This novel, of modern torture and free-spirits, is being shelved. There is masses of appalling material from around the globe, from every regime. But, it is too depressing to continue to write it. Maybe I will return to it if the world falls even further into the hell of primitive lunacy. In the meantime, check your nation's cells.
Noel Hodson - Author. June 2019.
Chapter
One
'Ubada b. as-Samit reported:
Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Receive (teaching) from
me, receive (teaching) from me. Allah has ordained a way for those (women).
When an unmarried male commits adultery with an unmarried female (they should
receive) one hundred lashes and banishment for one year. And in case of married
male committing adultery with a married female, they shall receive one hundred
lashes and be stoned to death.
The
Sultan of Brunei
As two burly guards lifted her horizontally from the prison
truck, it was obvious that she was a svelte young thing; her slight slender
form still alluring despite being in deep-shock and wrapped and tied tightly in
plain jute cloth, and despite the rough sack over her head.
The Sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, GCB GCMG, had very much enjoyed watching the two-hour, one-hundred
strokes caning administered through her thin shift, conducted in private in the
sound-proofed torture cells beneath his palace. There were times for cruel public
punishments to satisfy God and the Faithful, and times for privately indulging his
sexual sadism.
She had wept, shrieked, yelled and moaned and writhed most
satisfactorily, sensually, throughout the entirely legal and religiously
correct procedure. The Sultan, seated just two metres from her, had reacted to
each stroke with a minute thrill and a jerk of erotic pleasure, which, as the
cane whipped down, first bruising then, as lash piled on lash and
criss-crossed, cutting her delicate skin, built-up in him a crescendo of stern,
forbidding, perverse, self-controlled orgasm – invisible under his stiff
uniform.
The executioner, the once human being who administered the
cane, was a young father, and a husband, and a religious man. He put his own
women folk and children out of his mind and started to beat her fiercely, with
regulation timing, fuelled by righteous wrath; as his lifetime of religious
instruction had taught him. She was a heretic, a sinner, a blasphemous harlot.
He was doing God’s work to purify her soul and to discourage all other would-be
sexual, sensual sinners. His strong arm was empowered and authorised by the
presence of his prince, The Sultan; and by the Grand Imam, the highest cleric
in the land; and, of course, by the Sharia Court. Justice was being
served.
Apart from her screams and the thud of the cane the cell was
silent. Though no words were spoken, millions of tiny, subtle facial and body
signals passed between the small elite audience and the executioner. In these
waves of extreme communications, he was bonded to the others – and to his
victim – by a shared knowledge beyond words. He could feel the Sultan’s
sadistic pleasurable jerks and urges. He could feel the Imam’s pitiless
insistence on punishment according to the old translations, of supposedly holy
books, passed from country to country. He could feel his own righteous anger
waning and his paternal instincts for the victim, hardly more than an innocent
teenager, growing. He could feel the lash on her barely clothed skin, and he
knew where and when the cane crossed other marks – where the skin would be
broken and wounded. He tried to avoid those wounds. He knew, with the last
remnants of his spiritual goodness, the last of his own divine spark, he knew when
her divinity, her life force, left her body to its inevitable fate, beyond hope
of rescue, and rose above them; above pain. But he was not a man of courage. He
was a man who obeyed orders. He was a man who greatly feared being punished.
And so he conspired with the sadistic majority in the cell and continued to
deliver the other eighty strokes, as his victim became silent and motionless.
The stoning pit had been dug the proscribed fifty metres
outside the palace walls. The guards carried her in a horizontal position,
writhing in pain and terror, under their arms, and lowered her with surprising care
and gentleness into the narrow hole. The guards also had mothers, wives,
daughters and sons. They had not read the God-like judgement of the holy-men of
the Sharia Court, they had heard it from superiors along with orders to cart
the girl from the torture-cell to the pit. In the 21st century,
exposed to global telecommunications and glimpses into other societies, albeit
heretical societies, the guards were distressed and puzzled by the girl’s
plight and savage torture. Was this, they wondered, what their God decreed?
Were their superiors properly translating the ancient texts? Should the texts
be updated? They had not trained to bully helpless girls; they had trained to
fight other soldiers with modern weapons and risk their lives for their
country. The guards teetered on the edge of sedition and rebellion; their moral
senses wrestling with their insane orders.
Her feet touched the base. The narrowness of the pit kept her
upright – otherwise she would have collapsed – her shoulders neck and head showed
above the rim. At a whispered order and a brusque gesture with his prayer-book from
the glittering-eyed elderly presiding Grand Imam, the guards rapidly shovelled
the excavated dirt and rocks back in to the hole, until only the sackcloth
hooded head, neck and shivering shoulders could be seen.
The Sultan and his entourage had not retained the slightest
vestige of the life-spirit they were born of. Instead they chose to progressively
calcify into spiritually dead, concretised brutes focused solely on primitive
power and pleasure. Otherwise, they would perhaps have sensed, with justifiable
fear and awe, that the girl’s astral body, her soul, floated freely a few
metres above the ground, observing her grossly abused, dying tortured form, and
above the tense silent audience; now observing with detached, inviolable calm
intelligence.
As the diminutive Sultan and his thugs had in the dungeons visited
their lustful mindless violence on her body, in extremis she had found and
released the third-observer from within her. After just twenty lashes, driven
by shock and awful pain, she experienced what modern society calls a Near Death
Experience. Ancient humans have accepted this miracle, this escape route from
cruel barbarity or pain, for tens of thousands of years. Her spirit floated
above her beaten, bloodied body. All bodily sensation ceased. All pain ceased.
Her body was barely breathing. She was now, after one-hundred strokes very
nearly dead from the savage caning. She was abandoning this present incarnation
for a higher ethereal-plane, where the spirit exists, a realm of calm,
intelligence, love and understanding rarely glimpsed by Earth-bound beings.
