Prague (3)
As soon as we reached the safe house, I hauled Kucera out of the car and dragged him into the living room.
I sat the hooded man down in a chair and cinched both his legs to it with cable ties.
Riiip.
I could feel him flinch at the sound of the tightening plastic.
His socks were caked with dirt and snow from being dragged here barefoot.
While bringing Kucera over, I had checked everywhere he might have hidden a GPS tracker. I searched him thoroughly, then tossed out everything we didn’t need—his watch, belt, shoes, the lot.
I had to keep his phone because of the data, but I’d already pulled the SIM card and shut the thing completely off.
That should be enough.
MacKinnon had also taken several wrong turns on the way here.
This was countryside roads, after all—if a car was tailing us, it would be obvious at a glance.
Luckily, there wasn’t another vehicle in sight anywhere around here.
We’d done everything we could.
As I secured Kucera, MacKinnon spread the man’s belongings across the table.
A powered-off phone, a wallet, a couple of keys, a few business cards. Nothing remarkable.
MacKinnon picked up the phone first and plugged it into the laptop to start copying the data.
He lit a cigarette and said to me, “We should get out of here before the body’s found. Forty-eight hours, tops.”
He checked his watch and added, “We’ve got a long road ahead, so let’s finish this by dawn.”
His voice was pitched a little higher than usual, as if he’d done it on purpose.
Maybe he’d heard him, because Kucera’s breathing under the hood grew rougher.
Interrogating someone here was a pain, but there was no helping it as part of the procedure.
You never knew what might happen during transport. Even if the guy died midway, we still had to pull out the important information—weapon stash locations, transaction schedules, trading partners—so the operation wouldn’t collapse.
“We’re ready on this end.”
With my words, MacKinnon stepped up to Kucera and rolled up his sleeves.
Then he grabbed the hood and yanked it off in one motion.
Swish.
Kucera squinted against the sudden light.
He blinked a few times, then stared back and forth between MacKinnon and me, his body rigid.
I could see his mouth opening and closing without sound. He was absolutely terrified.
“Hoo.”
MacKinnon exhaled a plume of smoke and looked down at him.
Then he muttered in a calm voice, “Let’s get this over with. The less either of us suffers, the better.”
***
MacKinnon grabbed Kucera by the hair and jerked his head back hard.
The man’s face, covered by a wet towel, tilted toward the ceiling, and water was splashed over it.
Splash!
The sound of water soaking through the towel and dripping to the floor echoed through the living room.
At the same time, Kucera’s body twisted violently as he started thrashing.
“······!”
The chair legs scraped and thudded against the floor as his bound body lurched.
From beneath the towel came a muffled, choking sound.
I’d been watching this for hours already.
Clatter! Clatter!
After a long while of watching him convulse like that, MacKinnon lifted the towel.
At once, Kucera spat out the water pooled in his mouth and broke into a fit of coughing.
“Cough—! Gghh, huuugh—”
He was sobbing now, his whole body shaking uncontrollably.
He looked nothing like the man he’d been at the start. His cheeks were marked with bruises, and blood-mixed water dripped from his split lip.
Even his neatly combed hair was soaked and plastered to his forehead.
“All right, let’s talk about this number again. The guy you said was your business partner. The call log shows thirteen short calls at two in the morning. Explain that. You know I’m a reasonable man. Give me a good explanation and I’ll let it go. I promise.”
Kucera muttered something under his breath.
MacKinnon’s palm cracked across his cheek immediately, snapping his head to the side.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’ll ask again.”
MacKinnon seized his hair, dragged his face back to the front, and repeated the same question.
When Kucera’s answer changed from what he’d said before, MacKinnon grabbed the back of his head and slammed him against the edge of the table.
“Now that’s one lie. That counts as one. That was our rule, remember?”
Then he covered the man’s face with the towel again.
He poured on water once more, and Kucera thrashed, and question, and curse, and slap.
