When Death Frees the Devil

by L. J. Hayward

  Ethan was careful to not react, but of course the Doctor would have surmised that. It wasn’t that hard to predict the outcome when you’d created the program.

  “But you’ve become so much more than that. Much of it, I believe, is due to your late inclusion in the group, but there’s been another significant influence on the changes we’ve observed over the past couple of years.”

  It was harder this time, but Ethan managed to not let his thoughts show. His heart, however, gave a painful thump.

  “Jack Reardon certainly is an interesting subject,” the Doctor continued as if to himself. “He not only convinced you to leave the only life you knew and think you could be a normal person, but he repeated it with your sister. And he didn’t even have to use sex that time.”

  “Jack Reardon, born to a Caucasian father and Indian mother. Australian citizen with an Overseas Citizenship of India, thanks to his mother,” the Doctor recited. “Graduated with honours in applied science and acceptance into a graduate diploma in education, which he didn’t complete due to joining the army after the death of his mother. Tested for and was accepted into the SAS, attained the rank of lieutenant and then burned out rather spectacularly. Only to be picked up by the Meta-State’s Office of Counterterrorism and Intelligence, where he had a rather mediocre career as a domestic spy before encountering Ethan Blade in the Great Sandy Desert. Since then he’s become the one person in the entire world to even come close to taking down the Cabal. Impressive.”

  Ethan kept his face impassive, though it was hard. Each mention of Jack was like the whip falling on his back. Sudden and sharp, the individual pains overlaying each other until all he wanted to do was scream.

  “But he had help, didn’t he?” The Doctor gave Ethan a small silence to fill and when he refused, nodded and continued. “I always knew you would excel with what we taught you, One-three. I am disappointed it took you so long to prove me right. All those years you fulfilled the bare minimum requirements of the jobs given to you, hiding your talent in mid-level assassinations. Number seven on the John Smith List for so long. Oh, mon doux garçon. Do you know how proud I was when you unleashed your true self as EB13? Five high-level assassinations within three months, while the Office, the CIA, MI6, the SVR and others, all tried to catch you and failed. It was . . . glorious. Everything I knew you could be. Relentless, ruthless, precise.” He smiled warmly. “If only you hadn’t targeted the Cabal.”

  Unable to stop himself, Ethan flinched.

  “The Cabal took you in when your mother abandoned you. How did you describe her earlier? Kind. Loving. Affectionate. And yet she left you behind the first moment she could. I remember it. Do you, One-three? She’d heard rumours of a ‘school’ for Sugar Babies. One of the staff talking out of turn, I believe. So she sought us out and thrust her blind, malnourished, bruised child at the first person she saw and walked away. This is the woman you say taught you how to be kind. Think about it. She abandoned you, and we, the Cabal, took you in when we had absolutely no obligation to. We already had a full quota of Sugar Babies. The program had been working for eight years already, and yet we disrupted our work, our lives, our home, to take you in and care for you. Feed you. Educate you. Give you your sight. And yet it is us you come after.”

  “Well, it was easier than finding my mother.”

  Very slowly, the Doctor set his cup down with a clink. “Pardon? I didn’t quite catch that.”

  Realising he’s said it aloud, if in a whisper, Ethan tightened his jaw and refused to meet the Doctor’s gaze.

  That disappointed hum again, and then in a firm tone, the Doctor said, “I am curious as to why you felt you could come after the Cabal.”

  The view beyond the window hadn’t changed, except that the clouds had moved on and new ones had taken their place. There were no ships, no planes. No sign of other life for as far as Ethan could see.

  He’d done all he could and now just needed to hold on a bit longer.

  “I did it because it’s what you taught me to do. Find the target and eliminate it.”

  “Indeed. And who made you target the Cabal? Your Jack? His Office?” The Doctor poured more tea into his cup, added sugar and stirred it. He tapped the spoon on the lip of the porcelain. “You know we’re quite secure on that front.”

  Ethan stilled. The Doctor was so confident, and he had every right to be. But it didn’t mean he was completely safe.

