Sampler

Extraction Techniques

The dark heavy wooden door opened and a man walked in. He was wearing a dark suit with a close weave. His hair was clipped short and white against his light skin. He spoke to the woman behind the desk.

"How many hours now?"

The woman put the top on the gold fountain pen that she had been using and placed it carefully in a groove in her blotter pad.

"We have been giving him the treatment for 15 hours."

The man sharply inhaled, his breath whistling slightly in his impatience.

"How much longer?"

The woman leant back in her tall backed chair, the white leather acting as a frame for her auburn hair and close fitting dark red blouse.

"I do not plan discussing anything with him for at least another 5."

The man rocked on his heels, determined to keep his dissatisfaction in the lack of progress from showing.

"The water leaves no marks you said?"

She knew that things were not going as quickly as others would like, and knew that before her was just a puppet, a high ranking puppet, but still a puppet. She had explained her techniques at the highest level, and been granted approval. She knew the stakes, she knew the risks of leaving traces of her methods, the consequences were unconscionable. She steeled her voice to remove her irritation and explained once again.

"No. The continual dripping across his body comes from one of over two hundred points at random. As you are aware the old single drip to the forehead so popular in literature will actually leave a bruise, and if continued for long enough can cause a local depression of the skull. These are forensic trails that can be detected. No, my method is far more effective. Random drips of ice cold water over the wholly restrained body at random time intervals. There is no respite for the recipient. Drugs would leave a trace in his tissue, in his hair. This method whilst slower leaves absolutely no trace on, or in, his body."

The man needed results, his master needed results, this was going too slowly, surely she knew how high the stakes were?

"The restraining will leave marks, why hide one forensic trail and leave another more obvious?"

"No Peter, the restraints will not leave any trace. They are broad and tightly bound to the skin, the subject is bound to a padded base. No chemicals in the bindings to leave trace, no drugs in his system to tell tales later. Believe me, this is totally untraceable, and very effective. I could arrange for you to have a personal encounter if you wish to judge for yourself how effective?"

The man snorted.

"Don't be so presumptuous and Margaret, if results are not forthcoming soon, a scapegoat will be found. You know the way it is."

"Peter, my method will, given the correct conditions and time, get the results that you need."

"That is as maybe but we need the results now. This chappy did his utmost to do away with Her Majesty's Government and with Her Majesty and family also."

"I understand that Peter, although I suspect that after recent events there are many that wouldn't have missed the Government lot." She smiled, a little humour she hoped would relax him, get him off her back and allow her to get on. It did not work.

"That is not the point, and most certainly not for you to conjecture upon," came the staccato reply. "We need to know who he was working with. I need to know that you are going to deliver results."

"I will Peter, I just need time."

"Time you have, but it flies dear woman and like sand in a glass jar time has a habit of running out."

"Indeed Peter, but as time runs out of the jar it also runs out for our subject. His resolve is almost broken. As you go and report, just imagine. Just imagine being naked, restrained unable to move in a silent and totally dark room. For fifteen hours ice cold water drops on you, each time on a different part of you, sometimes the interval between drops is so short as to be barely noticeable, other times, just as you think they have stopped, they start again. No one asks you questions. You don't know how long you have been there, you don't know how much longer. No one comes in to the room, you don't even know if it is a room. You know that you were taken by security forces after you attempted the most outrageous of crimes. You know all about rendition, you know all about what Governments can do to their enemies. You know that even Sadaam broke, you know all these things, they buzz around your brain, but still drip, drip, drip."

Margaret paused to let him take in the scene before continuing."Just about now I start the random lights. Faint spots of light will come on and off in the room, very small, barely detectable. At first you may not notice them, but then you will, but they will be out of sequence with the water, the water drops will feel like daggers, ice cold, random other drops will now be at body temperature, and will assault your ability to relate your senses to what you think is happening. Your belief that this is simply a technique to extract information from you , which has kept you going wanes, you will not be able to co-ordinate your sensory inputs and your brain will lose control and begin to let go."

"Yes Margaret, spare me the details, how will you know when the time is right?"

Margaret turned the computer monitor round so that it faced Peter. He could see that it was a medical readout. It had various figures in the upper section, heart rate, body temperature he recognised, and a number of traces going left to right beneath. At the bottom was a close up of eyes. The subjects eyes he presumed, open, looking at nothing, not staring, just looking.

"Peter, I am monitoring him constantly, I look and I know what all these mean, I know what I am doing, I shall know when the moment arrives."

"And then what Margaret?"

"And then Peter your subject shall be broken and I shall get you the answers that you want to questions that you don't even have to ask."

"Jesus Margaret, how the hell do you sleep at night?" He turned and walked towards the door, he had heard and seen enough.

"In a water bed Peter, it relaxes me, and Peter?"

He turned back from the door and nodded to her, "Yes Margaret?"

"Now that you know Peter, now that you have seen all this, now that you are complicit, how are you going to sleep tonight?"