Red Rose

[Aura]

"We've got a comrade here for you to work with." a voice practically shouted in Mikhail's ear as he was shoved down into a seat, "Compliments from Uncle Joe, good luck. He's got a better grasp on English than most but he's got quite a mouth."


The bag was wrenched from his head and a grim grey room came into blinding focus. He swore rapidly in Russian calling the men colourful names before lifting his head, "Can I have a cigarette? It's a nasty little habit, but I picked it up fighting with you Yankees in the War. It's great to know how you treat your comrades... now how-"


"This is Mikhail Zveherev, born in Novosibirsk, newly recruited into the KGB before he was drafted in World War II. Fought several battles and was promoted to lieutenant briefly before he was honourably discharged after the Battle of Stalingrad when-"


"I believe you Americans named it "Bouncing Betty"-" Mikhail interrupted before he in turn was interrupted by a sharp crack of the man's hand on his cheek.


"As I was saying, honourably discharged after the Battle of Stalingrad when an S-Bomb tore through a nearby building. He broke his left arm in three places and his index finger on his left hand is missing now as a result of the injury. The shrapnel from the explosion also left him blind in his left eye."


Mikhail opened his mouth to speak but he was interrupted, "We found his presence in files where he should have no access to. I'm leaving it up to you to deal with him." the man said before exiting the room with a scowl plastered on his face.


"So... the cigarette?" Mikhail asked fixing his gaze onto the man whom he had just been introduced to.


@The Doorman

 

[The Doorman]

Leroy had been leaning against the doorframe as the prisoner was introduced, he'd obviously been through a lot but, as a relatively new recruit the man wouldn't know. His overgrown blonde buzz cut nearly shaded his dark blue eyes as he waited in the grey darkness that was the hallway, if you could call it that, the smell was awful, like someone had taken a piss all down the walk in spite of him. I didn't sign up for this... Was the thought that went through the young but scarred man's mind every minute of every dying and god-forsaken day he suffered through, though he knew many more were worse off, like this sorry looking man that's gaze told the soldier that he could take a beating and give one if he so desired, his thick accent and muggy breath stained the air and the atmosphere with a smell that would have told Leroy of his bad smoking habits long before Zveherev had spoken, though with the sparse mentions of that he had known long before the scent had reached him.


It was like this every day. By now, Leroy had started to understand what these Russians were saying, but he knew little about the war, the conditions, the world, really. His job was to break down the already broken and the fighting men that were unfortunate to be dragged in by the brutal dogs of war, they could be like animals with their ghastly appearances and beastly repose, they all smelled of sweat and hard liquor... But it wasn't the rookie's place to judge, he just needed to stay alive.


He pushed off the wall and pulled the door closed as he walked further into the faded and dimmed light, the scars on his cheeks appearing one by one as he walked with steely gaze locked on the man before him, the dark circles beneath his lashes marked him with fatigue, and his breath shook from the rough soreness in his throat from all of the yelling he did on an hourly to daily basis.


He'd originally signed up to protect the country, that's what he was told would happen... But three months in, after exhausting training, a short time within the true eyes of the storm, he woke up in the infirmary, never quite got back into the field... So instead he took the place of the last muscle in interrogation, only twenty-two and he was knocking around these damned spies, and he didn't know what the hell kind of information he was really looking for, though he supposed any information would be damn good enough for the CIA and whatever "mind control" shit the Soviet was trying.


He now looked down at Mikhail, injured former lieutenant that he was to assume had been spying, sticking his nose where it didn't belong, that's what all of the captives sent to Leroy Jones had been accused of, but whether or not this was fact was for him to find out, and why? That was the question, the million dollar question.


