The Inquisitor: A Novel (2 page)

“Do you know what this is?”

Matthew squinted at the thing between Geiger’s thumb and forefinger, and shook his head. The client found himself nodding. He’d once had a slipped disc, and he’d tried everything for some relief. He knew what it was.

“This is an acupuncture needle. Its primary function is to block impulses that the brain identifies as pain from traveling up and down neural paths. But it can also create pain.” The needle glinted in his fingertips like the minuscule sword of a toy hero. “There are ironies in my business that you can’t help but notice.”

The remark was spoken without a trace of humor or menace, and the lack of both made the hair on the back of the client’s neck stir. Geiger’s free hand grasped Matthew by the hair. A short yelp slipped from Matthew—not a response to pain but an involuntary bark of recognition of what was to come—and Geiger deftly inserted the needle between vertebrae in Matthew’s neck. Matthew didn’t flinch, and his gaze never left Geiger’s implacable face.

“The fact is, the human being is a remarkably vulnerable construct. This needle is lighter than a sparrow’s feather, Matthew. A child’s tear balanced on its end could bend it.”

Geiger wiggled the needle slightly, triggering a riff of shrill screams. Then he removed it and the yowling stopped. Tears streamed down Matthew’s cheeks, his breath racing in and out of him in short, tight huffs.

“There’s also manipulation of joints, application of intense heat and cold, forced ingestion of liquids. The fact is, Matthew, I could work on you for days without repeating a process.”

Geiger removed the headphones from Matthew’s head and put them and the microphone on the floor. “As for psychic pain, I think your sensitivity to physical stimuli makes that area unnecessary to explore. As for emotional pain—according to your file, you are single, unattached, an only child with no living parents, so I see no benefit in going there. You may not believe it, Matthew, but you’re a very lucky fellow.”

The client wanted Geiger to pound on Matthew so he’d confess and bring this to an end. Then the client could make his phone calls and go home. But he’d sensed when he’d met Geiger that it wouldn’t be like that.

“I’m not going to ask you yet, Matthew, because I can tell you’re not ready to tell the truth, and I don’t want to make you lie.”

“Ask whatever you goddamn want. I—I can’t tell you what I don’t fucking know.”

“That is true,” Geiger said. “Irrelevant, but true.”

A thought made the client’s stomach tighten. Could Matthew be telling the truth? Was it possible that someone else stole the R&D specs? Everything had pointed to Matthew, but …

“The well, Matthew,” said Geiger. “You’re down in the well, so close your eyes.”

Geiger’s hands moved to his sides, fingers constantly flicking the air. Watching, the client wondered if there was a pattern; it almost seemed as if Geiger were playing air piano.

“All right. You’ve been down there awhile, and the mind is affected when the body can’t move for long periods. Darkness and claustrophobia affect perception, sense of time, sense of self. They create an environment where emotional borders get fuzzy. Pain takes a backseat to fear. Hope dwindles, despair becomes a companion. Once that happens, you start to see who you really are—the depths and limits of your strength.”

Geiger knelt in front of Matthew. “And then you’re changed, Matthew, rearranged right down to the molecular level. It’s the ultimate wake-up call.”

Geiger closed his eyes and massaged them with a thumb and middle finger. They were measured, precise movements.

“We’ll take a short break now. You stay in the well.” He took a black silk blindfold from a pocket and tied it around Matthew’s face. “One other thing, Matthew. I’ve learned that once certain kinds of pain are experienced, the anticipation of further pain is almost as powerful as the sensation itself. I think in time you’ll agree with me.”

Geiger walked out of view and the lights went out again. A few seconds passed, and then the door to the viewing room opened and Geiger came in. Without looking at the client, he went to the bar, poured himself a glass of water, and started drinking.

“I’m a little worried,” said the client. “Do I have the right guy?”

Geiger nodded.

“You’re sure?”

Geiger nodded again.

“How do you know?”

“I explained that to Matthew.” He put the empty glass down. “You were listening, weren’t you?”