  “Do you really wish to know who made me come after the Cabal?” Ethan asked softly.

  Setting his cup down, the Doctor folded his hands on the table. “I’ve said I do.”

  “You called him Eleven.”

  The Doctor’s jaw twitched.

  “Do you remember him?” Ethan kept his voice quiet so the guards wouldn’t overhear. “He was maybe a year older than me, but smaller. At least he was after I outgrew him, once you began providing me with regular, healthy meals. You’re right. I did like Four, and I had fun with Nine, and even Seven became someone I cared about, but I always felt closest to Eleven. He was always scared, as I was. He couldn’t keep up with the others, as I couldn’t. He was constantly targeted, just as I was. Like me, he kept failing the tests, kept getting punished or forced to redo the tasks until he got them right, even if it took all day and night. I felt like we could actually be brothers, not the pretend ones you tried to make us into. But he would never let me close. If I tried to be kind he shunned me, called me weak. If I tried to give him presents, as I gave to the others, he threw them back at me and told me I was wasting my time. There’s only so long a child can resist that sort of rejection, so I stopped trying. Eventually I improved with my skills and lessons. Eleven did not. Do you remember him, Doctor? Do you remember what happened to Eleven?”

  Ethan didn’t stop the wash of memories that came forward with his words.

  At fourteen years old, Paul St. Clair had long since ceased to be. One-three had taken his place, numbly falling into line, doing everything they asked of him. It had been so long since he’d been “bad luck” to the group, he was starting to feel proud of his efforts. The instructors weren’t so quick to snap a cane or throw a punch his way and the carers hadn’t picked on him as much.

  “I do. I will never forget. It was the first day I ever won against all of the others. I was first to finish the obstacle course and I felt like I was the fastest, strongest and smartest. It was the first time I felt like I wasn’t going to die in that place. And that’s when I found Eleven.”

  One-three had heard the rush of water as he turned into the showers. Steam billowed out from the stalls at the far end of the white tiled room. He’d stilled. Everyone else had still been on the course. Who could be in there? Taking one of the towels from the shelf along the wall, One-three had moved silently towards the shower stalls. They were small cubicles, no doors, so One-three had come in from the side, so he wouldn’t be seen. Carefully, he’d listened, hearing nothing more than the hiss of the water, the gurgle of the drain, and crying.

  Curious, One-three slowly twisted the towel into a thick rope and, holding the ends in one hand, stepped out.

  A body was slumped against the wall under the shower head, legs splayed out, head bowed under the spray. Eleven sat with his arms limp at his sides, palms upwards. The water around him was pink as it washed towards the drain.

  One-three froze. For the longest moment he simply could not comprehend what he was seeing. Eleven was supposed to be on the obstacle course. The instructors had confirmed that One-three was the first to finish. How had his brother got here before him with enough time to . . . to . . .

  He must have made a sound because Eleven looked up at him, his white eyes barely discernible in the pale expanse of his face. “Don’t . . .”

  One-three crouched by his brother and wrapped the towel he’d thought to use as a weapon around one slashed wrist. Eleven was too weak to fight him but he shook his head feebly and tried to pull away.

  “No, One-three. Don’t. I can’t . . . not
anymore.”

  “We survive,” One-three said firmly. “We protect each other and we survive.”

  “Too late,” Eleven whispered as his head dropped forward again, listless.

  One-three ignored him and reached for his other arm, ready to wrap it in the towel as well. That was when he saw the knife.

  It lay on the stained tiles between Eleven’s thighs, where he’d dropped it after slicing his femoral artery. The water poured down and diluted the blood as it pumped out, washing it directly into the drain.

  “Let me go. I want to go.”

  One-three’s legs collapsed under him and dumped him onto the bloody floor. He sat there, getting wet and stained, and held Eleven’s hand while he died. They found them there, still in the shower, One-three crying, his dead brother’s head in his lap.

