The Cardinal of the Kremlin - Tom Clancy [99]
Svetlana hovered on the edge of hyperventilation, but the doctor altered the gas mixture going into her. He had to keep a very close watch on her vital signs. This interrogation technique left no marks on the body, no scars, no evidence of torture-it was, in fact, not a form of torture at all. At least, not physically. The one drawback to sensory deprivation, however, was that the terror it induced could drive people into tachycardia-and that could kill the subject.
"That's better," he said, looking at the EEG readout. "Heart rate stabilized at one thirty-eight, a normal but accelerated sinus rhythm. Subject is agitated but stable."
Panic didn't help. Though her mind was still frantic, Svetlana's body drew back from damaging itself. She fought to assert control and again felt herself become strangely calm.
Am I alive or dead? She searched all her memories, all her experiences, and found nothing but
There was a sound.
What is it?
Lub-dub, lub-dub what was it ?
It was a heart! Yes!
Her eyes were still open, searching the blankness for the source of the sound. There was something out there, if only she could find it. Her mind searched for a way. I have to get to it. I must grab hold of it.
But she was trapped inside something that she couldn't even describe. She started moving again. Again she found nothing to grab, nothing to touch.
She was only beginning to understand how alone she was. Her senses cried out for data, for input, for something! The sensory centers of her brain were seeking sustenance and finding only a vacuum.
What if I am dead? she asked herself.
Is this what happens when you're dead Nothingness ? Then a more troubling thought:
Is this hell?
But there was something. There was that sound. She concentrated on it, only to find that the harder she tried to listen, the harder it was to hear. It was like trying to grab for a cloud of smoke, it was only there when she didn't try to-but she had to grab it!
And so she tried. Svetlana screwed her eyes shut and concentrated all of her will on the repeating sound of a human heart. All she accomplished was to blank the sound out of her own senses. It faded away, until it was only her imagination that heard it and then that, too, became bored.
She moaned, or thought she did. She heard almost nothing. How could she speak and not hear it?
Am I dead? The question had an urgency that demanded an answer, but the answer might be too dreadful to contemplate. There had to be something but did she dare? Yes!
Svetlana Vaneyeva bit her tongue as hard as she could. She was rewarded with the salty taste of blood.
I am alive! she told herself. She reveled in this knowledge for what seemed a very long time. But even long times had to end:
But where am I? Am I buried alive? BURIED ALIVE!
"Heart rate increasing again. Looks like the onset of the secondary anxiety period," the doctor observed for the recording. It really was too bad, he thought. He'd assisted in preparing the body. A very attractive woman, her smooth ( ) one made of the best-quality Nomex rubber, so smooth that you could barely feel it when dry-and when filled with water, it hardly seemed there at all. Even the water in the tank was specially formulated, heavy in salt content so that she was neutrally buoyant. Her gyrations around the tank had twisted her upside down and she hadn't known. The only real problem was that she might tangle the air lines, but a pair of divers in the tank prevented this, always careful not to touch her or to allow the hose to do so. Actually, the divers had the hardest job in the unit.
The doctor gave Colonel Vatutin a smug look. Years of work had gone into this most secret part of Lefortovo's interrogation wing. The pool, ten meters wide and five deep, the specially salted water,