Tom Clancy - Locked On

On the surface, Clark realized, perhaps he should have been glad. But it just didn’t smell to him like a rescue operation.

No, this had an “Out of the frying pan, into the fire” feel.

They blindfolded him and drove for an hour. No one spoke to Clark, nor did the men in the van speak to one another.

When they stopped he was led out of the vehicle, still under his own power. The air was freezing cold, and he felt thick snowflakes on his beard and lips.

Into another building, this with the smell and feel of a warehouse, and he was placed on a chair. Once again, his hands and legs were tied. The blindfold came off and he squinted into a bright light for a moment, before finally opening his eyes.

Three men stood before him, just in the shadows outside the light above. Two wore blue jeans and track-suit tops, their heads shaved and their wide flat Slavic faces cold and unfeeling.

The third man wore pressed slacks and a black ski jacket that looked to Clark like it might have cost several hundred dollars.

A table nearby, just out of the direct light, contained a pile of tools, stainless-steel surgical instruments, tape, wire, and other items John could not make out.

Dread filled the American and tightness entered his stomach.

This wasn’t going to be like playing punching bag for a group of French detectives. No, this looked like it was about to get ugly.

Clark also heard noises farther away in the warehouse. Armed guards, it sounded like, from the occasional shuffling of feet and the rattling of rifles on slings.

The man in the ski jacket stepped forward, under the light. He spoke excellent English. “My father sayӀs you are looking for me.”

“Valentin.” John said it in surprise. From the little he knew about the young man, he did not take him for someone that would make a house call to what, by all indications, seemed to be a torture facility. “I said that I wanted to talk to you.” Clark looked at the table and the square-jawed men. “This is not exactly what I had in mind.”

The thirty-five-year-old Russian just shrugged. “You and I are both here under duress, Mr. Clark. If I had a choice in the matter I would be anywhere else, but you are causing problems for my government and they have selected me to meet with you to resolve the problem. The Kremlin has given me free rein to deal with you.”

“Sounds like a job for your father.”

Valentin smiled mirthlessly. “This is not his job, nor his problem. I need to know everything about your current employer. I need to know who you spoke with in Moscow. We found the telephone that you called, but it had been dumped in a landfill, so we learned nothing.”

Clark breathed a hidden sigh of relief.

Valentin continued, “The information I need can be extracted from you in many ways. Many humane ways. But time is short, so if you resist we will have to seek other avenues. Less humane avenues, shall we say?”

Clark sized the young man up instantly. Kovalenko was uncomfortable in this role. He’d likely been in his element creating a political scandal for the incoming U.S. President by leaking info from Laska, but standing here with tough guys in a frozen Moscow warehouse, getting ready to cut a prisoner to get him to talk… This was not his realm.

Clark could not reveal the existence of The Campus to the Russians. He could have held out indefinitely with the French, at least until he died from beating, but Russians had other means. They allegedly possessed a drug, known as SP-117, that was a cut above other truth serums.

Clark knew nothing about the drug other than what he had read in open source. Russia as a threat had been off the ex — CIA operative’s radar for a while.

But why was the drug not here? Why were there only torture devices and tough-looking guys present? Where was the medical facility, the doctors, the FSB psychologists who would normally do this sort of thing.

Clark understood.

John looked at Valentin. “I get it. You are working for Paul Laska. I have a feeling he has something on you, personal or professional I do not know, that is making you do this.”

Valentin shook his head no, but he asked, “Why do you suggest this?”

“Because this is not your world. That you are here in person tells me you could not get FSB support. You are SVR, foreign intelligence. FSB has the interrogators here in Moscow that could do this, but where is the FSB? Why have you brought me into a fucking warehouse? You don’t have a government facility for this sort of work? No, Valentin, your own ass is on the line, so you are breaking rules. You’ve scrounged up a couple of ex — Spetsnaz guys here, am I right? But they don’t know how to do a proper interrogation. They will bash my fucking skull in before I talk.”

Valentin was not accustomed to being outsmarted; Clark could see this in his eyes. “You have been at this since before I was born, old man. You are a dinosaur like my father. But unlike my father, you still retain a little spark in you. I am sorry to say that I will be the one to extinguish Ӏthat spark. Right now.”

Clark said nothing. The kid did not have state backing for what he was about to do, but he was no less motivated to do it.

Not good.

“Who are you working for, Mr. Clark?”

“Fuck you, sonny.”

Kovalenko’s face seemed to grow slightly pale. He looked to Clark as though he was not feeling well.

“Very well. You force my hand. Shall we begin?” He said a few unintelligible words to his two men, and they stepped over to the instruments on the table. While the thought of doctors in white lab coats was disconcerting to Clark in an interrogation environment, the concept of big men in track suits applying surgical instruments to his body was something beyond horrifying.

Kovalenko said, “Mr. Clark. I have degrees in economics and political science. I have studied at Oxford. I have a wife and a beautiful little girl. What is about to happen has nothing to do with me, with my world. Quite frankly, just the thought of what I am about to do to you makes me want to retch.” He paused, then smiled a little. “I wish I had my father here for this. He would know exactly how to ratchet up the pain. But I will try my own methods. I will not begin with something benign, I can see that the men of Fabrice Bertrand-Morel Investigations have already failed with that tactic. No… tonight we will begin by devastating your body. After this you will be out of your mind with pain and distress, but you will see how incredibly prepared I am to inflict the ultimate damage upon you, and you will not want to see where I go with phase two of my interrogation.”

What the fuck? thought Clark. This kid did not play by the rules. The men stepped behind Clark, they had blades in their hands. One grabbed the American by his head, the other took hold of his right hand.

Valentin Kovalenko knelt over John, looked him closely in the eyes, and said, “I have read your dossier multiple times. I know you are right-handed, and I know that gun hand of yours has served you well, ever since your nation’s silly little war in Vietnam. Tell me who you contacted in Moscow, tell me who you work for, or I will have my associate here cut off your right hand. It is as simple as that.”

Clark grimaced as the man on his right touched the skin on his wrist with a large cleaver. John’s heart pounded against his rib cage.

Clark said, “I know you are just trying to clean up this mess that Laska made, Valentin. Just help me bring down Laska, and you won’t need to worry about him.”

“Last chance for your hand,” the Russian said, and John saw that the young man’s own heart was pounding. The pale white skin on his face was covered with a fresh sheen of sweat.