The Few (The Abductions of Langley Garret Book 2) (18 page)

'Soter! Soter! Soter!' she screamed, with her eyes searing into mine. I knew how she felt. Exactly. Her hatred, despair and longing for death, mirroring mine when I had sat in her place.

'Very good. We've nearly finished, and then perhaps you will be taken from this hellhole. I held out my hand towards Marcus, and I felt the cold of the small jemmy bar being placed in my right hand. I laid my useless left hand on the table in front of her. Her face filled with horror. Marcus moved to the side of the table and grabbed her left wrist, pinning her hand flat to the steel top of the table, and then in one swift blow I slammed the jemmy bar across the back of her hand – the snapping of her metacarpals sickeningly audible. The instant pain shot her body from the chair, sending her to the floor, screaming and writhing in agony, while her whole body swung from her right wrist that was still secured to the table. Amid her agonising screams, and the shock as she felt her hand exploding in even more intense pain, Marcus opened the door and signalled for the two men. They entered, unlocked her right hand, and then dragged her howling, tortured body from the room. Her heart breaking screams of agony echoing loudly down the corridor. Marcus closed the door. I vomited violently in the corner.

I waited nearly fifteen minutes for my choking, gagging and coughing to subside. My sleeves covered in trails of vomit I had wiped from my mouth. Marcus waited in silence. A dry retch, and another bout of coughing and choking, but at last it felt like the curtain call act from my guts. I waited a little longer for my breath to return, and to be sure.

'Let's get this fucking shit finished with,' I said. Marcus sniffed, and nodded, before opening the door.

'Are you sure?' he asked. I nodded, as another dry wretch threatened.

The Barber was waiting, leaning up against the corridor wall with his arms nonchalantly crossed, just a few metres away.

'I'll show you the way,' he said.

'Yes,' Marcus replied.

It wasn't far, and I thought of Byron and his poor monk as I looked at the ugly rough steel door of the cell, that had once been mine. I didn't bother recalling the details from my file. It only mattered that locked behind the door was the eldest nephew of Sa'ud bin ash-Sheikh, a young man who enjoyed fast cars, pretty women and living life to its fullest, on his family's money. I wanted him to add the name of one more pretty woman to his list. One he would never forget. I nodded to The Barber, and he unlocked the door.

In the far corner of the cell, covering the shit hole, a man's naked body was curled up and quivering in panic. Marcus stepped in, in front of me, and I shuddered as I heard the cell door close behind. Marcus stepped forward and picked up the pathetic piece of humanity from the floor, twisting an arm behind his back and slammed him bodily against the wall.

'Stand up,' he barked into his ear. The man tried as best he could, but wretched whimpering was about all he could manage, so Marcus helped him, by twisting his arm harder, turning him, and forcing him to face me. I stepped closer to the man, and stood just a few inches from his face.

'Chara.'

His eyes wandered.

'Chara.'

He went to look away. I reached down and grabbed his testicles and twisted his ball sac, as hard and as painfully as I could. He screamed in agony, trying to double up in pain against the firm hold of Marcus. I released my grip, and he whimpered in pain. 'Now listen to me, or I promise, I'll tear your fucking balls off next time. I'm sure all your pretty ladies would find a man with no balls a bit of a turn off. So maybe you should try listening to what I have to say now.'

He shook in fear, and from the pain that I had launched up into his stomach.

'Let's try again. Chara. Say it!'

'Chaaaa.'

'Try harder, or do I need to teach your fucking balls how to spell?'

'Cha…..ra,' he managed, with fear and hatred written on his battered face.

'Again.'

'Cha…..ra.'

'She was a lovely woman. You would have liked her I think, knowing a little about your taste in women. Blonde, beautiful but now unfortunately, very fucking dead. So let's try again, shall we? A little louder.'

'Chara.'

'Good. Now spell it for me, you motherless fucking piece of shit!'

'C, h, a, r, a.'

