Agent of Influence: A Thriller (48 page)

After a few more minutes of silence from his prisoner it was c
lear 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 nothi
ng 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 that 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, “I
n 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 cont
inue 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.

             
Once the appropriate amount of cockroaches had crawled inside Alex’s leg Jamal covered the lid of the drum, and wrapped both wounds tightly with duct tape and a metal cylinder. He fired up the acetylene torch. The blue hiss of the flame alerted Alex to what was happening. Jamal held the flame right up against the metal. A few of the insects scampered out from underneath the cylinder, but once the heat of the flame hit the metal no more appeared. They were burrowing themselves deep into Alex’s legs, looking for another way out. 

***

              Alex felt the first twinge of pain in his legs. Then it consumed him. His legs were on fire, literally and figuratively. The heat from the torch that continued to singe him was nothing compared to the fire that was raging inside his legs. He thrashed about as much as his bindings would allow, but that only seemed to make the pain worse. Beads of sweat from his forehead quickly morphed into a miniature waterfall spilling down his face and splashing onto the floor. 

Should I talk? He did not think he could hold out. If his legs hurt this bad what would it feel like when the crazed lunati
c opened a wound in his chest or in his head?  Maybe he should lie. He assumed the monster would know if he were. The fiery pain now shot through one of his feet and he let out a scream of pain.

“Feel better? No one can hear you. Think how much better you will feel if you just tell me what you know. I can uncover this wound and the roaches will find their way out. Or I can take the metal cap off and allow more in. Then they can continue to eat you alive until they find another opening they can escape from. It is your choice.” His torturer shut off the torch.

Alex felt like his head was on the verge of exploding. Every pain sensor in his body cried out for mercy. He could now hear his own sweat hitting the floor. Or was that his blood? Did it really matter? From somewhere in the distance a telephone began ringing. After five rings he heard movement.

“I will be back in a few minutes. Then I will open up another cut for you,” the voice said.

              The pain continued to tick upward in intensity. Every time he thought it could not get worse he learned how wrong he was. He could hear the muffled voice in the background, but could not understand any words. Alex continued to try to wrench his hands free until his head was racked with another burst of raw pain. Unable to take it anymore his body shut down, and his head slumped forward.

Jamal re-entered the room to find Alex
passed out. He yanked the metal cylinders off his legs, cut the bindings, and carried the unconscious body into a bedroom. He dropped the limp body on the bed, and re-tied his appendages to the four corner posts. The cockroaches began poking their antennae out of the two wounds and making their escape. Jamal needed him alive for the moment. They may need this Alex as a bargaining tool now.

              Anna stared blankly out of the tinted window of the SUV at the thin layer of snow that surrounded the Washington Monument. It was Inauguration Day, and a beautiful, crisp January morning greeted them. The police were out in force setting up barricades all over the city in preparation for the momentous occasion. Malcolm sat at the other end of the backseat, composing his own thoughts. They looked like an unhappy married couple who had just had a knock-down drag-out fight only to discover they had nowhere else to go, and so were attempting to create as much space between one another as possible. In reality they were both loners, the kind who were self-reliant and preferred to do things themselves. It was this similar characteristic that made them the best at what they did. It was also the reason they needed to be left alone with their thoughts before the final confrontation.

             
The last forty-eight hours brought nothing but bad news. Aman’s suicide left them with nothing. A confession from him would have gone a long way towards being able to take their case to the current President, the FBI, or someone who may be able to assist them.  They were forced to leave Aman’s body inside the vice-president’s residence. They smuggled the unconscious Secret Service agent out in the back of their car. He was currently drugged up and unconscious at Malcolm’s house. He would sleep for another twenty-four hours at least.

In addition to this, they discovered that Alex had disappeared when
they returned to Malcolm’s house. Their first thought was that he had turned on them, but no federal agents ever showed up to arrest them. The other option was just as bad. He must have been kidnapped by one of Aman’s men. Anna assumed the most likely candidate was Jamal. After all, he had seen Alex in the car the night they visited the Senator. He must have found out whom the car belonged to and staked them out.

             
Their vehicle slowly turned into the White House driveway. She watched carefully for anything out of the ordinary that might suggest they were about to be arrested. A Secret Service agent armed with a submachine gun waved them through the final security stop, and motioned for them to continue to the North Portico of the White House. It was time for Malcolm to deliver President Gray’s final PDB (Presidential Daily Brief) in person. This was a lucky gift from Zachariah Hardin, who made the firing of the CIA Director effective immediately after the inauguration.  This gave Malcolm an excuse to visit the White House one more time.

