The Cult of The Enemy: The Dark Places Trilogy

by S. G Mark

  Ten days into his capture, Jack could barely pick himself off the ground. He drooled onto the concrete and occasionally fell asleep against the toilet bowl after suffering from hours of incessant vomiting. It was comforting; to throw up every tiny morsel of energy that they gave him. Stale bread and water, just enough to sustain him. Jack was wasting away and he savoured it. Another day lived was still another day.

  As the days leading up to the trial rolled on, his mind was addled, he couldn’t fracture reason from madness and he struggled to visualise what anything meant anymore. The dark cell encompassed him, he wondered how much of this torture had hit the headlines. Resistance Leader Captured… or maybe he had been quietly carted away and the media had spun another tale to occupy their readers. He thought of Alex a lot, of what he might do without Jack. And Eliza? He wondered what she might have thought when she saw his face on the evening news. Jonathan’s glee, her heartache? Or maybe just relief. Jack hoped for the latter; the thought of Eliza suffering was enough to send him spiralling over the edge. He was beyond hoping for life; his grim fate awaited him with a scythe and a smile.

  His muscles ached from the electric shocks he was given when he refused to answer questions. The scars were now encrusted with dead skin where a hot metal rod was plunged into his flesh like a cocktail stick. Compared to that, the threat of violence was the peaceful interlude he yearned for.

  And yet he had not said a single word. Not one single secret had left his lips. Not even a name, not even a place. Emma had once warned him that people broke under the torture, that it was best to shoot them before they could relent; Jack was determined to protest every inch of her instructions. Until death, until the end; if that even meant anything at all anymore. Lana had been killed for the very reason he had been captured. Both of them knew too much - but Jack was going to die before he say anything that hindered The Resistance.

  Death. He’d grown to fear it, challenge it, refuse it. But after losing so much, he cared little for its meaning. It was just a word, a connotation to a fate that had already been sealed for him. What did life matter when there was nothing left to live for? Friendships gone, love lost and a fight long since drowned at sea.

  Every day the man came, the lawyer for a trial that Jack was sure would never come. Matthew stared at his notes and occasionally drew stick drawings on his paper notes as Jack sat on his chair, hands chained and his head hanging as if he were already dead in the sack. The guards never uttered a single word and the room would be silent for hours on end until Matthew would scrape his chair back and leave. Jack would be returned to his cell with a glass of water and a single slice of bread. They were keeping him alive, though he could not fathom why. He would throw it all up in an hour or so when he could summon the energy.

  Maybe it was days later, maybe it was weeks, but Jack did eventually speak, though he figured it was more out of boredom than anything else. Matthew had joined him in the little room again; the guards and their shiny guns were like suits of armour against the wall. Matthew had just drawn a scene of a house and a garden, which Jack had animatedly been watching.

  “Why are you here?” he croaked.

  Matthew, startled, looked up, “Because I’ve been asked to represent you.”

  “But… you’re just… sitting here,” he said.

  Matthew nodded, “I have already drawn up your evidence.”

  “For the trial?” Jack asked, Matthew nodded, “What are my charges?”

  Initially confused, Matthew explained each and every charge of terrorism, murder, sabotage, espionage and treason that were against Jack.

  Smiling, Jack summoned a cackle, “You forgot one thing…”

  “What is that?” Matthew asked.

  “Trust,” he said, “I’m guilty…. guilty of trust.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a crime,” Matthew said, though it was more an automatic response than anything real.

  “So what am I doing, Matthew,” Jack asked, “ At this trial, what do I do?”

  “Nothing,” he said, “You aren’t to do anything at all.”

  “So I don’t give evidence?” Jack asked, not expecting much to the contrary.

  Matthew shook his head.

  “And that’s fair, is it?”

  Matthew leant forward, pushing aside his childish drawings, “Well you tell me? You’ve killed, you’ve committed treason, you’ve caused countless acts of terrorism…”

  “Name one,” he said.

  Matthew, as suspected, faltered, “I don’t need to list them.”

  “I didn’t ask you to list them,” Jack said, his throat crackling with fatigue and pain, “I asked you to name one.”

  Stammering, Matthew explained one scenario involving a bomb in London.

  “I don’t know how to plant bombs,” Jack said, “I don’t even know how they work.”

  “That’s not the point, you arranged it,” he said.

  “Prove it?” he said, “Oh, sorry, that’s not your job. Your job is to sit there in silence and pretend I’m not a real person.”

  Matthew raised his hand as a signal to the guards, who immediately reacted by restraining Jack against his chair. The door was then unlocked and Matthew rose out of his chair, catching the swinging door as it opened ajar. Jack caught the man’s eye as he left, and forced a smile.

  It cost him two hours of electric shock, but Jack returned to his cell - lifeless and devoid of energy - with a certain triumph. It was all he could muster, all he could hope to achieve anymore. For a while now Jack Blackwood knew he was going to die and there was nothing he or anyone could do to stop it.

  He didn’t see Matthew again until they were both adorned in suits and ties. Jack had been prodded awake at the break of dawn to have his face slapped with makeup to hide the scarring and exhaustion. Food was forced down him and they physically restrained him to prevent him from throwing it up. They then pulled him into a dark suit and wrapped a tie tightly around his neck. Jack knew what was coming. The Trial.

