Traitor

Participants:

anton_icon.gif

Scene Title Traitor
Synopsis What does an advisory member of the French Embassy and an agent of the CIA have in common? You might be surprised at the answer.
Date October 7, 2009

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Its a bitter taste, like rotten almonds perhaps. Thats the tranquilizer, a taste every good field man should know through their own experimentation. This is what the CIA field manual calls a an undesired outcome, thats what they call it when you get your punk ass caught.

Anton waits in silence, watching the naked form with the patience of a snake. The floor's slimy and covered with about an inch of water, nevermind its at most fourty degrees down here.

"Good morning, are you with me yet?"his voice is calm and slow, lacking that neutral midwestern accent he used at the bar.

Theres a trashbag in use, with a ziptie pulled gently around the base of the neck. Thats an old CIA trick, the constant lack of clean air keeps headaches around without killing you, and its pretty epic with the hangover from that horse tranq Anton used earlier. The sound of a ship's horn is distant, and after moments still unanswered.

"I have a few questions to ask you, but let me extend you a professional curtesy before we begin. Just tell me if you've played this game before, if so we can skip the long winded introduction and get right down to it."Pausing for of course, a hit of his flask. Anton aint about to let some jackass interrupt his buzz, now is he.

Its a bitter taste, like rotten almonds perhaps. Thats the tranquilizer, a taste every good field man should know through their own experimentation. This is what the CIA field manual calls a an undesired outcome, thats what they call it when you get your punk ass caught.

Anton waits in silence, watching the naked form with the patience of a snake. The floor's slimy and covered with about an inch of water, nevermind its at most fourty degrees down here.

"Good morning, are you with me yet?"his voice is calm and slow, lacking that neutral midwestern accent he used at the bar.

The Chair's colder than anything else, aluminum with plain steel wire used to keep Anton's guest right where he belongs. Theres a trashbag in use, with a ziptie pulled gently around the base of the neck. Thats an old CIA trick, the constant lack of clean air keeps headaches around without killing you, and its pretty epic with the hangover from that horse tranq Anton used earlier. The sound of a ship's horn is distant, and after moments still unanswered.

"I have a few questions to ask you, but let me extend you a professional curtesy before we begin. Just tell me if you've played this game before, if so we can skip the long winded introduction and get right down to it."Pausing for of course, a hit of his flask. Anton aint about to let some jackass interrupt his buzz, now is he.

Huffing breathing causes that plastic bag to breathe in and out like some ghastly lung around the captive's head. The rasping crinkle of the plastic mixes with the feverish sounds of panicked breathing. The first response is struggle, testing the bonds of hands and feet to no avail, just the futile struggle of a tired and weakened body in a damp, cold place twisting at bindings that will not release.

The shuddering exhalation of breath that comes next might have been an attempt at speech, but the cottony texture of the captive's mouth and the tightness of his throat makes that first sentence abortive. It's one thing to undergoe SERE training at Langley, it's another to experience that situations they describe first hand. "Whh…"

The breathy words are confused, the captive's head tilts inside of the bag, crinkling it again as another — harder — jerk is given to his restraints. "Fhh— " he cuts himself off, breathing in and out slowly. "You know— you— " a deep breath causes his bag to constrict and expand, "Christ," he whispers to himself, "You know I'm not going to say anything."

"Heres the deal. I'm going to torture you, and them I'm going to kill you. You will not survive this, you will never leave this room alive and you will not know comfort until I put you out of this world. Take a moment, and make peace with that."Anton's voice is as smooth as ever, showing no hint that this could be an unusual situation for him.

And so there is a pause there, to let that all sink in. "I am a member of the Deuxieme Bureau of France, and I am an exceptionally skilled counter terrorist. I am much better at my job than you are, but I recognize we're both professionals in the same field. So this is how this works. By the time you die, I will either know what I want or I wont. If I dont know what I want, I'm going to grab somone else. Your wife, your child, your parents, your sister and then I'll work my way through your office. I'll make sure they know you were a traitor, that you passed classified information to terrorists and they'll congratulate me for the fine work that went in to destroying everything you ever did in this world. Now, I will ask a question. If you answer it, I wont hurt you. If you lie to me, I'll cut something off. If you refuse to talk to me, I'll cut something off. If you shout at me, I'll cut something off. If you displease me in any fashion, I'll cut something off."Anton finally pauses oncemore to stuff his flask away and slip a pair of rubber gloves on, letting the sound of that rubber echo in the otherwise quiet space.

"First question, how many pages was the document that you sold."

Sharp and shuddering breathing punctuates the silence and the occasional drip of water into the stagnant collection on the floor. Shivvering now, the man bound into the chair takes a few beats too long to decide his course of action, too much adrenaline, throbbing behind his eyes and stiffness to his sore muscles to fully fabricate an acceptible answer. But then, when the first hint of movement from Anton emerges, there's a spluttering exhalation of words, "F— fuck s— stop!" That's shouting, and that's not quite what the Frenchman was hoping for.

