The Sons Of Cleito (The Abductions of Langley Garret Book 1)

by Haines, Derek

  I went back to the time after I had met Helen at university when we had both belonged to a flaky group of save the world hippies. We all spent more time doing drugs, getting pissed and fucking each other rather than actually saving anything though. If she had been a spy or agent of some description, our regular moves around Europe later tied in well as they were always because of her job, which was as a political advisor. The real question though was, why was I her assignment as had been made so clear in the video?

  Going back to the video, there were all the mentions of it that obviously contained the answer to everything.

  'I'd know if he had any idea about it,' she had said as well as, 'I'm sure he has no clue about it at all.'

  The man had said, ' It's only a few months from now.'

  Whatever it was, it was her job to make sure I didn't know about it, so logically this it had something to do with my mother, her letter and why Helen had stayed so long with me.

  While I was on pronouns, it hit me that Leda and Chara used them a lot. Always referring to us and we. I started a new page in my notebook with three columns, which I headed, It, Us, and Them. When I could replace these pronouns with nouns, I would have my answer, if I ever could. My main problem though was in deciding on which team Helen belonged. It had to be Team One because Team Two didn't seem to know anything about the letter's content. Only that it existed. If this was the case, Helen must have known I would be taken to Decem Filios, and then if I added my conclusion that Leda and Chara and perhaps friends seemed to be planning a long term stay for me, that would have meant I wouldn't have been around in a few months when it happened. I looked at the column I had headed with It and wrote, Zeus - Aim = Power and Control. Then under Us I wrote, Leda, Chara and Hazel Eyes. That left Them, who had to be the Grey Lady and Team Two, who were now holding me prisoner. So maybe it was their job to stop what this it thing was from happening. My remaining mystery was still in which column to put Helen.

  I leant back and stretched my arms then wrapped my hands behind my head, wondering if I knew anything more. It was quite a while before I realised what I had missed. The marks on my neck! Leda had shown me her marks and Chara had them. I knew Helen didn't. I wondered about Hazel Eyes and her team but when I thought back, she was wearing a scarf tucked around her neck. But as for the man in the ill-fitting suit, I couldn't be sure. I wasn't looking for it back then, but perhaps. Square Jaw on the plane might have. I tried to think back to these two men and what I had seen. I closed my eyes and concentrated on them one at a time. I still wasn't sure about the man who was with Hazel Eyes but there was something just near Square Jaw's collar. It was only protruding a little from above his collar, but yes, perhaps he did have a mark on his neck.

  The lines on my neck had to be some kind of mark of membership or branding and a sign of belonging to …. Atlantis and Zeus. Us and it. But what form of power and control? Over them?

  'You're being transferred,' interrupted my thinking as Samuels entered my cabin.

  'Where to?'

  'No idea. Be ready in twenty minutes,' he said and then left, closing the cabin door quite loudly.

  Sand

  It was another helicopter ride for me but this time I was hand and ankle cuffed. A half an hour into the flight we crossed a coastline, which I didn't recognise at all and then landed at a military airfield. I had realised I'd been aboard British naval ships, but this didn't seem to be a British air base. There were military looking people and a hangar, but the word rebels or mercenaries came to mind easily. Khaki fatigues, but no badges of national identification. I was unloaded from the helicopter and immediately deposited into a military cargo plane. It wasn't that big, but it was empty apart from me, secured by a chain from my handcuffs to a steel railing along the inside body of the plane, and then two men in black suits and even blacker sunglasses boarded and sat either side of me, saying nothing. I had no idea where we were, and when we landed nearly three hours later, I had no idea where I had arrived. All I knew was that it was hot and dusty.

