The Third Seal

by Sean Deville

  Fleeing from the packed room, he was buffeted by agents in near panic who acted as if he didn't exist. Fox felt helpless, a feeling he detested. He remembered the last time he had felt like this, at the age of seventeen. 9-11, the day his country had been attacked, the day that shaped his future and saw his hatred grow for everything threatening America.

  The disgust he held for the outsider had been forged that day, growing as he aged, xenophobia taking charge of who he was. It owned him, blinded him to everything noble and moral in the country’s immigration system. And within the hatred existed a special place for all those who followed the path of Islam. Right now, if he’d been given the power, he would have burned every mosque in every country to the ground and scoured the Earth to remove the religion he detested so much. In the eyes of Fox, he saw them as an enemy working to undermine his country from both within and abroad.

  To attack his country like this demanded a reckoning.

  All his training and all his patriotism was useless right now. Fox had no option but to stand aside and hope the FBI could do what they were best at. If this was a Hollywood movie, maybe he would have taken out his gun and run towards the danger, but he had no idea where the danger was. He was one man amongst thousands who somehow had to prevent another atrocity from happening. And they were running out of time.

  The bile threatened again, and a tremor slipped into his legs, the nearest rest room beckoning. He must have been a sight as he began running, his face pale, his breathing laboured. The rest room door slammed open and he barely got his head over the porcelain before his last meal unleashed itself.

  My, but they keep these toilets clean. A strange thought to have, given the circumstances.

  Another hurl assaulted him, his chest muscles aching now, throat burning. This was an attack on everything he held dear, an attack on his identity. So now his body purged itself, preparing for what would invariably follow. The USA was about to become a very different country.

  It was about to go to war, and God help any country that came onto its radar because there would be no restraint. There would be no pity and no remorse.

  It took Fox several minutes to get himself together, his own failings a surprise to him. Was this how his body reacted when the stress really hit? Was this what he was truly made of? Shame began to replace the shock barrelling through him, the adrenaline wearing off. The guilt at his own weakness was short-lived, his ego replacing it with a burning anger. It grew from his core, rekindling his resolve, giving him the strength to get back on his feet so he could safely leave the toilet stall. There was nobody else in the restroom, nobody here to see how he had fallen to pieces.

  Looking at himself in the mirror, he saw madness and knew he had to control it. He was spared sharing his shame with another person, so at least he had been given that blessed mercy.

  He had temporarily lost control, something he would not let happen again. Fox swore that oath to himself. Assuming he wasn’t wiped out in an imminent atomic explosion, he would commit his life to ridding America of its enemies. Laws would be passed, freedoms would be curtailed, liberties would be suspended. And Fox would be at the heart of it. He wouldn’t rest until everyone responsible for this atrocity was hunted down and made to pay.

  Fox was prepared to do anything to protect his country. Anything.

  He would be one of the many hammers brought down on those who vowed to endanger his birthright and he would willingly allow himself to be wielded. All the bleeding hearts, all the liberals who berated those who worked so tirelessly to remove the illegal invaders from this great land, would be silenced.

  As appalling as the atomic explosion had been, maybe something good could be salvaged from the wreckage of Philadelphia. A new America. A country the Founding Fathers had envisaged. And Fox would be there to see it all happen.

  Assuming he wasn’t first evaporated in an atomic explosion.

  ***

  Mohammed was getting impatient. Although they still had time to reach a safe distance, he was starting to get visions of being buried alive in this tunnel. He kept this all hidden though, his exterior a calm veneer. Farrokh was visibly nervous, the younger man’s knuckles white as his hands gripped the steering wheel.

  Neither of them had any knowledge of what had happened in Philadelphia. As far as Mohammed was concerned, there was one nuclear bomb in the United States and it was yet to explode. All the Iranian sleeper cells in America were compartmentalised, separated from each other. Still, verifying the integrity of the nuke had been only part of Mohammed’s instructions here. Mohammed’s mission in the land of the Great Satan was far from complete, or so he believed.

