Chapter 30 - Ambiguity

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”

Gilda Radner

“I want you to stay here and wait for them to pass us over Jack.  I can act as the decoy and draw them off.” Len said.

He was invisible sitting deep within the snow crouched beneath the rock outcropping with only the top of his head exposed.  They both wore winter sunglasses with horizontal slits that only let in so much light and had no refractive properties.  Their white hoods were such good camouflage that very few would ever notice them.

“We’ve talked about this before.  I don’t in any way condone or agree with what you‘ve done.  I also know I can’t take back the past and at this time with what is happening you might actually be the best option for our country, as insane as you are.  I will stay loyal.  Because in the end, my relationship with you trumps the atrocities you’ve committed.  You must know that they will not have a single collapsing front but multiple waves.  They will not let us escape.  The resources applied against what you have done will be infinite.  Jesus, over a million dead or injured.  What the hell were you thinking?”

As they whispered in the wilderness the sounds of 10 battalions, 10,000 of the best trained soldiers in the world collapsed their circle around Len and Jack.  There would be no escape.  There was only one possible exit strategy where they would survive.  The military must believe that with them dead the United States would be crippled.  The military knew the stakes.  There wasn’t a single round, not a single propellant weapon held by any of the military personnel.  Every soldier knew the stakes, that if their targets should die, another major city or perhaps multiple cities would fall to nuclear conflagration.

“Then we stick with the plan, Jack.  They won’t attack with weaponry.  We will wait for them here with our backs to the wall and give up when they discover us and press.”

“They will torture us.”  Jack said.

“I know.” Len said.

In the non silence of the canyon amidst the gentle frozen breeze and the gurgling stream the sound of crunching and snapping reached their ears.  It was the cumulative sound of the first wave of soldiers approaching their position.

“Make them find us.”  Len said.

Both of them disappeared beneath the snow leaving only a breathing tube visible.  Above their position framed by a dreary sky a crow cawed flapping its wings to gain altitude.  A drone silently focused its infrared camera from just below the cloud cover on the canyon below.  Nothing.  A thousand well trained men walked, crawled, and rappelled towards Len and Jack’s position beneath the overhanging rock wall with no awareness they were there.  Each unarmed soldier plunged their six foot pole deep into the snow fearful of explosives.  Each soldier had collapsed within arms length of each other.  For Len and Jack there was no escape.

Jack heard the rope fall on the snow in front of his position and the distinct sound of rope sliding through a set of karabiners.  The repelling soldier landed lightly directly above Jacks body his feet landing squarely on Jack’s head.  Jacks head plunged deep into the snow and cracked resoundly on the rock directly in front of his position.  The soldier fell backward loosing his balance from the unexpected movement of the surface beneath his feet.

“Jack.”  Len screamed and rose from the snow.

Three startled soldiers jumped back in surprise.  One reacted without hesitation tackling Len.  Len fell over Jack’s body.  Two more soldiers jumped in securing Len. The soldier who had fallen over Jack had unclipped and dragged Jack’s body from its hiding spot beneath the snow.  Len looked on in horror seeing the blood running from the wide gash running down Jacks white flaccid face.

“Oh Jack.  Christ, Fucking get  a medic on him.”  Len screamed. He was hit so hard the air escaped his lungs and he doubled over.

“Bind him, hood him, and ship him.”  The sergeant in the detail surrounding Len ordered.

“Medic!” He screamed.

A stretcher was brought forward and Jack’s head and back were stabilized, he was bound, bagged, wrapped in blankets and strapped to the sled.  Ropes were thrown down from the top of the cliff and tied to the stretcher.  Jack was hauled up and helivaced for medical attention.  From start to finish, once discovered, the United States best had secured their targets in less than ten minutes.

Chapter 31 - Torture

"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage."

Friedrich Nietzsche

Len awoke, startled, into total darkness and complete quite.  His breath was strained against the dense black hood that covered his head.  The hood, his hands and feet were secured to what he assumed was a chair.  His head was rolled back and his neck, back, and butt hurt.  At first he couldn’t remember anything.  Slowly the memories of Jack lying in the snow with blood running from his face returned.  He sobbed uncontrollably for a few minutes, his breath escaping in rocking gasps.

From a control room somewhere outside the United States top US officials were discussing what to do.  They had devised a plan on how to get the required information from Len to disarm a system they had to assume existed.  There were only two mandates; Len must talk, and Len must be capable of disarming his system.  Anything, anything would be done to accomplish these two mandates.

Jake entered the room as the light was turned on.  Len sat on a steel chair dressed in prison grays, each leg bound to a chair leg, his arms bound behind him, a hood around his head with a collar bound to the back of the chair. The chair was bolted to the middle of the floor.

