Amin gazed out from behind the bars of a window on the upper floor of the fort. He looked down at the ice cubes in his tumbler of scotch as they vibrated softly before returning to staring outside as the distant bass thump of rotors broke the desert silence. His protégé entered the room. ‘He is coming...’ Amin said in a near whisper.
‘What?’
‘He is coming,’ Amin said louder.
‘Who? Who is coming?’
Amin stared out of the window with a resigned fateful look. ‘The Devil.’ Amin drank his scotch, returned to his desk and sank into his chair. He picked up a photo of his wife and daughter then stared at it.
The protégé went down the stairs, calling his men to action; he exited through fortress’s large wooden main door and looked up into the sky, shielding his eyes against the relentless glare from the sun. The thump grew louder until like a hurricane a vortex of rotor wash ripped the sand from around him as the hulking mass of a Hind helicopter gunship passed overhead before looping around in a circle. The fortress guards rushed out as the Hind made a wide circular arc around to shed speed before lining up towards the fort. The Tunisian conscripts spilled from their posts in blind panic and ran to cover as the Hind dipped its nose and fired a salvo of rockets into the perimeter walls’ main gate. The rockets impacted around the huge rusting iron trellis before the walls collapsed into rubble and the gates blew inwards off their hinges, landing with a sickening screech of tortured metal. As the dust settled, the conscripts dropped their rifles and fled in all directions out into the desert. The Hind moved to a hover before gently landing some two hundred metres from the fort. The rotors slowed to an idle as the turbine engines wound down, all fell silent and the cargo doors opened. The protégé raised his hand to shield against the overhead glare and made out a dozen shadowy black silhouette figures emerging through the distant heat haze, spread out into a line as they beat a slow deliberate march towards the prison.
‘What shall we do?’ the other security officers asked.
‘Call for reinforcements. Call everyone. Call anyone!’
The figures continued forwards. The protégé took out his pistol, and with a shaking hand, checked it was loaded. He walked forwards to the wreckage at the gate to confront the attackers, he made it halfway across the courtyard, level with the wooden poles, before a pair of high velocity rounds impacted, one on each knee, cutting him down to the floor. He tried to focus and aim his pistol as the twelve figures emerged through the smoke and burning wreckage of the gate and continued towards him. He aimed his pistol at the blurred outline of the centre-most figure. ‘Stop!’ he ordered. He tried to pull the trigger, but was already too weak. Alex grabbed the pistol from his hand and wrenched it outwards, crushing his wrist back on itself before he plunged a knife into the protégé’s neck. He gagged as Alex withdrew the blade before lifting his chin up to look at him. ‘Who are you?’
‘The last person you ever should have fucked with,’ Alex seethed before stabbing the blade clean through the top of his skull down to the hilt, discarding the lifeless corpse, blade still protruding as a warning to all of what was to come.
Alex continued on to the fort, looking up at the front central window, already knowing the location of his target. Escorted by his men, one by one each of the Tunisian security service members were swiftly executed before they could even respond.
Inside his office, Amin sat silently, listening to the tortured screams, the muffled struggles, the cracks of pistol shots, and then the heavy boots on the stairs. Then silence. He didn’t look up. The door creaked open slowly. Amin stared at the picture. ‘Do what you are here to do,’ Amin muttered.
‘No. You don’t get to leave so easily,’ Alex said with a chilling menace. A deep breath drawn, he slammed the door shut hard enough that the impact against the frame knocked the pictures off the walls. He walked over to the desk and stared down at Amin. ‘Your silence is incriminating.’
‘To protest would be pointless, there is no lie I can tell, to which the truth is not already known to you. That you are here makes it so very clear.’
Alex’s eyes dotted around the office. ‘This is all you are,’ he said. ‘Your life. This is it. Here in this room.’
‘Not all.’
Alex looked down at the photo he was holding. ‘Ah, yes. Not all...’ he said with a knowing smile. Amin finally looked up at Alex. Alex held out his hand for the picture, reluctantly Amin handed it him, knowing to protest was pointless, as Alex would simply take anything he desired with impunity. Alex looked at it. ‘It is a riddle. How something so ugly can have such a beautiful family.’
‘Is it not a riddle we share?’
‘No. We’re not the same.’
‘Aren’t we?’
