Zero Sum, Book One, Kotov Syndrome (19 page)

Such were Ernesto’s thoughts as he
strolled towards the familiar high-walled compound. He punched the
red intercom button by the ornate iron gate and the overhead camera
mounted at the top of the support beam swiveled towards him. Just
as it did every day. The lock buzzed and he entered the grounds. It
was a large piece of land, no doubt had belonged to a wealthy
colonial landowner back in the day. There were a number of
buildings scattered around the two story main house – several
garages, servants’ quarters, a kennel and stables, and a large
corrugated steel storage shed he knew was used as an office. He
believed the place was owned by a powerful Gringo because there was
always an armed retinue of at least four Gringo guards patrolling
the interior, day and night, often accompanied by several large
German Shepherds.

Armed compounds weren’t particularly
unusual in Central America, given the often bloody manner in which
the
narco-trafficantes
settled their disputes, along with
the ever-present danger of kidnapping for the wealthy and their
families. Ernesto had grown so accustomed to the presence of the
gunmen he barely registered them beyond giving them a salute or a
wave, which they always reciprocated. The entire time he’d worked
there he’d never heard of any altercation or problems, so the
sentries and high walls topped with razor wire had obviously served
their purpose. This was one the of the last places on the planet
anyone would want to rob. There were far easier targets.

He’d never met the owner he’d been
cooking for – not once in his eight years at the villa. Clearly the
man or woman had reclusive tendencies. Fine by him. His weekly
salary was always paid in American dollars, and never late, so as
far as he was concerned things couldn’t have been better. He simply
had to follow the written menu that invariably awaited his morning
arrival but was largely left to his own devices beyond that. The
shopping was done by parties unknown and the pantry and large
double-width refrigerator were always brimming with fresh supplies.
It was like working in a small hotel – he kept to himself, stayed
out of the way, did his job, and everyone left him alone. His
contact person was a bi-lingual Gringo named Stanley, who checked
in with him several times a week in addition to handing him his pay
envelope.

This morning was Friday. Payday.
Ernesto knew that at 10 a.m. on the dot, Stanley would enter the
expansive kitchen, chat for a few minutes and then give him his
wages – always in twenties. The routine never changed.

But today the activity around the villa
was unusual. Four new vehicles sat by the garages – big SUVs, late
model, with their rear deck lids open. The sentries no longer
carried their weapons and were ferrying crates and boxes from the
house. There were at least fifteen unfamiliar people helping move
the items, some of which were large trunks.

Ernesto was troubled. This was a
first.

He entered the kitchen and placed his
backpack onto the counter by the TV as he did every day before
approaching the large island to see what the day’s menu consisted
of. But today there was no menu. Instead, there was a handwritten
note in Spanish, signed by Stanley, along with a brown envelope. He
picked up the note and read the terse missive.

“Ernesto, your services won’t be
required any longer. Sorry for the lack of notice but I just found
out last evening. We’re moving on Friday. The envelope has two
week’s pay in it. Good luck finding another position. You’re a good
cook.”

Ernesto opened the flap and peered
inside at the paltry wad of twenties. Unbelievable. He was now
unemployed, even though he’d never missed a day’s work – except
when his mother had died – and all he got by way of thanks was one
lousy extra week’s pay? Ernesto sat heavily beside the island and
read the note again. Stanley hadn’t even bothered to show and
personally deliver the news – Ernesto just got a short letter. Why
not just text message him on the bus on the way in? What a
thoughtless way to reward almost a decade of loyal service. Gringos
were all the same. You couldn’t trust them; they viewed anyone
foreign as beneath contempt – just cheap little robots for their
own convenience, unworthy of the most cursory
consideration.

He deserved better than this. Whether
Stanley wanted to talk or not, Ernesto intended to have a
conversation with him. This wasn’t over – not like this. For the
first time after his eight years in the compound he shouldered his
backpack and moved through the connecting double doors into the
hall that led to the main house. It was buzzing with activity; men
hastily carting boxes from the house to the vehicles. Ernesto was
invisible to them; just another of the locals hired to move their
belongings and clean up after them. He realized he had no idea
where to find Stanley – even if he was still in the villa. His
indignation rapidly fading, he stopped outside one of the open
doorways halfway to the main wing. Glancing inside, he saw several
monitors, some audio-visual gear and a case filled with about a
dozen late model video cameras.

Ernesto looked up and down the hall. It
was temporarily deserted. Overcome by an impulse he didn’t
completely understand, he leaned into the room and grabbed the
nearest camera, hurriedly stuffing it into his bag before closing
the lid on the camera container. He scanned the hall again. Nobody
had seen anything.

He stood for a moment in the hall,
internally debating his next move, when a man in one of the house
‘uniform’ windbreakers rounded the corner. The Gringo stopped when
he saw Ernesto and spoke to him in rapid, clipped Spanish without
any hint of an accent.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he
demanded.

Ernesto’s righteous indignation
buckled, replaced by fear of being caught. “Er, nothing, sir...I
was actually looking for Mister Stanley...”

“Stanley? He’s gone. Who are
you?”

“Ernesto. The cook. I really need to
speak with Mister Stanley...”

“He’s gone, and he’s not coming
back…just like you.” He narrowed his eyes. “You shouldn’t be here.
You need to leave the area right now.”

“But I–”

“I’m not going to repeat myself. Get
out of here – now – or I’ll have you removed by the
guards.”

