Page 16 of Mastermind

She doesn’t respond to my statement about the four lies. I can’t tell if it’s because I’ve trapped her or she doesn’t feel the need to answer me. I suspect it’s the latter. Watching her check the mirrors with each turn, I consider that she may be on the run, too. Could there be something even more clandestine than a simple rendition going on?

We turn past a soccer field and start up a narrow road lined with shacks and buildings built at odd angles that would be at home in a Dr. Seuss book if they didn’t look like they were one heavy rainfall from tragically sliding down the hill.

Blackwood’s left hand touches the scarf around her face. It looks like she’s trying to adjust it, but I catch her fingertips pushing into her covered ear, as if she’s trying to reposition something.

Earpiece . . .

Who or what is she listening to?

She pulls the car onto a small side road and parks at the back of a car-repair shack. “We get out here.”

Blackwood is several strides ahead of me, not bothering to check if I’m following. She’s got her eyes on the streets and the buildings around us . . . and the skies.

The Myanmar government can be brutal and efficient in a third world kind of way, but they don’t have the resources of advanced economies. They use neighborhood spies instead of drones. When they want to get you, they surround you with trucks in every direction and basically fire into the middle, not terribly concerned if stray bullets hit bystanders or even foot soldiers.

I watched a soldier leaning over the body of his dead companion in what I thought was prayer, only to find out he was taking the other man’s cash and cigarettes from his pockets. He was back to marching a moment later, laughing with another soldier about how the man took a shot to the head. I felt more sadness for their dead compatriot than they did. I try not to hate them for that—most are children, and life’s as cheap as a video game to kids here.

Blackwood weaves through a back alley and takes me through a gap in a fence, clearly knowing the spot in advance.

“Been here before?” I ask.

“Only on Google Maps,” she replies. “Just up this road here.”

We go through another fence and get buzzed into a courtyard. A grandmotherly woman with a small child clinging to her neck greets us. Blackwood nods to the woman, then leads me up a staircase to the next level.

The building is surrounded by large padauk trees. The windows are open, with clothes and towels hanging over the edges. Floor mats just outside the doors hold hiking boots and sneakers.

If I had to guess by the footwear, this is a hotel that caters to Westerners. It’s a dive by any standards but not crawling with sex workers and drug dealers, like you find in other tourist locations—which, generally speaking, are two of the few reasons someone comes to a hellhole like this place.

Blackwood opens the door to a room and motions for me to step inside. The windows are cracked open slightly, but it’s barely any cooler in here than outside. But that doesn’t bother me. I stopped worrying about the heat a long time ago.

“I’ve got clothes for you there,” she says, pointing to a bag on the floor mat that serves as a bed. “You can clean up there.”

In the corner there’s a small privacy screen shielding the toilet and a tiled section where one takes a bath by squatting on a stool and washing with a bucket and hose.

I’ve got weeks of sweat and grime covering my body. The only clean spots are where they tried to drown me. I kick off my broken sandals, step behind the screen, and take off my shirt and pants, hanging them up.

Something about the sight of the rags lying over the clean, white screen takes me aback.

Rags. I’ve been wearing rags. The white shirt is stained into some color between tea brown and vomit green. My chinos are so torn that Robinson Crusoe would have been embarrassed to wear them. My underwear is a shred of elastic holding up a loincloth.

Blackwood sits at a table, texting on her phone and not paying attention to my sartorial display.

In truth, it’s not the condition of the clothing that has me startled—it’s the state of the man underneath. I’ve watched the effects of my deterioration before, but this is something new, even for me. I reach over to the sink and find a small hand mirror.

Sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, sunburn, and a scraggly beard add up to an image that screams malnutrition. It’s not a man looking back at me. It’s some kind of zombie that keeps moving, not realizing that its body is already dead and the mind not far behind.

“You okay, Dr. Cray?”

“Theo. Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie.

“Let me know if you need any help shaving. I’ve had practice lately.”

I’m too focused on my own condition to ask her what she means. What I do notice is that from the moment she stepped into my cell, never once has she given me a reproachful look. No pinching her nose or rolling down her window. Not one time did she let on what a horrifying sight I’ve become.

I think I’ve discovered another one of her misdirections. No matter how matter-of-fact or focused or hard-edged she appears, Jessica Blackwood possesses compassion.

An hour ago I was ready to die and couldn’t make myself care for anything in this world. The torture, the interrogations, the grinning police captain who liked to humiliate me as I lay on the floor writhing in pain . . . none of them could break me.