JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 09/27/08 8:02 AM
If I had it to all do over again I would just save the people I wanted to save and let the rest of these greedy self-centered worthless parasites go up in smoke from the circumstances that I did not cause.
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE]
RED STORM RISING
Tom Clancy
PRINTING HISTORY
G.P. Putnam's Sons hardcover edition / August 1986
Berkley mass-market edition / August 1987
Page 125
Aachen, Federal Republic of Germany
"Siegfried Baum" awoke six hours later to see three men wearing surgical garb. The effect of the anesthesia still heavy on him, his eyes would not focus properly.
"How are you feeling?" one asked. In Russian.
"What happened to me?" The major answered in Russian.
Ach so. "You were struck by a car and you are now in a military hospital," the man lied. They were still in Aachen, near the Germany-Belgian frontier.
"What... I was just coming out to -" The Major's voice was that of a drunken man, but it stopped abruptly. His eyes tried to focus properly.
"It is all finished for you, my friend." Now the speaker switched to German. "We know you are a Soviet officer, and you were found in possession of classified government documents. Tell me, what is your interest in Lammersdorf?"
"I have nothing to say," replied "Baum" in German.
"A little late for that," the interrogator chided, switching back to Russian. "But we'll make it easy for you. The surgeon tells us that it is now safe to try a new, ah, medication for you, and you will tell us everything you know. Be serious. No one can resist this form of questioning. You might also wish to consider your position," the man said more harshly. "You are an officer in the army of a foreign government, here in the Federal Republic illegally, traveling with false papers, and in possession of secret documents. At the least, we can imprison you for life. But, given what your government is doing at the moment, we are not concerned with 'least' measures. If you cooperate you will live, and probably be exchanged back to the Soviet Union at a later date for a German agent. We will even say that we got all our information due to the use of drugs; no harm could possibly come to you from this. If you do not cooperate, you will die of injuries received in a motor accident."
"I have a family," Major Andre Chernyavin said quietly, trying to remember his duty. The combination of fear and drug-induced haze made a hash of his emotions. He couldn't tell there was a vial of sodium pentothol dripping into his IV line, and already impairing his higher brain functions. Soon he would be unable to consider the long-term consequences of his action. Only the here and now would matter.
"They will come to no harm," Colonel Weber promised. An Army officer assigned to the Bundesnachrichtendienst, he had interrogated many Soviet agents. "Do you think they punish the family of every spy we catch? Soon no one would ever come over here to spy on us at all." Weber allowed his voice to soften. The drugs were beginning to take effect, and as the stranger's mind became hazy he would be gentle, cajoling the information from him. The funny part, he mused, was that he'd been instructed on how to do this by a psychiatrist. Despite the many movies about brutal German interrogators, he hadn't had the least training in forceful extraction of information. Too bad, he thought. If there was ever a time I need it, it is now. Most of the colonel's family lived outside Kulmbach, only a few kilometers from the border.
