From Chapter 2: In the sack
Page 23…
After a few hundred meters, he winked at Mike, his voice cutting through the silence. “I think we’re being followed.”
“Turn into a side street so we can be sure,” Mike said, swiftly unbuckling his seatbelt.
Monroe looked up from his phone.
“What’s going on?” His smile had vanished.
“Security protocol, George. I’m moving to the back.”
A few meters further, Alec turned sharply into a narrow, deserted street and stopped. The sound of tires screeching on the rough asphalt was the only thing to be heard.
Mike opened his door, slammed it shut, and in a second the back door opened again. His sturdy frame slid inside. Monroe shifted aside slightly. The confusion in his eyes transformed into a primal, animalistic fear.
“What is happening?” His tone had lost all its perkiness. It was now thin and sharp.
The answer was a dull thud that echoed through the cabin. Mike’s fist found Monroe just below the cheekbone. The MP’s head slammed hard against the tinted window. For a moment, his mouth hung open in a silent cry of surprise, before blood began to well from his split lip. A scream, choked and full of rage, finally escaped his lips. He brought his hands to his face, as if trying to make sure it was still there.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU SCUM?” he seethed, spittle flying with his words. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I’LL FINISH YOU! I HAVE CONNECTIONS!”
He tried to pull away to the other side of the vehicle, but Mike’s hands didn’t stop. He grabbed him by the hair, his fingers digging into the fringe, which was rigid with hairspray, and pulled him close. The second fist sank into his ribs. The air rushed out of Monroe’s lungs with a gurgle. He doubled over, writhing, his face crimson. His eyes were wide with terror and pain. He made choked sounds, struggling to breathe.
Mike’s voice was flat, as if reading a weather report. The alibi. “They’re holding our families hostage, George. Your connections and money are no good today.”
“You… you’ll regret this…” Monroe stammered, but the arrogance was returning. “YOU DON’T KNOW… WHO YOU’VE MESSED WITH!”
With trembling fingers, he fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen illuminated his pain-distorted face. Before he could press anything, Mike’s hand snatched it and flung it onto the front seat.
“And I promise you,” he whispered, leaning in so close that Monroe could smell his sweat, “that if you scream again, I will break every bone in your body.”
From the front, Alec tossed the plastic zip ties onto the back leather seat. Mike gripped Monroe’s wrists. The expensive watch clattered against the window. The MP’s weak struggles were useless against Mike’s steel grip. He tied his hands tightly. The MP’s eyes darted in panic. He resisted for a moment, but it was futile. His feet followed.
“KIDNAPPING! THIS IS A KIDNAPPING!”
Mike didn’t answer. He pulled off a piece of duct tape and tore it with his teeth. With one motion, he slapped it over Monroe’s mouth, silencing his cry. More layers followed, wrapped around his head. Then, he grabbed the black, fabric bag. He pulled it forcefully over Monroe’s head, extinguishing his light, the images, everything. Darkness.
“You’re finished, Monroe,” Mike whispered, pushing the bound, hooded body back into its seat.
From under the bag, only muffled grunts and the MP’s heavy, sharp breathing could be heard, like a drowning animal. Mike sat back comfortably in his seat. He slowly opened and closed his palm to shake off the sting from the blows. He met Alec’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
“Let’s go.”
The SUV’s engine came to life again and the vehicle returned to the road. At the same moment, as if someone were watching the scene, Mike’s phone buzzed. A text from Abdul’s number gave them their next destination.
“Aurelia Grand Hotel. Basement Level 2.”
Alec nodded and turned the wheel. As they approached the city center, the air changed again. The scent of fresh air was replaced by another, more familiar one from the past few days: a sour, chemical odor from the previous night’s tear gas, mixed with burnt plastic.
The Aurelia Grand rose before them, just 700 meters from the Parliament. Its facade was a monument to the recent rage. The ground-floor windows were shattered, now covered with makeshift sheets of chipboard. The graffiti in red spray paint on the marble wall was still fresh: “WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?”