Len heard the door open as the light appeared beneath his hood.  He could not see, but felt the man standing in the entrance to the room.  Footsteps approached and went around to his back.

“It will be best if you close your eyes while I take this hood off.  I don’t want you to hurt yours eyes.”  Jake said.  He unlocked the lock that held the hood against the chair and pulled it over Len’s head.

Jake stepped back being careful to stay behind Len.  “Do you know who I am?”

“Len thought he had heard the voice before.  It was a long time ago.  He just couldn’t place it.”

“I’m Jake Felenstein.  I was assigned to your case way back when you were in Junior High and you had that science fair experiment about a directional nuclear blast.  Do you remember me?”

“Yes, I do.”  Len said.

“I am here on behalf of your government to ask you to give us the power to stop the horror you have unleashed on your country.”

“I know.” Len replied.

“I know you, Len.  You are compassionate.  I have no idea what happened that allowed you to consider and implement your plan.  I know you are feeling remorse.  Please, Len, tell me how to disarm this system.”

“How is Jack,” Len asked.

“I can’t tell you that, Len. I am sure you knew that.”

“Why you?”

“We felt that familiarity would be important.  I know you better than anyone.  You have been a big part of my job for over 40 years. You know they will stop at nothing to make you talk.  Nothing.”

“I know.” Len said.

“I don’t need to tell you what that means.  It isn’t just you, you need to worry about.”

“I know.” Len said.  Len was dispassionate. In a cold voice one that implied more power than any had yet the ability to wield Len said, “If you harm anyone else I know and care about, I will let your world fall about you so it exists no more.  You do not have the power to stop it and I will not stop it if you do not give me what I want.”

Jake placed the hood back over Len’s head, locked it to the chair and screamed, “Lights.”

The door opened a crack and the lights went out at the same time.  Jake exited the room passed the military guards on either side of the door and walked next door into the control room.

“He won’t talk.  You know that.  Jake said.

 “We’ll see.” The general said.

“At what price?  You have no idea the cost of his retribution.” Jake said.

  The general looked at Jake with disdain and motioned with his head to the top CIA interrogator who had been used in high profile cases in Iraq.  He had been responsible for extracting information from the hardest to break detainee, Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Len heard the door open and saw a glimmer of light come through his hood as the foot steps approached him across the room.  This time the footsteps stopped in front of him.  Learn heard his heavy breath as he reached over around his neck and unlocked the hood.  In one smooth motion the hood was taken off his head and a hard painful slap across his face was delivered.  A menacingly huge man stood in front of Len with his face inches away.  Len looked into the man’s eyes and saw conviction.  At that moment he was slapped repeatedly, hard, over and over again for a minute.  The huge man reached in front of Len grabbed the chain hanging from the collar around his neck a yanked it hard so that Len’s head slammed into the table.  He did this 10 times.

“Our time is short, Doctor, and you need to tell me how to turn off the bombs.”

Len’s bloody face was dripping on the table.  His chin rested against his chest.  His forehead and the orbits of both eyes were cut and bleeding.  Intense pain racked his head.  The torture had only begun.  This was the US governments accelerated program.  Everyone cracked.  Len would be no different.

The huge man went around behind Len and removed the chains that held him to the chair.  Two men came into the room and tore the clothes from his body.  With battery powered shears they removed all the hair on his body as the temperature in the room dropped to 50.  The two men left the room and a third entered while Len stood chained to the floor naked with blood dripping down his chest, freezing.

Another man entered the room with a fire hose.  He opened the nozzle and shot a high powered spray of water at Len that knocked him back against his chains.  The lights were turned up so bright that he could see through the blood on his eyelids.  Then came the sound.  79 decibels of train noise bombarded his senses.  His head was exploding.  He almost didn’t notice the men leave the room.  An eternity elapsed as he froze, wretched, and stood amidst the loss of his best friend and the pounding realization that a million people were dead at his hand.  He had only just begun.  As he stood, his mind retreated into something unimaginable, a complete calm.  His heart stopped racing, his body stopped retching, and he stood, dispassionate against the onslaught of pain.  The CIA interrogator had seen this before.  He knew what he was up against and immediately moved to water boarding.  They would not break Len without the threat of death.

 Len watched again as two men entered his room.  They put a hood over his head, locked it to his collar, unchained him from the floor and from the wall and marched him out of the room and down the hall.  He did not care.  He heard the running water as he walked.  He knew what lie ahead.  He had read about it.  There was no element of surprise.  It was completely dark in the room he entered.  The sound of water was loud.  He waited.  He was lifted up and placed on a board.  He felt the straps wrapped around his legs, chest, and arms.  His hood was removed and water was pouring over his head.  He felt himself suffocating.  It did not matter.

