The Second Seal

by Sean Deville

  “Mrs Robinson isn’t like that,” insisted Emily. Creed ignored her.

  “Then one day two children went missing, and the boy knew that it was down to the cloud. He tried to tell people, but they didn’t listen because he was just a boy.”

  “Sounds familiar,” James pointed out.

  “And then one day the boy was kidnapped by the man, and up close he saw an evil that he never knew existed. Is that what you think you see Emily? Evil?”

  “Yes,” Emily agreed, barely in a whisper. “What happened to the boy?”

  “That’s another story. But he was rescued and grew up to be a priest.”

  “That boy was you?” Emily seemed elated. She turned to Vicky. “Mummy, does this mean I have to be a priest now?”

  “No. You can be whatever you want.”

  “Phew,” Emily exhaled. “I don’t think black is my colour.”

  “So, you experienced the same thing?” Vicky enquired.

  “Yes. I still do.” Creed looked at Vicky, his mind ticking over. “It’s rare I ever share this information, but I sense you were sent to me for a reason.”

  “I’m struggling to take all this in,” Vicky admitted.

  “I would be surprised if it was any other way.”

  “So, can you help me?” Vicky asked hesitantly.

  “No, but maybe, I know someone who can.” Someone who was not a million miles away. In fact, that someone was sleeping in the room next to them.

  50.

  New York, USA

  There was no hiding the fact that Fox was unwelcome here. The glances he got from the women present were full of distrust, even hate. His kind had been hounding their kind for decades.

  Fox wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Standing in the doorway, he knew he was interrupting the meeting and he didn’t care. The women were seated around in a circle, mostly non-Caucasians, some wearing various forms of Islamic head dress that so annoyed him. This was some kind of support group, and he was an unnecessary and uninvited invader. With his badge displayed prominently on his hip, Fox stared at the group’s facilitator until she had no choice but to come over and attend to him.

  “You are not wanted here,” the woman said. “Men are not to be present in this session.” She had a stern manner, but she did her best to hide any anger that dwelled in her heart. She knew who this man was, what he represented. Her husband, the informant Fox had threatened, had told her that he’d had no choice. The husband had begged her to do whatever this man asked.

  She was not so easily broken, but her husband’s words resonated in her mind.

  “Tell him what he needs to know. He is a dangerous man who cannot be ignored.” She would do that, but she would resent every minute of it.

  “I can come back with a full team if you like, check the immigration status of everyone here. Maybe I’ll do that every week, make it a regular thing.”

  “You cannot do that.” She was shocked. That he should make such threats. “These are good people.”

  “Doesn’t make them legal, ma’am.” Was he enjoying this? Yes, she believed he was. “Or you could direct me to the woman you told your husband about. The one with the uninvited guest.” The informant’s wife looked at the group, her eyes settling on a timid looking woman who visibly shrank away from Fox’s overpowering stare. She was one of the few not wearing any kind of headdress. “You got a room we can use? The sooner I’m done, the sooner I’m gone.”

  “She is a good girl,” the informant’s wife insisted.

  “Then she won’t have any problem helping out Uncle Sam, will she?”

  Despite her distrust, she knew she had no choice.

  ***

  “I don’t know anything,” Dorri insisted. She had come here to this land to escape the oppression of her home country, only to find her new home was not as free as she had hoped. She had escaped Libya years ago, and fled here with her family. America had taken her in, but she had never felt at ease here. That was until she met Farrokh. How ironic that a Christian girl like her should fall for a Muslim man.

  “That’s funny, because a little bird tells me you had an uninvited guest.”

  “I know nothing,” Dorri persisted. Several years into the relationship, she now often felt that her boyfriend was a fool. When they had first met, he had seemed mysterious which she found enticing, sweeping her off her feet with his chivalry and the respect he showed. That was two years ago, and the edges of the relationship had started to fray. They hadn’t moved in together, despite the benefits of sharing the expensive burden New York City represented. But as their relationship progressed, he’d started spending evenings over, although she was never invited to spend nights at his place.

  Then things started to change. Recently he had been disappearing mysteriously. When she asked him about it, he became angry, telling her it was none of her concern. Then yesterday he had refused to return her calls, so in a fit of concern she had gone round to his apartment. It was a dilapidated place, and when he answered the door to her incessant banging, she noticed a stranger in his hallway. This stranger was nameless, his smile was painted over a sadness that showed her he had done evil things.

  She thought she knew men like this from her life in Libya.

  She should have walked away then, should have listened to the warning bells that were ringing in her consciousness. But she was upset, fearing the relationship was about to be shattered on the rocks of some circumstance she didn’t understand. Prudence was thrown aside and she had pushed past him, demanding to know why he was ignoring her. Such a reaction wasn’t like her.

  “Get rid of this bitch, you idiot,” the stranger had demanded. Who was he to talk to her Farrokh? An argument ensued and she barely remembered the substance of it. What she did remember was the slap her boyfriend had landed on her, the pained and distressed look on his face as he dwelled in the aftermath of his action. And there, caught briefly from her tear-filled eye, was the glint of a gun sticking out of the stranger’s belt.

