“Why don’t you tell me? It’s just a hairy leg with a tattoo as far as I can see. It looks like some Arabic symbols to me, but I haven’t studied the language in years. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Anna ignored the obvious lie, and extracted another photo from the envelope and laid it on the table. Aman looked at the youthful version of himself in the old black and white photo, standing with pride, while surrounded by his loyal entourage. His two holy warriors seated below him. Where did this come from? And most importantly, how could they have found a copy of it? He tried to fidget in his chair, but the expanse of his body rubbed against the armrests, making it difficult to move. His eyes roamed back and forth between the two photos. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Malcolm paced around the perimeter of the room, closing the wooden blinds so they could no longer see the expansive, lush green fields of the acreage encircling them.
The silence in the room was an entity unto itself. Beads of sweat began to form on Aman’s temple. He could use a drink. They were still waiting patiently for his response. His right hand suddenly balled into a fist and came thrashing down onto the solid wood of the desk.
“The reporter,” Aman muttered under his breath. The son of a bitch must have horded some extra copies of those photos. I knew they should have let me kill him, he thought to himself. Now that mistake was haunting him at the worst possible moment. He finally looked up to see they were both staring at him. There was nowhere to run. He was trapped.
“Very good, Aman. We found the reporter. Or should I say Marilyn did. You should have killed him when you had the chance. Zach is a member of the Brotherhood of the Caliphate. The hairy leg in the photo belongs to Zach and the tattoo is the symbol of your little brotherhood. You brought Zach into this country illegally, which makes him an illegitimate candidate, and thus barred from holding any political office in this country.” Malcolm’s authoritative voice spoke the words with precision.
“These photos are fakes. I’m going to have you arrested.” The words were hollow and uncertain. Aman grabbed for his cell phone, but Anna was ready. She brought her hand down in one quick and violent motion, cracking his arm. He yelped in pain.
“Come on, Aman. You can’t seriously think you were going to get away with that,” she said as she scooped up the phone and dropped it into her purse.
Aman tried desperately to think of a way to bargain his way out of the situation, but nothing seemed feasible. He would keep his mouth shut and see what they offered. Jamal had been left out of the conversation up to that point so he could only hope they did not discover him, as well.
Malcolm cut into the conversation. “Our offer is this, Aman. No games. We can keep this out of the press on one condition. Zach has to resign within two months of taking office. The stress of his wife’s death a few months ago, and a heart condition that somehow was missed during his physical exams. That will be the story. We will let him disappear quietly into private life, and he can spend his remaining years giving speeches for a hundred thousand a pop.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then we go public with the story within a few days. We have several copies of the photographs stashed in numerous locations in case of a problem. Even if the story is treated as an expose at the National Enquirer for a while, it will eventually attract enough attention and reporters. Like flies on crap. People will start digging around and asking unpleasant questions. It may take a few months, maybe even a year, but eventually it will catch up to him.”
Aman played along, pretending to grapple with a decision. Inside he was thrilled. They did not appear to know the full extent of his operation.
“I obviously cannot make any promises. I will need to run it by Zachariah.” He pushed himself out of his chair. “Now if you don’t mind. I need to touch base with him. I will have an answer for you very shortly.” Aman opened his palm in a silent gesture to have his phone returned to him.
Malcolm laughed heartily. It was a laugh that relayed how ridiculous the whole conversation was. They all knew the score, yet no one was willing to admit it. “Oh, by the way, there is one other part of the deal. The new head of his security detail, Jamal Mahmud, must resign as well,” Malcolm said as he stared at the fat Egyptian. The time for games was over.
Aman looked around in panic. The self-assuredness that had returned for a few brief moments was once again replaced by the look of a cornered animal about to be slaughtered. “Never. You’re too late. You cannot stop us.” The venomous words spilled out in a low hiss. “We have won, and you will not live long enough to see the glorious return.” The cryptic warnings were accompanied by a pounding on one of the doors.
Malcolm rushed towards Aman, getting the melon of a head in a chokehold just as a voice yelled out from behind the door, “Secret Service!” The door swung open and the agent stepped cautiously into view, his pistol sweeping the room in a professional manner. “Everyone, put your hands up!”
Anna stood behind the agent and out of his view. She acted instinctively, and her right leg flashed upward, cracking the agent across the elbow and wounding his arm. The weapon clattered to the ground, and he let out a guttural growl of anger after being taken off guard. The agent immediately reached for the throwing knife tucked around his calf, but Anna thrust her right arm down in a lightning fast motion, catching him on the back of the neck, and rendering him unconscious.
She performed a thorough sweep of the house. It was empty except for the three of them. She found some rope in a closet in the kitchen, and noticed the same row of suitcases. After retrieving her pistol from the agent’s sport coat, she bound and gagged him, then tossed the remainder of the rope to Malcolm. He pushed Aman’s squat figure back into the chair and tied him down. Aman writhed in fury, trying to free himself from his bonds.
“Well, if we were not fugitives before we are now. I don’t know what the penalty is for assaulting a Secret Service agent, but I doubt it’s just a slap on the wrist,” Anna said.