The agent watched expecting Len to give in at 15 seconds and then again at 30 and then a minute.  At two minutes Len was passing the most amount of time anyone had ever lasted.  There appeared to be no panic.  The top CIA agent wondered if Len was capable of suffocating without a fight.  He had never seen it.  At 2 minutes and 30 seconds Len was blue and the feeling of absolute feel welled up deep inside the agent.

He screamed, “My god, stop, He’s dying."

Len’s body was panicking, but Len was calm.  He was waiting.  He knew that it was they who needed him, not him them. In the control room the spectators, the top military of the United States, looked on in horror, presuming Len was dead. CPR was started on Len.

He was lying of a bed.  When he opened his eyes his was warm and comfortable.

Jake stood next to the bed, “What do we do now, Len?”

“I tell you what you want to know, but you must give me what I want first.” Len said.

 “Come on, Len.  You can’t believe that your government or any government would surrender control to you.”

 “You don’t really understand.  I can see that.  But you will have no choice.  Either I will die and you will all lose loved ones and enter a dark period for the whole world or you will capitulate.  There are no other alternatives.”

 “No, Len, You really don’t get it.  We are no longer going to torture you.  We saw that we would kill you.  We are going to do something much worse.  We are going to go somewhere none of us ever expected ourselves to go.  They are willing to use your family.”

 “I am not surprised.” Len said. “I expected it.”

Chapter 32 - Cry

“I have seen peace. I have seen pain,

Resting on the shoulders of your name.

Do you see the truth through all their lies?

Do you see the world through troubled eyes?

And if you want to talk about it anymore,

Lie here on the floor and cry on my shoulder,

I'm a friend.

I have seen birth. I have seen death.

Lived to see a lover's final breath.

Do you see my guilt? Should I feel a fright?

Is the fire of hesitation burning bright?

And if you want to talk about it once again,

On you I depend. I'll cry on your shoulder.

You're a friend.”

James Blunt

A soldier marched through the hospital door carrying a chair and bolted it to the floor in front of Len’s bed.  He was followed by two soldiers escorting his shackled and hooded wife.  She wore a loose fitting prison uniform, a collar like the one he had worn in the interrogation room, and harsh metal shackles on her wrists and ankles.  Len did not recognize her walk at first.  Her walk and posture were of someone who had no will left.  She was led more than escorted.  Len gasped that inaudible gasp of someone who is told their wife is going to die of cancer within the month.

The two soldiers sat Maria down in the chair and chained her to it.  The interrogator that had worked with Len walked into the room.  His huge expressionless face did not even recognize his existence.  He walked to the side of Maria, leaned over, unlocked her hood from the collar, and removed it.  Maria raised her head and gasped, “Len.”  The huge hand hit her cheek at the exact moment his named was being completely uttered.  He head snapped to the side so hard that the chain on her neck rattled.

The scream leaving Len’s mouth tore through the faces of the leaving guards but left the CIA agent untouched.  “Nooooooo.”  The next slap landed hard on Maria’s chest and stomach.  Her breath left in an audible whoosh.  Maria looked at Len as she gasped for a breath that would not return.  No words can describe Maria look of betrayal.

“Please.  Stop.  I will tell you what you want to know.” Len screamed.

The huge man left Maria’s side and walked over to Len.  “Well.”

“I need a piece of paper and pencil.”

A whisper left Maria’s mouth, folded against her chest, “Len, help me.”

“Release her, bath her, dress her, treat her with respect and I will talk.” Len said.

“You don’t really understand how this works.  Do you?”  The agent said.  “If you do not provide a proven answer I will move back to your wife and continue.”  He looked towards the door and indicated with his head to take care of Maria.

Immediately the two soldiers who were in earlier came into the room, unchained Maria from the chair, helped her to her feet, and started to escort her from the room.

“Len.”  Maria said again.

“You have to go Maria.  I will be alright.”  Len said.

A soldier entered the room and handed Len a pencil and pad.  Len wrote a formula on the pad followed by a sequence of 20 random words.  He handed the tablet back to the agent.

“Have someone enter this algorithm in a program and use the list of words as data along with the current date.  Delete the file found at the virtual network location that the program indicates and you will have disarmed the arsenal.” Len said.

“I need the exact location of the remaining bombs.”  The agent handed the pad back to Len.

Len wrote the longitude and latitude and height above sea level for two locations.

“Here.”

“How do I know this is all of the remaining locations?”  Asked the interrogator.

“You don’t.” Len said.

The interrogator left the room.  Jake sat frozen in the chair to the side of Len’s bed.  Len was spent crying uncontrollably in his bed.