Termination Orders(79)

“What are the names of those who trained with you?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” The Russian sank his fist again into Morgan’s gut. Use your training, thought Morgan, through the pain. Take yourself out of yourself. Go somewhere else.

The beating continued until Morgan lost track of time. For what seemed like days, he was brutally hammered, with no sleep, no food, and no water. They periodically cut his head free, covered it with a wet towel, tilted his face toward the ceiling, and poured water over his nose and mouth. It felt like drowning every time. They threatened him with electricity and held an ice pick to his face, hovering inches from his eye.

Whenever he lost consciousness, he was doused with cold water, and then the beatings would start again. He didn’t know how long this went on—how much time passed—until one day, the enormous Russian smacked him out of his delirious fog to attention when he told him, “We have got another American here with us. Another damn spy. He is not so tough as you, but we are convinced that he has told us everything he knows.”

He heard yells and detected some movement past the door to the room. “Please! Please, no!” It was a voice he didn’t recognize, but it was American, all right. “I won’t tell anyone—just don’t kill me!”

He told Morgan, “If you do not talk, he will die.”

Morgan felt a wrench in his gut worse than any of the Russian’s blows, and it twisted every time he heard the man pleading for his life in an adjacent room.

“Tell us what you know!”

Morgan gave him a look of furious resolve that said everything. The Russian said something to a man, who then left the room. The American was still screaming.

“I have a family! Please! Please, d—”

A gunshot, and then there was silence.

“Bastards!” cried Morgan. “I’ll kill you for this. I’ll kill you all!”

The Russian crouched in front of him and said, in an almost friendly voice, “No, my friend. You will not kill anybody. You can no longer save your countryman, but you can still save yourself. Just answer our questions.”

Morgan spat, the bloody saliva hitting the man in the face. The man struck back with a punch that landed squarely on Morgan’s nose with a crunch. It bled profusely. The Russian got up, wiping himself with disgust, and addressed another one of the men in the room.

“He will not talk,” he said. “It is time.”

The Russian pulled a gun from inside the waistband of his pants.

This is it, he thought. There was no more hope of rescue or escape. His only satisfaction would be to know that he had not broken. He had not betrayed his country.

He felt the cold barrel of a gun on the back of his head.

“One last chance. Where is the secret training facility?”

“Go to hell.” He waited for the gunshot. A strange thing, to wait for a gunshot he would never be aware of, that would scramble his brain before he had the chance to feel a thing. But he faced the thought of death head-on. He would die honorably rather than talk. He would not have the chance to serve his country as he had hoped, but at least he had this. This bullet would be his service, his sacrifice.

But it didn’t come. The barrel of the gun was withdrawn. Through the thick haze of hunger and dehydration, he thought he heard laughter.

The blinding light in his face was shut off for the first time since he woke up in that chair, and bright, clear lights came on overhead. Through swollen eyes, he saw two men entering the room. They cut his neck loose and then undid the cuffs. Morgan tried to swing his fist at one of them, but he was too weak, and he collapsed to the floor from the effort.

One of them put a canteen to his mouth, and he drank through ragged, bloody lips, sweet, cold water flowing into his mouth, which was so parched, it hurt. The two men helped him to his feet. His knees buckled, but the men held him up. He heard approaching footsteps and saw the vague outline of a man appear at the door. It took a minute for his mind to make sense of what he was seeing.

It was Powers.

“Traitor! Goddamn traitor!”

With the last of the strength that was left in his limbs, he tried to hit him, still yelling, “Traitor! Traitor! You’re gonna fry for this!” while the men supporting him held him back. He could barely tell that Powers was trying to talk to him, until suddenly the words got through to him.

“It’s okay, Cobra,” he was saying. “It’s okay. You just passed your final exam.”





CHAPTER 36


“I don’t know what you think you’re trying to prove, Cobra. What good are those photographs to you if you’re dead?”