  Jack was sat down in the cell, the chains even more tightly bound than usual. He stared at the same bit of dirt on the wall as he always did, imagining it drifting across the wall like lilies upon a pond; waiting for Matthew to arrive.

  Some time later Matthew entered, taking residence in his usual chair. He pulled out some notes and referred to them as he addressed Jack.

  “The Trial is to begin in two hours. You and I will be transported together to the court. I will sit with you throughout. You are not permitted to talk, give evidence or address anyone. You are to sit in silence.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Then I assume you understand the full punishment that you will face.”

  “Full punishment?” Jack said, “For speaking my mind?”

  “During court,” he said, “Which is never advisable.”

  Matthew looked at him despairingly.

  “What does it matter, they are going to kill me either way,” Jack said, “Fuck you. Fuck your rules.”

  Matthew nodded towards the guards and rose to his feet, loitering uncomfortably by the door as Jack’s chains were unhooked from the chair.

  He walked alongside Jack and his unit of guards who escorted him along the long corridor to an elevator. It was more of the prison than Jack had ever seen. Flickering fluorescent lights from other interview rooms were accompanied by screams. He wondered if he knew anyone else here.

  It had been a dull question at the back of his brain, but for weeks he had idly wondered where they had taken him. It had a grimy atmosphere of a rundown harbour, and a stench of fish and rubbish wafted occasionally into his cell.

  The elevator stopped on the ground floor and the guards dragged Jack out into a security corridor, lined with cameras and electronic gates. They signed him out and the doors opened: Jack’s skin bathing in daylight for the first time in weeks.

  He was tossed into the back of a prison van, secured into place through handcuffs and more chains. Matthew sat opposite
him, looking distinctly uneasy at having to ride in the vehicle that criminals usually did. His lawyer’s movements intrigued Jack, even distracted him on the short drive to the court.

  Though he had managed to stem his emotions thus far, as the van slowed his insides bubbled with anxiety. He could no longer cower in the dark denial of his cell. Reality was marching ever towards him with treacherous ease. From here on, everything was going to change.

  The doors opened and a series of flashes burned his retinas. Confused in a haze of bright lights and jeering, the guards pulled him from the van and onto hard concrete steps. The world seemed to collapse around him as he realised where he was. Old Bailey, the throne of justice.

  Journalists had flocked to see the arrival of the prisoner. The towering columns of justice lay before him, every inch as terrifying as they were designed to be. His heart sunk lower into his chest and he now truly understood the purpose of this Trial. It was a show. News cameras panned the scene as Jack was shoved between guards all the way up to the court entrance. The crowd were shouting, screaming at him. Calling him scum, wishing death upon him. A few stones were hurled over his head; he had to duck to avoid any further mortar shells raining down.

  They were animals and their hatred was primeval - the raw loathing of primitive man rearing its wicked head.

  The court doors were flung open and Jack and his lawyer were shoved inside. The jeering subsided as the doors closed behind them, but it was only muffled and not muted. Jack looked at Matthew, whose head was hanging low. For a fraction of a second Jack extended a slice of sympathy to the man, which was quickly eradicated as a court official ordered them down a long, claustrophobic corridor and Jack was instantly reminded of the man’s purpose.

  At the end of the corridor was a great oak door; guards flanked it and their guns glistened underneath the diamond chandeliers dangling from the ceiling. They looked completely out of place against the marble walls.

  The doors opened from the other side and the fanfare erupted. Emerging on the other side, Jack found he was in glass box high above the rest of the polished court. Steep layers of seating were filled with journalists and at the very bottom was a small rectangular court. Every cubic metre of space was occupied; the crowd crushed themselves for a better view of a mesmerised Jack being locked in the glass box. They were all shouting and yelling abuse at Jack.

  Scanning the courtroom below, Jack saw that the judge’s chair was empty. A small title had been on the bench: Sir Richard Sweeney. Lawyers in long black robes and exquisite wigs were filing in down the central aisle, avid discussion taking place as they tucked their files under their arms. It was all in a day’s work for these men of power. Another banal judgement over someone’s life. The prosecution’s laugh bellowed as a bass to the jeering; but all that Jack focussed on were the little red lights flickering on and he knew that everything was being filmed.

  It was all very grandiose. The marble walls reflecting the immaculate laws that were there to preserve civilisation and justice. Magnificent oak carvings were embedded into the desks and judge’s bench. Everyone in the crowd was dressed in their smartest to match their more refined surroundings. Jack looked at them all with such concentrated loathing. They were here for the stoning - humanity hadn’t moved on at all from its days in the desert.

  The guards secured him in his chair and one of them opened up a small white box, in which a needle resided. They punched it into his arm and Jack’s tongue instantly felt numb.

  “Why have they done that?” Jack asked Matthew, instantly feeling lightheaded.

  “To keep you calm,” he said, “Don’t worry you’ll still be awake for the whole show.”