"It— I— I don't fucking know. I don't— " His head swims, blotches appear before his eyes, unable to see in the dark but the fluctuations of blood pressure give him something akin to the aurora borealis to pay focus to. "I don't remember— it was years ago! I don't remember!" How this man knew so much, how the French Government knew so much was beyond him. Maybe he wasn't French, maybe this was his buyers biting him back.

All he knows is that right now it doesn't really matter. Torture resistance programs or not, finding himself in this predicament isn't where he wanted his career to end.

"We're not off to a very good start here, now are we?"Anton selects a large cold chisel from a tray, and procures a hammer before silently moving near. Theres a swish of water of the poor field officer's feet, before it happens.

-CLANK-

The toe comes off in an eruption of red amidst the chilly water, and Anton rises oncemore. Setting his hammer and chisel back onto their tray. "see, I'm not unreasonable. When you say you dont know, I believe you. Now lets not dwell on spilled milk, or amputated toes. Its time for question number two."

"How much were you paid, to provide the document."

The screams from that act of violence last for a protracted period of time. Long whines of pain and confusion, shuddering sobs and ragged breathing trail on as words fail where bitter pain and steam coming off of a perspiring body rise up into the chilly air. It takes as long as Anton expects for the agent to finally calm down enough to spit out a guttural and predictable response of, "Go fuck yourself you fucking French fucker!" Pain will do that to a man, rob them of reason, it's why the human body has so many appendages that can be removed one by one.

It's like a cornucopia of surgical delights.

It's right around that half-breath of a moment after he spits out the curse, that the agent is regretting them coming out. "Wh— Wait— wait I— "

The sigh is plainly audible as Anton squats down oncemore to rest that cold chisel onto another toe. "Wait, wait he says. Will you apologize for cursing at me and answer the question? This is nothing personal, you should know that by now. This is a paycheck, like your paycheck. No reason to get sour just because you were sloppy, you let this happen after all."The chisel, moves away and drops with a thud back onto the tray. "I'm being as kind to you as I can, so answer the question or I'm going to castrate you with a hammer for wasting my time. -Then- I'll amputate the pulp that remains with a chisel."

The fact that nothing gets severed after that outburst causes the man in the chair to tense rather than relax, like waiting for the hand behind the back to come up and slap him across the side of the face. Huffing a ragged breath, the bag flexes in and out as his breathing hastens, and never really slows down. Those frantic and shallow breaths are all he can do to push out the unimaginable feeling of pain he is experiencing. "It— it was only a hundred— " he swallows dryly, "a hundred thousand." Shaking his head inside the bag, the man struggles to maintain his composure.

"I owed them— the— the people who bought it. They picked me up in Prague in '97…" a few stammering blunders of words space themselves between the beginning and end of speech. "I was— I was looking into a missing shipment of SAMs that disappeared in Kuwait, tracked it back to Germany. They— they fucking grabbed me it— " a sharp breath slides out, "some old fucking man, he never told me his name. He just fucking let me go, told me he owned me now, told me he'd make me pay him back. I got dropped off in fucking Costa Rica a week later. I don't— I don't fucking— I— "

Fear, panic, confusion, so many things run thorugh this man's mind. Regret, though, that's high on the list.

"I believe you. This man you met, this old man. Did he have facial scarring, how was his english?"Two questions, goodness a break from the rules. "See this is what I want to hear, continue on like this and I think I'll just give you an opiate overdose so you can fade away with a smile. So please, continue. Dont worry about the document for the moment, tell me about these people. I want to know everything. Did they have military or counter intelligence training, were you betrayed or did they find you. Was any of them evolved, did they have accents or speak in a language other than english?"

Confusion sets in for a moment when the interrogation takes a wholly different angle, and with a tired exhalation of breath, the man begins to come at ease— and it's only then the shock starts to truly take away the pain in his foot, endorphine surging to elate what should be a horrifying experience. Maybe it's not as bad as it felt he tells himself, maybe I'll make it out. Delusion is a wonderful opiate all its own.

"He— he was tall, thin. Like— thin like a rail, long face and nose. White hair. He wore glasses, spoke with a thick German accent. Never gave a name. He— the people that grabbed me were masked, military by the way they moved." A dry swallow comes next, then a shake of his head.

"He had a blonde woman with him, she sounded like a Russian. I learned her name two years later. It— " straining to remember, another dry and hcoking swallow comes. "Dulonova, Ellinka Dulonova. The ah— the old fucking man, it was just him and the blonde woman. They didn't blindfold me, fucking— do anything. Six of them jumped me at my hotel, drugged me. I woke up in a shipping container on a boat. I don't know where the fuck I was by then. They talked to me, told me I worked for them now and that if I didn't believe them— I would later."