'Again. Louder arsehole!'

'C, h, a, r, a.'

'Very good, now just one more time before I leave.'

'Chara. C, h, a, r, a.'

'Again!'

'Chara. C, h, a, r, a.'

'Very good, and don't you ever fucking forget her name. Oh, and Chara sent you this message,' I said, and then buried my knee up deep and hard into his groin, with as much power as I could possibly deliver. His body contorted as he groaned in agony. I nodded, and Marcus threw him to the floor. As he flailed on the floor, I stepped on his left wrist, pinning his hand hard to the floor.

'Sorry, but there's one more small message for you to take with you.'

Marcus knelt down and delivered the last painful message I wanted to send. I looked down at his crushed hand, with blood streaming immediately from the wound Marcus had dealt to the back of his hand with the jemmy bar. I lifted my foot from his wrist and walked away, ignoring the wretched soul's agonising screams and his rolling on the floor in searing pain, and knocked on the door. It opened. I didn't look back as I walked out.

*****

The hibiscus were in full bloom, and the late afternoon sun was bathing the lake in a warm, deep orange glow, while the mountains above were just beginning their daily ritual of fading ever so slowly into the blackness that the night sky would bring. Two weeks had passed since my return, and still the vile sickness in my bowels remained. Any thoughts I may have held about my existence being a fantasy had been crushed by the repulsive reality I had faced  – for the second time in my life. If it had only been for simplistic revenge, it may have sat less painfully, but my second visit to hell had been calmly and cold-heartedly calculated to justify my own existence, and survival, and had served only to sentence myself to an unending nightmare that was to be the rest of my life. The gruesome guilt of that would never leave me.

'Your doubts have been erased forever Soter.'

I didn't turn immediately to her voice, coming from behind me, but waited, perhaps for a response to enter my mind. Nothing arrived, other than my guilt, which words would never be able to describe. I finally turned to her, and only nodded.

'Then you have begun to understand and learn. The spirit of Kratos will smile upon you, and the spirit of Chara will thank you.'

Words still wouldn't form in my mouth, so again, somewhat pathetically, I nodded at Giovanna. Not in agreement, only in not knowing what else to say or do. She nodded back, turned, and disappeared slowly, back along the pink and red guard of hibiscus. I waited for her to turn at the end of the path, and once removed from my view, I renewed my acquaintance with my continuing fight to hold back my tears, and won yet again.

The sun was setting, and it was time to leave the garden and march back into my incarcerated reality. A fleeting thought of escaping into Thalia's body swept through my mind, but somehow I soon found myself back in my office, and sought a more dignified comfort. I let my body move gently from side to side on the swivelling of my chair, and slowly sipped at my second single malt, staring into the darkness of the view through the window.

A tap at my door broke my reverie.

'Yes.'

Ellen's head popped through the door. 'I hope you don't mind, but you've received a message from Sa'ud bin ash-Sheikh.'

'Yes, of course, come in.'

She walked to my desk, sat and opened the file in her hands. 'Shall I read it?'

'Yes.'

'My Dear Soter, Strategos of the Sons Cleito, I am in receipt of your two long and detailed messages that you clearly crafted with the utmost care and precision, and I now have a clear understanding of you graciousness, by your allowing these messages to be delivered to me in person. Your thoughtful attention to matters that affect the equilibrium are now noted with deep respect, and they will be the foundation stones onto which our continuing stability and counterpoise will be maintained. I remain respectfully yours etcetera. Do you understand any of this? I couldn't find any outgoing messages from you that it refers to.'

'I understand every word,' I said calmly, and let the matter rest, even though Ellen was left in confusion. 'A whiskey? Or are you carrying this evening?'

She smiled. 'No, I'm not carrying.'

