by Dana Marton
Had they heard her? She leaned against the cold wall, her knees stiff. She waited a minute, then two. Nobody came.
She walked to the window, a good three feet above her head, and stared out at the cloudless sky. It was the only thing she could see from that angle. Some time had apparently passed since she’d been taken. She remembered the dark sky at the safe house and the storm about to break.
She sat on the floor and curled into as tight a ball as she could, the flexibility gained by all those years of Tai Chi coming in handy now. Little by little she worked her hands over her legs to the front then took a good look at the rope.
Thin but sturdy, and tied tight. She twisted her wrists but could not get out. She lowered her head and sank her teeth into the knot, ignoring the foul taste, then began to work herself free.
It felt like a long time before she got the rope loose, her jaw aching from the effort. She rubbed her sore wrists as she stood and looked at the window again.
She jumped. Not high enough. She jumped again. This time the tips of her fingers touched the sill, but she couldn’t get a good grip and slid down. On the third try she finally managed to hold on and pull herself up long enough to take a peek outside before she fell back once again.
The window looked out to the inner courtyard of a Chinese-style building, complete with pagoda roofs. On the next jump she tested the large padlock that held the window closed. It was as sturdy as it looked.
Nicola paced the room, going around the chair that lay on its side. The chair. Right. She could have gotten up on that instead of all the jumping. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Because she was too panicked to think. Whoever had dumped her in this basement had some kind of plans for her, plans she was certain she wasn’t going to like.
She carried the chair to the window and climbed up to examine the padlock again, pulled on it, rattled it to no avail—securely locked. She couldn’t go through there.
She stepped off the chair and sat down. Now what? Her gaze fell on the door. Could it be that simple? She got up to try. Nope, the door was locked, as well, the wood old but thick. She didn’t even bother to try to kick it open. From what she could see, she doubted a rhinoceros could get through those panels held together by ornate wrought-iron braces.
But if she couldn’t break down the door, could she break the window? She turned over the chair and worked one of its legs loose. She set the three-legged leftover next to the wall, and balancing carefully, stood on it to look outside. The courtyard was empty. But even if the kidnappers were indoors, they would probably hear the breaking glass. She would have to be quick.
She took a deep breath and smashed the chair leg against the glass, working as fast as she could, careful to get all the shards out of the frame. It would be a tight fit.
She was done in less than a minute, then used the piece of wood to brush the broken glass off the inside sill. Couldn’t do much about the shards that fell out-side and now covered the brick pavers in front of her window. She needed something to protect her hands. Nicola glanced around the room, but didn’t find anything suitable. And she had nothing but…the clothes on her back. Right.
A tank top, shorts, bra, and panties. No time to waste on being shy. She pulled her clothes off, set her underwear aside, then put the shorts and tank top back on before she wrapped her panties around her left hand, her bra around the right, wishing she wore the padded kind. Unfortunately, she’d never needed extra padding anywhere. Until now.
She climbed up on the chair, grabbed on to the window frame and pulled, then stepped on the back of the wobbly chair to give herself more leverage. Then her head was out, her chest, the broken glass crunching under her. She couldn’t afford to think about that now. If she didn’t hurry she was likely to end up with much graver injuries from whoever had kidnapped her.
She pulled herself through the window inch by inch, barely taking time to catch her breath once she was fully out. She brushed the shards off her skin and took a look at the cuts. The bottom of her arms were the worst, elbow to wrist, and then her knees. No major gashes but plenty of smaller cuts. But she had more important things to worry about. Nicola glanced around the deserted courtyard and scooted along next to the wall in a crouch.
An open gate stood not a hundred feet from her. An eternity passed before she made it there. She peered out from behind one of the wooden columns flanking the gate, not wanting to run into her captors on the other side. No terrorists were there, but neither was her freedom. She stepped into a small walled-in garden. She could hear the noises of a street outside the walls—cars, people talking.
In Chinese.
Was she in China? They couldn’t have possibly smuggled her out of the country, could they? She broke out in a cold sweat at the thought.
“Hot dogs. Two dollars apiece with fixings,” a deep voice called from somewhere on the other side.
She relaxed enough to be able to breathe again. Chinatown? But where? Philadelphia? She didn’t dare call attention to herself by shouting to the passersby on the other side of the wall.
She crouched behind a bush, took the underwear off her hands and shook the remaining bits of glass out. After dabbing the cloth at the blood on her arms and legs, she stuffed the soiled pieces into her shorts pockets. If Alex could handle his burns and getting shot, she could handle a few scratches. Had she not insisted that he go away, she probably wouldn’t be in this trouble now. Alex had promised he wouldn’t let anything happen to her as long as she was under his protection.
She believed him.
The wall stood about eight feet high, and she could see nothing to step on. She looked around the perimeter for a suitable tree until she found one tall enough and close enough to the wall. She had climbed a tree before. Once. And technically she hadn’t climbed it. Alex had pushed her up. But still, it had been nighttime and a house fire was burning under her. If she could manage under those circumstances, she should be able to manage now. She sure wasn’t going to give up without trying.
