I hand it to him and watch as he leaves the room, already dialing someone. I wait, confident of the outcome, and sure enough, he returns a few minutes later, saying, “All right, Mr. Kent. We’ll have our officer brought here within the next hour. You can talk to him, but that’s all. Our military will handle it from there.”
I give him a grim look. The only thing their military will handle is the traitor’s body, but Sharipov doesn’t need to know that yet. “Bring him,” is all I say, and then I lie back and close my eyes, hoping the throbbing pain in my skull subsides in the next hour.
I may not be able to lay my hands on the interpreter right now, but I can certainly get my pound of flesh here.
When the traitor arrives, the nurses give me crutches and lead me to another hospital room. It takes me a few minutes to get the hang of walking with the crutches—the fucking headache certainly doesn’t help—and by the time I get there, they have the guy sitting on a bed, with Colonel Sharipov and an M16-toting soldier flanking his sides.
“This is Anton Karimov, the officer responsible for the unfortunate incident with your plane,” Sharipov says as I hobble toward them. “You are welcome to ask him whatever questions you have. His English is not as good as mine, but he should understand you.”
One of the nurses drags a chair over, and I sit down on it, studying the profusely sweating man in front of me. In his early forties, Karimov is on the plump side, with a thick black mustache and a receding hairline. He’s still in his army uniform, and I can see circles of sweat staining his underarms.
He’s nervous. No, more than that.
He’s terrified.
“Who are the people who paid you?” I ask when the nurses leave the room. I decide to start off easy, as it might not take much to crack this man. “Who gave the order to shoot down our plane?”
Karimov visibly cringes. “N-nobody. Just a mistake. I clean the controls—”
I cut him off by lifting one of my crutches and putting the far end against his groin. Though I apply the lightest pressure to his balls, the man turns sickly pale.
“Who gave the order to shoot down our plane?” I repeat, looking at him. I can see that Sharipov is uneasy with my method of questioning, but I ignore him. Instead, I push the wooden stick forward, applying greater pressure to Karimov’s crotch.
“N-nobody,” Karimov gasps, scooting back to get out of the stick’s reach. “I clean the—”
I lunge forward. He lets out a high-pitched squeal as I pin his balls to the mattress with the stick. “Don’t fucking lie to me. Who paid you?”
“Mr. Kent, this is not acceptable,” Sharipov says, stepping between me and the prisoner. “We told you, questions only. If you do not stop—”
Before he finishes speaking, I’m already on my feet, propping myself up on one crutch as I lash out at the armed soldier with another. He doesn’t so much as lift his M16 before I hit him in the knee and he pitches forward, enabling me to grab his weapon. In the next second, I have the assault rifle pointed at Sharipov.
“Get out,” I say, jerking my chin toward the door. “You and the soldier both. Get the fuck out.”
Sharipov steps back, his face turning red. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing—”
“Out.” I lift the weapon to point it between his eyes. “Now.”
Sharipov’s jaw clenches, but he does as I say. The soldier limps out behind him, shooting me a venomous look behind his shoulder. I have no doubt they’ll come back with reinforcements, but it will be too late by then.#p#分页标题#e#
As soon as the door closes behind them, I turn my attention to Karimov. “Now,” I say, my tone almost pleasant as I point the gun at the traitor. “Where were we?”
The man’s eyes are wild with fear. “It—it was mistake. I said it before. Nobody pay me. Nobody—”
I squeeze the trigger and watch the bullets tear through his knee. The gunshots and the resulting screaming aggravate my headache, which adds to my rage. “I told you not to lie to me,” I roar when the man’s screams die down a notch. “Now, who paid you?”
“I d-don’t know!” He’s sobbing and clutching his knee as his blood soaks the hospital bed. “It was all email! All email!”
“What email?”
“M-my Yahoo! They transfer money to my bank for years and then they ask favors. S-small favors. I not meet them. Never meet them—”
“You don’t know who they are?”
“N-no,” he sobs out, trying to stop the bleeding with his pudgy hands. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know...”