Divorced from her dying corporeal form, her essential-self
felt no more pain, no animal emotions, fear or resentment. She watched from
above, from a higher dimension, as the officials performed their primate legal
and religious rituals that attempted but failed to excuse their cruel sub-human
actions. She could see their life-forces, their spark of divinity and life,
unaware of her existence, as their dark twisted souls locked into their bodies;
and all but severed them from the life-giving universal energy. They had fallen
into sin – the most profound isolation. “Forgive
them Father, for they know not what they do.”
Her tormentors sensed none of this transformation; the
butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. They had lost their capacity to truly
feel or truly see or truly know of the divine essence that animates all
organisation in the material world. And thus
they dehumanised and diminished themselves as their hearts and minds turned to what
they feared most, and so inflicted on others – pain, powerlessness and death.
A metre-high pyramid of small and large stones had been
constructed ten metres to the left of the pit. Twelve men, magistrates,
holy-men, medics and princes sat on chairs in a semi-circle to the right, eight
metres from the condemned sinner. Three metres beyond the officials was a
circle of guards. Behind the guards were the ordinary citizens, all males,
summoned to witness the Will of God and of The Prophets being fulfilled to the
letter of the law, as required by their holy books.
All mobile-phones, cameras and communication devices had been
confiscated – a total news blackout; on pain of death.
Under the sack, her eyes full of dust, the girl’s mouth was
tightly gagged. She might groan but not scream out. This modern execution,
following ancient protocols, had to be very carefully stage managed. Savage
enough to satisfy the truly insane, the Imams and the most vengeful of imaginary
Gods, but just on the borders of “plausible deniability” - emulations of
civilised excuses for the world’s media. The sadistic Sultan could still don
his royal-military uniform decked with ribbons and medals, and fly to debates
at the UN and travel to shop at Harrods at Christmas with his smiling family –
pretending to be a human-being.
News of this terrible event would inevitably leak. The responses,
carefully worded, diplomatic Press Releases had already been drafted,
re-written and honed to broadcast the Regime’s Strength, Humanity, Evolution
from their ancestral head-hunters, Commitment to The Written Word of God, Assurances
of a Quick Caring Execution, International Legal Compliance, Compassion for The
Families, Observance of Alliances, and, not least, Continuing Oil flow and Economic
Stability.
Now came the best part. The little Sultan was particularly
good at hurling rocks and took pride in his accuracy and muscle power. Five men
from the audience were “volunteered” to step forward to the pyramid of stones
with the prince. As a man without sin or blemish he was wholly entitled to cast
the first stone. And, if he chose, he could also cast the
second and third stone.
Absolute, unearthly silence cocooned the scene. A buzzard
screeched once, wheeling high in the molten grey sky above. The Sultan bent and
selected a sharp-edged flint. Not too heavy, that might despatch the convicted
harlot in an instant, not too light, that might not reflect the prince’s
energetic manliness, vigour and precision. Without hesitation he flung the rock
very hard at the girl’s head. Her body twisted and groaned in pain as the stone
hit her cheek and cracked the bone. The other five executioners held back in fearful,
mute, tacit appreciation of the prince’s skill.
He selected another, slightly smaller flint; took aim and
winged it at the girl’s head. A primitive instinct in her mortally wounded
shell triggered a ducking action. The stone missed. The prince reddened and
picked up a large rock and hurled it with all his strength. That hit its mark
square on. Oh well done your royal
highness, your arm is surely guided by God!
The skull cracking could be clearly heard several metres back
as the rock smashed her head above the right ear. Their insane, vicious God
beamed with delight. The crowd made as if to applaud but, in their terror and
confusion at this 21st century barbarism, no sound was made – other
than an embarrassed shuffle and sharp intake of breath. The Grand Imam muttered
appreciative praise to his various assorted gods and prophets. The girl’s
shrouded head was now hanging at an angle on her slim neck and not moving. Her
shoulders shuddered with a single final heavy breath.
In pitching the heavy, killer stone, the Sultan wrenched his
shoulder. It hurt. He had pulled a muscle or perhaps had torn a ligament. He
allowed no emotion to show. But the damn bitch had hurt him. His temper flared.
She might be done for, finished, beyond pain – but if the lover, the
fornicating male, the other sinner, the heretic was still alive, still in the
palace dungeons, the Sultan could inflict extra torments on his person. He
retained enough vestiges of spiritual awareness to know without articulating
the thought that the couple would still be linked at some higher level. He
could take revenge on the boy – and the girl would feel it too. He would hurt
the boy. Vengeance would be satisfied.
The Sultan had had enough, his honour and erotic-sadism
satisfied. He waved impatiently at the “volunteers” to finish the job. They
dutifully approached and lifted rocks from the pyramid and – some without
looking at the victim – they rapidly showered the inert head and shoulders,
smashing the frail creature until she had disappeared under the rocks.
A doctor stepped forward, stethoscope and medical bag at the
ready. The fusillade stopped abruptly. The doctor shifted a few stones and examined
the bloodied head. The Sultan walked away. The doctor announced that the girl
was dead. God, Justice and The Government had been properly served.
As guards cleared his path back to the palace, the Sultan
tried to call to mind what precise crime or sin the prisoner had committed to
earn such dreadful punishment. But he couldn’t remember. Did she have a name?
He couldn’t recall her name. He was a busy man with four-hundred-and-fifty
thousand Subjects to command and with World Leaders to meet. It was enough that
his recently reconstituted, the wholly legal, deeply religious and undoubtedly
wise Sharia Courts had found her guilty and imprisoned her in his dungeons – at
his majesty’s pleasure.
