“I’m sorry,” Rodgers said. “I don’t know the number. This phone is for them to call me.”
Hasan stepped closer. He held the lighter close to Rodgers’s chest, the flame burning low under his chin. Slowly, he began to raise the lighter.
“Are you speaking the truth?” Hasan asked.
Rodgers forced himself to relax as the heat spread across the soft flesh of his neck. Everyone who worked behind the lines in Vietnam was taught the rudiments of surviving torture. Beatings, burning with lighted cigarettes, electric current applied to sensitive areas, standing chin-deep in water for days on end, and having your arms pulled behind you as you’re hoisted to the top of a pole. All of those were practiced by the North Vietnamese, and sampled by Special Forces operatives who went over there. The key was not to be tense. Tension only tightened the flesh, stretching the skin cells and exacerbating the pain. Tension also focused the mind on the pain. Victims were told to try to count to themselves, divide the suffering into manageable segments of three or five seconds. They had to think of making it to the next plateau rather than to the end.
Rodgers counted as the heat intensified.
“The truth,” Hasan urged.
“It is… the truth!” Rodgers said.
Mahmoud spoke harshly to Hasan. The young man switched off the flame and sneered at the American. Hasan handed Mahmoud the telephone and then walked over to Colonel Seden.
The third terrorist was standing behind the Turkish officer. He held a pistol pointing down at the top of colonel’s head. Seden was sitting up, his back propped against the terrorist’s legs. The colonel’s head had been crudely bandaged with a sleeve from his jacket. The other sleeve had been used to make a tourniquet for his bloody right arm. He was barely conscious.
Hasan knelt beside Seden. He lit a cigarette, took a few puffs, then held the lighted tip to Seden’s chin. The dazed Turk shrieked. Hasan quickly cupped his hand on the colonel’s mouth.
Hasan said something in Turkish. Seden shook his head violently. Hasan put the lighted cigarette to Seden’s left earlobe. The Turk screamed again. He tried to push Hasan’s hand away. The man standing beside him used his free hand to pin the Turk. Hasan withdrew the cigarette.
Suddenly, Mahmoud called Hasan back. The young man jogged over. There was hurried, quiet conversation.
Rodgers tried to turn and see what was going on, but Mallmoud pushed his face back around with the barrel of the gun. Vigorously alert because of the searing pain in his neck, Rodgers listened attentively. He heard a beep on the cellular phone. Hasan had pressed a button. Why?
And then with sickening swiftness the answer came to him. Mahmoud had. summoned Hasan, the group’s linguist, to read the English words on the phone. Above one of the buttons was the word “Redial.” The camp was the last place Rodgers had called. Mahmoud was calling it back.
Hasan was standing just a foot away. Rodgers could hear the phone ringing, and he was numb as he waited to see who picked up and what they said. Of all the stupid, goddamn slipups—
“Hello?”
It was Mary Rose. Hasan seemed surprised to hear a woman’s voice, but he said nothing. Rodgers silently prayed for Mary Rose to hang up. He was tempted to shout for her to clear the ROC out, but didn’t think they could do it in time. Not if these three killed him and Seden and went after it.
“Hello?” she repeated.
Don’t say anything else, Rodgers thought. Please God, Mary Rose, don’t say a word—
“General Rodgers, I can’t hear you,” she said. “.I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can I’m going to hang up.”
She did. So did Hasan. With a look of triumph, he closed the phone and stuffed it back into Rodgers’s shirt pocket. He spoke with the other two men for a minute. Then he glared at Rodgers.
“General Rodgers,” he said. “You are not an environmentalist, I think. The American military is working with Turkish Security to find who? Us, perhaps?” Hasan moved his face closer until he was practically nose-to-nose with Rodgers. “So—you have found us. And this person who answered the phone. She is not in Gazi Antep.”
“She is,” said Rodgers. “At the police department there.”
“There are mountainous regions between us and Gazi Antep,” Hasan said disdainfully. “Your telephone would not have gotten through them. The only flat lands are to the southeast.”