Ernesto weighed his anger at his abrupt
termination against the likelihood of being prosecuted for stealing
an expensive piece of electronics.

Discretion won the day.

“All right,” Ernesto protested. “But
you tell Mister Stanley the way he treated me isn’t right. It isn’t
right.”

The man regarded him with a stony stare
and pointed to the kitchen door.

Ernesto got the message. He turned and
slunk back down the passageway, through the kitchen and out of the
compound.

Eight years, and the fuckers boot him
out just like that.

Chinga tu Madres,
Putas
.

* * * *

Russell Blake

Copyright © 2011 by Russell
Blake

All rights reserved.  No part of
this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system,
without the written permission of the publisher, except where
permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.  For information, contact
[email protected].

* * * *

Fatal Exchange
<1>

A shriek ripped through the bunker,
then slowly tapered off to a moan punctuated by congested gasps and
feeble gurgling. At first it was hard to tell the gender of the
screamer by the timbre of the emanation, but then the moan gave it
away.

It was a man.

The noise was coming from a room at the
end of a dimly lit hallway, concrete construction, everything
painted a sickly olive-green and reeking of disrepair. Behind the
chamber’s steel door stood two men in brown uniforms of the
Republic of the Union of Myanmar. A third man wearing a
short-sleeved pleated dress shirt sat at a metal table upon which
rested an old wooden box with a hand crank, and what looked like a
weathered carpentry kit, with all the usual tools present. There
were other, more arcane instruments strewn over a small rolling
stand, and a tray containing rubber gloves, an apron, and a
Dremel.

The floor sloped gradually to meet the
drainage grid in the far corner, where an old faucet intermittently
dripped water. Illumination was dim on the periphery but brighter
in the middle of the space, where a large lamp hung from the
ceiling, housing a bank of hundred-watt incandescent
bulbs.

The air was putrid and smelled of urine
and feces, and ventilation was poor – they’d needed to improvise a
facility on relatively short notice. As the building had originally
been a holding cell for prisoners offloaded from returning naval
ships, powerful climate-control and air-moving machinery had never
been deemed necessary.

All three men had their attention
focused on a naked Asian man in his late thirties, strapped to a
metal chair directly below the lights. His head rested on his
chest, where a thin thread of saliva and blood slowly trickled down
his concave ribcage. The screaming had stopped, replaced by sobbing
and whimpering, high pitched and eerily reminiscent of a cat in
heat.

The smaller of the uniformed men
approached the seated figure, carefully avoiding the pool of filth
around the chair—the victim had voided his bowels and bladder at
some point during the interrogation, contributing to the stench in
the room. He leaned in close and spoke softly in
Burmese.

“Where is it?”

The man in the chair moaned. The
uniformed man tried again, reasonably.

“Where is it? We know you took
it.”

The subject didn’t register the words.
Annoying. The officer had so many more pleasurable things he could
be doing. Right now he was running late for a rendezvous with one
of the young ladies he favored with his charms, as well as the odd
food voucher or handful of coins.

He pressed onward. “We don’t wish to
make this last any longer than it has to. It would be a shame to
have to bring your family into it, but you’re leaving me no choice.
How old are your two daughters? Eight and ten, I believe? Think of
them. Answer the question. For them.”

The man slowly raised his head and
regarded the officer. One of his eyes was missing, or rather had
been punctured earlier in the discussion, and was leaking its
ocular fluid down his battered cheek. The pain had to be
excruciating.

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about. I swear.” The words ran together in a hoarse mumble, due to
the obliteration earlier levied upon his face.

The officer shook his head
imperceptibly and sighed. His tryst would have to be delayed; this
was going nowhere. Shrugging his shoulders, he reached into his
pocket and retrieved a pair of white foam earplugs, then turned to
the man in the short shirtsleeves and nodded.

Without hesitation, the man cranked the
handle on the old wooden box. The victim shrieked again, an
otherworldly sound that bespoke unimaginable horrors. A pair of
worn blackened wires ran from the old hand generator to the seated
man’s genitals, where the bare ends had been affixed with black
electrical tape. The smell of burning hair and flesh mingled with
the other noxious odors.

“Where is it? What did you do with
it?”

More gurgling.

The taller officer removed his round
wire-rimmed glasses, cleaned the lenses carefully with a
handkerchief, and addressed the man in the shirtsleeves.

“Use the drill.”

The shirt-sleeved man nodded, and
removed from his bag a device resembling a dog muzzle, with straps
on the back terminating in metal hooks. He clawed his hands into
the man’s head, forcing his face into the contraption. The front
section had a hinged mechanism controlling two short metal rods now
plunged inside the man’s mouth. The rods were grooved, worn by the
many previous sets of teeth which had ground them.

He secured the metal hooks to the chair
back, and tightened the straps so the man couldn’t move his head.
Then, with a practiced twist, he turned the lever on the side of
the mechanism, forcing the man’s mouth open, allowing access to his
dental plate.

Pausing for a moment, the shirtsleeved
man considered his shoes, now soiled with the accumulated
expulsions. Aggravating, but there was nothing to be done about it.
He hoped they’d wash clean.

Turning, he donned a plastic apron with
an incongruous faded image of a dancing crab, and selected the
Dremel, a tiny high-speed jeweler’s drill used for polishing and
grinding work. He inserted the bit—a small tapered cone with
serrated edges running from the tip to the base, useful for boring
holes in stone or metal—and tightened the shaft.

The victim’s eye went wide as the
screech of the high-pitched motor filled the space.