The girl had a name, she was named Qistina. She had been married
at fourteen to a fifty-three-year old man of business. He was not particularly
abusive; in his culture some would think him a generous man. But nor was he
particularly attractive to women or to any of his eight wives, a compliant herd
of wives, each younger than the last, whose names were listed in his passport. Without
societal question or doubt, he had imposed his unlovely and unpleasant person
on Qistina, whenever he fancied. She had been trained from birth to accept such
assaults and insults from any “husband” the tribal family had made a contract
with; forging a union that the demented, misogynistic interpretations of their
holy books ordained.
At eighteen she fell in love with a handsome twenty-year-old
man. They were discovered. The community’s ferocious gods spoke to the tribal
leaders, who interpreted the gods’ words to suit their own perversions and
head-hunting instincts – and forced the facts of the case to fit medieval texts
scratched (by God of course) on goatskins in a far-off country in 584 AD. The
Sharia Court found them guilty – and handed them over to the Sultan’s and the clergy’s
psychopathic torturers.
Qistina had quickly escaped her abused body, keeping just
enough connection to hold onto life – in the hope, however bleak, of survival
and revival. Her lifeforce, her spiritual essence and identity now soared back to
join the infinite universal energy, beyond the limitations of time and place
and incarnate suffering.
The wretched damned spirits of her tormentors fell further
down, away from the light, into the lifeless cold bowels of eternal darkness. They
had made their choices.
Chapter
Two
President Donald Trump
During a campaign event 17th
Feb 2016 at the Sun City retirement community, Trump emphasized his intention
to reinstate waterboarding and techniques that are "so much worse"
and "much stronger."
"Don't tell me it doesn't work --
torture works," Trump said. "Okay, folks? Torture -- you know, half
these guys [say]: 'Torture doesn't work.' Believe me, it works.
Okay?"
Donald wore his protective long navy-blue overcoat to witness
the Water-Boarding sessions. Sessions which he had ordered to be restored as
part of the CIA Interrogation Procedures. Like an infant or a schizophrenic, he
needed layers of clothing to feel secure when facing possible psychic-pain – or
God forbid – physical-pain. The overcoat, frequently renewed, was his armour
and his safety blanket. He was careful to never be seen to suck a corner of the
collar – however much he felt he needed to.
Having promised the Great
American People that he would abolish the previous Presidents’ soft-liberal,
socialist measures against torture: ‘Because,’ as Mr Trump avowed ‘believe me,
torture works,’ he was conducting hands-on research. He would not shy away from
the reality of what he was determined to bring back into US law and military
practice. As he told his staffers ‘When the going gets tough. The tough get
going.‘
Born and bred in the Bronx, then Ivy League educated, Donald
needed to show that he was not a coward – as was claimed by critics of his
fleet-footed escapes from military service. He would show the world that despite the, never
proven, disabling bony spurs on his feet, which prevented him from being a
soldier, sailor, airman or medic in Vietnam, he was as tough and mean as the most
seasoned New York gangsters.
“Visit on your enemies fifteen times the harm they have done,
or might have done to you,” he recalled his Uncle Roy Cohn, the New York
Mafia’s main defence lawyer, advising him. Advice that had served him well,
very well, all his adult life. Hit them
hard – and keep hitting them until they stay down and won’t ever try again! Roy Cohn had taught him.
 |
| Trump Cohn |
Mostly he’d hit them with law suits, not baseball bats, and
the tactic had worked time after time. So much so that his ruined opponents,
including several thousand suppliers who had had the temerity to demand payment,
never came back for more. Few could fight a celebrity New Yorker who, from the
age of twenty-two, had inherited an income from rents, equivalent in 2017 to
$200 million a year. No loser could
outspend him in tortuous legal proceedings. And …if they didn’t lie down and
stay down… then Uncle Cohn had big ugly friends who would pay them a visit at
their home.
Roy was not his real uncle, there wasn’t a blood relationship,
but the man had been a family adviser since Donald was a youngster, and he took
a special interest in Donald’s business education.
Donald, President Donald, was now in North America, but just
where in North America cannot ever be revealed. Suffice to say he was being
chaperoned to a top-secret location by the most secret of military secret
agents. It was winter – and, if security allowed, we might here describe the geography
and the weather conditions. But national security does not allow. Any
description might give clues to would-be terrorists, creating a threat to the
President, potentially creating a Clear and Present Danger.
It was remote; the nearest small town ten miles away. It was
flat; with a long, cleverly camouflaged airstrip. It had one squat ugly
single-storey building about the size of a family house. It was surrounded by
razor-wire. Inside the razor-wire, it had another razor-wire fence enclosing
five dusty, flat acres – then the anonymous building. The entire compound,
apart from the gates, was protected by a haw-haw; on a slight rise the ditch
was almost invisible from twenty yards back but dug deep and wide enough to
stop tanks and most other vehicles; the back wall was like a cliff face, cast
in reinforced concrete. The ditch was
mined. The only way in and out was over the bridge at the gates.
From his presidential Marine-One helicopter, Donald was
shepherded to a military Jeep, which took him to the boundary of the inner razor-wire
compound. The first gate, also fitted with fearsome razors and electrified, was
manned by four large fighting fit, blank faced Marines who surrounded the Jeep
and peered hard at the President and his entourage, demanding identity papers.
Even from Donald.
Donald didn’t know whether to be insulted, and rise to his
full presidential height, or to be reassured by the tight security. I could be a lookalike he told himself.
So, as he was handed back his Level-One-Security card, he saluted the guard,
wishing he had changed into his Commander of the Armed Forces combat uniform –
instead of his Bronx-gangster overcoat. The guard didn’t react or respond other
than with a dead-eyed gaze that sent a chill through Donald’s bladder. This
fully armed Marine would kill him at a word from his superior officer.
