State Of The Union

What Draegar didn’t know was that the thick walls of the underground burial vault were impeding the signal from his wireless transmitter. That was precisely why Lawlor had chosen it. He had thought that Draegar might bring backup, but had given the professional operative credit enough to know that he would keep them out of sight. The only way he would have been able to communicate with them was via radio. By obstructing his transmission, Gary was given enough time to do what he had to do-and he didn’t waste a single minute of it.

After instructing Draegar to remove his gun, drop it on the ground, and kick it over to him, Lawlor ordered him to strip. That was when he found the wire. There was no time to go through Draegar’s pockets, and Lawlor didn’t want to risk frisking him. Almost instantly, Draegar began shaking from the cold.

Gary steered him to the far end of the vault, past door after rusted ancient iron door protecting small burial alcoves that had long since been looted, to a stone wall beneath a large iron ring where he made him sit. Though Lawlor had tested the ring to make sure it absolutely could not be pulled loose, he had underestimated the bulk of his prisoner’s thick arms and shoulders. It would be impossible to run the handcuffs through the ring and secure both of the man’s wrists. He’d only be able to secure one. With time running out, Gary decided to improvise.

Throwing the handcuffs to Draegar, he instructed the man to attach one of the bracelets to his left wrist and then hold his left arm above his head.

“Fuck you. Just shoot me and get it over with,” Draegar had responded.

Lawlor was tempted, but it wasn’t the type of ending he had envisioned. Carefully, he approached and with his pistol cocked and pressed against Draegar’s forehead, he shackled the man’s left wrist and attached it to the iron ring. Though he would have liked nothing more than to pistol whip his wife’s killer, Lawlor restrained himself. He didn’t want to risk Draegar losing consciousness. He needed him awake for the revenge he had planned.

With his free hand, Lawlor removed a roll of duct tape from his coat and used his teeth to unravel a long section, which he wrapped several times tightly around the Draegar’s mouth, completely gagging him.

His prisoner now secure, Gary set his pistol down on a nearby sarcophagus and picked up a large piece of dislodged masonry. It was about the size of a concrete cinder block and he brought it down in one crushing blow upon Draegar’s left ankle. The Stasi agent howled in pain as his bones splintered and popped, but his cries were effectively muffled by the layers of duct tape.

Though he would have loved to have savored the moment further, Lawlor had no time. He quickly picked the block back up and repeated the hobbling treatment on Draegar’s right side. There was no way the man could stand at this point, so escape was futile. All he could do was watch the last minutes of his life, quite literally tick away until he died.

“My wife,” said Gary, as he emptied the contents of three duffle bags and assembled them in piles just out of Draegar’s reach, “had no idea her life was about to end. I guess in that respect, she was fortunate. You, on the other hand, are not going to be granted that sort of mercy.”

Draegar stared at the brick sized parcels wrapped in what looked like brown wax paper and knew exactly what they were-cakes of C4.Where the fuck is the backup team? Did Lawlor actually manage to take them out? Draegar began to panic.

Gary was pleased to see the look of fear in the man’s eyes. He’d been prepared for his wife’s killer to maintain an icy calm all the way to the end and not grant him any added satisfaction. This sudden change in his demeanor was a pleasant bonus.

Lawlor rigged the charges and in front of each neat little stack of plastique placed glass jars of road tacks, essentially overgrown children’s jacks with their points filed down into razor-sharp spikes. Though the explosion alone was enough to kill the man, Gary wanted to add a little something extra for Draegar. Hopefully, the thought of the shrapnel tearing through his body would add another layer to the man’s fear.

His work complete, Lawlor activated the timer and placed a large, red LED display on top of one of the piles so Draegar could watch the last minutes and seconds of his life melt away.

Gary had run through his mind a million times what he was going to say at this moment, but as he retrieved his gun from the sarcophagus and turned to speak, somehow what he had prepared didn’t seem to matter anymore. He could have laughed, he could have simply smiled, but instead he cast one last look at the man who had killed his wife and his eyes said it all-Now it’s your turn. And with that, he turned and left the burial chamber.