Vince Flynn - American Assassin

“Manicure?” Hurley asked.

“I like to call it Twenty Questions.”

“You’re so clever, Sayyed,” Hurley said, his voice dripping with mock admiration. “Kind of like a game show. I can’t wait to get started.”

“Good. Let’s start with your real name.”

“Jack Mehoff,” Hurley offered, straight-faced.

“Jack Mehoff,” Sayyed repeated. “That is your real name?”

“Of course it isn’t, you fucking moron. Jack Mehoff… jack me off. Come on, let’s go. Off with the first fingernail. You win. I lose. Let’s go.”

Sayyed searched the subject’s face for a sign of stress. He had never had a prisoner ask to have his fingernail torn off. His demeanor would change in a second, though. Sayyed chose the forefinger on the left hand and wedged the grip of the pliers in under the nail bed. “Last chance. Your first name?”

“Don’t change the rules on me. Very confusing for your subjects. You said Twenty Questions. I blew the first one, come on, let’s go,” Hurley said with a smile.

Sayyed clamped down hard on the pliers and began to rock the nail back and forth.

“Oh, yeah,” Hurley announced. “Let’s get this party started.”

Sayyed gave it one good yank and ripped the entire nail off.

“Holy Mary mother…” Hurley unleashed a string of swear words and then started laughing. “Damn, that stings. If that doesn’t wake you up nothing will. This is great!” His laughing grew to the point where he couldn’t control it. He was shaking so hard his eyes started to tear up. “Oh… I can’t wait for the next one. This is fucking great.”

Sayyed remained undeterred. “Your name?”

“Bill Donovan.”

“Really?”

“Nope.”

“Really, Mr. Sherman, what is the harm in your telling us your first name?”

“Probably nothing at this point, but it’s my nature to fuck with guys like you.”

“I will ask the question again.” Sayyed stayed steady. “What is your real name?”

“Ulysses S. Grant.”

“You are lying?”

“Of course, you fucking idiot. Don’t you read history?”

Sayyed moved in for the second fingernail. He wedged the pliers under the nail bed, wiggled it again to make sure he had a good enough grip, and then looked into Hurley’s eyes. He didn’t like what he saw. It was the wild-eyed look of a crazy man.

“Do it. Come on,” Hurley egged him on. “What are you waiting for? You’re not turning into a pussy on me, are you?”

Part of Sayyed knew he should stop and come back later when he could control the situation. The men were here, however, so he needed to pull this second nail, and then let this lunatic sit and stew for a while. Probably come back and use electricity. He tightened his grip and yanked the second nail free.

Hurley howled again with the laughter of a madman. The shrieking turned to cackles and then uncontrollable laughter. His eyes were filled with tears as he yelled, “Eighteen more to go! Heeee hawwww!”

Sayyed dropped the pliers on the cart. “That’s right. We’ll give you a little rest before we start with the others.” He started for the door.

Hurley looked at the other man who was standing in front of him. “Is that you Abu… Abu Radih? I haven’t seen you in years. I heard you have your own little terrorist group now… Fatah. Look at you… all grown-up,” Hurley said admiringly.

Radih smiled and shook his head. He clearly thought the American insane.

Hurley tilted his head to the side as if trying to recall some distant memory. “I bet you weren’t more than four feet tall when I used to fuck your mother. Did you tell your friends that she was a prostitute?” Hurley craned his head to look at the other two men. “His mom could suck cock better than any whore I ever met, and trust me, I’ve been with a lot of whores.”

The smile left Radih’s face in an instant. He lashed out with his right fist, hitting Hurley in the mouth. Hurley’s head rocked back from the blow, and then, before Radih could throw another punch, Sayyed grabbed him from behind.

“No,” Sayyed ordered. “Do not let him get to you.”

Hurley shook the sting and fog from his head and came up smiling. One of his top middle teeth had been knocked out and his mouth was filling with blood. “Look!” Hurley yelled, showing them the gap in his top row. “Look, you knocked my tooth out.” Radih and Sayyed stopped struggling for a second, and that was when Hurley unleashed a gob of blood and the one busted tooth from his mouth. The bulk of it hit Radih in the face. With his arms tied behind his back and his legs taped to the chair, Hurley started bouncing the chair an inch at a time toward the two men, snapping his teeth and barking like a dog.

IT was almost noon, and Ivanov was still in bed. He claimed he wasn’t feeling well. Moaned something about the snow and the cold and the gray, depressing Moscow sky. Of course it had nothing to do with all of the vodka and wine and heavy foods he’d consumed until well past midnight. Shvets would have liked to throw him in a cold snowdrift and shock him back to the here and now. The young Russian didn’t understand depression. He couldn’t see how people allowed it to get so bad that they couldn’t get out of bed, was unable to understand that the drinking and the sleeping were all intertwined like a big sheet wrapped around your body until you couldn’t move. And then you started sinking. Stop the drinking, get out of bed, and work out. Have a purpose in life. It was not complicated.

Shvets crossed from one end of the parlor to the other, glancing at Alexei, who was one-half of his boss’s favorite bodyguard duo. They were in a corner suite on the top floor of Hotel Baltschug. He looked out the big window across the frozen Moscow River at the Kremlin, Red Square, and St. Basil’s Cathedral. Shvets had never understood why the Bolsheviks had let the cathedral stand. They were so anticzar, so antireligion, why let this one church remain while they destroyed so many others? The answer probably lay in their own doubts about what they were doing. The people has risen up and helped them grab power, but the people were a tough beast to tame. Shvets thought they probably feared it would bring about another revolution.

Frost had build up around the edges of the window. It was minus twenty degrees Celsius, and the wind was blowing, whipping up clouds of snow, but so what? That was February in Moscow. Only a weak man allows the weather to affect his mood. Shvets let out a long exhalation, his breath forming a fog on the window that froze within seconds. Ivanov was about to drag him down, take him under like some fool walking out onto the melting March ice of the Moscow River. These weren’t the old days of deportation to a Siberian work camp, and executions against the back wall at Lubyanka, but the government was by no means just. The new regime was just more astute at PR. They could still be beaten senseless and be forced to sign false confessions of crimes against the state and whatever else they decided to trump up. Then they would be taken to the woods and shot, far away from the ears of the people and the new press.

Ivanov would of course try to save his vodka-soaked hide. That was his nature. He would blame anyone but himself, and since Shvets was the person most directly in the line of fire, the only person other than Ivanov who had actually met Herr Dorfman, he would be the scapegoat. Gripped with an unusual fear, Shvets had a sudden urge to flee. He paced from one end of the parlor and back, trying to calm himself, but he couldn’t. The idea of running was suddenly in front of him, like a big flashing road signing warning the bridge is out. Turn now or crash.