When Sam woke up, it was pitch black. His eyes were open, but he couldn’t see anything. He tried lifting his hand to his face but couldn’t. It was tied above his head. He was standing — just. He turned his head to look around fighting the throbbing pain in the back of his head.
“Alex!” he called. She didn’t answer. Was it possible they hit her over the head too, and she was still unconscious? He squinted his eyes in a futile attempt to see better through the absolute darkness, but his eyes painted murky images of nothingness before him.
“Alex! Can you hear me?” he tried again. Still, there was no sound. All he heard was his voice bouncing hollow sounds off the walls. He knew he wasn’t outside. It was hot and humid, and he became aware of the faint dripping of a tap. Angst gripped at his throat as he tried to free his hands from the suspended rope above his head. It was too tight. He realized he was shirtless. He bent his one knee to feel if he had his pants on. He did, but he wasn’t wearing any shoes. Underneath his feet, the floor was wet and felt like concrete. He had no idea how long he had been hanging there? Where the hell was Alex? He closed his eyes to concentrate his hearing on the surroundings; turning his head slowly. A dog was barking outside in the distance behind him. The dripping tap splashed onto the floor somewhere on his right. The tin roof made a rhythmic drumming sound. It was raining. Maybe it wasn’t a tap dripping, but a leak from the roof? That would explain why the floor was wet. I had no feeling in his arms. His medical background told him that he had to have been hanging for hours.
The darkness made him dizzy as he continued to look around for any objects that might give away his location. High above his head was a small beam of moonlight peeked through the roof. He concluded that it was night time. They had been captured just past midnight, so it was entirely possible that it was around three or four am. The dog barked again. He turned his head toward the sound and swore he heard footsteps coming from outside somewhere. He listened intently but couldn’t be sure. He felt the pain in his thigh. His painkillers had worn off. He called out to Alex again, but still, there was no reply. What if they had killed her? He pushed the thought aside. It didn’t make sense. If anything, they would kill him. She would be too valuable in helping them find whatever the hell it was they were after. Deciding to cling to the latter, he wiggled his bound wrists in an attempt to pull his fists through the cord. The scruffy rope chafed at his sweaty skin leaving an intense burning in its wake. He kept at it for several minutes. He had to keep trying if he were to get out of there. For all he knew, they intended on leaving him there to rot to death.
A couple of hours later, the moonlight through the roof made way for a faint beam of sunlight. The rain had stopped. His wrists were raw, but he had wiggled enough that the cord was not as tight as before. He no longer registered the immense pain stemming from his galled flesh or aching armpits.
The complete darkness had somewhat dissipated into a dark grey allowing him to see faint images of something resembling a chair several meters in front of him. He appeared to be in some sort of warehouse. He looked up at his hands. Streams of blood from his raw wrists trickled down his arms and rested on his shoulders. He was exhausted. Though there was a slight improvement in visibility, he still couldn’t see or hear Alex anywhere around him. The dog wasn’t barking either. Fatigue overcame him, and he stopped wriggling — just for a moment. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his shoulder and relaxed his head forward. He would give his hands a break and then try again. Even if the rope rips away any remaining flesh from his bones.
The rest was short lived. The clanging sound of a padlock being unlocked was unmistakable. Someone was there. Could it be Alex coming for him? He squinted his eyes toward the noise in an attempt to see but was unsuccessful. The door screeched open allowing the bright daylight to light up the narrow doorway at the far end of the warehouse. He narrowed his eyes in response to shield the bright light from his eyes all the while refusing to look away. The shadowy silhouettes of what looked like three men moved through the opening toward him. His heart rate quickened as realization struck that they were the kidnappers. Within seconds a piercing light from a spotlight hit him full in his face. He jerked his head away on impulse and tightly shut his eyes. It was done with intent, blinding him from their identity. The metal feet of the chair sounded on the concrete floor. He swallowed trying to take control of his raging emotions.
“Good morning, Dr. Quinn,” an authoritative male voice resounded.
Sam had no intentions of being polite by greeting him back. He spoke in perfect English with only the slightest Asian accent.
“Where’s Alex,” Sam responded, surprised at how weak his voice sounded in comparison.
“She’s safe,” the man answered. “For now.”
Sam went weak. “I want to see her.”
“I’m afraid that is entirely dependent on you, Dr. Quinn.”
Unsure of what he meant, Sam kept quiet and instinctively tugged at the rope around his hands.
“Oh, save your energy, Dr. Quinn. You are going to need it. Unless of course, you decide to cooperate with us.”
Sam’s heart skipped several beats as he contemplated the significance of keeping the scroll’s content secret versus saving Alex’s life. Knowing her, she would rather die a thousand deaths than allow a relic to fall into the hands of evildoers. Could he, on the other hand, permit himself to have her killed by refusing to co-operate?
“What do you want?” Sam said softly.
