Local time – 12:35pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
Islamabad, Pakistan.
Ahmed noticed Yasir wiping the sweat off his head with his arm. His older colleague was tired. It was time to change tack. The man that swung before them was now too weak to lift his head. They had whipped him and screamed at him for over two hours and there was no sign of him breaking. Ahmed and Yasir were still the only ones in the team willing to use the collection of tools to inflict wounds all over the man’s bleeding body. The others sat on the ground outside the room, their backs against walls, and heads bowed between their knees, listening to the horrible sounds coming from the chamber torture they designed.
It was up to Ahmed and Yasir to decide what to do, since they were the only two brave enough to carry it out. But Ahmed could see Yasir wasn’t going to go much further. He shuddered every time the man’s skin creaked, almost as if the blows were striking him. Ahmed’s strength hadn’t faded at all. His adrenalin was maintained by an intense anger. He was angry at the man for not helping them. Angry at his father for putting him and his group in this position, and most of all angry with himself for letting their plans spiral so quickly into something none of them knew what to do with. They were just boys. And he felt like they were trying to do the work of men.
Ahmed stopped for long enough to notice the man’s blood running down his legs in tiny streams, dripping into a puddle on the floor. Yasir dropped his cane.
‘You can make this stop. All we need to know is where it is.’
‘No. Let me die. Let this end... ’
Ahmed stepped into Yasir’s place.
‘Do you have children?’ The man’s voice gurgled an incoherent answer.
‘Do you want your children growing up in a Pakistan that has no power to defend itself?’ Another gurgle that didn’t contain any words.
Ahmed dropped his cane on the floor and crouched besides the pile of implements, a few still unused. He picked up a pair of pliers. The man saw what was in his hands and shut his eyes tight. His whimpering grew stronger and he struggled in his binds, causing the rope to shudder and flooding more pain to the broken ligaments in his shoulders. Ahmed kneeled at his feet, which hung a foot from the ground. Pulling them forward with his left hand, he used his right to open the pliers handles with his fingers and then clamped the teeth down hard on the man’s second toe. He screamed out in pain and instinctively pulled his feet back, which gave Ahmed cause to grip harder on the handles with both hands. The toe exploded, with a sickening cracking sound on the bone. The feet were slippery with blood from the whipping, so Ahmed lost purchase, and held onto him only with the pliers. Yasir moved sideways so he could see what Ahmed was doing.
‘The nails Ahmed. Not the toes.’ He looked like he was going to vomit. Ahmed didn’t respond. He opened the pliers again, releasing the crushed stump, and moved to the middle one. This time he used both hands to crush the toe in one hard squeeze of the handles. He then twisted the bone, tearing it from the joint. The man yelped so loud his voice reverberated around the small concrete room. It was the sound of a wild animal. Ahmed sensed the man was finally losing control. He moved to the next toe, and just as he was about to pulverise it, Yasir put his hand on his shoulder and spoke to the man.
‘We’ll call for help and leave you here. If you tell us where it is, and you are correct, you’ll never see us again. And of course, you will never tell anyone what we have done. If you send us to the wrong location, we’ll kill you instead of calling for help.’ The man whimpered again, and somehow it was clear he was willing to talk.
‘Will you help us?’ Yasir asked. The man used all his strength to nod ever so slightly. But it was enough. Ahmed dropped the pliers.