Anna felt on edge as she stepped out of the SUV. The door was opened by one of the White House staff.  It was her first visit to the White House, and she felt like she was heading into the den of an enemy instead of the home of the leader of the free world. The hand written speech she found when they riffled through Aman’s belongings came back to her now. 

“Before today, the world was divided into two houses, the House of Islam where Muslim law solves all problems, and the House of War, which is ruled by the West. With the return of the one true Caliphate and Mahdi, and the destruction and humbling of his enemies the world is now forced to submit to Muslim rule or face annihilation. The Great Satan made its choice. It is now a vassal of the new Caliphate. Now the rest of the world’s citizens must choose sides.”

The chilling declaration stood at the
forefront of her thoughts as she and Malcolm crossed the threshold into the White House. They were at the mercy of President Gray now.

              Zachariah Hardin stood quietly in front of his bathroom mirror and methodically shaved his face. The razor slid harmlessly over his flat chin, cutting off the stubble that had accumulated during the night. The dark circles under his eyes were evidence of his lack of sleep. He was glad he called the makeup artist. He would need to be spruced up in order to be presentable to the cameras. He carefully pushed a stray piece of his jet back hair back into place. A little extra gel ensured it would not fall down again. He was jumpy and nervous. This was to be expected of someone about to become the leader of the free world, but his fear was of a different sort now. Every knock on the door could be a group of federal agents coming to snatch him away and make him disappear just as he was reaching his goal.

Twenty-four hours ear
lier he brimmed with confidence. Now he just wanted to hold off his adversaries a little longer so he could have his victory. No matter how close his enemies were, he knew that time was on his side. Aman had never called him to inform him that he arrived back in Egypt, and Zach spent a fruitless hour trying to reach him at several different locations. After all the dead ends he had Jamal escort him to the Naval Observatory in the middle of the night, where they discovered the awful scene. Aman was dead of what was surely a self-inflicted wound, and his Secret Service agent was nowhere to be found. Jamal cleaned up the mess.  The brutal death had to be kept quiet until after the inauguration. Afterwards it would not matter anyway. The city was already abuzz with the discovery of Senator Rosenbaum’s body at his home, and Zach could not afford any more distractions.

             
He glanced at his cell phone to check the time. Jamal should be arriving at the White House within the hour. He was likely checking the parade route and security arrangements for the inauguration address on the steps of the Capitol at that moment. His real duties, however, would not begin until the speech was over.  There were a whole slew of agents who would make sure the short trip from the steps of the Capitol to the White House would go off without a hitch. Once Zach and his entourage made it to the White House all the parties would commence and Jamal and his team would take over security, and more importantly, the nuclear codes.

It would be
somewhere in the White House where they would make their move. For the first time he allowed himself to mentally picture the scene that would make him infamous to the majority of the world, but an instant idol to another group. They would disappear into a room with the Military Officer carrying the nuclear football.  Jamal would dispose of the man, and then, with the codes in their hands, they would unleash the nuclear arsenal of the United States on itself.

The first nuclear missile would explode in the atmosphere. It would be an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) weapon, and it
would render everything that relied on electricity in the continental U.S. worthless. The entire mainland would be thrust into the Stone Age.  Then he would launch as many nuclear missiles as possible, and turn the country into a radioactive wasteland.  He would become the ultimate agent of influence, as the CIA Director would say, as he would turn the country’s most devastating weapons on itself. Zach thought of the only other agent of influence to have wormed his way so close to presidential power. He had been a vice-president at the beginning of the twentieth century. The man was a Soviet spy, but that was just before the advent of nuclear weapons, and the president at the time quietly removed him from the ticket after their first four years in office, thus preventing him from doing any damage. This time would be different.

Zach se
t the razor down and looked at his reflection with satisfaction. The punishment of the U.S. was a long time coming. Sheik Osama would be a mere pauper compared to him once the missiles were launched. It still seemed like a dream to Zach, but now it was about to become something even better; a nightmare for the United States. He hoped to live and make his way back to the Middle East in triumph, but it really did not matter. Martyrdom could be the best possible thing for him. He would never be as popular, or more reviled than he would be in the next few hours and days. Why not go out on top? He picked his razor back up and began meticulously shaving a few missed spots. He needed to hurry. The makeup artist would be arriving shortly.