Game of Death (42 page)

‘Go!’ Slim shouts.

Eddie hits the gas and we pull away. As we do, I look out at the young boy standing on the sidewalk. He still hasn’t made a sound; he’s just watched the scene unfold. I wonder
whether he understands how close he’s come to an experience that could have destroyed him, and likely left him dead. Probably not.

Toby reaches out to close the rear door and, as he does, he looks at the boy. ‘You owe me one, kid,’ he says.

The door closes, and we are gone.

We are back at the warehouse in the naval yard. NetMaster is still unconscious, but now he is tied to one of the chairs, stripped to his underwear, with a pillowcase over his
head. A 120-watt spotlight is set on a tripod three feet from him, pointing at his face. Cormack and his three men and I are standing behind the spotlight, still with our masks on. We’ve
discussed how the interrogation is going to go, and it’s been made clear to me that I am to keep my mouth shut. That’s fine with me; these men clearly have done this before, and they
know what is effective, and what is not. One key, they tell me, is to keep the subject off-balance – to never let him know what information you are actually looking for. Disorientation is a
powerful weapon, even with the hardest men.

We’re standing there, watching him, waiting for him to show some signs of consciousness. Eventually his head starts to bob as the fog lifts from him gradually. Just at the moment when it
looks like he may be able to keep his head up, Cormack switches on the spotlight, and Toby steps forward and removes the pillowcase.

The effect is dramatic. NetMaster reacts as though he’s been punched in the face. His head pulls back and he tries to raise his arms to ward off the light. His eyes squint shut as he
attempts to figure out what’s happening. The noises coming from his throat are pained and unintelligible grunts. He is still not fully conscious, but his body knows enough to recognize the
assault on the senses. Toby steps forward again and waves smelling salts under the man’s broken, fleshy, bulbous nose.

Again, the reaction is instantaneous. NetMaster’s head shoots up straight, and his eyes flap open for just a second before slamming shut again when the light hits the pupils. ‘Wat in
hemelsnaam?’

Toby steps forward and slams his fist into NetMaster’s nose twice, causing the man to scream out in pain. ‘Stoppen! Wat is er gaande?’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ Toby tells him, punching him in the face one more time, just for good measure.

‘Good morning, Dieter,’ Cormack says. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Dieter, do you? Would that be okay?’

‘Who are you?’ NetMaster demands, switching to his accented English.

Toby hits him again, this time in the cheek, hard enough to knock his great jowly face to the side. ‘Shut up and answer the fuckin’ question!’ Toby yells.

‘Do you mind if I call you Dieter?’ Cormack asks again. ‘It seems so much more personal than NetMaster, don’t you think? And trust me, we are going to get to know you on
a very personal level.’

‘Answer!’ Toby screams. He doesn’t hit the man this time, but NetMaster flinches as though he has been hit anyway, letting out an anticipatory shout.

‘Yes, yes! You can call me Dieter!’ As he gets more nervous, NetMaster’s accent becomes more pronounced.

‘Thank you, Dieter,’ Cormack says. ‘This will all go much more quickly if we’re cordial with each other.’ He nods to Slim, and Slim retrieves a rolling table from
against the wall. The table has on it a car battery with several wires running off the leads. One runs to a small hand-held dial. Two others run to small metal clips. A fourth ends in a wire loop
the diameter of a tennis ball. Slim rolls it up so that it is next to NetMaster, only a couple of feet away, close enough for him to see it. His eyes go wide with fear. ‘You have probably
seen something like this before,’ Cormack says. ‘From what we understand, you were pretty tied in back in Amsterdam, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’d even operated
something similar to this yourself.’

NetMaster turns away from the battery and squints into the light. ‘What do you want?’

‘Answers.’

‘About what?’

Cormack gives a low chuckle that sends a chill through my spine. ‘About everything, mate.’

Slim takes one of the wires with the metal clips on it and fastens the clip onto NetMaster’s left nipple. It takes several tries before the clip will stay, and NetMaster twists and
struggles to get away, making pained noises as the metal digs into his skin.

