The Dictator's Claw

Chapter 1 – Smoke Signals

The first time she awoke from her sleep, Diana thought she had been sealed in a tomb.

Even though she had successfully beaten an affliction of claustrophobia as a teenager, she could already feel the panic crawling steadily up her throat. After a few seconds passed, and she sensed the open air around her body, the initial fear was allayed.

She could see nothing but blackness and surmised that she was wearing some sort of mask. She strained to control her breathing, as the only ventilation she could make out with her probing tongue was an air hole, little larger than a pin prick. The mask itself seemed to be constructed of a thick rubber or perhaps plastic, as it conformed tightly to every nook and cranny of her face, resembling the thick facial masks that she received weekly at the spa.

Sleep beckoned her seductively into the darkness, a precious escape from what was happening to her. Though her brain was howling furiously at her to scream, speak, or fight back, she found she simply couldn't gather up the effort to do any of these things. She felt drugged, dazed. Her body went limp as she succumbed once more to her stifling slumber.

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Lieutenant Major Jorge Isamu paced steadily around his large office, his boots clicking on the parquet floor, creating a hypnotic rhythm that always seemed to help him concentrate in times of stress. This time, though, it wasn't working.

If this were any other woman, any other prisoner, he would have felt differently. But Diana Palmer was unique. Since he had joined the general's staff five years ago, she had proven to be one of the most stubborn, wily opponents he had yet encountered from the UN office. After Sy Carey's arrest --- an event that he still received frequent brow beatings for “mishandling” --- the woman had been an unrelenting thorn in his side. He should have been happy to have finally attained the chance to dispose of her. Instead, he felt this was a fatal mistake for the general, and for himself.

His intercom buzzed, and his secretary informed him that Diana was waking in the playroom. He curtly dismissed the notification, and took the journalist's thick dossier from his horizontal desk file. He thumbed through it for perhaps the tenth time that day.

Health: excellent. IQ: 187. Marital status: single. Mental profile: mild claustrophobia, mild fear of insects, under medication for mild obsessive-compulsive disorder. Medications: currently none, but past prescriptions for Xanax and Luvox were indicated.

He rocked back in his tall leather desk chair and steepled his fingers. The first few interrogations would give him time to experiment with the phobias and OCD, but after that, then what? The girl showed a discouraging history of overcoming these afflictions, which confirmed his suspicion that she was extremely strong-willed.

The trick here was time. He didn't have much of it. Public outcry in the US had been fanned by several media outlets, most notably the Liberty Times . That pathetic Commie rag, he thought. Get rid of that lot and he might buy some real time.

He removed a cigar from his coat pocket and savagely guillotined the end with a custom sliding blade mechanism embedded in his desk top, imagining it to be Gerald Mbuttu's head.

As he swiveled his chair to gaze at the imposing, turreted, fortress-like stone structure of the prison, visible in the distance of the early morning light flooding into his third-floor palace office, a small smile played on Isamu's lips as he singed the Cuban stick, puffing it steadily alight.

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“I told you, Patterson, we can't afford to wait any longer! When I think what he's probably already done to her….”

David Palmer was now shouting into his phone at the Defense Secretary. It had taken him over a week to finally talk to the man in person, and he was giving him nothing but the same tired party-line that had been printed in the Times .

“Mr. Palmer, I can assure you, we are making every effort to find your niece. But we absolutely cannot formally accuse General Tara of kidnapping. It's just not logical.”

“Logical?” Palmer sputtered, “What's logical about any of this? Look, you have sworn testimony from dozens of people about how dangerous this man is. People have seen instruments of torture being used in the same prison where Diana is being held!”

A frustrated sigh came from Palmer's speakerphone. “First of all, Mr. Palmer, no one has confirmed that these ‘instruments' exist. It's never been proven. Believe me, Amnesty's been trying for years. Secondly, again, there is no proof you daughter is in Tarakimo.”

“Can you prove she's not?”

“Well, in fact, we can.”

David Palmer's mouth gaped as he scrambled for a tumbler of water, sitting on his nearby nightstand. After taking a quick gulp to clear the choking disbelief in his throat, he let out an exasperated breath.

