The Interrogator
The Interrogator
I watch and wait. At my desk twenty monitors are filled with the same image, each contains a box no bigger than a bathroom back home, and its only furnishing is a man being reduced to nothing but a shadow. They are prisoners, enemies of America. Their only proven crime was being caught. Dust goggles painted black from the inside block out any chance they might have of a foothold on their surroundings. Darkness steals the passage of time along with all hope. Hands, red and throbbing as they struggle for circulation, are bound behind with zip-ties with palms facing out. Rings of sweat drip and pour from every pit and fold. The moisture clings to the dirt and muck staining their white robes. The bruises beneath are a parting gift from their initial captors.
I watch the imposed cycle. First the men kneel, then stand, then kneel again. The sequence repeats for endless hours. The mind hides and the body screams to escape the endless pain of joints and back. A moment of rest becomes their only goal, but they learn quickly there are worse things than succumbing to exhaustion. Maintaining the cycle is far less painful than a visit from the centurions pacing the hallway. I scan the monitors and endless repetitions. Patient, I know my time will come. My breathing is calm and my focus clear. The room is entirely quiet except for the clicks and purrs of technology. The silent movies unfurl in front of my eyes and nothing escapes my notice.
One of the inhabitants catches my attention. He is no longer able to get up from the kneeling position and a guard calls to him through the bars to stand. The prisoner doesn’t speak the soldier’s language, but knows what is wanted and more importantly what comes next. I watch as he struggles to stand and fails. His lips move with pleas for mercy, but there is no mercy in this place. His anguish fills the silent monitor. The captors come and do their diligent work. They force him to dig deep for any last bit of strength and rise to his feet. A gut shot delivered by the guard flashes across the screen. The soldier’s mouth is distorted, yelling, exposing teeth like fangs. He is hungry to deliver another blow, but usually one is enough. The harsh upbringing in a land as brutal as this seems to allow exhaustion to hesitate before surrender. The prisoner stands, they always do, and the terror of what is yet to come consumes him.
He is ready. My first visit is timed to save him from another guard’s beating. I am only armed with a soft smile. I kneel close to him, remove the goggles, and wait for his eyes starved of light to focus. His first clear sight is of me. I gently wipe the sweat off his brow and tears from his face. His eyes beg for a reprieve, any hope to cling to. I hold water to his lips and watch as he gulps the liquid in gratitude. From the sharpie markings behind his neck, I’m guessing a gang of Rangers balled the man up and delivered him to his hell. His anger and arrogance toward his captors has long vanished.
“What’s your name?” I whisper allowing my smile to grow and comfort.
It doesn’t matter if he speaks English, because I know the kindness of my voice is in direct conflict with the harsh light, screamed commands, and distant moans that people this world. A soft breath and the buzz of the harsh fluorescent light fills the small space. I kneel with him a moment longer waiting for the wall of pain and terror to come crashing down on him. As the paradise he seeks becomes a distant dream his expression shifts from confusion to loss. I know too well what will follow and watch him with eyes he will read as compassionate. The emotions swell overtaking everything else as they did when he was a child. He won’t be able to control it much longer. They never do and the more he fights the inevitable the greater the surrender will be. If his hands were not bound he would reach for me. He would beg for an embrace, any human contact, heartbeat to heartbeat. He seeks shelter from the storm that has overtaken him and the smallest comfort to assure him that all of this will end.
It happens to them all, and the same happens to him. He begins to beg. I crouch on the balls of my feet creating a widening space between us. He senses the growing distance and panic suffocates him. His desperation is masked in mucus and sobs as a scream and sounds from a nearby cell punctuate his trauma. His mind shuts down as the fight or flight instinct maneuvers for the best chance of survival. He sees my smile, the warmth of my hands on his face, eyes sympathetic to his plight, as a lighthouse leading him to safety. I am no longer an agent of the enemy, but his only comfort. The illusion is complete.
The moment of embrace between captor and predator calls to the most basic part of our humanity and whoever controls this piece has the most powerful weapon ever seen. It is how men rise to power, wars begin, and how someone like me extracts information from even the hardened terrorist. Our dance has begun as his sobs swell and his language becomes incoherent. I understand his tongue, but only speak to him in the language of his enemy. Isolation is necessary on every level. His body collapses and falls forward. He rolls onto his side to close the distance between us. Starving for contact, love, a connection, he begs for a return to a time before.
“Your name,” I repeat. This time my smile is almost undetectable. Only a moment of pause as he processes my word, but it is too late for him. The song cannot be stopped. The same reasons the bird sings, or the butterfly spreads its wings, his cries continue pouring from him in desperation and fear. He pushes off the wall moving ever closer to me, drawn as a moth to flame. I watch as his needs engulf him. I stand and with his eyes millimeters away from my feet command, “Name.”
The weeping stops. My combat boots, dusty and worn from their time in this war, are barely an inch from his face as silence is filled by the static acid hum of the cell and distant moans. I move towards the door and he senses his time of hope has passed. He shrieks lamenting an opportunity lost as the door opens and two guards fix their eyes on the slobbering mess he has become. The next time I step into this room and ask a question he will answer. The thing on the floor is no longer a soldier or an enemy of my country. It is a pile of flesh and withering bone that will turn on his friends and eventually tell me everything I want to know. He will do this gladly for the endless cycle to stop.
I wait as the guards go to work. I don’t hear their shouted commands to stand up, but watch from my screen as his face clenches in pain and the body goes slack in surrender to the blows. I know his struggle is in vain and that the thing on the floor will always remember my face along with the shame that he turned on his fellow insurgents. The rebellious disdain of the person who came into this cell is all but forgotten and replaced by a broken shell of his former self. In another day, or perhaps even within the hour he will be eager to rat out his own son for a glass of water. He will give me the information I seek, a target or a person, and American lives will be saved. Patience.