Aman screamed once before Malcolm slapped him across the face, “Shut up. We have some more questions for you,” Malcolm said as he looked in Aman’s eyes. He saw the glazed look of a man who had lost all control. He doubted he would be able to get much information out of him.
“You and your President are excellent at torturing people. This should be enjoyable for you.” Aman’s spittle landed on the desk in front of him, covering his papers and an oversized note holder crammed with telephone messages in a small shower.
“What is with the luggage, Aman? Going somewhere?” Anna kicked open the side door that led to the kitchen, revealing the pricey designer luggage on the floor.
“You are wasting your time. Just kill me and get it over with. I will tell nothing.”
Anna ignored the comment. She picked up the stack of papers on the desk and began flipping through them. Malcolm pushed the note holder out of the way, moving it closer to Aman, and picked up a stack of envelopes to look through, as well.
“Here we are.” She raised the packet in triumph. It was buried under a list of donors from Zach’s campaign. “One ticket to Cairo that leaves this evening,” she said, waving the ticket in the air to mock Aman. “Aren’t you going to stick around to watch your protégé take the oath of office?”
“I have more important things to tend to. My work here is finished. I have done what I have been called to do.” Aman spoke with a sense of true satisfaction. It was a completely honest statement.
“For the Brotherhood?” Malcolm asked.
Anna suddenly had an idea. She took the unconscious agent’s throwing knife, wheeled Aman’s chair so he faced the wall, and grabbed one of his legs. She roughly cut out two large swaths of the beige fabric. He sat frozen while she did it, petrified she was about to cut off his genitals. She roughly tore off the remaining shreds of his pants, tossing the remnants to the side like a child discarding wrapping paper on Christmas morning. She ignored the grotesque waistline and grasped his inner leg, trying to v
iew it. He squirmed in annoyance now that the knife had been put down. It was there. She knew it would be. The two Arabic K’s with the green slash through them stared back at her. It was the same tattoo that was on Zach’s inner thigh. Malcolm looked on from a few feet away. He knew what she was doing.
“Do you want to tell me what they stand for, or do I get to really cause you some pain?” She stepped away from him. She grasped the knife, flipping it playfully around in her hand while she circled around to the other side of the desk so she could stand beside Malcolm.
***
Aman smiled at her. In her exuberant wrenching of his pants she accidentally loosened his binds just enough to allow him to make the attempt. He willed himself to do it.
“Well?” She asked him.
“Of course. It stands for Khalifah Khilahah. It means Caliphate creation.” Aman leaned back in his chair as if he was debating what else to say. It was the only solution and he knew it. There was no one else from whom they could extract information, and with only forty-eight hours until the inauguration they would not be able to stop it. He was their last hope to prove anything. If he was dead they had nothing. Aman acted on this reassuring thought before he could change his mind.
Without warning his upper body suddenly came throttling forward, his head slamming into the pointed note holder resting on the desk in front of him. It tore into his left eye, piercing through his brain in a white hot flash of pain. Blood flowed out over the desk. His job was complete. Aman’s slumped body twitched horridly in the throes of death as Malcolm and Anna watched in helpless shock.
Chapter 56
Alex opened his eyes to nothing but a black void. Am I dead? The pain that shot through his wrists told him ‘no.’ After a few seconds he adjusted to the disorientation of not being able to see, and realized the blackness was caused by a piece of cloth that was tied tightly around his head. As his senses became more attuned he began to feel pain in different areas. The vice grip of the rope that bound his wrists to the metal chair and the tightly bound cloth squeezing his temples were accompanied by more rope that secured his ankles to the chair. The professionally tied knots began to hurt more as he slowly awakened and remembered what had happened.
He had no idea how long he had been unconscious. His head throbbed from the blow he took from the unknown assailant. The silence of the room provided no clues as to where he could be. The black void was silent torture, and it was beginning to make him claustrophobic. He began sweating profusely. The panic quickly began to bubble up, and his chest heaved as his breathing became more erratic. What the hell had he gotten himself into?
A thunderclap smashed across his face, knocking him and his chair to the floor with a thud. In a perverse way it felt good. It was the first sign that he was not lying in a ditch or buried alive somewhere. Two strong hands grasped the back of the chair and pulled him back up as if the chair were empty and not occupied by a two hundred pound man.
“Who is there?” Alex suddenly remembered that still being alive meant he could actually speak and not just sit there like a mute. Another smack to the face answered his question. This one was not quite as intense as the first since he still remained upright. “Whoever you are, I think you have the wrong guy,” Alex said as he gasped feebly, trying to catch his breath.
“Hah,” an amused voice replied. “I don’t have the wrong guy. You are in league with the CIA Director and that woman. I know it is so. Do not try to bluff me.”
“What are you talking…” Alex tried to intervene.
“You clearly know what they know, or at least most of it. I have seen you with them. I’m not going to fool around so I will tell you this once,” the stranger said in a staccato burst of words.
“I don’t know what this…” Alex tried to horn in on his speech.
