The Interrogation

The Interrogation.

 

"That's him. Uthmaan Sedek."

Hedya Zwieg sighed inwardly as the Ségen mishne pointed at the man on the monitor. Of course it was him, he was the only one in the room. Hedya was a woman who disliked irrelevancies, and the five minutes she had spent with the young officer had been more than enough to convince her that he was the type of man who would chatter on endlessly when there was simply no need.

Her face showed no sign whatsoever of her irritation. Hedya's face very rarely showed any sign of anything that she didn't want to show. She tuned the Ségen mishne's voice out as he began to ramble on about how the man had been captured; nothing she didn't already know, and he was only talking to try and show her how brave and important he was. It was only natural, since Ségen mishne was the lowest officer rank in the Army. She already knew that he was attracted to her - no surprise there, most every man she met was - and that if he talked long enough, he might actually convince himself that she would agree to spend some time with him later on.

She almost smiled at that thought. If he irritated her enough, she might just accept the invitation when it came. Let him experience just what an evening in her company would lead to.

Although the image on the monitor was black and white and of poor quality, she could see that the man was an Arab, perhaps in his late teens. He'd been picked up on a sweep through Kafr Hamām, a town just a few kilometres over the border. Most of the residents had already left during the halt to air strikes her government had held. Anybody still there deserved a second look, and the man had been acting suspiciously according to the platoon that captured him.

Of course, he probably wasn't a member of Hezbollah. Like most terrorist groups the organisation was small, especially the military wing, and given the current conflict 'looking suspicious' was synonymous with 'looking Arab' to the Israeli army. But Hezbollah enjoyed considerable support from the average Lebanese citizen; the kid likely knew something useful.

Not that it mattered to Hedya one way or the other, of course.

She turned to the officer, hardly any older than her victim. "That will be all," she announced, cutting him off in mid word. He looked hurt but nodded and left.

She removed her long coat, dropping it over a chair, then picked up her shoulder bag. One of the two men she had brought with her followed her down the corridor and took up position outside the cell; the other would watch the monitor, monitoring the interview. She'd trained the men herself, years ago. Chaim had been quite a struggle, but she'd broken him completely within a month; both men literally worshipped her now, and could be trusted to keep people out of the room no matter what happened and to keep their mouths shut afterwards. She proceeded inside, dropping the bag just inside the door.

The kid had already been stripped and his hands tied behind his back, as she had instructed. He was sitting on a simple wooden chair behind a large sturdy table. He looked up as she entered, and a sneering smile crept across his face. She'd seen the exact same reaction dozens of times before. He'd spent last night worrying about what was coming, and now his single thought was... it's only a woman. The Lebanese weren't amongst the worst when it came to this attitude, and she wondered if he had spent time in Syria or Iran. If so, his chances of being somebody important went up considerably.

His eyes tracked down across her body hungrily. It was a simple fact of Hedya's working life that for all their religion had to say about sex, the average Muslim was far and away more obsessed with it than the westerners they looked down on so. It was a double standard she used to maximum effect.

Her attire was designed to encourage that interest. Hedya was clad in her normal interrogation outfit; knee high red leather boots, a G-string and bra in matching material. To a man who had probably never seen a naked woman outside of ragged pictures swapped with his most trusted friends, the effect was electric. His jaw literally dropped open, his eyes bulging in their sockets.

She waited a long moment, letting him enjoy the view. Then she crossed over and walked around the table. She straddled his lap, leaning in close so that they were nose to nose. Her considerable breasts pressed up against his chest; she could feel an erection rapidly growing, pressing against her stomach, feel his body trembling under her. She held her mouth close, her eyes locked on his. Hedya had a gaze that could practically melt steel when she wanted it to. She trailed a hand down his side, feeling his muscles shuddering at her touch.

