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The face hovered a moment longer and then the sock was shoved back down. Adolfo felt himself tugged to the side. They grabbed his left arm and held it and pushed his hand into the opening. He screamed in his throat as his fingers curled into a fist and fought to get out of the heat. And then everything went dark.

He woke bent over the sink with water rushing down over the back of his head. He coughed, vomited up the stew, then was dropped onto his back on the floor. Every patch of flesh on his feet and left hand throbbed hotly.

The sock was thrust back in his mouth.

"You're strong," the dark face said to him. "But we have time and I have experience. The first things men always give up are lies. We will continue until we have the truth." He bent closer. "Will you tell us who you work with?"

Adolfo was trembling. The parts of him that weren't burned or broken were chilly. It seemed very odd to feel something so trivial as that. He shook his head twice.

This time he wasn't moved. The sock was pushed harder into his mouth and held there. One of the crowbars was raised over Adolfo's right shoulder and was swung down hard. The bone broke audibly under the blow. He cried into the sock. The crowbar was raised again and struck lower, between the shoulder and elbow. Another bone broke. He cried again. Each blow brought a burst of agony and a yelp and then numbness.

Each scream was a rent in his will. The pain was just pain but every scream was a surrender. And as he surrendered those pieces of his fighting spirit, he had less to draw on.

"When you talk, the beating will stop," the voice said.

Someone started working on his left side and he jumped and howled with each strike. He felt the wall of resistance crumble faster now. And then something surprising happened. He didn't feel like himself anymore. His body was broken; that wasn't him. His will was shattered; that wasn't him. He was someone else. And that someone else wanted to talk.

He said something into the sock. The face came down and the beating stopped. The sock was removed.

"Am Am "

"What?" said the dark face.

"Ama dori."

"Amadori?" the face repeated.

"Am a do ri." Each syllable rode out on a breath. Adolfo couldn't help himself. He just wanted the pain to stop."Gen er al."

"General Amadori," the face said. "That's who you work with?"

Adolfo nodded.

"Is there anyone else?"

Adolfo shook his head once. He shut his eyes.

"Do you believe him?" someone asked.

"Look at him," someone replied. "He hasn't got the wits left to lie."

Adolfo felt himself being released. It felt good just to lie there on his back. He opened his eyes and stared up at the dark figures gathered around him.

"What do we do with him?" one man asked.

"He killed Seńor Ramirez," said another. "He dies. Slowly."

That was the final word on the matter-not by concensus but because the man swung his crowbar down on Adolfo's throat. The fisherman's head jerked up and then fell back as his larynx shattered; his dead arms didn't move. Then he lay there tasting blood and wheezing. He was able to draw just enough breath to remain conscious but not enough to satisfy his lungs.

The pain settled into a steady roar, which helped to keep him conscious. He was Adolfo Alcazar again but the agony in his limbs and in his throat made it difficult to string thoughts together. He couldn't decide whether he'd acted courageously by holding out for as long as he did or cowardly for having succumbed at all. Flashes of thought said yes he'd been brave, then no he hadn't. And then it didn't seem to matter as he shivered and the pain suddenly attacked him. Sometimes it came in like the tide, engulfing him. Sometimes it lapped at him like tiny breakers out at sea. The small swells he could manage. But the big ones tortured him. God, how they made him shake all over.

He had no idea how long he lay there and whether his eyes had been open or closed. But suddenly his eyes were open and the room was brighter and there was a figure bending beside him.

It was his brother, Berto.

Norberto was weeping and saying something.