Cooperate

“What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything wrong!” Ranell insisted. Deep inside, he still believed there must be some terrible mistake. “This can all be worked out. Call the embassy!” he begged. What he feared most was that if he signed something now, it might be used against him later.

The interrogator was smoking a cigarette. He took a puff, and then ground the lighted tip into Ranell’s cheek. Ranell screamed and the interrogator pulled the cigarette away, took another puff, and then moved the brightly glowing tip just in front of Ranell’s right eye. “I’d hate to have to damage that pretty blue eye of yours.”

He did not even attempt to withhold any information, but they struck him again and again. “List the assets of the GML corporation. How many ships? How many planes? How many trucks? Where are they located?”

“I think we have about…” Ranell choked and spit blood from his broken nose as he tried to remember.

“We need exact numbers, not your pathetic guesses!” He suffered a brutal blow to the back of the head. They were using a length of heavy rubber hose. It knocked him sprawling face-first onto the concrete floor.

The two guards grabbed Ranell by the armpits and prepared to strike him again. “No, please!” Ranell screamed at the agony he knew was coming. “I’ve got the exact numbers on my computer. I’ll give them to you! I’ll give you everything! Please don’t!”

They dragged him into his office and struck him again as he tried to get his computer to boot up. When fear made him momentarily forget his login password, one guard held down his hands while the other used a heavy book to break his fingers.

Ranell’s mind slipped into a delirium of pain and fear. But at some point, he was cast roughly down on the broom closet floor that had been converted into a tiny prison cell.