Sarah’s sound asleep, loudly breathing through her teeth. This is the cutest image I have of her to date. I observe her for hours, like the psycho I am. But no matter what I do, I can’t sleep. There’s simply too much shit in my head right now, there’s no chance I’ll get any sleep tonight.
I get up slowly to avoid waking her up, and start floating around the house…
I open the fridge, just like anyone would in my situation. I’m looking for something, but I don’t know what the fuck that is. I stare at the contents and I decide I’m thirsty. I grab a beer and go towards the table.
Beer, my partner in moments like these— any moment, really. I sit down and take a few sips. I relax my sight for a second and notice that the laptop Sarah took from the warehouse is sitting a few inches away from me. So, since I can’t sleep, this will help me kill some time. I grab it and start to mess with it. Of course, it’s password-protected and the drive is encrypted. I expected this much. I hook the hard drive to my computer and start to run some programs in an attempt to break the password. After 45 minutes of waiting around, one of them manages to find the password.
RAZZAG.
What the fuck is RAZZAG?
Once in, I start to comb through its files, trying to find something of substance. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find his entire plan in here, or at least his initial plan. The more I comb through, the nastier the information gets. It will take me days to classify all the files in this drive by myself; I should give it up to the authorities. Lots of possible locations for attacks, active safehouses, fake names, attack plan codenames— too much shit is about to hit the fan, and soon…
So much hatred…
I come across a list of names, possibly a hit/victim list, with headshots and everything. These fuckers are very thorough with their intelligence gathering. Then again, so are we. I keep reading the list and I can’t believe it— women, young women; children even, for fuck sake.
These people are fucking crazy… But we already knew that. And then I see it. At first, I can’t believe my eyes. I read it again, glance at the picture attached to the name. It IS him…
Dante D’Amico.
What the fuck does this mean?
A waterfall of feelings comes down on top of me. Why is my brother’s name on this fucker’s laptop? I double-click his file, fearing the worst. My gut was right: the file is the video of his execution.
Fuck…
I grab my beer and drink it up in one gulp. I wish I had something stronger in my hand.
I press the ‘Play’ button.
Just as I remember— my brother had blond hair with matching eyebrows. He was always the better-looking one of us; hell, of the whole family. He had it easy with the ladies. He had this peculiar and exotic beauty that drove them crazy. He was a good son, smart, selfless.
In the video file playing in front of me, the beauty I remember is almost gone. He’s beat up and bound to a wooden chair, in a dark and secluded place that looks like a remote cave. He looks spent. Behind him, a thick black flag tries to conceal the rock of said cave. The flag sports a strange symbol, a geometrical figure consisting of two perpendicular lines or bars. It looks like a cross or a crosshair with arrows on its ends pointing North, East, South, and West. There’s a third line that runs diagonally, from the bottom left to the upper right side, passing right through the axis of the cross and splitting it in half. It has a circle on each end. I’ve seen this symbol before, but I couldn’t tie it to anything.
My brother looks at the camera; a mixture of fear and regret fills his eyes. Then, he looks at whomever is behind the camera, waiting for death to come. A tear runs down his dusty face, leaving a perfect trail for the next one. He’s wearing the shirt our father gave him for his last birthday. The sweat on his forehead drips down to his eyebrows and finally reaches his eyes. He constantly closes them hard, trying to avoid the sweat from getting in. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to see what’s coming. He’s minutes away from dying, and he knows it. Fear is a feeling one can quickly learn to identify in another human being. Too much fear will turn into terror, which is harder to detect. And too much terror will trigger a panic attack, making the victim either pass out or difficult to control. Dante looks like he’s at terror level in this video.
A man wearing a balaclava and a military-style camo outfit steps into frame and stands in front of Dante. He’s holding an AK-47 with a weapon sling; it’s properly fastened to him. This might seem like a stupid detail, but it isn’t. That bit of info pretty much sets this guy apart from your regular terrorist, meaning he has military training and all the stuff that comes with it. Then, he goes on to complete the regular terrorist cliché— jabbering a message of hate in Arabic from the top of his lungs, trying to justify his group’s actions. Knowing Arabic was key to my training. It gave me the edge in so many situations. Sadly, more often than not, I had to listen to speeches or statements like this one in order to gain some valuable intel for an operation. His words ooze hatred.
Once he finishes his message, the fucker turns around and proceeds to kick Dante in the chest, with such force that he actually knocks over the chair. I can’t see him anymore, and as soon as I hear Dante’s grunt when he hits the ground, a shower of lead coming from the AK rains down on him.
I click the ‘Pause’ button.
It’s a reflex.
I don’t have to keep playing it.
I look away from the screen, but the tears are already there. I stop the footage, but my brain keeps playing it by heart. I can still hear Dante groaning and the AK being fired in full-auto mode. Ten years went by and I remember the sequence like it was yesterday. He didn’t deserve to die, not like that. Terrorism must be stopped at all cost.
But how do you stop a force like terrorism when they don’t fear death?
I’m raging inside; it makes me shake. The kind of fury mixed with frustration I feel right now would drive any man mad. It feels as if something is gnawing at your bones and won’t let you breathe at the same time. This kind of feeling will push you towards bad decisions.
My thumb jerks and presses the spacebar on the keyboard, resuming the video and making this horrible scene come to life again. The magazine empties; the terrorist turns to face the camera again, adds more to his statement and finishes with “Allah 'akbar.” I hit the spacebar once more, pausing it. I know the video ends a few seconds later, and I need to calm down. I stand up and get another beer. I sip through it as I walk back to the laptop.
Stop it, Bruno…
Yeah, I should; otherwise, I won’t be able to rest.
