55 The Silent 2

Pulling the trap door upward with all his strength, there was a loud scrunching noise as it revealed a spiralling staircase into the darkness.

The basement ran around the entire length of the ground on which the glass building above was constructed. It was safe to say, that the basement was almost as big as a palace, that the kings used to have in medieval times, with one exception - it was underground.

As they walked down the spiralling staircase, darkness engulfed their eyes and temporarily for a moment they couldn't see anything. There was a flicker of light and suddenly the entire corridor lit up brightly. They raised their hands momentarily to shield their eyes from sudden lighting.

The place looked just as they remembered it. The walls of the basement were entirely black, with ancient brackets for candles every few feet. At the very end of the staircase, near the wall, the most prominent quote of The Silent was etched on the wall in silver lining :

Do not betray your employer;

Do not sell out your partner;

Do not lie;

It is better to be silent than to violate.

It was hard to miss these quotes if anybody was walking by. It gleamed brightly, like a moon shining against the darkness of night.

In the early days of the organization, they merely operated on the basement floor. There was no proper supply of electricity nor the musty smell which lingered due to lack of sunlight could be avoided. The ancient candle brackets which hung on the wall were used for lighting up the place. Nevertheless, as the years passed the place as well as the organization had truly developed.

In the recent years, the earth below the basement had been dug out to provide a more concrete establishment. The basement had now three floors beneath it, all operating with the help of electricity system installed underground. The entire place had been ventilated, properly air conditioned and renovated. The patches on the wall which hung loosely had been cemented and painted, elevators had been installed for convenience and the floors had been stoned.

The Silent was first formed four to five decades ago by an unknown man. Everybody who knew or heard, it was his traumatic past and loss of his parents at such an early age that had led him to create this organization. The Silent was one such hidden organization, pry to the eyes of government which dealt with such rich and important persons who were guilty of disturbing the peace of the world and feeding of the poor, which the police officials chose did not have enough evidence to chase due to corruption within the government.

As Arnav and Murat followed the hooded man, he spoke briskly " You both will have to get ready. There are comrades here from other bases. You know the basic rule : your identity should be kept a secret. "

In the early years, The Silent had only one major base at Seoul, but over time it had expanded in the world. Now, it operated four other bases in other parts of the world.

Each base had a group of comrades with certain number of soldiers who were allocated the missions by the management. However, it had been the first time that they had decided to mingle the people from other bases in a single mission. There uniforms consisted of black clothes from top to toe with a eye mask over the eyes, so that a part of the face was always concealed. Also, their real names were never used. They were all allotted a code name to refer to. In this way, identification was impossible.

Coming to the dressing room, they quickly changed their outfits, covering their eyes with black masks. They had been instructed to go down to the Great Hall on the fourth floor. Reaching there, they were quite shocked. As opposed to expecting a crowd, there were only four comrades there and their boss.

" Grey Wolf, Lone Eagle, you are late! " a cold voice answered their late arrival.