  He would be very surprised to learn why he was actually here, an unsuspecting pawn in a greater game he could never understand.

  “Relax,” Mohammed commanded. Farrokh was close to being a liability, a man who had almost been swayed from the righteous path by a life in the West. He was too anxious, and had laid down too many ties in this country, temptation whispering constantly. Mohammed could understand the difficulty, could understand how alluring it was to forget who you truly were so as to accept the easy life your cover story presented. You could become acclimatised, could even enjoy the fakeness you lived. It was a temptation to which Mohammed himself had almost succumbed.

  Then he had seen the pink mark on the tree and everything had changed.

  “How can I relax with what we are doing?”

  “Because Allah commands it.” Surely that was a good enough reason.

  “But so many deaths. And what about Dorri?”

  “What about her? You knew the rules.” Although Mohammed himself had bent those rules, he had always followed the essence of them. And for Farrokh to have fallen for a Christian woman of all things… “She will be with her god soon.” Briefly looking in the side mirror, Mohammed didn’t see anything amiss, just two lines of stationary traffic snaking backwards.

  In front of them, a burly man stepped out of his car.

  “What is this fool doing?” Farrokh exclaimed. The burly man walked several steps away from his vehicle, as if to try and see what was causing the traffic obstruction. Several other drivers were doing the same, the blaring sound of horns increasing. People became impatient so quickly here. They all seemed to think the world owed them something.

  “He is showing the same impatience you are,” Mohammed advised. “The traffic will be moving of its own accord soon enough.” He said this to persuade himself as well as Farrokh.

  Anyone who has ever been in the Holland tunnel will tell you it is brightly lit and split into two separate tunnels so opposing traffic never meets each other. This was where Mohammed and Farrokh were trapped. Not by an accident or normal congestion, but by the NYPD who had blocked the West side of the tunnel on the instructions of the FBI. Somewhere within the tunnel, two terrorist suspects would be trapped in the van they were driving.

  Once again glancing at the mirror on his side, Mohammed saw a motorcycle worming its way in between the stalled cars. In hindsight, it would have made more sense for him to have chosen that mode of transport. So much more manoeuvrable. So many more options to evade law enforcement. But he was in an unfamiliar country and thus he used what he was given. Mohammed wasn’t even a hardened agent, which had caused a question to surface more than once.

  What am I doing here?

  He hadn’t expected to act in the manner he had in Rome, and now he was here. When he had been inserted into Rome as a sleeper agent for the Iranian government, he had never envisaged himself committing mass murder. His time there had been spent taking menial jobs behind the scenes so as to gather intelligence. A waiter at a government event, a temporary driver for a dignitary. All the time his ears had been open and his lips sealed. But behind this was the knowledge that, should he ever see the markings on the tree, he was to access an email account to receive coded instructions, which was only supposed to happen in the event of an imminent threat to Iran itself.

  Mo
hammed would shortly find out his true part in the great game.

  The motorcyclist passed on the passenger side, momentarily invisible to Mohammed. Briefly the motorcyclist came into view again, only to collide with the passenger side mirror, ripping it off completely. The bike almost went down, but the operator managed to keep it from careening sideways, coming to a stop. Mohammed watched as the rider looked back, flipping up the visor he wore, visibly cursing. Putting down the kickstand, the rider removed his helmet, dismounted and walked back towards the van, picking up the shattered and useless mirror on the way.

  Farrokh was already rolling down his side window enough so words could be exchanged.

  “You clumsy fool, look what you have done.”

  “Man, I’m sorry” the rider said as he came around to the driver’s side. “Oh shit, this is going to cost.”

  “It is okay,” Mohammed said leaning over towards Farrokh slightly. “The van is insured. These things happen.” Unseen to the rider, Mohammed’s hand reached for the pistol tucked away in his belt. Other bikes approached from behind, their sound obvious over the stalled traffic.

  “No way, man. A vehicle is a precious thing.” Standing by Farrokh’s door, the rider held out the mirror. “Here. You might be able to have it repaired.”