Uthmaan struggled to keep control of himself. His skin was cold after a night without heating, naked in the freezing concrete cell; the Israeli woman felt like her body was molten lava and she was drawing a line of liquid fire across his skin. He shuddered as she slid her hand between them and cupped his balls gently, sliding her fingers around the top of the scrotum to imprison the testicles in her grasp. Oh Allah, it was true what they said about the Jews, their women were all sluts, whores to be despised. And yet, he could not stop his reaction. He groaned and his eyelids flickered; his cock was harder than it had ever been.

She paused, her lips less than a centimetre from his, then smiled and moved to his ear. "Where are the rockets?" She whispered sensuously, in perfect Arabic.

"Wh... what?" Her use of a civilised language, and so perfectly at that, startled him. He tried to pull back, but the chair back didn't give him room.

"The rockets. I want you to tell me where they are. Can you do that for me? I'd be... very grateful..." Hedya kept her voice low and breathy, a promise as much as a question.

She felt his body tense. "I know nothing," he muttered.

"That's a shame," she murmured. And then she squeezed.

He yelled in pain and bucked in the chair, trying to throw her free, but it was useless. He was a half starved kid, barely five six in his bare feet. She was eight inches taller and a good thirty pounds heavier. She squeezed harder and he screeched, this time in fear as much as pain as he realised that he wasn't going to be able to get away. She kept her thumb and forefinger circled at the base of his scrotum, so there was no way his balls could retreat into his body as she squeezed them between the rest of her fingers and the palm of her hand. She built the pressure, squeezing harder and harder. He wailed like a strangled cat, thrashing under her, but there was no way he was getting free.

"It hurts so bad, doesn't it?" She whispered into his ear. She could feel the familiar tingle of excitement in her stomach, spreading down towards her pussy. The thrill that she felt only from hurting a man. "I can barely imagine what it must be like. You must feel like you're dying, like I'm just turning your balls into mush. And if this goes on long enough, you'll be right."

He tried to throw himself sideways and she looped her other arm through the back of the chair and took a good handful of hair so that she could brace herself against the movement. She squeezed at a constant pressure, not pulling or twisting at all, just applying force. Unending, excruciating force.

"It must be almost unbearable," she said in the same breathy whisper she had used so far. "But of course, you have to bear it. I won't allow you a choice. What can't be cured must be endured, I always say. And there's no way you can get out of this, nothing you can do about it. Nothing except tell me what I want to know."

"Please..." Uthmaan begged, genuinely terrified now. How long will this go on? Oh please Allah, not long! "Please don't... I know nothing... I'm innocent ..."

"Uthmaan, darling, that won't help at all," she said softly. She squeezed as hard as she could now, and he threw his head to the side despite her grip and screamed, screamed as if he was never going to stop. His face was red, his entire body covered in sweat. When he ran out of breath he drew in a ragged lungful of air and just started in on the screaming once more.

She kept it up until he was practically limp in the chair, his screams diminished to low moans. Then she released her grip on him and sat back, smiling brightly. His eyes were unfocused, glazed over. She leaned back and slapped him across the face, as hard as she could. His head rolled comically and his gaze snapped back into focus.

"Awake now?" She asked pleasantly. He drew a breath.

"Let me go, please," he said in a ragged voice. "I have done nothing, I know nothing."

"Oh darling, haven't you understood this yet? The only way you are going to get out of this room alive is to tell me where the rockets are. That's it. Anything else is going to result in your death. I'm perfectly prepared to believe that you are completely innocent, you don't have to work to convince me of that. But if you are... well, that's just too bad for you. If you are innocent I am going to hurt you... and hurt you... until there's nothing of you left to hurt.

"For starters, I'm going to break out my strap-on. You know what that is?"

He shook his head, too frightened to speak.

"Oh darling, I can't wait to show it to you. I've ripped many an arsehole open with mine." She stood and stretched sinuously, feeling his eyes crawling all over her body despite the pain he was obviously in.

