The Rendition Read Online Free PDF Page A

making a sawing motion with the Leatherman.
    A few minutes later, we started in again. “Mr. President. I’m in Kosovo. Captured. There are people here who want to set me free. But they prevaricate. They say they are freedom fighters. Enemies of America and lowlifes is what they really are. Vickie was in Bridgeport. Find out who the hell she—”
    This time Vickie slugged me.
    After a while, we tried it again, but for some reason it didn’t go any better. I guess we didn’t get a wrap. I felt myself smiling. That’s what they say in Hollywood. “It’s a wrap.” I wanted to say that even after they’d beaten me up and while they were dragging me across the floor.
    Even while Vickie was telling me I was going back in the hole, I wanted to say, “I guess we didn’t get a wrap.” I wanted to say something funny, let them know I thought they were a bunch of goofballs and nothing they could do would ever change that. But I was finding it difficult forming the words.
    â€œYou better talk tomorrow. Ramush is becoming very unhappy with you.”
    There were other voices, then a loud noise, something slamming shut—the lid of a coffin that I feared would never again be opened.
    I’m having trouble breathing. Face down in a pile of filth. No idea of time. Smell makes me want to throw up. Like it was in Ranger School, eating mud on the obstacle course, DIs shouting and screaming. Vickie said I was stubborn. Who was it who always said that? It was Irmie—long time since we’ve seen one another.
    Irmie, I still think about you
.
    Can hear the dogs. Keep stumbling. And those stupid Vopos, the East German Army, one dumber than the other. Buck, you remember that day? They were yelling. “Halt! Halt!” I fell. Really took a header. Hard ground. Frozen. Shots. I’m swerving one side to the other—don’twant to give them a target, but that slows me down even more and, Buck, you’re already in the chopper.
    Expected to see you guys lift off, can’t scrap the mission because of one dumb guy who can’t get out of his own way.
    I always worried that things would end badly if I stayed with the agency too long.
    Buck, you and I go back a long way together. I couldn’t say no when you needed a favor.
    It’s still so clear how they recruited me that day—Fayetteville, North Carolina, next to Fort Bragg, Cumberland County Sheriff’s office. It’s all flooding back. Me in my Class As, and Sergeant Aubrey, big, black, and hard as nails in his starched fatigues. Desk sergeant to our left behind the Plexiglas barrier, walk down the corridor, McDaniel leading the way, says why not hold the meeting in the sheriff’s office, so we go down there. Sergeant Aubrey, Sheriff Wilson, Detective Solomon, and McDaniel. I don’t know what’s going on, and the way they’re talking—leaving me out of it—makes it hard to understand.
    Get a grip! You’re in a hole underneath the hut. Stop dreaming! Hard to stay focused, have this awful stomach pain, probably from that water
.
    If I’d told McDaniel “no” that day, I wouldn’t be here in this hole, would I? Do you know who McDaniel was, Irmie? He recruited me to become an intelligence officer. I was only nineteen.
    Irmie’s not here! Stay awake. Buck’s not here either.
    Sheriff knew what it was all about, but I didn’t. They wanted Sergeant Aubrey in on it, so he stayed. I remember Detective Solomon saying “I’m from the Sixty-Seventh Precinct, gentlemen. That’s Brooklyn, New York, Corporal Klear’s hometown.” Solomon points at me, and everyone nods. I can feel McDaniel’s eyes on me. I didn’t know he was from an intelligence agency. His eyes—like they’re boring into me, making little holes.
    Remember how I used to complain, Buck?
    You’re alone! Buck’s not here.
    Now I laugh at that stuff.