Leroy's mouth twisted into a sadistic smirk and a chuckle rode in his throat as he crossed his arms, "Us Yankees?" He shook his head, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, "Tch." He took a step further into the light cast by the swinging metal lamp, whatever it was called, it didn't really matter, what mattered was that this guy's face was illuminated by whatever sorry ray of light it could muster. "That's not the way a prisoner should talk, now is it... Mikhail?" The soldier spat on the ground and uncrossed his arms, "I guess it can't be helped, not like we present ourselves too well nowadays, now do we, soldier?" He pushed the hanging light towards the man so that it swung towards his face, "Now, what is that you keep asking about? A cigarette? I can work with ya there, I can work with that..." His voice faded out as he restlessly moved through the rather small, bland room, nothing like back home but he was slowly learning to love it as much as a soldier working with war criminals could, though, he assumed this guy had a job to do, and that was fine and dandy, but Leroy, Leroy also had a job, and that might not speak well for Mikhail.


After making his rounds to each corner of the room he returned to the center, where he stopped and steadied the swaying glow and reached into the pocket on the side of his camo-colored pants, coming up with a box of cigarettes, tossing it and catching it with one hand, "But I'd like to hear what ya have to say, Mikhail, it's my job, and I would love to just, keep up a steady conversation without having to put extreme measures into play because I'm tired, you're obviously not in the mood for this, it's not too difficult and I've already got enough blood on my hands to last me a lifetime of hate." He rested his hands on his knees to be about to the prisoner's level, though it was quite the stretch for a man of his stature, "I need to know what you were doing to get caught, and, why, and we can call it a day so long as the big man doesn't come back and tell me shit I actually need to know, which would be a damn god-sent sign as any." His gravely yet youthful voice left a slight echo to bounce through the walls of the otherwise silent room. Leroy stretched his back, "And as long as you can cooperate, I won't have much of a reason to dislike you, now will I?" He dragged a metal chair over and sat on it backwards, still facing the man across from him, the light shining onto his face from on the table's metal surface, "So, can ya make my and your day just a bit easier? Ya seem eager to talk, I am eager to listen, if we could just... Get along, I'll put in a good word for ya... So, whaddya say?" The young soldier made eye contact with the man, and if he was to be honest, Mikhail wouldn't have been the first to hear the "compromise talk" that day, tactic number one had two outcomes but Leroy was willing to talk things over easily when he could, keeping his guard up, trying to just be friendly, though he could always use force he would always leave the first option open for discussion.


It was the way of the man, and it was by far one of the fairest means of getting these people to talk that anyone really had...


He just hoped this might go smoothly.


So, which is it? What kind of person are you?





(Sorry if this is bad, doing my best, usin' what I know, and the length got a bit... Out of hand... Woops... PC is glitchin', brb.)

 

[Aura]

If Mikhail was to be completely honest, whomever had brought him into the room was more intimidating than this young pup, and he couldn't help but to scrutinize Leroy as he walked across the room. He was listening, and finding himself growing angry with most of what the man was saying. He thought he knew what he was doing, but he seemed to just be splashing around wildly in the shallow end and completely unaware of the real depths of the water. Of course, Mikhail could understand and even relate... it wasn't the youth's fault that he hadn't been told much of what was going on. Mikhail barely understood what his task and expectations were. He had just been charged with a task and told that no matter what he was not to divulge any information... it was bad enough for him that he had been caught and captured.


He spat at the floor to emphasize the importance of his next words, "Malysh," he said softly, "kid", "You cannot talk to a Russian soldier about having blood on your hands... or any soldier who has ever had the unfortunate misery to spend any time in those trenches, really. You do not know what torture is until you've spent any time fighting with the rats for your meager rations while knee-deep in the mud filled with the bodies of your comrades hoping that a sniper won't pick you off if your head bobs over the line. You've never even killed a man, have you?


"But that's all beside the point... all you've asked me to do is to talk with you. I can work with ya there, I can work with that..." he said mockingly and a wry smile cracked across his face, "All joking aside, I am willing to speak days with you, my comrade, but if you if expect to hear anything useful... well, that's unlikely. There is no place for two kinds of men in the Soviet Union, one is a traitor and the other is a man who lets himself get captured and you've already made me into one of these men and I will not be made into a traitor." he said bringing one dark brown eye and one scarred grey one to meet Leroy's dark blue ones. Admittedly, the grey eye seemed to unnerve most of the people that he encountered after leaving the trenches, and it was a paling compensation for losing half of his vision, but he enjoyed the way it made others uncomfortable and how it looked, it was a physical reminder to all others of the role he had played in the war.


