CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

AFTER A WHILE you grew accustomed to the screams.

De Falaise had learnt that fairly early on in his career. He was damned sure Tanek had as well. In fact, the huge slab of a man in front of him had probably been born with the capacity to shut out the cries of pain. Or was it more than that? Had he grown to actually enjoy hearing them, to find them just as pleasing as a Beethoven symphony?

When it came right down to it, this represented everything De Falaise was about. The strong having control over the weak. And he had all of his troops’ lives in the palms of his hands, could send for any of them at any time and just pop a bullet into their skull as an example. But there was something infinitely more satisfying about doing it this way. It was the difference between a nuclear explosion destroying a city, killing millions, and a laser cutting out a tumour. Meticulous work. De Falaise had observed Tanek’s technique on many occasions. He’d seen Tanek extract information from the most reluctant of sources, men De Falaise thought would never crack. In the end they all did; it was just a matter of pushing the right buttons.

Which brought him back to the screams. Down here, away from prying eyes, and illuminated by a jury-rigged lighting system, Tanek laboured at his work. The subjects this time: two men and a woman. All were hanging in chains. None of them knew each other, but they did have one thing in common. They’d all been turned in for speaking about The Hooded Man: at markets, gatherings in villages, on street corners. De Falaise had his spies, so scared to put a foot wrong they’d rather turn in those who had befriended them than risk being brought down to these caves themselves.

The reports filtering back were displeasing. Yes, people were frightened of the Frenchman, as well they should be. A legend was forming around De Falaise, of what he did to anyone who opposed him, what he did under the castle with his prisoners. But stories of his men’s initial attacks on villages had only dominated talk for a short time. Now other tales were being spread.

These new stories revolved around Henrik and the tank, around Javier’s incompetence in the forest (for which he’d not only lost his ear, but his freedom down in these dungeons). The last outrage had made De Falaise so angry that in a fit of rage he’d ordered the statue outside the castle to be torn down...

Word had also spread about the soldiers who’d swapped their allegiance. De Falaise had put paid to any ideas of resistance amongst his own men quickly enough, by stringing the bodies of the soldiers who had returned with Javier up on posts in the courtyard for all to see. He’d even called a gathering to say a few words about their presence. “This is the price of failure,” he’d shouted. “Look upon it, and mark that it is not yourself next time!”

But if De Falaise was inspiring dread among not only the populace, but his own army, then this man who was following in the footsteps of an old legend was sending out another message. One of hope, of freedom.

And hardly surprising: in the past weeks since De Falaise had lost Savero – another one of his elite – and the goods he was carrying, there had been more attacks, more losses. It was clear that if something wasn’t done soon, the tide could very swiftly turn against him.

“I will not lose everything I’ve worked so hard for,” he’d screamed at Tanek. “Not because of some half-breed savage with a knife and a bow and arrow!”

It was clear that this man – whose real name De Falaise did not even know – had learned a lot about him, and his plans. De Falaise intended to redress the balance.

Hence these three prisoners, cherry picked for shooting their mouths off about the Hooded Man. They’d been bundled into the backs of jeeps under armed guard, brought to the castle, and deposited here in one of the dank chambers De Falaise had requisitioned for his needs. Or, more specifically, for Tanek’s.

The girl he’d taken as his plaything would end up in the dungeons soon, too, De Falaise thought to himself. He was growing tired of her. The limp rag doll impression he’d found such a turn on at first was growing wearisome to say the least. While it was true he preferred no resistance, he was not a huge fan of necrophilia, either.

Another scream brought his attention back to the prisoners. Tanek was applying a hot iron to the oldest of the men, rubbing it up and down his thigh. He’d worked his way up the leg and would soon reach a place that would cause the maximum amount of pain. De Falaise had no sympathy for him. It could all end now if the prisoner would only tell them what he knew of the renegade... the renegades, he should say.

For they now knew that the man in the hood was no longer alone, after Javier had spilled his guts about what had happened in the forest. There were at least two trusted aides, it would seem.

“A holy man, you say?” De Falaise had questioned, rubbing his chin.

“The... the one from Hope, my Lord,” Javier spluttered, the side of his head a mess of dried blood.

De Falaise struck him. “You no longer have the right to call me that!”

“I’m sorry... I’m so sorry...”

De Falaise had leaned forward. “What was that, I didn’t quite catch what you were saying?”

“I said I’m sorry!” Javier hissed, spittle flying from his mouth. “I was scared...”

“More scared of your ‘maker’ than you are of me?” De Falaise said. “Why?”

Javier couldn’t answer. He just stared at De Falaise.

“Do you not understand, is it not apparent to you? Around here I am God! Your allegiance is to me! It is too late anyway for you to make your peace with whichever deity you choose to believe in. You’ve travelled too far down another path for that. The holy man lied to you if he was offering you salvation, you stupid turd. But I will keep you alive until you have learned your lesson, Javier. Which starts with telling me more about this Hooded Man’s gang.”

De Falaise had listened as his former major described a man in a checked shirt who carried a shotgun, someone small he hadn’t got much of a look at, and now Granger, the halfwit they’d picked up down in London.

“Ah, yes, him,” De Falaise had nodded knowingly. “I thought he might be trouble eventually.”

Even including the men he’d commandeered from Savero, the man in the hood couldn’t have much of an army... Unless more joined him from the villages.

It was nothing compared to De Falaise’s militia, but it was still a worry.

Tanek left the man he was burning and turned his attention to the woman. “Please, I’ve told you everything I know,” she said, sniffing back tears. “He lives in the forest somewhere. I haven’t even seen him!”

“No need to cry,” De Falaise said softly. “No need at all.” A sharp nod of the head and Tanek was reaching for his knife – not the one he usually carried, the soldier’s knife. This one was more like a scalpel. He brought the blade up with one hand, cupping the back of the woman’s head with the other. His hand was so big it covered almost the whole of her scalp. Then Tanek jammed the blade into her left eye and scooped out the orb. The woman screamed, the cry louder and much more piercing than the man who’d endured the iron.

“You see,” commented De Falaise. “No more tears now. Much better.”

Tanek flicked the eye from the knife, then made to take out the other one.

“For pity’s sake!” shouted the younger man.

“Pity?” asked De Falaise, turning towards him. “Pity? Pity is for the feeble and the foolish. You do not know this, which is why you are the one in the shackles, mon ami.”

Tanek finished up with the woman. When he moved to the side, De Falaise could see the holes in her face where the eyes had once been. Her scream had turned into a low moan. De Falaise gestured for Tanek to tackle the next subject.

“And it is also why, you see...” the Frenchman continued, stepping aside so that Tanek could get past with his next implement of torture, a drill, “you will be next.”

The man began screaming even before Tanek drove the drill bit into his kneecap.

 

 

THE THREE PRISONERS told De Falaise nothing he hadn’t already known. The people feared and hated him, they admired and cheered for the Hooded Man.

“Something has to be done about the situation,” De Falaise commented when they exited the chamber, leaving the half-dead bodies behind them, “before it gets out of hand.”

“What?” Tanek asked, climbing the steps behind De Falaise.

“I have an idea. You see, it strikes me that if we cannot take him in his native environment, we must smoke him out somehow, non? And the way to do that is to eat at his conscience. You do know what that is, don’t you?” said De Falaise laughing. Tanek didn’t even crack a smile. “Yes, that is it. Tanek, if all goes to plan, then we will soon bring down this ‘hero’ and his band. We will rewrite history, and I will have his head before the summer is out!”