Lex talionis
Chapter 23. Torment
Author's note: Fair warning. This chapter is a bit harsh. Please, let me know if you think I should change the rating.
"What!?"
This time Reynolds's exclamation was not controlled at all.
"The GN just sent us images of the hotel parking lot," Maggie said grimly, handing him the tablet.
Reynolds got up from the chair behind the desk in his office to pick it up. He slid his finger across the screen, looking at the photos one by one in disbelief.
Maggie had been informing him of everything Agent Arenas had been telling her the day before. The attack on the Agua Dulce state by the Juárez cartel, the dead, wounded and the huge explosion, the presence and subsequent disappearance of Vargas' family and, of course, the intervention of Jubal, Isobel and a GN agent named Montero. About the video call with Vargas, she had not spoken to him until later. And that had not amused him in the least.
When Reynolds had called Isobel the previous evening to ask for explanations and she had not taken his calls, he had been downright annoyed. When that morning Maggie informed him that both she and Jubal were missing again, he had already simply gotten angry.
At the present time, however, if any words could describe him, they were 'worried beyond measure.'
The footage showed a hooded man attacking Jubal, knocking him unconscious, loading him into a van with no license plates, then threatening Isobel to get in as well... The van leaving the parking lot at 8:47 p.m.
He looked up. Maggie's expression of deep dismay must have mirrored his own.
There was no doubt that they had been kidnapped. And it had been all night before anyone had been aware of it.
·~·~·
For the professional, torture was not a pleasure but he was very good at his job. He carefully placed the sensors of the heart monitor device. It was a very useful tool to keep the victim conscious and stable throughout the whole session, on the verge of collapse without reaching it. Not that he found it indispensable, but it was more convenient.
Torture is different depending on the purpose, whether it is for information, revenge or simple cruelty. But it is not always about pain. It is also about progression and patience. It's about doing things slowly and carefully. Extreme pain leads to shock and unconsciousness, and then the torture loses its purpose.
He would start, as always, with small things. Things that would awaken the body to the pain, nothing more. Then he would apply other techniques, acute pains, but not terrible, that would pass soon. And then would come the agonizing and excruciating pains, the ones that last even after applying them.
His target began to wake up and the monitor screen -muted- indicated that his heart rate increased as he realized he was gagged and tied to a chair.
The professional studied him, intrigued. He had not been an easy prey to capture.
It had been 23:58 on June 25 when he had received the contract. The hunt began the next day.
As soon as he discovered that, instead of in New York, his prey was surprisingly in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, the professional had taken a plane to San Antonio that same day. And it didn't take him long to discover that his target was no longer in Acuña, but in Nuevo León. Once in Monterrey, his prey first spent an entire morning wandering around the city, then headed south. And he vanished again… To reappear the next day in a hospital in Montemorelos. That night the professional saw an opportunity to catch him and went for it. If he had not done so, he might have disappeared for the fourth time...
It was 20:43 on June 30 when the professional was finally able to catch Special Agent Jubal Valentine. More than 3,400 km away from where he started.
Plus, his prey had really stood up to him; it had come close to defeating him, and that didn't happen very often. It had made him… interesting.
The captive looked around, struggled with his bonds. Seeing the camera pointed at him, he grunted through the piece of twisted cloth that acted as a gag between his teeth, trying to say something, until the professional removed it, loosening it and leaving it around his neck, to allow him to speak.
"Who are you? What do you want from me?" asked his victim with a hoarse voice as he looked apprehensively at the professional.
He knew what his prisoner was seeing. A man without a face. Long sleeves and gloves hid the color of his skin. On his head, hood and dark glasses completely hid his features, and even his eyes, so as not to show even a hint of his age or his emotions. Nevertheless, if anyone could have seen his face through the mask, they would have found it totally expressionless. For the professional, torture was not a pleasure, but it did not upset him either.
His victim was scared, but he kept his presence of mind pretty good. The professional did not answer him, of course. Uncertainty was part of the suffering.
Then his prey saw the woman -Castille, the professional recalled from his target's file- a little further away, tied up and unconscious on the floor. His prisoner's eyes widened and the heart monitor betrayed his palpitations. He quickly looked away, but the professional had been expecting that reaction, so he didn't miss it. His victim was more afraid for the woman than for himself, and that was good. It would come in handy later, when the drugs wore off and she woke up. Torture is actually in the mind.
