Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles (30 page)

I was seated at the computer before the door
shut behind them. I was to divert the camera’s recording system
while Mr. White had the two men together in the back. After I
finished that job, I took out the portable hard drive I had brought
along. I proceeded to download everything pertaining to The
Lion.

Inside of fifteen minutes, I had finished my
download and the two men were in the front office waiting for me. I
turned the cameras back to record and we walked out the door.

“
That didn’t take long, sir,” One of
the guards directed at Mr. White.

“
He didn’t have anything to offer,” he
replied and the three of us marched back to the waiting chopper. We
lifted off and were safely on our way home, mission
accomplished.

Not until we were several miles from the
installation did The Lion lift his head. Mr. White had traded him
for Abdullah under the pretense we were going to free him. That way
he would come with us without any trouble.

Mr. Red was on top of the building waiting
for us when we landed. We all stepped out of the chopper and Mr.
Red came to take custody of The Lion.

“
What the hell?” Abbas, A.K.A. The
Lion, screamed as Mr. Red handcuffed him.

“
Relax,” Mr. Red told him.

“
You told me you were going to get me
out of there,” Abbas said with an accusatory tone to Mr.
White.

“
I did,” Mr. White replied
bluntly.

The first part of the plan had gone well and
I was glad to be back so we could continue. We had a lot to
accomplish yet. It was planned we would use The Lion to get my
father back and hopefully have him returned to the installation
before the switch off was noticed. Abdullah could maybe pull this
off if the powers that be didn’t want to talk with The Lion in the
next few hours.

Mr. White escorted me off the elevator when
we reached his floor. The other two men remained on the elevator
with The Lion.

We entered the apartment and I asked Mr.
White where they were taking Abbas Salah. He explained to me Suite
72 was an interrogation room and Mr. Red would begin his work
there.

The war room had been locked again and Mr.
White let me in. He said he’d make coffee while I examined the
information on the hard drive.

I attached the external hard drive and
started skimming through things. The video scenes of The Lion began
with Mr. White walking him through the heavy gray door over a month
ago. The Lion was quiet and calm when they placed him in his
holding cell and remained that way for a couple of weeks. He didn’t
say a word or bat an eye.

I had slowed the video to normal speed
whenever they had removed Abbas to one of the interrogation rooms,
until it became apparent he wouldn’t talk. This was my method for
the first few weeks of his stay, then the screen went black. It
startled me because for a second I thought I had maybe not gotten
it all. I slowed the speed and there was audio available. It was
obvious they were using unaccepted methods of interrogation by the
thumps and screams present.

I had a hard time believing our country was
party to this type of thing. They came and went to The Lion’s cell
about every fifteen minutes, making sure if he fell asleep it
wasn’t but for just a few minutes.

Mr. White came back in with our coffee and
sat next to me. We kept skimming. The sleep deprivation went on for
several days and when the tape went black we would stop to listen
in. After just three of these sessions, The Lion began to sing like
a songbird. He gave names and places, he admitted to atrocities of
all kinds. I wondered if it all were true, some of the things he
admitted affiliation to were terrible, unthinkable horrors.

Then the sessions became more subdued and he
talked without
incentive
. The days became more recent and a
man was introduced to The Lion as a psychiatrist. This man delved
deeper into The Lion and made him bear his soul. After hearing his
reasons for doing what he did, I wondered if he even possessed a
soul. He had no sane reasons for anything. I had to wonder if he
wasn’t driven insane by the treatment he had received at the
installation though.

“
Can we believe all this?” I asked Mr.
White.

“
We are looking for specific
information, it doesn’t matter if it’s all true or not,” he
answered.

“
But, I’d say anything to get them to
stop what they’re doing!” I said, a little disgusted.

“
It’s just the way it is. Nobody can
have that much detail about something they weren’t involved with in
some way. They have people sorting through it all, I’m sure,” Mr.
White said with no feeling in his voice.

“
What are
we
looking for?” I
asked.

“
I imagine they will get to your father
pretty soon. It would be nice if we could find something to
discredit The Lion to his followers too. The government couldn’t
release this, but we can,” he said.

“
I’d think his craziness and the fact
that it sounds like he gave up everyone should be enough to
discredit him,” I said.

“
Maybe for us, it would be enough, but
these people he has under his control are easier to manipulate. And
once they have an idea in their heads, it’s hard to get it out.
What we need is something that would severely damage the reputation
of The Lion,” he said.

We continued with our search in the same way
and got to the day my dad was abducted and slowed the video again
so we could watch and hear the events. Before, there had been only
a few people that had been in and out with The Lion, but on this
day there was a barrage of people that came to the installation.
The outside cameras captured several vehicles pulling through the
main gates.

I looked at Mr. White and he wasn’t
surprised. He started telling me who the people were and what their
role would be once they got their chance at Abbas. He was right
with everyone. Some of the men went in hard with threats and blows;
others were a bit subtler in their questions about where my dad
could be located. In the end, Abbas couldn’t tell them much. He
didn’t know anything about the abduction. At first he gloated and
told them he better be released and returned to his country, but
before long, he was blabbering on and not making much sense at
all.

“
Well, we’ve seen it all now. Let’s get
down to the office to see what Mr. Red and Mr. Blue have come up
with,” Mr. White said moving from the computer.

I followed and we went down one floor. We
went to Suite 72 this time. It was a fairly large area. Upon
walking in the door we were greeted with a very small room with a
desk and not much else. There was a door behind the desk and Mr.
White led me through it into a small hallway. To my right were five
heavy doors with thin, sliding observation windows. In the middle
of the hall was a door to my left. We went through that door and
were confronted with two more doors directly in front of us and one
on either side of us. Mr. White opened the door to my left and
walked in.