“You're not talking about that bogus exit visa and those passport records again, I hope?”

“Well, they are official documentation of….”

“ Tara 's documentation!”

“Yes, they are Tarakimo's,” Patterson said softly, before continuing. “What I was referring to is your daughter's recent sighting just outside of Athens . My men are looking into it.”

Palmer removed his eyeglasses and absently rubbed the lenses with a tissue, what slim hope he might be feeling already beginning to slip away. “Well, I'm skeptical,” he snapped. “You know as well as I, that monster Tara would like nothing better than to be rid of my daughter. God, I warned her to stay away from that maniac….” For the second time today, tears began to sting the corners of his eyes.

“I'm hoping to have more information by noon today. I'll call you. Again, I'm sorry.”

“I'm sorry that….” But the line was dead before Palmer could finish his sentence.

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Diana awoke again, gagging as wisps of cigarette smoke wound their way into her mouth.

As she gulped for a breath of clean air, the mask pressing against her face seemed to tighten even further, creating an almost painful suction. She tried to speak, but could not even remotely move her lips.

A deep, mellifluous laugh reverberated in the cold air. Tara 's laugh.

“Guards…” she heard him intone with arrogant theatricality. Then, he snapped his fingers twice, crisply.

The mask was gripped by two pairs of hands and forced from her face with a sickeningly wet popping noise, similar to what a piece of moldy Tupperware might sound like, she supposed, opened after years in a deep freeze.

Nothing but bright white light filled her periphery of vision for several moments, and then very slowly, Tara 's imposing form came into focus. He was standing to her left and, for the first time, she caught a glimpse of her predicament.

She was lying on a rough, wooden frame; face up, with her arms stretched over her head. There was absolutely no feeling in them, and she wondered how long she had been in this evil place. She knew enough about this bastard to understand that this device she was bound to was a torture rack. She tried to strain her head toward her feet to see if they were similarly bound, but she didn't have the strength.

The tyrant began laughing boisterously, rubbing his plump hands together greedily. He looked very comfortable, dressed in a flowing gold robe of thick, shiny satin, which hugged his body stylishly, though not enough to conceal his sagging, bulbous belly. In his manicured hand was, of course, a long cigarette holder.

“Ah, my dear Diana, how you disappoint me!” he purred, his deep voice dripping with saccharine sarcasm. “I was looking forward to a much more intriguing game of cat-and-mouse, but you were such a nosy parker. You couldn't resist sneaking a peek at my toys.” He puffed contentedly for a minute, blowing thick smoke rings into the air, staring past her as if in a trance. “Well, you have a chance to take a good look ‘round now. Please, indulge yourself, and me!” he laughed, sweeping his holder grandiosely around the room.

Diana turned her head miserably and took in the same horrid room she had seen only…when? She had no sense of time, and wasn't about to ask him for that information.

He took a final drag on the cigarette and extinguished it, with a swift movement of the holder's built-in ejector, into an ashtray sitting on a nearby table. The butt smoldered, foul remnants of its smoke wafting toward her.

“This has been a long time in coming, hasn't it?” he asked her, rhetorically. “You have been a formidable opponent of my regime for so many years, but you were always so well guarded by your family's bourgeois wealth and philistine show of power. Now, look at you!” He paused to remove a gold cigarette case from his breast pocket, opened it with a sharp click, and removed a cigarette, delicately inserting it into the golden tip, waiting for her to speak. After several moments of silence, he shot her an irritated glance, and continued his obsequious diatribe.

“I find it so delightfully ironic that your vanity and ego have finally been your undoing. To be so bold, so sure of your invulnerability, as to come to my palace, much less my country, with the intention of exposing me to the world….”

Finally, Diana found her voice and shot back, in a tone so level and calm that it surprised even her: “Your vanity and ego will upend you , Tara.”

She felt her head spring back as a gloved fist punched her savagely in the mouth. “Shut up, bitch, when the leader is addressing you,” a gravel-caked voice growled to her right.