He began with an extendable baton -a non-lethal, non-bone-splitting plastic one- whipping him in the form of lashes.
After giving him a generous batch that caused a large number of welts, raising the bare skin on shoulders, arms and torso, the professional looked at the clock that he had on the table, with his other instruments; he could now start with more serious matters.
He went on to hit him hard on other parts of his body; it would cause some spectacular bruising. This time the professional left several long pauses between every three or four blows, letting him breathe. Leaving him to think about what might be next.
To his surprise, his target was gritting his teeth and holding his pain in check in a way that was quite impressive. At first, he had even remained silent. Although he could no longer suppress a few grunts, the professional had not yet managed to make Valentine scream even once.
·~·~·
Consciousness returned to Isobel, crawling like some nasty creature. She didn't even know where she was. Her body felt heavy and numb; she was unable to open her eyes. There was a rhythmic sound that was bringing her back inexorably. They were impacts against flesh accompanied by muffled groans of pain. It sounded like Jubal's voice and it caused her a visceral fear that was hard to control. She struggled to wake up even more and began to notice more things. She smelled accumulated dust and somewhat degraded chemicals. She was lying on a cold hard concrete floor, bound hand and foot, gagged.
Then the last thing she remembered struck her.
As she got into the van, the hooded man, still pointing at Jubal, tossed Isobel a pair of handcuffs with his other hand and instructed her to put them on. She looked for an opportunity to turn the tables, but the guy apparently kept his eye on her, his finger still lightly pressed against the trigger.
Once handcuffed, the faceless man pulled a syringe from a pocket and, showing great skill, removed the needle's cap with one hand; then plunged it into Isobel's neck. The liquid entered her bloodstream cold and foreign. Lethargy and paralysis soon spread throughout her body. How long had she been unconscious?
When she finally managed to open her eyes a crack, Isobel did her best to look around. They were in what looked like a warehouse. There were boxes and large cans, metal shelves, but everything was covered in plastic. To one side, a table slightly shielded Isobel from view. On a tripod, a camera winked its little red light, indicating that it was keeping a record of everything that was happening in front of it. There was no daylight coming through the small windows above, so it must still be at night. The room was dim, except for the spotlight pointed at Jubal, who was sitting in a chair, stripped to the waist, tied up, and sweating. He was panting and the marks of having been repeatedly beaten were visible on his skin. Isobel firmly stifled a moan of anguish.
The faceless man paced around Jubal, as if considering where he would strike next. He raised the stick in his hand. Isobel couldn't help but close her eyes. The thumping and grunting could be heard again. Isobel ached from each of them thinking of what Jubal was suffering.
Wake up!, she mentally shouted to herself. Their captor hadn't realized that she had woken up. She had to do something! Unfortunately, her brain was still watery porridge.
First of all, she needed to find a way to get rid of those handcuffs. Two sets kept her bound. One on her ankles, another with her hands behind her back.
Trying not to make any noise or sudden movements so as not to give herself away, Isobel twisted around to reach into her pockets. She longed for her lock pick set that rested at the bottom of her suitcase back at the hotel. Maybe she carried a pocketknife or a keychain. Or a hairpin. A measly paper clip? Nothing. They had been completely emptied.
Her booties were gone, so she couldn't even make an attempt with the zipper slider.
Jubal's growls made his mind lose concentration.
Come on, damn it, think. Think!
She tried to disjoint herself a thumb, but she had never been able to do that. And that wouldn't have taken the cuffs off her ankles anyway.
Well, for starters, she should improve her situation a bit.
Keeping an eye on the kidnapper, Isobel lay on her back and, pulling her knees to her chest, she struggled to move her hands to her front. Slowly. So as not to attract his attention. There had to be some advantage to having his peripheral vision reduced by those goggles...
·~·~·
Jubal had seen Isobel move, but he made a focus exercise on the fact of not looking at her.
The longer that bastard thought Isobel was unconscious, the longer he was busy with him, the longer she would be safe. Jubal's very existence was reduced to that one goal.
