“Oh this is beautiful, really! Our very own ‘man for all seasons’ with a nose bleed?”

With every last fibre of will left in his broken soul, the bloodied man tried to move an arm, a leg, anything not to let it end like this.

“Well, that is what happens if you try and fight the muscle relaxant…”

The shadow threw out the damning words like a passing comment, a joke – but it wasn’t the words that scared its hostage anymore, it was the voice. Squinting through broken spectacles, the frozen captive desperately tried to focus his eyes as he felt sickening, confused recognition.

“As an occasional murderer, my biggest problem is always the – how shall I say – vacuum, a death leaves behind. Physically, emotionally, if I killed you the traditional way, there’d be a big John Holloway-shaped hole that I could never hope to fill, but, this way…”

Moving out of the shadows, the distinguished looking man adjusted the stars-and-stripes pin badge on his lapel.

“You never really die at all, do you Mr President?”