She grabbed on to the lowest branch of the sizable dogwood and, supporting herself with her feet on the trunk, pulled herself up. People were shouting in the courtyard behind her, the sound of boots running on stone echoed between the walls. She stood on shaky knees and grabbed for the next branch.
Too late. Men came running into the garden. Rifles pointed at her from every direction.
She let go of the branch and slid to the ground, but sprung up immediately to dash between the men.
One of them stepped forward to block her way and shoved her to the ground. When she got up, he slapped her hard across the face, then grabbed her arm to drag her behind him. She ignored the taste of blood and gave him no further trouble, not wanting to provoke them. Her goal was to stay alive long enough to make another attempt to regain her freedom.
She made sure to notice every detail—the door, the corridors and the rooms that opened from it, as well as the staircase that led downstairs. They took her back into the basement. She could see the feet of the guard posted in front of her window. She huddled on the floor in the corner—someone had taken the broken chair—and was grateful they didn’t tie her up. She tried desperately to think of a new plan, anything that had even the slightest chance of working. Unfortunately, she didn’t have sufficient time to come up with a workable idea.
Not long after the soldiers left, an old man came to see her. He wore the same black paramilitary uniform as the others, but without the face mask. Cold brown eyes examined her from below his thinning gray hair. The man’s gaze swept over her, hesitating on her injuries.
He began to speak, a lengthy apology in Mandarin. She blinked several times as if confused, not wanting to let him know she understood. She needed every advantage she could get.
He switched to accented English. “Sorry my men too rough. They used to battlefields not pretty women.”
She finally recognized him, so shocked it took several seconds before she found her voice. “General Meng. What happened t
o you?”
The man in front of her was but a shadow of the respected general she had known in China. His fingers were gnarled, his hair completely gray and thinning, and scars, old ones, dotted his hands and face.
Although she had asked him in English, he responded in Chinese, pleasantries about how good it was to see her again. She looked suitably bewildered, not too hard under the circumstances, and pretended not to understand a solitary word.
“You forgot, then?” he finally asked in English with a small smile, a mad light burning in his eyes.
“I could barely grasp the basics even when we lived there.” How true that was. She had often driven Mei, the General’s daughter, crazy with frustration when her friend had tried to teach her some elementary Mandarin after school. She spoke it almost fluently now, thanks to the Chinese language minor she had chosen at Bryn Mawr.
She had wanted to tell Mei about her newfound proficiency, share how her life had turned out, but her best friend in China hadn’t responded to her letters so she had given up on contacting her years ago. Seeing Mei’s father now was beyond strange.
Had they moved to the States? What did he have to do with the kidnapping? Was he here to rescue her? Probably not, as nice as that would have been. He had called the soldiers his men. Dozens of questions flew through her head.
She voiced the first. “Where is Mei?”
The man’s face hardened. He lifted a hand and she thought he might hit her, but he merely rubbed his right temple instead. His gaze wandered around the room before settling on the guard outside the window. When he finally looked back at her it was with mild surprise, as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“I will send food and clothes. You rest. Tomorrow will be big day.” He left without giving her a chance to find out anything more.
Stunned, Nicola sat on the cold, hard floor, a flock of thoughts chasing each other in her head, each more bizarre than the one that came before it. Then she heard the key turn in the lock. That at least told her something. General Meng or not, she was still a prisoner. But for what purpose? What were the General and his men planning to do with her?
ALEX LOOKED at the small glistening lake below as they flew over Maryland, fear for Nicola ripping through him. He had tried to reach her a couple of times, but she hadn’t responded. It didn’t mean anything, he told himself. She probably took the earpiece out and the necklace off after he’d left, thinking they’d be no use since they were programmed to his broken phone. His new cell phone buzzed and he grabbed it, disappointed when he saw the regular incoming call. He plugged the phone into his headset.
“We might have something with General Meng.” The chopper’s rotor blades nearly drowned out the Colonel’s voice. “He attempted to start an uprising during Barrington’s last year as U.S. ambassador there. Got thrown into jail and badly tortured. His property had been confiscated by the government, his wife and daughter beaten and raped by some communist commando. The wife died, the daughter committed suicide later.”
Yeah, Alex thought. That would be enough to piss anyone off. “Barrington said he was dead.”
“About Barrington,” the Colonel went on. “It looks like he might have encouraged General Meng, but then the U.S. didn’t follow up. Prison records show the General died in his cell, but according to our sources he escaped a little over two years ago.”
The short hairs stood up on the back of Alex’s neck. In his line of work he had to rely on intuition frequently, and he had learned to trust his. It was now sounding the high alarm. “Anything else?”
“One of his old friends was arrested last year in connection with an antigovernment paramilitary group, Sons of Peace. They were planning a major attack against key members of the party. We’re looking into that, trying to find a U.S. connection.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Colonel.”
Alex clicked off and turned his attention back to the ground below. They had crossed into Pennsylvania. As the chopper flew over sprawling acres of farmland, he could make out several Amish buggies mixed in with cars on the roads.