"No secrets of Soviet mind control coming from my mouth," he said and the wry smile split apart into a wild peal of laughter. He didn't doubt that Leroy across from him had heard those absurd rumours... but then again, for all Mikhail knew, there probably was some secret Soviet facility researching mind control right now. All he could be certain was that if he knew anything about Russian mind-control then he would rather have had this man cut off his other nine fingers before he would spill anything.

 

[The Doorman]

"You think I'm just here for the job? Nah, nah, I've been through plenty enough, though I know for a fact you've been through worse, no, I'm just here" Leroy tapped a thick scar that wrapped around his skull but was covered by his overgrown mat of blonde and dark hair, "on account of an injury... In America I guess that kind of thing gets you out of the field... Though I have seen far worse, people running around with their jaws blown off, not quite realizing that they are slowly bleeding themselves to death, people using their guns to keep moving out of firing range, shrapnel in the head, the neck, the heart... I'm sure anyone whose been in this a bit more than a week could say the same... Yeah, I know I don't scare ya, quite frankly I think it's a joke that I'm, but y'know... Different places, different faces, I see a lot of 'em just like yours everyday. You'd probably regret hearing that a good 'mount of 'em squeal before they get into the butcher's shop, though I'd be lying if I said that wasn't me, lieutenant... I would be lyin'."


Leroy walked a bit more, shaking out his lifeless but not yet limp leg at the floor, he chuckled before whistling a bit of "Drunken Sailor", and rounding about the man's back to see that he was pretty well locked up, whch was unfortunate but Jones could care less for the man's possible discomfort, as he assumed Mikhail had been through enough to forget he was even bound.


"Y'know, Mikhail, I can really respect you, yer words, yer cause... You don't have much left to lose, do ya?" When he heard the talk of speaking, becoming a traitor, and becoming captured, he nodded his head, crossing both arms behind his back and slapping his hands lightly on his forearms, "Ponyal, Ponyal, Mikhail... Er, soldat... Ponyal... You don't want to be a traitor, I don't want to make you one, but it wouldn't be me, no... Honestly I'd much rather be home with my family or out protecting my brothers in arms than be here, but seeing as I don't want to look like I am betraying my... "Oath", I have to stay by the words of my allies, my superiors... You understand, I'm sure, yes, I am sure... But as for my own interests, I could just... Call it a day, let ya smoke... After all, I am only here to make ya talk, and in my eyes I'd say this isn't a total failure, though it isn't a total win either... Eh, put a man in an interrogation room with another man from another union and what do you get? Two men in an interrogation room, perfect math, perfect math... Damn good logic as any, lemme tell ya."


Towards the end of the day was always when he got like this, restless because he was exhausted, his mind was exhausted, he couldn't think straight and all he truly had behind his blue eyes was his family, abusive father, loving, sweet mother... Oh mother... I will never forget how you looked when I left... Ah... But I have work, might as well've become a cop like ya said, eh ma? And my darlin', my sweet love Mi- He was cut off by the pull back into life, he'd said he'd give this man a cigarette and by golly, ol' Leroy Jones was no liar, no siree Bob. A heavy sigh left the young man as he poked out a cigarette, the box was a bit dusty but the guts were fine as ever, running in and out of shelter kicked up dirt, but it had rained so now his slacks were caked with mud, some still soggy soil stood on the surface of the slick material.


He approached the man, feeling rather tall at this point he bent over for the second time in his "interview" and rested his right elbow on the cold table, flipping the item between his middle and index finger and pointing the butt of the nicotine laced paper to the soldier's face. "You ain't gonna try and burn me, right", last guy that came in tried that, it doesn't actually do much so you'd be waistin' yer time on dead nerves... I doubt ya will, eh." His right eye drifted as if to note that the muscles in that part of his face were weakened, but he still looked straight at Mikhail and his shot eye as if it were nothing, though his own sight had kind of gone to shit.