Free Battle Road by Frank Gerry Page A

laughter.
    The Senior Detective moved over to stand directly in front of the prisoner. “You really are a fucking idiot, aren't you college boy? Alright, I'll spell it out to you then. The only rights you have are what I give you. As of this morning, Homeland Security Federal Court ruled you to be an enemy combatant. Unless you cooperate with us, no one will ever hear from you again. I mean that, fuck face. I can put a bullet into your fuck'n brains right now and no one would give a rats ass. In fact, my colleagues here would prefer that so they can get out of here and go home for the night.”
    The Senior Detective stepped backed again. His associates repositioned themselves on either side of the prisoner. The Senior Detective took a deep breath, waited a full second, and spoke with a more calming tone, “So, let's start over. There's no reason why you have to be here and put yourself through all of this unpleasantness. Just tell us what we want to know. Nobody will know it was you who talked. I promise you that. We'll get you out of here right away and into the infirmary. So, lets start off with an easy question. What's your name?” The prisoner stared dead into the eyes of the Senior Detective, then glanced slowly over at the woman Detective, then back at at the lead torturer, “Fuck You is my name, you piece of fat, fucking filth.”
    Quickly flicking a switch on the console to speak into the microphone, Goodman stopped the Senior Detective from striking the man in the face. “Stop right there Chief. Use the pain sticks, then start the questioning again.” The Senior Detective begrudgingly lowered his fist upon hearing the instructions through his communication earpiece.
    Goodman turned to his officers, “As you can see our detectives like their jobs a little too much. It's important to keep them in line. A suspect with their bones broken or skulls crushed in doesn't do us a lot of good. The pain sticks are effective at this point. It's basically a highly charged cattle prod with lots of voltage and very little current. The subject will experience extreme pain, but it won't kill him. It's just the next step in our bag of goodies.”
    Satisfied that his orders where being carried out by the Detectives in the interrogation chamber, Goodman continued his lecture. “As I mentioned, we can break anyone. The problem is the terrorists have been using hypnosis to protect their organizational structure. Individuals are hypnotized to erase all memories of who their fellow cell members are. Cell commanders are hypnotized to delete all knowledge of their upper command structure. In most terror cells, there's a core group consisting of the cell commander and one or two individuals who know each others identities. They work together, bringing in the other members of the cell only when required. All communications are done with prearranged codes.” Most of the officers shifted their attention away from the interrogation and onto Goodman. Finding his words of more interest than the activities in the torture chamber.
    Goodman shifted his position in the seat to get more comfortable. “Basically all of these terrorists are programmed with only the knowledge they need to carry out their assigned missions. So when we do break one of these motherfuckers, they can't tell us a god damned thing. And that's really the entire reason why we haven't been able to crush the terrorist rebellion.”
    He paused to make sure the officers understood what he was saying. “So catching ordinary criminals like this young man before us tonight gives us our best chance at identifying existing terror cells or stopping new ones from being formed. In all likelihood he's been in contact with terrorist rebels that were trying to recruit him. Yet, he wouldn't actually be a soldier at this point and wouldn't be hypnotized. He's really just a terrorist wanna be. We've been successful numerous times with this approach.”
    Goodman rubbed the back of his neck.