Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,83

had happened back at the station.

The door was pushed open and a man stepped into the room, Archer squinting from the sudden light. When his eyes adjusted, he looked past the man into the room beyond, but couldn't see anyone else out there. The man shut the door, and the room was dark again.

They were alone.

'You're awake,' the man said, same kind of accent as the man called Wulf. 'Good.'

Archer had re-gathered his senses and started thinking fast, assessing his situation. The binds around his hands and feet were tight. He was all alone.

He was in seriously deep shit.

'Do you know who we are?' the man asked, just a voice in the darkness, his accent rolling the r of are.

Pause.

'Yes.'

'Good. That will save me some time.'

The man flicked a switch on the wall and a light bulb above Archer flickered on. He blinked from the sudden light, then looked across the room.

He saw the dark, hard-faced man from King's apartment building, the one he had bumped shoulders with.

The man read the look of recognition across Archer's face and smiled.

'Remember me?'

Archer didn't respond, but glanced down at the man's hands instead.

He was grasping something in his right fist.

A long, wickedly-sharp knife, the edge of the blade serrated.

'Here's how this will work,' the man said. 'I'm going to ask you a question. I'll only ask you this one time. But if you don't answer it, I will hurt you. I will inflict pain like you have never experienced. Before long you will be begging me to kill you. And I promise you, you'll tell me everything I want to know. Do you understand?'

Arched didn't respond. In the harsh light, he saw the man's mouth crease into a smile.

'I also suggest you start giving me some answers before the rest of my team returns,' he continued. 'Luckily for you, they've gone to pick up our last man from the airport and then kill Corporal Fletcher. But they will be back soon. And for your sake, you don't want to still be holding information from me when they return.'

Archer stared up at the man.

'Here is my question, ' the man said. 'Tim Cobb and his family were not at your police station, or at his home. Where is he?'

Archer looked up at him.

He said nothing.

'Do you remember what I just told you?' the man said.

Archer didn't react.

The man stepped forward.

'Typical. This normally happens. Men like you start out tough. They end up like children, soon enough.' The man walked forward, then stopped, putting his hands on his knees, his harsh face inches from Archer's. 'Look at you. You are quite something. You’re a handsome man. But too pretty to be a soldier.'

The man leaned forward closer, looking into Archer's eyes, his dark hair slicked back, his nose like a beak over his stubbled sneer.

'As you can tell, I was never attractive. Women never lusted after me. But I guess they all like you. You must be - what’s the saying- beating them off with a stick. That makes me jealous. So I'm going to make you as ugly as me. I'm going to take that face of yours and cut it off.'

The man reached forward and grabbed Archer's chin, who bucked and twisted away.

'Hold still,' the man said.

He grabbed the knife and pulled back Archer's hair and started to cut from the centre of his brow across the top of his hairline, a long jagged cut to the right. Archer roared in pain as he felt the blade slice into his skin, cutting across the top of his hairline. The soldier had a strong grip and Archer tried moving, but he felt the knife cutting open his head, unable to move, tied to the chair. Eventually he managed to twist himself out of the man's grip, his head burning. Blood poured down his face, into his eye, and started leaking to the floor, his head and face feeling like it was on fire, the red staining his white t-shirt and navy blue overalls.

The man with the knife stepped back, looking at his helpless captive.

'That's a start,' he said. 'I feel better already. But I'm not going to do it all at once. I'm going to take it a piece at a time until you tell me where Cobb is. And if you don't tell me, I'm going to cut your entire face off.'

Archer looked up at him, blood pouring down his face, blind from the blood in one eye. Some of it had gathered