But the Soviet military intelligence boss had no choice and he knew it. But now it would begin and Uttkin felt the familiar pleasant warmth of anticipation course through him. The moment Lyalin had arrived in his chauffeured ZIL, they marched Lansdale down along the basement hallway toward the torture chamber where other work had been going on this night. They had Lansdale in handcuffs clamped too tight behind his back, each of the CIA man's arms in the viselike grip of a stocky raydoviki armed with an AK-47 assault rifle. Colonel Uttkin hated Afghanistan. He hated himself. He knew the Central Committee and the General Staff used him only because he got results even though they loathed him for the methods he used. His skills had led him to this hellhole of a country that reminded him too much of his childhood home in Bukhara, where the wasteland of desert meets the desolate frontier of the mountains; where he had turned in his parents as enemies of the state when he was thirteen.