The first gate lifted – and they drove in a few yards up to
the second gate as the first gate dropped closed behind them. The second gate,
ten feet high, was crash proof – heavily anchored at steel gateposts and built
of foot-thick steel bars. Steel tips poked a couple of inches above ground,
angled at the incoming vehicle, apparently randomly placed but in fact they
were carefully located explosive lances, primed for firing, propelled by
compressed gas, designed to instantly stop and disable any vehicle trying to
ram the gate – be it a tank, steam roller or massive earth-digger. You shall
not pass!
The gate shielded a sentry post, low, concrete and many feet
thick. An observation slit fitted with bomb-proof glass stared at them – as
cold and menacing as had been the Marine’s eyes. As the huge gate began to
open, back from the left-hand pivot, Donald’s intuitive instincts started to
kick-in.
He had survived and, in his terms, triumphed, in New York, in
America and across the world due to his intuition and paranoia. Primed by Uncle
Cohn, he had an acute sense of danger and threat coming from people and
objects. He had no need for the slow processes of intellectual analyses.
Thinking slowed down the reflexes. If, for example, he fell off Trump Tower, it
would be lightning fast instinctive reflexes that would clamp his hand onto a
window-sill or flagpole – to save his skin – not reaching for the instruction
manual on “What to do should you find yourself falling from a skyscraper”. WHAM!
BANG! DEAD! He relied on reflexes not
words.
His reflexes and instincts were now screaming at him to Get
the Hell Out of Here. He deeply regretted his decision to personally observe the
tortures he wanted to inflict on The Enemies of America. He had been driven
mostly by his own macabre, unconscious fear of being caught, imprisoned and
tortured. A deep frightened curiosity of how the helpless victims endured their
pain and torment. He had watched, in his many hours of White House TV cruising,
hundreds of hours of films of heroes (and latterly a few heroines) being
captured by evil regimes, horribly tortured, yet escaping or rescued and,
within a few more minutes of film, seen to be restored to full health – and
returning to defeat the forces of darkness, often single-handed. He liked to
believe such Hollywood fairy stories.
As the second gate closed behind him – there was no way back
or out - he could sense, how he did not pause to consider, the spreading terror
of the prisoner being prepared for enhanced interrogation, deep below the
shoddy unmarked building in front of them. Donald was sure it was a man, a
male, and he was right. His instincts were reading the vibes, the clues, the
signs aright – a trembling, helpless prisoner, a man aged thirty-three – part starved and sleep deprived for five
days (a wholly legal softening-up torture condoned by The Senate) was being stripped and then part dragged,
frog-marched from his cell, along a concrete hallway to an interrogation cell –
especially sound-proofed, totally silenced, unless the inquisitors chose to
broadcast his screams to other prisoners in the block.
Donald’s horrible premonitions – and the victim’s terrible
fears – sent waves through the aether – cascading across the universe.
In her ethereal form, in her astral body, now only faintly communicating
with and watching over her spent shell, as it was washed and wrapped for burial
by her earthly family, Qistina’s soul in an instant crossed twelve-thousand earthly
miles to bring comfort and guidance. She could be in two places at once. She
could be in many places at once. She was no longer necessarily a female; that
was a characteristic of being embodied in her past primate form. Her soul had
shed all such identification and all the emotions that stemmed from
incarnation. But love and empathy and wisdom transcended the fall into earthly
life. Qistina would and could accompany the prisoner – Trump’s prisoner, who
would be especially tortured at the request of The President – so Donald could
brag about his courage – Donald’s courage – afterwards. It would impress and
excite his core supporters. Qistina could see Donald’s lightless black soul,
his inner self, his fluctuating life-force, flickering like a dying-candle-flame
in a cold draught. And she knew that he could not see her. His life-sharpened
intuition could vaguely sense her presence – but what he felt only puzzled him.
If, IF, God help the man, Mr President reached inside his own
soul, followed his intuition into his depths – connected with the terrified
naked human being held between two burly guards in the interrogation cell –
felt for the prisoner; and -Praise the
Lord – used his Presidential powers to stop the torture; to have the man
treated in hospital, to restore the man’s body, soul and freedom; what joy it
would add to the universe. To send him home – wherever home may be – and
restore him to his wife and children and parents and friends. To commit an act
of kindness. Then Donald’s raddled soul would glow with new life. He would feel
new life. He would, to his great surprise, connect with millions of welcoming
souls – happy for him. If only!
Or would Mr President, like The Sultan, choose to continue
down the road to damnation, isolation and ultimately to the worst sort of hell?
Qistina’s spirit watched and waited.
The prisoner, Akram Ayash, was an educated man; a gentleman.
A Muslim who had attended Chicago University to study Civil-Engineering, then
returned home and joined some of the political street protests in his turbulent
Middle-East country – which was first an Ally of The United States of America,
then as the weather changed, became an Enemy, then was briefly re-classified as
a source of Terrorism. It was now once
again seen as an ally – with robust oil revenues.
Filmed from spy-planes, satellites and drones, Akram, a tall elegant
man in western clothes, had been noticed among the crowds, arrested by US
Special Forces who thought they should hold on to him; shuttled between
prisoner of war camps where, hoping for release or better treatment, he told
them he was an engineer and graduate of Chicago University - which was enough
to mark him out as a possible bomb-maker - and so flown to a camp that had no
name, for interrogation; and from there, bound and blindfolded, put on a long
military special-rendition flight to this isolated cell-block in the middle of
an anonymous county, in an anonymous State, in an unnamed country – for legally
sanctioned “enhanced interrogation”.