But the pain was building up and becoming increasingly difficult. At first, enduring the sharp sting of the whipping was relatively manageable; the blows, however, were another matter, especially when they hit one of the previous injuries.
His tormentor was not holding back at all. Every impact was being delivered with brutal force. Soon there would not be a part of Jubal's body from which pain did not radiate.
Meanwhile, Isobel was trying to do something and Jubal was finding it harder and harder not to look towards her. The hooded man was watching him closely: he couldn't afford to slip up.
"What do you want to know?" Jubal asked, panting through his teeth, trying to keep him distracted. "Where Carlos and Sofía Vargas are? Maybe I can help you with that."
·~·~·
Once Isobel's hands had passed beyond her hips, which she had to twist and struggle against them to do so, getting the cuffs under first one foot and then the other was not so difficult. She removed the gag with relief.
Hearing Jubal ask the faceless man those questions, Isobel mentally applauded his sharpness. There had to be something that could capture the guy's interest. Maybe some information would tempt him. Something that would buy them time. If Jubal could get a dialogue going, maybe they could negotiate. And in the meantime, it would give him a break.
The kidnapper paused in his movements, revealing that something Jubal had said had indeed caught his attention. But he did not answer. He just hit him too close to the wound in his shoulder, and for the first time, Jubal screamed.
Isobel close her eyes hard, her heart constricted as if someone were squeezing it. She brought her hands to her chest. There under her shirt, Isobel found something their captor hadn't thought to remove... Still with her wrist joined, she reached for the pendant they had given her for her birthday.
Bringing the clasp to the front, she removed the chain and pulled out the pendant with trembling fingers. The peaks of the fan that formed the peacock's tail were perhaps sharp enough. Isobel rolled onto her side and shrugged her legs.
"Hey, dude. What are you going to do with that?" Jubal spoke again, trying his best to keep the hooded man's attention, but Isobel could hear the apprehension in his voice. "Let's not go to certain extremes. I'm sure we can come to an agreement."
Ignoring as best she could that the faceless man was approaching Jubal with a sharp , metallic instrument in his hand, Isobel inserted the pendant into one of the small locks of her ankle cuffs, forcing it tight and twisting it inside; she felt the parts of the internal mechanism click.
And then the torturer stabbed Jubal in the side of the thigh with an ice pick. His shriek startled Isobel, who lost her grip on the lock. The pendant nearly fell out of her hands. Isobel bit her lips to keep from cursing. Meanwhile, Jubal managed to suppress the rest of his scream by gritting his teeth and glaring at the man with hatred.
Isobel exhaled, trying to steady herself. The soft silver was warping. She prayed it would hold long enough before it broke.
Another scream followed the first, and yet another, guttural and barely suppressed, as the hooded man plunged the ice pick into Jubal's thigh a second and, after a pause, a third time, progressively approaching the knee.
Isobel fought back her own tears. She could not allow herself to lose her cool. Jubal's life depended on her.
He tried one more time and the mechanism gave way. By releasing one of her ankles, her legs were no longer bound together and she could move almost freely. She raised her head to decide what to do next.
She found that the faceless man was looking at her. She never knew what had given her away. Perhaps he had simply sensed her.
Breathlessly, Isobel slowly rose to her feet. On the table, in addition to a chilling array of instruments, was a gun. She looked at the kidnapper, and knew he knew what she was thinking.
Isobel immediately lunged for the gun, expecting that he would do the same, and fearing the drugs would slow her down too much. But the hooded man did not do as she did. He moved nimbly around Jubal and stood behind him. By the time Isobel raised and aimed the gun, their captor had Jubal roughly grabbed by the hair and was applying the ice pick to his neck.
That stopped her dead in her tracks.
"Are we going to play this again?" asked the faceless man in that creepy voice of his.
"Isobel, shoot!" exclaimed Jubal, his eyes wild. "Shoot and run!"
She ignored him. She forced herself to do it. "Vargas sent you, didn't he?" she asked the man.
The kidnapper tilted his head slightly to one side. It was very subtle, but Isobel knew the answer was yes. "You are making a grave mistake," Isobel began, but Jubal cut her off.
"Isobel, shoot! Get the hell out of here dammit!" insisted Jubal.
The faceless man pressed the sharp awl against Jubal's neck. A trickle of blood trickled down from the tip.
