They'd been at him for hours - or was it days by now? He had no real way to determine how many hours had passed since he'd so stupidly walked right into a trap. He'd trained the rankest amateurs of Thorne Enterprises to know better, he chastised himself. A child would have seen it clearly and run the other way. But no - not the mighty Terry Thorne - he'd been too caught up in the fun of being back in the field after a year of working out of his fancy, high-rise office. He'd been so blinded by playing soldier once again that he'd practically had a sign painted on his chest that read, "Come and get me - willing victim".

So, they had.

He sat on the cold, dirty stone floor of the cell they'd tossed him into and listened to moisture dripping off the walls and ceiling. He seemed to be the only one in wherever it was they were holding him. He never heard any signs of life from around him, just the approaching footsteps when they'd come and fetch him, take him up to the room where the lights were blindingly bright and the questions accompanied by decidedly uncomfortable physical encouragement to talk. He heard the clang of a door opening off in the distance and sighed. Here they came again.

He steeled himself for it, but he was resigned to the fact that he was close to telling them something to gain a little respite from the punishment he'd been taking for being so stubborn. Even if he told them a mixture of truth and clever fabrication - enough truth in it to get them busy running around in circles for a day or so, enough to recoup his strength so he could think more clearly. He had been formulating this disinformation in his head for the past couple of hours. Normally it wouldn't have taken him so long, but he was tired, hungry, sore and had a couple of injuries that had sapped his strength. Physically and mentally, he was not at his best.

Footsteps approaching now - at least three men, if not four. He grinned wryly - they must still consider him dangerous if they sent four of the big, hulking guards to fetch one somewhat-the-worse-for-wear man. He'd just see if he could fulfill their fantasies, he promised himself. It would earn him a kick or punch, but it would be worth it to get some of his own back. His cell door grated open and he stayed crouched, ignoring them.

"Up now, you," the head goon barked at him. When the object of his order merely shrugged, he reached down and slapped the already bruised Aussie across the face. Then they forced him to his feet, stumbling because his legs were cramped from the cold floor. "Move along, General wants to see you, Thorne," the head goon ordered with a nasty grin on his face.

They half-dragged, half shoved him down the stone paved corridor. He was cold, muscles still stiff, but determined to shove them back somehow or another if only to prove that he still warranted their extra caution. It was a matter of pride.

Yeah, right, he told himself, pride. Pride naked and shivering, bruised, cut and burnt in a couple of places he'd rather not think about. Pride getting literally lifted off its feet and carried when he didn't move fast enough. What did he think he could do, spit on them and instill some kind of fear with that? Maybe he'd just let them drag him along and think about getting some of his own back later, when he was a bit stronger.

More quickly than he liked, he was shoved into a hard wooden chair in that bright room, wrists and ankles shackled to it, and left alone to await the kind attentions of the "General" who gave the orders. He stifled a deep shiver - was any room in this place heated, for Christ's sake?

The door opened and shut as General Ross Borden came in and took a seat on one corner of his desk, examining his prisoner from head to toe. "Have a good night, Thorne?" the former SAS Colonel Borden asked dryly. "Gourmet food, nice bed, willing whore sent to see to your carnal needs?"

Terry glanced up, grinned back at the man he had served with years before, "Yeah, although the whore was a little over-used for my taste. I prefer them to at least be under sixty."

"Hmmf," Borden grunted. "I see you've still got that mouth going against your best interests, Thorne. It would behoove you to be more polite to me - like I've already told you."

Terry uttered a soft laugh, giving Borden a devil-may-care shrug despite the protest of sore, over-stretched muscles. "You don't impress me, Bordo - never did. Why should I start being polite to you now, you posturing, cowardly dickhead?"

"Sharpe," was all Borden said and another man materialized from just behind and out of Terry's peripheral vision. "He needs lessoning, Sharpe."

"Sir," the third man said, and turned to Terry, locking eyes with the Aussie as he grabbed him by the chin and forced his head up and back at a painful angle. "Be respectful now, Thorne," Sharpe said in a voice like acid over broken glass. "Be humble," he added, and punched Terry hard in the stomach. When the Aussie had stopped wheezing for breath, Sharpe hit him again for good measure.

