Come home
Again, a dark chapter. Be warned.
10/5/98
The metal door of the room where Adam knelt, bound like Josif, creaked open. Adam heard the footfalls of maybe three men as sudden light blinded him, stabbing at his eyes. His throat was so dry he could barely speak. His knees and hips ached, his feet had no feeling left from uncounted hours kneeling. He had no idea when he'd last had anything to drink.
As Adam's sight began to return, a man knelt in front of him, not shouter, the one with a fluffy excuse for a beard, the smallest one. Fluff-face held a bottle of clear fluid before Adam's face. Adam's dry throat burned. But the fluid wasn't necessarily water. If it was white spirit, say, drinking it would probably cause as slow, agonising death. Fluff-face raised the bottle to his own mouth and drank three mouthfuls slowly, then opened his mouth to prove he'd swallowed it. OK, so not laced with anything horrible. What then? Was Fluff-face just tantalising him?
Apparently not. Fluff-face lifted the bottle to Adam's mouth. Adam hesitated, then began to drink. He didn't know when he'd get another chance.
It wasn't until Fluff-face pulled the bottle away, that Shouter spoke.
"I have given you what you want, Adam Carter, no?" Adam didn't reply. "So you will now give me what I want." Adam stayed silent. Shouter paced slowly. "Who are the other men that MI6 has here?" Adam didn't answer. Shouter sighed theatrically. "I suppose you know, Adam Carter, that if you disobey me, there will be consequences." Again, Adam didn't answer, didn't even look at Shouter. Shouter sighed again. He paced round to Adam's side.
Something cold and metallic dug itself in to Adam's neck, just below his jaw. He felt his breathing quicken, his heart beat harder. He knew what that was. He twisted away instinctively, but his hands were bound to the girder. He could only move so far. Shouter laughed coldly. Adam twisted his head, trying to look back at him, gage how real the threat was.
"You are a stubborn man, Adam Carter, but surely I do not need to explain this. If you tell me who and where the rest of your unit are, I will not shoot you. You would prefer that, yes?" Adam gritted his teeth, breathing much harder, as hard as he tried to show no emotion. "I am going to count down from five. You will not hear zero." Adam was gasping now, trying desperately to see the information he needed in Shouter's eyes. "Five. Four." Shouter was looking at the gun, not at him. "Three." So he was either qualmish, or bluffing. "Two." A man sent to interrogate an MI6 officer wouldn't be afraid to do his job.
"One."
"Damaedas!" Adam shouted.
"What" Shouter spat. "does that mean?"
"Damaedas." Adam repeated, breathing starting to slow, adrenaline starting to recede. "I call your bluff." He twisted round to look at Shouter directly, ignoring the gun. "If you'd been going to kill me, you wouldn't have given me water, why waste your time?" He began to pull himself back to a sitting position, however much it hurt. He had power right now, he wasn't going to let it go. "You know I know names, places, things you don't. I can't tell you anything with a bullet through my head. I'm useless to you dead. And you know it."
Shouter began to laugh. Adam stayed very still. Had he done it? Had he actually won against and armed maniac, while the prisoner of said armed maniac?
"Yes, Adam Carter. You are useless to me dead, as useless, in fact, as a scared little man who has already told me everything he knows." A split second before Shouter turned, Adam went cold. Shouter sprung like a leopard over to Josif and pushed him to the floor.
"No! Please? I gave you what you wanted! Please!" Shouter shouted over Josif's screams
"You know I have no reason to keep him alive, Adam Carter. Now we see how much MI6 cares for its assets, for those who stake their lives for it. I want names, Adam Carter, or Josif Mihaliovitch dies. Here and now, in front of you."
"Adam! Please!" Josif was crying now, staring at Adam with terrified eyes.
"You gain nothing by killing him. Either way, I won't talk."
"Five." Shouter bellowed across Josif's pleading. "Four." This wasn't a bluff. "Three." He didn't lose anything by killing Josif either. "Two." Josif started to scream; long, drawn screams of pure terror. "Time is running out." Adam looked down. It was Josif or half the unit. That wasn't a choice. "One." There was no choice. There was no choice.
A gunshot echoed round the room. Josif was silent. Adam closed his eyes. A rough hand grabbed his jaw.
"Look." Shouter's voice, close to. Disobeying would probably earn a fist in the face. Adam opened his eyes. Josif was still, not breathing, there was a neat, circular hole in the back of his head. Definitely dead. "You could have saved him, Adam Carter. You know that."
"With the lives of more." Adam answered coldly. "I won't try to buy myself a few more days of this with the life of anyone else." Shouter spat in to Adam's face.
"Everyone breaks, Adam Carter. The only question is how much I have to make you suffer before I get what I want." Shouter looked round at the other men. "Hans, bag. The rest of you, deal with that." He jerked his head at Josif's body. Adam offered no resistance as the bag was pulled over his head and the blows began to fall. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could have done to protect Josif, there was nothing he could do to protect himself. And it terrified him.