BERLIN, GERMANY
Gary Lawlor spat the blood from his mouth, looked into the eyes of Helmut Draegar and said for the third time, “Fuck you.”
The large, stone room, with its out-of-date furniture, empty filing cabinets, and antiquated communications consoles, was cold and damp. From the little Lawlor could remember of being transported here, it was someplace deep underground. Estimating the probable amount of time he had been incapacitated by the Taser, Lawlor figured they must still be somewhere in Berlin, or just on its outskirts. Often, he could hear a faint, but distinct rumbling, like jackhammers, and thought that they must be near some sort of construction, which wasn’t any help because in Berlin, that could be anywhere.
“Though this gives me great pleasure, it is not working, is it?” asked Draegar as he set down the oblong strip of leather clad iron he had been using to beat his prisoner and removed his black leather gloves. “We should try something else.”
He motioned to his assistant and for the first time, Gary noticed the flesh of Draegar’s right hand. There was something uneven about it. No, not uneven, butwrong. The color was off. Then he realized.It was a prosthetic.
Draegar’s assistant, addressed as Karl, was a sinewy man in his late forties with opaque eyes and a sickly, jaundiced complexion. He wheeled over a large surgical lamp and plugged it into a nearby outlet as Draegar said, “I see you looking at my hand.”
“How?” said Lawlor.
“Wolves caught in snares have been known to gnaw off their own leg in order to escape. Do you think when presented with the same obstacles human beings would be any different?”
Lawlor wanted to vomit.
At that moment, Karl flipped the switch and the murky room was suddenly awash in bright fluorescent light. As he adjusted the lamp, it flashed briefly in Lawlor’s eyes and caused him to see spots before it was lowered to focus on his mouth.What the hell were they doing?
The answer came quickly enough as his captor wheeled over a small stainless steel surgical tray and unrolled a worn leather case containing a series of long, chrome plated picks, probes, mirrors and dental pliers. “I actually first saw this in a movie,” said Draegar as he carefully selected the tools he would need and began placing them off to one side of the tray. “It takes a very precise hand, if you will, but can yield great results. The key is in prolonging the life of the exposed nerve for as long as possible, but if the one you are working on dies, which with this method inevitably happens, not to worry. We just expose a new one.”
With his hands and feet flexi-cuffed to the old wooden chair he was sitting upon, Lawlor could only stare in disbelief as Karl plugged a portable electric dental drill into another wall outlet, unraveled its long cord and then brought it over and set it down on the tray next to the other instruments. Instinctively, Gary clamped his teeth together as tight as he could.
Draegar noticed the ripple roll across Lawlor’s jaw and said, “Resistance. Excellent. It will help keep things interesting.” As Karl maneuvered himself behind Lawlor, Draegar continued speaking, “One way or another, I will extract the information I need from you.”
Though Lawlor’s body was tense in anticipation of the sheer agony Draegar had in store for him, in a small, removed corner of his mind there was clarity. Draegar had used the wordneed. Though the former Stasi operative obviously took pleasure in torturing him, he would not kill him, at least not right away.
But the primary question that dominated Gary Lawlor’s mind was how in the world Helmut Draegar had survived Gary’s attempt on his life. Night after night he had lain awake devising the method by which he would kill the man who had murdered his wife. When the time came, he had carried out his plan in perfect detail, even allowing himself time to watch the explosion as it shook the ancient building and spat a thundering cloud of smoke and fiery debris into the night sky. But somehow, here Draegar was. How was it possible? How could he have escaped?
As Karl’s hands gripped the side of Gary’s head and his fingers tried to pry their way into his mouth, his mind was jolted back to the present. The man was strong and Lawlor did his best to resist him, thrashing in his chair as much as his restraints would allow.
“Pitiful,” said Draegar as he delivered an agonizing blow with a truncheon to Lawlor’s groin area, “but to be expected.”
As Lawlor opened his mouth, a whoosh of air burst forth along with a deep groan of pain. Karl was ready for the reflex and shoved two rubber blocks between his teeth as far back as they would go. The blocks caused Lawlor to gag, but nothing he could do would dislodge them. They were wedged in tight, forcing his jaw wide open and fully exposing his teeth.
The blocks set in place, Karl stretched a tight metal band across Lawlor’s forehead, bending his neck backwards, until the band locked into a restraining device on the back of the chair.
Draegar positioned his lamp so he could get a good look into Gary’s mouth and began slowly probing his teeth with one of the sharp dental picks. “Americans take oral hygiene very seriously, don’t they? You have lovely teeth. Absolutely lovely for the most part,” said Draegar as he continued his exam. “But, I am a little concerned with this one here.” He emphasized his point by adding pressure to the pick.
Lawlor’s body involuntarily convulsed.
“Just as I suspected. Do you know much about teeth?” asked Draegar, who waited for some sign from Lawlor. When he didn’t get it, he pressed down with the pick again and watched Lawlor’s body tense against the restraints as if it had been jolted with an electric shock. “You see, inside each tooth is what we call pulp which provides the nutrients and nerves to the tooth. It runs like a little thread right down into the root. When it is diseased or damaged, as yours appears to be, the pulp can die, exposing the nerve. That is the pain you are feeling now.” Once again he pressed down with the pick and watched Lawlor’s body thrash like a man in the electric chair, before continuing. “The obvious course here would be to dig out the pulp, clean out the area and seal it. The procedure is commonly known as a root canal.”
Draegar removed the pick from Lawlor’s mouth and set it on the tray beside him. “You are actually quite lucky that I discovered your tooth problem. Had it gone on much longer, it could have been quite a mess, but I think we may have gotten to it just in time. It is quite painful, isn’t it? In fact, I would imagine that the anticipation of my further prodding has to be just as dreadful as the act itself.”
Lawlor fixed Draegar with a cold, hard stare.
“If you answer my questions, we can be done with all of this. No more pain. No more fear of pain. Tell me what I need to know and it all stops,” said Draegar as he swabbed Lawlor’s damaged tooth with a short-acting topical anesthetic. “Are the same men still involved? Has the team been updated? What is your contingency plan if they fail?”
Lawlor closed his eyes and let his body go limp, as if resigning himself to surrender.
“That’s it,” said Draegar. “Cooperate and all of the pain goes away.”
After several moments had passed, Lawlor opened his eyes.
Draegar smiled. “You are ready to answer me now?”
Though the rubber blocks had his jaws stretched to what felt like the breaking point, Gary steeled himself, opened his mouth even wider and retracted his tongue, providing Helmut Draegar with unfettered access to his tooth.
Through the bright glare of the surgical lamp, Lawlor was able to enjoy a brief moment of victory as he saw the surprised reaction on Draegar’s face. The look was soon replaced by one of sadistic determination as Draegar lifted the old dental drill and pumped life into it via its foot pedal on the floor.
The nauseating smoke from the drill bit burning through his tooth bothered him only for a second. Soon, there was nothing other than a roiling tidal wave of pain.