"Tom Kratman - Carerra 2 - Carnifex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kratman Tom)

It's a shame what we have to do to squeeze out the last little bit of useful intelligence and propaganda,
thought Mahamda But this is that kind of war. Let those who began it take the blame. And it's not like
this sniveling wretch deserves any better.
Once stocky, and even with a bit of midriff fat, Fadeel was already beginning to waste away under the
torture. Though near enough in appearance to the captive that they could have been cousins, Mahamda
felt no pity. Fadeel was one of those who had begun and advanced the kind of terrorist war being waged
in Mahamda's homeland of Sumer. His list of atrocities was long, the coating of blood on his hands
deep, the stain indelible. Mahamda felt nothing but loathing for the Bomber of Ninewa, the Butcher of
Pumbadeta.
While Mahamda sat in a comfortable swivel chair bolted to the floor of the ship-borne conex, Nizal was
strapped firmly to a dental chair, with an electrode stuffed up his anus through a hole in the chair and his
penis firmly affixed into something that still looked much like the droplight socket from which it had
originated. Nizal's body quaked with the electric jolts surging through it, wrists and ankles straining at
the thick leather straps that held him in place. Helpless tears coursed down his face while an inarticulate
"gahhhhhh" poured from his mouth.
Mahamda raised a palm, signaling his assistant to stop for the nonce.
"I warned you, Fadeel," Mahamda said, not unkindly. "Any failure to cooperate, any at all, will bring
punishment." The interrogator tsk-tsked. "Why do you continue to doubt me? It isn't like we haven't
broken you in every other particular. It isn't as if you haven't spilled cells and safe houses, armories and
bank accounts. Do I have to bring your parents in, Fadeel? You know how you hate it when we bring
your parents in."
In answer al Nizal only sobbed the more heartbrokenly.
Again Mahamda tsk-tsked. "Get his mother," he ordered the assistant.
That got more than sobs and tears from al Nizal. "Gnoo! P'ease . . . Gnoo," he managed to get out around
the rubber bit.
Since Fadeel hadn't offered more full cooperation, Mahamda said nothing to stop the assistant who then
left, returning in a few minutes with a stoop-shoulder woman. He pushed her to a wall and began
chaining her upright. She, too, sobbed.
"That won't do any good, madam," Mahamda said to the woman. "You raised the boy to be a terrorist.
You are responsible. It's only right that you help him see the error of his ways."
Finished with restraining the woman, the assistant went to a table from which he retrieved a blow torch
and friction igniter. She began to scream and plead with her son as soon as the blowtorch was lit. In a
cage on the table, a brace of antaniae, or moonbats, the septic mouthed, carnivorous, winged lizards of
Terra Nova, likewise hissed in fear as the torch was lit. It was sometimes used to drive them toward the
faces of victims.
"It's up to you, Fadeel," Mahamda said. There was no answer.
"Start with the toes," the interrogator ordered.
"Bwait!" al Nizal begged, between sobs. "'eave 'er . . . go; don' . . . 'urt her. I make . . . your fi'm." The


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 - Chapter 1

assistant with the blowtorch knelt to bare the woman's feet but stopped, looking at Mahamda.
"I don't know," said Mahamda, doubtfully. Even so, he took a moment to ungag the terrorist. "We did
give you a chance to speak the words we wanted spoken to the camera. You refused. Why should we not
punish you for that?"
Al Nizal looked at his electricity scorched penis and answered, "I think you've"тАФhe sniffedтАФ"punished
me enough. I'll make your film."
Mahamda rocked his head from side to side, as if weighing the time that might be wasted against the