by Sean Deville
“But I had nothing to do with Philadelphia.”
“Nobody here is going to believe that.”
“Please, it’s the truth.”
“And this?” Khaled said, pointing to the picture of the device.
“I...” What could he say in his own defence?
“We know who you are and where you are from.” Khaled rested a hand on the folder, more of its secrets ready to be unleashed. “You shame yourself and our ancestors.”
“You are Iranian?” Mohammed asked.
“Not by birth. My parents fled the country when the Shah was overthrown.”
“The removal of America's puppet was a day of celebration.” It was something Mohammed had always been told. And for many it was true, the Shah's regime brutal and oppressive. But then, so was what had replaced it.
“Not for my parents,” Khaled countered. “You will find no friends here.”
“I demand a lawyer,” Mohammed insisted desperately.
“Demand? I'm afraid you will have more chance of getting the whore my partner alluded to.”
“But this is America!” Indeed, it was, but it was an America that had passed laws severely curtailing an individual’s freedoms when the government deemed such actions necessary. Mohammed wasn't an American citizen and had entered the country illegally. Under section 412 of the Patriot Act, he could be held without trial indefinitely.
“Yes, it is. So, let me tell you what this means for you.” Khaled pulled out several sheets from the folder, held together by a single staple which they were easily separated from. When the sheets were laid out, Mohammed's guts sank. It was a copy of Mohammed's confidential file. Only his direct superiors back in Iran were supposed to have access to that. His background, including his military service record, with a younger-looking Mohammed in the photograph. Most of it was in Persian, all under the header for the VAJA, the Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“How did you...?”
“Our friends in Mossad came across it. Looks like your bosses have a leak. We would like to thank you, though.” Khaled sat back in his chair. This interrogation would be easier than he thought. One wonders what he would have thought if Mossad had been deliberately sent a copy of that file by a demon masquerading as one of Iran’s most powerful leaders.
“Thank me?” What is this maniac talking about?
“Yes. If you hadn't come to America, we likely never would have discovered the nuke in time.”
“This is all lies,” Mohammed insisted, although he knew there was no escaping his fate now. How could the VAJA allow themselves to become so compromised? There was an answer floating on the edge of his reason, but he couldn't pull it into the light.
“And I'm sure a lawyer could make a very strong case in this regard. Such a shame you won’t be getting one.” At that moment Ibrahim returned and dumped a bottle of water in front of the prisoner.
“Here's your water,” she said. The lid had already been removed, and some of the water spilled out onto the table. Mohammed reached for it greedily, his throat feeling parched, his eyes still stinging from the pepper spray used on him. Those arresting him had sprayed him several times.
“You didn't spit in it, did you?” Khaled kept his words measured, as if he was genuinely concerned for the well-being of the man in handcuffs.
“Of course not,” Ibrahim said as she sat down. Understandably, Mohammed didn't believe her, but he drank it anyway.
“Let me tell you what is going to happen,” Khaled advised. “You are going to admit to your participation in a terrorist plot. You will come clean about who you work for and the country you represent. Do this and you will be given a degree of leniency.”
“Leniency?”
“Yes. At the moment you face a life in Guantanamo after your conviction by a military tribunal.”
“But I am not guilty of Philadelphia. I had nothing to do with that,” Mohammed insisted, even though such a defence was meaningless. What was he actually guilty of? Entering illegally. Transporting guns. Looking at a nuclear device. Oh, and poisoning thousands of innocent Romans. Best not to think about that last crime.
“Nothing?” Ibrahim almost screamed. “You brought a fucking nuclear bomb into my country, you scumbag.”
“No, it was already here.”
“Oh?” Khaled leaned forward. “Why don't you tell me more about that?”
“I was supposed to...” Mohammed paused. “I don't understand what I was supposed to do.” And there it was, the glaring irregularity in all this. Why had he been sent to inspect the suitcase nuke? He knew nothing about nuclear physics or the weapons science could create. He was one man who was completely out of his depth.
“What were the AKs in the back of your truck for?” Ibrahim demanded to know. Clearly, she was the bad cop in this interrogation.
“Self-defence,” Mohammed lied.
“You see, there you go again.” Khaled sighed with disappointment. “If you carry on like this, you might end up spending the rest of your days in solitary confinement. I hear that breaks a man.”
“It's worse than getting the needle,” Ibrahim warned. “Imagine it. Never speaking to another soul. Constantly on suicide watch to stop you ending your life. Just the same four walls twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes the guards make it worse by keeping the cell cold and never letting you sleep. Your mind eats away at itself as you slowly go mad.”
“No, please.” Mohammed's heart was trying to beat itself out of his chest.
“By the way, we already know the answers to most of this,” Khaled said pulling another piece of paper from the folder. “Your friend Farrokh has been much more cooperative. This is his statement. It paints you in a very unfavourable light.”
“You don't seem to have the balls to be the great mastermind of all this,” Ibrahim mocked. “But maybe that's all an act.”
“I'm just a soldier,” Mohammed blurted out.
