Cracknel

Torture was not at all what Cracknel had expected.

He’d steeled himself. As he’d crouched, head bowed shivering in the wet tunnel outside this room for the last 6 hours he had focused and concentrated on burying himself. He knew that the only way to withstand what was coming was to detach himself from any semblance of self preservation, and all self respect or need for dignity. He decided that if he knew he would die and was completely dedicated to that end he would be able to face his end without fear. Fear is what would make the pain most real. Without the fear of death or dismemberment the actual physical sensation could be observed from a sort of distance. Even appreciated – if that’s a term that can be applied here – as the deepening of ones understanding of ones own anatomy.
He focused on the things that one must be prepared to sacrifice in this situation. The leverage of torture relies on the fact that the torturee is not expecting, or hoping not to be required to choose between the truth he wants to withhold, and the prospect of living with being blind, deaf, mute, paraplegic, infertile, mad or mentally handicapped through drugs or other techniques. The only way to face these fates is with relish, with a will for self destruction. This way the most likely outcome will be death at the hands of an enraged torturer. The key was to die without fear – to die well.

Seeing the Chinese man had been a sobering experience. He walked out. That was at least something. Lead by two guards by the hands, bound in a plastic cable tie, he had been wearing a pair of sunglasses, large blue lenses with round white frames. They looked decidedly medical. Behind them his eyes were two blood red circles. His eyelids had been removed. This had puzzled Cracknel. Why had they done that to him? Why was that considered the most effective method of extracting whatever information he may have had? Had it worked? Was that why he was walking away from the ‘play room’ with his life and apparently everything else he went in with? Cracknel had decided that this indicated a level of sadism and inventiveness on the part of the torturer which meant he had to allow into his mind every possible twisted thought about the nature of what must be to come in order to include them in his self destructive desires.
He had gone back to his meditation with renewed urgency. His self hypnosis routine through which he trained his mind to accept his fate with relish.

When he set eyes on the playroom he swallowed hard. However the anticipation was not met with a reality which lived up to expectations. It was a dingy room, dull grey walls, a couple of small pictures torn roughly out of porn magazines were stuck to the wall across the room at about waist height. A toilet in the corner and a thin single mattress on the floor completed the part of the picture which gave the room the appearance of a prison cell. The other half of the room contained a stool, a wooden table which looked like a public school desk, and a youngish dark haired man wearing a tired looking army jacket over a t-shirt and jeans. He was tall, about 6’2 and was clean shaven. His eyes were tired and dull, although Cracknel thought he saw a hint of humour in the face of this man, as if new quarry walking into his room gave him some cause for mirth.
Everything was wet, suggesting that the room had been hosed down shortly before he entered. He chose not to dwell on the thought of what it might have looked like before.
“I don’t know who you are, or who you think I am but I must assure you there’s been a terrible misunderstanding. You clearly think I have some kind of secret information which I might be inclined to give to you under duress, but I must say for the record that I’m just a data entry clerk. I don’t get to see anything top secret. I really would have told your men whatever I could already. I really have no love for this war or desire to play any further part in it. Please ask me whatever you want and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
 
“Orson Cracknel. 31.” His voice was a cut glass English accent. Authoritative and unemotional. “The fact that I know your real name surprises you.” It wasn’t a question; Cracknel was certain he hadn’t betrayed anything in his face. “You work for the ‘Second Sun’ organisation. You faked your own death four years ago to escape your crimes against your own country and since then you have been employed by no less than six countries to do various dirty jobs around the world. I bet you thought nobody alive knew so much about you.” Cracknel knew exactly how many people knew this much about him. That was why he was here – why he had allowed this situation to go so far.
“My name is Gordon Price.” He said quietly, with a slight quiver in his voice. He’d practised this part, and he put his heart into it. “I’ve a wife and child in England. I’ve never heard of any ‘Second Sun’. I beg of you to go back and double check your information because I know you’ll find that I’m not this man that you want. I just want to go home and see my daughter Zoë.”
The man stepped forward, as if to walk past him to the left, then in a moment put a right foot behind his right ankle and snapped in down, at the same time pushing his palm sharply into Cracknels chest. The effect was to flip him backwards; he followed through with his hand and slammed Cracknel into the stone floor, pushing into his chest so hard Cracknel felt at least two ribs crack and the sharp pain shot through his torsoe. The man was still perfectly calm. Cracknel was stunned and badly winded, though he fought to control his breath as the man took his hand from his chest and stood up. He knew that as soon as he tried to breathe he would find himself almost unable and that a wave of involuntary panic would rush through him so he held his breathing. Slowly taking stock of the pain he could begin to inhale gently, sipping the air, easing his broken ribs back to where they had started with a gentle cracking sound.
The man feigned dusting himself off and straightened his collar. “breaking you is going to be the highlight of my day.”