  “You okay, Bub?” Mohammed heard someone shout. Another motorcyclist. Were they part of some sort of gang? Farrokh lowered the window further, enough for the mirror to be passed through. When you were stuck in traffic fleeing a pending atomic explosion, how on earth were you supposed to react to this sort of situation?

  “My own clumsiness,” Bub admitted to his friend. “Just need to exchange insurance details.”

  “There is no need for this,” Mohammed insisted. Another head appeared at the driver’s side window. Mohammed tried to look to the vehicle’s rear, but the only remaining mirror was obstructed by the two dangerous-looking men. Did they actually look dangerous or was Mohammed's paranoia running amok?

  “No way, man. We have to make this right.” Mohammed saw it then, a flash of the first rider’s eyes as he looked into the back of the van, searching, scrutinising. Farrokh never saw it, preoccupied with accepting the gift of the devastated wing mirror.

  Oh shit.

  A gun suddenly appeared, pulled forth by the first rider’s free hand, the mirror flung through the window, slipping past Farrokh's expectant grasp. Then a second gun.

  “FBI. Hands, let me see your hands.” Farrokh’s door was being wrenched open. Why didn’t you lock it? Mohammed almost screamed. It would have been a hypocritical chastisement because he hadn’t locked his own door. That too was wrenched open by men who had come up on the blind side. More bikers who had wormed through traffic to pull off this elaborate charade.

  Mohammed couldn’t get his gun up in time. Something caustic and vicious was sprayed into his face, blinding and choking him. All thoughts of somehow killing these tricksters was expunged as he tried to draw in life-saving oxygen. His arm was grabbed, his wrist pulled in the wrong direction, a finger breaking as the gun was wrenched from his hand. He felt the seatbelt release as a knife sliced through it, and then hands were yanking him sideways.

  I’ve lost my chance. Mohammed suddenly knew it. He could have gone out a martyr and now he was in custody, his body physically dragged from the truck cabin. Then came the hard drop, his face smashed into the ground, the skin scraped off, almost unnoticed over the background pain of his eyes. There was a sharpness in his shoulder too, from where it had impacted the asphalt.

  “Do not move. Stay on the ground. Stay on the ground,” an authoritative and pissed-off voice screamed into his ear. Someone kicked him in the ribs, hard, and he was sure something broke. And all the time the tip of a gun was painfully jammed into the back of his neck.

  Arms were wrenched behind his back and he had visions of them being pulled out of their sockets. He thought he was a failure, but this arrest was exactly what the man who sent him had hoped for. Soon he would be in custody, a terrorist in a country that had been the first victim of nuclear terrorism.

  A scapegoat for the world to see.

  “You are so going to regret what you've done, fucker,” a voice said harshly in his ear.

  If someone had given him a gun at that moment, he would have blown his own brains out to try and salvage something of his honour. But as the handcuffs were applied harshly to his wrists and a hood placed over his head, he knew he was at the mercy of the agents of his country’s deadliest enemy.

  Mohammed had no idea what would happen to him now. He was about to learn how ruthless his enemy was.

  3.

  London, UK

  The glass holding the holy water sat on the table in front of Vicky. It looked so benign, and yet it represented purity.

  “Emily,” Lilith said, “why don’t you stick your finger in the water.” There was a hesitation, trust still not established, but the girl did as asked. After all, it was only water.

  “It’s cold,” Emily advised. She wiggled two fingers partially submerged. Had she been hoping for a magic trick? If she had, she hid any disappointment when nothing happened. Finally, she pulled her fingers out and let the water drip from them.

  “Now you Vicky, and please…don’t be alarmed.” Vicky looked to her father, who simply nodded. When Vicky put her fingers in the glass, the water began to sizzle. There would be no pain for the woman, just a mild fizzing sensation.

  “My God,” James exclaimed as water droplets began to shoot out of the glass. The longer Vicky kept her fingers submerged, the more violent the reaction became. Emily seemed entranced by what she was seeing. So, it was a trick after all.

