Название: Agent Zero
Автор: Джек Марс
Издательство: Lukeman Literary Management Ltd
Жанр: Политические детективы
Серия: An Agent Zero Spy Thriller
isbn: 9781640297999
isbn:
Instead, the man resumed his pacing. He said something rapidly in Arabic. The interrogator responded. The brute stared at Reid.
“Please!” he said loudly over their chattering. “I’m not whoever you think I am. I have no memory of anything you’re asking…”
The tall man fell silent, and his eyes widened. He almost smacked himself in the forehead, and then spoke excitedly to the interrogator. The impassive man in the kufi stroked his chin.
“Possible,” he said in English. He stood and took Reid’s head in both his hands.
“What is this? What are you doing?” Reid asked. The man’s fingertips felt slowly up and down his scalp.
“Quiet,” the man said flatly. He probed Reid’s hairline, his neck, his ears—“Ah!” he said sharply. He jabbered to his cohort, who dashed over and violently yanked Reid’s head to one side.
The interrogator ran a finger along Reid’s left mastoid process, the small section of temporal bone just behind the ear. There was an oblong lump beneath the skin, barely larger than a grain of rice.
The interrogator barked something at the tall man, and the latter quickly swept out of the room. Reid’s neck ached from the strange angle at which they were holding his head.
“What? What’s going on?” he asked.
“This lump, here,” the interrogator said, running his finger over it again. “What is this?”
“It’s… it’s just a bone spur,” said Reid. “I’ve had it since a car accident, in my twenties.”
The tall man returned quickly, this time with a plastic tray. He set it down on the cart, next to the polygraph machine. Despite the dim light and the odd angle of his head, Reid could clearly see what was inside the tray. A knot of fear tightened in his stomach.
The tray was home to a number of sharp, silver implements.
“What are those for?” His voice was panicked. He squirmed against his bonds. “What are you doing?”
The interrogator snapped a short command to the brute. He stepped forward, and the sudden brightness of the procedure lamp nearly blinded Reid.
“Wait… wait!” he shouted. “Just tell me what you want to know!”
The brute seized Reid’s head in his large hands and gripped it tightly, forcing him still. The interrogator chose a tool—a thin-bladed scalpel.
“Please don’t… please don’t…” Reid’s breath came in short gasps. He was nearly hyperventilating.
“Shh,” said the interrogator calmly. “You will want to remain still. I would not want to cut off your ear. At least, not by accident.”
Reid screamed as the blade sliced into the skin behind his ear, but the brute held him still. Every muscle in his limbs went taut.
A strange sound reached his ears—a soft melody. The interrogator was singing a tune in Arabic as he cut into Reid’s head.
He dropped the bloody scalpel into the tray as Reid hissed shallow breaths through his teeth. Then the interrogator reached for a pair of needle-nose pliers.
“I’m afraid that was just the beginning,” he whispered in Reid’s ear. “This next part will actually hurt.”
The pliers gripped something in Reid’s head—was it his bone?—and the interrogator tugged. Reid screamed in agony as white-hot pain shot through his brain, pulsing out into nerve endings. His arms trembled. His feet slapped against the floor.
The pain crescendoed until Reid thought he couldn’t possibly take any more. Blood pounded in his ears, and his own screams sounded as if they were far away. Then the procedure lamp dimmed, and the edges of his vision darkened as he slipped into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER THREE
When Reid was twenty-three, he was in a car accident. The stoplight had turned green and he eased into the intersection. A pickup truck jumped the light and smashed into his front passenger side. His head struck the window. He was unconscious for several minutes.
His only injury was a cracked temporal bone in his skull. It healed fine; the only evidence of the accident was a small lump behind his ear. The doctor told him it was a bone spur.
The funny thing about the accident was that while he could recall the event, he couldn’t recall any pain—not when it happened, and not afterward, either.
But he could feel it now. As he regained consciousness, the small patch of bone behind his left ear thrummed torturously. The procedure lamp was again shining in his eyes. He squinted and moaned slightly. Moving his head the slightest amount sent a fresh sting up his neck.
Suddenly his mind flashed onto something. The bright light in his eyes was not the lamp at all.
The afternoon sun blazes against a blue cloudless sky. An A-10 Warthog flies overhead, banking right and dipping in altitude over the flat, drab rooftops of Kandahar.
The vision was not fluid. It came in flashes, like several still photographs in sequence; like watching someone dance under a strobe light.
You stand on the beige rooftop of a partially destroyed building, a third of it blasted away. You bring the stock to your shoulder, eye the scope, and sight in on a man below…
Reid jerked his head and groaned. He was in the concrete room, under the discerning eye of the procedure lamp. His fingers trembled and his limbs felt cold. Sweat trickled down his brow. He was likely going into shock. In his periphery, he could see that the left shoulder of his shirt was soaked in blood.
“Bone spur,” said the interrogator’s placid voice. Then he chuckled sardonically. A slender hand appeared in Reid’s field of vision, gripping the pair of needle-nose pliers. Pinched between its teeth was something tiny and silver, but Reid couldn’t make out details. His vision was fuzzy and the room tilted slightly. “Do you know what this is?”
Reid shook his head slowly.
“I admit, I have only ever seen this once before,” said the interrogator. “A memory suppression chip. It is a very useful tool for people in your unique situation.” He dropped the bloody pliers and the small silver grain into the plastic tray.
“No,” Reid grunted. “Impossible.” The last word came out as little more than a murmur. Memory suppression? That was science fiction. For that to work, it would have to affect the entire limbic system of the brain.
The fifth floor of the Ritz Madrid. You adjust your black tie before you kick in the door with a solid heel just above the doorknob. The man inside is caught off guard; he leaps to his feet and snatches a pistol from the bureau. But before the man can level it at you, you grab his gun hand and twist it down and away. The force snaps the wrist easily…
Reid shook the muddled sequence from his brain as the interrogator took a seat in the chair across from him.
“You did something to me,” he muttered.
“Yes,” СКАЧАТЬ