The Second Seal

by Sean Deville

  “Hassan would not do drugs.”

  “I’m sure you are right, but who can say with kids these days. If he was picked up and found to be in possession, why that would be devastating.”

  “You cannot do this,” the informant screamed. He had escaped Iraq to get away from men like this, only to find things were no better. Fox looked around. There would be no cameras here.

  The informant never saw the fist. He felt it, though, doubling over as Fox hit him below the ribs.

  “I can do whatever I like. You should realise that by now.” With a defiant inhale, the informant pulled himself straight.

  “What is it you want to know?” The informant was the treasurer of his mosque. It had seemed like an honour at the time, his business skills going to good use for his faith. Then Brian Fox walked into his life.

  “You tell me. What have you seen that is out of the ordinary?” The informant shook his head, as if trying to knock something loose.

  “There is something, but it is probably nothing.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” Fox felt a tingle of excitement in his gut. Come on, give me something. Fox had a desire to protect his country, but he also wanted the notoriety that came with saving the day.

  “Something my wife told me.”

  “And what does your wife know?”

  “My wife runs the local Muslim women’s resource centre. One of the women who use it came to her upset.”

  “Jesus, will you spit it out?”

  “This woman, her boyfriend brought a man to his house. She did not like him. He was a foreigner, but new to this country, so she said.”

  “Well that’s nothing revelatory. I don’t like any of you.”

  “She did not like him because he had a gun and made her boyfriend nervous.”

  “Do you have an address?”

  “My wife might know,” the informant said reluctantly.

  “You get me that information and I might go easy on you for a while. I’m disappointed in you though. You are our eyes and ears, and I expect you to use them. I shouldn’t be having to threaten you like this. If you hear anything, you are supposed to come straight to me, okay?”

  “Yes, I will do that in future.”

  Fox slapped him gently on the cheek. “Good boy. Now run along.” The informant didn’t need telling twice, the smaller man scampering off for the fake safety of his shop.

  Shake the tree and see what drops. That had been the order from on high. Someone up in the hierarchy of Homeland was panicked about something, Fox could tell. No doubt the NSA had uncovered chatter and had filtered it down to all the organisations. It was for men like Fox to then uncover what that chatter might mean.

  All he had been told was there was an impending attack on New York. The NSA had their electronic ears listening in on conversations all across the globe. Sometimes those ears heard things that amounted to nothing, but a lot of the time, the intelligence was workable and could be used to prevent atrocities.

  Fox’s informant had come to his attention nine months ago when one of the delivery boys the informant’s business used was arrested on weapons charges. One of the guns found in his apartment was linked to several robberies, and then ICE had become involved because low and behold, the delivery boy had been found to be here illegally. That had given Fox the leverage he needed to start turning the screws on the informant.

  “You employed an illegal immigrant. A violent one at that.” Fox had no doubt the person he’d harassed was a decent man trying to make his way in the world, but Fox cared jack about that. It was good to have his unwilling spies snooping away in the heart of the religion Fox saw as being majorly problematic for America.

  If he could have his way, he would round up all the illegals, stick them on a train and dump them outside the borders of his country. If some of them were to die in the process, well, that would be just too bad.

  Although Fox was a bully, he hid this from the normal routine of his workday. He didn’t try that on any of his fellow agents, or the support staff who bloated the ICE bureaucracy. No, Fox reserved such pleasure for the hapless souls that fell afoul of him.

  It was one of the things that made him feel all nice and perky in the morning.

  41.

  Watford, UK

  Lilith lay dangling from a loop in the ceiling. Her groin was still in agony from the ordeal she had been put through, her abdomen bruised and red from the punches the two men kept inflicting on her. Again, their faces were hidden by balaclavas. Lilith’s legs were unshackled, her body swaying as the fists impacted, the two men standing either side of her.

  They had been at this for a good hour. She had to admit, Veronica knew what she was doing, another punch landing under her ribs. They could have put more force behind it, instead they held back enough to deal pain without the risk of permanent injury.

  Both men seemed to be playing some kind of cruel game. If the muscles they were punching hadn’t been so tight and honed, they likely wouldn’t have made her suffer this punishment. Prolonged trauma such as this could be fatal in some.

  By her reckoning, she had held out for nearly twenty-four hours so far, but already she could feel herself weakening. She would continue to resist, but sooner or later they would find the thing that made her crack. It gave her no comfort to know that her Lord Jesus Christ had also suffered. The tales of what he had endured didn’t come close to what had been done to him.

  Lilith’s present ordeal was tame by comparison.

  “You getting tired yet, Bob?” one of the men said.

  “No. I can do this for hours, Fred.” Bob and Fred were undoubtedly not their real names.

  “Are you looking forward to the fun we will get to have with her?” The psychological aspect of the interrogation was as important as the physical. Another blow landed.

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.” Lilith wouldn’t have objected to their threats, even if her mouth wasn’t presently taped shut. To be honest she barely heard them. In a predicament such as this, she tried her best to zone herself out, sending her mind to another place where it could hide and be sheltered from the endless pounding. Whenever it broke through, she would use the pain, each punch part of the mantra that was being played in her head.

