(Part-II of Angels Who Cry)
The horizon is always rosy at dawn and dusk. A lamp burns at
its brightest just as it’s lit and just before it goes out. What can you offer
a lamp that hasn’t been lit or that has gone out? What can you offer a man
trapped in darkness, left with no hope?
The cell he was in looked forbidding. He was in the enemy’s
lair, deep within the bowels of the enemy fortress where there was absolutely
no hope. He knew his friends wouldn’t come for him, there was no contest about
it. The best he could hope was, his body feeling some fresh air out in the open
than the stale air of these endless labyrinths. After what felt like endless
centuries trapped in those passages along with his tormenters who always were
innovative about methods of torture to make him spill his friends secrets, he
was pleasantly surprised to see his friends walk up to him one day. He was
trying to lose himself in his nightmares before the real one began again, only
to be rudely awoken by a loud noise. It then turned to music as his friends and
allies trooped in only to see him and lead him to freedom from the jaws of the
enemy. His silence earned him respect, medals and a rank.
A decade later and at a highly respected position he
received a piece of news that shattered his world. His son, one whom he loved
from the moment he opened his eyes to the moment the enemy closed them would no
longer stand by his side but rather rest to eternity in the warm earth, enclosed
by the cold embrace of death. He used every piece of influence and fury he had
in him to find out the reason as to how his dear little one had passed on. The
answer was simple, there was a traitor in the midst. The traitor then paid the
price for his betrayal but since left him with a very bad taste for traitors
and a very strong sense of duty towards weeding them out. That zeal is what
made him opt for his current job and what made him a ruthless expert in it.
He prided himself on his ability to pick out traitors and do
what was needed to get what they wanted to know about the enemy and to plug the
gaps they might have created in his army’s amour. As he walked, every once a
while to that room that was kept pristine until his arrival, he would hold his
head high and walk with pride. Once inside, his demeanor changed. From a proud
soldier, he transformed into a a soulless, heartless and a ruthless
interrogator who stopped at nothing. People who knew his reputation trembled
just from the mention of his name and the fact that he was interrogating them.
And as a professional responsibility he took care that almost everyone in his
army knew his name.
This time it was a sniper, someone who was trusted to watch
over his fellow buddies and warn them in advance was accused of shooting his
troops and causing losses. The others in his battalion suspected that he was
passing information to the enemy and then shooting the respective people in a
specific area allowing the enemy to make advances. This was a serious problem
and he was here to solve that.
The soldiers in the room was normal looking. He apparently
had a family and yet he seemed to have betrayed his country. This was something
he never understood. A man either stood for principles or for his family or at
least for himself. This one fell in the middle category and yet he seemed to
support the enemy, knowing the atrocities he was committing. This worried him.
He concluded that this man was someone who had lost hope. He didn’t trust that
his own comrades could win the war and therefore had succumbed to the enemy to
try and gain asylum for his family and himself. He never thought about what
would happen if he got caught. Disgusting brat he was. Walking into the room he
saw the confusion in his eyes that he classified as feigned, but the terror,
once he realized who was interrogating him was real. The start that he
displayed when he asked questions was real but the answers he were giving were
lies. He was telling me that he hadn’t colluded with the enemy and that he in fact
didn’t know about what he was being interrogated. He heaved a sigh of exasperation
at the lies everyone told at the start.
He asked him nicely one more time. Then he began what he did best.
After four grueling hours he came back to a small room he
formally called office, disturbed. He hadn’t seen a case like this. The man was
put through everything he knew. By the time he was done with him even he wasn’t
sure if the man he had interrogated would survive or not. The thing that nagged
him was that he stuck to his story. There wasn’t an instance anyone had ever
done that. He had broken the best of soldiers, people so highly trained that
they were touted as unbreakable. Even they sang like canaries in a coal mine
after two hours with him. This man however hadn’t changed his version. He was
pretty sure he wasn’t highly trained and that left just one horrifying thought.
He was actually innocent and that the actual traitor has him captured to have a
bit more free reign for a little longer. However another logical conclusion
from this was, the spy was playing a dangerous game. He knew he’d be found out,
the fact that he was risking discovery by using such a tactic only spelt that
he was delaying for time. Time that he had unwittingly granted.
He had tortured a man who was probably innocent, granted and
enemy time to do exactly as he wanted and had now grown a conscience who didn’t
feel like leaving him alone for the near future. Who was the real traitor, what
could he do with this innocent man and what would be the fate of the plan they
were devising. Too many questions and no answers. Thinking of all this he
loaded the man who had come into interrogation onto an ambulance. Looking at
his form he felt a sense of responsibility and got into the ambulance. It was a
whim, a fancy. The ambulance pulled away from his building and was checking out
when a gigantic explosion took out the building behind him. All hope seemed
lost but the enemy had moved the first pawn in a long game of speed chess.
