Page 86 of Turn the Tide
Chapter 9
Berlin, Germany
Sunday, March 6, 5:27 a.m. CET
Flesh struck flesh, again.
Helmut adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and raised his palm, signaling enough. Bruno stepped away from the woman, wiping off his bloody knuckles with a rag.
She had withstood the humiliation of being stripped and interrogated naked, waterboarding, and an impressive beating without cracking. Much more would break her jaw, render her unconscious. Helmut needed her lucid and able to speak.
The best method for her was pain doled out over a long period of time with no sleep, interspersed withwhite torture—extreme sensory deprivation and isolation. She’d been well trained, but everyone broke…sooner or later.
Helmut savored the pleasure of drawing out the torment, but his boss had made it clear time was of the essence. He had to retrieve what she stole, then dispose of her.
He lowered to one knee beside the black tarp where crude tools were laid out. Selecting a mallet and some nails, he went to the table and sat across from her.
She stared at him, bloodied, hurting. No fear. The fierce constitution of a bear. Anything less would’ve been a disappointment after the vigorous pursuit she’d forced him to undertake.
Helmut set the mallet in front of her, followed by four three-inch nails.
“Where is it?” he asked in German.
She glanced at the nails.
“Bärchen.” Little Bear. “Last chance,” he sang.
Her gaze flickered back to him. Not a peep. No whimpering, no begging.Professional as hell.
Smiling, he nodded to his colleague. Bruno untied her left wrist. As soon as her hand was loose, she twisted free of Bruno’s grasp and elbowed him in the groin. He hunched over with a grunt from the unexpected blow, and she slammed his head into the table. Bruno dropped to the floor.
Helmut was out of his chair, ready to take action, but there was no need.
After she spit on Bruno, she placed her own palm to the table and met Helmut’s gaze. Fierce determination blazed in her eyes. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Schiesse.Widmung,” Bruno said, climbing to his feet.
Commitment indeed.
Helmut placed the tip of a nail on the back of her hand, over mid-palmar muscle between two metacarpal bones, and picked up the mallet.
There was a difference between training to withstand pain and actually enduring the agony. Agony that turned your soul inside out had a way of rearranging one’s priorities and principles to make the pain stop.
A long, brutal day was ahead. If he wasn’t pressed for time, he’d enjoy this immensely.
The door opened, and someone else from the team walked in, holding a cell phone. “It’s hers.” He pressed a button on the cell and handed it to Helmut.
“I have what you want,” a man said over the phone in a voicemail message. “Give me Ashley, and you can have the thumb drive. I’ll tell you where and when.”
Today wouldn’t be quite so long after all. Helmut set the mallet and nail on the table.
“Get her cleaned up and dressed,” he said to Bruno. “Food and water.”
Helmut would turn over the girl for the drive. But once the transaction was completed, he couldn’t allow her to keep breathing. Orders.
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The White House, Washington, DC
