In an unknown location somewhere in New York, three men sat around a large rectangular wooden table in an expensively furnished room. High quality chairs overlooked a large French window on one side while a large, currently inactive fireplace made up most of the other. A red linen rug covered the entire floor. The wall behind the desk was taken up largely by a massive screen. A globe of the world stood on the right side of the desk while papers and folders, all meticulously filed and organized, lay on top of it. An opened bottle of fine French-imported cognac lay on the right side of it, a half-full glass on the left.
Two men sat in front of the desk. On the right was a huge muscular man with blonde, almost white hair cut very short, wearing a leather jacket and jeans. The clothing barely concealed his massive frame, created from steroids and hours of pumping iron at the gym. The chair seemed to protest every movement his 6'5, 255lb body made. Next to him sitting cross-legged was a man with a smaller but definitely sturdy build of 6'1 and 195lbs, wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and light pants. He had closely cropped brown hair and a dark five-o'clock shadow. His eyes moved back and forth in what one might call a paranoid, skittish type of way.
Both of them sat staring at their companion behind the desk who, despite the light in the room, was still largely concealed by shadows. Neither of them knew too much more than what he allowed them to know, which was not much to begin with. A slightly older, but not middle-aged man whose tastes in alcohol and clothing matched his expensive surroundings. Wearing an open-necked shirt and beige jacket with a gold watch, he looked more like Lex Luthor than what he was to known to most people as; if either of his companions thought so, however, neither dared to mention it.
"I don't know why you wanted us here," the bigger man growled. "I thought everything was going good."
"It still is," the man behind the desk replied calmly. "In fact, things are progressing better than we could ever hope to have imagined."
"So what the hell are we doing here?"
"Because I said so."
"You told me we'd be making a difference!" The other man exclaimed, leaning forward. "That everything we're doing matters in the end!"
"And it will."
"Don't play games with me!" The man pointed a finger across the table. "I told you what we needed to do to make people take us seriously! They have to realize that what we're doing is necessary! So far, nothing we've done has accomplished that!"
"You're not being very patient, Shaun."
"There's no time to be patient!" The man named Shaun shouted, slapping his hand on the table. "This entire country is rotting from corruption within and we're wasting time on small insignificant targets!"
The man behind the desk fixed him with a cool look. "Nothing I do is insignificant- and I'd advise you not to make the mistake of thinking so."
"So what's the big master plan?" The bigger man demanded. "Keep sending letter bombs until people don't feel safe in this city?"
"By the time we're finished, people won't feel safe anywhere. Isn't that what you wanted, Rook?"
"I want to show all them cops that they ain't such hot shit as they think they are! They all think they're so high and mighty- give me a few minutes with them and we'll see just how tough they really are!"
The man behind the desk swirled the cognac in his hand. "You'll get your chance. But for the moment we have bigger fish to fry."
"Which is?" Shaun asked.
"The FBI's taken interest; they sent a team from Virginia this morning. I want all efforts refocused on them."
"Well, ain't that something?" The man called Rook smirked. "Our little messages get the attention of the federal government. What a nice surprise!"
"Hardly. This was something I anticipated, even expected. We need to get to the source of the problem and what better way by going through the primary domestic federal agency?"
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you wanted this to happen!"
The older man took a sip of cognac. "If it works to our advantage, why not embrace it?"
"Shit," Rook muttered. "You're one crazy bastard, you know that?"
"I don't care about all that," Shaun interjected brusquely. "What are we going to do about them?"
The older man rose up out of his chair, glass in one hand and remote control in the other. "For now, nothing but study them." He pressed a button on the remote and a series of images popped up on the screen behind him. Pictures of the BAU team at and near the scene of that morning's bombing popped up- about ten of them in total. "The key to destroying one's enemy is to know them better than they know themselves."
"And how do you plan to do that?"
"My sources are gathering information as we speak. By this time in a couple of days, we'll know everything there is to know about them. And that's when we'll initiate our actions."
"Even if we do, that's just one FBI team," Shaun declared. "It'll hardly make a difference and we'll end up bringing the entire FBI down on us in a second."
The older man gave a small smile. "They can't destroy what they can't find. And trust me, it will make a difference."
"Whatever," Rook rumbled. "So long as I get to kill a couple of them."
"You'll get your chance." The man pressed another button and the pictures on the screen blew up and starting filing one after the other like a slide show; two dark-haired men in suits talking with a young woman alongside a police detective; a muscular black man and blonde woman interviewing another black man in company uniform; a dark-haired woman and thin, lanky young man talking to a dishevelled young guy sitting in the back of an ambulance.
"Well, check it out!" Rook leered. "You see them two hot chicks? Since when did the Feds start letting pretty women out into the field?"
"You keep that attitude up and they'll put a bullet in your head before you know what's happening," Shaun retorted. "Never underestimate your enemy; that's the worst mistake you can possibly make!"
Rook snorted. "Sure. And what about the little mistake you made this morning with the timer? Cause that up there didn't look like a Wall Street building."
"That wasn't my mistake!" Shaun shouted heatedly. "I don't know why the package wasn't delivered on time!"
"Wasn't your mistake, huh? That what you said happened in Pakistan too?"
The look that came into Shaun's eyes was so killer that it surely would have preceded murder had the situation not been broken up. "Gentlemen, enough!" The older man declared, raising his voice. "We have enough to deal with right now without getting into petty squabbles like this! Shaun, you're dismissed. I'll let you know what the next move is when we come to it."
"But-"
"That was not a suggestion." Though the man's voice was very quiet, there was no missing the warning lying behind it.