“Yeah—Toscanini. But why hasn’t he confessed yet?”

“He’s not at the release point yet. He’ll be there soon.”

“The release point?”

Geiger nodded once more, but looked as if he didn’t want to have to do it again. “Matthew is still more terrified of what might happen if he confesses than what will happen if he doesn’t. For the moment, the reality of torture is preferable to the possibility of death. But that will change.”

The client wondered what Geiger looked like when he smiled—if he ever smiled.

“We’re not going to have him killed,” the client said. “We just need to know who he sold the data to.”

Geiger stared at him with those unblinking eyes. “But he doesn’t know that.”

Geiger walked out. The client sighed and looked back to the mirror and the black abyss. The speakers delivered Geiger’s gentle voice to him on quivering wings of angels.

“Matthew, are you in the well? You can answer me.”

Matthew’s voice sounded like sandpaper on rough wood. “Yes. I am.”

“Good.”

Then Matthew started to scream. The sound was so loud that it came through the speakers ragged with distortion. The angels scattered. The client turned and reached for the earplugs.

PART ONE

1

At four
A.M.
, standing on the stoop outside his back door, Geiger watched a spider weave its web.

It was raining. The sky, ash-gray and cloudy, was gathered at the horizon like an old quilt. A drop of water clung to one strand of a new web that stretched from the porch overhang to the wooden railing four feet below. The breeze plucked the strand like a guitar string; the raindrop trembled but held fast. Then the spider came down, plump belly swaying, and began weaving a new strand.

Earlier, Geiger had been typing up his notes on the session with Matthew. As
Sgt. Pepper
came to him through the six-foot Hyperions, he felt the superb bass response, right down to the click of McCartney’s pick on his guitar strings. The cat, as usual, was lying on the desk, stretched out beside the right end of his keyboard, a front paw rising and tapping at Geiger’s hand whenever he went more than a few minutes without being scratched. The near rumble of his purr was loudest when Geiger scratched the scar above his missing left eye. Geiger didn’t know the circumstance of the injury; the animal had looked this way when he showed up on the back stoop three years ago. Nor did he know the cat’s name or where he was from—which is to say, the two were somewhat alike.

Geiger always wrote notes the same night of a session, while actions and reactions were fresh in his mind. He found that even a few hours of sleep could smudge the edges of memory. The next day, his partner, Harry, would e-mail a transcript he had made from the video of the session, and Geiger would go through it and insert comments at relevant spots.

He worked while sitting in an ergonomic desk chair, built specially for him. But he still had to get up every fifteen minutes and walk or his left leg would go pins and needles down to his toes. Over the years he’d seen three specialists about the problem—one doctor had called it “deadfoot”—but they all said the same thing: the only recourse was reconstructive surgery. Geiger told them that no one was going to use any kind of blade on him, for any reason. Having just examined him, they understood his feelings on the subject.

Geiger had stepped out back to lose the numbness and have a cigarette. He didn’t smoke inside. He found that the smell of stale smoke in a room affected his focus. Months ago, when he was new on the couch, Dr. Corley had traced that back to his father and his endless Camels. To date, that was the only picture of his father Corley had been able to pull out of Geiger—in a dream, Geiger had seen his father’s stony face staring down at him, a cigarette clamped between full lips, smoke curling out of his nostrils. Geiger had remembered thinking, This is what God looks like. Only taller.

He felt the cat, which had just come out the open door, rub against his ankles. He picked the animal up and draped the furry body over his shoulder. Other than the perch on the desk, this was the cat’s favorite spot.

Geiger lit a Lucky Strike and watched the spider. Full of purpose, it performed its singular task with innumerable perfect strokes. Imagine a carpenter who could spit out nails made in his gut and use his hands as hammers. Imagine a musician whose instrument was his own body. Geiger wondered, Is there any other being so diligent and artistic at creating a killing apparatus—besides man?

