Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair (The Malone Mystery Novels Book 2)

Chapter Part 10

When we entered the warehouse where Ray was bound to the table, I saw something peculiar. Maestro was rigging up an IV bag and suspending it above Ray's head. I followed the transparent tubing and saw that it was attached to a needle already inserted into Ray's right arm. A clean pressure bandage had already been securely bound over the bullet wound in Ray's knee.

"What is he doing?" I said. "I thought he was here to make Ray talk, not give him medical treatment."

"He is stabilizing him," Vasily said. "There is more to this torture than simply the infliction of unbearable pain. That is why it is best left to the experts. The person must be kept alive, at least until he has given the information desired. Maestro knows how to do this."

Maestro finished with the IV bag. He made a final adjustment to the flow of the intravenous drip and inspected the drip chamber in the line just below the bag. Apparently satisfied, he went to his leather bag and withdrew a syringe and vial of amber liquid. He removed the plastic cap from the needle and inserted the needle through the rubber seal into the vial. He pulled up on the plunger, drawing the liquid into the syringe. He inserted the syringe needle into a port in the IV tubing and injected the liquid.

"What did he just inject into the IV line?" I said.

"Sodium thiopental," Vasily said. "Some call it 'truth serum' but that's a misnomer. It is not foolproof. But it makes it more difficult to lie. The drug slows the speed at which the body sends messages from the spinal cord to the brain. That makes it more difficult to perform high-functioning tasks such as concentrating on a single activity like lying. It's this concentration needed to form a lie that the drug inhibits. This man will resist talking at first. Then the pain will begin. Soon he will be desperate to talk to lessen the pain, but he will still attempt to keep his secrets. He will lie, at least initially. This drug will make that more difficult."

Maestro turned to Vasily and spoke to him in Russian. Vasily turned to me. "He wants to know the questions you wish answers to."

I hadn't even thought about that yet. My mind shifted into high gear. Then I knew what I needed to know. "First, I need to know where Sara is in San Francisco, where they were to pick her up from," I said. "I need to know if there was an arranged time for the pickup, and if there are any code words to be used for identification so that those holding Sara know who it is okay to release her to. Oh yeah, and I want to know if those holding Sara can identify Ray and/or Tony on sight. In other words, have they met or worked with them before."

Vasily turned back to Maestro and told him in Russian what I'd just said.

"Da," Maestro said.

The old man then turned and walked back to the table and stood beside Ray. He leaned forward and spoke to very quietly to Ray. The words sounded sort of like Russian to me, but different somehow. Vasily looked at me and apparently saw the confusion on my face. He grinned.

"He is speaking Ukrainian because Ray is Ukrainian," Vasily said. "He is telling Ray that he sympathizes with him, his desire to keep secrets entrusted to him, but unfortunately he must know the secrets and he will eventually obtain them. He is describing how he intends to encourage Ray to tell the secrets."

"I thought Russian and Ukrainian was basically the same language," I said.

"Not really," Vasily said. "They are close but two separate languages. A little more than half of Ukrainians speak Ukrainian as their native language. Others do speak Russian since the Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union. It's possible that Ray understands Russian, but Maestro speaks to him in his native tongue as part of the process. He is developing a bond with Ray that will make it more difficult for Ray to tell him lies. He is making Ray feel that he has empathy for him, that he takes no pleasure in what he must do to Ray, but that he must know what Ray knows. He says that truth is now a common goal that he and Ray must seek together."