  “The holy water shows the corruption trying to force its way inside you,” Lilith instructed. The residue continued to bubble as Vicky extracted her digits, compelling her to wipe them dry.

  “But why me?” Vicky asked.

  “We were always told demons acted randomly, taking whatever they could. However, I have recently come to the realisation that there is now a purpose to their methods.” Lilith looked at the young child. The terror she must have felt at seeing the blackness. If Lilith was forced to kill the mother, what would become of Emily?

  “What school does Emily go to?” Father Creed asked. Vicky told him.

  “More pieces to the puzzle?” Lilith said. The same school Lucien had been sent to watch. The same school the child called Simon went to.

  Creed nodded.

  Lilith wondered how many schools were becoming infested by this hellish plot. If the Order had detected such, she had never been informed. Neither had Creed from what she could tell. He was a glorified caretaker who prepared the way for any children deemed salvageable.

  He also helped Inquisitors in distress, although they rarely came to him seeking aid.

  “What do you know, Father?” Lilith demanded.

  “Your fellow Inquisitor dropped off a lost soul yesterday. He was forced to deal with several demons in the process. One was a teacher at Emily's school.”

  “Mrs Robinson?” Vicky said. The mystery before them was unravelling itself rapidly.

  “Yes,” Father Creed admitted, before sending Vicky a warning glance towards her daughter.

  “What about Mrs Robinson?” Emily asked.

  “Your teacher...” Vicky struggled. “She had an accident.” Although she would never give birth to, or raise a child, Lilith was well aware one of the most difficult things for a parent was explaining death to a child. Lilith wondered how this situation would be handled.

  “Is she alright?” Despite the evil she had seen, Emily was evidently concerned by her teacher’s wellbeing.

  “No honey,” was all Vicky could say. It was clear she wanted to be strong, but this was all too much for anyone.

  “Your teacher was a victim,” Creed said gently. “A victim to the same thing trying to claim your mum.” Emily seemed to shrink into her mother's arms. There were no hysterics this time, just more quiet tears. Vicky sh
ared them. Would any of them be saved and was any of this real?

  “What does this all mean?” James begged. Could any father have envisioned something like this?

  “The demon will come when Vicky is asleep,” Lilith told him. “We must be ready for that.”

  “But how?” Vicky asked. She felt dazed. “I can't stay awake forever.” Creed caught Lilith’s eye. What did the old dog have up his sleeve?

  “I think there is another way to stop this, but you won't like it.” All eyes turned to Creed. “I have a holy seal in my safe.”

  “But can we?” Lilith admonished. She wasn’t shocked Creed suggested it. “It is forbidden.” Did those laws matter though?

  “Father, if it can save my daughter, I want to know about it,” James insisted.

  “But the law states…”

  “We are in the End Times.” Creed cut off the Inquisitor defiantly. Maybe he was right.

  “What do I have to do?” asked Vicky. She clearly thought all of this was crazy. The fact she was here must have gone against everything she had believed for most of her life. And yet the evidence was mounting, block by block to build a whole cathedral of acceptance she was close to stepping into. Lilith and the priest shared a glance, and it was Lilith who spoke.

  “If it is to be done, all you have to do is endure. Your flesh will need to be branded.”

  “What?” Vicky was incredulous. The cathedral came crashing down.

  “Mummy, what's branded?”

  “Something I'm not even going to entertain. Exorcism? Branding?” Vicky turned to her father. “Dad, I think we are done here.” James didn't say anything, he simply nodded.

  Vicky stood. Her rational scientific mind had finally won over the irrationality being forced on her by fear. It had been a mistake for her to come here, to expose Emily to this insanity. Half dragging Emily, Vicky marched for the door.

  “I will see you again, Vicky,” Lilith advised. “The demon growing inside you needs to be dealt with.” Vicky wanted to reply to the deranged woman, but the things she wanted to say were not for young ears. Vicky left without saying another word.