“Promises, promises.”
Leighton couldn’t see much but he did make out what appeared to be a nod from Bukatem’s silhouette. A moment later someone raised his legs and he could feel the heat from the spotlights as they were placed much closer to him. Then his legs were forced into some kind of container filled with water; Leighton heard the slosh as his feet hit the surface and his shoes and socks were immediately saturated.
“You going to give me a bath?” Leighton snickered. “I’ve never been treated so well by the bad guys.”
“Your flippancy annoys me, Mr. Leighton,” Bukatem replied. “It’s little more than false bravado and something I can assure you’ll come to regret in a moment.”
“Oh yeah? Well—”
Leighton never finished the sentence as excruciating pain lanced from his groin, traveled up his chest and set the very tips of his hairs on fire. So it felt that way. Leighton couldn’t be sure but he thought he let out a scream and still it seemed like that would’ve been impossible because he vomited unproductively. Mostly the bile burned his throat in the aftermath of the shock and he experienced more cramps and dry heaves than anything else. The cycle was repeated a second time, then a third, and on the fourth Leighton thought he would pass out.
The CIA man realized they were applying some type of electric shock to his body—hence his feet in the water—but it was probably connected to an independent power source since he didn’t notice any flicker in the lights that practically seared his face. Their proximity, coupled with the electric shock, made it feel as if Bukatem’s men had set his body on fire.
“What?” Bukatem’s voice seemed to reverberate inside his head, as if listening to the man speak under water. “Nothing to say now? I’m disappointed, Mr. Leighton. I thought you would definitely conjure a response to this newest form of interrogation!”
Another series of two jolts, these more painful than the first, followed Bukatem’s taunting.
“What do you have to say to that?” Bukatem continued. “Do you understand now that I can generate this pain as long as I choose? You see, Mr. Leighton, I invented this technique. The food and water we gave you contains a special concoction of my own design. This prepares your body for what follows, and intensifies the pain. Oh, do not worry…there won’t be any permanent damage. But you can rest assured that within an hour you will beg me to kill you.”
Another jolt came and Leighton wasn’t prepared for it this time. He bit his tongue and immediately tasted the salty, coppery blood from it. To some degree he regretted being so cocky but there wasn’t much he could do about it now. Not that it would’ve mattered. Bukatem would have employed this torture no matter what Leighton told him or what questions he answered. He could have sold his mother, his whole damn country down the river, and Bukatem wouldn’t have faltered for a moment. This had been planned, coldly, calculatingly, decisively from the beginning.
“Now, American…let’s begin to discuss your recent activities in Khartoum,” Bukatem said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
An estimated fifty-two thousand people lived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The city bordered the northern edge of Camp Shelby and like any military town it provided adequate housing needs to officers and other select personnel who chose to live off post. U.S. military billets were great for single enlisted men, permanent party and the like, but they weren’t decent fare for a family man like Colonel Jordan Scott. The Scotts had acquired a split-level townhome in a peaceful neighborhood on the west side of Hattiesburg off I-59.
Sunset had passed by the time Able Team cruised through the neighborhood in their military sedan, a loaner from the HQ Company motor pool. Flashing a badge at a middle-aged woman in a jogging suit—the figure that filled it out could get a guy to thinking—bought Rosario Blancanales the information he needed regarding the Scotts. Lyons now watched the front door and windows of the house through binoculars as Blancanales picked his teeth with a pocketknife and stared down the street. Schwarz sat in back, snoring loud enough that it started to grind on the nerves of his two comrades.
Lyons lowered the binocs. “What do you think about that woman’s story regarding the van?”
“Sounds like pay dirt, you ask me,” Blancanales replied with a shrug.
Lyons shook his head. “A van matching the description of the one that hit us is parked out front of Scott’s house the day before yesterday, but she doesn’t remember seeing anybody inside? Something feels wrong about it.”
“What?”
“It’s too convenient,” Lyons replied as he lifted the binoculars to his eyes. “Good fortune rarely drops right into our lap. I don’t like it.”
“Maybe whoever’s behind this weapons smuggling doesn’t know anybody’s on to them.”
“After the assault they launched against us this morning?” Lyons reminded his friend.
“Okay, you got me there.”
“What are you two grumbling about now?” Schwarz muttered from the back. “Can’t you see I’m trying to get my beauty rest?”
Blancanales tipped his head so he could make out Schwarz’s shadow in the rearview mirror. “A hundred years of uninterrupted slumber couldn’t help you, amigo.”
“Hold up,” Lyons cut in. “Vehicle coming. Looks like a van.”
The warriors were parked far enough away that the sweep of the vehicle’s lights didn’t illuminate their faces. They waited silent and unmoving, wondering if the van would continue past the Scott residence, but no such luck—the van turned sharply into the driveway and the headlights winked out.
“Now, this is interesting,” Blancanales said evenly. “Looks like some more of our friends.”
“What’s the play, Ironman?” Schwarz asked.
Lyons thought through it with a measure of debate.
“Should we take them?” Schwarz asked, wide-awake now.
“I don’t want to jump the gun,” Lyons replied. “If they risked coming back to Scott’s residence for a reason and we hit them early, we might not find out why. We should wait it out and see what they do.”
“What if Scott’s inside the residence?” Blancanales inquired. “Or his wife and kids?”
“We’ve been watching the place for the last two hours,” Lyons pointed out. “There hasn’t been any movement. I don’t think anybody’s there. The fact they’ve played their hand gives us all the more reason to wait.”
“Agreed.”
Blancanales followed that with a sigh, but Lyons didn’t try to question it. He understood they were anxious to get answers and he was, too. The irony was that his partners were usually the reserved ones and typically had to hold their leader back. But something in Lyons’s gut told him that if they engaged the enemy too soon, not only would they attract a lot of unwanted attention but it stood to reason a firefight would end in a bunch of dead terrorists; that wouldn’t put them any closer to finding out what had happened to Jordan Scott. It might also precipitate Scott’s death if he was operating as an unwilling accomplice or being coerced to cooperate.
For all Able Team knew, Scott and his family were now hostages. If whoever was behind this weapons-smuggling ring figured government agents were on to them, they might simply kill Scott and his family, cut their losses and flee. In that scenario, it would be damn near impossible to track them. Part of Phoenix Force’s success in Sudan depended on Able Team getting to the bottom of whatever