Sex and fear was an incredibly effective combination, especially in the middle east. The Americans had discovered it almost by chance at Abu Ghraib; the men abused by women tended to crack far more easily than those abused by a man. It was inherent to the Arab psyche; there was a culture of machismo across the Arab world and even the most modern and civilised of Arab nations tended to regard women as second class citizens. The open female sexuality of western-style nations was something shameful and sinful to many... and the average Hezbollah member had a rather more fifteenth century outlook on things. To be confronted by a woman who so completely epitomised their stereotypes, and then to be so completely dominated and humiliated by her, was a shattering experience for prisoners like this.

"So do you want to tell me where the rockets are yet?"

"I... I honestly don't know," he said quietly.

Hedya went to her bag, hooking her fingers into the G-string and yanking it down as she went. She could practically feel his eyes on her ass as she bent down and rummaged through the bag. She pulled the harness out and stepped into it, pulling it up securely around her waist. She had had it custom made, and it fitted her perfectly. The dildo was shiny red, a colossal fourteen inches long. It was narrow and pointed at the head for ease of penetration, but the shaft rapidly widened to two and a half inches in diameter. The entire shaft was covered in quarter inch rubber studs to give it that extra added something. Best of all, the base was not just a blunt circle of plastic; it was moulded to fit her pussy perfectly, a small projection nestling against her clit.

As soon as he saw it his eyes widened. This was surely a joke, an abomination like that could not exist! Allah would not allow such things! He felt the walls closing in on him. He had to get out, had to escape...

She had seen that expression a dozen times before, she knew what he was going to do probably before he even realised it.

He bolted from the chair and ran for the door.

Hedya had been taught Krav Maga by some of the best instructors the Israeli army had to offer. She had always been particularly good in the Haganah variant, which specialised in allowing someone at a disadvantage to overpower a larger attacking adversary. She had repeatedly proven herself capable of defeating opponents who were considerably larger and stronger than she was; against this weakling, weakened by a cold night on a concrete floor with no sleep, she knew she wouldn't even break a sweat.

Her long leg lashed out with blinding speed, the steel-capped boot landing squarely on the balls of the terrified youngster. He crumpled instantly to the floor, crying out as his already tortured balls were subjected to more abuse. Hedya stepped back and drove her boot into his solar plexus with perfect accuracy. The kid groaned and tried to stagger to his feet. She let him up to his knees and then launched a second kick that sent him sprawling again.

She took hold of the thick coarse rope which was tied around his wrists and jerked his arms up and away from his body, putting a savage strain on his shoulders. He cried out in pain as she wrenched at his arms again and again, twisting them up past ninety degrees, tearing his shoulder muscles badly and threatening to dislocate his shoulders. When she was satisfied at the damage she had inflicted she untied his hands and let them flop to the floor. Both arms twitched spastically, and he moaned in pain.

Hedya walked around the groaning youth slowly, drinking in the noises he was making. Casually she lifted a boot and stamped the heel down as hard as she could on his outstretched hand, smiling in satisfaction as she felt the bones crunch beneath her foot.

She heard him begin sobbing as she dragged him back over to the table and hauled him up, tossing him over the wooden surface chest down. She grabbed a tube of lubricant from the bag and squirted some over the slick red surface of the hard rubber, making sure not to put too much on. No need to make this easy on the boy, after all.

Uthmaan's sobs turned to shrieks as she placed the tip of the strap-on against his anus, but there was really nothing he could do - he was still too winded from her blows to resist effectively, and she held him down effortlessly.

Hedya was not one to take things slow and easy. She eased the narrow tip of the phallus into the ring of muscle, took a deep breath, leaned forward and took a good solid grip on his shoulders, then lunged forward as fast and hard as she could.

The ring of muscle resisted for an instant, the reddish-brown colour turning white as it stretched to breaking point. Then it split as her full weight and strength came to bear, and the terrible, magnificent dildo slid into him in one smooth movement.

