Chapter 1393
Milos's Tough Nut to Cure
Chapter 1393 Milos's Tough Nut to Cure
Interrogation Room No. 2, 4:35 a.m.
The room had no windows, and the only door was a 15-centimeter-thick explosion-proof metal door.
Milos was handcuffed to a steel chair fixed to the ground, with the handcuff chains threaded through rings beneath the chair.
The restraint procedure was standard, but it gave him some freedom of movement in his upper body.
This was intentional, to observe his reaction under limited freedom.
He faced the one-way mirror alone.
He knew there was someone behind the mirror, possibly more than one.
This is the first stage of the interrogation: waiting alone.
Silence amplifies the sound of time passing, and darkness nourishes the imagination of fear.
During his training with the Serbian "Red Berets" special forces, the first lesson in his counter-interrogation training was: the initial silence is the most vulnerable moment.
He closed his eyes and began to silently recite passages from De Sanctis's "Psychology of War" in his mind.
He had read it years ago at the Belgrade Military Library, to keep his mind clear.
The door opened, and Ryan walked in, followed by Lymont. Lymont had changed into a white lab coat and was carrying a leather notebook and a pen.
He was out of place in this environment, like a university professor who had wandered into a war zone.
"The search results are very interesting."
Ryan got straight to the point and sat down next to Milos.
"Song Heping discovered all the surveillance equipment we installed, found it, and destroyed it. But he didn't report it to the base or Duke, didn't request an investigation, and didn't even change rooms. What does this mean?"
Milos laughed and said, "Does that mean your dear mother had an affair with him?"
Ryan's eyes lit up, he raised his eyelids, and stared coldly at Milos in front of him: "Milosh, this joke is not funny."
Then he continued, "This shows that he anticipated being monitored, that he had his own intelligence sources, that he..."
Ryan paused for a moment, then continued, "We're playing a game we don't fully understand yet. And you, Mr. Milos, are a key part of this game."
Lemont sat down opposite Milos, opened his notebook, and unscrewed the pen cap.
His movements were slow, deliberate, and full of ritual, which gave him the air of a CIA station chief in Iraq.
“Let’s start with the basics,” Ryan said. “Miloš Kovac was born in Sarajevo in 1978. He joined the Serbian army in 1995 and was selected for the Red Berets special forces for his outstanding performance. During the NATO bombing in 1999, you served as a communications coordinator at the Belgrade Air Defense Command.”
Milos remained silent.
"The records show that during the bombing, your unit suffered heavy losses from an air raid, and you were also wounded. After the war, you chose to retire and left Serbia not long after, and have been involved in the mercenary circle ever since."
Milos remained silent, but his eyes seemed somewhat red.
Remont then spoke up: “Human memory has its own self-protection mechanisms, Mr. Kovacs. Sometimes, after experiencing extreme trauma, individuals cope by reconstructing memories or selectively forgetting. Do you feel that certain experiences in 1999 influenced your judgment in the current situation, thus preventing you from making the right choices?”
Milos finally looked at Lemont, his gaze growing even colder.
"Don't give me that, Remont. During the years my country was divided, my father died from a sniper's bullet, and my mother died from an infection after the shelling. In 1999, I watched from Belgrade as cruise missiles destroyed my alma mater, the hospital where my sister worked, and the apartment building where my grandparents had lived for fifty years."
He paused. "You ask if I've been affected? I'm affected with every breath I take. But you ask if this will cause me to misjudge the current situation? No. I'm very clear about the difference. War is war, and mercenary work is mercenary work. I'm paid to do things, nothing more."
Ryan picked up the thread: "Then let's treat the current situation with a professional attitude. Song Heping took Maisu'er away, and our team seems to have lost contact as well. Even if there are still people alive, they're probably in your boss's hands."
“You need to understand the current situation. Your boss has highly dangerous intelligence. He’s now acting independently outside the chain of command, which is already suspected of endangering U.S. national security. If you cover for him, you’re an accomplice.”
“Our company, including the tasks our boss is currently undertaking, are all directly authorized by Major General Duke,” Milos said. “We have copies of the written orders.”
"Major General Duke's orders are legally invalid. If he were still alive, he would likely be under investigation."
Ryan leaned forward slightly.
"More importantly, before Blake's team went back to make contact, we received some information about the firefight, showing that they were fighting with Song Heping's team. So your so-called written authorization and orders are meaningless."
He pressed the remote control.
The one-way mirror becomes transparent.
You can see the scene in the next room.
The other captured mercenary from the "Musician" company.
A young Serbian man named Petrovic, with bruises on his face, was handcuffed to a chair and appeared dazed.