  Still, she knew she was weakening. This was what disturbed her the most. She had suffered a great deal in her life, and every hour that passed would see her one step closer to her breaking point. Lilith didn’t have the strength of the saints. She was merely a lowly soldier in a war without apparent end.

  There was a shift in the air around her. Someone had entered the room.

  “My, she looks ripe,” Veronica suddenly said. Lilith opened her eyes, saw that the torturer had entered the room and stood by her. With a hand, Veronica sent her prisoner into a gentle spin, the room swirling around Lilith. On the second revolution, Lilith noticed her tormenter over by the metal table with the instruments, picking up something.

  “I think she likes the attention,” Bob said. The tape was ripped from her lips.

  “I know you boys are eager to get inside her, but we aren’t there yet,” Veronica advised. On her final rotation, Lilith got to see what Veronica was holding. It was a long thin stiletto blade. Veronica used the blade to stop Lilith’s motion, the end breaking the skin. Several times she poked the knife into the abdomen, not deep, enough for the tip to penetrate.

  “I hope that’s sterile,” Lilith managed. She felt out of breath, her diaphragm undoubtedly bruised. This was not the response Veronica was expecting and, wiping the knife’s blood onto Lilith’s skin, Veronica slid the knife, blade up, into her jacket’s outer breast pocket.

  “Lower her down,” Veronica ordered. One of the men grunted in disappointment, but there was an electronic whir, and Lilith felt her body descend to the floor, her legs buckling as the feet hit solidity. Bob gave her a kick in the guts for good measure. Lilith barely noticed with the background agony that was threatening to consume her. H
er whole body was anguish.

  “It’s your chance to shine again,” Veronica said. Lilith lay there, her mind groggy, thoughts that shouldn’t be present drifting in and out. Whatever was being done to her was part of a process, building towards some grand finale. The worst was yet to come, but before that fateful time, she was being acclimatised, broken in so the effects could be ever more devastating. Just as had been done to her Lord and Saviour.

  “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do,” he had said. There was no forgiveness to be found in Lilith’s heart.

  Why not tell the bitch what she wants to know?

  “You’ve lasted well and proven yourself. You can be proud of what you’ve accomplished. Very few I have worked on have lasted this long.” Lilith didn’t say anything, her vision swirling. Something was thrust under her nose, the smelling salts sending a burst of energy through her as it stimulated the Vagus nerve. “If you speak now, there will be something left of you. You will still be whole, complete. If you keep your silence, I will take all that away from you.”

  “I can’t…” Lilith said. Her lips were caked in blood, her throat dry. Her voice barely registered.

  “Give her something to drink,” Veronica ordered. Lilith tried to resist the beaker that was thrust to her mouth, but a strong hand held her head still, another holding her nose closed. Normally she could have held her breath for several minutes, but this was not a normal situation. Finally, she relented, the cool liquid surging down her throat. It felt normal, the oral route unlikely to be used for the administration of drugs.

  Christ suffered worse than this, her mind told her. You can withstand more.

  “So, let me tell you what is going to happen over the next three hours,” Veronica said. “You are fortunate though, because the people paying me have put me under certain restrictions. I was going to start removing the skin from your feet, slowly, working up from there, but I’m told that would be too messy.” Lilith didn’t believe the words. She had come to the conclusion there were no restrictions here. She was right. Britain’s laws did not apply in this room.

  “I’m resorting to chemicals next. Now that you’ve been broken in, you should be more pliable to the various truth serums we have available.”

  “What, Amobarbital?” Lilith managed to sneer.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, this isn’t the dark ages. You might remember we took some blood from you at the start of your journey with us. The results of that are back, and I have a little concoction I want to try on you. Unfortunately, I have to warn you that you won’t enjoy it. Think of all the pain I have inflicted, now imagine if that was directed into your mind.” Veronica squatted down. She was still wearing the business suit so the real brutality was still in the future. “You won’t be the same afterwards. By the time I’m done, you will be afraid of everything. I will transform your thoughts and make you relive every horror you have ever witnessed.”

  “Go to Hell,” Lilith managed.

  “But my dear, there isn’t room for two of us there.” Veronica looked at the two men. “Get her to the chair.” Lilith felt her arms grabbed, the handcuffs binding them removed. Thick fingers held her wrists, and she felt herself being dragged across the smooth floor. The chair Veronica had referred to was the one with the gynaecological leg straps.

  “You are going to pay for this,” Lilith said. She was about to say something more, except that was the moment the lights went out.

  ***

  It was a long-held belief that the British did not engage in advanced interrogation techniques, and even when they did, such practices were done outside the UK in one of the numerous countries that still allowed such activities. The Americans called it rendition.

  As Lilith was discovering, this was not technically accurate.