It led to another small room with a two-way
mirror that I could see an interrogation room with drab gray on the
floor, walls and ceiling. Mr. Red and Mr. Blue were talking to each
other and The Lion was slumped over in his chair. It reminded me of
the man in the satellite picture. Mr. White knocked on the glass
and we were motioned into the room.

I noticed when we got into the room Mr.
Blue’s doctor bag was sitting in the corner on the floor.

“
So?” Mr. White directed to both
men.

“
He should come around in a few
minutes.” Mr. Blue said.

“
I got names and places from him. Some
of them are ones we didn’t have before. This guy is crazy. One
minute he’s lucid, the next he’s raving,” Mr. Red said, shaking his
head.

“
I gave him a sedative,” Mr. Blue
explained The Lion’s slumped position.

Mr. Red gave me a new list of names and
places to look up and said, “We’ve less than two hours to find
something or we’ll have to relinquish him.” He nodded to The Lion
still motionless in the chair.

Mr. White handed me the keys to his apartment
and I headed back to the war room.

My leg had started to ache a little so I put
it up on a chair as I began my search. We hadn’t heard anything
from the other men yet, so I thought I would look at the satellite
picture of the man in the chair.

Nothing had changed there. The man was still
in the chair and the other two men were apparently standing guard,
so I went to work on the new names and places. This was a lot like
data entry. I punched in the names or numbers and got a result.

I had only been at it for a few minutes when
Mr. White returned.

“
I got word from Mr. Black they’re in
position and waiting for us to tell them where everyone is located
in the building. Pull up the UAV feed,” he said.

I did as I was told and sure enough, there
were two extra bodies right outside the building. The UAV was
outfitted with several cameras so we were able to see everything in
real time and because it was dark there, we were watching it all
with the night vision camera. Mr. White began to describe the
positions of the only other two men in the area. I saw the figures
of Mr. Black and Mr. Green move around behind the building and
slowly enter the room with the man in the chair. One of them went
to him and lifted his head then let it fall back down on his chest.
My stomach turned because it seemed as if the man might be dead.
Then I saw them walk away from the building.

I looked to Mr. White with terror in my
heart, making sure to keep the emotion from my face.

“
Well?” I asked.

“
Not him,” he replied. “They’re on
their way back home.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t know
who the man was but was glad it was not my father.

“
It’s time to go. Did you come up with
anything new?” Mr. White asked.

“
No,” I said.

“
I think we have enough downstairs to
give to his followers. You wouldn’t believe how crazy he is. I
don’t understand how he got anyone to follow him, no matter how
deprived they are. Some of the deaths in his own group were
previously blamed on others but he just admitted to killing them
himself. One of the men was his second in command and very well
liked. Quite simply, he was the reason The Lion has supporters. No
one knows he’s dead either. I think it’s enough to get the rest of
the people to rethink why they followed him in the first
place.”

I was standing and ready to go. I was in a
hurry to get my father back.

“
I need you to stay here while the rest
of us make the drop,” Mr. White added, like it was no big
deal.

“
What? I thought I was going with you,”
I said a little upset.

“
I need someone here to tell us what to
expect. You will be following The Lion’s signal. Mr. Blue gave him
more than just a sedative. While he was out, he put a small
transmitter under his skin. We cannot lose track of
him.”

“
What about my father?” I
asked.

“
We will retrieve him.”

“
How do you know they will have him to
trade?” I asked.

“
We’ll make sure everything works out
right. This is the only logical way this can happen, Ms. Grey. I am
not going to stand here and argue with you. You don’t have the
experience to go out into the field for this one. I don’t want to
jeopardize the Admiral’s safety just to give you more experience.
Do you?”

“
Of course not, but…” I said and left
it hanging because I couldn’t think of a reason why I should be
able to go.

He left me with the location of the drop and
a phone number. I was given the headset he had been wearing when he
spoke with Mr. Black. We tested it to make sure I could hear him
and he could hear me. I was to call the phone number only if things
turned bad and no body else was left to make the call. Under no
circumstances was I to lose sight of The Lion.

I pulled up The Lion’s signal on one
computer. Then I pulled up the other UAV that Mr. White had sent to
do the local surveillance on a different computer. The sun had been
up for about an hour so I first looked at the site with normal
vision. It was a house on a bad side of town. The house looked like
it hadn’t been lived in for years. The windows were boarded up and
there were no signs of life anywhere except for one man on the
badly weathered porch. He was standing by the front door, smoking a
cigarette. Mr. White and I quickly surveyed the area so he knew the
layout and then we switched to the infrared. The heat signatures
came up brightly on the screen. There were three other men in the
building. I assumed one of them was my father! They were all
positioned toward the back of the house in one room, sitting fairly
close together.

“
I’ve got what I need. Now you need to
keep an eye on things and let me know if anything changes,” he
said.

“
Got it,” I replied as he walked out to
go rescue my dad. In less than fifteen minutes I heard Mr. White’s
voice in my headset.

“
Are you still reading me?” he
asked.

“
Yep,” I replied.

“
You’re going to have to learn how to
talk on one of these things,” he said. “Everything the
same?”

“
No changes,” I reported.

“
Everyone has an ear piece, but only I
have a microphone. I will contact you only if I need to. You are to
report the position of the enemy every thirty seconds once we’re on
scene. Is that clear?” he asked with a military tone.