The Inquisitor: A Novel

The client sat in an eight-foot-square room staring at a large one-way mirror that offered a view into flat, smooth darkness. An audio track of a nervous laugh continually interrupted by a dry cough came through the speakers in the walls, but he couldn’t hear it because he had put in the earplugs that had been left out for him.

He glanced at his watch. Eleven-twenty
P.M.
He’d been here three hours and was nursing a second scotch. The windowless room was old wood with a soft gray finish, and expensively appointed. The chair was an Arne Jacobsen, the rug an antique Persian. The chrome bar was stocked with expensive liquor, a pinot noir, and a Sancerre in a dewy bucket. Four conical, brushed-nickel pendants hung from the ceiling, and the etchings in the crystal scotch glasses caught their light and held it captive in brilliant, star-shaped designs. On the bar’s lower shelf, a DVD recorder’s face blinked with a tiny red eye.

The client was the head of security for a major U.S. electronics manufacturer. He didn’t make the kind of money that allowed him familiarity with these luxuries, but the people he worked for did, and they were waiting for his call. It had taken a week of research and networking to arrange a meeting in a restaurant in Little Italy with an impeccably attired, exquisitely groomed mob boss named Carmine Delanotte, who questioned him over a bottle of Barolo and two double espressos before finally giving him the Internet code and Geiger’s name, though it was understood that the name wasn’t real. The code had gotten him into Geiger’s website, DoYouMrJones.com, and using Delanotte as a referral had moved things along quickly. Earlier tonight the client had snatched his target—Matthew Gant, one of his company’s R&D guys—from a garage and, following instructions, brought him to this bland, two-story building on Ludlow Street.

When the client and Geiger had finally met, in this room, the first thing he’d noticed was that Geiger hardly ever blinked. The client prided himself on his cool, but Geiger had put him on edge. The silky, even tone of his voice and his physical stillness added to his affect. He had elliptic gray eyes in a sharp, angular face. His body looked lean and hard, perhaps because he was a runner or a practitioner of some form of martial arts. And he had a slight tilt to his posture, as if his skeleton accommodated gravity in a unique way.

There was something truly strange about him—but then, what could you expect from someone in Geiger’s line of work? The client had heard all kinds of stories. Geiger was a head case who’d done hard time; Geiger was a rogue from the NSA; Geiger was a twisted scion who didn’t need the money and did it for the rush. The only common thread was that he had no equal. When they had shaken hands, the client had said:

“They say you’re the best, and we hope it’s true. The specs we think Matthew stole are worth millions.”

Geiger had stared back at him, expressionless.

“I don’t deal in hope here,” he’d said, and left.

For the first hour the room on the other side of the glass had been black. The only sounds were Matthew’s outbursts, full of bravado and indignation. Then Geiger’s hushed utterance reached the client through the speakers like a wraith come calling.

“Stop talking, Matthew. You are not allowed to speak any longer.”

It was the loudest whisper the client had ever heard. Then the lights came on, and through the one-way mirror the client saw Geiger leaning against a wall in a stark room, dressed in a black pullover and loose-fitting black slacks. The room was completely covered with white linoleum, and dozens of three-inch-wide recessed lights in the walls and ceiling made every surface glare. On the north and south walls, mounted a foot below the ceiling line, were several small video cameras. After a while the view started to play tricks with the client’s vision, the room’s angles gradually disappearing until Geiger seemed to be suspended in air, a sable silhouette frozen in a luminous alabaster tableau.

In the center of the room, Matthew was seated in an antique barber’s chair—red leather, gleaming chrome, and porcelain. Metal-mesh belts were lashed around his waist, chest, ankles, and wrists, and when he moved bright stars of light ran across their latticework. His face was ashen, with splotches of a red flush on his cheeks. He was bare-chested and barefoot.

For a half hour Geiger stared silently at Matthew, straightening up every ten minutes to walk once around the room. He had a slight limp, but he had somehow incorporated it into his body mechanics, so it didn’t look like an infirmity—it looked natural, for him. Matthew’s wary eyes followed him on every circuit.

Geiger gave the barber’s chair a push, starting it spinning slowly around and around. Then he left and the lights went out again. An audio track began playing a series of vignettes, each lasting a few minutes. The client heard a traffic jam with honking horns and screeching tires … a woman humming off-key … the strumming of a single chord on an out-of-tune guitar … a phone repeatedly ringing, stopping, and ringing again … and finally the nervous laugh and cough. At the start Matthew had yelled, “Jesus fucking Christ!” but then he fell silent. Halfway through the track, the client had put the earplugs in.

Now the lights came back on as Geiger walked into the room again. Hands behind his back, he stood beside Matthew, who eyed him with undisguised fury. The client took the earplugs out.

“Matthew,” said Geiger, “close your eyes.”

A scowl tightened on Matthew’s face, but he did as he was told.

