Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

"One more minute, Stan."

While Holian finished up in the cockpit, Ben made a final pass through the now deserted main cabin, and then entered the area at the rear of the plane, shielded from the main cabin by a curtain. He was looking for something, anything that might serve as a weapon. He found nothing that he could count on, which was probably for the good. This was not Seth Stepanski he was dealing with. It was a trio of professional killers. That he had succeeded against Vincent in Cincinnati only lengthened the odds of his succeeding again. Unless he found help in the rain forest, it was wishful, fanciful thinking to believe he could free the comatose sacrificial lamb and make it safely back to civilization.

So, what next?

He still had the elements of acceptance and surprise working for him, but that was about all. Minute by minute he would just have to assess the situation and search for a scenario — any scenario — that had even a remote chance of success. Was he willing to stand by and leave Sandy to her fate? He might have to, he acknowledged. Dying himself wasn't the answer to putting these people out of business. He felt ill at the prospect of readying the plane for the flight back to the States, knowing what had happened to the woman — knowing that because of these people, there was an eight-year-old boy who was never going to see his mother again.

Stan Holian was waiting for him by the elevator to the hold. Was there a gun someplace in the cockpit? Ben wondered. He glanced down the aisle. The door to that room was closed and almost certainly locked.

"Where in the heck are we, Stan?"

"Brazil."

"Very funny."

"North and west of Rio. Seventy-five, maybe a hundred miles."

"I've never been to Brazil."

"Nice place. Truly beautiful women. I don't expect you'll get to do much sightseeing on this trip, though. Day after tomorrow, maybe the day after that, we'll be heading back."

"How long have you been doing this?"

Holian pointedly ignored the question and motioned Ben past the roughly dressed Brazilians who were transferring boxes of supplies to the hydraulic platform. As they were lowered from the belly of the plane, Ben caught a glimpse of a sprawling white building nestled in the forest. Then it disappeared behind the trees. Once on the ground, all he could see around them was the forest. The early morning was cool, and after so many hours in the plane, the moisture rich air, laden with the sounds of insects, tasted especially sweet.

Vincent was waiting for them by a broad dirt path off the edge of the runway. Then the three of them — pilot, flight attendant, and killer — made their way in silence until the path emptied into a road, this one much wider and more gravelly, with well-established tire impressions.

"You go on ahead, Captain," Vincent said to the pilot. "Same room as always. Your bag'll be there soon. I have something I want to go over with Seth, here."

Holian did as he was asked. As the man disappeared around a bend, Ben, alone with Vincent for the first time, began feeling a nugget of apprehension.

"The hospital's just around there," Vincent said. "It's an amazing operation. You'll be impressed."

"I'll bet I will," Ben said, searching for any giveaway in the killer's tone.

"Do you know what's going to happen to that woman we brought here?"

The nugget expanded.

"Nope."

"Well, pal, we're going to cut her heart out. How about you, Seth? Do you know what we're going to do with you?"

"I don t — "

Before Ben could say another word, a long-barreled pistol materialized in Vincent's hand and whipped across the side of his face, sending him spinning to the ground.

"Did you really think you could get away with this, you stupid shit?" Vincent said. "I had to go to the operating room to have that damn paint cleared from my eyes. Did you think I wasn't going to remember you? You didn't fool Janet in the office for a second. She had a photo of you brought to me before you had even opened your suitcase." He kicked Ben viciously in the back. "How long before you're a candidate for the operating room?" Another kick. "I think we should find that out."

Huddled in a fetal position on the packed road, Ben was unable even to speak. He had eaten little for some time, but what there was in his stomach made a sudden, uncontrollable reappearance through his mouth and nose.

"Up," Vincent said, kicking him once more, this time in the back of the knee. "I'm going to show you to the hospitality room. When you and I are finished, you're going to envy that passenger of ours."

"All right, let's do it again. Who are you?"

"Callahan. Benjamin Michael Callahan."

"What do you do?"

"Detective. I…I'm a private detective. For God's sake, please — "

"From where?"

"I–Idaho. Pocatello, Idaho…No, please don't do that again. Don't — "

Vincent touched the electric prod to the side of Ben's chest. The shock, more intense than any pain Ben had ever experienced, exploded down his arm and around his back, sending every muscle in its path into agonizing spasm.

Ben screamed and then screamed again.

He was absolutely helpless.

There was no place to go, no one to intervene, and no way he could get Vincent to let up.

Helpless.

The interrogation had gone on for hours, with the electric prod being the main source of pain, along with a device that screwed down on his fingernails. After being beaten, he had been dragged to a room in the basement of the hospital, stripped naked, and lashed to a high-backed wooden chair. A dozen shocks later, plus some work on his hands, he had wet and soiled himself, and from what he could tell, had passed out as well — probably more than once.

Twice, a Brazilian aborigine, short but extremely powerful, had dragged him to a shower stall and allowed him to wash off in cold water. Then he was shoved back onto the chair, and the torture and interrogation began again, with Vincent, reminding him over and over about their encounter in Cincinnati, relishing every scream.

"How did you learn about the RV?"

"S'someone in Soda Springs wrote down the license plate."

"Don't bullshit me!"

"Please stop! I'm telling you the truth. I swear I am."

Again the prod, this time on the inside of his thigh. Again the hideous nerve pain and muscle contractions. Again the screaming.

Ben knew from the moment Vincent had slashed him across the face that he was going to be tortured. He also knew that although it would likely be the last thing he did, he had to keep Alice Gustafson's name from them. Once she read the letter he had sent her and freed Seth Stepanski, there would be plenty she could do to make a dent in the Whitestone Laboratory's illegal organs operation — but only if she was alive. If Vincent and his people got to her, his own death would be meaningless. His focus, as they dragged him to the room, likely the last place he would ever see, was to concoct a story that was close enough to fact and held together well enough in the telling and retelling to be accepted as the truth.

"How did you find us in Cincinnati?"

"I'm a detective, for crying out loud. That's what they hired me to do. With the license plate number it really wasn't that hard."

"Who else knows about all this?"

"No one. No one. Just me. No one knows anything about this except me…No! No more!"

Whether it was from being chilled to the bone or from the breakdown of his nervous system, he couldn't stop shaking.

There were some forms of pain Ben could handle — headaches, ankle sprains, viruses, strep throats, even the pounding Vincent had administered. But from the deepest memories of his childhood, he had hated and feared being drilled by the dentist. Even with Novocain or whatever they used for numbing, the anticipation of just the slightest touch on a dental nerve was almost more than he could stand. The prod in Vincent's hands was like a hundred drills into pulp, only there was no numbing medicine. None at all.