A person in a medic's uniform is injecting him with some kind of drug.
Ryan's voice continued, steady yet deceptive: "If you don't speak, your subordinates will. Judging from their testimonies, you are Song Heping's confidant and know quite a bit."
Milos stared at the next room, a cold smile suddenly appearing on his lips.
“Mr. Ryan,” his voice carried a distinct sarcasm for the first time, “what valuable clues do you think you can squeeze out of my mercenaries? All I’ll tell you is that I have a close relationship with the boss? Hah.”
Ryan's expression remained unchanged, but Lamont's fingers, which were flipping through the notebook, paused for half a second.
The interrogation room fell into dead silence.
The "performance" in the next room continued, but it had lost all its deterrent power.
Ryan paused for three seconds, then clapped softly. The applause sounded particularly jarring in the enclosed space.
“Very good, Mr. Kovacs. You have passed the first test.”
He turned off the transparency function of the one-way mirror, and the mirror turned dark again.
"Now we know that you are indeed Song Heping's confidant."
Lamont quickly jotted down notes in his notebook, then looked up: "So, where is Song Heping now? Perhaps you can tell me his possible hiding place."
“I don’t know the boss’s exact location.” Milos’s voice turned cold again. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Ryan nodded, as if he had expected it.
He stood up, walked to the wall, and pressed another button.
This time, the one-way mirror shows another room.
Inside were six members of the "Thunder" company, who were being held separately, each with injuries of varying degrees.
“These people,” Ryan said, “are your comrades, your fellow soldiers. Some of them are willing to cooperate, and some are still holding on. But with every hour that passes, my patience dwindles.”
He turned and looked at Milos.
"Now, this is your last chance. Tell me Song Heping's coordinates. Tell me, and you and all these people can leave alive. Refuse..."
He paused for two seconds, then pointed to one of the people.
“Then, starting with the first one on the left, I will execute one person every thirty minutes. Until you speak.”
Lamont promptly handed over a document.
The agreement was handwritten, with neat handwriting.
“This is a provisional memorandum of understanding,” Lamont said. “You can read it first. If you agree, the official document will be issued by the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Department of Defense within 48 hours.”
Milos looked at the document.
The pristine white paper and concise terms promised him everything he needed for a safe escape.
Five million dollars would be enough for him to buy a small estate in the mountains of Montenegro or Serbia and live out the rest of his life in peace.
He closed his eyes.
I recalled that April night in 1999, when anti-aircraft shells exploded over Belgrade like celebratory fireworks, while people on the ground trembled in their air-raid shelters.
He remembered his father's dying words: "Miloš, remember: Serbians have hard knees that don't bend easily."
He opened his eyes and looked directly at Ryan.
“Come on, shoot.” Milos’s voice was eerily calm: “Kill them all. Then kill me. But you’ll never get the coordinates.”
He paused, then said, "Even if I knew, I wouldn't say. Even though we're mercenaries..."
He raised his handcuffed hands.
"But some things are more important than money and life. The first lesson we Serbs learn is: better to die than to live on our knees."
A long silence fell over the interrogation room.
Ryan's expression remained unchanged, but Lymont sighed softly and jotted something down in his notebook.
“I appreciate your principles, Mr. Kovacs.”
Ryan finally spoke, and then slowly stood up.
"But principles are often fragile in the face of reality."
He walked towards the door, stopped beside it, and without turning back, said as he walked:
“Remont, proceed with Phase Two. I’ll be back in forty minutes, hopefully to see progress.”
The door closes.
Remont closed his notebook, placed the pen on the table, and leaned back.
“The second phase,” Lymont’s voice remained gentle, “usually involves more direct physiological stress testing. I don’t like that part, but it…works.”
He took a small syringe out of his pocket.
"This is a neurosensitivity enhancer that won't cause permanent damage, but it will make the following experience...exceptionally vivid. You have one last chance to change your mind."
Milos stared at the syringe, then looked up and met Lemont's gaze.
“Scum,” he said. “Do you know why Serbian special forces use real torture in their counter-interrogation training? Because only by experiencing it firsthand do you know where your bottom line is. I’ve been through it.”
He gritted his teeth and said, "You won't let me speak."
Lemont looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded and pressed the call button.
The door opened, but this time it wasn't ordinary soldiers who came in, but two professional interrogators wearing masks.
They carried metal toolboxes, which made a heavy thud when they were put down.
5:10 am.
Milos was reattached.
This time it's not just handcuffs.
His wrists and ankles were firmly bound to a specially made interrogation chair with thick leather straps, and his chest, abdomen, and thighs were also secured with straps.