“An Iranian soldier?” Khaled asked for clarity. Mohammed nodded. “Speak up for the recording device, please.”
“Yes, an Iranian soldier.”
“The AKs, what were they for?” Ibrahim asked again. In the back of the van Mohammed had been dragged from, the FBI had found ten AK47s and several crates of ammunition. A little bit more than was needed for self-defence.
“We were to meet up with another cell,” Mohammed admitted.
“By we you mean you and Farrokh?” Khaled was a calming presence to replace Ibrahim's anger and intensity. Mohammed felt himself wanting to unburden. If only he knew the way he had been played by forces he could never understand.
“Yes. I do not know the full details.”
“I'm sure you will be happy to tell us who you were due to meet and where?”
“A place called Fort Montgomery.” This did not get the response Mohammed expected. In an increased rage, Ibrahim cursed him before storming out of her chair.
“You fucker,” she said before leaving the room again. Mohammed couldn't hide his confusion.
“That's right near the West Point military academy.” Khaled gathered all the papers together. “My partner’s brother is in officer training there.” So that’s what the AKs were for, thought Mohammed. Could he have gone through with such an attack? Likely he could have, spurred on by peer pressure from the others he would have met there. He had already killed thousands. What were a few more lives to his tarnished soul?
It would have been different though. Pulling the trigger whilst aiming at a living, breathing human being was different than killing civilians remotely.
“The report from Mossad says you were stationed in Rome. Why don't you tell me more about what you did there?” Mohammed bowed his head. How long before the first casualties started showing up with symptoms in the Italian capital? How long before it became clear anthrax and radioactive isotopes had been sprayed from the sky? Mohammed had no doubt he would be blamed for that also. “I believe you were recently activated.”
&nbs
p; Mohammed did the only thing he could do. He told the agent and those watching everything he knew.
***
Fox watched the interview from the other side of the one-way mirror. He had to admit Mohammed didn’t look like much. The terrorist didn’t have the eyes or the bearing of a cold killer, but maybe that was what made him so effective. He kind of looked normal, which had helped him to slip through the gaps unnoticed. Mohammed had infiltrated the United States, and if not for blind luck, his nuke would have totally decimated most of the Manhattan financial district. The stock markets across the world were already reeling from the war in the Persian Gulf and the first nuke attack that had occurred. If Wall Street had disappeared in the radioactive dust of a mushroom cloud, there would be no telling how disastrous the result would have been.
“You can pretty much write your own ticket after this,” the FBI Special Agent in Charge said. She stood to the side of Fox, her eyes fixed on the individual who was soon to become the most hated man in America. Her name was Rose Winfrey, and she was as competent as she was formidable. Winfrey owed Fox everything because the building she worked in was right in the planned blast zone of the Iranian nuclear device. “And thanks for your help in breaking the other terrorist.” Fox’s intel had given them leverage over Farrokh.
Fox likely wouldn’t have to buy a drink in this city ever again.
“I got lucky,” Fox said. Right now, he didn’t care about the rewards and the accolades destined to come his way. But he couldn’t deny the thought of what he had coming to him hadn’t popped into his feverish mind at least once. Without Fox’s intelligence gathering, Mohammed would have escaped New York. Even with the Mossad information, there was no way they would have found the nuke in time.
Fox had saved the day and tens of thousands of lives, and mostly due to blind luck.
“Cut the modesty bullshit,” Winfrey advised. “You’re a hero. Make the most of it.”
“I’m happy for the FBI to take the credit,” Fox insisted, although he didn’t mean it. He knew his superiors would be making him a poster boy for what was to come. Fox hoped he could have some say in how policy was to develop. No doubt he was looking at a promotion and a much-needed pay rise. If he could somehow be a voice in front of the American people and their leaders, he might be able to steer the country where it needed to be.
A man could dream.
“The hell we will.” Chavet turned to him. “We are all coming out of this smelling of roses. The country needs a win and you delivered that.”
“Do you think there are any more nukes?” This would be a constant concern for the American people now.
“Unknown. But I think New York is safe. The President has already been locked down. The cabinet has been dispersed, and the Vice President is on his way to Mount Weather.” Those at the top always knew how to protect themselves.
“None of this makes any sense.” Fox still couldn’t believe how anyone thought they could get away with this.
“Who can say what goes on in the minds of terrorists?” Chavet said.
“But it’s not just terrorists. Why did the Iranians do it? What did they hope to gain?” To Fox, the attacks were madness. The nuclear devices were low yield, devastating, but not enough to destroy a whole city. Why attack a country you had no chance of defeating? Even worse, why attack a country that possessed the most powerful military the world had ever seen?
“I don’t think we are dealing with rational people here,” Chavet noted. “Fundamentalists live in their own reality.”
“Do we know where they got the nuke?” The Iranians didn’t have the technology or the radioactive material to create such a device. That meant they acquired it somewhere.
“Pretty much. It’s Russian-made, so they either bought it legitimately or acquired it through back channels somehow. I hope it’s the latter.” Going to war with Russia, despite the reduction in its military strength, was not on the table. The Russians had enough intercontinental ballistic missiles to wipe America off the face of the map. Turning Iran into glass would satisfy Fox for the time being.
