Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

“This is not the story,” said Clay. “Not yet. You are about to see things that no one has seen or confessed to. Maybe then you and Nell will want the world to know.”

“I’ve got an open mind.”

Clay gazed at me. I sensed his attention leaving me, the room, maybe the whole country. Back to Romania? How could he not be drawn back there, over and over, like a moth to light? To white fire?

He turned and studied the bathroom mirror again, then stared out the crack in the front-window curtain. He looked at me with what looked like full focus and attention. In that moment he needed me. I saw in Clay what I’d seen in Tritt — an irresistible need to tell his story and confess his truth. It was stronger than their desires to forget, or to be understood or forgiven or even loved. Only Briggs Spencer seemed immune to the truth, in spite of the name of his book.

But, as the video rolled across the computer screen, Briggs Spencer began to change. I saw it first in his face, in the darkness around his eyes and the deepened lines around his mouth. His expression grew harder and more set by the day. His nose erupted in red acne. His movements became faster, abrupt at times, and this grim energy seemed to take him over. He cut off almost all of his thick gray hair. You could tell he’d done it himself because it was patchy and uneven. About that time he began shaving carelessly, or maybe using an older blade, because he had razor burns on his neck and nicks on his chin and under his nose. He also stopped wearing clean clothes. As the videos played on, Spencer’s clothing was the same tan T-shirt and camo pants, dirtier by the day. He lost weight. There were times when he would talk to himself, then remember that there might be cameras running, and stop. Or, sometimes, he would turn to the camera and make faces or comments. At one point, while he held a snarling Malinois just inches away from Aaban’s own snarling face, Spencer looked straight in the camera, widened his eyes, and said, “All the better to see you with!”

Sitting near him in the weakly lit room, I covertly observed Clay, rapt and unblinking. His expression was of anticipation, as if he weren’t quite sure what might happen next. “Clay? What are you thinking right now, as you watch yourself do this?”

“My first emotion is wonder. That Aaban could withstand all of that and never break. My second emotion is more wonder at how I withstood it. See, at Arcadia, I could hardly remember any of what we did at White Fire. From the first week I arrived at Arcadia, my mind got cloudier and cloudier, and my memories became very dim and uncertain. I’d ask Dr. Whipple and later Dr. Hulet why the pills were making my past fade away. And they told me the meds would not affect memory. But they were wrong. And Morpheus — that’s a nickname for Don — he’d give me all sorts of special pills, plus the regular meds. He told me Dr. Spencer said I might appreciate them. The special meds made me see and hear things that, later, I knew weren’t there. So, now, when I see what I did on video, it’s like seeing these things for the first time. With my meds gone and this video to watch, I’m back there, Mr. Wills. I’m experiencing it again. It’s hard to believe. It’s painful. Even for me, the torturer.”

Clay looked at me gravely. “I want you to watch this last part. It’s the heart of our story. It’s what I want the world to know. So please watch what happened. A lot of this Vazz and Tice and I shot without Dr. Spencer knowing. He was pretty much out of it by then. Vodka straight from the bottle as he worked. Plus the bliss bullets that Tice gave out. Dr. Spencer didn’t care about anything but Aaban. Me and Vazz set up our Flips and phones and let ’em roll, so it’s not real clear. I’ll fill you in on what’s going on. This is five weeks after Roshaan arrived.”

At first, the video was just more of the same. A mood of near tedium hovered in the room as Spencer questioned Aaban, who was naked and chained to the ceiling. The same questions as before. Over and over. Bin Laden. Next attack. With every insufficient answer, Spencer slapped his face and Aaban either snapped and tried to bite him or laughed. Clay and Vazz sat across the room, on either side of Roshaan, who was sometimes silent and at other times crying piteously.

Then suddenly, Roshaan rose and charged toward his chain-hung father. He came from the background, a blur. Chaos. Clay tackled him at Aaban’s straining feet, wrenching the thin boy into a choke hold and locking his legs around Roshaan for total control. The camera panned wildly to Spencer, then back to Roshaan and Clay, clinched tight together on the floor, Roshaan red-faced and bucking. Aaban kicked Clay in the back of his head, hard. Vazz rushed in and cranked Aaban up so high that he could stand only on the balls of his bare feet. The Malinois in the corner snarled and thrashed on its chain. Spencer cussed the dog while it tore at the air. Then he trudged over to Clay and Roshaan, and I thought he was going to kick the boy. Straining for balance, Aaban yelled his son’s name.

Tice, the cameraman, shot Spencer face-on as he stared down at Roshaan with what looked like wild contempt. Clay held fast and the boy stopped thrashing as his father bellowed at him from above. Spencer stepped past Clay and Roshaan to stand directly in front of Aaban, and the two men roared at each other from inches away, Spencer cursing and Aaban yelling I knew not what, and the Malinois broke loose and leaped toward Aaban, and Vazz caught the dog midair and crashed to the stone floor with the dog’s jaws clamped and ripping his shoulder. Tice abandoned the camera, but it settled with the lens aimed up, recording the mute black smokehouse ceiling and the screams and snarls below.

Two minutes went by. Just the ceiling and the unholy noise. Judging by the sounds, Tice and Vazz must have thrown the dog out the front door of the smokehouse.

Then came a gradually ominous silence.

In front of me, Clay stared at the monitor, transfixed.

By the time Tice could man the camera again Clay was kneeling over the sprawled and inert Roshaan, holding two fingers to his carotid while Spencer threw handfuls of water into the boy’s face.

“Clay, what the fuck?” demanded Spencer.

“No pulse.”

“Roshaan!” Aaban boomed out from off-screen. “Gap zadam!”

“It’s there,” said Spencer. “Find it.”

“No pulse, sir. Vazz, check his eyes.”

The camera came in close on Roshaan’s face. White and lifeless. Clay held out a dog tag to the boy’s nostrils, looking for warm breath in the cold room. Vazquez, bleeding from his right shoulder, checked the eyes — clear and unfocused, and with the lids left open — unblinking.

“He’s not breathing,” said Clay.

“What is this bullshit?” snapped Spencer.

“Roshaan? Bedaar kardan!”

“I’m trying chest compressions, sir,” said Clay.

“Do ’em. Do ’em, I said!”

Aaban yelled off-screen as the camera wheeled from Clay to Spencer to Clay again. Clay straddled Roshaan with his knees and went to work with the heels of his hands. The boy’s slender body quaked with each compression, but to me it looked like it was Clay’s energy going through him, not his own. Vazz hooked a thumb into Roshaan’s mouth, arched back the boy’s head, and breathed into him between the compressions.

“How about Doctor What’s-his-name?” asked Spencer.

“He went back to Washington last week, sir, remember?” said Donald Tice, loud and off-screen, behind the camera.

“Indeed I do.” Spencer knelt beside Clay, took one of Roshaan’s wrists, and pressed two fingers to the artery. “This kid’s flatlining on me. Harder, Clay! Faster!”