Pain or not he managed to fill his lungs and scream once again. Hedya smiled in rapturous joy at the noise - the little bastard sounded as though the very torments of hell had descended upon him. She slammed the strap-on home right to the root, watching the split in his sphincter muscle widen and squirt a trickle of blood onto the intruder, red upon delicious red. The base end was doing its work as well as ever, and she could feel the excitement building within her.

Without pause she pulled back until the tip was just barely inside him. He drew a choked breath as he felt the huge obscenity within him withdrawing, then screamed again as she rammed forwards once more, right to the hilt. Hedya moaned right along with him, a sound of rapidly increasing ecstasy.

"Mercy!" He gasped between sobs. "Mercy!"

She actually laughed out loud at that. "Oh darling, compared to what I am capable of, this is mercy!" She rammed home again to emphasise the point. "How does it feel, Uthmaan? To be so helpless, lying there like a child while a woman rapes your ass? Do you like it?" She punctuated her words with sharp, hard thrusts, every one sinking right to the root. She had once had a doctor autopsy one of her victims after she was finished with him. The man had shown her what his bowel looked like when the strap-on was through with it. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"Allah forgive me..." the kid muttered. "Allah forgive me..."

"Oh no, Allah isn't going to help you now," she said, letting laughter enter her voice again. "You're not married, boy! According to your Qu'ran you're committing adultery right now. And we all know how forgiving Allah is about that, don't we? What is the punishment?"

He fell silent, weeping to himself. Hedya smiled; actually the Qu'ran was rather forgiving, of most things. But the fanatics who her people dealt with always seemed to miss that part of the message.

She kept pounding away at him for perhaps ten minutes - it wouldn't do to spend too much time on any one activity, it let them get used to it too much, begin to realise that they were withstanding it, and might therefore be able to withstand more. The pleasure vibrating through her body grew and grew; there were few things she liked more than buggering a man into submission, there was just something about raping them that was so visceral. She finally came in a crashing orgasm, throwing her head back and screaming her bliss to the world as the convulsions crashed through her. It seemed to go on forever, as it always did, wave after wave of pleasure that threatened to sweep her away.

When she finally withdrew, his sphincter gaped wide open. Then entire ring of muscle was deep red, shading towards purple at the edge. It had split in two places, and blood was still trickling down his thighs. She could see deep into his bowels; it looked awfully sore in there.

She tossed his limp body back onto the chair and straddled him again, this time with her cock pressed up against his stomach, lubricant and blood and shit smearing across his abdomen. She smiled at the look on his face. "Oh darling, you should see yourself! You look positively wonderful."

He was pretty zoned out. She slapped his face again, putting all of her considerable strength into it. It took two more blows before he began to refocus. But what the hell, she was enjoying the feel of his skin against her hand! She gave him a dozen more slaps, then slammed the palm of her hand squarely into his nose for good measure. It crunched satisfactorily and blood trickled down into his mouth.

"Are you ready to answer my question yet?" She asked pleasantly.

"I... I don't know anything..." he whispered.

She nodded. "Never mind, we just carry on until you're dead then. But cheer up, at least it's going to take quite a while!"

She grabbed a double handful of hair and stood in one swift movement, hurling him to the floor. He seemed to be recovering a bit, so she stepped in and kicked him in the ribs a couple of times, the steel toecaps on her boots thudding most satisfactorily into his side. She launched one last particularly brutal kick, and felt the familiar yielding crack of a rib popping.

Moving down, she launched another barrage of kicks into his thigh muscles. She targeted the quadriceps muscles; hit with sufficient force the muscle could be crushed against the bone, tearing it and causing considerable pain and loss of mobility. Hedya wanted him nice and subdued for her next little trick.

She stripped the strap-on off and tossed it on the table, then went over to her bag and retrieved the next toy. She kicked the boy over onto his back. He groaned and flopped around a bit, but he wasn't going to be able to do a lot more for a while.