‘You chose this. I did not. You created the situation. I merely reacted to it. We are not the same. You are the crime, I am the punishment.’
‘I would ask for mercy, for them. They have no part in this.’
Alex handed him the picture back. He walked over and opened the filing cabinet. He pulled out a stack of files, dropped them on the desk. He flipped through them casually. ‘What about them?’ Alex pulled off the photos from the files one by one and tossed them across the desk to Amin. ‘Did you show them mercy?’
‘They were not innocent.’
‘Who gave you the power to judge what is innocence and what is guilt?’
‘The same people who give you such power I imagine. We are all just tools of others.’
‘I’m not the one asking for mercy though, you are. You took these people, from their homes, their families. And you broke them in every way it is possible to break all that is decent and beautiful and pure. Some of them may have been guilty, but of what? A belief in their god, a belief in freedom, a belief in the right not to be ruled by tyranny? Terrorists or liberators? It’s all just a question of perspective. And the innocent? Simply enemies of a regime. Broken because they disagreed. You don’t have a shred of mercy in you.’ Alex drew a deep breath. ‘It hurts so much, doesn’t it? Not knowing. Not knowing. What has he done to them? Where are they? Will I ever see them again? Why? So many questions...and no answers. Now you’ll feel my pain.’ Alex headed for the door. He stopped and looked half over his shoulder. ‘My wrath is yet to come.’ Alex exited Amin’s room into the corridor. Nish looked at him. ‘Take him outside. Give him the full legionnaire’s experience.’ Alex walked away.
Alex made his way slowly down the stairs; he reached the bottom and walked down the corridor.
The pitiful wretches that were once human cowered in the shadows of their cells; fearful of what devilry the wind had blown in. Alex looked at each of them as he walked down. He stopped on his heels, sensing he had reached the place, he didn’t want to look, wary of what he might find inside, at once wanting an answer, but afraid of what it may be, and if he could tolerate the agony it would unleash. He pushed the door open and peered around it towards the bed to find an empty space. He walked in slowly, lowered himself to sit on the bed. Alex picked up the rough wool blanket and stared at it before lifting it up to his nose and inhaling deeply. Amidst the stench of decay his attuned nostrils picked up the most delicate remnants of a floral bouquet he recognised only too well, he gave his lungs a second wind as he pulled every last trace of it trying to prevent it escaping into the ether. He held it in, savouring the memories it evoked, the emotional connection. His eyes closed, mere hints of tears rolled from his lashes onto his cheeks. ‘My love...’ his eyes opened and he looked up. ‘Where are you?’
He got up again and placed the blanket over his shoulder. He walked over to the wall and scanned the old sandstone carvings made by so many inmates, reading its history with every inscription until a fresh mark caught his eye.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
He reached his finger and traced each word delicately, admiring the precision of the calligraphy on such a harsh canvas, imagining the care and time taken to fill the void with such a laborious task. He knew the verse well, from Tennyson’s Ulysses, he remembered reciting it to the person who carved it. He looked around the cell, memorising every inch of it, imagining the time spent there, waiting for the tormentor to come. At once hating the entrapment, but strangely comforted for the sanctuary from the pain and suffering endured outside it. He slowly, reluctantly, exited into the corridor. His head turned to the right, drawn to the door at the end of the corridor, knowing where it led, drawing him in to bear witness to the truth of its horror. To know and to feel what she had felt. He walked in and stared at the empty table in the middle. The chair. The buckets. The electric clamps. The table set by the wall full of knives and cutting tools. The blood stained so deep into the stone it could never be washed away. The wretched stink of fear, of misery, of pain, of suffering and pleading. The thick low ceiling ensuring no prayers to anything above would ever be heard. He walked over and slumped into the chair. Stared ahead, imagined the stoic resolve to maintain dignity, chipped away by the sense of hopelessness, that no end would come, no escape was possible. He sat silently, soul soaked in all the spirits of the lives that had been ended so brutally, so casually, and without remorse. The knowing that those left behind would never learn of what happened here.
‘Alex.’ He heard a distant voice say. ‘Alex.’ Nish’s voice echoed.
‘She was here. She was here...’
‘We’ve searched everywhere. There’s no records. He’s probably burned them.’