“There.” He spotted the safe house and pointed it out to the pilot.
The front window was missing.
He leaned forward in his seat, his muscles tense, his chest as tight as if a camel had sat on him. He blinked to clear his eyes, willing the picture to go away, but saw more bad news instead as the pilot circled the house. Debris littered the backyard, the sight making his throat go dry and his palms sweat.
No wonder the Colonel hadn’t been able to reach Spike. Judging from the wreckage below, the terrorists hadn’t messed around this time. They’d blown up the middle of the house, the kitchen and living room where Nicola and Spike were most likely to have been.
Maybe his theory on them wanting to kidnap Nicola had been wrong. From this vantage point, it sure looked like they had gone for a direct kill. And if so, it wasn’t likely they had left without making sure they had achieved their mission.
He was too late.
The thought squeezed the last of the air out of his lungs and he fought to breathe, to grab some oxygen in hoarse gasps, refusing to consider the pictures that tried to invade his brain—Nicola’s broken body in the wreckage below. And Spike…
He hung on as the pilot set the chopper down in the tall grass behind the house and was out and running toward the building before the motor was off.
The agents scrambled to provide him cover, but he ignored their shouts to stop and wait.
“Nicola! Spike!” He climbed through the rubble in the living room, not really expecting anyone to answer. Whoever had done this did a thorough job.
He heard the team of agents come in behind him.
“Weird pattern for a bomb,” one of them said as he took in the center of destruction.
“Rocket launcher through the front window.” Alex pointed and began to sift through the chunks of charred plaster and furniture. “Sixty-six millimeter LAW.”
“Right.” The man followed his example. “Let’s recover the bodies,” he called out to the rest of the team.
Alex straightened and looked at him, as anger too strong to control welled up inside. His fist rose in the air. At the last second he turned and punched through a still-standing piece of drywall.
It didn’t make him feel any better.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean it like that.” The agent drew back. “I— Did you know the…”
He nodded before the man could say victims. “Let’s just see what we can find.”
Within minutes the air was thick with dust from their work, the men coughing and spitting. Hard to see, too. He went through the mess methodically, one piece of broken furniture after the other, feeling more and more miserable with each second that ticked by. He shouldn’t have left, although it might not have made a difference even if he’d been here. From the look of things, Nicola and Spike never stood a chance. The rocket launcher was probably shot from beyond the perimeter sensors. They had no warning. Alex worked like a madman while guilt and grief fought for the top spot inside him.
Twenty minutes passed before the call rang out from the corner by the back door.
“Man down.”
Alex climbed over a chunk of kitchen cabinets and half a sofa, barely noticing the jagged piece of broken wood that scraped against his leg.
Spike.
Alex swallowed. His friend lay upside down on the basement stairs, probably knocked there by the explosion, buried in rubble up to his waist. He was still, too still, his face covered in white dust. Alex wouldn’t allow himself to think he looked dead.
“Help me.” He grabbed chunks of drywall and threw them to the side, then, once the task was mostly accomplished, moved up to Spike’s head and left the rest for the agent to finish.
He brushed the dust off Spike’s face and made sure his nostrils were free, then bent and set his head on the man’s chest.
Nothing. No, wait. Something there. A faint heartbeat, so tentative he might have just ima
gined it. But then there it was again. Alex drew a shaky breath. “Still alive.”
“Don’t move him,” came the response, as if he had to be told. “I’m getting the stretcher.”
In another minute the team’s medic was there.
“One, two, three.” Alex assisted him in putting Spike on the stretcher and helped the man take his friend to the chopper.
The medic checked Spike’s pupils then grabbed the IV kit. “I can handle it. Go find the other one.”
Alex turned and ran for the house, hope filling him that there would be “another one” to find. If Spike had made it through the explosion somehow, then so could Nicola have. He hung on to that thought and refused to let go.
He tossed a broken side table out of the way and found the cage. It looked empty. Then he lifted it and heard the timid chirping from one of the nests. Miraculously, the Tweedles were fine. He ran the cage out to the chopper, surprised at how much the Tweedles mattered. Despite their foul manners, the birds had grown on him.
The team searched for another hour, both inside and out, before they gave up. Nicola wasn’t there. Even Alex had to accept that, when he found her necklace out front by the bushes. He ordered the team back to the helicopter. They had to get Spike to a hospital. The medic had stabilized him for now, but he clearly needed further treatment, more than they were able to provide.
“Better send over the cleanup crew,” he told the Colonel on their way back. “Spike’s unconscious but seems mostly whole. Nicola’s gone.” He took a deep breath. “I left a man at the house to keep it secure.”
A moment of silence on the other end, then, “I’ll tell the senator. I’ve got every free man we have working on possible U.S. connections for the Sons of Peace. Maybe we’ll have something by the time you get back.”
Alex looked down and unclenched his fists. He hoped they wouldn’t be too late. He hoped she was still alive. He told himself it wouldn’t have made sense for them to take her if she weren’t.