Situation Room. Jack Mars

Luke had watched a live demonstration of the technique once upon a time. A hardened CIA agent, a man who had come to the agency out of the Navy SEALs, who had been in-country in numerous hotspots, was the test subject.

      How they convinced this man to volunteer was something Luke never found out. Maybe he got a bonus. It should have been a big one. The agent seemed relaxed before the demonstration. He was laughing and joking with his soon-to-be tormentors. Once the procedure started, he transformed instantly. He lasted twenty-four seconds before he used the safe word to make it stop. They timed it.

      “You have to know that this is against the Geneva Conventions,” Li said, his voice shaking just a little. “It’s against…”

      “Last I checked, we’re not in Geneva,” Luke said. “In fact, we aren’t anywhere at all. As I mentioned earlier, this facility doesn’t exist, and neither does anyone named Li Quiangguo.”

      Luke busied himself with the other implements he had taken out of the closet. They included two large watering cans, like the kind a nice older lady would use to water her gardens. There were also locks for the manacles and leather straps on the board. And finally there were a number of medium-sized heavy cloth towels and a roll of cellophane. If the towels didn’t work, they could always move on to the cellophane. Luke happened to know that the CIA didn’t bother with cloth towels.

      “Man,” Ed said. “I haven’t done anything like this since Afghanistan. It’s been at least five years.”

      “Then your experience is more recent than mine,” Luke said. “So we’ll let you do the honors. How’d it go when you did it?”

      Ed shrugged. “Scary. We had a couple of them die on us. It’s not like some of the other methods I’ve seen. You can electrocute people all day, as long as the current is right. It hurts but it doesn’t kill them. People do die from this. They drown. They get brain damage. They have heart attacks. This is real.”

      “Listen,” Li said. His entire body was trembling now. “Waterboarding is against all the laws of war. It is recognized as torture by every international body. You are committing a human rights violation.”

      “Man, you’re all about rules and regulations all of a sudden,” Ed said. “My way of thinking, someone deliberately floods out thousands of people, I’m not dealing with a human at that point. I’d say you forfeited your human rights.”

      “Guys,” Swann said. “I don’t feel right about this.”

      Luke glanced at him. “Swann, I told you it was a good time for you to leave. Take about twenty minutes. That should be plenty.”

      Swann’s face turned red. “Luke, everything I’ve read says that this won’t even give you decent intelligence. He’ll just lie to make it stop.”

      Luke couldn’t remember a single time when Swann had questioned his actions before. He’d be curious to know if Swann was questioning his actions now. Either way, he just shook his head.

      “Swann, you can’t believe everything you read. I’ve seen this get actionable, accurate intelligence from people in a matter of minutes. And because Mr. Li is our guest here, we’ll be able to quickly verify any claims he makes. We can also revisit those claims with him if they turn out to be inaccurate. The truth is they don’t want people to do this because as Li so accurately points out, it qualifies as torture. But it works, and in the right circumstances, it works really, really well.”

      Luke gestured around the empty room. “And these are the right circumstances.”

      Swann was staring now. “Luke…”

      Luke raised a hand. “Swann. Out. Please.” He gestured at the door.

      Swann shook his head. His face was very red now. He seemed on the verge of trembling himself. “Why did you even call me in for this?” he said. “I don’t work for the FBI anymore, and neither do you.”

      Luke almost smiled. He didn’t know how Swann really felt, but he couldn’t have scripted this better than it was turning out. This was good cop, bad cop on steroids.

      “By the end of this day, I’m going to need your skills,” Luke said. “But not for this. Now get lost. Please. And notice how polite I’ve been so far. In a minute I’m going to lose my temper.”

      “I’m going to lodge a formal complaint,” Swann said.

      “Please do. You know who I work for. Your complaint will get as far as the office shredder. It will go right down the memory hole. But do it anyway, as an intellectual exercise.”

      “I plan to,” Swann said. With that, he went out the door. He pulled it tight behind him, but did not slam it.

      Luke exhaled. He looked at Ed. “Ed, can you please fill up these watering cans at the kitchen sink? We’re going to need them in a minute.”

      Ed gave a devilish half-smile. “With pleasure.”

      As he picked up the watering cans, he stared at Li. He showed Li the crazy giant eyeball look that he sometimes used on people. It was a look that gave even Luke the willies. It made Ed seem psychotic. It made him look like a man who found sadism pleasurable. Luke wasn’t sure where that look came from, or what it meant. He didn’t really want to know.

      “Brother,” Ed said to Li. “Your day is about to get a lot longer.”

      As Ed busied himself in the cabin’s tiny kitchen, Luke looked closely at Li. The man was quaking now. His entire body vibrated as if some low current of electricity was running through it. His eyes had become wide and scared.

      “You’ve seen this before, haven’t you?” Luke said.

      Li nodded. “Yes.”

      “On prisoners?”

      “Yes.”

      “It’s bad,” Luke said. “It’s very bad. No one holds up against it.”

      “I know,” Li said.

      Luke glanced at the kitchen. Ed was taking his sweet time in there. “And Ed… you must know how he is. He enjoys this kind of thing.”

      Li didn’t say anything to that. His face turned bright red, and then gradually morphed to dark red. It seemed like there was an explosion going on inside him, and he was trying to contain it. He squeezed his eyes shut. His teeth clenched, then started chattering. His whole body began to shudder.

      “I’m cold,” he said. “I can’t do this.”

      Just then, something occurred to Luke.

      “They’ve done it to you,” he said. “Your own people.” It wasn’t a question. He knew it like he knew his own name. Li had been waterboarded before now, and in all likelihood, it was the Chinese government that had done it.

      Suddenly Li’s mouth opened in a scream. It was a silent scream, his jaws opened to their full extension. It somehow reminded Luke of a werewolf howling in agony during the bone-breaking transition from human to canine form. Except there was no sound. Almost nothing came out of Li, just a low gagging sort of noise deep in his throat.

      His entire body was stiff now, every muscle tensed as if the electrical current had just gone up ten notches.

      “You were a traitor,” Luke said. “An enemy of the state. But you were rehabilitated in prison. Torture was part of the process. They made you into an agent, but not a valuable one. You’re one of the expendables. That’s why you were out here in the field, and that’s why you had cyanide pills. If you got caught, you were supposed to kill yourself. There was almost no way you wouldn’t get caught, right? But you didn’t do it, Li. You didn’t kill yourself, and now we’re the only hope you’ve got.”

      “Please!” Li shouted. “Please don’t do it!”

      The man’s body shook uncontrollably. More than that. A smell started to come from him, the thick humid smell of feces.

      “Oh my God,” he said. “Oh my God. Help me. Help me.”

      “What’s going on here?”