"Now here's what's going to happen next, darling. You're going to put your tongue out and lick my asshole. Understand?"

"No," he cried in fear. "No, I won't do that! Please, you can't make me do that!"

"Oh, I don't really think you want to be telling me what I can and can't do to you, darling. Not a boy in your position." She held the toy up. A blocky green plastic case with a slender 24 inch rod sticking out from it. "Know what this is?" She could see from his eyes that he did not. "It's a cattle prod. A Hot Shot HS36 cattle prod, to be precise. Delivers nine thousand volts. Here's what it feels like."

She touched it to his chest. The effects were impressive, as usual; his entire body arced upwards, utterly rigid. He didn't say anything - he didn't have enough control of his muscles to even scream, let alone speak.

She switched it off. He flopped to the floor like a dead fish, struggling to draw breath. "You know," she said conversationally as she waited for him to recover, "my name is Hedya. It means "echo of God", or really "voice of God". And that's how we're going to be, you and I. When I speak to you, when I tell you to do something, you are going to react as if I spoke with the voice of God. And if you resist, if you hesitate even a little, then I will put this thing on your balls. Now I am going to squat down over your face and you are going to lick my asshole out. Understood?"

He stared at her, his eyes like saucers. "I... I understand. I will do what you say."

"Excellent honey, I know you will," she said with a smile. She waited until the look of relief began to appear in his eyes. "But you did hesitate a bit there, so..." she leaned down quickly and touched the prod to his balls. He went rigid as before, completely unable to protect himself or even flinch away as she poured the voltage through him.

So cruel, she thought to herself. There was no reproach in the thought; she truly lived for moments like these. She shocked him again and again, watching the hairs on his scrotum singe and the wrinkled skin begin to burn where the metal prongs touched it. After perhaps ten good long jolts she stepped back, dangling the prod carelessly from her hand while she waited for him to recover. It took much longer this time.

"Now Uthmaan, let's try this again. I am going to squat down over your face and you are going to lick my asshole out. Do you understand?"

"Yes!" He almost screamed it. "Oh Allah yes, please, I'll do as you ask just don't hurt me again!"

"Excellent!" She truly meant it - it was the first time since she walked in the door that he had voluntarily done as she asked under threat of pain rather than being actively forced into it. Somewhere deep inside of him, a little voice had started saying the old familiar mantra. You can't stop her. She's insane, and she can do what she wants with you in here. Do what she asks and the pain will stop. If he did know anything useful, probably he was telling himself to save his strength for the real battle, to keep his information secret. It was a common mistake; once a prisoner began to agree to anything to avoid pain, he'd set a precedent that would make it easier and easier to surrender to her.

And that was what she wanted. What she needed. Absolute, total surrender.

She squatted down over his face, prod at the ready. She couldn't actually use it whilst she was in contact with him, but even if he knew that he was most likely too stressed to realise it now.

She felt his tongue lap against her sphincter muscle, tentatively at first. "Faster!" She snapped. "Push it in there, much harder than that!"

He complied immediately, as she expected. He wouldn't last much longer...

Hedya groaned with pleasure. If sodomizing a man was her greatest thrill, then having one lick her out like this ran it a close second. She ground her buttocks into his face, working to get his tongue deeper into her. He seemed to understand what she wanted, and slid his tongue through the tightly clenched ring of muscle. She heard him moan with her, and saw that his cock was beginning to stir.

Well, well, she thought. Given her frequent use of sexual-based tortures it wasn't actually that unusual for a man to become aroused during an interrogation, though they were usually horribly ashamed of themselves for it. When it happened, it was an excellent weapon in her arsenal.