The chair is adjustable, and he is now in a semi-reclining position.
"Start with what he's most confident about."
"Let him know that past experience doesn't apply here," Lamont told the interrogators.
The first interrogator opened the toolbox.
Inside were not traditional instruments of torture, but sophisticated medical and electronic equipment.
It includes syringes, electrode pads, nerve stimulators, and physiological monitors.
They first connected Milos to a monitoring device to measure his electrocardiogram, blood pressure, blood oxygen, and skin resistance.
On the screen, Milos's heart rate was stable at 68 beats per minute and his blood pressure was 120/80, which was completely normal.
“Excellent physiological control.” Lamont nodded to the two interrogators. “Let’s begin.”
The interrogators did not use the traditional wet cloths and buckets.
They used a transparent mask that was tightly fastened to Milos's face.
The mask is connected to two pipes.
One is for water intake, and the other is for venting.
“This is controlled water asphyxiation,” Lamont explained, as if describing a scientific experiment: “We will precisely control the amount and temperature of the water. In the first stage, the water is at room temperature.”
The icy liquid instantly flooded his mask. Milos instinctively held his breath, but water seeped in through every crevice of his nostrils and mouth. Thirty seconds later, his lungs began to burn. Forty-five seconds later, his body thrashed violently, the restraints digging deep into his flesh.
The interrogator stopped injecting water and opened the vent valve at the 58th second.
Milos coughed violently, and water sprayed from the edge of his mask.
"Song Heping's location?" Lemont asked.
"I...don't know...cough cough cough—"
Milos's voice was torn apart by water and coughing.
Second water injection.
This time the water temperature was even lower, close to freezing.
Cold water irritates the throat and trachea, triggering a violent, spasmodic cough, but coughing underwater only leads to inhaling more water.
Milos's eyes widened, his eyeballs bloodshot.
This lasted for sixty-five seconds.
When he stopped, Milos was bleeding from his nose and mouth.
The mucous membrane ruptured under intense pressure.
“Coordinates, possible hiding places.” Lymont’s voice was flat.
Milos spat out a mouthful of blood and uttered something hoarsely in Serbian.
"What did he say?" the interrogator asked.
As a seasoned agent, Lemont understood something: "He said... 'The skies over Belgrade remember your bombs.'"
The interrogator stepped forward and tore open Milos's shirt, attaching twelve electrode pads to his chest and abdomen.
The electrodes are connected to a palm-sized black device.
“This is a military-grade modified version of the transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator,” Lamont said. “It won’t cause tissue damage, but it will stimulate nerve endings and produce intense pain. We’ll start with a low intensity.”
The first electric shock felt like hundreds of needles piercing the skin at the same time.
Milos's body suddenly arched, his muscles spasming.
The electrocardiogram showed that the heart rate suddenly increased to 140 beats per minute.
The intensity gradually increased. By the seventh time, the pain had surpassed anything Milos had ever experienced.
It wasn't just in one spot, but every inch of my skin was burning, tearing, and being repeatedly struck by blunt force.
His consciousness began to blur, but the interrogator adjusted the parameters to keep the pain at a threshold that wouldn't cause him to lose consciousness.
“Stop,” Lamont said. The interrogator shut down the equipment.
Milos was soaked in sweat, as if he had just been pulled out of the water. He was panting heavily, and his pupils were dilated.
Where is Song Heping?
"have no idea……"
With each word he uttered, blood foam gushed from the corner of Milos's mouth.
The interrogator once again freed Milos's left hand from its restraints and secured it to a metal plate on the side.
They use a sophisticated hydraulic clamp with rubber-coated jaws that can apply tremendous pressure without immediately causing fractures.
The pliers clamped Milos's left little finger.
“Human fingers have fourteen phalanges,” Remont said calmly. “Each one can be pressured individually. We’ll start with the distal phalanges.”
The pressure is gradually increasing.
Milos clenched his teeth, which made a grinding sound.
He could clearly feel his bones bending and deforming under pressure.
"Crack."
A faint but clear cracking sound.
Fracture of the first phalanx of the little finger.
Milos let out a suppressed growl, but quickly swallowed it back down.
His right hand gripped the armrest of the interrogation chair tightly, his fingernails digging into the plastic surface.
"coordinate?"
no answer.
Only heavy breathing could be heard.
The second finger. This time it's the proximal phalanx of the ring finger.
The pressure lasted for thirty seconds until the bones were completely shattered.
This time, Milos couldn't help but scream, but after the scream, he slammed his head against the back of the chair to force himself to stay awake.
