Surviving Ice (Burying Water, #4)(67)

“Alliance, you say?” Ned murmurs, his head down and focused on the new outline on Royce’s forearm. “I think I heard of ’em.”

“Probably.” Royce tips his head back and closes his eyes, his voice nasally and annoying. “They were big in the news two months ago over a civilian shooting near Kandahar.”

“Thought that war was over.”

The expression that takes over Royce’s face is one I recognize well. In his mind, he’s drifting back into it. He can’t help himself. It happens to the best of us. “As long as American troops are there, that war will never be over. And bad shit will keep happening to good people.”

“I guess that’s war, though, right?” I can’t tell if Ned is actually interested in this conversation or just going through the motions because Royce is his customer.

Royce chuckles—a wicked, bitter sound. “Have you ever been in a war, Ned?”

“Nope. Glad to say I was too young for Nam.”

“Well, let me tell you something about war. It can last forever, if there’s enough money to keep it going. As long as war is profitable for companies like Alliance, they’ll be there, front and center. You know our government gave Alliance a billion dollars in contracts to go over there?”

Ned lets out a low whistle.

“Exactly. They handed them that much money and sent them over to basically govern themselves. It’s a privately owned company. No one knows what’s going on inside because nothing’s released. No one’s checking on them. No one’s telling them what they can and can’t do. There’s an actual legit immunity law that protects them. With that kind of money, they’re above the law over there. Or at least they act like they are. They’re a bunch of f*cking mercenaries is what they are.”

“What are they supposed to be doin’?”

“?‘Maintaining security.’ Which means all kinds of things. Protecting American diplomats, training troops, guarding prisoners.” He pauses, his voice growing softer. “Questioning insurgents. That’s what I was there to do.”

Ned sits up for a moment, stretches his arms, twists his neck as if he has a kink, and then hunkers down over Royce’s arm once again. “Sounds rough.”

Royce takes a deep breath. “They were some of the longest, worst days of my life.”

Silence hangs through the shop as Ned works to the subdued tune of Willie Nelson and Royce stares up at the ceiling, facing down his demons, I’m sure. I’ve been in his place.

“You heard of Adeeb Al-Naseer?” Royce suddenly asks.

“Probably. Can’t keep those foreign names straight, though.”

“He was the leader of the terrorist cell that bombed that office building in Seattle seven years back.”

“Oh, yeah . . . I sure remember that one.”

“I helped catch him, you know.” Royce’s eyes flicker to Ned’s furrowed brow. “A battalion brought in a guy with cryptic messages written out on paper and taped to his body. They couldn’t get him to talk, so they told us to have a go at him. See what he’d tell us.” He hesitates. “So we did. And he talked, all right. By the time we were done with him, he told us everything we needed to know.”

Ned pauses to peer up at his customer for a brief moment, before ducking back down. “What does that mean? What’d you do to him?”

“You name it. Slapped him around, electric shock, hung him from his wrists, grabbed his balls and gave them a good twist,” the hand on Royce’s free arm clenches. “Broke his leg, his arms . . .” He goes on, listing techniques that have been used more times than anyone cares to admit.

Some that I’ve used to get people to talk.

I’ve never enjoyed a second of it, never reveled in scaring another human being, of causing pain. But I’ve done all I had to in order to get the answers, and justice, that I needed. And I’ve felt the weight of it on my shoulders afterward.

I have no doubts that what Royce is admitting to doing right now is the cold, harsh truth.

And, by the disgusted look on his face, he didn’t enjoy a second of it either.

“Jesus,” Ned mutters. “What finally broke him?”

Royce hesitates, swallows. “The two guys I was working with went out and found the man’s fourteen-year-old daughter and took turns raping her in front of him. That’s what broke him,” he says quietly.

Ned is silent.

“These two other former Marines that I was stationed there with, they were something else. I don’t know where Alliance found them, but they should never have been hired. One of them, this guy Mario, he was seriously f*cked in the head. He’d always be the first one in line to interrogate, to start smacking someone around. He loved to take on guard duties and go into the city. I think it was just so he could hold his gun to people’s heads and make them piss their pants.”

“Sounds like a real *,” Ned murmurs.

“He’s sadistic.”

“Sounds like it.” I can hear a distinct shift in Ned’s voice, from indifference to at least mild concern.

Royce’s jaw clenches. “That girl they raped? She wasn’t the only one. One night I caught him and Ricky in an interrogation room with a fifteen-year-old girl who’d been brought in on suspicion of aiding in a terrorist plot. She died the next day. Found out later that she was completely innocent.”