Uthmaan was sickened by his growing erection. Surely not, he thought to himself. The woman was insane, she represented everything he loathed and detested... but there was no denying the raw sexuality she exuded. The women in Lebanon ranged from those who embraced western-style immorality through to Muslim women properly clad in the hijab. But his father had been utterly contemptuous of anything but the most strict interpretation of Islam, and had made every effort to make sure than his son hadn't even seen a woman without proper dress as he grew up. And in looks and dress, this Hedya was nothing more or less than the archetypal western-style slut, a prostitute who sold herself for nothing. Such women were to be avoided.

And yet, although he would never admit it, the western-style women simultaneously repelled and fascinated him. Hedya's open sexuality was having it's effect on him, whether he liked it or not. As he forced his tongue deeper into her ass he could taste the bitter sting of her musk, incredibly strong even though she was thankfully clean down there. As he worked she directed him, always urging him to go deeper, faster. And then, the most incredible thing happened. He felt the warmth of her fingers around his cock.

Hedya curled her hand around his cock, amused at the rather pathetic size of it. She had considerable experience in masturbation, of both sexes. She manipulated him expertly, bringing him rapidly to full stretch. She worked it faster and faster, trying to gauge his excitement so that it built with her own.

"Come for me honey, there's a good boy. Come for Hedya." She judged it just perfectly; as her second orgasm crashed through her body Uthmaan's cock jerked in her hand, pumping a thick wad of semen into the air which splashed onto his stomach.

She sat back, smiling as she ran her fingers through the sticky mess. She locked her eyes on his as she brought her fingers to his lips, the cattle prod in her other hand conveying a clear if unspoken command.

He didn't dare hesitate. He flicked his tongue over her fingers, licking up his own cum. He gagged as he swallowed it down, but managed to hold his stomach as she scooped up a second load and fed it to him.

Uthmaan grimaced as the taste of his own cum filled his mouth. The slimy stuff was disgusting, and he struggled to hold his stomach as he swallowed it. When the devil-woman had fed him every last bit she resumed her position above his face and he winced, sure that she would make him lick her anus again - and to his shame, he was already stiffening again at the thought.

But this time she took up a slightly different position, her cunt directly above his face. She angled her knees apart and a jet of urine splashed into his face. Uthmaan was so surprised that he didn't even flinch as the stream of hot piss squirted directly into his mouth, replacing the salty taste of his cum with an overwhelmingly bitter flavour.

Hedya angled her body slightly, moving her hips to wash the stream across his face and hair. He choked and gagged as he involuntarily swallowed some of the amber liquid, and she allowed herself a smile as she finished emptying her bladder over her helpless victim.

"There there, all done," she crooned. "Now be a good boy and lick me clean."

He hesitated, but obediently lapped at her cunt. By now he was beginning to accept that there was nothing this woman could not do to him. He was truly at her mercy - though mercy was something she lacked entirely.

Hedya let him lap away for a couple of minutes. Clearly he had no great skills in this area, but the sense of exerting power got her off far more than anything a man could actually do to her, and she ground her pussy into his face as she urged him on, much as she had done when he rimmed her anus.

After a few minutes she stood abruptly. "That wasn't bad at all, Uthmaan," she said pleasantly. "But of course, you did hesitate again." She jabbed the cattle prod into his balls once more, squatting beside him as his body arched in agony once more. She gave him a five second burst in the balls, then thoughtfully applied the prod to each nipple in turn. She had found that men made a distinctly different sound according to which part of their body you shocked. Some day she should really compile the recordings of her interviews and see if there was some sort of pattern. Perhaps she could write a paper on it, she mused.

She dragged Uthmaan over to the table and hauled him up onto the chair. She checked him over quickly; he was slumped, gazing into space while his body shivered uncontrollably. His bruises were beginning to show, especially his scrotum and face, and his skin was burned at several points from the cattle prod. With his head and shoulders drenched in fresh urine, he was quite a sight.