"Record: The interrogator did not relent despite being in extreme pain," Lamont wrote.
Then he looked at the two interrogators and gestured for them to increase the intensity.
The interrogator injected Milosh with the aforementioned neurostimulant.
After the medication was administered intravenously, Milos's body began to tremble uncontrollably.
All senses are magnified to the extreme.
He could hear the sound of his own blood flowing, feel the fabric fibers rubbing against his skin at every point of contact, and taste every molecule of blood in his mouth.
And pain became a living thing.
It roamed through his bones, danced in his nerve endings, and screamed deep within his brain.
“Now let’s start over,” Lamont said.
They returned to waterboarding.
But this time, under the influence of the drug, every drop of water was like lava.
Milos's struggle turned into epileptic convulsions.
After the water was stopped, he slumped in his chair, his eyes unfocused, and a mixture of blood and saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth.
At this point, the interrogator turned on the high-intensity light array on the ceiling.
Six LED lights, each with 2000 lumens, were lit simultaneously, shining directly on Milos's face.
At the same time, the speaker hidden in the wall began playing high-frequency noise.
It was a piercing ringing at the edge of the range of human hearing, mixed with processed baby cries, metallic scraping sounds, and unrecognizable fragments of speech.
“The reverse application of sensory deprivation,” Lamont told the recorder. “When the interrogator tries to shut down his senses to cope with the pain, we bombard his nervous system with excessive information to break down his psychological defenses.”
Light, sound, pain, and the chemical effects of drugs.
All stimuli act simultaneously and are amplified at the same time.
Milos began to experience cognitive confusion.
He saw light break into fragments of color before his eyes, heard sounds that seemed to come and go, and his perception of time was completely distorted.
A minute feels like eternity, and eternity feels like a fleeting moment.
“Song… Heping…”
Lamont slowly uttered the name, his voice amplified through the speakers and repeated on every frequency.
Milos's lips moved.
The interrogator leaned closer.
He was repeating the same word in Serbian: "Nite...Nite...Nite..."
"What do you mean?" the interrogator asked curiously.
Lemont paused for two seconds: "It means 'no.' He's saying 'no.'"
But at that moment, amidst the chaos, Milos uttered a phrase: "...the white house...sand..."
The interrogator immediately took notes.
Lemont raised his hand to signal a halt to all stimulation.
"The White House? The White House in the desert?" Lemont sensed a breakthrough in the interrogation and quickly pressed, "Continue, Milos. Where is the White House?"
But Milos's consciousness had already slid into deeper chaos.
He just kept repeating: "White house...sand...stone..."
Lemont realized that Milos was deliberately trying to distract him so he could catch his breath.
"continue."
He turned to his subordinate beside him and said coldly, "Increase the intensity."
The interrogator adjusted the temperature control system in the interrogation room.
Within ten minutes, the room temperature plummeted from 22 degrees Celsius to 4 degrees Celsius.
Milos was stripped of his shirt, his bare upper body exposed to the cold air.
The low temperature quickly draws heat away from the body surface, causing muscles to tremble uncontrollably, and forcing metabolism to accelerate in order to maintain core body temperature.
Twenty minutes later, the temperature rose sharply to 38 degrees Celsius, and the humidity was adjusted to 80%. The hot and humid environment made breathing difficult, and sweat mixed with bodily fluids seeping from the wound, forming salt stains on the skin.
After three cycles of alternating between hot and cold, Milos's thermoregulation system began to malfunction, causing him to alternate between feeling cold and hot, with his consciousness fluctuating between low and high body temperature.
"The white house... is... a safe house..."
Milos uttered a few words in his feverish delirium.
"Where is the safe house?" Lemont immediately asked.
But Milos fell silent again.
His gaze shifted between clarity and vacillation as drugs, sensory overload, and temperature torture eroded his control over his consciousness.
The interrogator removed Milos from the chair, but immediately re-secured him using a method known as "stress-induced postural restraint."
His hands were handcuffed behind his back, and his wrists were then hoisted up with ropes until his toes could barely touch the ground.
This posture puts the entire weight of the body on the shoulder joint, which can cause severe pain within five minutes.
Meanwhile, another interrogator used specialized joint manipulation techniques to apply precise pressure to Milos's elbows, knees, and ankles.
It's not about dislocation, but about causing persistent, deep joint pain.
The pain is not sharp, but it penetrates deep into the bone marrow and cannot be relieved by distraction.
"what……!"
Milos finally let out a long groan.
Sweat poured down his forehead like rain.
“The coordinates of the White House.” Lymont’s voice remained calm: “Say it, and it will all be over.”
