“Boy, if you touch me again, I’m gonna break you in half — we clear?”
He smirks at me, but does nothing.
Everyone in the room turns to stare at the four of us as they position us into a line in front of El-Zurak. The man himself stands and walks down the line slowly with a look of disinterest on his face, before stopping in front of me. Our faces are mere inches apart. He looks into my eyes, staring at me like I’m nothing. I regard him in much the same way.
I examine his features and think back to my first impressions of him on the DVD Clara left me. I don’t know whether it was his eye patch, or just the circumstances at the time, but I remember feeling a little un-nerved by the look on his face as I watched him on the screen. But now, after everything that’s happened — everything I’ve been through… now, I’m finally face to face with him; I’m actually quite underwhelmed. I’ve met a lot of bad people in my time. Most of them have paid me to kill someone, I admit, but it’s almost like when you meet someone who’s famous — there’s this feeling, this expectation, that they’ll live up to their reputation.
This guy is the mastermind behind the largest terrorist plot in the history of mankind, but all I can think of is that I expected him to be taller. And that he looks a little like a pirate.
He’s wearing white robes underneath a dark gray sleeveless body-warmer jacket. His beard is long and streaked with gray, and his dark skin is like old leather. His right eye narrows at me.
“How do you feel, Adrian Hell?” he asks, speaking slowly and deliberately.
I shrug. “I’m alright,” I reply. “Could do with a drink, if I’m honest.”
His lip curls slightly but, in a flash, he hits me across the face with the back of his right hand. I didn’t even see it coming. My head whips to the left, and I’m speechless for a moment. I look back at him, my body tensing as the anger rises inside me.
“Clara was like a daughter to me,” he says.
“Well, I’ve already killed her biological father… might as well kill her adopted one as well — complete the set.”
“Your arrogance offends me. It is over, Adrian Hell. You have lost.” He turns and moves toward the console, gesturing to the large screen. “Soon, we will use your own satellite against you, to take control of the world’s nuclear weapons and purge the Western World—”
I interrupt him by over-exaggerating a loud yawn. He glares at me.
“Oh, I’m sorry — weren’t you finished?” I ask.
“Enough!” he yells, turning his back on me and speaking to one of the men at the console in another language.
Next to me, Raynor leans over. “I’m real glad you ain’t a politician, you crazy bastard,” he whispers.
I smile and look over at Wallis and Clark, who are both staring quietly at the floor.
“Hey, Hamaad,” I shout over. “Can I ask you something?”
He turns, his face a picture of annoyance.
“I’m just wondering, while it’s all well and good you hijacking Cerberus and blowing shit up, why are you doing it? I mean, all this talk of purging is a little stereotypical, don’t you think? What’s the Western World ever done to you?”
Before he can talk, a deep voice speaks out from behind us.
“I’ll answer that.”
We all turn and look over as General Thomas Matthews walks in; accompanied by a ten-man squad of anonymous CIA operatives, dressed in the same black outfit as the guys we took out on the stairwell earlier. He strides confidently into the room and stands beside El-Zurak. He regards him for a moment, and then extends his hand. El-Zurak looks down at it, as if hesitating, before shaking it.
“Congratulations on carrying out the mission, Hamaad,” says Matthews before turning to me. “Adrian Hell, you’ve been a colossal pain in my ass from day one.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“That’s not a compliment, you little prick!”
I smile but say nothing.
“You want to know why we’re all here?” he continues. “It’s like I said to you before — sometimes you gotta do things you don’t agree with to get the result you want.”
I shake my head in disbelief and confusion. “You’re the director of the goddamn CIA!” I shout. “How did a piece of shit terrorist recruit you?”
Now Matthews looks confused. Then he laughs.
“Son, he didn’t recruit me… I recruited him.”
And there it is.
His words hang in the air as the four of us exchange looks of shock and further confusion, as we piece everything together.
The CIA recruited El-Zurak to carry out this attack. That explains, well, pretty much everything. It explains why the Armageddon Initiative was able to get so big and stay so secret for so long. It explains why the whole world thought we were the bad guys — the CIA was feeding everyone false information. And who would question intel that came from the CIA, right?
I let out a heavy sigh, realizing that not just me, but the world has been played.
“Triple shit…” I mutter to myself.
Matthews is all smiles in front of me. His men remain emotionless at the back of the room, but the terrorists are laughing among themselves.
“Don’t feel bad, Adrian,” he says. “You were never supposed to be involved in the first place, but even though you were, you were never going to win. This is bigger than you. Bigger than GlobaTech. Bigger than all of us.”
I massage the bridge of my nose with my right hand. “Just explain it to me,” I say. “If we’re gonna die here, that’s fine, but for my own peace of mind, can you just fill in the blanks using simple words, please. Why do this?”
The general paces over to the console, pausing to look up at the big screen before pacing slowly back toward me.
“President Cunningham has created a glorious nation,” he explains. “We now live in a time of prosperity unrivaled in the last fifty years. His larger vision is to use our great country as a blueprint for other nations on the planet, so that they too can enjoy this new world we live in. But other global leaders don’t have the same drive, the same dream, as our president. They merely look on with jealousy and resentment as we try to help them, seemingly content with their own miserable existences, yet still eager to have what we have. They want the thriving economy, they want the low crime rate and the high approval ratings, they want legal whores and legal highs, but the narrow-minded sons of bitches want it all handed to them on a silver platter! They don’t want to work for it, they want us to hand our wealth and decadence over to them, no questions asked, and that’s not how the world works. President Cunningham is… disheartened, to say the least, so I took it upon myself, as director of the world’s most powerful intelligence agency, to do what needed to be done. If other people don’t want to work with us voluntarily, then something needs to be done to force them, to make them see that our way of life is the only way that actually works. If everyone did things the way we have, this world would be a better place.”
“You’re fucking insane…” says Wallis. “This is just bat-shit crazy!”
Matthews looks over at him. “This isn’t insane, Agent Wallis, this is necessary. It’s what needs to be done for the greater good. If people aren’t willing to work at change, then it’s our responsibility, as the most powerful nation on this planet, to reset those ways of life and help them re-build from scratch.”
“Is it me,” I say, “or does all this sound eerily familiar?”
Matthew looks at me, confused.
“I’m pretty sure a German guy a few years back tried something like this… and later, a group of people not dissimilar to ol’ Hamaad here.”