Isobel put the gun away, ceasing to aim.
"NO!" cried Jubal in despair.
She was going to turn herself in. She was going to turn herself in and be in the hands of that bastard again. That guy wasn't looking for information. He wasn't going to leave them alive. He was going to make Isobel suffer to death and Jubal simply could not allow it. He couldn't. He was the only thing the guy could threaten her with right now. So he took himself out of the equation.
Making an abrupt sideways movement, he pushed hard to the side trying to tip the chair over. He stabbed himself in the neck with the awl in the process.
"Jubal!" exclaimed Isobel, pointing the gun and firing.
The hooded man fell to the ground with a bullet in his chest, as the chair slammed heavily sideways against the floor, dragging Jubal with it. The ice pick bounced ricocheting off the hard concrete, echoing with metallic clangs.
Isobel ran, dropping to her knees beside Jubal, rushing to cover the wound on his neck. With her hands still cuffed, she had to drop the gun to the floor in order to press on it.
"Get out of here, Isobel," he pleaded, his throat tight, his eyes unfocused. "Run..."
"You're not expendable, you hear me?!" she replied, tears on the verge of overflowing her eyes.
Thanks to all the saints Isobel was able to pray to, the blood did not gush out with the force she had feared. She withdrew her hand and found that the ice pick had pierced muscle superficially, instead of the carotid artery, less than an inch over.
Her relief washed over her like a cold wave, making her expel all the air.
It was terribly short-lived, however, as Isobel felt the barrel of the gun resting right at the base of the back of her neck.
·~·~·
The professional took the woman... Castille, to the pulley he had installed behind the camera and hung her there by the handcuffs on her wrists.
"Wait. I think you're making a huge mistake," Castille was saying.
He re-tied her ankles and attached them to a hook on the floor; he tightened the rope so that her feet were dangling. A groan escaped Castille as her bandaged wrist protested at taking so much of her weight. But she didn't shut up.
"I'm serious-"
Undaunted, he placed the gag back in her mouth.
During the whole process he had not stopped pressing the barrel of his pistol against Castille for a single second. He ached from the impact of the shot she had fired into the center of his chest, showing good aim. If it hadn't been for the Kevlar vest he was wearing under his clothes, he would be dead by now.
Those two people were fascinatingly problematic. He had underestimated them. He could not relax.
With the situation under control once again, the professional tucked the pistol into the waistband of his pants.
He then approached his victim and, pulling the arm of the chair, hauled it back upright. He examined the wound on his neck. It was bleeding, but not life-threatening, at least not yet. Valentine looked at him as if he would have killed him with his bare hands if he had been able.
The professional picked up the ice pick from the floor and returned it to the table, wiping it with a cloth and setting it precisely in its place. His hand hovered over the instruments, and he picked out a delicate surgical scalpel. He looked at for several long seconds at his target and then turned towards Castille. He moved the spotlight as he passed, so that Valentine could see what he was about to do.
"Hey, hey. Hey!" his victim shouted at him. "Whatever you're going to do to her, do it to me, OK? Please, leave her alone. Come on, this is clearly not against her," he said, gesturing towards the camera. Leave her alone, please. Please, I'm begging you..."
Completely ignoring him, the professional slid the scalpel across the skin of Castille's neck, in a chilling touch.
"No!" cried Valentine, his face congested, his eyes unfocused, "Leave her alone, you bastard! Don't touch her!"
But it did no harm; it descended cutting through Isobel's shirt like butter, exposing her torso and bra-covered bust, causing her body to shiver involuntarily. She had a really beautiful skin...
"No," Valentine gasped.
On the monitor screen, his vitals jumped convulsively. The professional was pleased. Torture is actually in the mind. In getting the victim's mind at your mercy, just as you have their body. Inflicting agony on the flesh and despair on the soul is the ultimate expression of torture.
·~·~·
While Isobel was obviously trying to control her breathing, the kidnapper seemed to be watching her closely.
Jubal's heart was pounding madly in his chest. He couldn't bear the thought that Isobel was going to be made to suffer before his eyes; he didn't know for how long, he didn't know how badly. He clenched his fists trying to control himself. He needed to find a way to get some control over the situation. But he was completely helpless. They both were. The feeling of powerlessness trampled on him relentlessly. What could he possibly do?