  Yet another helicopter waited for me and after only ten minutes or so, it landed at what I presumed was my final destination. As we approached it, I could see the concrete walls, razor wire and three seemingly quickly constructed buildings. Around it all was desert. Within only a few minutes of getting out of the helicopter, I was in prison. I had a bad feeling that this was a prison that very few people knew about. Within an hour, I was squatting naked on the concrete floor of my cell after having been searched both externally and internally. My cell contained only a few basic features. A solid steel door, one small barred window near the ceiling, a security camera and a shit and piss hole in the floor in one corner. I thought of Byron and his poor fucking monk, and of how I could kill myself before they started torturing me. I knew it was stupid now and I shouldn't have kept my notes in the pocket of my fluorescent orange overalls.

  I didn't get breakfast, lunch or dinner but I did get meals. Shoved through a small flap door at the base of my cell door. It was exactly the same for each of my first three meals, a plastic bottle of water, a plastic bowl of something that was a very poor relative of porridge and an orange, and not a hint of even plastic cutlery. It was following my third meal after arriving that I was escorted from my cell and into an interrogation room containing two metal chairs and a metal table, which had its legs imbedded into the concrete floor. There was a single light above the centre of the table. Hardly that much different from my cell, only slightly larger and with a dark glass panel in one wall. The guard handcuffed my right hand to a steel ring that was welded to the corner of the table and then left me alone naked and secured in the room. My arse stuck to the metal chair no matter how I tried to sit or wriggle, and perspiration dripped from my entire body as I sweltered.

  Perhaps it was an hour, but given my discomfort it could have been less, when a man entered the room from behind me and then sat opposite me. He wore only a white t-shirt and grey trousers and didn't even have a file in his hands. He sat silently and stared at me. I couldn't decide on his nationality, but perhaps from somewhere around The Balkans or maybe Bulgarian. When he finally spoke, his accent threw me off balance. It was almost an Oxford English accent.

  'You're in very serious shit, aren't you Mr Garret?'

  'Yes,' I said and nodded.

  'So when was it precisely that you started supplying sensitive information to terrorists?'

  'What?'

  'Your computer records make very interesting reading?'

  'My computer? It was taken when I was hauled from Neuchâtel. So how…?'

  'We have managed to access all you computer records.'

  'From the island? I don't understand.'

  'Does that matter? Now, maybe you would answer my question. When did all this begin?'

  'I don't know what you're talking about. Really. I've never been in contact with anyone other than just friends and chatting on the Internet.'

  'Oh come on Mr Garret, please. We know about Atlantis and The Sons of Cleito and so do you. You were even so kind, or perhaps stupid enough, to bring us all your notes about it.'

  'I was only trying to figure out for myself what was going on. I've got no idea at all. All I know is….'

  The open handed slap across my face hurt. 'Mr Garret, this is not a kindergarten here and you must know that you are involved in a very serious matter of national security. You have been sending messages containing logistical, technical and intelligence information that is being used to plan and plot a dangerous series of terrorist attacks. There are no nursemaids here, so please consider the fact that it would be much more comfortable for you to talk about these matters of your own volition. It's much more pleasant than the alternatives.'

  'Look, I'll tell you everything I know, but I don't know much about anything. Honestly.'

  Another slap told me he didn't believe me, and that I was really in fucking deep shit.

  'Let's go back a few steps. Tell me about the letter.'

&
nbsp; I told the man everything I could remember about the letter from my mother and that I hadn't seen it since I was in my mid-twenties or so, and my suspicions that Helen had taken it. With the very real threat of being tortured, I told him as much as I possibly could about my notes and how I had tried to figure out for myself what was going on. I pushed any conclusions I had when I wrote the notes a little further by even telling him that I thought my wife could be involved in Zeus and how I thought it maybe a plot to overthrow a government. I was stretching my imagination a lot, and dumping the blame on Helen, but from the video Leda had shown me, Helen had dumped me in the shit already, so returning the favour might be my only means of avoiding having my balls incinerated, or worse.

