Read Online The Sleeper by Christopher Dickey - Free Book Online

you are doing.”
    â€œI—I don’t know.”
    â€œThat’s not a good beginning.”
    â€œI was afraid…”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œI was afraid after New York.”
    â€œWhy was that?”
    â€œI was a mujahedin.”
    â€œReally? That surprises me.”
    â€œI was. My father—Bosnian. I was in Cazin, in Zenica.”
    â€œThere are many spies among the mujahedin.”
    â€œI do not know.”
    â€œMaybe you are a mujahedin. Maybe you are a spy. Maybe both. This is not such a bad thing. The elements are mixed in any of us.”
    He wanted me to have hope so he could take it away from me. This would not end soon, and when it was over, I would be dead. I didn’t know if that mattered to me now. I had fucked up so bad. So bad. Where had I gotten the idea I could save America? Or even my own family? Betsy. Miriam. Thinking about them should have given me strength, but it took the last breath of hope out of me. My muscles, tight with pain and fear, surrendered. I couldn’t resist anymore.
    The tire, wet from the water, slipped a tiny bit on my arms. I tried to move my fingers under my body, but they had lost all sensation. My legs felt my hands against them, but the hands did not feel the legs. I had to make my fingers work again, I thought. Concentrate on that. As much as I could, I tightened my stomach muscles to give the blood in my arms more room to flow. The tire slipped again, but clouds of pain filled my head.
    â€œWe all make compromises with power,” said the voice. “Have you ever bargained with God?”
    â€œNo,” I said.
    â€œI see you are still able to lie,” he said. “No more questions until Pilar gets back.”
    He walked away, and was gone for some time. When he returned, he was sipping tea. I could smell the mint in it.
    I started to speak. “I went to Abu Seif for help.”
    â€œNo more lies for now,” said the voice. “Abu Seif is dead. Murdered. And for all I know, you are his killer. You’re not his killer, are you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou are his killer, aren’t you?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAh,” said the voice. “There you go. That is really the problem with torture: If someone is telling the truth, how do you know?”
    â€œPlease,” I said. “Please listen.”
    He sipped his drink and said nothing.
    I started to sob. “Please…Please…” I kept repeating the word until it lost all meaning in my mouth.
    â€œPeople will say anything to stop the pain,” said the voice. “Anything at all. If there is time, one can check the information, one can look at the files. But when you have no information, when you have no files, how do you judge? In that case, pain becomes the only measure of truth. Pain and the interrogator’s instinct.”
    â€œPlease…listen.”
    â€œBut, you see, there’s a trap there, too. There comes a time when the interrogator will not believe anything without the pain—anything at all. Do you think I can believe you now?”
    My fingers began to tingle, and to ache, as if they’d been numb with cold. I lay there as still as I could and focused all my energy on my hands, on my forearms, willing them to work.
    Outside was the sound of a car pulling up. The door to the bodega opened and the woman came in, dressed now in blue jeans and cross-trainers, with a kind of smock over the top of her body, a black hijab over her hair and neck. She put her purse down on the counter as if she were getting ready to start a normal work shift.
    She and the voice talked for a couple of minutes in Spanish. The overhead lights went off. The halogen light was back in my face, like a sun burning in the blackness of space. But nothing else happened. They kept talking. The front door opened. Someone left in the car. I could hear the engine start, could hear the sound of it fade as it went away. Someone