Talk.
Talking was the only thing he could do. He fought the aches and pains that plagued his body for his mind to find what words would do any good. Remembering what Isobel had tried to say twice before, a spark of inspiration struck him, and he suddenly understood what it was.
"Please, please listen!" he said to the hooded man. "If you work for Vargas, you're making a serious mistake. He doesn't want this anymore, I assure you."
Their captor stopped and turned to him, perhaps intrigued. Jubal knew he could not afford to waste the opportunity.
"It is clear that you are a serious and rigorous professional. You don't want an unhappy client. I'm telling you, this is not what he wants anymore! Vargas wouldn't like it if she or I ended up dead," he added. "In fact, he's given his word that no harm will come to either of us. I swear to you by all that is holy. He gave his word. If you know his reputation, you'll know what that means. You wouldn't want to be the one to have his word called into question, would you?"
Part of him was clinging to the fact that he was telling the truth while another part had the feeling that he was letting out the emptiest bluff of his entire life.
The hooded man stood perfectly still for a moment. Jubal prayed to Heaven that he had done so because he was pondering what he had just been told. He saw him pull out his cell phone and type some short text. Maybe send a message?
But then he approached Isobel again, scalpel in hand. He removed her gag presumably so that Jubal could hear her scream without restraint. He looked her up and down, as if wondering where to begin.
·~·~·
Slowly, he undid the button of Isobel's jeans and unzipped them; he opened the garment, exposing her belly. Isobel felt her blood run cold in her veins. Jubal bellowed and stirred in his chair.
Stopping for a moment what he was doing, their captor and went to Jubal again to put the gag back on; it took quite a bit of effort, because Jubal resisted so much. His muffled cries of protest continued in desperation, tearing at Isobel's heart.
The hooded man returned to her.
Placing a hand on Isobel's hip, as if to steady her, he glanced over his shoulder to see what Jubal was doing, whose frantic eyes were fixed on him as he struggled unsuccessfully against his restraints. He was bleeding from his wounds and seemed to be hurting himself even more.
Isobel tried to convey strength to him with her gaze, although she couldn't really control her own fear.
"Va- Vargas has given his word," Isobel insisted, cursing because her voice sounded high-pitched and shaky. "He's not the kind of guy you want to make enemies with, trust me."
The faceless man showed no sign of flinching. With the scalpel held delicately like a paintbrush, he traced between Isobel's iliac crest and navel a stylized straight line angled slightly upwards, as if he were painting. A thin line of blood was drawn across her skin. The torturer, slightly twisting his wrist, finished the stroke by making another line at an acute angle, downwards.
At first, Isobel felt only a cold touch.
And suddenly the pain manifested itself as if out of nowhere. It was so sudden, a scream escaped her lips before she could stop it.
A small cut followed, which again took her by surprise. She could not stifle another small squeal.
Suddenly, a loud bang echoed through the room, as Jubal again knocked over the chair to which he was tied.
The professional puffed slightly. He put the instrument down on the table and went over to him. He jerked the chair up, then pulled Jubal's hair to lift his face. "Do you want to speed this up?" he threatened. "Is that what you want? Keep fooling around and she'll suffer more."
Groans of anguish rose from Jubal as the torturer returned to Isobel's side, picking up his scalpel from the table. He looked at Isobel's torso as if it were the canvas on which he was painting his work.
A vertical line, a right angle. Isobel gritted her teeth, tears pooling in her eyes. Jubal's grunting and struggling could be heard in the background, but they had faded into the background. Two horizontal cuts, one vertical. It seemed random and yet so deliberate. Isobel couldn't suppress the moans of pain that accompanied each stroke.
The professional stopped and gave her a brief respite. Isobel panted; she tried to look at herself, but only saw herself bleeding. Tears rolled involuntarily down her cheeks. She forced herself to think that at least they were superficial cuts. For the moment.
Going to the table, the torturer took a gauze with tweezers and used them to clean the blood flowed from her belly.
The next stroke, another right angle that then descended in an elegant line backwards, was the longest and deepest yet; he concluded it with a sharp change of direction, short and upward.
