02 May, Qasr Prison, Tehran

Bull St. Stephen, after two days of confinement and seemingly endless interrogation in the Qasr military prison, had decided to hang himself.

            He looked around the dark, dank cell with its peeling plaster walls and the fetid smell of centuries of human misery. The desperate scribbling of past lost souls filled all four walls; a written journal of despair in half-dozen languages. A plank bed with a straw mattress, a ragged blanket, a slop jar, and a solid oak door with a barred opening were the only visual relief in the otherwise barren cell. The sole light came from a low-voltage light dangling from the solid beam above.

            Bull waited until ten minutes before the guard would be coming by on his punctual hourly visual check and stepped off the bunk. The makeshift noose tightened and he swung free, but the harness held. By the time the guard peered in through the bars, his face was a sickening shade of blue.

            He heard the keys clink and the cell door swing open. The big guard leaned his Kalashnikov AK47 against the wall, produced a long knife and cut him down. As he fell, Bull raised both hands in a phoenix fist parallel to the floor and chopped down on the stupefied guard’s neck below the ears, paralyzing him. He grabbed the knife as it dropped and brought it up under the dazed man’s chin, bringing his other hand up, index finger raised to his lips in the universal sign for silence. His right foot lashed out at the guard’s legs, dropping him to the floor. A hard blow to the head with the butt of the knife and the terrified guard was still.

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