He is breathing hard now, and – truth be told – just watching the scene, my heart feels like it may explode. I’ve always thought that I would have excelled as a criminal, but
I’m starting to have second thoughts about that as I watch what these men are willing to do. I suppose it comes with the territory, and I remind myself that they are doing it for my benefit,
but it still makes me feel like I may throw up.

Cormack walks over to the table, where NetMaster can see him in his mask. ‘You understand how this works,’ he says. ‘It will be such a relief to work with a professional such
as yourself. It should make everything go smoothly.’ He takes the dial at the end of the wire off the table. ‘This controls the voltage. We’ll start with a low setting. Every
wrong answer you give, the voltage will go up. Do you understand?’

‘What do you want?’ NetMaster demands. He is trying to seem tough, but his voice breaks, which ruins the effect.

‘Of course you understand.’ Cormack folds his arms. ‘Your name is Dieter Schlosser, correct?’

‘Yes, yes, that is my name.’

‘You are from Amsterdam?’

‘Yes.’ Sweat is pouring off NetMaster’s body now. The cinderblock storage facility has no windows, and no ventilation system that I can identify, so the place has gotten hotter
and hotter. ‘From Amsterdam, yes.’

‘Good,’ Cormack says. ‘See how easy these things go when everyone involved is reasonable?’

‘Yes, reasonable,’ NetMaster says. He tries a smile, but it comes to his face as a grimace.

Cormack leans in toward the naked pile of flesh. ‘You were going to rape that little boy earlier, weren’t you?’ he says quietly, as if he’s trying to get NetMaster to
share a secret.

‘No, I was just watching!’

Cormack holds up the dial and presses the button, and the current from the car battery travels through the wires into NetMaster’s body via his nipples. His body goes into spasms that I
think may break the chair. All of his muscles contract, and the fat on his belly quivers and shakes. Cormack holds the button down for around three seconds and then releases it. The slight
sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh hangs in the air. NetMaster’s body goes limp and his head lolls to the side, a long string of spittle going from his lower lip to his chest. He is still
conscious, though, and Cormack leans in to whisper into his ear.

‘I was there, mate.’ He holds up the dial. ‘That was setting two, of ten. I’m going to three now. Do you want to try again?’

NetMaster nods listlessly.

‘Good. You were going to rape that boy this morning, weren’t you?’

NetMaster manages a second weak nod. ‘I wanted to, ja. I don’t know whether I would have been able to, but if I could have, ja, I would have.’ He sobs at the thought. ‘It
has been so long.’ He breaks down and weeps openly.

‘So much better,’ Cormack says. ‘Hopefully we won’t have to resort to this too many times again.’ He holds up the dial.

I step out of the building for a moment twenty minutes into the interrogation, pulling off my ski mask and breathing deeply to clear the stench of the warehouse out of my nose
for a brief moment. Cormack hasn’t even started asking NetMaster about the girls and his role in the
De Sade
murders. I’m growing impatient, but Cormack has made it clear that
he wants to establish that NetMaster is telling us the truth before he starts asking questions about the things we really need the answers to. His contacts have given him enough information about
NetMaster’s illicit activities in Amsterdam for it to be clear when he’s reached the point where he’s no longer willing to lie and take the risk of another shock. I know
it’s going to be another ten or fifteen minutes before we get there, and the sight of the torture is beginning to wear on me. In addition, I want to check in to see whether Yvette has
discovered anything in her hack into Pinkerton’s NextLife computers.

I dial her number and she picks up on the first ring.

‘What’s happening?’ she asks without greeting.

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Is it bad?’

‘It’s not good. What’s happening there?’

‘I’m working in a corner of the floor to try to keep out of sight,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what people know. I think they’re aware that things are fucked-up.
They all saw you being walked out of here in handcuffs, and the police have taken everything out of your office – computer, desk, everything.’

‘Great.’

‘I don’t know whether people know about Gunta and François. This place is pretty well removed from corporate, so they may not have any idea how screwed-up things really are.
The one thing that people are starting to hear is that Josh has gone into hiding. It’s freaking everyone out.’

‘Is anyone bothering you?’

‘No, everyone is pretty much keeping their distance. I feel a little like a leper, but I’m fine with that. I don’t have any interest in talking at the moment, and if I had to
deal with questions, I wouldn’t be able to get anything done.’

