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.”