“This has a satellite uplink,” Rodgers lied. “It goes over mountains.”
The man behind Colonel Seden said something in Arabic. Hasan nodded.
“He says you’re a liar,” Hasan hissed. “This ‘uplink’ requires a plate… a dish. We do not have time for this. We need to get to the Bekka Valley.”
The Arab turned angrily back to Colonel Seden. The officer was more alert than before and breathing heavily from his ordeal. Hasan knelt beside him again and flicked on the lighter. Rodgers could see the Turk’s expression in the light of the flame. It was defiant, God bless him.
Hasan asked Seden something in Turkish. The colonel didn’t answer. Hasan jammed a handkerchief in his mouth, grabbed a handful of the officer’s hair to hold his head steady, then put the flame under Seden’s nose. The colonel kicked roughly at the ground, his cries muffled by the handkerchief. This time, Hasan didn’t remove the flame. Seden’s screams rose higher and he writhed violently to try and get away.
Hasan shut the flame. He removed the handkerchief from Seden’s mouth. He spoke closely into Seden’s ear. The colonel was panting, his legs and arms trembling. Rodgers could tell from his condition that Hasan was about to “get inside” him. That was the point in torture when the pain and not the mind was in control of the body. The will had been broken and the conscious mind was only concerned with preventing further pain.
Hasan put the handkerchief back in the colonel’s mouth. He moved the lighter toward Seden’s left eyebrow. Seden shut his eye, but Rodgers knew that wouldn’t help.
The flame burned the hair of his eyebrow and crept up along his forehead. Seden was about to break. Rodgers didn’t want him to have to live with that guilt—if either of them survived.
“Stop!” Rodgers said. “I’ll work with you.”
Hasan removed the flame. He let go of Seden’s hair. The Turk folded forward at the waist.
“What do you want?” Rodgers asked. It was time to change tactics. He would stop stonewalling and try to compromise and disinform.
“At first, General, we wanted you to come as our hostages,” Hasan said. “But now we want something else.”
Rodgers didn’t have to ask what. “I will help you hide or leave the country,” Rodgers said. “But I won’t take you to my camp.”
“We know this land. We can find it without you,” Hasan said confidently. “But we will not need to. Your people must have vehicles where they are. You are going to tell them to come and get you.”
“I don’t think so,” Rodgers replied.
Hasan walked toward the general. “If Mahmoud and I approach your camp in the dark with the colonel’s motorcycle, wearing what is left of your clothes, do you think we will be stopped?”
“My people will challenge you, yes.”
“But not before we get very close with our weapons. And they will hesitate before firing,” Hasan said. “We will not hesitate. We cannot.”
Rodgers extrapolated quickly. Firebrand Private Pupshaw might not hesitate to open fire at the bike, but Private DeVonne might. And if Phil Katzen, Lowell Coffey, or Mary Rose Mohalley were taking the watch tonight, they might not even be armed. Rodgers couldn’t justify the almost certain loss of life, especially if these men ended up taking the ROC anyway.
“What guarantee have I that you won’t kill the colonel and me after I place the call?” Rodgers asked.
“We could have killed you already,” Hasan replied. “We could have telephoned your camp, said we found you bleeding and unconscious. They would have come for you. No, General. The fewer deaths, the better.”
“The more hostages the better, you mean.”
“God is compassionate and merciful,” Hasan said. “If you cooperate, then we will follow His example.”
“Your flood killed innocent people as well as believers,” Rodgers said. “Where was your mercy then?”
“The believers have gone to the High Pavilions of the Lord,” Hasan replied. “The others were content to dwell in our stolen homeland. They are victims of their own greed.”
“Not their greed,” Rodgers said. “The greed of generations long dead.”
“Nonetheless,” said Hasan, “if they continue to live there, they will continue to die.”
Mahmoud spoke impatiently to Hasan, who nodded.
“Mahmoud is correct,” Hasan said to Rodgers. “We have talked enough. It is time to telephone.” He opened the phone and handed it to Rodgers. “Press only the redial button. And don’t try and warn them. It will only lead to bloodshed.”