James Grippando - When Darkness Falls

El Oso acknowledged her fear by telling her not to worry. “The Virgin is not here,” he said, his voice laden with a perverse satisfaction. “There are no virgins left at la casa de la bruja.”

He pushed her forward, and they continued to the end of a long, dark hallway. Her belly was way out in front of her; she had to be due any day. El Oso stopped and unlocked the metal door. The moment it opened, a sharp scream pierced the darkness. It sounded like a woman, but El Oso knew it was a man. It was something the guards liked to tell jokes about, the way men could be made to scream like girls.

“Would you like to watch?” he said. They were standing outside the room, as yet unable to see inside. Party music was blaring from a radio, a tune strangely at odds with what was obviously going on in there.

The young woman shook her head.

“Are you sure you don’t want to see?” he said. “It could be someone you know.”

It was a possibility that she seemed unwilling to consider, but he could see her defenses breaking down. They always did. Instinct may have cautioned that it was better not to know, but in the end, the prisoners craved answers.

“Come, let’s have a look.” He was speaking softly but not out of concern. The insincerity was palpable, and it pleased him to see the heightened anxiety in her eyes. He nudged her forward, and there was another scream from inside the room. This one was so loud and lasted so long that even El Oso stopped to listen. It ceased only when the prisoner had no more voice, no more ability to express his suffering.

Had to be the testicles, thought El Oso.

The party music continued to play.

“I don’t want to go in there,” said the woman.

“That’s not important.”

“No, please. Don’t make me go.”

“It’s your only chance. In a minute, he’ll be crying for his mama. They always cry for their mamas.”

The tears started to come. Her body trembled. “I don’t want to see.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Who’s in there?”

“The enemy.”

“What’s his name?”

“He has no name.”

He pulled her forward, but she resisted. “I can’t go in there!”

A slap across the face silenced her. Then he jerked her by the arm with so much force that she slammed into the wall. In her advanced state of pregnancy, her balance was not what it might have been. With another quick shove from behind, she stumbled through the open doorway. She collided with the counter, which rattled the guards’ empty beer bottles, and then she fell to the floor.

“Look, woman!” one of the guards shouted. “See who’s on the grill now.”

The grill was a metal table in the center of the room. A male prisoner was strapped to it, completely naked and flat on his back. The soles of his feet were purple and swollen. A guard stood at the foot of the table with a length of hardwood, ready to swing it at the prisoner’s arches like a baseball bat. Another guard tended to the electric transmitter and several strands of wire that ran directly to the prisoner’s torso and genitals. His chest and stomach were dotted with black burn marks. His testicles were grotesquely discolored and three times their normal size.

“Fernando!” the pregnant woman screamed, but the prisoner did not respond to her. He managed only to groan and whisper, “Water…please.”

“No, you can’t drink now!” said El Oso.

“I’m so thirsty,” the prisoner said, his voice fading.

“He can’t drink now or he’ll die!”

“He’s going to die anyway,” said another guard. He laughed as he forced metal beads down the prisoner’s throat-electrodes that would make the voltage cut like lightning through his insides.

“Swallow!” the guard with the beads ordered.

At the turn of the dial, the current flowed. The prisoner’s entire body tensed and then quivered. There was suddenly a bizarre symphony of party music on the radio, howling from the guards, and the blood-curdling screams of a dying man.

“You animals!” the woman shouted through tears, but she was no longer watching the torture of her husband. She remained on the floor, grimacing. El Oso assumed that she simply couldn’t bear to look, but the pained expression told more than that.

“My water just broke,” she said as she slumped onto her side, sobbing.

The guards stopped laughing. The prisoner lay utterly motionless. The pregnant woman was wailing. Party music continued to play in macabre fashion.

“Shit, now what?” said the man with the metal beads.

“Quick, help me carry her,” said El Oso. “Let’s find the doctor.”

T he moment Jack came through the door, the silence in the mobile command center didn’t seem natural to him. He understood that negotiations were in many ways a strategic game of chess, but some of the best chess players he’d ever seen-the old Cuban men in Little Havana-could talk beisbol, order espresso, and argue politics, all while contemplating their next move. Some could even engage in a simultaneous game of dominoes. To be sure, a hostage situation was no game. Still, Jack was beginning to fear that Sergeant Paulo might be overanalyzing things.

He also sensed more than a little tension between Paulo and Alicia. “Did I interrupt something?” said Jack.

“No, not at all,” said Alicia.

“Come right in,” said Paulo.

Each of them had spoken in a tone that was a bit too upbeat, voices that tried too hard to convince Jack that nothing was wrong. Jack said, “I can come back in a minute.”

“No,” said Paulo. “We need to do this now. Ready?”

Jack nodded, then realized that it was a dumb-ass thing to do when speaking to a blind man. “Ready,” he said.

Jack was definitely picking up some added stress in Paulo’s voice. Perhaps it was Theo’s outburst about explosives that had changed the lead negotiator, or at least affected his demeanor. Jack was about to say something about it, but Alicia was already dialing up Theo’s cell. Whatever it was, it seemed that Alicia was even less inclined to discuss it than Paulo.

The hollow sound of unanswered rings echoed in Jack’s ear-five times, then a sixth. Another ring and the call would go to voice mail, but finally Falcon picked up.

“Boom,” he said.

Jack gathered himself and said, “That’s not funny, Falcon.”

“Swyteck, is that you? Can’t say I was expecting that. What happened? Is my friend Paulo afraid to talk to the mad bomber?”

Jack glanced at Alicia, then at Paulo. He should have simply said “no,” but Jack couldn’t help himself, at least not when part of him was wondering the same thing. “Our only fear over here is that you might do something really stupid. You should be afraid of that, too.”

“You got my necklace?”

“First, we need to talk about your coat. More specifically, about what’s under your coat.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Are you wired with explosives?”

“Come on. That’s ridiculous. Where would I get a bomb?”

“My friend Theo says you have one.”

“Your friend Theo’s an asshole.”

“Maybe. But he’s not a liar.”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Most of the time that’s true. But every now and then he nails it. Here’s how we can settle this real quick. Theo’s cell phone has a camera function.”

“A what?”

Jack realized that a guy who’d been living in a car for over a decade might not know anything about camera phones. “Trust me, the phone takes pictures. Theo can explain how to use it. Take off your coat, snap a picture of your torso, and send it to us.”

There was silence, and Jack took some comfort in the fact that Falcon didn’t immediately tell him to take a flying leap.