Breaking through...

After hours of replaying this and other reprehensible memory sequences from his time in Iraq, I was able to unravel enough clues to crack open that damnable wall.

Pushing in the last of the nearly invisible keys, the steel wall melted away like a stick of butter in a searing hot pan. Despite all of the time and energy I had spent trying to get to the secrets behind this wall, I was completely unprepared for the mother-lode of information I was about to receive. It also took me a while to get my mind around the enormity of the secrets that he had been keeping not only from Drake, but also from himself....but before I discuss these, I needed to take care of some ‘bidness’...

The other mindblowing revelation was that Daniel had been running a sting operation of sorts on Drake, having hired a band of mercenary thugs in Iraq (westernized contractor types) who were even now (at least as recent as a week before I snatched these memories from him) holding Mrs. Al Farhan, and Drake’s precious artifacts as well, hostage in an attempt to extort money from Drake.

At first, I couldn’t actually believe that he had pulled this off against Drake, but the more I analyzed the now complete set of memories from this...weasel...the more I came to the conclusion that I had been giving him way too much fucking credit for being under Drake’s sway.

Daniel Bernstein had his own agenda in all of this...and he was more than willing to let Drake take the fall for being the main ‘bad guy’ and play at being an innocent scientist caught up in the swirl of something larger than himself.

Once things snapped into place, I found myself flying back to my body at a breakneck speed through the Spirit World.

As I settled into my body, I was already galvanized for action.

From Daniel’s memories, I knew that his team of hired thugs and killers was currently hiding out in a small, unmapped village in the deserts of Jordan, not far from the Iraqi border. The last thing Daniel knew, they had recently returned from southern Iraq with Mrs. Al Farhan as a captive again, she was intended to be Daniel’s last bargaining chip with Drake.

This was going to end, and end now.

I gathered my weapons and summoned the Shadow, slipping easily into that world where my powers over darkness and my senses were the strongest. Once there, I called forth everything I could of Mrs. Al Farhan’s aura from what little senstitivity Daniel had. Luckily, it was just enough.

I slipped from the world of Shadow into the dark room where she was kept. She lay in fetal position, whimpering in a corner, her clothes torn. Even though the room was dark, I could see her clearly. As soon as I appeared and turned towards her, I could hear the crying stop.

In between ragged gasps for breath, she whispered her question in Arabic, “Shaitan? Have you come to avenge me?”

Seeing that she had clearly been ravaged even further by these mercenaries, I gave her a one word answer in that same language (a language, mind you, that I did not remember either speaking or understanding until then-more on that in future posts), “Yes.”

A sharp intake of her breath preceded her reply, “Good. Then I can die.”

“No. Thou shall not perish this evening, that fate falls to these others for their crimes.” Sorry, but that was the literal translation, it turns out that my knowledge of that language was rather archaic.

I turned from where she now was sitting up and moved towards the door. Before I could get any further, her whispered cry halted me in my tracks. “Shaitan?”

I turned my head back towards her, saw her flinch as she saw my fiery eyes again. I must have looked very much like the crazed killer I would soon become. “Aye?”

“There is a young man out there, his name is Andrew, he is the tall, red headed one with the sweet face. Please,...spare him. He is the only one who has been...kind to me, and he is good at heart.”

“If he is wise and lucky...he will live, but I make no promises.”

In the darkness of that room, I was able to expand my senses and get a feel for the rest of the building. It was night, but I could feel that all ten of the men in the fortified house were awake and active. Good. I wanted them to know what was coming. I did feel that one of the men seemed to be more than a little different than the rest. A kinder, gentler soul among a gathering of tainted, darker souls that would not normally be found outside of a prison. I marked where that one was.

Drawing the Shadow about me, I stepped from the cell into the midst of some very startled men.

“What the fu..!”

“Who the Hell are...!”

“Sonovabit...”

The shouts all ended in brief screams or gurgled grunts. I was quick, efficient and absolutely ruthless. It was over in a matter of moments...