was still too numb for him to feel anything as delicate as a stream of blood running down it, but he could still taste the blood in his mouth. He wondered briefly and inconsequentially what sort of a state his clothes were in.

When the towels had been positioned to Orlov’s liking, Yuri thrust the bottle of smelling salts under Richter’s nose. He snorted, then opened his eyes. Or rather, his eye. His left eye seemed to be struck tightly shut, probably by drying blood. Orlov was still smiling. ‘And again, Richter. What do you know?’

Richter tried to speak, but all he managed was a croak.

‘Water. Get him a glass of water.’

Richter took a couple of sips, and coughed.

‘We’re waiting.’

Richter tried again. ‘Did you hear about the Irish tap dancer? Fell in the sink and—’

Yuri started again, harder this time if anything, and Richter could feel himself slipping away. Orlov stopped him.

‘Well, Richter?’

Richter shook his head. Yuri started again, alternating between Richter’s face and stomach. And the pattern was repeated, time and again. Richter passed out at least twice, possibly three times, and was revived each time with the salts. His whole head throbbed, as if some great pump was inflating and deflating it, and his stomach ached as if he’d been kicked by a donkey. Richter could feel his will to resist slowly ebbing away.

All he wanted, all he wanted in the world, was for them to stop. Silently Richter cursed Yuri, and he cursed Orlov and most of all he cursed Simpson for getting him into this thing in the first place. The one thing Richter couldn’t do was blame himself because he had to keep angry if he was going to have any sort of control left, and he had to have that control because when he finally told them, he had to tell them what he wanted to, not what he knew. So Richter cursed, and he cursed again and again.

Yuri’s fists must have been aching by that time, because Richter was dimly aware that the blows had changed. Instead of the solid thump of flesh and bone, it was a stinging, slicing pain. He opened his eye cautiously and saw that Yuri had a bucket of water and a hand towel. He had moved his chair round so that he was more comfortable, with the bucket in front of him. Two blows, one left, one right, wet the towel, wring it out, two blows, one left, one right, wet the towel. Yuri looked as if he could go on all night. Richter knew, quite certainly, that he couldn’t. He had to stop it, and he had to stop it soon.

And suddenly it did stop. The reeking, penetrating odour of the salts forced Richter’s head up, and he looked at Orlov. ‘That, Richter, was just for starters. Yuri is now going to start breaking your bones, starting with the fingers. Unless, of course, you feel like talking a little?’

Summoning what strength he had, Richter nodded. He couldn’t allow Yuri to do anything to his hands. He couldn’t see any way out of the house, but if Yuri smashed his hands, that would be it. He would definitely die, without being able to do a thing about it. With his hands, there was always a chance.

‘You mean you will talk, Richter?’ Orlov asked and Richter nodded again.

‘Good, good. I thought you’d see things my way, eventually. Wipe his face, Yuri, and then give him another drink of water.’

If Richter had been looking for a ministering angel, Yuri would have been right down at the bottom of his list of likely candidates. Wipe Richter’s face he did. He used the wet towel, but to Richter it felt like he had taken a rough file to it. A file wielded with most of his very considerable strength. The only benefit seemed to be that by the time he’d finished Richter could open his left eye again. The glass of water helped, but only a little. Richter knew that what he had to do was to take as long as he could to tell the tale. That way he could recover some of his strength before Yuri took him away to play.

Orlov spoke. ‘Well, Richter? We’re waiting.’

Richter coughed and shook his head. ‘Where – where do you want me to start?’

‘At the beginning, Richter, at the beginning. Where else?’

Situation Room, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

As soon as Walter Hicks left the Oval Office, the President moved over to the desk and depressed a key on the intercom. ‘I’m on the way down,’ he said, and walked out of the office. Two minutes later he entered the Situation Room, a small, wood-lined underground chamber, some twenty-five feet long by twenty feet wide, located in the basement of the West Wing of the White House, directly under the Oval Office. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a hardened or bombproof facility, and is only designed to be used in the early stages of a crisis.

‘How’s it going, John?’ the President asked, walking across the room.

John Mitchell, the tall grey-haired Vice-President, looked up from his copy of the Washington Post . The Vice-President is invariably placed in charge of crisis management and he had been running the Situation Room since Walter Hicks’ first meeting with the President. ‘Absolutely nothing new, Mr President. Despite what the CIA believes, there are no indications of any unusual military activity anywhere in the CIS. We’re just sitting here twiddling our thumbs.’ He gestured at the White House staff and senior military officers sitting at desks in the room.

‘I’ve just seen Karasin,’ the President said.

‘And?’ Mitchell looked interested.

The President shrugged. ‘And nothing. He asked to see me because Russian satellites had detected our escalation to DEFCON FOUR and wanted to know what it was all about. He claims to know nothing about any threat to the US, and I think he’s probably telling the truth.’

Mitchell grunted. ‘I’ve said it before, Mr President, and I’ll say it again. I think the CIA is paranoid about this so-called covert assault. I don’t believe there is a threat to America, and I think we’re just wasting our time. More importantly, we’ve now alarmed the Kremlin for no good reason, which will do nothing for our international relations. My recommendation, Mr President, is that we stop this nonsense, stand down to normal readiness, and tell the Russians it was all just a false alarm.’