“I know, my friend,” Kruger said. “Just give me the code.”

Fred rattled off the twenty-digit security code.

Kruger wrote it down in a small notebook and said, “If the code you give me is incorrect, we have plans in place to kill your son. And we won’t be as gentle with him as I’ve been with you.”

Kruger didn’t say the words with malice or anger, but he tried to convey a ruthless, uncompromising determination. The big man stared at the code a moment and then looked back to Fred. “I will do horrible things to your son if this code is incorrect. I won’t enjoy it. I don’t want to. But I will.”

“The code is valid. It will work.”

“Good. Now, where’s the watch?”

“How the hell do you know about that?”

Kruger sighed. Fred needed a demonstration. They always did. He grasped Fred’s left hand and snapped the pinky at the joint. The paralyzed man screamed, and his breathing became a fast wheeze like a panting dog.

“Do I have to ask twice?” Kruger said.

“My dresser. Top right-hand drawer,” Fred replied between gasps.

He walked over, opened the drawer, and found a metal lockbox with a digital code. Fred rattled off the digits, and Kruger opened the box. The watch was inside. Leaving the bulky metal box in the drawer, he stuffed the watch into a pocket of his black tactical pants.

“You have the code and the watch. Please, I’ll disappear for a while,” Fred said. “I won’t tell anyone that I gave you anything.”

Kruger returned to the bedside and took a seat beside the condemned man. He gave the type of consoling nod usually reserved for the receiving line at a funeral.

“I’m afraid that you are not going to disappear, Fred. I wish that this was a perfect world where a person like you could be trusted to do as you promise. But those words are hollow, and unfortunately, I’m going to need something else from you as well. I need to cut off both of your thumbs and scoop out one of your eyeballs.”

“No, please, no. I—”

Kruger clamped his hand over Fred’s mouth and nose, depriving the poor man of the oxygen he so desperately needed. In his diminished state, Fred Little died quickly and relatively painlessly, although his eyes were wide and full of fear as he passed. Kruger had always heard that suffocation was one of the best ways to go, that you simply fell asleep.

But he had also been waterboarded once. The lack of oxygen and feeling of drowning had been quite painful and traumatic, in his experience. Shooting Fred in the head may have been quicker and less terrifying for the poor man, but he didn’t want to leave behind any ballistic evidence.

When he removed his hand and looked into the dead man’s eyes, he saw more flashes of men, women, and children bleeding from their mouths, eyes, noses, and ears. Their stares were cold but still mirrored their last seconds of pain and agony, just like the eyes of Fred Little.