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Killov said with exaggerated politeness. “Perhaps you are afraid you will fall out of the chair and that is what is stopping you from feeling the power. You,” the KGB colonel snapped out at the others, standing silently in the center of the room. “Tie him down with your belts to the chair—so that he will not fall.”
    Without hesitation the officers walked forward and against Kraskow’s terrified protests, strapped him down to the chair with belts tied around his arms and legs. They pulled back and Killov again addressed the now-shaking officer, his eyes wide as saucers.
    “Now—you know you did cause me pain, don’t you?” Killov asked the man, addressing him almost tenderly as a parent would an errant child who had broken a plate.
    “Yes sir, I know,” Kraskow began, seeing his last chance to plead for his life. “It was my only mistake, Excellency. I have been a loyal and obedient officer. Why, just last month you gave me a commendation for—”
    “Yes, yes, last month. But the past is dead along with all the bodies that lie buried in it. Last night—we are talking now about last night. Now I’m going to give you a great honor,” Killov went on, walking around the desk with his hands clasped behind his back. As the drugs filtered into his bloodstream, his eyes grew narrower and narrower, his face flushed with the chemicals that raced through him. He searched for each word as if it were of critical importance that it be just the right one—as if he were reciting Shakespeare.
    “Yes, a great honor. I suffered last night, Kraskow. Suffered pains worse than death. And I found it in some ways quite educational. I am going to share this with you, my friend. Let you experience the glory of pain as I did. The enlightenment of suffering.”
    “Excellency, Excellency—my wife, my—” Kraskow sputtered.
    “Shut up, pig. Your groveling merely shows that you have never been worthy of wearing the Blackshirt or the Deathhead pin that sits on your collar,” Killov screamed out, reaching over and ripping the golden insignia of the KGB Officer Corps from Kraskow’s lapel. The KGB leader stood back and looked at the offending officer as if contemplating a great work of art—trying to understand it, comprehend its every nuance. For Killov was, if nothing else, an artist of pain. Instruments of torture were his brushes and the human body was his canvas.
    “Yes, I see it now,” he whispered with delight. The full strength of the handful of chemicals he had swallowed was hitting him like a tidal wave—ripples of fire rushing through his screaming open veins, his vision slightly wobbly and hazed over with the soft pall of gray and gold he knew and loved so well. His lips had dried to white string beans, devoid of any color whatsoever; his cheeks were sunken in, valleys in which shadows gathered to die. His eyes were filled with the raging madness that the officers had seen before. It filled them to the very depth of their bowels with a sick and nauseated sensation. For in his madness, Killov had performed acts of torture that the stomachs of even the most hardened of his murderers could not take. Killov was the leader of them all in the infliction of such sensations. He led them into the darkest recesses of the human soul. Places where there was no sky, no God, no love or hope. Just sadism—sadism taken to an infinite degree.
    “Yes, beautiful,” Killov barked out, specks of yellow foam gathering around the corners of his mouth from the drug dehydration like the froth of a rabid dog. He clapped his hands. “Please gather around our esteemed colleague, Kraskow. Come, come,” he snapped impatiently as they faltered. He made them stand just inches away from the seated figure, whose face was now washed from forehead to chin with a thin sheen of sweat and tears.
    The KGB commander reached down suddenly into his boot and pulled out a long sharp single-sided blade with glistening steel flames of light racing along