I took a glass from my desk drawer and poured a shot for her, then walked over to the window and looked out at the lake, buried in blackness. I felt her arrive by my side. She took a slow sip, placed her glass on the window sill, and then looked up at me; her deep hazel eyes instantly stealing mine, and telling me that her lips were begging to be kissed. I hesitated, but only for a solitary moment before taking her in my arms, while our eyes delved into each other's doubts. When our lips met, we both tasted the passion, and the danger.

'You still want to run, don't you?' she asked, before kissing me again. Gently and warmly.

'I don't think you're asking the right person.'

She looked up into my eyes, holding them with her understanding, and firming her arms around me. 'I never ask, because I know what I'd say,' and she kissed me again, delivering her answer clearly to the question she had never asked.

'Have you ever been in love, Ellen?'

She shook her head slowly, 'Never, .......... never before,' she said, with tears hatching to escape, before burying her head on my shoulder. 'I'm in love with you, Lang,' she whispered, and I felt her whole body sigh and meld with mine. My immediate thought was that I could so easily order that Clytemnestra lie with Soter, but in doing so, it would confirm our life sentences to the lie we knew we were both being forced to live. I waited some moments before she looked up into my eyes again. 'Enough to run with me?'

'Yes,' she said, but her eyes were crying out for me to tell her what she desperately wanted to hear.

I knew I would sign our death warrants with my words, yet hesitated only for a second. I'm in love with you, Ellen.' Our kiss was long, longing and full of fear, yet at the same time, hope. Even if only a little. For the foreseeable future though, all we would have, would be a stolen kiss from time to time, until only perhaps, a chance to steal our lives back might present itself.

'Can you wait?'

'Yes, Lang, yes.'

Lies

Living a lie is often conveniently easier than accepting the consequences of the truth. My lies to live were numerous, and while many seemed harmless, none were. My name was stamped on decisions that read in the language of doctrine, yet I knew the application of these decrees starved, stole, defrauded, maimed and killed. I took little comfort from the knowledge that our world only understood and operated on two motives – greed and fear, and on three principles – God, guns and money. The choice of god was always an ideological convenience, the guns didn’t care whose hands they were in, and money was never harmed by either. Quite the contrary. It continually moved backwards and forwards, over and over again, between gods, and guns and with each move, increased in value.

My god and lie was Cleito, along with all the other gods, deities, spirits and ancient myths that were used as labels and excuses to support the fallacies that were deemed to be our truth. The Sons of Cleito was merely an army, intent on fighting wars with other armies, but with no idea why. This made it no different to any other army in history, yet the truth was so obvious. Without war, money would never move, and thus, never increase in its vile worth.

Thalia was my other terrible lie, yet it was Ellen who persuaded me to live with that lie to protect us. ‘She believes. Don’t let our dangerous wont threaten her security, nor her suspicions threaten ours.’ Perhaps Ellen was right, but it didn’t erase my guilt, on the fewer and increasingly rare occasions that I laid with Thalia.

Weeks turned into months, and the months into uncountable periods of time; lost in lies. So scarcely was I alone, and with only fleeting stolen moments with Ellen’s eyes, that I knew exactly what Nelson had meant when he told me that even the most powerful were puppets. I wandered the garden late in the afternoon and the buds of the new hibiscus blooms told me how long I had been imprisoned. My stomach turned at the thought of seeing the hibiscus coming into bloom again, as the guilt of what I had done when they were last in bloom ate at my conscience. Nothing had been achieved by my brutality, and neither had the needless deaths of Helen and Chara made any difference to anything. Or anyone.

‘You spend too much time thinking Soter.’

I didn’t turn to Giovanna’s voice behind me. ‘And what is so wrong with thinking?’

‘It’s a waste of time trying to wish away the truth, the regrets and think that you can change an iota of the future. It is all decided, as it has always been.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ I said, with my back still to her.

‘Yes, I know you don’t Soter. And you have infected Clytemnestra with your disbelief.’

I felt the bile rising into my throat with her mention of Ellen. ‘She has nothing to do with what I think or believe. She is loyal and hard working.’