  I escaped being electrocuted or having my fingernails pulled out with pliers during my first interrogation and was relieved when I was led back to my cell. I shouldn't have been quite so relieved though, as the very worst I had contemplated earlier arrived about an hour later. My cell door flew open and two men wearing balaclavas, which had a regular familiarity about it, marched in. One grabbed me from behind as the other launched his knee into my groin. My body curled forward in instant agony and as I did, another knee spread my nose across my face. The man behind me released his grip and I fell to the floor in a pool of pain. A boot into my stomach took every ounce of air from my body, and another boot to my back created a total vacuum inside my lungs. When I vomited, a boot pushed my face with painful pressure, into the yellow-brown pool of my stomach's contents. I felt, more than saw them turn and head for the door of my cell as I fought to breathe. Neither my hearing nor my sight noticed one of them turn back and then bury another boot brutally into my belly. It was as if the steel cap boot exited via my back.

  I coughed and spluttered trying to draw just one single breath of air – to stay alive. I saw the puddle of blood on the floor, which I suddenly hoped was only blood and not the remnants of my nose. Managing to gasp one quick breath into my lungs, and then after more coughing, another, I felt my lungs screaming in relief. Every other cell of my body was screaming in agony. My internal organs were far too busy dealing with the after effects of steel capped boots to bother commenting, but my brain was clear in its warning that I was definitely going to die in this place. No matter what I told them. I replied that I wished it would be very soon.

  I crawled to the back wall of my cell in fear as I heard a noise at the door of my cell, only to see my meal tray appear anonymously through the small flap door at the base of it. I looked at it, as I tried yet again to breathe. Finally, I crawled to the tray and drank some water, then splashed some over my face. It ran red down my chest. I curled up in a corner of my cell and waited, wanting to die. At the very least, the two balaclavas could have beaten me until I was unconscious, and not left me to suffer the pain. I must have passed out because the next thing I knew, another meal tray slid into my cell alongside the earlier one, untouched except for a missing water bottle that lay empty next to me. I crawled to the new bottle of water and drank it in one long series of painful gulps. I think I passed out again but there was no new meal tray when the two balaclavas arrived again.

  I crawled away to the back wall in fear as they approached and waited for their boots. This time they didn't arrive. The two men grabbed me from under my shoulders and dragged me out of my cell and into the corridor before depositing me back in the interrogation room and cuffing me to the table once again. Then I waited alone once more now wishing, if not even praying for death. I had sudden and stupid thoughts of spitting in their faces so they would kick me harder and longer. Anything to die. My eyes had trouble focussing when the man with the white t-shirt, grey trousers and Oxford accent sat down opposite me.

  'You sent emails everyday at exactly four o'clock to the same five addresses. Why did you do that Langley?'

  I tried to look up at him, but he blurred and moved from side to side in front of me. I heard him call me Langley, and wondered why he'd changed to my first name.

  'I didn't,' I grunted.

  'But I have the records here. Everyday at the same time to the same email addresses. And always mentioning one of ten names. Atlas or Gadeiros, Ampheres, Euaimon, Mniseus, Aftochthon, Elasippos, Mistoras, Azais or Diaprepis. Code names for operatives perhaps?'

  'I didn't send them. I don't know any of the names.'

  'But some of them are in your notes Langley.'

  'I don't know, I really don't know,' I said, and started sobbing.

  'You were in contact with others on social media sites. Let's see here. Charon, Lamia, Styx, Agrius and Tartarus. The list goes on Langley. So what is it with your interest in Greek gods and spirits?'

  'I linked with thousands of people and they often had odd screen names.'

  'But you have to admit that you had an awful lot of Greek gods popping in on you to say hello.'

  'I don't know, honestly I don't know anything about all this,' I spluttered, sobbing again.

  'And Helen is a very Greek name, isn't it?'

  'Yes.'

  'So who are you two working for?'

  'I'm not. It's Helen. It must be Helen,' I whimpered.

  'I really don't think you're telling me everything you know Langley.'