  Two weeks later, they told One-three he would be sent on a job that required a young, innocent, beautiful boy to entice Moraitis, to be used and abused just so they could ruin his political agenda. Eleven’s final moment still fresh in his mind and heart, One-three refused, knowing he would be punished. He refused and refused until they whipped him to the point of bleeding. Until the leather cut so deep it would leave scars that remained into his adulthood. Then they’d dumped him in the same shower stall where Eleven had died and made him watch his own blood swirl down the drain. After that, he’d agreed.

  Two years later, when told the details of their final test, One-three had refused again. They hadn’t punished him for refusing to take part in it, though. The Doctor had said he respected One-three’s choice and sent him out into the world with those who passed.

  But that had just been another lie. The Doctor hadn’t respected—didn’t respect—Ethan’s choices. It had just been part of the experiment. The experiment within the experiment. Otherwise, Ethan wouldn’t be here now, his back aching and throat sore, demanding the Doctor acknowledge the sheer inhumanity of what he had done to thirteen children, and take responsibility for it.

  “Do you remember?” Ethan asked again, letting his pent up anger and pain show in his voice.

  The Doctor didn’t answer the question. His expression was as locked down as Ethan’s, giving away nothing of his thoughts. Ethan could guess at them, however. The Doctor hadn’t forgotten Eleven, just as Ethan hadn’t. Each time he’d killed one of his “brothers,” Ethan had seen Eleven in their place, so damaged, so broken, death was the only freedom he could find.

  “All right, One-three,” the Doctor finally murmured. “It’s clear that you’re not yet willing to listen. You’re tired and in pain. We’ll leave it at that for today.” He nodded to the guards standing by the lift. “Restrain him and return him to his cell.”

  Ethan was hauled out of the chair and his arms and hands were tied behind his back again. They were at the lift when the Doctor spoke again.

  “Once he’s secure, break his leg.”

  He would have fought then, but the doors to the lift opened.

  The cool blue eyes of the woman in front of him froze Ethan’s plans before they’d even formed. She met his gaze for a long moment, then brushed past him, greeting the Doctor with an outreached hand and received a warm, familiar welcome in return.

  The guards shoved Ethan into the lift and the doors closed.

  “They’re ready for you, Mr. Reardon.”

  Jack nodded to the blonde woman with the blue tinted glasses but didn’t stand to follow her. Instead, he pulled in a deep breath of the perfectly temperature-controlled air, held it, the scent of floor polish and old leather pooling in his nose, then let it go slowly. Three more of them barely took the edge off the queasiness in his stomach. What he really needed was a cigarette or three, but they’d kept him waiting on a moment’s notice. If he’d ducked out the back of Sydney’s Parliament House for a smoke, he could probably guarantee that was when they’d call him in. So, he hadn’t gone and now they wanted him in there. He felt like he was going into a war zone naked.

  Standing, Jack did up his jacket button, picked up the leather case that held his files and, trying one more deep breath, followed the woman down the short corridor. Her heels clicked on the polished marble floor, a metronome keeping the time of Jack’s march into battle. He let out the breath he’d taken, hoping that this would be the one that brought the serenity. This was not the time for him to lose control, or to even react. They would try their hardest to discredit him and his story. He couldn’t do anything to help them.

  “Through here,” his guide announced and waved to a set of large, carved wooden doors.

  “Thanks.” Jack gave her another nod and, keeping the pace she’d set, pushed through the door. The queasiness disappeared as he entered the battlefield.

  The room was set up like every other hearing he’d been in. A long bench at one end with five positions along it. A single desk and chair sat in the centre of the rest of the space, facing the table.

  “Mr. Reardon, take a seat, please.” Minister Simmons sat in the middle of the bench, flicking through a folder of papers even as he waved Jack to the solitary chair before him.

  Karl Simmons was in his late sixties, with a full head of hair that was still more brown than grey and a face that tended to disappear in groups of similarly aged and dressed men. As Minister for National Security, he was nominally in control of the International Security Office, which acted to protect Australian dignitaries overseas. The ISO was also the cover for the secret Meta-State run Office of Counterterrorism and Intelligence, generally called the Office.

