[conterniasgloriousleader]

Anthony Santos knew what he was. He’d always been good at causing pain, and the morality of it never bothered him. His first memory was of being four years old and deliberately stomping on a spider. He’d liked it. He liked most things.

One thing he didn’t like, however, was peace. There was no use for someone like him in peacetime. And with every little treaty signed, there became more and more people out for his head. So, Santos had learned to vanish.

Not literally, of course. But enough that nobody was able to find him. He sat in a building on foreign soil now, somewhere he would never reveal the location of. He was waiting. Waiting for the next time his government would call upon his services. They always said never again. They always came back.

Crunch.

Santos froze. The sound should not have been there. It was almost imperceptible, but Anthony Santos had learned to never, ever ignore anything. He was not alone. He picked up the gun on the table in front of him and stood, edging ever closer to the door. Suddenly, it flew open.

The light pouring through the door stung his eyes as several kevlar-clad figures all in black and holding guns burst into the room.

"Confirmed visual on the target, he is armed, I repeat, target is armed!"

Santos pointed the gun ahead, his eyes wild.

"Get back, get back", he muttered

"We have this place surrounded. Drop your weapon and put your hands where we can see them"

He kept the gun pointed forward, his hand now shaking a little with a mixture of fear and excitement

"You have five seconds to comply before we blow your goddamn head off"

The thought of opening fire crossed his mind: how many could he take out with the bullets he had? Before their bullets pierced him?

"Five"

His sense of self-preservation won out, and Santos threw his weapon to the ground before raising his hands above his head, snarling with contempt at the intruders.

"Get up against that wall", cried another soldier. Santos slowly approached the back of the room, followed by two men with guns. "Quicker, quicker!", one screamed, and he obliged. Some of the soldiers rushed out of the room, and soon cries of "clear" were echoing throughout the building. Santos soon felt the butt of a rifle against his back as one soldier kept him pressed against the wall while another rifled through pockets and inside his clothes. He winced as they pulled away the small switchblade he kept inside the hem of his trousers and threw it to the floor.

"Do you have any other weapons?" the officer with his gun against Santos' back asked.

"No. Now, what.."

"Is there anyone else in the building?"

"No, just me. Do you know who-"

"Are you lying to me?"

"No"

The officer looked back at one of the men who had been checking the other rooms, who nodded.

"Good, because if you are you will not leave this room. Are you Anthony Santos?"

"Listen to me..."

Smack.

Santos' head was slammed into the breeze block wall, his answer evidently not having satisfied the soldier. Through the fuzziness in his head and the ringing in his ears, he could make out an insistent question: "I'm gonna ask you again, are you Anthony Santos? Your life might depend on the answer, motherfucker, so think about the next thing you say to me"

"Yes, yes, I am Anthony Santos, what business of it is yours?", he growled out indignantly, still wincing in pain from the blow to the head.

"Mr Santos", the man currently inches away from him said in a voice that was utterly calm but permeated with obvious disgust, "you are hereby arrested for crimes against humanity committed over the course of the Lauchenoirian Civil War, including but not limited to non-lawful detention, torture, and murder." As he said this, two other soldiers forced Santos, grunting, to his knees, and tied his hands behind his back with an elasticated tie. The taste of blood in Santos mouth made him realise he was bleeding from where his head had hit the wall. "You will be detained in Conternia pending extradition to Sanctaria to face a Truth and Reconciliation Committee who will decide your sentence."

Santos laughed, a nervous, hysterical cackle.

"Do you have any idea who I am? The powerful, the politicians, they need me." He smirked a bloodied, toothy smile. "They wouldn't dare touch me."

The butt of another assault rifle soon collided with Santos' stomach, winding him and crumpling him into a heap on the floor.

"Mr Santos", the man who had moments earlier been forcing him up against the wall said, his voice still level. "I know full well who you are. I've seen photos of the states you leave people in. I've read just about every report on you there is. If it were up to me, the contents of your skull would be redecorating this room right now; the only reason you're still alive is that some very powerful people have a slower death in mind for you, after they've got you to tell every dirty secret from your sordid little life. This is the beginning of the end of your life, Mr Santos. You're about to become one of the biggest war crime prosecutions in history."

He laughed again, a bitter laugh stained with tears and blood.

"You say the word 'crime' like any petty law applies to what I do! The constraints of peacetime's false morality hold no power over me!"

"Let's get him out of here"

Laughing and weeping, Anthony Santos was forced to his feet and marched out of the room.