Randy White - Night Vision

The pistol went flying as Dedos covered his eyes. It didn’t help because I kept the laser beam focused on his face, using the door to steady my aim. Dazer literature claims that green is four times more visible to the human eye than other colors. It claims that a laser of this wattage could pierce human flesh, including finger and eyelids.

“It feels like a knife through the orbital socket,” one of the Dazer techs-who had experienced the pain-told me. At the time, I had assumed it was a mild exaggeration to get me interested in testing the company’s product.

I believed the tech now, particularly when Dedos began to roll on the ground. After a few seconds, he gagged and then vomited. Nausea is a common reaction to being blinded by the laser, according to what I had been told.

I felt confident enough to take a quick look at my shoulder. The dart had plowed a small furrow of flesh. It was bleeding but not badly. Next, I switched off the Dazer long enough to crawl into the truck and grab my equipment bag. In those few seconds, I formulated a plan. I needed information now. Where was Tula Choimha? If the men didn’t volunteer that information, I would have to force it out of them.

And I knew exactly how to make that happen.

Bag over my shoulder, I dragged Calavero to the front of my truck, positioning his head under the bumper. Alternately, I zapped both men with the laser even though they showed no readiness to fight back.

Next, I kicked Dedos’s pistol away, then dragged him near his partner, but closer to my truck’s right front tire. When he saw where I’d positioned him, the man became combative. To quiet him, I hammered my elbow into his nose. After one blow, Dedos pretended to be unconscious.

Then I stood and looked far down the road, first to the west, then to the east. How close would a driver have to be before he noticed the two men?

Not very close, I decided, which told me I needed to get moving When the pandilleros had first attacked me, I’d desperately hoped a car would turn down this remote road. Not now. An eyewitness was the last thing I wanted. Unless I was willing to detain an innocent passerby, the plan forming in my head would have to be abandoned.

I didn’t want to risk making that decision. Not that I was incapable of eliminating an eyewitness-I have done it before in my life. But I have never taken the life of a wholly innocent witness. Not knowingly, anyway. And never, ever in my own country.

“What have you done to my eyes?” Calavero moaned as I used duct tape on his ankles, then his wrists.

“Maybe this will help,” I replied, then stripped off more tape and wrapped it around his head as a blindfold.

When I had both men bound, I repositioned them so they could both feel next to their faces the tread of my front tires. My truck was still running, which scared them. Even though they lapsed into a machismo silence, their expressions were easy enough to read in the headlights.

I knew that what the pandilleros were imagining was far more terrifying than what they would have experienced had I not taped their eyes. Which was all part of the plan.

I had set up a variation of an interrogation technique that, unlike waterboarding, is unknown to the public. I had been with a special ops team years ago in Libya when I witnessed just how effective-and fast-the technique was at extracting information from an enemy.

I knelt between the men and spoke in English, saying, “I’ll give you one chance to answer questions. Refuse, get smart with me, I’ll crush your heads with the truck. If you lie, same thing. You’re road-kill. I’ll leave you here for vultures.”

“Don’t tell him anything,” Calavero said to his partner in fast Spanish. “His voice is different now, hear the difference? The accent. He is a cop. But he’s not going to hurt us. Cops aren’t allowed to hurt people in the States, you’ll see.”

Dedos didn’t sound convinced when he answered, “My nose is broken, man, I could strangle on my own blood if he doesn’t let me sit up.” Then in English he added, speaking to me, “We don’t know anything! But what do you want to know? Hurry up, I’m dying here!”

I asked the men about the girl. I asked about Harris Squires. I asked how many more of their gangbanger friends were waiting down this rutted drive?

Their reply was a smug silence that infuriated me. Two punks, secure in the rights guaranteed by their adopted country, were playing hardass. Two bottom-feeders who profited from the misery of others, dealers of drugs and flesh.

I zapped them both with the Dazer, but the duct tape mitigated the pain. I leaned closer and lasered them again, but they only squirmed and thrashed their heads in response.

“Why is this asshole doing this to us?” Dedos yelled in Spanish, getting mad. “I’m going to die, I’m choking! Even if he is a cop, how’s he know so much about Squires and the little virgin?”

Voice steady, Calavero replied, “Shut up. The V-man will have us out of jail by morning. Tell him anything, you’re dead, pendejo.”

Dedos’s words, “the little virgin,” answered one of my questions. It told me that Tula Choimha was here and maybe still alive. Or had been, the last time these two saw her. Which couldn’t have been long ago. According to Melinski, Squires and the girl had left Immokalee a little before eleven p.m.

I checked my watch. Midnight.

I was tempted to drag the two into the ditch and get moving, but I had to have more information. How many pandilleros and how were they armed? Was Squires a captive or working with the gang?

Calavero was telling Dedos, “My ribs are broken, you don’t hear me whining, you pathetic woman-” when I interrupted him, saying in English, “No more talk. You have five seconds to answer my questions.”

I began counting as I squatted to confirm the heads of both men were positioned directly in front of my tires.

“Why are you doing this? Who are you?” Dedos wailed, coughing blood as he tried to sit up.

With my foot, I forced the man to the ground. Then gave it a beat before I told them both in Spanish, “No more time. You assholes have no idea who I am. But you’re about to find out.” To convince them my Spanish was good, I added an insult that’s common in Mexico.

I heard Calavero swear, groaning, “The Gomer understood us. Everything we said!” as I swung into the truck, limping a little because my leg muscles were beginning to knot from being kicked.

As I positioned myself behind the wheel, the VHF radio beside me crackled, and I adjusted the squelch to hear, “Calavero! Get your fingers out of your ass. Why haven’t you called?”

I hit the button and replied, “I tried. Where were you?”

“Don’t give me your shit. What happened to the Gomer? That’s all I want to know.”

I kept the radio a foot from my mouth and tried to make my voice higher and hoarser, to imitate Calavero. “Dedos is an idiot, but the white guy is gone. How much longer?”

I didn’t want to risk his suspicion by saying more.

The man-Chapo, I guessed-was suspicious anyway.

“What’s wrong with your voice? You sound different.”

I snapped, “I’m bored shitless, I’m thirsty. Maybe you’d rather talk to Dedos.”

The voice paused… more suspicious now? Even when the man laughed, saying, “Dedos is an asshole. What else is new?” I wasn’t convinced.

I kept an eye on the wooded road, expecting Chapo, or his partners, to come and check things out for themselves.

The interrogation technique we’d used in Libya is called the Spare Tire Switch, although I have never heard the term again as it relates to intelligence gathering. It was called that by CIA officers running the operation-presumably CIA, because such information is never offered.