“And yet here you are,” observed Enoch calmly.
Madeline and the others were gathered around a viewscreen in the next room, watching events take place. At the colonel’s outburst, General Marwan grunted. “Perkins,” she said. “A solid man, but he can get his knickers in a knot sometimes.”
“He’s picking the wrong guy to tangle with,” said Madeline softly.
“Here I am,” Perkins retorted, “and here I go.” He marched to the door and tried to open it. The door did not budge.
“Back to your place, Colonel,” ordered Enoch.
“The hell with you.”
Enoch stood up. He seemed to gather strength from the air around him, somehow. “You need to understand something,” he announced, still calm. “I could kill every single one of you in this room. It wouldn’t even be that hard for me.” Enoch moved from around the desk, every step filled with menace. “No one would be able to save you. Your lives could end, right here and right now, and nothing could stop me.” He towered over the colonel, who stood frozen holding the door handle.
“Do you believe me?” asked Enoch, almost gently, locking eyes with the unfortunate officer.
Perkins looked away. “Yes,” he replied, swallowing.
“Good. Then return to your place, Colonel.”
Looking downward, Colonel Perkins returned to stand with the other men. Enoch walked slowly to take his own place at the front of the room.
“I am sure that you have heard of me,” said Enoch conversationally, “and I am equally sure that you have heard of the Onin War, or as you might call it, the Onin Rebellion. Did any of you serve in this conflict?”
He surveyed the room. No one moved.
Enoch shrugged. “No matter. What I wish to tell you about is something that none of you are likely to have heard about—indeed, a great deal of the soldiers who served in the war never knew anything about it. What I want to tell you about took place in rooms well below ground, in cells that had been soundproofed, in abandoned factories and warehouses…in fact, warehouses very much like the one we’re in now.”
Enoch paced back and forth slowly. Every eye in the room followed him. In the next room, those watching on the viewscreen were silent.
“Interrogation,” said Enoch. “Such a plain word. It covers many activities, hides many sins. Have any of you ever been interrogated?”
Absolute silence.
“I have,” offered Enoch. “In the early days of the war, before your Alliance knew who I was. I don’t think they even wanted to find out anything I might have known. They were more interested in sending a message. That’s why they let me live, why they released me…after a while. So I could tell others what had happened, spread terror amongst my fellow ‘rebels.’” He spat out the last word.
Enoch stopped pacing, and turned to face the officers again. “But you know what? I didn’t tell a soul. Not even my wife. If they had done what they did to me in order to spread fear and terror, I wasn’t going to oblige them. I was going to make sure that they had wasted their time, that it had all been for nothing. And I never told a soul. Not a word of it.”
Madeline brushed at a tear that was running down her cheek.
“Today, though,” continued Enoch, “I’m finally going to put my experience to use. I’m going to take what your Alliance did to me and do it to you, one by one.”
“Gods,” muttered General Marwan.
“Wh…why?” managed Colonel Perkins.
“Because one of you is a traitor,” observed Enoch flatly. “After the command staff meeting, one of you broadcast the information to our enemies. One of you tried to make sure that my troopers would be walking into death traps. But it was all for nothing, just like your Alliance’s stupid torturers, so long ago. In the meeting, you all were told that the mission would start in twelve hours. It actually starts in four.”
The assembled officers looked at each other. Enoch’s eyes gleamed. “That’s right. Whoever the traitor is, you betrayed your oath fornothing.”
Enoch shrugged his shoulders. “Such is war. And now, gentlemen, we’re going to learn another hard lesson about war. I hope you’re ready.”
“We’ve got to get in there,” pressed General Marwan.
“Not yet,” answered Madeline.
Inside the room, the tension finally reached its breaking point. One of the officers snarled as he pulled out a hidden blade and leapt at Enoch. “Scum!” the man shouted.
The other officers backed away. Enoch’s actions were almost balletic as he broke the man’s arm before knocking him unconscious. He took the blade from the man’s now-open hand, and looked at the other officers.