Shaun clenched his jaw and cast a final glare at Rook before standing up and striding purposefully out of the room.
Rook watched him leave before getting up with a grunt. "That guy's more trouble than he's worth. He fucks this up and ruins our plans, I'm killing the son of a bitch myself."
"That won't be necessary," the older man replied while mentally rolling his eyes. Honestly, why do all the biggest men have to be some of the dumbest? "When the time comes, all he'll be thinking about is accomplishing the job."
"He'd better. If he doesn't, he'll be just another failed revolutionary. That ain't gonna do us any good."
"Mmm," the older man said absently. "Don't worry; Shaun's predictable. He'll do what needs to be done. Besides, he's not the one who concerns me."
Rook narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about?"
His companion pointed the remote at the screen. "Our own wild card." He pressed a button.
The pictures were immediately replaced by a live video feed. In it was featured a small, windowless room made entirely of stone. At the far end of it, a sobbing young woman knelt on the floor, chained by her foot to the wall. She was dressed in punk clothing with a black T-shirt that ended just above her midriff, fishnets, miniskirt and Doc Marten boots. Her dirty blonde hair with brown streaks fell over her tear-stained face, the piercings in her lip trembling in unison with the attached body part. Even the large tribal tattoo on both sides of her waist extending to her back seemed to shake in fear. "Please," she begged in a shaky voice. "Don't do this..."
"The evil that exists in the world must be purged by any means necessary," a male voice said off camera. "Those who partake in it must be eliminated by those with the strength to fight it."
"Please..." the woman pleaded, eyes moving back and forth frantically. "I'm just a hairdresser!"
"Those who are guided by dark forces deserve nothing less than the pain and death necessary to cleanse the world of their evil intentions." The speaker stepped into the camera shot, staring down mercilessly at his captive. His long dark hair obscured most of his face from view; he spoke unhesitatingly, as if reading from a script. "Among the worst of these evil-doers are witches who seek to bewitch all men they set their sights on."
"I've told you a million times, I'm not a witch! Please, just let me go... I won't tell anyone, I swear!"
"And as is demanded by the Mallus Malleficarium, all witches must die, so that their evil cannot contaminate the souls of everyone around them."
He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out something- a pair of heavy pliers. The girl's eyes widened in fear and she tried frantically to pull herself free from the chain; it didn't budge an inch. "Please no... no! God, please I'll do anything! Please! Please no!"
The man grabbed hold of her face and forced her mouth open with his free hand, simultaneously reaching in and grabbing hold of her tongue with the pliers. In one swift motion, he ripped the tongue out of her head. The woman gave a horrifying, agonizing scream of pain and clamped her hands over her mouth; blood gushed between her fingers and started pooling on the floor.
The man held the mangled tongue up close to his face; in the centre, a steel stud could be seen glistening in the light. "The first step to stopping the spread of evil is to remove their ability to spread their devilish words."
Carefully laying the appendage and tool aside, he moved behind the girl, his eyes now filled with sadism. "The second step to stopping the spread of evil is to destroy their fiendish soul and their will to resist..."
In one curt move he shoved her down onto her face, causing her to sob in pain, and pinned her to the ground. She tried to buck him off, but he was stronger and he outweighed her by at least 50lbs. "Isn't that right, witch?"
Simultaneously, one of his hands unzipped his pants while the other yanked down her miniskirt...
The man in the expensive suit abruptly cut the video feed, turning it back to the surveillance videos. Repressing a slight shudder, he downed the rest of his cognac in one gulp. Such things, he thought, were not suitable for viewing, certainly not by a man of his stature and tastes.
"Uh, boss?" Rook asked.
"Yes?"
"Not to question you or anything, but why the hell did you recruit this freak?"
The older man's eyes held no emotion of any kind. "The same reason I recruited our paranoid Irish friend. Because he's useful."
"How? Useful in being a fucked up psycho? This guy doesn't care one bit about our vision! You see what he did to that Latino? He was disappointed the spic died before he chopped off his dick! There's something not right about him, boss. How can he be useful?"
"It's a mutually beneficial exchange; we get rid of people who aren't worth our time and he gets to satisfy his sadistic homicidal delusions. That's good enough."
"If so say so. But I don't know about this."
"I didn't recruit you to think, Rook. Stay focused on the job."
"Got it, boss."
The older man cast a look at his henchman, as if wondering why he was still here. "Don't you have somewhere you need to be?"
Rook opened his mouth to answer that no, he really didn't, but then caught the look in the other man's eyes and quickly understood what it meant. Mumbling something to the affirmative, he turned and left the room.
The older man shook his head and turned back to the screen. Some days, he thought, I wonder why I surround myself with such simple-minded idiots? Still, it didn't matter what anyone else said or thought; at the end of it all, he was going to have exactly what he wanted- just like always.
His eyes zoomed in on one of the photos on screen- that of the dark-haired female agent. A smile smile crept over his face; contrary to Rook's unintelligent comments, Shaun had been right about one thing: you never underestimate your oppoent's strength, and this woman was strong. Even in the stills, he could see it in the way she carried herself, the way she moved, the way she turned. In fact, if he didn't know better he would have said he was looking at a work of art.
And damned if she wouldn't be before long.
He poured himself another glass of cognac. "Nice to make your acquaintance, my dear lady," he said, raising the glass in the fashion of a toast towards her. "I look forward to meeting you in person very soon. You'll make an excellent addition to my collection."
A/N: Please review and give me feedback! As always, in-depth reviews are always appreciated!