Alex nodded, still seemingly lost. Nish walked over and put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, Alex instinctively reached up and squeezed it, hanging onto it as a child to its parent. ‘I can’t bear it Nish.’ Tears welled in Alex’s eyes. ‘If she’s...I don’t know that I can stand to know.’ Alex’s tears broke in an emotional flood.
‘Hey come on. Shhh.’ Nish hugged Alex as he wrapped his arms around him, tears welled in his own eyes as he saw the most effective tool of destruction he’d ever trained reduced to a tattered and emotionally lost helpless little boy at the mere prospect of losing that which all he had become was anchored on. ‘It’s going to be okay. You need to be strong for her. She needs The Dragon. She needs it.’ Nish held the tears back, sensing the raging emotional torment his young protégé, the man who was as close to a son as he ever had, hung on to the slimmest of hopes with a thread. For Nish knew, as Alex knew only too well, in the dark places of the world they existed there were no happy endings, and there were no heroes deaths to be celebrated, only the beaten and abused shattered remnants of the once proud laid bare to the fragile skin and bone that they were left with when dispossessed of their souls. Alex pulled himself together. ‘Come on now. You can’t let the boys see you in this mess. If they catch us hugging like this they’ll think we’ve caught the gay.’ Alex wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Come on get up.’ Nish dragged Alex back to his feet. ‘You okay?’
Alex nodded and wiped his nose. ‘Yeah, just too real. Too fucking real.’
‘Aye well. We’ve got a job to do, you’ll thank me for this later, I need to get you back in gear.’ Nish delivered an almighty punch into Alex’s midriff completely winding him. A second blow smashed into his face knocking him clean off his feet. ‘Come on you big pussy, don’t fucking sit snivelling on the fucking floor! Let’s fucking go!’ Nish went to kick him. Something instinctive triggered and Alex, quick as lightning, grabbed Nish’s leg and pulled him off balance before twisting him and knocking him over. Nish countered with a second punch and Alex, face now red with rage, responded with a pair of jabs.
‘That’s it you fucking cunt, let’s see you fucking fight!’ Alex stopped before landing his final punch, full of anger and fury. ‘Now you’re ready,’ Nish said.
Alex handed Nish the blanket, he got to his knees, wiped his bloodied nose and made his way out of the cellblock. Nish got up, patted himself down and followed. He stopped and unlocked the cells as he went. He reached upstairs. ‘Get them all out of there Sooty. Our quarrel isn’t with those poor beggars. Let them go.’ Sooty summoned a pair of helpers and went to empty the cells.
Nish exited the fort. Alex was marching to Amin’s position, now tied to a wooden pole facing the prison. Alex stopped short. He stared at Amin, resisting the immediate temptation to rip him apart with his bare teeth. Nish caught up with Alex, who was staring at Amin with the rage of a man possessed. ‘Bring them in,’ Alex spat.
Nish took out his radio. ‘Bring in the package.’
Amin tried to turn his head to see what was coming, before turning his attention to the line of emancipated skeletons now lining outside the prison, waiting dispassionately for The Rat’s humiliation, sensing that justice was about to be served and they could then at least leave with some sense of their dignity restored.
Alex didn’t break his demonic stare from The Rat for a second. A chilling stare that even The Rat shuddered to meet, knowing what a man with such a look could be capable of. He looked over his shoulder again before finally his nightmare was realised as Alex’s men dragged his wife and young daughter past him. Whatever rudimentary torture Amin had practiced, Alex was the dark master of psychologically breaking people.
In a pre-orchestrated theatre of power, Alex’s men tied Amin’s daughter and his wife to the vacant poles in Amin’s view, but far enough apart he could only see one within his field of vision at a time, forcing him to choose his final emotional allegiance, forsaking the other.
‘Please, I’m begging you. She’s just a child!’ The Rat pleaded.
‘We’re all children...’ Alex’s cold reply came. The men finished tying them up and then retreated, his wife and daughter looked at Amin for some hope, but Amin knew, as his own victims had known, there was none to be had that his captor was not prepared to cede. ‘The Rat!’ Alex spat. ‘Your audience! I wonder how many will choose to stay and watch you burn, even if they burn with you.’
‘Please, I’m begging you!’ It was the Rat’s turn to break down in tears, as confronted with the emotional reality of what he was about to lose, all his past sins were visited upon him, he lifted his head up to the sky and started praying in Arabic.