‘Have you been able to get into his servers?’

‘Yeah. I’ve cracked his security both on his desktop and his laptop. I have pretty good visibility, but it’s taking me a little time to get through everything. I’m
surprised he didn’t do a better job of protecting things, but I suppose it’s better for us.’

‘Is there anything related to Kendra’s murder?’

‘Not that I’ve been able to locate yet, but like I said, it’s taking a while to get through everything. There are a ton of emails from when they were together, but I
haven’t read them all. There’s a bunch of other stuff on his system, too.’

‘Keep looking. If we find anything, I’m in a lot better shape.’

‘I know. I will.’ Something about her voice raises an alarm in my head.

‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’

She hesitates. ‘I did find something on Josh’s laptop,’ she says in a whisper.

‘Something about Kendra?’

‘No. But it’s . . . ’

‘It’s what?’

‘It’s similar to the
De Sade
LifeScenes. But this one doesn’t use the
De Sade
name. It’s got Josh’s personal identifier, and Josh is the star in
it.’

I’m leaning against the cinderblock side of the warehouse, looking out at the water. There is a huge Liquid Natural Gas tanker going by. It’s so big it seems as though you could walk
across Charlestown harbor on it and never touch the water. Its housing is nine stories, and that’s on top of the deck, which must be 200 feet off the water. It’s more than 500 yards
long, surrounded by armed coastguard boats. If a terrorist were able to mount a successful attack and blow up one of these tankers, the damages-estimates suggest that all of Boston would be
leveled. It makes me think about how fragile everything we take for granted really is, as I watch my life collapse.

‘What’s in the LifeScene?’ I ask.

‘It’s a little like the others. There’s a girl, and she’s in what looks like a dungeon. She’s all suited up in leather and chained to this wall with leather
padding. He’s having his way with her, and then he strangles her.’

‘Sounds fairly simple.’

‘It is. It doesn’t have any of the creativity of the other
De Sade
LifeScenes.’

I think through what she’s telling me. ‘Is there anything else about it?’

‘Yeah,’ she says. I can tell that she’s debating whether or not to tell me something. ‘There’s someone else in this one.’

‘Someone else?’

‘Yes. It’s another man. He is chained to the wall, too, just a few feet from the girl. He’s watching what Josh is doing to the girl, trying to pull away from his chains. Josh
kills the guy after he strangles the girl.’

‘How?’

‘He stabs him slowly with a long sword.’

‘That can’t be fun.’ My mind is racing as I try to figure out what it all means.

‘It gets weirder. Once he’s done killing the guy, he steps back and jerks off to the whole scene while auto-asphyxiating himself to heighten the sensations.’

‘Jesus! Sounds like Josh has gone completely around the bend. Did you recognize the models in the Scene?’ I ask.

‘I did,’ she says. Her voice is so quiet now, I can barely hear her. ‘The guy is you,’ she says. ‘The girl is me.’

It feels like I’ve been hit with a charge from the car battery. The sensation is so powerful it shoots pain throughout my body. ‘Listen carefully, Yvette,’ I say, trying to
keep calm. ‘I want you to get out of there. Get out of there now, and wait for my call. I’ll find you as soon as this is done here.’

I’m back in the warehouse, the ski mask pulled down, hiding my face, standing behind the light, out of NetMaster’s sight. I’m watching everything as it
unfolds, but it’s like I’m not really there anymore. I feel completely removed from my body. I’m floating, as though someone else is in control of my actions. Things feel less
real than when I’ve GhostWalked others’ LifeScenes.

‘Tell us about the girl,’ Cormack is saying. He is standing over NetMaster, looking down on him. Toby now has the dial in his hand, and he’s taking his orders from Cormack. The
setting on the dial is up to seven, and NetMaster looks like he can’t take any more. His skin is gray, and from the smell I’m pretty sure he’s shit himself at least a little. That
stench is nothing compared to the pungent sting of fear that clouds the air.

‘What girl?’ he asks.

Toby holds up the dial, as though he’s going to press the button, but Cormack waves him off.

‘I tell you, but what girl?’ NetMaster pleads. He’s so worn out now, his English is barely passable, and his accent makes it difficult to understand him.