His feet have been wrecked by blows from a rifle butt. A couple of ribs are probably cracked, and he’s got a hematoma on his face.
He steps out into the corridor, where five men, all Cambodians, are waiting for him.
He sets himself in motion. Two guards in front of him, three behind. He passes other cells. The walk seems interminable. He crosses a courtyard.
Meat and onions. It’s a stew.
The smell of the kitchens reaches him. The sickly sweet and spicy air reminds him of the food stalls on the streets of Bangkok. A lifetime ago.
The guards take him up two flights of stairs, enter another lugubrious corridor, and finally stand him in front of a steel door. One of the guards knocks twice. A peephole opens for an instant and then closes again.
Kasper is brought inside. The first face he sees is the one he fears the most.
Darrha.
The lieutenant shows him where to go.
The room looks like a doctor’s office: gray plastered walls, white ceiling, fluorescent lights. High up on one wall, two windows, grated and barred. Another torture room, he imagines.
The seated man facing him—blue suit, dark tie—is a Westerner. So is the one standing behind him, but he’s not wearing a tie.
Kasper has never seen them before.
The seated man says to him in English, “Good morning. Have a seat.”
He’s an American. Kasper recognizes a southern accent.
A guard moves a plastic chair closer to him. Two guards seize his arms and handcuff his wrists behind the chair. He offers no resistance. Wasting his strength won’t help him. In the past week, he’s eaten very little and drunk very little. Suffered a great deal.
“Are they treating you badly?” the American asks.
Kasper looks at him, sizes him up. Latin features, dark eyes and hair, short, squat, grumpy. A bulldog that came out bad. Forty years old, maybe somewhat older. The one leaning on the wall is younger, thirty-five or so, blond and apparently in good shape. An American like his colleague, probably. But for the moment, he’s not opening his mouth.
“Did you hear me? Are they treating you badly?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you don’t look all that great.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
“Right,” the grumpy fellow says with a sneer. “I’ve heard you’re a man of the world.”
“Who are you?”
“Let’s say we’re people in a position to help you.”
If he needed confirmation, now he’s got it. So it’s just as he thought. And exactly what he was afraid of. The Cambodians are the muscle, the Americans the brains.
“People who can get you out of here,” the grumpy American elaborates. “All you have to do—”
“You’re the people who got me detained,” Kasper interrupts him. “You’ve committed a crime. A very serious crime. Where’s my friend?”
“He’s fine,” says the one leaning on the wall. “Whitebeard’s doing better than you.” This one’s an American too, as predicted. Surely from the same Company.
“You two are charged with tax crimes and money laundering. If you stay in their custody, you’re finished. If instead you ask for protection from the U.S. government, then this nightmare will be over. Immediately. Your friend has already agreed—”
“Sure he has.”
“Believe me. He’s smart. He understands—”
“He doesn’t have a fucking thing to do with any of this.”
“So much the better. Now it’s your turn. Come on. Sign the documents and pack your bags. They won’t lay another hand on you.”
Kasper laughs in his face. “They, huh?” He glances over at Darrha, standing impassively in his corner. “They don’t even take a dump without your permission. The Cambodians just follow your orders. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? And you want me to sign something for you? You’re crazy. What you’ve done is a disgrace. You dishonor the country my father was born in.”
The grouch looks amused, but then he scowls like one who, were it up to him, wouldn’t devote quite so much time to mutual ball-busting with some smart-ass Italian. He says, “You’re telling us our offer doesn’t interest you?”
“I’m telling you to go fuck yourselves.”
The one leaning against the wall changes position but stays where he is. He says, “We’re not the same people you worked for. They fucked you over. We’re the good guys.”
“Give me a b—”
“I represent the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Right. I’m with the Vatican, myself.”
“And I’m with the FBI,” the grouch adds. “We arrived in Phnom Penh today. We’re here specifically for you and your friend.” He opens a sort of gray credit card wallet and shows it to Kasper.
FBI. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
That’s what it says, in big letters. But it doesn’t mean a thing. As far as Kasper’s concerned, it’s just another trap. He shakes his head. “Go fuck yourself,” he repeats.
“You’re not ever getting out of here. You know that, don’t you?” says the blond one.
“If you say so.”
“The prisons here aren’t like the ones in Italy, where you drop in every so often, stay for a few days, and then come out again and go right back to fucking up. Here they’re serious. There’s a reeducation program already in place for you. And if you stay here, we can’t help you.”
Kasper’s familiar with such a program. He’s already been given a few classes during his first days in prison. And now he realizes that the whole thing has a “Made in USA” stamp on it.
In the week Kasper has been detained they’ve hooded him, beaten him, tortured him.
They’ve crammed him into a cement niche a very thin person could barely fit into. It’s the live burial technique, used to make you grasp what it feels like to be flung into a grave. They close you up and leave you in there for hours. If Kasper wasn’t driven mad, it’s only because, as a well-trained agent, he was able to control his claustrophobic panic.
They’ve waterboarded him in the Cambodian style: tied to a kind of rocking chair, a towel on his face, and water poured on the towel, choking him.
Kasper recognized the methods. They’re the same ones used in Guantánamo.
