Ballistic(108)

The gringo soon fainted, but smelling salts returned him to his torture session, lest he miss any of the good parts.

Jerry Pfleger stood against the wall to the side; he’d turned away from the cruelty long ago, and he just stared at the moldy bricks in front of him. His body shook; he told himself it was the cold, morguelike air in the basement dungeon, but that wasn’t it at all.

He was scared.

He wondered if this was all worth one million dollars.

Jerry looked back over his shoulder when the torturer waddled over to a rubber bucket on the floor against the wall and retrieved a well-soaked iron rod from it. Jerry winced again and turned his head back into the corner. Listened as the dungeon master spoke to his prisoner softly as he prepared the device. “You have suffered much already, amigo, and the only way to prevent more suffering is to tell me where we can find Señora Gamboa.”

The long device dripped black oil, and the Little Butcher held it up like it was some sort of prize.

Court’s head hung low, but still he looked at it. Pfleger watched the muscles of the man’s body tighten in revulsion.

He knew where that thing was going.

The elevator again came to life, and the car began to lower slowly.

The rod went back into the bucket, but the torturer said, “We will get back to our fun in a moment, my friend. You now have some time to think about things.”

The freight door opened, and a large, hooded man in a tropicweight poplin suit was led in by the two men in federale uniforms. The large man’s arms were not bound. He was put directly under the light at the center of the room, and then his hood was removed. He recoiled at the bare bulb and then focused on the scene before him.

The nude prisoner, bloody and wet, chained to the metal fence that was bolted into the wall and fixed to iron posts in the cement floor. The wires running to the rolling cart, then on to the battery on the dolly.

The blond man took a few more moments to look around, to size up the six other men in the room with him, and to sniff the air. He took in the odor of decaying human flesh. He looked around impassively for a few seconds more, seemingly unfazed by all in view, as if torture chambers were nothing much to see.

Then he spoke, his words calm and confident like he was a man comfortable with these surroundings. In Spanish he said, “It looks like you guys started the party without me.”





Court knew an old coworker from the Agency was coming to identify him. He fully expected to be staring face to face with Zack Hightower, his former team leader in the Goon Squad.

But it was not Zack Hightower.

It was Hanley. Matthew Hanley.

Gentry had not seen Matt in more than five years, and even back then they had never spent much time around each other. Hanley was a SAD executive; he had run Gentry’s old unit, Task Force Golf Sierra, from Langley, passed instructions primarily through team leader Hightower, who relayed orders on to the rest of the men.

Court had last seen Zack back in the spring, and Zack had told him Hanley was out of SAD and riding a desk somewhere in the Third World, his fall from grace the fault of Gentry himself.

And now here he was, in a secret torture chamber operated by a vicious drug cartel somewhere in or near Mexico City.

No words were spoken between the two at first. Instead Hanley addressed the fat man behind the table. “You in charge here?”

“You might say this is my office,” came the proud reply.

Hanley just nodded. Then he stepped closer to Gentry.

“I must ask that you do not touch the prisoner,” said the Black Suit from behind. The two federales in the room took a step forward but stopped when Hanley nodded again.

The thick American kept his hands to his side, but he moved even closer to the prisoner. He only stopped his slow advance when the two men’s faces were inches apart.

Court looked too wounded to speak; his eyes were swollen and vomit coated his bloody lips. As far as Hanley could tell, the younger man was out of it. But Gentry did speak, his words soft but strong enough, loud enough, to be understood by anyone in the room who spoke English. “Do what you gotta do to me, Matt, but the guy in the corner is a State Department dip working for the Black Suits.”

Matt Hanley turned, glanced at the man in the corner. Pfleger’s black balaclava mask worn with khakis and a white short-sleeved button-down were an odd combination in a room where the other three masked men were decked out in full SWAT gear and guns. Pfleger did not speak, did not move. Just stared back. Hanley shrugged. “Not my problem.”

Court spoke again, though the words came out through winces and muscle spasms. “He’s . . . he’s running a criminal ring . . . selling visas to illegals.”

Hanley glared at the bound prisoner. “Yeah?” He turned back to Pfleger again. “How’s business?”