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[h2]To Wage a War - Part 2[/h2][/center]

He was a big man, and not in a flattering way. Rolls of fat spilled down from his triple chins where they wobbled and jerked with every motion of his cannonball round head. At that moment he was jerking his head frantically from side to side, blood spilling down his cheeks from shattered eye sockets and onto his naked chest and belly. His breathing was short and sharp, desperate, frantic, punctured with terrified sobs. 

"Please! I don't know, I don't know!" His words were desperate as he rocked back in forth in his chair. Both wrists and feet were secured to the heavy wooded frame with thick leather belts.

The chair was sitting alone in front of a window covered by heavy curtains, moonlight at the edges suggesting a beautiful evening beyond the horror of that room.. The desk that had once been in front of the chair, a symbol of the fat mans power and wealth, had been casually thrown against one wall where its drawers had come loose and scattered paper, ink, and numerous other items across the floor.  

Another chair, much less opulent, faced the fat man. On it, his face shadowed by a hood, sat a second man. He was dressed in a long black coat, tall black leather boots, and a pair of black gloves that he was slowly cleaning blood off of. Between them on the floor lay a dead naked woman. 

"Do you really expect me to believe that a man in your position doesn't know such a thing?" The man in black asked, his voice quiet and almost soothing. 

The fat mans chins wobbled again as he tried to focus on the voice. His head cocked to one side like a dog listening to its master. He could not know it but his nightmare had only begun an hour ago. A candlelight dinner with his mistress, her fake laughter and smile while worth the money he paid her for the sexual prowess she used to rouse him to climax. She had been naked at the dinner, part of the purchase price. She had died badly, screaming at him to tell their uninvited guest everything. The man in black had sliced one of her achilles tendon when she tried to run for the third time and she had flopped about on the floor like some beautiful fish. In the end he had slit her throat to stop her screams. 

"My dear Mr. Rews, all you need to do is answer my very simple questions and the pain will go away. I am running out of time and patience." The man in black continued to speak. A small table sat next to his chair, a bottle of wine and half filled glass sat next to parchment and pen. "All I can offer you now is an end to your torment, a quick one."

Fat danced as the head shook violently, a pathetic mewing sound escaping the bloodied lips. The man in black sighed and stood, taking a small clay container from his pocket and opening the lid. In two steps he was over the dead woman, had tilted the fat mans head back and dashed salt into the eye sockets.

The screams began again and the man in black returned to his chair, sipping at his wine as he waited for the screams to turn into sobs, sobs into gasps, and gasps in whimpers. When he was sure the fat man was listening again he put down the wine glass and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. 

"Mr. Rews, tell me."

There was a pathetic whimper of pain and then Rews began to talk. They all talked in the end.