Chapter 29

It was dark.

I mean it was seriously, industrial strength, dark.

The Caribbean night pressed in on us like a wet, wool blanket. The humid air brought the fragrance of dead fish and sea salt to us as we waited. There were only eight of us, and that was four too many. Four would stay outside and watch for trouble. Three - Jack, Roy, and his toughest mercenary, Jedidiah Jones - would accompany me.

Guantanamo, Cuba is not a nice place. The worst of a bad lot of terrorists were imprisoned there. Some had been there since early two thousand and two, not that I cared in the slightest. You buy in to the terror game, and sometimes you end up in prison. Sometimes you skate, and the rest of the time you get dead.

Someone here was going to get very dead in just a little while.

He was a loner, spent his time sitting far away from the other prisoners. Reports indicated that he never interacted with others, not even at mealtime. If that were true, then he was running his scam using the jailers as his staff. No other way worked. He was getting information in and out, and not communicating among the prisoners, so the only ones left were guards.

Jack's guys nailed it down very quickly. His forensic people drilled down deeply into the lives of the guards and discovered anomalies in the life of one Rodrigo Barnes Jimenez. Old Rodrigo was spending far in excess of what he earned, and wracking up no debt to account for it. We had some rather salacious video of him in the company of thousand dollar a night hookers and imbibing lots of cocaine.

Rodrigo sold us out.

He was a mule. Just a mule but a well-paid one even so. He carried information in and out, to and from our terrorist enemies. He was not going to like how tonight turned out. The only good thing about his current predicament was that his suffering wouldn't last long.

Poor old Rodrigo.

Actually, he wasn't old, and he wasn't going to get any older.

Other than the fact that I wanted to cut out his heart and set it on fire for what he did to my team, he was living the high life – at least until tonight.

His life was worth exactly what they paid him to help kill over fifty of my staff.

Oh, Rodrigo?

What did you sell your soul to win?

It's Judgment Day, Rodrigo, and I'm your executioner.

Jack defeated the doors, and as we had arranged, all was quiet. Everyone was locked down, as they had been, every evening and night for days. The only thing different was the guards were all over in another building, being briefed on new procedures, techniques, and reports.

When Rodrigo looked up and saw Jack, he started to rise, but a twitch of Jack's hand and the tazer put him down. When he next tried to open his eyes, they were taped over, and he was tied and gagged, bouncing in the back of a government issued pick-up truck. We were racing toward the beach where our skiff waited to take us to a very special yacht I chartered just for this mission.

Beside Rodrigo was the unconscious and bound body of Toorialay Ismat Khatib. He was the facilitator and financier of the cabal that killed my team. He was going to lead us to the promised land of intelligence information, and the knowledge in his skull was going to unlock so many doors for retribution and balance the scales.

Poor Rodrigo ... He was not going to like the welcoming committee I prepared.

Poorer Toorialay. His suffering was just beginning...

The skiff raced across the water to a point fifteen miles out from shore, where our prisoners were hoisted aboard and hurried into the bowels of the ship. I would be with them soon, but by then they would be chained, blindfolded, and secured in some very special chairs, custom made just for aggressive interrogation.

Already waiting in a special chair, all his own, was the third party to tonight's entertainment. He had had a very bad week.

It was about to get much worse.

The three men wore noise-canceling headsets that kept them in a state of complete confusion. They'd understand soon enough, when the agonizing pains hit them, that this was their final stop. The sooner they confessed ... everything ... the sooner they'd find their final resting place.

Everything was going to take a very long time, no matter how fast they gave it all up. Rodrigo would be put down first, but Toorialay – he was going to have to endure it for some time.

It would be bad for Rodrigo and Toorialay, but not as bad as it was going to get for those who actually did the killing. For them, judgment might be more than a body can withstand. The sooner they spilled it all, the sooner they would find out if what they'd been taught in catechism class and at the mosque was true.

For the third man ... he had been praying for the bliss of death for days. His screams became so common, the crew forgot he was even there half the time. His information was golden, even the information he didn't know he knew. When it was pieced together and analyzed by the very best, it unraveled a previously opaque picture that led us to tonight.

Before dealing with our captives, the team got us underway and farther outside Cuban waters. A hearty meal awaited us in the galley. Jack, Roy, and I enjoyed the quiet. It wouldn't be quiet in a few minutes, so the respite was appreciated.

We lounged in the galley, watching CNN and a maritime weather report, before trudging down to the hold and our very special guests.

The one who'd been there longest, looked the worst for wear. His hair was greasy, blood soaked, and plastered across his brow. He was filthy, urine covered, and his clothes reeked of human waste. We let him dwell in his own stink to make a point. It was time to stop playing and get down to business.

"Jason. What did you do? What did you do, Jason?" I pulled the blindfold off his face, and he blinked away the sudden glare, before recognizing me and screaming in utter shock, and despair.

"What did you do, Jason? Why did you sell out the President and get my team killed? What possessed you to think we wouldn't find out? How could you be so stupid, Jason?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" He babbled so fast it sounded like Chinese.

The short, sharp, jolt from the tazer cut him off his denials. "Jason. We know about your secret account in the Cayman's and the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars you got from ISIS. What I don't know is why you sold us out. The bad thing is that I will know before the night is over, and you will beg me to let you confess, so let's try something to spark your memory."