“Now. Imagine you’ve fallen down an empty well. It’s pitch-black down there. You can’t see a thing. The only sound is your breath. Your body hurts. Maybe you’ve broken an ankle, or a wrist.”

Geiger stayed silent for several seconds, as if to make sure Matthew could hear himself breathing in the blackness of his prison.

“The pain puts on a light show behind your eyes. You can taste blood in your mouth. You reach out and feel around you. The walls are cold and damp, and smooth. Not a crack or a niche to get a hold of. Can you see yourself down in the bottom of that well, Matthew?”

The client felt a chill at the back of his neck.
He
could see Matthew down there.

“You try to stay calm. You start yelling for help. You tell yourself,
Someone will hear me.
But after a while you realize you’re probably going to die down there. And as soon as that thought kicks in, something inside you does start to die. Not of the flesh, but the spirit. Do you know what I mean, Matthew?”

“I keep telling you, man—I don’t know what you want!”

“Matthew, I said you are not allowed to speak. Just nod or shake your head. Do you remember me telling you that?”

Matthew stared at the unblinking gaze and nodded. Geiger’s hands came out from behind his back with a wireless microphone and headphones. He fitted the headphones snugly on Matthew’s head.

“Sennheiser 650s,” he said. “I like them better than AKGs. It’s a more textured experience. Close your eyes, Matthew.”

Matthew did, his breath catching in a ragged sigh, eyeballs nervously shifting beneath the lids.

Geiger raised the microphone and began strolling around the room while speaking softly. He reminded the client of one of those self-help gurus on public television—only with an audience of one.

“Can you hear me clearly?” Geiger asked.

Matthew nodded.

“All right. Now, back in the well, Matthew. Are you there?”

Matthew swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He nodded again.

“Good.” The word sounded to the client like a soft prayer. “It’s important that you believe you’re down in the well, Matthew, because this isn’t a mind game. You are down there, and I’m your only way out. I’m the rope that can be tossed down to you and the hands that can pull you up.” He gently put a hand on Matthew’s shoulder; Matthew stiffened. “And the only thing that gets the rope tossed down is truth.”

The client leaned closer to the glass.

“It’s a beautiful thing—truth. Man’s only perfect creation. And I know it when I hear it. It’s not that I’m particularly intuitive or perceptive, but I’ve heard so many lies that I can tell when the truth comes out.”

Geiger leaned down to Matthew’s face, and the client could see Matthew’s jaw joints flex with anxiety.

“Toscanini said he could tell if one string on one violin in a whole orchestra was out of tune. He didn’t have perfect pitch, but he’d listened to so many millions of notes that he could instantly tell what was true and what wasn’t.” Geiger took a breath. “So, Matthew—don’t lie to me.”

Matthew’s nostrils flared like a colt’s sensing smoke. Geiger leaned closer, until only the microphone was between his lips and Matthew’s.

“Did you hear what I said?
Don’t lie to me!
”

The aural assault through the headphones made Matthew’s head recoil with such force the client thought his neck might break. His eyes snapped open, his mouth stretched into a cavernous circle, and his howling lasted a good five seconds before it shifted down into a sucking moan.

Geiger turned his head to one side, and the client heard the
click
of cervical vertebrae. Then Geiger turned it to the other side. Another
click
. The client tried to read Geiger’s face, but he couldn’t discern any particular emotion in it.

“Matthew,” Geiger said, “I need you to keep your eyes shut, stop moaning, and pay attention. Nod if you can do that.”

Matthew’s groan caught in his throat. His head rose and fell in a meager, marionettic response, and his eyes closed.

“Now, there are numerous applications of pain for specific scenarios—primarily physical, psychic, and emotional pain. In those categories are many subcategories. In the physical realm, there is audio…”

He rapped the microphone with his knuckles and Matthew’s head jerked, eyes springing open again.

“Eyes closed!”

Matthew howled, and Geiger gently put a fingertip on each of Matthew’s quivering eyelids and closed them. Then he placed a thumb on a spot two inches left of Matthew’s sternum.

“There is pressure…”

His thumb stiffened, and with almost no sign of effort he pushed inward and Matthew bellowed hoarsely, his face twisting in a toothy grimace. The client watched, amazed. He poked around curiously at his own ribs.

“There is blunt force…”

Geiger raised his arm, elbow bent at a ninety-degree angle. His forearm swung like a spring-action lever and smashed flush into Matthew’s chest, driving all breath out of him, leaving him gasping, desperate to suck air into his lungs.

“And there is penetration, slicing of flesh…”

Geiger paused.

“But that’s too medieval for me,” he continued. “However…”

His hand went behind his ear and slid something out. It was shiny and silver, four inches long, immeasurably thin.

“Open your eyes.”

Matthew’s lids rolled back. His brown eyes were laced with red thread.