“That's all right,” Tara minced, waving away the guard with an effeminate flourish of his hand. “Let her speak, it amuses me.” He placed the holder jauntily in his mouth and leaned toward Diana with mock eagerness.

Diana gathered up what she could, and spat into the dictator's face, causing him to drop the holder from his mouth as he rushed to wipe her saliva frantically away, as if it were something toxic. The guards appeared and clutched her body against the wood with two meaty hands, looking at Tara expectantly.

He swore softly and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his robe, rage simmering beneath his ruddy countenance. He hasn't gotten better looking, that's for sure, Diana thought once again. She had been shocked at how much the tyrant had aged when she had first been greeted by him in the palace throne room. His once virile, bald pate, formerly shaved and waxed daily, now sported oddly misshapen, white tufts of hair at the perimeter; wrinkles were invading the sides of his formerly buffed, pink face; and large, puffy, jaundiced bags hung under his eyes, probably a result of his constant chain-smoking.

“I see you want to test my patience,” Tara said evenly. “I will be glad to oblige you.” He motioned to his men, who wheeled over a cart supporting a gigantic ceramic contraption, ornately decorated, and sporting several large pipes that jutted into the air at all angles. Attached to the pipes were several, flexible, thick rubber hoses capped with elaborate, hand-painted ceramic mouthpieces. In the center was a large bowl topped with an ornate crown. It was obviously a hookah of some sort.

A large, tufted, leather chair was brought over and the general settled into it with a contented sigh, as the hide beneath his considerable rump creaked sumptuously. “I noticed your distaste at my smoking, the other night in the throne room. You really should be introduced sometime to the joys of tobacco. It's so relaxing,” he chuckled, as a guard lit a flame near the bowl's bottom.

“You should be introduced to the joys of chemotherapy someday, you fat pig,” Diana returned, mimicking his blasé tone. She knew she was on borrowed time, and it was obvious the guards were just waiting for a word from Tara so they could continue torturing her, but she enjoyed the tyrant's resulting scowl nonetheless.

“The mask….” Tara stated, matter-of-factly, while inhaling the first puff of smoke.

She gasped, as she realized where this was going. Trying to look away, she squirmed, pulling the ends of whatever was securing her arms and feet, fruitlessly.

Tara was looking very pleased with himself. “Oh boys, I do believe she wants to be tightened up a bit…” he snickered, as both men simultaneously wrenched the four-spoked wheels adorning each end of the torture rack in opposite directions. A deafening clatter, followed by the sound of tightening rubber, filled the room. Instantly, her once numb limbs sprung to life as pain shot through her muscles like heat lightning.

The general was laughing hysterically, holding a mouthpiece effetely in his hand, blowing smoke rings.

As the dictator's thugs descended upon her, they displayed the front of the mask --- a ghoulish replica of her face, pristinely made-up with funeral parlor precision and wearing a mouth shaped into a semi-erotic “O” --- as it stared back at her with intense, but dull eyes. It was placed over her once more.

“How do you like your death mask?” the general chortled merrily. “It took a long time to make. A very costly and elaborate construction. But I'm so pleased to see that the fit is, how shall we say…snug?”

Diana tried to retort, but again found she couldn't move her mouth.

Tara laughed. “You know, I do believe I like your mouth better sealed after all…” He again snapped his fingers, and a rubber hose was forced through the mask air hole, almost down her throat.

She was beginning to panic, and she had to steel her nerves. He's going to be putting you through terrible things, she thought to herself. But you can't let him….

The thoughts were driven from her head by a sudden, suffocating influx of rich, Turkish tobacco smoke.

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Lieutenant Colonel George Patterson placed the phone delicately back on the cradle, wincing at the sound of Palmer's anguished voice, as it was abruptly cut off.

He leaned forward and put his face in his hands, breathing heavily. He might as well get it over with, he thought weakly.

He picked up the phone once more and dialed the number. When the call connected, he said simply, “He's been told about Athens ,” and hung up.

Picking up a fountain pen, he tried to doodle on a pad of paper in front of him, but quickly stopped, the pointlessness of the action seeming absurd.