  Fox pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. It was actually two sheets, folded together.

  “I reckon this man might look familiar to you,” Fox said. Dorri looked at it and there was no hiding the recognition. It wasn’t a great likeness, but it was close enough to be a recognisable depiction of her boyfriend. “I see he is. That simplifies matters.”

  “It could be my boyfriend, but it could be anyone.” Fox scowled at her and shook his head. Dorri didn’t like this man. He was too overbearing, a bully with power. He cared only about himself and not the devastation he could deliver on whole families.

  “Do you like coming here? Is this community group useful to you?” Of course it was. She had friends here, a network that gave her something she couldn’t do without. How could he threaten that? It might be a Muslim group, but they accepted all denominations, all races, all creeds. They were women, and women needed to stick together.

  “Are you threatening me?” Dorri struggled to hold back the tears that were threatening. “Please, why can’t you leave me alone?”

  “I wouldn’t use the word threat,” Fox insisted. “It sounds so harsh. But you know what my organisation does, yes?”

  “I’m a US citizen, I have rights.” She wasn’t so sure about that though. The more the days passed in this country, the more she saw how the state and their agents were there to hold them down.

  “You know what my organisation does. right?” He repeated it louder than when he first said it. It would not be good for this man to be angry at her. There had been men like this in her home country. Angry men, violent men.

  “Yes.” Meekness crept back into her voice. She should have been stronger, but she was nothing against men like Fox.

  “The woman who introduced us, the one who runs this resource centre, would you want to see her get in trouble?”

  “She is innocent.”

  “Then why do I suspect some of the women in your little sharing circle aren’t legally present
in this country?” Fox slid the other piece of paper across the table to her.

  “They don’t deserve this,” Dorri begged. Still, she looked at the paper. It was a better likeness than the first. “They come here for help.”

  “That’s the man, isn’t it? That’s your uninvited guest?”

  “Yes,” Dorri admitted.

  “Tell me about him.”

  “What is there to tell?” Fox took out his phone and laid it on the table that separated them.

  “Okay. Here’s how this is going to go. You are going to stop fucking around and answer my questions. If you don’t, if you keep jerking my chain, I’m going to make one phone call.” He wiggled the phone side to side playfully with a fingertip. “Do you know what will happen then?”

  “No,” Dorri said. But in truth she felt she did know exactly what would happen.

  “A dozen ICE agents will descend on this place as if God himself had sent them. What you don’t seem to realise is that your boyfriend may well be mixed up with some bad people. Terrorists, no less.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.”

  “That could make you an accessory. That means I get to go through everything you have ever done. We drag you in. We drag in your parents, your friends, you co-workers. Hell, I’ll make your life so difficult you’ll wish you were back in the shit hole you came from.”

  “Please,” Dorri begged. She was close to having a panic attack.

  “You haven’t seen Hell until you’ve seen Federal Law enforcement drop from a great height. Tell me what I want to know.” He emphasised each word, as if the sounds they made could be used to punch through her resistance.

  “This man,” Dorri said, pointing at the stranger’s picture. “He seemed violent.”

  “You were afraid of him?”

  “Yes,” she said truthfully.

  “Does your boyfriend normally hang around with people like that?”

  “No, but…” Should she tell him? Yes, she had no choice. “He hasn’t been himself lately.”

  “Good. This is what I’m talking about.” He seemed pleased with her, which sent a wave of relief through her chest. Digging into his jacket pocket he dug out a pen and handed it over. “I want you to write his telephone number, his address, and any other contact info you have for your boyfriend.”

  “Yes,” Dorri said. Was this a betrayal? It felt like it. But what if this agent was right? What if her Farrokh was wrapped up in stuff she didn’t understand?

  She did what Fox requested, and was rewarded with a smile of satisfaction. After Fox had left, he still made that call. Twelve agents were an exaggeration, for it was only take six to investigate such an establishment.

  Fox knew not all the women would be legal, and he loved being right about that sort of thing.

  51.

  Cheltenham, UK

  Rashid hadn’t seen his supervisor for nearly three hours which was a godsend to him. This let him do the job he was paid for, presently trawling through lines of computer code to try and find the virus that had infiltrated the UK government’s ability to track certain people in real time.

  He wasn’t the only person at GCHQ involved in the hunt, but he wanted to be the one who cracked this. Rashid had proven time and again that he was the best programmer and by far the best hacker the British surveillance organisation had working for them, and he had been getting more than a little miffed of late. People of lower intelligence and lesser skill seemed to move up through the hierarchy of power whilst he was kept doing work that was often beneath him.

  He wasn’t getting paid enough for this. More than once the thought had occurred that he was missing out on the vast riches someone with his know-how could attain out in the real world. The problem was, to go down that road now would mean leaving the country. There was no way the government wouldn’t keep tabs on him if he suddenly got up and quit.