Mike stared at the signs of battle. It wasn’t a war. It was a theater. Yet another performance of a play that had been running for decades. Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. Families, students, ordinary citizens peacefully demanding the self-evident. Cries that began in the gut of a nation that had lost its balance.
And then, came the diversion. The deep state’s response.
Mike could see the previous day play out before his eyes like a well-worn film. The hooded figures emerging from the side streets, with the police silently giving them ground. Tearing up the hotel’s marble with hammers and crowbars, turning it into stones to throw back at the police. Smashing window frames to make clubs.
These weren’t revolutionaries. They were tools. Some were hired, others lost in utopian ideologies, all sowing the chaos that would frighten the rest away. No parent, no student, wanted to be caught between fires and broken glass. As soon as the scene turned violent, the square emptied. Every popular uprising died before it was even born. As for the arrested hooded figures? Mike smiled, remembering a few faces. They would get off easy. The corrupt justice system would release them in a few days, ready for the next assignment.
Leaving behind the thoughts of performative violence, Alec drove the SUV down the ramp to the underground parking garage. A man in a repair crew uniform raised the barrier and gestured them onward.
In the underground garage, only a few repair crew vehicles remained, having started work on the damage. Among them was a white van, the one the man had pointed to. He drove slowly toward it. He stopped directly behind it, aligning the doors. He cut the engine.
And then, the choreography began. The rear doors of both vehicles opened simultaneously.
Mike grabbed Monroe. The MP’s bound, hooded body was heavy and clumsy. He dragged him out of the SUV. He was gasping, struggling to find ground beneath his feet, but his bonds left him no room to move, his breath a panicked, muffled panting under the bag. Before he could find his balance, two shadows leaped from the van and seized him by the shoulders.
It was Marco and Marcel. Familiar faces from the underworld. Bell didn’t use just anyone. He paid for the best. Their gazes met Mike’s and Alec’s for a moment—a cold, professional acknowledgment, without words.
They dragged Monroe into the van. The door remained open for a few critical seconds. Long enough to see. Long enough for their guts to tighten.
The strong smell hit them first. Not the smell of sweat and fear of a typical kidnapping. It was something else. The sterile smell of antiseptic and medical alcohol that burns the nostrils.
And then, the image.
The interior of the van wasn’t dark and dirty. It gleamed. Cold white LED lights flooded the space, reflecting off stainless steel surfaces and white walls. In the center, a surgical gurney with leather straps for wrists and ankles. Beside it, trays of steel instruments arranged in neat rows—scalpels, forceps, scissors—shining menacingly.
On either side of the gurney stood two figures dressed in white. Gowns, surgical masks, gloves. Motionless. Waiting. Above the masks, their eyes were empty, devoid of any expression.
Mike’s guts twisted into a cold knot. This wasn’t a kidnapping. It was something else. Medical experiments? Organ harvesting? His imagination raced down dark paths he had never traveled before.
They threw him onto the gurney with a muffled thud. The leather straps were wrapped around his wrists and ankles with mechanical precision. His body thrashed. The sterile smell of alcohol seeping through the fabric bag and his position on his back on the gurney screamed to him of what was coming. His muffled shrieks and incomprehensible pleas, filtered through the duct tape and fabric, now betrayed pure, animalistic terror. The man who moments ago had governed lives with a phone call was now crying like a child, his body soaked in his own sweat.
The van door closed. Its metallic clang sounded like a verdict.
Before getting back into the SUV, Mike and Alec stood motionless, staring at the steel door. The silence was absolute. Mike felt his pulse in his stomach, a heavy, martial drumbeat. On Alec’s face, he saw the same frozen horror. Perhaps for a fleeting moment, a glimmer of compassion passed through their eyes for the “pig” in their hands. Not for the man, but for the creature experiencing such terror. Every thought of resistance, every whisper of disobedience to “Bell,” evaporated in the face of this mobile operating room. They were just pawns in a game whose rules they didn’t even understand…