  'I am, I am! It's my wife. She's a spy or something. It wasn't me, I don't know anything about all this,' I squealed, like a child pleading before a belting, as he stood up and quietly left the room. I sat sobbing, handcuffed to the table. The room was rotating around me and every single part of my body told me to die very soon as they had all had enough of suffering the pain. It could have been a few minutes or an hour before I heard a noise and a blurred black balaclava appeared from behind me. He had something in his hand and as he grabbed my free wrist, I only saw the glimpse of what looked like a hammer or mallet before my hand exploded in an instant, in blinding and excruciating pain, and made every other part of my body forget all about what pain was. My screams were met with silence as I fell from my chair and writhed in agony, squirming on the floor and feeling as if I was tearing my right hand from its wrist as it twisted from the handcuff tying me to the table.

  The Oxford accent returned behind me. 'You really need to think about your Greek friends a little bit more Langley.'

  'I don't know, I don't know!' I screamed. 'Just fucking kill me!'

  'Are you working for the Krypteia or the Gaia Anachists? Or both?'

  My hand screamed in pain as I squirmed on the floor and wailed, 'I've never heard of them. Never. I don't know fucking anything.'

  'So why were you with the Cleito group on the island? Were you helping them?'

  'It wasn't me. They grabbed me and took me there. I don't know why,' I spluttered, as my whole body writhed in agony while I hung from my twisted right wrist.

  'Liar!' I heard, a half second before a boot took all the air from my lungs.

  I woke, shaking away the cockroaches that were feeding on the scabs around what was left of my nose. It took every ounce of energy I possessed to push myself up enough with one hand to sit, leaning up against the wall. My hand started throbbing up my left arm and into my chest and back. I could only wait for them to get annoyed enough to kill me, but suffer in agony until they did. Ants crawled across my legs but I didn't have the energy to stop them. Hopefully they would be carrying a fatal disease or virus and bite me. Anything, anything at all to die.

  Three more times I was dragged off to talk to the Oxford accent, but it could have been in one day or a month for all I knew. Time was lost, and so was any sense of hope at all. Occasionally Chara entered my mind, but mostly she didn't. I could only make a judgement of time using my left hand. As it had stopped screaming in pain and now only painfully throbbed, it must have been some time since it had happened. I couldn't use my fingers at all, but I could wipe the back of my hand across my nose that still bled from time to time. Other parts of my body had stopped complaining and were content to send their sympathies. My internal digestive organs were out of work as there was little to
digest, and with the state of things, there were no bad news signals to send when it was clear that every minute of every day was the worst news I had or would ever receive in my life – for as long as my life lasted.

  I don't know when it was, it was just then, when a man with a moustache and very bad body odour entered my cell and threw me a pair of overalls. Not fluorescent orange this time, more a bright baby shit green. I looked at him and he waited for a moment as my brain decided that he might want me to put the overalls on. Finally managing to make my decision and do so, he nodded at me when I had. He moved towards me and handcuffed me before leading me from my cell. Any sense of struggle had left me a long time before, so I obediently followed him as he took me by the shoulder of my overalls and walked me into the corridor and then after one or two turns stopped at an almost identical cell door to my own.

  'In,' was all he said, and when I did, I heard the door close behind me. I looked around what I presumed was my new cell. The shit hole in the floor was the same, as was the high barred window, but this cell had a bed. I looked at it as if it was a mirage. A bare metal frame and a mattress about as thick as my thumb but it was luxury compared to a bare damp concrete floor. I sat down on the side of my new bed and bounced a little. Although the bed was an improvement, other changes in my routine made me think that it was only minimal. The same meal tray arrived, approximately three times a day, albeit with a larger bottle of water, but since the man with the moustache had brought me here, no one had entered my cell and I hadn't left it. I tried keeping a rough tally by the number of meal trays and thought it had been about a week since I had seen or talked to a single soul. I added to my tally, and after another few days I was starting to think that I was being left to slowly rot and conveniently for everyone, die.