Brad Thor - Takedown

Up until this moment, neither he nor Jaffe had actually touched either of the prisoners. In all fairness, they’d danced dangerously close to the line of what was allowed, but they’d always stayed on the proper side of it. Now, though, Jaffe was telling him in no uncertain terms to jump right across it.

“Hello? Marine?” said Jaffe when Harper failed to act. “Anybody home?”

“Shouldn’t our two colleagues be handling this?” he asked.

“Who? Frick and Frack? They’re on their coffee break. Let’s not bug them. Besides, I think I’m going to add this to my repertoire, and I want to know firsthand how it works.”

“You’re talking about shoving that tube up his…” Harper paused, the image incredibly ghastly even for a marine.

Jaffe looked at him and said, “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue? You can say it, son. I’m going to shove that tube right up his piss pipe. His urethra, Franklin, if you want to get clinical. Once it’s up as far as it’ll go, then I’m gonna gas him with the pepper spray. If he’s ever had gonorrhea it’ll feel like the world’s best blow job, in comparison to this.”

Looking at Mohammed, Jaffe then asked, “You ever catch gonorrhea from any of those little boys you buggered?” He wasn’t expecting a response, and when none came, he turned to Harper and said, “What are you waiting for?”

The marine’s mind was made up. “With all due respect sir, I’m not able to do what you asked.”

Jaffe’s eyebrows went up and he replied, “What I asked? Son, I didn’t ask you for anything. I gave you a direct order and I expect it to be carried out. Now prep this prisoner.”

“Negative, sir.”

Jaffe was quickly losing his temper. “You want to piss in the tall grass with the big dogs, but you don’t want any to land on you. I’m disappointed, son,” he said as he grabbed the shears back from Harper. “I thought you had more backbone.”

Walking over to Mohammed, Jaffe plunged the shears into his trouser leg, narrowly missing his thigh, and began cutting. As he did, he said, “The problem all along with this interrogation has been respect. I can see it in our friend’s eyes here. He doesn’t respect us. Do you, Mohammed? You’ve got nothing but contempt for us, because when it comes down to the real dirty stuff, the physical stuff, we let our Libyan pals do it for us.

“Well, if I don’t have your respect, I just don’t think I can take it.”

It was obvious from the look on Mohammed’s face that Jaffe had hit the nail right on the head. The al-Qaeda man wasn’t afraid. He felt nothing but contempt for his captors. But that was all about to change. Now that he was naked from the waist down, he could see the American was serious, very serious.

For a man who took so much pleasure from life via the organ between his legs, the torture Mohammed was about to face was hideously personal. In his most disturbing dreams he doubted he could have ever come up with something so repulsive.

When the American came back with the device, he writhed in his chair and struggled against his restraints-anything to stop the tube from entering his penis. His struggles, though, were entirely in vain. The American grabbed his organ in a death grip and inserted the tubing most violently. Once the tip was in, the man began feeding the rest of the tubing after it.

When Jaffe felt it was in deep enough, he looked at Mohammed and said, “You know the information I want.”

“Go to hell!” Mohammed screamed.

Jaffe raised the Guardian Protection Devices canister so that Mohammed could see his thumb slip under the safety mechanism and said, “I can’t go to hell today. I still have so many more things to do.”

The shrieks of wretched agony were instantaneous. So horrible were they that even the two Libyan intelligence officers burst into the room, certain that the Americans were either filleting or disemboweling their prisoner alive.

As Jaffe sent another shot of pepper spray into the terrorist’s penis, Mohammed screamed at the top of his lungs for it to stop, his body absolutely rigid from the pain. Tears streamed down his face, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

Jaffe had no intention of letting up. The pain this piece of human waste was prepared to unleash upon America was nothing compared to what he was being subjected to at this moment. Jaffe had never known hate as strong as he felt it right now. What god could ever support what al-Qaeda did in His name? Jaffe wanted nothing more than to watch this man die, because he knew if anybody was going to hell, it was Mohammed bin Mohammed.

Jaffe let up for a moment only to watch the man’s body go slack against his restraints and his chest heave for air.

Then, without warning, he gave the man another blast.

Mohammed’s body tried to leap off the chair as if it were a thousand degrees.

Jaffe should have worn earplugs. Mohammed had the lungs of a lion.

He kept the button depressed on the pepper spray, determined to drain every last drop into the monster in front of him until in addition to the screaming he suddenly heard another sound-gunfire.

With his phony diplomatic Libyan passport, Abdul Ali found the security at the twenty-four-story Libya House easily navigable when he arrived. His Libyan dialect was flawless and he demanded that the man behind the reception counter pick up the phone and dial the ambassador’s office straightaway.

When the ambassador’s assistant answered, the receptionist spoke several words, waited for a response, and then, satisfied, hung up.

After being offered a seat and told the assistant was on his way down, Ali berated the man by asking how anyone could sit at a time like this. Libyans placed a high value on courtesy, and to berate another in public was considered extremely rude. The receptionist was not stupid. He’d met this man’s type before, and he knew that regardless of what his passport said, he was no diplomat. In fact, he’d met enough arrogant intelligence agents to know that’s exactly what this man was. The receptionist had long ago developed a theory that there was a farm somewhere back in his homeland where they grew these insufferable assholes by the truckload.

Moments later, the elevator doors opened and out strolled the ambassador’s assistant accompanied by a rather large man who Ali assumed was part of Libya House’s security detail. The assistant walked over to the reception desk, chatted briefly with the man behind the counter, and then studied the visitor’s passport, scanning through it a page at a time. Finally he made his way over to Ali.

After exchanging the customary Libyan greetings, the assistant offered his hand and introduced himself. He did not offer the passport back. “I thought I knew all of the Haiat amn al Jamahiriya operatives stationed in New York,” he stated. “Why is it we haven’t met?”

Ali remained calm, as well as somewhat aloof-the attitude he felt best suited the role he was playing. “Because I am not stationed here,” he replied. “I’m based in Washington.”

The assistant brushed the explanation aside. “You stated you have business to discuss with the ambassador?”

“Correct.”

“I hope you can appreciate that with everything going on today, the ambassador is quite busy. Why don’t you share the nature of your business with me and I will pass it along.”

Ali feigned a smile. The weapons he had hidden beneath his specially crafted suit weighed heavily on his tired body. “If the business I have been sent to conduct was at the level of an ambassador’s assistant, I would happily do so, but my visit is for the ambassador’s eyes and ears only.”

The assistant was not fond of the visiting intelligence officer’s smug attitude. “And why is it that we were not alerted to your arrival?”