“Please let me go.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized it, and a curl of shame unfolded in his chest.
“Your name is Randall Choate. You live in Manassas, Virginia. You have a wife and a daughter.” Gumalar lowered his voice. “My reach is long, Mr. Choate. If I want to reach out and touch your family”-he tossed the banana peel into the trash can-“I will. Now. You are CIA, sent here to spy on me.”
“No, no, no.” It was no struggle to put fear into his voice; they were threatening his family. The terror he’d felt for himself faded like the dusk, replaced by a darkness that thrummed in his chest. Kim and Tamara, Jesus, no. How did they know so much about him?
“Tellar is a CIA front.”
“No. No, sir. Please, whatever this misunderstanding is, you got to let me go. My company will pay you, is that the problem? They’ll pay to get me back.”
“I’m not going to give you back. You’re going to tell me what sort of operation is being mounted against me.”
“I don’t know anything…”
“This Englishman they call the Dragon,” Gumalar said. “Where do I find him?”
“I don’t know…”
More water, more torture, more ripples of pain shuddering under his skin. Gumalar’s thug clicked a pair of pliers in front of Choate’s face and made a grand show of removing his sock and his shoe.
Choate stayed silent, gritted his teeth, told himself not to scream.
With a deft yank the thug wrenched out one of Choate’s toenails. The thunderbolt of pain made Choate dry-heave and piss himself. He screamed and the thug hit him with the pliers, cracking his cheek. The thug kicked the chair over in a rage and beat him senseless.
Time passed, he did not know how long. The slant of light through the high window was different when he awoke. He was alone.
Suddenly from the next room, voices drifted through the wood: Let us see if this Dragon breathes fire.
Then Choate heard a scream. A man. No, no, you got the wrong guy, man… A voice with a soft rural English accent. The voice revved to a scream. Bloodyhellbloodyhellahhhhhh-God no God no…
They’d found the Dragon. Someone had betrayed them both.
Are you the one they call the Dragon?
I, oh, please don’t…
And then a horror, the sound of a sharp chunking into wood and a scream that would have unsettled the demons in hell. The scream lasted half of forever and then devolved into sobs and a moan. Slaps, mumbled questions about CIA operations in Indonesia. More screams. More.
The door clanged open, Choate opened his eyes. Men dragged what was left of the Dragon into the room. His wrists were bloodied stumps loosely wrapped in pillowcases, sodden red, his eyes wide with terror, his chin smeared with vomit.
“Who is this man?” Gumalar yelled, and for a moment Choate didn’t know if he was yelling at him or the Dragon.
“I never saw him before in my life,” Choate said and the Dragon hung his head.
“We will kill him if you do not talk.”
“You’ve already done half the job,” Choate said, and he spat at Gumalar. A fist started hitting him in the head, and after the seventh blow and a brutal kick, the chair he was tied to toppled to the floor and he fell with it. The world went hazy and gray.
Time meant nothing. He jerked his head up at the roar of a gunshot. Men mumbling, arguing, one saying in Indonesian, We can’t learn anything from him now, you stupid ass. For a moment he thought he’d been shot; but he wasn’t, he was alone.
He heard doors opening and closing. But his stayed shut. They would come for him now, kill him now. Voices grew louder, arguing in Indonesian. He heard the distinctive, soft grind of a body being dragged across concrete.
“Hey. We talk again in a few days. When you very thirsty, you very hungry, we talk some more.” The thug’s voice was thin through the heavy door.
Leaving him here. Leaving him here to die. To starve to death or die of dehydration in the middle of a huge, teeming city.
Footsteps walking away, a door shutting.
The Dragon must have given them what they wanted; if not, the torture would have started on him. Maybe they were going to negotiate for his release. No. He had seen Gumalar’s face. He choked down the hope that he was going to get out of here. They had no reason to keep him alive.
Choate barely dared to move. The ropes binding him to the chair were as tight as they ever were… but the chair felt strange. The back of its frame moved as he struggled. Wood grated against wood. He closed his eyes and collected his thoughts. Slowly he began to move his bound hands. Thinking of nothing else, ignoring the agony in his foot, in his face.
Crack. The back of the chair, already damaged from one of his attacker’s kicks, parted from the seat. He tried to pull loose from the ropes but they remained too tight. Still tied, now just to two broken chunks of furniture, his arms to the chair’s back, his legs to its seat.
Nothing to do but wait for them to come back and kill him.
When he woke up, the room was still in darkness, the tall window that had provided gray light was black with night.
I will touch your family.
He tugged on the ropes. Tight. He scooted the damaged chair against the concrete wall and began to pound his back against the hardness. Again. Again. Again.
The chair’s back splintered further. He pulled with his fingertips, wriggled his back, and eased out the damaged wood. The ropes loosened as more pieces of chair slipped free. Finally, after what felt like hours, he wrenched his left hand free from the coils. Then, slowly, his right hand. Pain throbbed up both arms as he tried to move them for the first time in two days. After a while he pulled his feet clear from the ropes.
He stood on unsteady feet. Stumbled until he reached a wall. Felt along for the door. Locked. He tried the light switch. It flickered on.
In the distance, he heard a door opening. They were coming back. Lied about staying away for days; they’d probably just left to dump the Dragon’s body.
He glanced around the room. A table, a high window just to let in light. He pulled the table under the window. He picked up the chair the thug had sat in while interrogating him. He put it on the table and grabbed one of the chair legs. It was the only weapon he had. He stuck it down the back of his filthy shirt and he jumped up and grabbed the window’s ledge. He held tight and used his other hand to unlock and raise the window. He fell back down to the table, then climbed back on the chair and jumped up again. He swung a leg up to force himself through the window and dropped onto an alleyway. The night sounds of Jakarta-the purr of endless traffic, honking, the wind carrying the wail of music-hummed in his ear.
He ran for the road.
“I don’t understand,” Choate said. The bedsheets were scratchy, and despite his exhaustion he had little interest in rest now.
“You’re going home,” the station chief, Raines, said. He was a scarecrow of a man, as though the heat and humidity of Indonesia had winnowed away much of him. He smoked kreteks, clove cigarettes, and the sweet smell knotted Choate’s guts.
“But Gumalar…”
“Never mind Gumalar. Our investigation is shut down.”
“But the Dragon… they killed him, they, Jesus, they chopped off his hands. Someone inside betrayed us.”
“Yes. One of his informants.”
“No. His informants didn’t know about me. They grabbed him after they grabbed me. The only people who knew the Dragon and me were working together were the CIA.”
Raines frowned, as though personally insulted. “Listen, then the Dragon talked after you came to town. He was a black ops dirty job guy, he didn’t exist even before he died. He was a free wheel, he wasn’t an actual agent.”
“I’m telling you we have a leak inside the Agency. Gumalar knew about my family, they knew my name… I never mentioned any personal details to the Dragon.”
“Then we’ll seal the leak. But you’re blown. You’re going home. Gumalar’s family knows about the investigation. We’re being asked to back out by Indonesian intelligence. They will handle it.”
“Gumalar owns someone inside Indonesian intel.” Choate put his face in his hands. “He’s dumping money to terrorists. He kidnapped us because we got close and he wanted to scare the Agency off.”
“What part of go home do you not understand? It’s not your problem anymore. Your flight leaves tomorrow morning. Be grateful and happy you’re alive, Randall.”
The nurse brought his dinner and Randall Choate thought, No, I’m not leaving tomorrow. I’m not leaving until the people who threatened my family are dead. And he felt a debt to the Dragon, a need to see justice done. He nearly laughed. He had not wanted a partner; now he was going to avenge the only one he’d ever had.