Now and then, as if the whole thing were a joke, he’d toss out a dry quip or whisper reassurances of safety.
He’s vicious.
Leaning by the window and keeping watch outside, I observed the whole process.
He really was a veteran. Even so, the methods he used were nastier and more meticulous than anything I’d learned in camp.
And the bastard taking it is even tougher.
I clicked my tongue at Kucera, whose eyes were half-lidded now.
The guy was clearly scared stiff and already half-dead from exhaustion, and he’d admitted most of the arms-smuggling scheme by now. But when it came to the trading partner, the weapon stash, and the next transaction schedule, he kept changing his story. It was as if he had his life riding on those three things.
There really is something behind it.
Whatever it was, it was scarier than the situation in front of us.
MacKinnon must have sensed it too, because he gave me a glance and pointed outside.
I followed him out of the building, and the sharp stink of cigarette smoke hit my nose.
“Hoo...”
MacKinnon was smoking with a pretty worn-out look on his face.
The smoke he blew into the air thinned and scattered.
“He’s hanging on pretty well. Like someone’s got a knife to his throat.”
Then he added casually, “Looks like he’s mixed up with some Russian bastards.”
It had been tossed out like a joke, but the mood turned icy.
They say speak of the devil and he appears. I shot MacKinnon a sideways glare, and he turned his head away.
Something about this felt wrong. The unease in my chest made me speak before I could think better of it.
“Would it be all right if I talked to him for a bit?”
MacKinnon turned and looked at me.
His expression was strange.
“You?”
***
Kucera’s head hung low.
As I approached, he looked up at me through hazy eyes.
He didn’t have the strength to lift a hand, but the moment he saw me he spat on the floor and spoke.
“Sráči. Bastards.”
I said nothing and dragged over a chair to sit in front of him.
Then I took out the stainless-steel needle case I’d prepared earlier.
When I opened the lid, neatly lined silver needles came into view.
It’s been a while.
I’d studied Korean medicine to save and treat people, and yet I’d ended up using it in a place like this.
Even the professor who taught me probably never imagined his student would use acupuncture for something like this.
I didn’t really want to do it this way.
In my previous life’s memories, in the Sichuan Tang Clan, the things I was best at were obvious: poison and hidden weapons.
And naturally, that led to one heavily studied and endlessly refined area—the most efficient ways to inflict pain on the human body.
If I had poison, it’d be better...
The poisons the Tang Clan used were often harder to obtain in modern times.
So this time, too, I planned to use a method that stimulated the acupoints rather than poison.
More precisely, I would insert the needles and send qi through them, twisting the flow of the meridians.
If I did it properly, it’d tear the muscles and wrench the bones out of alignment.
Of course, I didn’t have enough inner power to take it that far right now.
In truth, this wasn’t even really torture so much as a method used to render an opponent completely helpless.
It was that vicious, that cruel, and because of that, the martial world called it the bone-dislocating and muscle-separating technique.
I pulled out a needle and looked at him expressionlessly.
I kept my emotions locked down as much as possible. If I had to do it, I had to do it coldly and without hesitation.
Unluckily for him, I had done this sort of thing many times before in my previous life. With those memories alone, I was confident I could break a man utterly.
Whoosh.
I threaded a sliver of qi into my fingertips.
Kucera only stared blankly at the needle in my hand through those fogged-up eyes.
He looked like he couldn’t even imagine that a thin little needle could do anything at all.
The first point was three cun below Quchi, near Shousanli.
Rather than using the point’s natural function, I intended to send qi in the opposite direction and stimulate the nerve plexus.
I drove the needle into his arm without hesitation. The moment I sent qi through it—
Kucera’s eyes went wide.
“Aaaagh!”
The chair lurched. His bound body arched backward, and his legs scraped wildly against the floor.
The cable ties around his wrists tightened to the point of cutting into the flesh.
Behind me, I could feel MacKinnon holding his breath for a second.