Air refused to continue to enter Isobel's lungs, her diaphragm constricting her lungs. It took a wrenching gasp for her to breathe again. Her eyes met Jubal's horrified expression, who seemed on the verge of collapse. Seeing in his eyes that bordering on madness desperation hurt her a hundred times more.
What would be next? Would he gut her right there in front of Jubal? The camera was still recording him...
Failure and guilt grew in an uncontrollable whirlwind that swallowed Isobel up. Vargas had wanted to hurt her through Jubal, that's why he had sent that man to torture him. All because of her mistakes. And her weaknesses. She should have been able to hide how she felt about him better. She thought she had but, it turned out, she actually hadn't been able to. Nor had she been able to stop Vargas' plans. The bitter tears that escaped her eyes then were not due to the cuts.
·~·~·
The torturer made one more long cut, also descending. Jubal suffered it like all the others, as if that bastard were doing it to his very soul. Suddenly, he discovered dark guilt in Isobel's black eyes. Fresh anguish, sprouted from incomprehension, tore him from the inside.
A phone buzzed.
The professional wiped with the gauze again and stepped back, examining his "work". Then Isobel as a whole, as if she were part of it.
The vibration sounded once more.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and took the call. "Yeah?"
There was a brief pause before the hooded man straightened his back in a, Jubal was sure, was an expression of surprise. "Affirmative," he replied, "Yeah, that's right. Yes, her too." Pause. "Of course," he agreed with a neutral tone in his sinister voice.
Leaving the tweezers with the gauze on the table, he walked over to Jubal, removed the gag, and put the speaker on the phone.
"Valentine."
"Vargas," spat Jubal, his voice hoarse from shouting.
It wasn't really a surprise for him to recognize him on the other end of the line, but it made Jubal's hair stand on end all the same. He had to fight the urge to curse him a thousand times.
"Your lives are in my hands," said Vargas plainly.
Jubal's soul fell to his feet. He looked at Isobel. In her sweaty, haggard face he saw the firmest fortitude he had ever seen in a human being. He decided they were not going to beg.
"It seems so," he replied with dignity.
"Good. Don't ever forget it, Valentine."
Confusion grew inside Jubal.
"Jubal is not you, Vargas," Isobel replied from afar with fierce indignation, her voice strained with pain. "He is not going to take revenge. And he certainly wouldn't go after your loved ones. Carlos and Sofía have nothing to fear from him!" she proclaimed. "By the way," she let venomous acid seep into her tone, "I thought your damn word was worth something."
"Of course it's worth."
"Too late to say that," Jubal accused through gritted teeth. "You should have complied before he made her bleed, you fucking son of a bitch."
There was an awkward silence. A guilty one.
"This has been going on a lot longer than you think, Valentine," Vargas said in his usual smooth, cool tone. "I just haven't had a chance to call it off yet. Oh, and I assure you, Isobel wasn't supposed to be there with you. Who did you think the video being shot was intended for...?"
That idea hit Jubal like a fist in the solar plexus. It caused him strong nausea.
Meanwhile, Vargas asked to take the speakerphone off. Their captor resumed the call, nodded several times, and then hung up.
He went to where Isobel was hanging. He faced her, looking directly into her face from the other side of his dark glasses. Jubal held his breath.
The faceless man let out a short snort through his nose and his mask. He pulled a full syringe from his pocket, and injected Isobel with the full dose.
·~·~·
Kristen looked at the clock on her PC. 8:38 a.m.
She had been staring at the same page of that report for over twenty minutes, unable to think of anything other than what might have happened to Jubal and Isobel. She had examined the images the GN had sent over and over again, but without another camera angle it was impossible to find out anything else. The Mexican authorities were working on it, but there had been no news, so far.
Now she was trying to finish that urgent report that her SSA had requested, but she was being totally unable to do so.
Her phone rang and Kristen's heart skipped a beat when she saw Maggie's name on the screen. She picked up in less than a second. "Maggie. Any news?" she asked, anxiously.
"They found them."
"Thank heavens," she sighed, exhaling her tension in those words. And suddenly, fear gripped her in a most cruel way. She swallowed hard, "Are they all right?"
Kristen heard Maggie sigh.
"We don't know yet. But they are alive."
~.~.~.~