Breathing in a deep breath, the man tries to slow his rambling speech. "I got left at a pier in Costa Rica, worked my way back home, I— I fucking filed my reports. Got time off. It— they found me again in 2002. I was overseas in Egypt, between assignments. That blonde woman showed up at my fucking hotel room door, shoved a gun in my face and forced me into my room."

His head turns, bag crinkling, looking to the side as if trying to see thorugh the holes in the plastic. "She basically fucking kidnapped me, brought me out to a waiting truck. We drove out to an airstrip outside of Cairo, lot of PMC-types waiting there, small plane. I knew we weren't going far. I was brought out to a train station, don't know fucking where— and we hopped trains for days until we hit Vladavostok. I spent some time at a church, and I was introduced to a different old man. He was American— or talked that way, looked hispanic, he— " something clicks, "he had some scarring on his cheeks, like— pockmarks. Carried a cane…"

Its a rare kindness, deliveriance from ignorance is a universal kindness within the intelligence community. "Kazimir Volken, he's a hold over Nazi from the second world war. He believes its his divine duty to clense the world of every hint of human life to return the world to eternal eden, where man will be reborn from the ashes. He's the one responsible for that noise in the late unpleasantness here in New York. You remember the briefings I'm sure, biological weapons and terrorist on terrorist warfare in the streets? You gave them access to a nuclear device, to save your own ass. Your not even just a turncoat, your a coward as well."Anton pauses there, dipping his head down to light a cigarette.

"I worked with them once you know, but this is back when we thought they were just holdover fascists. Those are actually useful, unlike religious fundementalists but you already knew that. Now I think you and I should get back to business. Is the entire document still on the laptop you carried?"Anton casually reaches across to finally slice that trash bag partially free, pushing it down around the poor guy's neck before offering over an already lit cigarette.

A name, a name after al these years, it's almost like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. But the man bound to that chair finds no true solace in it, only the plaguing pain of a throbbing headache shuddering behind his eyes. But when that bag is cut away, when the plastic is pulled free he hesitates to look upon the face of his captor It wouldn't be the first time he's been bound to a chair and escaped to save his own ass again later, but the Vanguard never took his toe.

"No." He says in a hushed breath, "No it— I only dealt in the hard copy. Electronic bullshit is— " there's a jerk of his head, "they refused to work with electronic documents. I never worked off of my own system." Another dry swallow gives him time to think, "I— I didn't know— " ignorance isn't an excuse, and the notion abords that plea of it.

Cooperation from fear and hopes of freedom, or at least mercy. For someone who's been one of Langley's fingers for as long as he has, he's obviously never resisted interrogation. Though, he wouldn't be in this situation if he had a strong moral fiber. "They had to have cooperation from within the Russian government. That— if they were taking a nuke out of Russia, there was more fingers up asses than— " a ragged breath slips out, and the man hunches forward with a pained groan as the throb from his foot becomes worse. "I didn't know that's what they were after."

Anton calmly produces a Silenced Glock from inside his jacket, rocking the slide back a hair to double check the chamber."You're a CIA man, so here's your chance to die doing something noble rather than a traitor. I know your not a fucking idiot, and your American so there is a duplicate. You kept it somewhere to cover your ass, in case someone like the French intelligence service came down to rock your world. So tell me, so that I can stop them and I'll make it clean. I'll dump your body in the river, and nobody needs to know you were a fucking traitor.

"Hhhh— fuck." The shuddered breath comes out, and the man closes his eyes tightly, breathing in a sharp breath before exhaling it. "I— my car. There's a portable drive— " nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists, it's everything he joined the CIA to help prevent. Somehow, though, he can't help but feel like this is all his fault. In a way, it is, but were it not for this man, another would have come alone, and if not for them another. But at least in his mind, it makes some of this justified.

"Inside the driver's side door, affixed with putty. It's encrypted, the document details a list of nuclear weapons set for decomissioning. That old— " he hesitates for a moment, breathing out a slow breath, "Kazimir had his eyes set on two specific nuclear weapons. Small— it— ten kiloton." That's hardly enough to destroy more than several square blocks. "The thing is, they were— some sort of self-arming device. Weapons that were designed towards the end of the Cold War. But they were standard nukes, they— aside from their arming protocol, there was nothing unique a— about them."

Swallowing back hesitation, the man looks up towards his captor, breathing in a deep breath. "I— I've got— I could get you… I could get you more information. I— I've got a family, it— please I— "

"TraƮtre" before, its just over. There's no flash, no death throes or last words. Its just over, just like that. Anton lowers the pistol, as the empty shell casing bounces off the barge's far wall and into the water with a hot sizzle crack. He calmly holsters his Glock, and slips up the ladder he came down originally. Leaving the body right where it sits, right where it deserves to rot.


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