“Enough! Say another word and I will break a finger in two. I will not lie. I don’t have time to play any games or fool around. Either talk now and tell me everything you know, and perhaps I’ll let you live. I cannot guarantee it, but you will at least have a chance. If you don’t talk now you will talk very soon afterwards, and then you will die a horrible death. And you will have caused yourself a great deal of excruciating pain for no reason besides your foolish pride. I will give you ten minutes while I prepare. After that, there will be no bargaining and no remorse.” Jamal stood up and went about making the necessary preparations.
Alex tried to speak but was immediately cut off by another slap across the face. He was confused and disorientated by the lack of chitchat. He was not even being given some sort of bargain. It was an all or nothing proposition. Alex’s body was now drenched in sweat. He could feel his clothes becoming heavier from the dampness created by his own body. He twitched and fiddled with his arms in a pointless attempt to free himself. He heard a small chuckle from across the room. Whoever it was, he seemed to be enjoying his power. Alex made up his mind and steeled his body for the pain that his decision would bring down on him.
Jamal munched on pita bread and hummus while he cleaned up the room. It was a habit he could not break, even as he was preparing to launch an inquisition. He picked up a few pieces of trash that were strewn about the cheap linoleum floor of his little safe house on the Virginia side of the Potomac. The mortgage on it had been paid by a few of his co-workers in the Secret Service who used it for a variety of reasons. There had been many a mistress brought to the secluded home, and all his colleagues paid him for the privilege to use the house. The money was helpful, but Jamal found the home more useful because of the power that it gave him over his co-workers. He had even used the house to entrap the former head of President Gray’s Secret Service detail, forcing the man into an early retirement. This allowed Jamal to take over the man’s post.
After a few more minutes of silence from his prisoner it was clear that the hard way had been chosen. Well, he did warn him. He needed to crack Alex Bryce, at least that was the name on his driver’s license, as quickly as possible. It was almost midnight, and there were just a few hours left before he would have to go back to work. The White House was a mess as the two transition teams milled about the people’s mansion. One of the teams was moving items in with a gleeful pleasure, while the other was morbidly packing up its belongings and preparing to exit the national stage.
Jamal picked up the chair with Alex in it, and dragged him into the next room. There was nothing in the room except a specially designed piece of wood that Jamal had constructed himself. This was his first opportunity to use his special device. It resembled a giant wooden table turned upside down, except it had no legs and covered almost the entire floor. The outer edges of the wood contraption stood three feet off the ground and were coated with a sticky substance. Overall, it looked quite harmless, and by itself, it was.
Jamal lifted Alex and the chair over the top of it and dragged him into the middle of the wood contraption. Alex sat quietly, conserving his energy for the unknown pain that would soon begin. Jamal went back into the kitchen and retrieved the drum full of insects and an acetylene torch. The little farm he cultivated in the backyard was finally going to be put to use. He took off the lid and peered into the drum. The entire inside of it was alive with thousands of crawling cockroaches.
Jamal sat the drum next to Alex and unsheathed a large hunting knife from its scabbard. He gently brushed the knife down Alex’s leg. The razor sharp blade clipped many of the hairs on his leg. Alex tensed his body, preparing for the pain. Jamal expertly sliced into his calf, cutting a wound approximately an inch long. He probed the knife inside until blood began to drip onto the floor. He then repeated the exact same act to Alex’s other leg. The wounds were mild gashes that, if treated quickly, would simply require several stitches. Satisfied with his work, he put the knife away and fired off his final warning to Alex.
“Those may seem like minor wounds, but if you don’t immediately begin telling me everything you know you will soon be wracked with unimaginable pain. This is an old form of torture tha
t was used in the fourteenth century in Egypt. It was developed by a religious emir named Shaykhun who used it to kill one of his rivals.”
Jamal paused for a few seconds to give him another chance to capitulate. He then continued, “In a few minutes I will let cockroaches loose right next to each of your wounds. The wounds are just large enough for the cockroaches to crawl inside you. I will then tape a metal cap around the wound and use this handy torch to apply the heat to the metal cap.” He flicked the button of the acetylene torch so Alex could listen to the low hiss of the flame. “The cockroaches are hungry and they do not like the heat so they will continue to burrow deeper inside you. You will soon have a few hundred of them inside your legs, feeding on your muscles, and causing you immense pain. If for some reason you still will not talk after this first round I will begin cutting wounds higher up on your body until you talk. Shaykhun actually bored holes into his prisoner’s head, and allowed the insects to eat their way into the man’s brain. For both of our sakes, I hope you don’t allow it to come to that. It will waste my time, and you will suffer perhaps the worst death any American spy has ever experienced.”
“You are a sick man,” Alex spat the words out angrily and began fighting desperately to free himself. His binds felt even tighter now. He could hear the man begin to move about and make whatever preparations were necessary for such a horrid job. “This must be something you learned from Aman.”
Jamal’s face lit up with a big smile that Alex could not see. “Yes, that is right. I have learned a great deal from him.” Jamal went about his work. He deposited the first handful of cockroaches near the wound and they immediately began darting inside.
“Now please continue telling me what you know about Aman and Zachariah.” Jamal took another handful and dumped them in the pool of blood under the other leg. He quickly discovered that if he inserted a few directly into the wound, the rest of them would follow suit, like hyenas being led to a carcass.
Agent of Influence: A Thriller Page 38