‘Allah isn’t listening Rat.’ Alex walked over and told him in Arabic. ‘I am the Angel of Death and he is not listening.’
‘Please! I beg you.’
‘You have a choice, I can torment you with their passing until sundown, or you can all leave together. You can ease their passage into the afterlife by betraying those you are about to leave behind, or you can honour them with your deafening silence, drowned out by the screams of your family.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Where is she?’
‘She is alive. They took her. I promise you, they took her alive, I did not know, as soon as I knew then she was not touched. I swear on my daughter’s head, she was touched by no man’s hand!’
‘What did you do, before you knew. What did you do?’
‘Please...’
‘Did you cut her? Electric? Did you rape her?’
‘No, nothing! Just some waterboarding. Only a few minutes. Twice. Then she gives us your name and everything is stopped. Please! For my family. It is the truth.’
‘Who took her?’
‘Smythe took her, David Smythe.’
‘When?’
‘Yesterday. Last evening.’
‘Where did he take her?’
‘I do not know, I swear! He came in helicopter and took her. On my daughter’s life it is the truth. Spare her. Have you no shame?’
‘No, I really haven’t. I have pity. I pity the human race is capable of the things we do, that places like this exist, and a system that produces people like me. Do you know what it means to be Russian? It is to suffer the slavery of a society that places no value on human life outside your own family, and sometimes none within it. If you had seen the things I have seen, what you do here is really nothing. I pity us all, so I have no shame because this is not a world for beautiful things like your wife and daughter, it is a world made ugly by men like you and me and all that we do in their name because we don’t stand up for others who can’t stand. Shame? What use is shame in the face of such overwhelming disdain for the sanctity of human life? Their lives must be taken, it is written to atone for all the lives you have broken. They must be sacrificed so your pain is welded to your soul for all eternity in this dying moment, that you ever revisit this world you find some kindness to others, and never inflict what you are about to feel on another living being.’
Amin’s face fell with shock. ‘My god...’ he exclaimed. ‘You really are the Angel of Death, I would not believe it if I did not look into your eyes and see it. I have seen it so many times in that room, I felt your presence on my shoulder so many times, and I know I now feel it here...how is it even possible...’
Alex retreated. He turned around and faced Amin’s prisoners. ‘Those of you who committed to a life of violence then witness this. This is violence. This is the face of death. Repent with the rest of your lives that you have been given back for a second chance, bear witness to this day that The Dragon burned The Rat in the fires of hell and damnation for all the evil he has perpetrated here. Think on your sins. Judgement will be done. Those who want to watch him burn then stay, the rest are free to go.’ Alex turned round and walked away. Nish and the rest of his men fell in behind as they retreated towards the helicopter. Of the captives, some fled. Some fell to their knees, bowed and prayed to Allah. Some simply stared at The Rat, perhaps thankful at a quick release from the memory of what had been done to them. Amin felt a sense of calm wash over him that he was powerless to act. That no mortal thing could stand in the way of such an immense spectre of nature. Perhaps it was an illusion, sunstroke set in within ten minutes on the legionnaires’ pole, hallucinations were quick to follow — it mattered little. He stared at his daughter, thankful she had no concept of the fate that awaited her, innocent of all that the world could make her, that she would never live to be old enough to be disappointed in her father after what he’d done to her, or feel ashamed of the work he had carried out in duty to the state. He cared only that she had been spared the worst that this Angel of Death could have brought to bear.
The rotors whirred into life as the team boarded the Hind; it lifted off and hovered briefly before dipping its nose and accelerating over the fortress, kicking up sand in a maelstrom around Amin. Seconds later, the sonorous roar of jet engines drowned out the rotor blades. The Mig-29 dipped low as a pair of free-fall bombs left their pylons and gliding in a gentle path towards the compound. They exploded in a line, a huge plume of bright orange towering flames engulfing the fortress as the napalm ignited sucking air in to feed its flames higher into a column of thick black smoke. The Mig made a wide lazy arc turn before lining up for a second pass, the secondary pylons released their payload, the bombs drifted down before detonating into the fortress building, the high explosive ordinance shattering the old building in all directions, reducing it to nothing more than rubble and memories, a graveyard monument to all the lives that had suffered within its walls as it was finally purged from existence by the wrath of The Dragon’s flames.