*   *   *

Geiger was an apostle, a slave to the specific. He was constantly breaking down, distilling, and defining parts of the whole, because in IR—information retrieval—the details were crucial. His goal was to refine the process to an art, which was why every single thing that happened from the moment Geiger walked into the room had its own degree of significance and required recognition. Each facial expression; each spoken word and silence; each tic, glance, and movement. Give him fifteen minutes in the room with a Jones and nine out of ten times he would know what the reaction to a particular action would be before the Jones made it: fear, defiance, desperation, bravado, denial. There were patterns, cycles, behavioral refrains. You just had to pay very close attention to see them all. He’d learned that by listening to music; he’d come to understand how every note plays a part in the whole, how each sound affects and complements the rest. He could hum every note in a thousand pieces of music. They were all in his head. In music, as in IR, everything mattered.

Still, even with the countless elements that could come into play, Geiger’s view of his work was relatively simple. The client and the Jones almost always presented him with one of three basic scenarios.

No. 1: Theft.
The Jones had stolen something from the client and the client wanted it back.

No. 2: Betrayal.
The Jones had committed an act of disloyalty or treachery and the client wanted to learn the identity of any accomplices and the extent of potential repercussions.

No. 3: Need.
The Jones possessed information or knowledge the client wanted.

Human beings are all different, but only in so many ways. Geiger’s transcripts proved it time and again. Since he had started this work, he had filled twenty-six black four-inch binders, which now sat lined up on his desk. He could cross-reference the data in the notebooks by profession, age, religion, net worth, and—most important—allegation. The binders were an encyclopedia of information on response and reaction to intimidation, threat, fear, and pain. But there was no data within the pages about death. Geiger had never had a Jones die in a session—not once in eleven years. As Carmine would say, Geiger was batting a thousand.

Geiger’s clients came from the private sector, the corporate world, organized crime, government. Four years ago, he’d even done a stint at a black site for some agency spooks. They believed their methods were cutting-edge, but Geiger had immediately seen that they were way behind the times; they were men pulling wings off flies while they talked of saving the world. In IR, there was no substitute for expertise. Patriotism, religion, a steely belief in what was right and wrong—these were all things to be set aside. In the end, there were lies and there was the truth, and the space between the two could be so thin that there was no room for the clutter of rectitude and conviction. The spooks at the black site had stood in the shadows observing him as he worked; to Geiger, they’d looked like cavemen watching him light a fire with a Zippo.

He was a student of the craft, and a historian. Just as the black binders contained the sum of his own work, he was a living text of the trade—its origins, rationales, methodologies, and evolution. He knew that man had been using torture without apology since at least 1252, when Pope Innocent the Fourth authorized its use to deal with heretics. Since that official sanction, immeasurable time and effort had gone into creating and perfecting methods for inflicting pain in the pursuit of what a person or group considered indispensable information or truth. The practice had no cultural, geographic, or ethnic bias. History proved that if you had rudimentary tools—hammer, saw, rasp—and basic materials—wood, iron, rope, fire—you needed little more. Add even the simplest understanding of physics and construction and you were in business.

Geiger had begun his education by studying the instincts and foundational choices of the pioneers. Certain methods and techniques were especially effective, including:

Sharpened objects.
The Judas Chair proved so successful during the Inquisition that most European countries began customizing their own versions.
Culla di Giuda, Judaswiege
—by any name, it was a pyramid-shaped seat upon which the Jones, raised by ropes, was perched.

Encasement and pressure.
The Iron Maiden, an upright sarcophagus, was fitted with interior spikes and apertures for the insertion of various sharp or pronged objects during an interrogation. It was also, to a degree, the ancestor of the sensory deprivation process. The buskin, Spanish Boot, and Malay Foot Press all used shrinkage and manipulation to break feet; the thumbscrew was limited to single digits, but an interrogator who carried one in his pocket could turn any place into a torture chamber.

Manacling and stretching.
The rack was a technological advance, with its employment of rollers, gears, and handles, allowing one the ability to quickly increase or reduce physical pain by minute degrees.