And, though Akram would never be allowed to know it, he was
to be interrogated in the presence of, ‘At the Pleasure of,’ President Donald
Trump; a president who had torn migrant infants from mothers at the Mexican
border and locked them in cages; and who repeatedly broadcast that ‘Torture
works.’ Would this president be merciful to Akram?
Stripped of clothes, stripped of identity, stripped of ego,
part-starved, sleep-deprived, grossly humiliated, unwashed, badly bruised,
dizzy, wounded and deeply-confused – the prisoner was frog-marched into the
torture cell. It was winter. The oblong cell was very cold. There was a small
metal chair embedded in the stone floor with ankle and wrist cuffs. There was a
low metal desk set at thigh height. A sallow faced man with dead eyes, in winter-uniform,
sat behind the desk tapping a riding crop on the surface. Standing behind the
dead-eyed man was a woman, also in military uniform, aged about thirty. She
hauled on a chain restraining a mad-looking dog which snarled and lunged at the
prisoner.
The heavyweight escort guards stepped back into the shadows
by the door, leaving the prisoner unrestrained, standing before the desk,
trembling with cold and fear. He covered his testicles with his hands, blue
with cold, and pressed his knees together. The woman deliberately looked over
the desk – and smirked at his attempts to protect his dignity and shrivelled
manhood. She let the dog, straining at its chain, get within a few inches of
the prisoner’s hands. He took a step back. Immediately the guards jumped
forwards, slapped his head hard – and pushed him forwards, yelling at him to
stand to attention – Don’t Move!
Donald, in his long overcoat, was offered a chair but
preferred to stand at the small observation window. The window was unbreakable,
one-way viewing and one-way sound. The
colonel in charge of the unit stood at his left-shoulder. A cluster of five high-ranking
defence chiefs pressed in a respectful semi-circle behind. Donald wished they
would move further back to give him more breathing space and at enough distance
to enable him to hide his physical reactions. This wasn’t at all nice. Not how
he’d imagined it. Too close for comfort. But - he was the strongman, the
leader, the tough-guy who believed in torture. He had to act the part. He tried
to assemble his false-tan flabby features into a harsh (but just) mask; that
would get the job done – whatever the price.
The viewing room, with a table for recording equipment, was
too cramped to let the party spread-out.
‘What do we want from this guy?’ demanded the great-leader.
‘Mr President, Sir,’ snapped the colonel ‘We have intel that
this Arab has IED bomb-making skills that we want confirmed. And, Sir, there is
a high probability that he knows one or more terrorist cells. We want names and
places. Sir.’
‘IEDs?’
‘Improvised Explosive Devices, Sir. Used to destroy our
patrolling road vehicles. And employed by suicide bombers to kill our boys,
Sir.’
Donald tensed his muscles and set his TV-Soap hard-man facial
expression, making himself a little more erect; remembering to play the tough
(but fair) Leader of The Armed Forces, of the greatest military power on
earth. He envisaged the media photos and
videos of his heroic features. ‘We’ve gotta protect our boys, Colonel!’
‘Yes Sir.’
‘No one; no other President, I can truly tell you, will
protect our boys like me. Our boys, let me tell you, will never have had more
protection and support than I’ll give them. The truth is that I’m the toughest
President this country, this Great Country, has ever had. Compared to me,
they’ve all been Losers. That’s why I’m bringing back Water-Boarding and all
the other things. Obama wouldn’t protect our boys. But I intend to. …That’s why I’m here today.’
‘Yes Sir!’
‘Let’s get that information out of this enemy, this dangerous
terrorist, Colonel.’
‘Yes Sir!’
The colonel pressed a button on the desk giving the torture
team the go-ahead.
A small green light glowed by the door. The inquisitor at the
desk cast his dead-eyed look at the light and nodded at the two guards. They
knew the routine and stepped up, grabbed Akram by his shivering arms, pulled
him back to the chair, forcefully seated him on the metal slats, and snapped
closed the ankle and wrist cuffs, spreading his arms and legs backwards – for
maximum exposure and minimum protection.
The inquisitor came around the desk and stood over his victim. A guard
stood immediately behind the prisoner.
First, they would apply the FACIAL SLAP - AS APPROVED BY THE US
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.
The colonel, performing his duties in the presence of The
President, had not left much to chance. His crack team had been softening up
this skinny office worker engineer for several days – without leaving many
marks of the punishments. They were skilled torturers who could inflict great
pain and fool all but the most experienced forensic medical examiners. The
female soldier came close and peered at his genitals, grinning and letting the
dog’s teeth get within a few inches of his penis.
The inquisitor had a soft, almost whispering voice. ‘All I
want you to say, Akram, is that you have been trained in designing and making
IEDs. Is that true, Akram?’
Akram was shamed, terrified, baffled, dazed, confused and
bewildered. He stared back at his interrogator, finding no reply. Is what true? He wondered, trying to
unpick the question. He could understand the separate words and phrases but not
string the whole sentence together. He couldn’t comprehend how it related to
him. His head strained forwards and his mouth gaped in great puzzlement. The
guard immediately behind him swung an arm and delivered an open-handed slap on
his ear and cheek; the hand knocked Akram’s head aside then swung back to slash
backhanded across his other ear. Akram jerked against his chains. The dog
lunged at him, snarling.
Facial Slap was approved and permitted by The Senate, by the
Senators, by the Supreme Court and by Congress. It was a perfectly legal technique
for Enhanced Interrogation.
Akram’s ears and cheeks were blue with cold. Slapping drew
blood back into his restricted veins. His ears hurt like hell for many seconds
after the blows.
‘Answer the god-damned question!’ bellowed the guard an inch
from his stinging ear.
The inquisitor leaned forwards, speaking directly into the
prisoner’s face, as softly as before ‘My question is, Akram, in case you didn’t
hear me. Have you been trained to make Improvised Explosive Devices – IEDs –
home made bombs? Have you made IEDs?’
