tattoos; saints, angels, skulls, and coffins covered his chest and back, a giant cathedral with multiple domes dominated the scene. A hooded executioner branded each shoulder and roses stood out from his forearms, one twisting around a dagger, the other wrapped in barbed wire.
Reece didn’t know much about Russian tattoos, but what he did know was that they signified the man before him had spent time in some of the toughest prisons on earth and survived.
While working for the CIA, Reece had learned techniques carefully designed to elicit responses from the most hardened Islamic terrorists. What he took away was that regardless of the technique, as an interrogator, you had to offer hope. Hope was the key. He wondered how it would work with a hardened bratva enforcer. He was about to find out.
Reece moved forward and felt the pulse at the man’s neck, slow and weak. He needed the Russian alive for at least an hour. Returning to the med kit, Reece took out an IV and a length of 550 cord. He threw the cord over the exposed beam that held the noose and attached it to the IV bag dangling just to the side of the Russian’s head. His veins stood out like pipes, probably due to the copious amounts of steroids that sustained his muscular physique. Reece stabbed the needle of the 18-gauge catheter into a vein running through the rose and dagger on his subject’s right arm. He pulled the hub, withdrawing the needle and leaving the plastic sheath in the vein. He then attached the tube and opened the IV spin valve to flood the tubing with fluid after taping it to the arm. He ran the bag wide open to replace the fluids necessary to stabilize the Russian for questioning. When the first bag had drained, Reece attached a second, watching an air bubble move down the tube.
“Enjoy your rest, my friend,” Reece whispered. “You’ll need all your strength for what’s coming.”
And so will I, Reece thought.
The Scoville scale measures heat in Scoville Heat Units, in this case specifically the heat of peppers, a heat that comes from the neuropeptide-releasing agent capsaicin, which they contain. Reece put on rubber gloves and clear eyeglasses from the med kit and dumped Jonathan’s red ghost peppers out on a cutting board in the small kitchen. Reece was after the capsaicin.
He had seen the process done in sterile conditions at the CIA over a series of days. Reece didn’t have days. He had hours. He was going to do what SEALs did best: improvise.
Preheating the oven to 350 degrees, he moved back to the cutting board and sliced the ghost peppers down the middle, removing the seeds and separating the white pith that contained the capsaicin. Careful not to touch his face, he put the pith on a baking sheet and threw it in the oven to dry it out.
Opening and closing cupboards, Reece found what he was looking for: a coffee grinder, French press, and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
Sinatra Select Not bad, Reece thought.
Five minutes later, Reece returned to the oven and removed his baking sheet. He then slid the dried pith into the hand grinder, which he cranked over a bowl, turning it into a coarse powder.
He then added four shots of Jack Daniel’s finest and began to stir. If time was not of the essence, he would have let it sit for a week or two in pure alcohol.
I hope this works.
When the consistency was that of slush, he poured it into the French press and pushed down on the strainer, leaving a hazy brownish solution of pure liquid.
Carefully, Reece filled a 60cc syringe with his concoction, remembering the CIA doctor who had taught him this technique all those years ago. When Reece had asked how hot it was the doctor had answered, “If you were eating a jalapeño pepper, it would measure about five thousand Scoville Heat Units. This solution has a Scoville Heat Unit measurement of over three million. It will burn them alive from the inside out, but without the fire.”
The Russian’s head was beginning to sway, signifying the fentanyl was wearing off.
Good.
Reece sealed his resolve and approached the man he hoped had answers.
Reece brought his leg up and slammed it down directly on the Russian’s broken leg, eliciting an animalistic scream.
Reece stepped behind him and tore the riggers’ tape from his eyes, then grabbed a chair from the small kitchen table and turned it around so that its back