  Because of the nature of what had to be done to Lilith, reinforced by the anger induced in the colleagues of the men she had killed, Lilith had been taken to an MI6 facility north of the city of Watford. Originally, the building had been bought and modified years ago to act as a place to take those in dire need of protection. Defectors, high-level whistle-blowers and the like. After nine-eleven, however, there was a radical change in policy because it was decided that the world had changed. With the threat of international and domestic terrorism growing, there was a need for a secure and secluded area where dangerous and often violent individuals could be questioned outside the scope of the law. It was an off-the-books establishment, unknown to the bulk of people who worked for the secret intelligence services. It was certainly kept secret to the unpredictable British public.

  There was only one such establishment in the UK, and those who knew of it called it Ballard’s hole, an MI6 owned structure. It wasn’t the first time MI5 had borrowed it off their sister organisation. After tonight, it would likely be demolished because its covert status was about to be shattered.

  For those with the means, finding Lilith’s location wasn’t hard. The tracking chip in her clavicle allowed for an accurate GPS location of Lilith’s last known location. It presently wasn’t registering, the frequency blocked by the fact Lilith was underground. Her tracker hadn’t reappeared, so the Order of Tyron were pretty certain they knew where she was, and Dmitri had been given that information.

  There was also the possibility the tracker had been found and removed, but that would require a surgical procedure so had been discounted. Nobody thought Lilith was dead, because that could have been accomplished beneath the streets of London.

  Dmitri had a big enough team to pull this off, but it was still a mission with significant risk. One of the things in their favour was the building was masquerading as a farm house, so its structure, although reinforced, was unlikely to be an impenetrable bunker. If this had been in Russia, there would have been no chance of such success for Lilith would have been sequestered deep beneath the Kremlin.

  The British were quaint in their ways, and without the data from the tracking chip, that quaintness would have been effective.

  The farm was approached by a single road bordered by high hedges. It was surrounded by fields never farmed. It had a main residential building and several outhouses, the perimeter marked by a thick wire fence that was partially hidden by foliage. The road led up to a single iron gate which was electronically controlled. To add to this, the whole area was watched by an array of surveillance cameras that allowed those in the farm house to monitor the surroundings. From his understanding of the design, Fedor had determined those perimeter cameras would be blinded once the mains electricity was dealt with.

  Dmitri had deduced that such a facility would have five agents guarding it, probably less. Observation had already determined there were two armed men stationed outside, and that the outhouses were likely abandoned. The defenders would not be expecting such an overt assault, and so would make the classic mistake of thinking they were safer than they were. Dmitri had encountered that a lot in his military career, strategic and secure locations compromised by stupidity and complacency.

  Dmitri and his team were hidden outside the perimeter of the building when the electricity was cut by hacking into the local power grid. Except for Fedor’s laptop screen, there was no evidence the farm house was now without mains power. Any internal lights would wink off, but only for a moment, and none were visible in the daylight. They would be quickly replaced by the dimmer emergency lighting such a building would be fitted with.

  Next, Fedor jammed the surrounding mobile phone network with a radio frequency jammer, which also made any satellite phones and two-way radios in the area expensive boxes with buttons that beeped. They had also incapacitated the local landline cabinet. It was unlikely such a remote location was part of the secure fibre optic network linking Britain’s more secretive facilities together. All this meant that, unless the safe house had a readily available stock of carrier pigeons, those inside were on their own. It also disadvantaged the attackers, the jammer broad enough to cover all available frequencies. There were ways
around that.

  Anastasia had positioned herself on a hill which overlooked much of the farm, Fedor seated by a tree behind her.

  “Power and communications are down,” Fedor informed her.

  As her team approached the wire, she sighted down on the first target, killing the perimeter guard and the dog he had on his leash. Her weapon, like those of all her team, was silenced. Even so, the sound would be enough to alert any defenders worth their salt. It would be a noise never heard in the surrounding nature and it also acted as the go signal for three hardened men to attack the farmhouse. Five seconds later, she had her third kill. The men she had no regret about, although Anastasia never liked shooting dogs. They were blameless, unwilling servants that deserved better in life.

  Having cut access through a vulnerable point in the perimeter fence the Russians engaged the building in a single team, Anastasia covering their approach. Any unlucky face that appeared at a window risked being shot with armour-piercing ammunition. They approached from the left of the main drive using the outhouses for cover. The surrounding farm building grounds were open, trees and any substantial foliage having been deliberately removed to provide good visibility. For a brief moment they would be vulnerable.

  The team moved fast, surprise giving them the edge they needed to close the distance. A face came into view at one of the top windows, a bullet ripping through the hardened glass and shattering the man’s face. Four to add to her tally of lives taken. Anastasia watched as the three men advanced and reached the house, masks obscuring their facial features. If the target they were here to rescue was indeed in that building, she would be the only person the Wolf Squad would leave alive.

  ***

  The lights did not stay off for long, but when they returned they were a dimmer brightness. Emergency lighting off a battery or generator. The faintest hint of a smile crept onto Lilith’s face for she knew she had been given her one and only opportunity. The rescue she had never expected had come.