  Besides, he relished the challenge that he sometimes faced. He wasn’t the best in the world, that was for sure. So, when he could go up against the elite of the black hats, it gave him something to aspire to. It also made him better at what he did, because he was constantly learning from the adversaries GCHQ put him up against.

  The whole building was buzzing about the raid on the assassin’s fortress. Three of the TVs in the command centre were playing the twenty-four-hour news channels, all of which were still mentioning the explosion that had levelled a building and killed several police officers. Although the news said it was a gas leak, Rashid was privy to information the public weren’t going to get. That was a police raid that had gone disastrously wrong. He also had a sneaking suspicion that the assassin had escaped the blast. Although nobody had asked him to, curiosity had forced Rashid to investigate the house that GCHQ had helped uncover.

  Although the assassin had been careful after the traffic incident, she’d had the misfortune of being spotted, despite the scarf she had used to cover her face. It wasn’t a computer that spotted her either. Instead Lilith had been discovered by a super recogniser.

  There are people who have the ability to recognise faces, even if they have only seen that face briefly, or glanced at only part of the face. One such was watching a video feed that was relaying live information in the hunt for the woman who had created slaughter in the high street. Their target was a single woman, of a specific build and height, likely to be concealing her face. The super recogniser spotted Lilith on a high street in a crowd of nearly thirty people. All they then had to do was tag her image and let the computers follow her home. Teams were then dispatched to be in locations where Lilith might venture, because not all of London was under constant surveillance. One such team was there to spot the road Lilith ventured down, and ultimately, the house she casually entered.

  The registration plate of the bike found also had it frequently in that area, so the wheels of justice had slowly begun to turn. First the house was put under surveillance, covertly of course. And then a decision was made on who would take the bitch down. The police drew the short straw on that. Rashid had initially been surprised at how willingly MI5 had accepted that.

  None of that was Rashid’s concern. His focus was on finding the virus, and when he did, then the real fun could begin. Any person it was designed to protect would be instantly tagged in the live feed. A piece of software that was designed to protect and hide the likes of the assassin he had been hunting, would be transformed into a device to find them.

  There was already talk with sharing this discovery with the Americans and the Europeans. If there really was an international cabal of assassins working with impunity, then that needed to be revealed to the world.

  Just think of the kudos that would mean for Rashid. If he was the one to break this, then there was no way anyone could ignore his long overdue promotion. With luck, he might advance above that idiot who masqueraded as his supervisor. Now wouldn’t that just be a delicious treat to savour.

  52.

  New York, USA

  The vehicle Mohammed was in took the tunnel under the Hudson River with Farrokh, the driver, sweating nervously. Farrokh dabbed at his forehead for several moments, contemplating what was about to happen, the lives he was about to take staggering to him. He should have warned his girlfriend, but how could he? The life he had been living was a charade, part of his cover that he’d allowed to swallow him up. Farrokh had come so close to forgetting why he had been sent to this country.

  The van they were in was in perfect order, legally owned and well maintained. The insurance and registration were up to date, it’s tyres new and the tail lights fitted with fresh bulbs. It had been rarely used, kept in a locked garage for most of the past few months. Special care had been taken to avoid the vehicle coming to the attention of law enforcement via speeding or parking tickets. To the world the van should pose no concern to anyone, and was a means for those who knew what was coming to escape the city.

  It was already outside the pending blast zone. Mohammed looked at his watch, several hours yet unt
il the explosion hit.

  Farrokh was filled with doubt about what he was doing. His life had changed when he had met Dorri, a spark blossoming in a heart that had been a barren wasteland. He could have succumbed to that, abandoned his mission in the hope that happiness in this world could have been his.

  Except just as with Mohammed, he had been activated and everything had changed. The superiors who had sent him here hadn’t forgotten about him. Happiness would now have to be postponed till the next life.

  Whilst he did not want to die, Farrokh knew that should their end come, it would be swift. There would be no forgiveness for the part he had played in what was to come. The nuclear warhead they had left behind was in the heart of the enemy, close to the financial district and New York City Hall. What more could Allah ask of them?

  The RA-115 nuclear device had been smuggled across the Mexican border over a decade ago, and now, finally, it was to be detonated, the mechanical timer counting down the minutes. This particular device had a yield of two kilotons. Not enough to flatten a city, but that wasn’t what was called for here. The bomb was contained in a metal suitcase and weighed about fifty pounds, light enough for one man to carry and easy enough to be armed ready for detonation. That had been done by a third Iranian who had chosen to stay behind and ensure the bomb did not malfunction. It was old, poorly made, its parts put together by Russians who might have resented being forced to create such a weapon of destruction.

  There was a certain degree of uncertainty that it would even explode.

  The radioactive core of the bomb was well shielded, no abnormal radiation escaping from it. That had been checked long ago, and re-checked regularly by the man who was close to sacrificing his life. This was important, for New York was protected by a ring of nuclear detection devices, reinforced by the Sigma+ programme which fitted many of the city’s first responders with portable devices that could alert the owner whenever radiation was detected. A device leaking tell-tale radiation risked being discovered.