"Stop, enough," Borden said softly. Sharpe instantly let go of Terry and stepped back out of his sight again. Borden lit a cigarette and blew the smoke at the man cuffed to the chair, a wry smile on his lips. "You really ought to listen to Sharpe, you know. He'd like to kill you right here - nastily, I might add - the only reason he hasn't is because I won't let him. Isn't that right, Sharpe?"

"Yes, sir, that's right," came that voice.

"Fuck you both," Terry managed before Sharpe got the nod once again and brought a very nasty rattan cane into play that left him gasping for breath, every nerve in his body protesting. They stopped just before he would have passed out, gauging his responses with expertise that bespoke long study of torture methods. Now that, Terry thought in a daze, wasn't something they'd learned in the SAS. That was foreign training - perhaps Red Chinese, or maybe old-line Soviet school. Borden and Sharpe had obviously been busy boys since getting court martialed and put in a military prison years before. That was another thing that bothered him - how and when had they gotten out and why hadn't he heard about it, at least through the grapevine of former and current SAS officers he knew? Another puzzle.

Borden began asking Terry for information on the army's intelligence on him and his operations. Borden had formed a little illegal cadre of former SAS and other special forces soldiers - all of them criminals or near-criminals, all of them disgruntled and holding a grudge against the authorities who had done them wrong in various ways - and he rented out this army of his to whomever could pay the exhorbitant fees he demanded for their services. And their services included demolition work, assassinations both political and private, kidnapping and elimination of troublesome persons, as well as serving as guards to politicos who were feeling nervous about the attitude of the citizens of their particular country.

"How much does General Harcourt know?" Borden asked for the hundredth time. Harcourt was Commander in Chief of the SAS Intelligence Division. He had actually contacted Terry personally and asked him to use his particular expertise to go in to Borden's lair in the mountains of Red Island - his headquarters off the northeast coast of mainland Australia. Harcourt's daughter had been snatched right out of her home in Sydney and it was Borden's group who were holding her. Terry's job was to get her back without a hair of her aristocratic head being harmed. He had yet to see her.

"Just that you have his daughter, mate," Terry answered. The same answer he'd given every time they'd asked. As usual, it didn't satisfy them. Sharpe began using the cane on him again, laying a swath of welts down Terry's already bruised arms and legs. When he stopped, Terry was almost unconscious, but he managed to lift his sweaty face and give Sharpe a nasty smile as he whispered hoarsely, "Fuck you, mate."

Borden nodded to the eagerly waiting Sharpe, who finally broke the slim cane on the by then unconscious man in the chair. He tossed it aside and pulled his viciously sharp knife out of the leather sheath on his belt. Stooping down so he was at the level of Thorne's face, he grabbed his sweat-soaked hair and pulled his head up. Thorne's dazed eyes opened, focussed, and that defiant grin formed once again. "Still here?" he got out.

Sharpe stuck the point of the knife blade into Thorne's throat just beside the angle of his right jaw, "Yeah - shall I cut your throat now, asshole, or later?"

"Suit yourself," Terry managed. He knew they wouldn't kill him yet - they wanted a lot more information, not to mention fun, before they'd just waste him.

The blade moved from his throat to the back of his left hand, held against the arm of the metal chair by the handcuffs. Sharpe stuck the knife through the back of Terry's hand until the point was dug deep in the wooden armrest, doing it as casually as if he was pinning a piece of paper and not human flesh. He had the satisfaction of hearing Thorne's gasp, but, to his disappointment, there was no scream. It had to hurt - the hand was a mass of blood vessels, muscles and nerve endings - but instead, Thorne just passed out. This time, they couldn't rouse him, so they regretfully ended their session and dragged him back to his cell.

Borden tossed a filthy bit of towel in after him, telling Sharpe, "So he can bandage that hand - wouldn't want him to bleed to death before we're done, now would we?"

"Not at all, sir," Sharpe agreed. He locked the door and they walked off. It was dinner time and they were hungry. Thorne would keep until tomorrow.