Prologue

My hands were starting to ache as I continued to hold on for a last few minutes. My body started trembling as I could really feel the heat now. The ventilator shaft had been purposely sealed to prevent my escape. I held on to one end of the shaft trying to balance my body against the ceiling. I needed to find some other modes of support pretty soon to prevent my drastic and untimely fall. Suddenly I could hear the footsteps near the door. The guard had come. It was dinner time. The steel door opened up with a rusty sound. The guard came in with a bowl in his right hand. He held his machine gun on his left. He entered the room and kept the bowl on the table. Then he moved towards the bed and shouted out………

‘Lucas, eat this up quickly. The boss has sent some special preparations as this will be your last meal….. Ha Ha Ha.’  He kept on laughing for half a minute only to realize that I was not responding. He moved up to the bed with the machine gun pointed at the covered figure lying on it. I waited eagerly in anticipation for the next sequence of events to unfold. The room seemed to have been heated up tenfold in the past few minutes. My shirt was soaked in sweat and beads started developing on my face. As the guard moved forward to lift the sheet covering the figure, sweat started to trickle down my face and salt water beads developed on the tip of my nose just on the verge of a fall. It would surely land on the guard’s shoulder thus letting my presence felt. I just could not wipe it off as trying to do so would make me fall off the ventilator shaft. Finally the drop fell down landing straight on the guard’s head.

The next few moments seemed to occur in slow motion. The guard touched his head to feel the moist drop. As he moved his head up straight towards the ceiling, I let both my hands off the shaft and landed straight on him. He fell down crashing heavily on the table as I landed on his back. He lost his gun before managing to fire a few rounds at the door due to the sudden impact. The man was huge in size. The impact didn’t seem to affect him too much as he tried to stand up once again. However I was in no mood to take a chance. We had been taught the Krav Maga during our training. It is a military self defense hand to hand combat technique used by the Israeli army. It is not just about self defense, but more about utilizing your chance to disable your enemy before he can cause you the least possible harm.

I used my fist to land a punch on the perfect spot…… his Adam’s apple.

The man collapsed on the ground in sheer agony once and for all. My plans had all gone berserk due to the bullets the guard had fired. I could hear the alarm bells as I quickly moved out of the cell. Although my plan had failed, I was already crafting a new one………… a new route for escape…………………… a new way to accomplish my mission. That is what we were taught during our training at the base camp in Jammu. We work alone…………… we work perfectly………………. we do not leave any trace……………… and we never fail. We give our enemies Hell so that all our innocent countrymen continue to live in Heaven. We are proud members of the biggest secret the Indian Army has withheld from the entire world and even from the Prime Minister. We are only answerable to the President of India. We belong to the top secret club of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and are known as Authority for Neutralizing National Threats (ANNT). Every President passes this secret to his successor when he retires from job.

I never make mistakes. I complete all my missions and leave no trace. I always cheat death and leave my enemies to rot in hell. I am an agent of ANNT. I am Roy Lucas.