The Dark Web Murders

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tuesday, 14th August. Late evening 

Edgar Doran was seated at his desk, his back to the living room door. The clicking of his keyboard was muted but it was enough to prevent him hearing the faint click of the handle as the door behind him eased slowly open. A figure in a dark anorak and a black balaclava mask peered through the slit and saw the unsuspecting back of the judicial assistant at the far side of the room. A quick nod backwards was a signal for two other figures, similarly dressed, to burst into the room alongside him, seize the suddenly terrified man, tie his hands behind him, and cover his protesting mouth with duct tape. 

Doran's eyes flashed wildly from one assailant to another, filled with panic, while his mouth uttered incomprehensible questions from behind the duct tape.One of the figures dragged him towards the room door. "You're coming with us. Give us a hard time and we'll cut you to pieces."

 Doran tried to protest. "Mmph! Mmph! Mmph!" 

The man flung the back of his hand against Doran's defenceless face, almost knocking him off his feet. "I told you to shut up," he snarled, his voice low and gruff. 

Doran was wearing only trousers, a pullover and carpet slippers, but the intruders allowed him no time to grab a coat. His muffled protestsc ontinued as the trio hustled him down the quiet stairs from his apartment to the entrance door, and out to the street. The biggest of the three glanced right and left to ensure they were unobserved and, seizing the hapless victim by an arm, threw him aggressively into the back seat of a waiting car. One of the other men climbed into the back seat with Doran and tied a black cloth across his eyes and around his head while the car drove away quietly and without fuss. A screeching getaway would have attracted the kind of curiosity they didn't need. 

The car drove through the city for about twenty minutes, taking right turns, left turns, turning back on itself, driving a couple of miles without any turns. If the prisoner was trying to keep a mental track of the various turns in the hope of later following the route, he was doomed to disappointment. No one in a blindfold could have retraced that maze of turns. Not that Doran looked like he was alert and functioning. He had squeezed himself into the corner of the rear seat, arms clasped tightly across his chest, his knees drawn up in a defensive huddle, and his breath issuing in small, fearful gasps. 

No one spoke during the twenty-minute journey until the car stopped on a side street outside a dilapidated roll-up garage door. The man in the back seat got out, went around to the other side of the car, opened the rear door and pulled Doran roughly out on to the road. Grabbing him by an arm, he dragged the stumbling man after him, growling, "Keep moving." 

The biggest man had already slipped a key into the garage door and was rolling it up as Doran was flung past him into the darkness. The helpless man staggered blindly for a moment, lost his balance, and fell to the oily concrete floor, landing heavily on his right shoulder and side. He grunted in pain behind the duct tape, but one of the thugs kicked his side and snarled, "Shut up until we tell you to speak." The thug then seized him by the armpits and held him erect, standing behind him, a hand clasped around each arm. The large man switched on a light, a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, and stepped forward. He pulled the black cloth from Doran's eyes and ripped the duct tape from his face. He stood back for a few seconds while his captive's terrified eyes darted wildly around the room and from one balaclava covered head to the other. 

"Wha ... what do you want with me?" Doran croaked. "I don't have any political affiliations. You've made some kind of mistake."

 The large man swung an angry hand at the prisoner's face. Were it not for the thug behind holding him up, he would have fallen again.

"Shut it," the man snarled. "Now, tell me where it is." 

Doran could scarcely speak. Blood was trickling from the side of his mouth and he was quivering with fear. "Wh ... where what is?" he stammered. 

"Dammit, I knew you'd start with these shitty denials." His fist shot forward and buried itself in Doran's solar plexus. 

Doran gasped with pain and shock, trying to suck in air. He struggled to bend over to ease the pain but the thug holding him wouldn't allow him to move. "Please, I ... I don't know what you want." 

Another heavy punch to the left side of his face knocked the stricken man's head sideways. "So you want to do it the hard way?" 

Doran cringed. "I don't. I don't. Please, please. Tell me what you're talking about." 

"Where is the safe?" The man's voice was low, menacing. 

Doran's eyes closed and he moaned, "Oh, dear God. What safe? What safe?" 

Another brutal fist slammed into his left side. "The judge's safe, you bastard." 

For a moment Doran seemed confused and incapable of coherent thought. "The judge's safe?" he repeated, as if he didn't know what the words meant.His head was battered to one side by yet another vicious blow. 

"Yes,the judge's safe, you stupid shite." 

Doran was crying now, tears mingling with the blood on his face. "It's in his office," he moaned. "It's in his office." 

The large man was becoming increasingly frenzied. He buried his fist again in the groaning man's abdomen and rasped, "Not that one. The other one." 

Doran, wheezing and gasping for air, tried to wrest himself from the grasp of the thug behind him, but he was too slight and too dazed to succeed.Almost whimpering, he cried, "There is no other one. That's the only one I know about." 

The large man struck him on the side of the head with such fury that Doran was knocked violently sideways, falling to the ground and bringing the thug who was holding him to the ground as well. Doran lay still,unconscious. 

The third man, who had been silent during the interrogation, said diffidently, "Boss, I don't think this guy's tough enough to take a beating like this without spilling what he knows. I don't think—" 

"You're not getting paid to think," the large man snarled. "Go get some water and wake this prick up." 

The third man looked around the garage. Apart from a couple of shelves with bottles of car wax, a plastic bottle of engine oil, sponges, dusters, a toolbox and some cardboard boxes, the garage was bare. "Uh ... where?" 

The large man held his hands out, fingers clawed, looking as if he was about to strangle his companion. "Just get it," he hissed. 

The third man left the garage and returned in a few seconds with a bottle of drinking water, obviously from the car. "Throw it over him," the larger man ordered. 

The third man held the bottle close to Doran's face and kept pouring the water on him until the unconscious man choked and tried to rise. He fell back, groaning anew when the large man kicked him in the side."Last chance," the man shouted. "Tell me where the bloody safe is or you're dead." 

Doran fell back and mumbled in a resigned whisper. "If you're going to kill me, do it now. I don't know about any other safes." 

The large man glared down at him and kicked him again. "Fuck you,you useless bastard." He turned to his companions. "Throw him back in the car."