The guard flexed his arm. Akram ducked in fright, looking up
and sideways to send a pleading glance at the soldier. But the guard shifted out
of view; denying any chance of pity.
‘No. No. I don’t make bombs,’ sobbed Akram. ‘I am not a
soldier. I am a man of peace. A man of peace.’
‘We have intel, Akram. Intel about you. From people very
close to you; that you are an engineer. And you can make bombs,’ insisted the
interrogator. ‘Do you know how to make bombs?’
Akram had no coherent answer. He wanted to ask who his
accusers were; people close to him? Family? Friends? Work colleagues? But he
couldn’t frame the questions. He again
gaped silently at the inquisitor.
The guard from behind slapped his face and ears, harder, with
his forehand and backhand blows. ‘Answer the question!’ he bellowed again.
‘Yeah!’ called out The President, secured behind his
sound-proof one-way window ‘Answer the question. Or we’ll slug you again!’
The torturers, the experts at interrogation, noted Akram was reeling
from the face-slaps. He was hurt, dizzy and disoriented. They knew this was his
fourth day of persecution and beatings and they had enough experience to know
that the man, nearly unconscious, aware of nothing but his pain and terror, was
in no state to understand or answer. He needed at least ten minutes to settle,
to draw in his last reserves of strength and dignity, to realise what was in
the room around him – and to frame a reply. Even a simple yes or no was beyond
him at this moment.
But the colonel knew that The President, pressing against the
mirrored observation window, expected more. He wanted results. He did not
tolerate “Losers”. The colonel pressed the green button three times. The interrogator saw the three flashes and
nodded three times at the face-slapping guard. The guard, a battle scarred
Marine, hesitated, as he felt the rules of interrogation were being breached.
He was tough enough to beat information from any villainous enemy of America,
without guilt or reflection. He’d done so many times. But this torture team had
tormented this prisoner for nearly a week – questioning, punishing, bullying,
rewarding (strictly within the rules) and, without discussion they knew that
they all knew that this office desk worker – albeit educated and qualified –
was, as he claimed – a man of peace.
Akram was tall and thin; half the marine’s weight and had
never trained for fighting or dealing with pain. He wasn’t a strong man; and
the marine knew this. They had pushed him faster and harder than any other
prisoner, unaware that he was being “softened up” for a presidential visit. The
marine knew that Akram was on the edge of survival – and he didn’t want to
murder a weakling chained to a chair. It was not what the soldier had joined
the Marines for. He stepped back. The other guard, reading his body language,
also stepped back. The dog handler retreated behind the desk and chair. The
interrogator went back to his chair and spread his hands on the desk - and
stared at the mirror for new orders.
‘Has he answered? I didn’t hear him answer. I don’t think he
said anything. We gotta get the truth out of him. I don’t have all day,
colonel. My time is precious,’ pouted Donald.
The colonel instantly weighed up the situation. He knew what
his team was doing – and if he was in charge he would have stopped. Akram was
in peril for his life. Something – heart, liver, kidneys, nervous-system,
intestines – was likely to give up the ghost. And that wasn’t what The
President was here to see – or what the colonel wanted to happen.
‘Regulations, Mr President. Face-Slaps per session are
rationed by the rules. We are switching tactics and going for Water-Boarding.
You will be able to see it first hand, Sir.’
This excited Donald. He wasn’t sure about the nakedness, or
the dog, but had started to enjoy the face-slaps. Those he could imagine Uncle
Roy imposing on an enemy – on one of his many enemies. Punish your enemy with fifteen times the hurt he’s given you, Uncle
Roy had told him dozens of times. And Donald knew that it worked. When the
marine slapped Akram, Donald had reflexively twitched his hand and arm as if he
was attacking the stubborn foreign terrorist.
He, Donald, could do that. And he wouldn’t stop until the man talked. On
the second slapping, Donald had squirmed inside – very much as the Sultan had
squirmed at Qistina’s caning. It induced an internal sensuous response. This
was real hands-on warrior stuff; at which Donald might excel.
Now waterboarding. This was also the real thing. He’d seen
several short video clips – all obscured by bad lighting, bad camera work,
people moving around – ambiguous commentaries. Just a mess as the terrorists
spluttered and coughed and were hauled back up to gulp in air. But this would
be right in front of him. This disgusting naked man displaying his genitals,
this Loser – An Enemy of The United States – would be a little more than arms-length
from him. It was what he had come to see.
As the team started to re-arrange the cell to make space for
the water-board kit, Akram fainted, his head slumped sideways. His astral-body
emerged and rose to the ceiling, observing the torturers below and the
President and his entourage next door. Qistina joined him. She, or was she now
an “It” – was wholly separated from her earthly form. She had left the building;
but Akram was both in astral form and attached to his frail, still breathing
shell – though he and it could feel no pain or heightened emotions. The presence
of Qistina delighted him and he could sense an infinity of others in this
realm. The torture cell, the torture team, the President, and his own assaulted
body were supremely unimportant in this fabulous universe. Unimportant but
intriguing. It was still possible that Akram’s body would recover sufficiently
for him to re-enter and restore consciousness. Was that to be his fate; his
path through this life?
Qistina and Akram kept vigil over his body, still manifesting
a divine spark of life – and dispassionately recorded the troubled, wavering
souls of the torturers and of the president’s increasingly disturbed team,
cocooned behind the safety-glass.
“The Board” was erected behind Akram’s naked body, still
chained to the metal chair. It was like a modern hospital-stretcher on jointed legs,
fitted like the chair with manacles for wrists and ankles and with additional
three-inch wide canvass straps and buckles. The guards swiftly, expertly,
transferred Akram’s flaccid body onto the board and secured the restraints.
