He sits at a ramshackle desk that holds three objects... A blank sheet of A4 paper. A black ballpoint pen. And an hourglass whose black grains of sand are cascading from one bulb into another. Aashif has advised Ethan that when the sand runs out, he will return, and if at that time what Ethan has written on the paper doesn’t delight him, Ethan will die by lingchi. But Ethan knows that even if he had specific, high-clearance knowledge of a major upcoming offensive, wrote down dates, locations, targets, details of the anticipated ground strike and air support, it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing will ever be enough, because no matter what he writes, he will die and die horribly. All he knows of Aashif is his voice and those brown, evil eyes in which he senses not a desire to learn information but to inflict pain. The guise of interrogation is merely foreplay. Something to get Aashif hard and wet. He is a sadist. Probably al-Qaida. Somehow, Ethan didn’t allow that full realization to set in as he hung by his wrists in the torture room, but sitting here alone at the desk in the quiet, it hits him full force.