  A second later, the court rose as Sir Richard entered. Matthew pulled Jack to his feet, though he had the impression that it had been against his better judgement. The guards looked at Matthew in an odd manner, as if he were going against protocol. As everyone took their seats again, an applause erupted briefly before being quelled by officials. Sir Richard then slammed his hammer down and his gravelly voice spoke majestically to all.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gathered here for the trial of Steven Lennox, of no fixed address. Charges against him stand at treason, forty-nine acts of terrorism, ten counts of murder and nine counts of crimes relating to blackmail, bribery and threatening behaviour. Over the course of the next few weeks, the prosecution will demonstrate the detail and level of the crimes committed. It is understood that the defendant has pleaded guilty to all charges. Is this correct?”

  Matthew leant over and pressed a button near his thigh, “It is, sir.”

  It was the first time that Jack really appreciated what was happening. With every eye upon him, it somehow made the whole situation more real.

  Sir Richard continued, inviting the prosecution to make their opening statement, though from Jack’s point of view there was very little difference between them and the defence.

  “These are terrible times we live in,” Henry Mendell QC began, “Every day we face the threat of poverty, hunger and crime. Our lives are difficult, and it is a daily struggle to feed our children, to keep our homes warm during winter and to keep the wolves from the door. But our generation faces another threat, one that no human being should ever endure: the fear of bringing life into this world. What more is there to fear, I hear you ask? What could be worse than financial ruin, from starvation and frostbite?” Henry turned and directed his hand towards Jack, “That man… That man is symbolic of a shared fear. A fear of losing our liberties, a fear of having our way of life trampled on. How can one man instil a fear into millions? Through terrorism, through threats, blackmail, kidnap and murder. Crimes that the defendant has openly admitted to. Through primary witness accounts and evidence obtained by our colleagues in the Criminal Referral Unit, it is the prosecution’s obligation - our civil duty - to prove to the court how exactly Mr Steven Lennox became the single most dangerous man in the country.”

  Henry Mendell sat down and conferred internally with his colleagues. Jack turned to Matthew Lawrence, whose head was bowed as he sketched another drawing on his notes. It was in that moment that he really appreciated that there would be no active defence. Matthew was there to serve a purpose as a presence, a quorate member of a lynch mob.

  The court ordered the first witness to the box. According to the prosecution, it was Jack’s arresting officer, though he himself had no memory of being arrested, rather than carted into the back of a police van.

  David McAllister described how Jack had resisted arrest, threatening to detonate a bomb in the vicinity. His team managed to overcome Jack and deactivate the device.

  “He claimed there was a bomb in the vicinity,” McAllister said, “Naturally we cleared the area and one of our officers quickly found the bomb. If the bomb squad hadn’t reacted so expertly, well… we would have lost a lot of people that day.”

  “In your opinion, how many deaths would the defendant have caused?” Henry Mendell suppressed a smile.

  “With the concentration of people in the area? A hundred, easily.”

  Jack couldn’t help but smirk. Truth was going to be a stranger at this trial, though it came as no surprise.

  A series of statements and accusations were made against him by the subsequent expert witnesses, all who claimed that Jack had acted violently during his arrest and imprisonment. Jack looked to Matthew again, who met his eye but said nothing.

  “One of my officers received stitches from a punch Steven Lennox lunged at him,” a Daniel Phillips said, “A lot of my men do not want to guard him, he is so dangerous.”

  Another key witness from the Covent Garden arrest described how he had pulled out a gun and aimed it at a small child in the crowd.

  The shambles continued, and Jack’s attention quickly dissipated. There was no point in listening to the lies being proclaimed as truth. The prosecution continued laying into his character, accusing him of initiating fights and even hospitalising one of the officers detaining
him. Jack glazed over the details, instead focussing his clouded mind on the spectators that had come to watch the trial in person. He felt a surge of disgust that many of them had hot drinks, even sandwiches at the ready. The grand show was just beginning to get juicy, enticing the plebs in with atrocious tales about a man they could so easily hate. In a strange way it united them, for the first time Jack thought, in a way that few other events could. They could bond over the loathing of a man that they’d never met, sip steaming coffee and munch on snacks as if they were in the cinema.

  And then he heard a voice that was strangely familiar that it took a few seconds for Jack to realise who it might be...

  “We were just kids when we met,” she said, the voice speaking through a decade of time, “There was something never quite right about him. Like, he always had a chip on his shoulder. He was constantly angry about something, and jealous - jealous of everyone who outperformed him in class.”

  Jack looked up and saw her flaming red hair falling down her shoulders. It was Jane Ross. Girlfriend number one.

  “And was he ever politically active when you were with him?” Henry Mendell asked.

  “He used to tell me things, about how he wanted to change the world,” she said, “It scared me. I thought he was joking at the time, but later I realised what exactly he meant. I should have spoken up, even then. I should have taken it more seriously.”

  Yanking his chains to their tautness, Jack threw his palms against the glass pane. They collided with such thunderous noise that the entire court looked at him, including Jane. For the first time in over ten years their eyes met and he refused to blink. He refused to believe she had volunteered to testify. A single tear transcended her cheeks, which she quickly wiped away. As the guards pulled him back into his chair, he kept one finger on the glass until his fingertips smudged the pane.