They fixed the board on a slope so that his head leaned backwards and down.
Then they stepped back. Donald, less than six feet away had a ringside seat of
Akram’s naked prone body, with its disgusting little penis, wizened by the
cold. He, Donald, Mr President, shivered
at the sight. Another odd thrill ran through his loins. He could intuit, he
could empathise with this prisoner’s involuntary exhibitionism. It reminded him
of a dream he’d had as a teenager. He liked it. He stared wide eyed in rapt
silence.
The colonel was alarmed, shocked almost, by the president’s
intensity and focus. This wasn’t right. The high-ranking military officers, the
president’s entourage and advisers were all men who had served in battle. They
didn’t like Donald’s obvious fascination at the helpless prisoner. Unlike the
Sultan who had enjoyed Qistina’s flogging and stoning, Donald had neither the
wit nor the self-discipline to disguise his tense sensuous excitement. He
glanced around the small room; his expression inviting the officers to share
his glee. They didn’t. So, Donald rearranged his features to a TV acceptable
mask. Stern but Just. Judge Dredd, as he’d seen it acted in the movies.
The interrogator stepped up to the board and poured a little
water on Akram’s face, slapping him lightly. Both the interrogator and the
colonel were fully aware of the prisoner’s fragility. He was still unconscious,
breathing shallowly – and as pale as – well – as pale as death. Akram stirred,
pulling against the restraints, arching his back a little. The torture team
paused and watched closely. The interrogator not so much slapped as patted his
face, pouring a little more water. Akram opened his eyes, blinked hard to
slough off the liquid, coughed and tried to sit up. His eyes widened in terror
as he took in the scene. He had been here before – and he groaned, he growled
with animal fear. He twisted his head violently from side to side – resisting
and denying what was about to come.
Donald was pressed against the window, compelled by his fear
and sadism to get as close as he could; to see it all.
Through the telecoms, the colonel spoke privately with the
interrogator. ‘How’s the prisoner doing? What’s he got left? Take his pulse. Do
you want a medic? This guy has got to stay alive. We have important visitors
here.’
The interrogator stepped up and examined Akram; holding his
limp wrist. He put an ear close to Akram’s mouth to assess his breathing. ‘An
adrenalin shot will pep him up, Sir. I got one in the desk. But it can mask
serious conditions. It’s risky; Sir.’
Pity for the victims had long past been eradicated from the
interrogator’s psyche. To perform his duties, he had become cruel. His name was
Bernard; married, with two young children. He was not unkind to his family. Their
house was in a small, isolated, government estate of homes, five miles from the
military complex. Ten years of questioning and torturing men and women had
almost killed his soul. The divine spark, his life-force was little more than a
shrivelled cinder, slightly warm and nearly extinguished. Bernard had lost all
his capacity to enjoy any of the pleasures of the world. His feelings and
emotions were dead and cold.
The astral energies of Akram and Qistina knew and lamented
that Bernard was so near to damnation that his soul was as black as his heart.
And yet – as he took Akram’s faltering pulse, their divinity seeped from the
higher-dimension into the damned man’s soul. He was not quite beyond hope of
redemption. Bernard felt their presence. The hair on his neck prickled. He
swung around in alarm. There was nothing to see – but he felt …something. He
hesitated on the edge of the event horizon of despair. Christian texts defined
despair as The Unforgivable Sin, because it denies God’s infinite capacity for
love and forgiveness. Bernard felt, not a wave but a hint of compassion for the
wretched man he was tormenting. He became aware of their mutual humanity. His
hard grip on the man’s wrist softened. He lifted a fraction above bleak despair.
‘Give the prisoner the adrenaline,’ decided the colonel. ‘Do
it now!’
As Bernard hesitated, another guard entered the cell, hustled
Bernard to his desk and, hidden from all eyes, pressed a paper-note into his
hand. Expressionless, Bernard opened the desk-drawer, flattened the note into
the drawer and read: The President
(POTUS) is in the Observation Room. The interrogator glanced at the
mirrored window, as expressionless as before, and took out a sealed plastic
case holding a hypodermic. He moved back to the stretcher unwrapping the
hypodermic – and plunged it into Akram’s thigh.
Akram’s astral energy instantly flowed back into his physical
body which jerked against the cuffs and straps. His eyes opened wide. He was
alert. He gulped in air.
‘The prisoner is ready for water-boarding,’ announced the
interrogator. He bent close to Akram’s face and spoke softly.
‘The question is the same, Akram. Are you trained to make
IEDs? Have you ever made IEDs? We have intel that you are a bomb-maker. How
many have you made?’
Akram shook his head vigorously. ‘No! No! Not I. Not ever.’
A guard stepped up, tilted the stretcher back, wrapped a
heavy towel across Akram’s face – and lifted a narrow rubber hose over the
towel. Water flowed. The towel became sodden. Akram could not breathe. He
gasped and gaped. He struggled wildly. Water filled his nose and mouth. He was
drowning. He was dying. The interrogator looked up at the clock over the
observation window and counted the minutes. It took a drowning swimmer about
five minutes to pass-out and another three minutes to die. Five minutes was an
eternity without air. Akram was in poor condition. He fainted after three and a
half minutes. And lay still.
Donald pressed harder against the glass, agog with
excitement. He could see every detail. The disgusting naked terrorist,
straining against the manacles. The saturated towel, denying air. The desperate
twisting and turning; to no avail. Until the prisoner finally heaved and
succumbed – and lay still.
‘Is he dead?’ snarled Donald at the colonel. ‘Have you
overdone it? …We don’t’ want him dead, do we? We want answers!’