Milos's lips were trembling.
His eyes were fixed on the one-way mirror, but the focus was no longer on it.
In the midst of extreme pain and mental confusion, he seemed to see the sky over Belgrade in 1999, burning buildings, and his parents' faces.
“...North...34…”
He mumbled two numbers.
The interrogator immediately took notes.
Remont leaned forward: "34 degrees North latitude? Go on, what's the longitude?"
But Milos shook his head violently, using his last bit of willpower to bite his tongue.
The excruciating pain brought him to his senses for a moment.
“No…no…” he said hoarsely, “You…can’t have it…”
6:45 am.
Milos had been tortured for nearly two hours.
He suffered three broken fingers on his left hand, two fractures in his ribs, and muscle spasms all over his body caused by the electric shock.
His body temperature regulation disorder caused him to experience alternating chills and fever, along with persistent joint pain.
But he still didn't give the complete coordinates.
Every time I ask a question, there are only three answers: "I don't know", "No", or "Fuck you".
Lamont recorded his frustration in his notebook for the first time:
"The defendant exhibited an unusually high limit of psychological endurance. Even after trying all available methods, the effects remained limited. He seemed to have constructed some kind of psychological anchor in the pain and confusion—perhaps a memory of 1999, or perhaps ethnic identity. This allowed him to endure pain beyond the limits of ordinary people."
But Ryan's command was clear: he needed the coordinates.
"Use the last resort."
Lemont finally lost his composure, put away his notebook and pen, and walked to the side.
The interrogator dragged Milos to the center of the room and made him kneel on the ground.
A silenced Glock 17 pistol was pressed against the back of his head.
The muzzle was cold, pressed against the area below the occipital bone.
That's where the medulla oblongata of the brain is located; a single blow will be fatal.
“One last time.” A hint of impatience finally crept into Remont’s voice: “Coordinates. If you say it, it’s all over. If you don’t, the bullet will enter from below your occipital bone and exit between your eyebrows. Death is almost instantaneous, but in the moment before you die, you will know that your life is over.”
Milos knelt there, covered in blood and sweat, his left hand twisted in a grotesque manner.
But he looked up at Lymont and, with his last ounce of strength, forced a twisted, almost insane smile.
Then say it in clear English:
“In 1999, you bombed my home, but you couldn’t make me kneel. Now, you can kill me, but you still can’t make me kneel.”
He paused, then spoke the last sentence in Serbian—a poem his father had taught him:
"Flesh and blood can grow on a stone, but the spine of a stone will not bend."
The armed interrogator looked at Lamont.
Lemont closed his eyes and remained silent for a long time.
Then he waved his hand.
The gun didn't go off.
"Record: The defendant has passed the final test."
Lamont took out his notebook again.
"Transferred to special detention, medical treatment, and remain in custody. Awaiting further instructions."
Milos was dragged away in a semi-conscious state. But his lips were still moving, repeating that word:
“NEET…NEET…NEET…”
No.
When Lamont walked out of the interrogation room, Ryan was waiting for him at the end of the corridor.
"result?"
“He gave us two words: ‘White House’ and ‘North 34’.”
"That could be a clue, or it could be misleading," Lamont said. "But under extreme interrogation, he never gave the full coordinates. Even when he was at his most confused, his physiological response was still resistance when the core information was touched upon."
He opened his notebook to show Ryan the monitoring data: "Look here, every time he's asked for his coordinates, his skin resistance suddenly increases and his heart rate fluctuates abnormally. This is a typical stress inhibition response, not an information retrieval response. He's instinctively stopping himself from saying it."
Ryan watched silently as Milos was dragged away at the other end of the corridor.
The Serbian's body was already like a rag doll, but his fingers were still twitching slightly as he was carried away.
That wasn't a twitch; it was just repeating a gesture.
“The Serbs,” he said finally, his tone complex, “they certainly have a tough backbone.”
“What do we do now?” Lamont asked. “Continue interrogating the others? Or…”
"Send him to a special detention cell. Keep him under medical supervision, but don't let him recover too quickly."
Ryan turned and left.
"As for the 'White House' and 'North 34'—have the intelligence team cross-analyze all possible locations. As for the others… continue the interrogations. Song Heping can't entrust secrets to just one person. Someone will eventually speak up."
But as only Ryan's footsteps echoed in the hallway, Lamont wrote his last sentence in his notebook:
"Sometimes, the hardest bone can indeed break any hand that tries to bend it. But war never stops because a bone is hard. It only seeks the next bone that is easier to break—or, the way to break all bones."
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(End of this chapter)