Happy Days - Chapter 4
When the bag is finally removed from his head, Colin blinks desperately in the blindingly bright light. Squinting through the glare, he takes note of his situation: Tom is tied to the chair to his left, and their captors are leaning over them, scrutinising, the lighting rig casting their shadows eerily across the room. The men turn to Tom first, roughly untie him and bundle him out of the room. Colin remains in the dingy room with one of the men serving as a guard; he has a gun, so Colin doesn't even think about trying to make an escape. The silence is painful; the tension almost unbearable as he awaits the return of the others, and his inevitable interrogation.
In an attempt to distract himself, Colin wonders how things are going on the Grid: Malcolm heard their abduction, so no doubt the team are already working on finding out who they were taken by and why. That thought is slightly reassuring, but the imminent sense of danger is still overpowering. Instead, Colin finds himself thinking about Malcolm, but that's not very reassuring either: Colin doesn't know if he'll ever see him again if things go wrong...
After what feels like a few hours, but is probably no more than half an hour, Tom is dragged back into the room and shoved onto his chair. He's gagged, so has no opportunity to warn Colin of what lies ahead. The men now grab Colin and escort him from the room. He's lead into a smaller room and pushed onto a chair. The windows are barred and boarded up, but a few rays of light filter in through the cracks, allowing Colin to see drops of blood on the floor: undoubtedly Tom's. He shudders involuntarily and attempts to struggle free of his bonds, but it's futile.
One of the men approaches Colin. He's not wearing a mask, indicating that he doesn't care if Colin knows who he is. That realisation makes a cold tingle track down Colin's spine: this man obviously has nothing to lose.
"Who do you work for?" the man shouts, his face inches away from Colin's.
Colin briefly considers lying, but then realises that if these men knew who he worked for, they wouldn't be asking him the question; puzzling to say the least.
"The security services," he manages to spit out.
The men all laugh, making Colin pause in fear in case they don't believe him, but then one of them sneers, "Already more forthcoming than your friend. Tell us, why were you in that van?"
"Surveillance."
"On one of our group?" another one of the men asks viciously. He strikes Colin across the side of the head with the barrel of his gun. Colin can only grunt in response, feeling the warm trickle of blood down his left temple.
"What do you know?" the first man demands. In his head, Colin composes what he considers to be a witty retort, but in reality he takes the easier and less painful option: "Bomb attack," he manages.
The men begin to confer loudly amongst themselves in their native language. Colin tries to place it, but his head is pounding and he can only narrow it down as far as somewhere in the Middle East. Abruptly, four of the men leave the room, leaving only the leader - as Colin presumes he is - and two others, one of whom is the person MI5 had been watching. They say nothing further, only watching Colin coldly.
After a while the door is flung open, and three of the men enter, dragging Tom with them. The fourth brings up the rear, carrying his chair and a camcorder. Tom is tied to the chair now positioned next to Colin, still gagged. Colin makes eye contact with him, trying to gauge how worried Tom is about their situation; Colin himself is terrified, Tom doesn't look much better. They've no idea what's going on; no idea what to expect.
When the camcorder is set up, the leader steps forward and hands Colin a sheet of paper. "Read this out when I say so. If you do not, we will kill your colleague. If you say anything not written here, if you try to give any other message to your colleagues, we will kill him."
Colin nods once, too afraid to do anything else. The man goes behind the camcorder and presses the record button: "Read."
Looking down at the sheet in front of him, Colin swallows to clear his throat and begins.
"I am a member of the British Security Services, held hostage by the Brothers of Freedom. The Brothers' aim is to make the West aware of the suffering of their people. No attempt must be made to stop this, or me and the other agent will be killed."
Two of the men step up behind Colin and Tom, pressing guns against their heads to reinforce the message. The camcorder is switched off, and the leader leaves the room, undoubtedly to deliver the tape to MI5.
Colin and Tom are left tied to their chairs in the steady darkening of the room, with two of the men standing guard to prevent them from trying to escape. Tom is still gagged, so they can't talk, but Colin finds it calming just to have his presence next to him. He's not in this alone, and if everything kicks off, Tom is trained to deal with it, he reassures himself.
Colin cannot help but wonder how Malcolm will react to the video: he knows if their positions were switched he'd be terrified for the other man, and terrified of losing him. It's an absurd feeling, but he's more worried about Malcolm than he is for himself; he might be in danger, but Malcolm will see that video and not know what's happening to him. MI5 does not back down, Colin knows, they will work to find out about the attack and try to prevent it, regardless of whether or not they are able to rescue their colleagues. Two lost lives are nothing compared to hundreds; agents nothing compared to innocents. And Malcolm will have to work to foil the attack, all the time knowing that if they do, he will most likely lose Colin. Colin does not wish the guilt on his friend at all.