In the interrogation room, Mohammed started crying.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“That’s up to others. If he’s uncooperative he’ll get the death penalty which would probably be the better outcome for him in the long run.”
Fox wondered if the comment was down to a perception of Mohammed’s beliefs or an understanding of what the rest of the terrorist’s life would be like if incarcerated. “Better outcome?” Fox would like to see the man on his knees begging for mercy as a gun was put to his head. And if Fox was given that gun, he would have no reservations in pulling the trigger.
“You know what some of these bastards are like. They crave death, thinks it martyrs them. They are so full of their seventy-two virgins and their blissful afterlife they sometimes can’t see straight. More likely he will be given a show trial and have his face plastered all over the media. I suspect he will live out his life in Guantanamo or a Federal Supermax prison.”
“He should never have been able to get into the country,” Fox added.
“The borders are weak. People like us tell the politicians what they don’t want to hear so they ignore us,” Chavet said. Fox liked her, despite the colour of her skin. She clearly wasn’t a political appointee. She had reached the position she was in on the back of genuine merits. Fox found himself wondering if she was a Republican. Did this even matter now? What politician would dare stand against what was coming? The left wing of American politics had likely been dealt a death blow, which pleased Fox no end.
It would be interesting to see what America looked like a year from now. If you weren’t against what the terrorists had done, you would be seen as one of them.
What was it the former President Bush had said? “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
To Fox, that sounded like one of the sanest things anyone had ever said.
7.
London, UK
Damien hadn't expected any further visitors today. He knew at some point the police would re-question him, but after Vicky departed, he hoped to have the rest of the day to himself. With this belief, he sat cross-legged on the floor and began a deep meditation. Nobody had taught him how to do this, it was just something that came naturally. It allowed him to calm his mind and nullify the concerns and the self-doubt even a man as self-possessed as Damien could be afflicted with. He had spent years killing people, out of a sense of overwhelming purpose rather than any real sense of pleasure or excitement. The mind that was Damien wasn't present when the murders were committed, as Legion took full command.
In those prolonged moments of murder, Damien slept, free from the memories of the horrors his hands performed.
This was why Legion had fractured from his psyche. The personality had appeared in the dark days of abuse and parental neglect. It had come to protect a child who didn't understand his place in the world, and whose earthly father had used torture where love would have been more appropriate. Legion had saved a boy and helped forge a man who understood he had a destiny. Unfortunately for those who fell as victims, Legion had added a bit of mass murder into the mix for good measure. Damien was happy to help feed his other half’s bubbling rage.
In the numerous moments of meditation, Legion remained still, never interrupting, never asserting himself. Damien was allowed to be free from himself. It was the perfect partnership where each respected the limits and boundaries of the other.
Sitting cross-legged on the mattress, Damien allowed himself to go deep. Any thought intruding on his silence was cast aside with merciless disregard. He wanted nothing, a blackness, a void where ideas and consciousness could not reside. Sometimes, in those moments, where his mind was filled with a narcotic emptiness, Damien thought he could feel the presence of his true father. It was as if someone was watching him through a window between worlds. Dami
en had no proof of this, merely an impression growing with every meditation. The law and the judiciary of this land thought locking Damien up was some sort of punishment.
Far from it.
To be fed, housed and watered covered all his basic needs. Whilst he waited for the fallen ones to rise again, he could sit here, in this cell, and lose himself in the infinite reaches of his own skull. He had no great desire to be around other people in the general prison population, nor did he crave the need to converse with his fellow human kind. They were lesser than him, sired from frail flesh. They did not have Damien's lineage for they were not born of the seed from those who had fallen in disgrace from the heavens. Prison was almost the perfect world to him.
Almost.
The thing missing was the ability to scratch the itch constantly plaguing him. Legion had been his saviour, his guardian, but Legion had needs and those needs seeped through into Damien's waking moments, even when Legion lay sedate and silent. There were so many people Legion needed to kill, and whilst Legion could show patience and restraint, the alter ego insisted upon regular opportunities to practice the art of death the alternative personality had mastered.
What better target for such violence than Damien’s unworthy brothers? They were a blight on the world, an affront to the purity that Damien represented.
Like with Damien's meditation, Legion’s slaughter was self-taught. After all, Legion had received ample practice. The split psyche, when wrenching the control from Damien's hands, could work such misery onto another’s flesh. The deaths were never quick. Instead, they were prolonged and drawn out affairs that satiated Legion's demands. Damien found them and Legion killed them. This was the partnership that had been established ever since Legion had stuck the knife into Damien's mother. This was the agreement they had reached, signed in blood.
Being incarcerated altered that balance. Inside these walls of reinforced concrete, there was no real opportunity to savour the kill. And although this was a place of violence, the opportunities for death were restricted by the locked doors and lack of suitable weapons. There would be children of Lucifer in here, but there was no way for Legion to get at them. That, more than anything, was building a growing irritation within Legion that Damien had been able to detect.