He was right at the turning point, she thought. It was a critical moment; on the one had, she had battered through his macho attitude quite effectively by now, revealing the frightened and insecure youth beneath. But he had not yet given her the information he knew she wanted. If this went on too long without him fully cracking, there was a risk of positive reinforcement; the longer he went without cracking, the more the shock value of the interrogation would wear off and the more how would begin to realise that he really could withstand the pain.

She crossed to the bag and returned with a pair of pliers and a pair of secateurs. She sat on the table facing him, her legs spread wide as she dropped the tools beside her. She casually unhooked her bra and tossed it aside, then leaned forward and punched him on the nose with all her strength. His head snapped backwards and she felt his nose crunch again as blood practically sprayed from it - broken for sure this time, she thought. The chair rocked back, and she put one boot on the edge of the seat to stop it from falling over.

His eyes began to refocus, locked onto her exposed breasts - now flecked with his own blood.

"Uthmaan, I'm getting a little bored with this. So here's what's going to happen next." She picked up the pliers and held them out for him to see. "I am going to ask you four times where the rockets are. After the first time, if I don't get an answer, I'm going to rip all of your fingernails off with this." She picked up the secateurs. "After the second, I'm going to cut your fingers off. The third time, I will castrate you. After that, I'm going to open you up and start cutting things out. And believe me when I tell you Uthmaan, I can keep you alive for hours while I do that. I've had plenty of practice."

She took his broken hand, giving it a friendly squeeze. He moaned and tried to pull it away as the broken bones ground together, but his shoulders were far too damaged to put up more than a token resistance. She carefully locked the pliers onto his thumbnail, making sure to get a really good grip.

"Where are the rockets, Uthmaan?"

"I..." his voice trailed off as his eyes began to become glazed again. Hedya jerked as hard as she could; the thumbnail tore loose in one single motion. Uthmaan screamed, snapped back to reality by the shocking pain in his hand. Blood welled up from the tattered red nail bed. Hedya took a grip on the next finger, fastened the pliers to the nail, and ripped it off in a practised movement.

"No, please!" He screamed. "I'll tell you! Please, don't!"

"Hush now, honey," she said as she tore the third nail free. She dropped it on the desk alongside the others. "I told you I'd take all ten if you didn't answer. Would you make me a liar? You'll get another chance to talk when I'm finished."

She worked her way quickly and methodically through her task, ignoring his screams. Less than two minutes later she had a bloody pile of ten fingernails on the desk beside her. "There we go," she crooned, "all done."

She dropped the pliers and picked up the secateurs. Uthmaan's eyes were so wide she thought they might actually pop out of his head.

"Look honey, so far nothing I've done is permanent. Talk to me, and I'll have them look after your hand. In a few days you'll be out of here. We're not going to move on the rockets, we just want to watch them, see who goes there. That's all." It was a transparent lie, but in his state he wouldn't be thinking too clearly. "Nobody will ever know you helped us. You'll have plenty of marks to show your Hezbollah friends, you can boast about how you didn't tell the infidel Israelis a thing. In a couple of months you'll be back to normal. Hell, you'll be a hero!

"But from here on in it starts to get nasty. The things I'm going to start doing to you next are going to be irreversible. Things that will still be crippling you when you're fifty. So, Uthmaan, where are the rockets?"

"Baalbek! They're in Baalbek!" He practically screamed. "There's a base there, lots of fighters, lots of rockets there!" He described the location exactly, practically frantic to talk now.

She dropped the secateurs and slid off the desk, straddling his lap as he began to sob uncontrollably. She cradled his head, pulling his face down to her breasts. "There, there," she murmured. Uthmaan's mouth wrapped around a nipple, almost unconsciously. "There, there, mommy will make it all better. Mommy will make it better, then we'll talk some more. You can tell me everything now, it's all right."

She looked at the camera in the corner, nodded. Chaim would already be reporting the location; Baalbek was deep inside Lebanon, she imagined they would assemble a helicopter assault force to take it tonight.

Which meant prisoners. She would have a busy day tomorrow.