Chapter 23
The cage was roughly the size of a coffin.
As rotten as Paul felt, a coffin would be welcome.
He was six feet two inches tall, and his bare feet touched the wire at one end and his head at the other.
His broad shoulders almost touched the wire on both sides.
With some effort he could roll to one side and urinate through the wire.
This happened rarely because he was so dehydrated.
He had defecated only once. He had not eaten in days.
For a long time the drugs had masked the pain of hunger and thirst and the excruciating stiffness in his joints and muscles, but they had stopped using the needles.
As the fog slowly dissipated, the misery increased.
He was lying on a thin layer of cardboard, or something.
He couldn’t see it, but it was not thick enough to cushion the wire from cutting the skin of his back, legs, and rear end.
His ankles were bound but his hands were free, and he had tried to manipulate the wire above his head.
It looked like chicken wire, but thicker and strong enough to prevent him from pinching it together and trying to get out.
And what would he do if he got out of the cage? He was in a dark room in a dark building on the dark side of the world. Where, exactly, would he run to if he made it out the door?
He was naked and had been for a long time. His shit had dried on his legs and butt and the odor grew worse by the hour.
The room was pitch-black, hot and still. He listened for any faint sound, and there was none. For the first day, maybe two, he tried to keep his thoughts on Chelsea, but as the hours passed and the hunger gnawed at his stomach he could think only of food and water.
Suddenly there was a sound, a large door banging open, then a curtain yanked roughly back and the room was filled with light.
It pierced his eyes and for seconds he could not see.
Then, the image of two men stepping toward him, neither saying a word.
They lifted the cage off a rack or table and dropped it roughly to the concrete floor.
Paul groaned as the wire cut into his back.
The top of the cage swung open and one of them growled, “Your hands.”
The other grabbed Paul’s left hand, slapped a metal cuff on it, then grabbed the other. “Not so tight!” Paul said.
They pulled him to his feet but he could not stand.
There were two of them, one dressed in black like some Ninja warrior.
The other in jeans, boots, a white T-shirt, and bushy hair with a long pointed nose that made him resemble Franco Harris.
Both were unshaven and unafraid of being seen.
To a captive with military training that meant they were probably planning to kill him. Go ahead and do it! Get it over with.
Ninja pulled down a hook hanging from the ceiling, slipped it under the handcuffs, then yanked a rope that ran through a pulley on a boom.
Paul was suddenly hanging by his wrists, which were cracking as if breaking.
The pain was horrible and he wanted to scream but refused.
He was swung to a corner of the room where a large, rusty drain of some sort had been fitted into the floor.
Franco picked up a short green hose, turned on the water, and began spraying Paul.
The water was cold at first but not unpleasant.
Most of it was directed at his genitals, and when the dried excrement was washed off, Franco put down the hose.
“I need water, please” Paul pleaded. “I’m very thirsty.”
They ignored him, said nothing, and left the room.
He twisted in the air for a few minutes, then realized that motion made bad matters worse.
So he became perfectly still and tried to calm the pain shooting through his shoulders and arms. The curtain was left open and the room was visible.
Forty feet by forty, ten-foot ceiling, one metal door, one window that had been hidden by a black curtain.
The walls were thick, the floor concrete.
At one end was a small desk with three chairs.
In one corner was a large tub of water, and beside it were wooden boards.
Leather and Velcro straps were on the floor beside the tub.
The boom above him was attached to a portable lift, on wheels so it could be moved back and forth.
His cage was one of three. The other two were stacked against a wall.
It was a torture room, and he was alone.
—
After some time, it could have been fifteen minutes or two hours, Franco and Ninja barged back into the room. Paul was lowered to the floor where he collapsed. They tossed a basket at him, then turned and left without a word.
A small loaf of stale bread, apples, oranges, grapes, a plum.
And two bottles of water, the first of which he drank in one long gulp, though he knew better.
It was not wise to gorge on food and water, but he could not stop himself.
He ate as slowly as possible and the food lasted ten minutes.
He managed to save half a bottle of water and had the sickening thought of hiding it in his cage, as if that was his new home.
He tried to stand but with his ankles rubbing one another he fell twice.
If he couldn’t get out of the room, why was he still bound? He had so many questions for those idiots. The fruit and bread revived his body immensely as it quickened his mind.
Then they were back. Without a word they pulled him to his feet. Ninja hooked him up again and within seconds Paul was swinging, his toes just inches off the floor. In the rough manhandling he realized how wiry and strong they were.
“Is this really necessary?” he asked. “What do you want from me? I have nothing to give you.”
No response. He watched in disbelief as Franco removed two rubber pipes from a box near the cages.
Each was about four feet long, black and flexible so that when swung properly they whipped forward like leather straps.
Both Ninja and Franco knew how to swing properly.
The first blow popped against Paul’s back and sent white-hot bolts of pain through his entire body.
He managed to scream while clenching his teeth, determined to make as little noise as possible.
Why worry about noise? It was the military thing—don’t let the assholes know how much they’re hurting you.
But they knew. Back and forth they went, calmly taking turns, working up and down from his shoulders to his buttocks.
Harder instruments—wood, metal, iron, PVC—would break bones, not what they wanted.
Their leader wanted bruises, whelps, small cuts, injuries that would eventually heal, so that more could be inflicted. He played the long game.
After a round of blows to his ribs, Paul lost consciousness. His assailants grew bored or fatigued and the flogging stopped. They put away their weapons, lowered him to the floor, unhooked his wrists from the cable, and left him, naked and bloody and gasping for reality.
His buttocks were so raw he could not sit, so he managed to pull himself up and stand.
His feet were not beaten, nor was his face, but that mattered little.
There were enough open wounds and bruises to make every breath painful.
He was suddenly nauseous but did not want to lose the nourishment he had just taken.
But he couldn’t control his system and the vomit came in retched gasps.
When his system settled, he began to think that he might not die after all. Between waves of pain he asked himself, What on earth have I done to deserve this?
The door clanged open again and he shrieked impulsively. They hooked his wrists again and raised him from the floor. Franco turned on the water and began spraying the mess of vomit and blood, and for fun he aimed a few bursts at Paul, who screamed when the water hit his wounds. They laughed.
When the floor was clean, they lowered and unhooked him, then roughly stuffed him into his cage.
Every touch, every move, every breath was hot pain.
The cage was placed back on the rack with the two empty ones, as if waiting for more victims. They placed a speaker near Paul’s head, turned on some indecipherable screaming in another language, and cranked it up to an ear-splitting level.
From their box of tools they pulled out a searchlight on a flimsy stand and aimed it at Paul from five feet away.
Even glancing at it burned his eyes. Between the music and the light he lost all sense of being.
The pain became secondary as he battled to keep his wits.
They were gone. They left without turning off the wailing, curdling racket or the light.