Page 72 of Fighting Salvation

Bás sat on the edge of one of the stools at the island as Hansen nodded for the guard to leave. He clearly felt very safe there and that would be his downfall.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding out all these years?”

Hansen chuckled as he poured a drink and held the crystal decanter up to him. Bás nodded, he might as well join him and see if he would relax even more.

“It was fun watching you run around hunting for me when I was the true ghost.”

Bás hummed as he took the drink, his hands still bound. The whisky was expensive and smooth and burned as it went down.

“So what now?” Bás was fighting his instincts. Every second in this monster’s presence was painful but it was also eye-opening. He realised he didn’t care about answers for himself now, anything Hansen said wouldn’t bring back his family. Whatever his reasons, they wouldn’t be enough to explain what he’d done. Yet he had to play this game and be clever now he had this chance.

Hansen moved around the kitchen to a huge TV, using the remote to flick it on. The screen showed fifteen faces and he stood and moved closer, his brow furrowing when he recognised Payton and Novem.

“I thought I could tell you about my family. The one I built without you.”

Bás glanced at him as what he was seeing registered, and he tried not to show his horror. “Are all these kids yours?”

Hansen nodded with pride. “This is just the girls. The boys were killed. I have no use for boys in my plans.”

Bás swallowed down his anger and horror. “Are all these girls in the Project Cradle programme?”

Hansen shook his head. “No, as you know, Payton is with her mother. Novem is with you unless,” he turned to Bás and cocked his head, “she’s dead?”

He’d seen evil and this shocked even him. “She’s alive.”

“Hmm, yes, well it doesn’t matter. She was a difficult one, useful for research but untrainable. It’s why I left her behind.” He pointed at the oldest child who Bás guessed was likely in her early twenties. “Number one is an adult now and she was a disappointment too but she’s decent breeding stock.”

“You use your own child as breeding stock for your programme?”

“Of course. She has half my genes so there’s much to be salvaged.”

Bás struggled to comprehend his thought process. His chest heaved slightly with the need to take out how he was feeling on Hansen using his fists. “How many children are there like this around the world?”

“Including ones that aren’t mine, four hundred and seven.”

“And you set this up?” Bás needed answers if he was going to clean up this mess completely and leaving the head of this particular snake alive wasn’t happening.

Hansen shook his head as he sat on the white couch and leaned back, his body language relaxed. “No, it was set up by the CIA, as you well know.”

Bás gritted his teeth at the patronising tone. “Yes and I also know it was shut down. Did you and Marsha set this up when she came in to have her child?”

That didn’t make sense because Marsha would have been a teen and she was at least ten years older than Hansen.

“No, you know that can’t be the case, but you’re getting warmer.”

This was all a game to him and he was enjoying it, but Bás would play as long as it kept him alive and got him what he needed. “Director Mills kept it going, and when Marsha got pregnant it was the perfect solution. Because she knew about it, you could then bring her in, too.”

Hansen held his glass up in a mocking salute. “Excellent detective work, Bás. Marsha was driven and had ambition. I came on board after I left Africa. Apparently, Mills liked what I’d done here and admired my drive. He thought I’d be easy to control because he had something on me. I let him believe that while I quietly took control of every single aspect of the operation. Until me, this was a small enterprise that only used whores or sluts who couldn’t keep their legs closed. I made it so we were choosing men of importance and chose women of good breeding stock.”

Bás could feel rage rippling through his body as this monster spoke and it took everything in him to keep him from losing his shit. He’d worked his way out of the ropes ten minutes ago and could easily take Hansen. But he knew he’d be shot in seconds by his men and he wasn’t dying on this rotten fucking island. He had a life and future with Valentina to look forward to and he’d promised he’d come back to her. He wouldn’t fucking break that promise. So he’d bide his time and wait for the opportunity to present itself.

“So you secured the funding by promising these men a return financially and the chance to fuck the women of your choosing?”

“That’s a rather crude analogy but essentially, yes. Men are simple creatures are we not? We want power and sex and I offered them both.”

“And Marsha was the one to seduce these men before you made the offer?”

“She was very good at what she did. When her father became of no use, he was removed and I stepped up. Marsha wasn’t happy about that but she came to learn very quickly where her loyalty should lie.”