‘Sir!’ yelled the colonel and he swiftly moved from the
observation window through the door and appeared in the torture cell. He
confronted the interrogator. ‘Get him up – man. Check him!’ Bernard plucked the
towel from Akram’s face as the guards tilted the board up. He lifted the
victim’s head and shook it side to side. Akram spluttered and heaved in a huge breath,
spitting water. He opened his eyes to see the torturer and the colonel, inches
from him, glaring hard at this uncooperative, troublesome prisoner – who might
stubbornly, wilfully and deliberately die on them. They knew better than to
show the slightest hint of compassion. This man had to believe they would kill
him unless he obeyed them. ‘He’s OK,’ murmured Bernard; then even more quietly,
for the colonel’s ears only, ‘He’s OK for five douches – I reckon.’
The colonel nodded and turned to leave, but his way was
obstructed by the large person of The President of The United States, POTUS,
who had followed him into the torture cell. The guards and the dog handler
jumped to attention and saluted – shocked. Bernard turned his slow dead eyes on
Donald. The colonel bristled. Donald
waited his customary five-seconds to let his TV and global celebrity power
overwhelm them. Then he brushed the colonel aside and moved to Akram’s stretcher.
He peered at this wretched “loser” with undisguised contempt and hostility.
‘Do you know who I am?’
Akram, still gulping air, now wide eyed, gazed up at the tall
blond man in his long blue overcoat – and slowly nodded. Akram was blue with
cold.
‘Yeah! Sure you do. I’m the most powerful man in the world.’
Donald paused for effect. ‘And I want your answers – you horrible, vile terrorist.
I want your answers - so as to save the lives of our brave boys. Thousands of
our brave boys in the field of battle!’ Donald lifted his head and his voice to
tell it to the whole world. ‘I’m not a soft liberal leader – like presidents
before me. Understand?’
Akram and Donald both nodded.
‘I’ve come to get intel from our enemies. And I am not
leaving without answers. Do you get it?’
Donald leaned over the water-board and placed his fists on
each side of Akram’s head, lowering his face close to Akram’s. ‘And I don’t have much time! Do you get
that?’
Akram nodded again.
‘Gimme a baton – or a pistol,’ ordered Donald. Nobody moved.
Donald, taller than the others swept his small, red rimmed eyes over the
torture team. The colonel put a deferential arm over Donald’s shoulder and
turned him away from Akram. He whispered ‘Sir. The regulations forbid use of
batons or fists.’
‘What then?’
‘Open hand slaps, Sir! Like the guards did. Back or
forehand.’
Donald scowled his disapproval. ‘Like the guards huh? Just
slaps?’
‘Yes sir. …Or the water, Sir.
Hard slaps are very painful.’
‘We’ve gotta get this terrorist to talk, colonel. That’s what
I’m here for. I’m a President who won’t ask our boys to do anything that I
wouldn’t do myself. That’s why I’m here. I make Executive Orders about
interrogations; that Obama rescinded. I’m giving you back the tools you need,
colonel, to save our boy’s lives. If we make these Muslims talk – I’ll save
thousands of lives. Thousands.’
‘Yes Sir.’
They turned back to look down at the naked, prone, helpless prisoner.
Donald resumed command and leaned over Akram. ‘OK mister. Now you are gonna
talk – and talk now! I’m in a hurry! Where do you make the bombs? Tell me where
the hell you make the bombs. Answer Me! You will answer Me. I’m The Goddamned
President!’ Donald’s voice grew louder as he worked himself up into a state of
violence. Akram looked up. Eyes staring. Bewildered. Suddenly, to his own
surprise, Donald swung his meaty arm and slapped Akram backhand and hard across
his cheek and nose.
Donald found the contact both repellent and addictive. He
could not remember when, if ever, he had violently assaulted another person.
His blow had been so quick, angry and instinctive that he barely registered the
feel of another man’s flesh. But as a germophobe, he loathed the intimate
contact. Akram recoiled; his head knocked sideways. He twisted back, his eyes
filled with terror and tears. What Donald found addictive was that look. This
man, this enemy, was totally in his power. Donald could make him do anything he
wanted; and could deliver whatever punishment. Like the buttoned up little
Sultan, something sensual stirred inside Donald Trump. This was new. This was
raw power. This was imposing Respect.
This person was his.
He slapped him again – and Akram cried out.
‘Tell me – damn you. This isn’t going to stop until you
talk!’ And he slugged Akram with his open palm. It felt good. He was punishing
an enemy of the United States of America – with full legal authority. He raised
his arm for another blow. The colonel moved to intercept it. But – Akram’s nose
suddenly spouted blood. Donald leapt back in revulsion.
‘Mister President, Sir. We don’t want the prisoner to
pass-out. Sir. He’s no use to us unconscious, Sir.’ Then sycophantically the
colonel added, ‘Your blows are very strong, Sir. We will have to apply
first-aid and take a break – Sir!’
Donald was breathing hard – like a prize fighter after making
a furious attack. Before he could gather himself, the colonel acted. ‘Get him
up, men. And stop the nose-bleed. And, clean him up!’
The marines stepped in and applied wet flannels to the
prisoner’s face. They tilted the board upright and set about wiping away the
blood and dabbing the swellings. They were strangely careful and tender;
healing not hurting. Qistina hovered above. Perhaps she was communicating with
their souls and influencing their reactions. Even Bernard, the cruel
inquisitor, felt a rare, fleeting moment of compassion.
Donald was champing at the bit. Eager to beat the information
from Akram. This had become personal. Winning president against enemy
Loser.
….to be continued….
Chapter
Three
His killers were waiting when Jamal Khashoggi walked into
the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago. They severed his fingers during
an interrogation and later beheaded and dismembered him, according to details
from audio recordings published in the Turkish news media on Wednesday.
END
