Pools of Blood

Chapter 16

I drove towards the base where Lenus was strapped to his chair in a glass room with water dripping upon him from above. A violent hum of electricity was streaking through the air and it assaulted his battered head, calling forth a grimace of agony. A steady dripping of water echoed all around him.

It had been more than 24 hours and he still hadn’t confessed anything. His lips were parched and he even couldn’t open his eyes to perceive how deep in s**t he was in. he was trying to wrench his arms free and felt narrow straps dig into his flesh. He cried out in pain and kept battering at the straps with his forearms.

I felt no pity for him. He helped in the murder of two innocent people, r***d a woman. He deserved more pain. He snapped his head back and hit the back of the metallic chair again and again. He yelled a loud shout mingled with fury and panic. Panic for low oxygen levels. The metallic scent of blood mixed with the stench of his s**t covered the whole room.

His strength was beginning to ebb, his poundings came at longer intervals. He drew in a ragged, breath after another and his eyes were bloodshot. At last, after 30 hours of staying and experiencing hell, he gave up.

"I will confess. Please. Take me from here. I will confess", he begged like a desperate man sinking into a well.

Bo Chang pressed a button and a panel of glass slid to reveal a big gap. Fresh oxygen rushed in and enabled him to breathe.

"The first answer our questions then you will be taken from here", he said.

Lenus nodded. He was shivering in cold and pain.

"Who are you? Who do you work for?"

-"I am Lenus. I work for no one. FTH hired me."

-"Why were you inside Alfred and Jasmine’s flat that day?"

-"To take a diary."

-"What diary?"

-"That I don’t know. We were ordered to keep a watch on the flat and if Michael Ting arrived, we were instructed to kill. We couldn’t find the diary, so probably other than Jasmine, Michael would be the only one to know its location. So we were ordered to kill and snatch the diary".

Bo Chang looked at me as if to ask if I knew anything about the diary. I shook my head. It was not the right time to talk about the diary, before the criminal.

"Can you identify the people who had killed Alfred and r***d Jessica?"

Lenus shook his head.

"FTH has hundreds of people working for them at different levels and sections. They follow the strictest protocols so that even if they get arrested no one could link up the company with the crime. Some are contract killers like me, some are illegal hackers, some are drug peddlers and some are mafias. No identification is shared among each other. We can't show our faces to our partners in crime. We only know each other by voice and names."

-"Were you there when they were murdered and assaulted?"

-" Yes. I was there. But I didn’t take part in the crime. I was behind the wheels that day."

-"I think you are lying! ", saying this Bo Chang again pressed the button and the gap on the glass started to close.

-"No! No, please! Don’t ", he protested and begged. "Please don’t suffocate me again. I am telling the truth. I can give you the names of the six people or any other information. I will co-operate with the police. But in return, you have to keep me safe. FTH has probably already has received information about my arrest. They would kill me. Please."

I agreed. We have to keep him safe until we can extract everything from him. Then he would be sent to prison.

"What do you know about the owner of FTH?"

-"Nobody knows who is the owner. Nobody has seen him face to face. We are all contacted by self-destructive emails and messages without IP numbers and called from non-traceable private numbers. They don’t keep proof of anything."

That I had already seen. FTH was a master player in these works. With no clues, no proofs, and wearing a saint’s clothes upon their dark hides, they have become the topmost business group in Asia.

" I can give the names of the people who were there that day with me".

-"Sure you can."

-"But you have to promise me full protection of my life."

I nodded. "We will. Don’t worry about it."

Lenus slumped down deep into the chair and whispered.

"Rumi, Chang, Alonso, Derb, Gin, and Woori."

-"How can we know that you are telling the true names and not some fake ones?"

Lenus requested his left sleeve to be removed. On his bicep, was a faint mark of a word branded a long time ago.

"Each one of us who are contacted by FTH and gets paid by them, had their names Branded and tattooed by the company. That their only ID card."