The Jungle

“How is it that you came to be in my country, armed no less? We get so few visitors from the United States that we know exactly how many are within our borders at any given time. You, my friend, should not be here. So tell me, what brings you to Myanmar?”

A line from Casablanca popped into Cabrillo’s head. “My health. I came here for the waters.”

The officer chuckled. “Very good. One of my favorite movies. Claude Rains then says, ‘The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert,’ to which Bogey replies, ‘I was misinformed.’ Truly a classic.” His voice then cracked, “Muang!”

The hose struck twice in rapid succession, both blows hitting the exact same spot on Juan’s broken collarbone. The pain traveled up from his shoulder and slammed into the top of his brain, where it felt like his head would come apart along the cranial sutures.

“Mr. Smith,” the lead interrogator went on smoothly, “I mentioned that I believe you are American. I would like to know your feelings on torture. It is a sore subject in your country, I believe. Some feel that even sleep deprivation and exposure to loud music are cruel and inhumane. Where do you stand on this subject?”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Juan said quickly.

“I would imagine a man in your position would,” the officer said, a smile plucking at the corners of his mouth. “I wonder if you felt that way yesterday, or last week. It doesn’t matter. This is your fervent belief now, of that I am certain.”

He did something to a mechanism under the table so that it tipped back slightly, leaving Cabrillo’s feet about twelve inches higher than his head. While this was going on, the guard near the table ripped off the sheet to reveal several folded towels and a onegallon plastic jug.

“What I really want to know,” the officer continued, “is if you believe waterboarding constitutes torture, hmm?”

Juan knew he had a high threshold for pain. He had hoped to hold out for the couple of days he figured it would take Max to bust them out, but he’d never faced the waterboard before and had no idea how he’d react. As a kid he’d spent countless days swimming off the Southern California coast, and though he’d had water forced up his nose on more than one occasion, he’d never really been as close to drowning as he was about to come.

A towel was laid across his face while two powerful hands grabbed his head to keep it from moving. Cabrillo’s heart went into overdrive. His hands tensed. He heard water splashing. Felt a couple of drops hit his neck. And then he felt moisture on his lips, a dampness at first, but soon his skin was wet. A drop slid down his nose and burned its way into his sinuses.

More water was dumped onto the towel, soaking it through. Juan tried to exhale through his nose to stop the water from invading the delicate membranes. It worked for seconds, almost a minute, but his lungs could hold only so much air, and the towel was sodden, a great clammy weight pressing down on him. At last there was no more air to fight the inevitable, and water poured into his sinus cavities. Because of the angle of the table, it pooled there and went no farther along his respiratory tract.

That was what waterboarding was all about. Make the victim feel he is drowning without actually drowning him.

It wasn’t a matter of will. Over this there was no control. When the sinuses fill with water, the brain, having evolved since the first primitive fish walked out of the sea and breathed in its first lungful of air, knew the body was drowning. It was hardwired. Juan could no more control his body’s reaction than he could force his liver to produce more bile.

His head felt like it was burning from the inside out while his lungs went into convulsions, sucking small amounts of water into them. The sensation was worse than anything he could imagine. It felt like he was being crushed, like an ocean’s worth of water had invaded his head, scalding and searing the fragile air sacs behind his nose and above his eyes.

The pain now more intense than any he’d experienced. And this had only gone on for thirty seconds.

The weight of it all grew worse still. His head was ready to explode. He wanted it to. His throat pumped in a gagging reflex, and he choked on more water pouring down his windpipe.

He heard agitated voices speaking in a language he didn’t know and wondered if he was hearing angels calling to him.

And then the towel was taken away and the table tilted so that his head was much higher than his feet. Water jetted from his nose and mouth, and he retched painfully, but he could breathe. And while his lungs still burned and the air tasted of death, it was the sweetest breath he’d ever taken.

They gave him less than a minute before the table slammed back down and the soaking-wet towel was once again pressed over his face. The water came, gallons of it, tons of it, tsunami waves of it. This time, he could only exhale a few seconds before it again pooled inside his head. His sinuses filled up to the rim of his nostrils, and they could hold no more. With that came the agony, and the panic, and his brain screaming at him to do something—to fight, to struggle, to break free.

Cabrillo ignored the pitiable cries of his own mind and took the abuse without moving a muscle, because the truth was that he knew he wasn’t drowning, that the men would let him breathe again, and that he had control over what his body did, not instinct, not his hindbrain. It was his intellect that ruled his actions. He lay as calm and still as a man taking a nap.

At some point one of the guards was sent to fetch another gallon jug of water, and for a total of fifteen times Juan was drowned and then allowed to breathe, drowned and then allowed to breathe. Every time, the soldiers expected Juan to break and beg for mercy. And, every time, he lay back down after catching his breath and goaded them by nodding to them to do it again. The last session, they let it go so long that he passed out and they had to unshackle him quickly and force the water from his body and revive him with a couple of slaps to the cheek.

“Apparently,” the interrogator said while Juan panted and snorted water out of his sinuses, “you do not want to tell me what I want to know.”

Cabrillo shot him a look. “Like I told you earlier. I came here for the waters.”

He was heaved off the table and dragged to a cell down a short, stark corridor. The room was unbelievably hot, with absolutely no air movement. Juan was dumped on the bare concrete floor, the metal door was slammed, and the lock shot home. There was a single caged light high up on a wall, a slop bucket, and a few handfuls of dirty straw on the cement floor. His cell mate was about the most emaciated cockroach he’d ever seen.

“So, what are you in for, buddy?” he asked the insect. It waved its ante

He finally was able to examine the back of his head and was amazed that the bone wasn’t broken. The gash had doubtlessly bled, but the waterboarding had cleaned out the wound. His concussion was still with him, yet he could think clearly, and his memory was unaffected. It was a medical myth, unless showing symptoms of brain injury, that a concussed person should stay awake following the injury, but with his lungs afire and his body aching all over, he knew that sleep would not come. He found that the only comfortable position was flat on his back with his injured arm bent across his chest.

He thought back to the firefight in the jungle, examining every instant like he had with the terrorist attack in Singapore. He saw Linda on one knee behind the stone pillar, her petite body shaking every time her rifle discharged. He saw MacD’s back as he ran ahead of him, recalling that Lawless’s foot almost slipped from the rope once. There was Smith, reaching the far cliff and whirling around the second anchor pillar. Juan recalled looking at his own feet again and trying not to stare into the maddened river almost a hundred feet below him.