Michel wept. A moment ago he had been chatting about his next home-leave. He was scheduled to return to France in two months. It was not that he was not prepared to die for his country, but not like this. Not at the hands of one of his own men. Rage came over him again, “You motherfucker, Merard, we don’t have enough troubles here already? Fuck you, kill me, I’m not helping you …” but his rant was cut off as the Agent began to squeeze once more.

The man bucked under the pain, tensing and wrenching at the hand holding his neck as his broken fist was squeezed, but to no avail. Jean-Paul desisted again and smiled, “Michel, please, death is the least of your worries. Death is going to be the gift I am going to give you when you tell me the code. No, no, Michel, you have to earn death. If you want to say something brave it should go something like this.” Michel stared at the mad man and was horrified to hear an exact copy of his own voice come out of Jean-Paul’s mouth, “Torture me all you want, Jean-Paul, I will never tell you the code.”

The Agent mimicked Michel’s strained face as he mocked him, then laughed coldly, “Michel, I am not here because I want some irrelevant plane. I am here for reasons you cannot imagine. And I am going to get what I want. Even if I have to kill everyone on this base.” At the last words, Jean-Paul’s face turned vicious, his next words coming in a venomous whisper as his civil veneer cracked to show the monster beneath, “So why don’t you give me the fucking code, you pathetic little cockroach, or I won’t just kill you; after I am done here I will go and find your wife and children in Nantes, and I promise you that once I find them I will brutally skull fuck all three of them. Do you understand?”

The pressure returned to Michel’s hand and he tried to scream, but the noise was stifled as the Agent’s other hand tightened around his throat. Despair flooded into Michel’s mind as he started to black out. His remaining good hand grabbed desperately at the zip pocket on the arm of his flight suit. Jean-Paul looked at it and released the man’s crushed fist, reaching up and opening the pocket and withdrawing a small printed slip, six digits neatly printed at its center.