The second point.
Yanglingquan. On the outside of the knee, just below the fibular head.
“Gah—aaaagh!”
Kucera twisted his upper body and jerked backward.
His bound legs spasmed violently. The chair legs shrieked across the floor.
I watched him for a moment, then pulled my qi back from the needles.
“Hhk—huhh...”
For a brief moment, Kucera looked utterly pitiful.
He was drooling, crying, and blowing snot all over his face until he was a complete wreck.
Still trembling all over, he looked up at me.
“I’ve only needled you twice. I’ve still got eight more.”
I tilted the needle case so he could see it.
Then I added, almost casually, “If you want to talk about your trading partner, when the next shipment is, or where you stashed the goods, feel free. Don’t mind me.”
I pulled out a third needle.
I had no intention of waiting patiently for his answer.
“W-wait! Hold on!”
Kucera screamed at me like his life depended on it.
And then everything he’d been changing over and over came pouring out.
The trading partner’s name. The next shipping schedule.
The locations of three warehouses scattered around the outskirts of Prague and southern Czechia.
He stammered, but specific numbers and place names kept coming.
I could hear MacKinnon hammering away at the laptop keyboard behind me.
Kucera went on and on, his face smeared with tears and mucus and spit.
Whenever his voice cracked so badly I couldn’t make out what he’d said, I’d tilt the needle case just a little to show him.
Then he’d shake his head wildly and keep talking.
Should’ve done this sooner.
I was cross-checking a few things with MacKinnon when Kucera, who’d been slumped there as if he’d given up on everything, slowly lifted his head.
His face was a mess of blood, tears, and snot. He opened his mouth haltingly.
“Zkurvysyny. Do you know what you’ve messed with?”
His voice was hoarse beyond belief.
“The bastard report is already long overdue. Those fuckers are going to be looking for me!”
MacKinnon and I met eyes for a moment.
MacKinnon spoke first.
“Of course they will. So who are these reliable friends you’re counting on?”
At that, Kucera gave a snort.
Then he spat a mouthful of blood and answered flatly, “SVR.”
He paused for a beat and added, “The Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia.”
And then he started laughing like a madman.
It was the kind of laugh that came out mangled, his throat too ruined to make much sound at all.
After laughing for a long time, he suddenly screamed from the chair.
“You’re all fucked!”
***
I put the hood back over Kucera and faced MacKinnon.
I didn’t like the way the bastard kept grinning to himself, so I also drove an elbow into his ribs.
“Damn it. So the fucking SVR’s involved too.”
They say speak of the devil and he appears. Son of a bitch.
I wanted to mutter it, but I held it in.
He pulled out another cigarette and said, pointing at Kucera, “Get ready to move. We’re leaving right away.”
We got moving at once.
First, we folded up the laptop and stuffed it into the bag, then swept up the items on the table.
MacKinnon went toward the back barn to check the car.
I confirmed Kucera’s restraints one more time, then moved to the window.
That was when it hit me.
A chill ran straight down my spine.
Someone was approaching the safe house from outside.
The sound of feet stepping on frozen ground. They were doing their best to kill their presence, but they couldn’t hide from my senses.
Two people. They were keeping a slight distance from each other.
At this hour, in a lonely farmhouse like this?
When I drew in my inner power, the world sharpened.
Beyond the darkness outside, I could make out the silhouettes of two figures coming this way.
That was enough. They were here for Kucera.
“MacKinnon.”
I called to him in a very low voice as he came back from the back door.
He must have sensed something in my tone, because he approached without a sound.
“Someone’s coming this way.”
At that, MacKinnon asked in a similarly low voice, “How many?”
“About two.”
Silence settled between us for a moment.
Inside the living room, the only sound was Kucera’s rough breathing under the hood.
MacKinnon quietly drew his pistol from the holster.
Click.
He pulled the slide back slightly to check the chamber, let out a short breath, and muttered, “Fuck.”