  Simmons was the end of the line when it came to the operational integrity of the Office. The only person who could override a decision made by Simmons was the Prime Minister and Jack doubted the newly appointed leader of the country was too concerned with a preliminary hearing on the actions of one field asset. Jack’s nuts were in Simmons’s vice.

  He sat, put his case on the desk to one side, and studied those who’d been called up to dissect his job performance this time. They looked like a firing squad and Jack wondered if he should just fuck with protocol and light one up then and there.

  To Simmons’s left sat Director in Charge Charles Lund, head of the Australian division of the Office. Next to him was Director Michelle Chan, the Singaporean External Threat Assessment director. On the minister’s other side was Assistant Minister Roger Greene, who worked for the Minister of Defence. The last member of the review board was a man who’s name Jack hadn’t been told and hadn’t been able to find. In a non-descript dark suit and blank expression, he was even more bland than Simmons. Sitting back in his chair, he was seemingly more interested in his pen than the proceedings. Jack guessed him to be from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation or the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. Jack knew the type, knew his purpose in being here, and mentally tagged him as Quiet Man. He wouldn’t take any part in the proceedings until absolutely required.

  Finally, Simmons looked at Jack and gave him a perfunctory smile. “Sorry to have kept you waiting. I’m sure you can appreciate how much information there is to go through. But, we’re ready now. I have to say, Mr. Reardon, that I’m disappointed we’re meeting again under such circumstances. This isn’t as pleasant as our last encounter.”

  Jack carefully held his polite, open expression. “Our last encounter, sir, was when the previous Prime Minister presented a posthumous medal to the family of my dead co-worker. I wasn’t particularly happy to be there, either.”

  Simmons’s attempt at friendliness cracked for a moment, then smoothly he said, “Of course. It was a sad occasion though it was an honour to remember your co-worker’s heroism.”

  The man couldn’t even remember Harry’s name. Jack dug his fingers into his thigh to keep from doing or saying something harmful to his chances of getting out of here sans handcuffs. The sooner this goddamned charade was over, the sooner he could hunt down Ethan.

  “My intention was to simply convey my disappointment that once more, your actions are a matter of serious
concern.” Simmons’s expression turned stern. “I needn’t remind you that this is just a preliminary review, Mr. Reardon. The information we’re gathering today will be used to determine if the matter of your conduct needs to be taken further. Are we ready to begin?” he asked his fellow reviewers.

  After receiving nods and quiet affirmatives, Simmons looked at Jack with raised eyebrows.

  This was it. All of his secrets were going to be revealed over the next several hours. He couldn’t hold anything back this time. If they had any chance of this working, everyone had to know everything.

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said clearly.

  “Good. Let’s start with your relationship with Omega Subject. The man who called himself Ethan Blade.”

  Steeling himself, Jack said, “I first met Ethan Blade in the Great Sandy Desert two and—”

  “No.” Simmons cut him off with a shake of his head. “All that was part of the last conduct hearing, Mr. Reardon. Let’s move on to the events at the end of last year. We have reviewed the files concerning the assassin called . . .” He consulted a bit of paper. “Two. Very confusing set of circumstances, but all in the past, I believe. Perhaps you could begin after you were released from the infirmary. I believe you left in the company of Omega Subject.”

  The repetition of “Omega Subject” grated on Jack’s nerves just as bad now as it had the first time it’s been bandied about in his presence. “I’m not going to call Ethan Omega Subject all day.”

  DIC Lund frowned. “Didn’t he in fact confirm he wasn’t Ethan Blade?”

  “He did, but he also decided that he wished to be called Ethan.” This was it. Time to be upfront. “Because that’s the name I called him by.”

  Simmons’s mouth downturned at the corners. “Hmm. Your relationship with Omega, sorry, Ethan. It was sexual, wasn’t it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “At the request of Director Alex Tan, I believe.”

  Lund leaned forwards. “I don’t believe Director Tan actually stated Mr. Reardon should enter into a physical relationship with the subject.”