Requiem for an Assassin

truth, it’s hard for me not to be sick just talking to you from this close.”
    “What you don’t know about Al-Jib,” Hilger said, “would fill a book. And when AQ does get a bomb or a radiological device, you and your friend can thank yourselves for it. You fucked up an operation that would have stopped it.”
    “That what you tell yourself when the Ambien’s not working and you’re lying awake at night?”
    It was strange. Initially, seeing Dox helpless had eclipsed Hilger’s anger at the man’s previous interference, at the long recovery Hilger had endured after getting hit with that chair. But now that brief and improbable moment of sympathy was receding so quickly, it almost seemed not to have happened at all.
    Hilger was beginning to accept that this wasn’t going to be an easy one. True, the information he wanted from Dox would entail only a minor betrayal, but the man’s honor and self-image required him to part with nothing without a fight. And, although his repeated requests now were likely to prove as futile as Dox’s resistance later, Hilger had his own reasons for trying one more time. It would make the memories of what happened next easier to deal with.
    “I’d prefer a phone number,” he said, his tone still reasonable. “Or an e-mail address. Or the URL for a secure electronic bulletin board. Why don’t you give me one of those instead?”
    “I don’t know how to contact him,” Dox said. “He contacts me.”
    “How?”
    “He calls me. Always from a different number. But I haven’t heard from him in months.”
    “Not true, Dox. You saw him three months ago. In Barcelona.”
    Dox blinked, then instantly recovered. “I was in Barcelona to take in the Gaudí architecture and meet some nice Spanish ladies. You’re fishing and you know it.”
    Hilger had been fishing—he knew from customs records Dox had spent four days in Barcelona, and had no idea whether he’d seen Rain there. But the gambit had paid off with that single, involuntary blink.
    A long moment went by. Hilger said, “Last chance. Do you have something you want to say?”
    Dox glanced at his feet again, then turned his head to Hilger and smiled. “It looks bleak for our hero, I’ll say that.”
    Pancho smiled and picked up a bath towel. He started to move in.
    “No,” Hilger said. “You’re running too hot, and you know it.” He nodded to Demeere. “Do it.”
    Demeere took the towel from Pancho. Pancho looked at Dox and said, “You’re lucky, pendejo. This time.”
    Dox smiled and said something in Spanish again. Pancho’s nostrils twitched and he strained forward like a Doberman on a leash.
    “Outside,” Hilger said.
    Pancho shook his head. “No, I’m okay. If you’re not going to let me do it, at least let me watch. I want to hear him blubbering with his voice as high as a little girl’s.”
    “Out,” Hilger said again.
    Pancho shot one more glance at Dox, then nodded and started to head for the door. Dox said, “I’m going to miss you, Uncle Fester. Y’all come back and visit, you hear?”
    Then Demeere was lifting Dox’s head, wrapping the towel around it with clinical ease. Dox tried to twist away, but the reflex was useless. Guthrie stood astride him on the table and turned on the hose. He looked at Hilger. Hilger nodded.
    Guthrie aimed the hose onto Dox’s chest. The cold water hit the towel and immediately soaked through it. Dox twisted his head left and right, but Guthrie kept the water flowing onto the towel. A minute passed, during which Hilger knew Dox was holding his breath. Then suddenly the big man was choking and coughing, his body bucking against the table and the restraints around his wrists and ankles. Guthrie kept the water flowing for a few more seconds, then diverted it to the side.
    The advantage of the towel was that it modulated the amount of water the subject could actually swallow, while still causing suffocation and thus the sensation of drowning. The sensation was what you wanted because that was enough to produce the panic response. Actual drowning was counterproductive because when you’re unconscious, you’re no longer panicking, and being revived from drowning can sometimes produce euphoria—not exactly the goal of a hostile interrogation. Actual drowning was also risky: if the subject died, you sure as hell couldn’t interrogate him. Besides, performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to save Abdul the terrorist suspect you were torturing a minute