“It’s really very simple, Dr. Quinn.”
Sam cringed at this man’s politeness.
“We need the content of the scroll,” the man continued. “Tell us what it says, and we will let you both go.”
Like hell they would, Sam thought to himself. Even without their identities known, they would undoubtedly kill them both.
“I need to see Alex first; see if she’s ok,” Sam gambled.
The man laughed sarcastically, “Dr. Quinn. I am not in the business of idle threats. This here is not a negotiation. You either comply or you don’t and bear the consequences. Your decision.”
Sam heard the chair scraping ever so slightly on the floor followed by footsteps moving away from him. Deciding to play his bluff, Sam remained silent. They would be back to try again, he thought. He guessed they would work the same maneuver with Alex, but knowing how protective over relics she can be, they stand little to no chance of succeeding. He knew her well enough to be convinced of that. As long as they didn’t hurt her, he would wager that the man would not succeed.
The spotlight still blinded him, so he kept his eyes closed. Seconds later he felt a hard punch to his stomach leaving him gasping for air. A second and third punch followed in quick succession. He hung from the rafters unable to breathe; like a human piñata about to explode all over the floor. He heard footsteps moving in behind him before he felt another blow against his kidneys. The dull thrust filled his mouth with blood. His feet were too numb to help him regain his balance, and he swung forward and spun around. With the spotlight behind him, he caught a glimpse of his attacker for the first time. There was just one. The other one might have left with the man in charge. Could he somehow muster the strength to use his suspended fists as support and kick his attacker in the hope of knocking him out? Then what? He’d still be hanging unable to free himself. If he failed at knocking him out, it might just anger him. Sam decided to tough it out. He pulled his stomach muscles tight as he prepared for another punch, but instead heard the man walking away. Shortly after he heard the door open before the spotlight switched off and the padlock clicked back in place.
The warehouse was dark again, and he blinked several times to help his eyes become accustomed to the darkness. When his eyesight adjusted, he squinted at the crevice in the roof again. The sun rays shone slightly brighter now bringing into focus the expanse of the structure. The repository was entirely empty with nothing but the single chair in front of him. Still struggling to catch his breath and recover
from his beating, he turned around slowly. There was a tiny window in the roof above the rafters which allowed more light in. It was already sweltering and humid during the night, so without any ventilation, it would soon become a sauna which would drain him of any water he might still have left in his exhausted body. Logic told him that they wouldn’t return until nightfall to continue preventing their identity from being known.
He spat a ball of bloodied saliva onto the floor and wiped the corner of his mouth against his shoulder. His breathing had returned to normal, but the dull aching on his kidneys remained. He no longer had any feeling in his arms. He looked up at his bound hands to assess the lacerations on his wrists. The rope had been twisted around his hands several times finished off by a double knot. The more he pulled down at it, the tighter the knots became. Clever, he thought. He tried not to hang on the rope; robbing him of an immense amount of willpower and strength. He stood upright and tried to stand on his tippy toes, but his legs were just as weak. His recovering bullet wound throbbed under the strain of having been vertical for so long.
He tried once more and wriggled his hands as his fingers worked the knots. It loosened, somewhat, but not enough to come undone. Fighting with all his strength, his toes eventually gave way, and the rope pulled tight again. If ever there was a time he could cry, it would have been then. He had only ever cried once in his entire life, and that was when his little sister exhaled her last breath. She was twelve at the time. He was fifteen. The doctors had done everything they could, or so they said. They stopped fighting for her. She couldn’t fight anymore either. Leukemia had drained her of any existence of life. Life. It was never the same after she died. Dad threw himself into his veterinary practice, and four-legged patients as a way of coping with her death and Mum entered just about every baking competition and homemaker’s fair in the district. They all aimed at staying as busy as possible to avoid being in the silent house for extended periods of time.
Sam felt a tear gently roll down his cheek. Perhaps that was why his parents pushed him toward becoming an oncology doctor. Why they were so adamant, he followed in the family tradition of medicine even though it was too late. What good would that have done? Their daughter and his only sibling were gone forever. He tried. God knows he tried. In spite of the fact that he had finished top of his class and achieved the highest recognition, his heart had lost a piece that could never be mended.
The sharp squeak of a rat scuffling from underneath an old crumpled newspaper that lay in the middle of the floor toward the door jerked him back to the present. Alex was out there somewhere being tortured by these scumbags. For all he knew she was beyond her point of tolerance and depending on him to save her. Hell will freeze over before he let her down and lost her too. He will fight with whatever was left in him. He had to keep trying with the knots even if it killed him.
Chapter Twelve
Her head was pounding, and the room spun like a merry-go-round as Alex sat up in a completely unfamiliar bed. The bitter taste on her tongue and her dry mouth revealed that she had been drugged. She recalled being grabbed outside the restaurant and the sharp pain of a needle in her neck, but nothing else. Gathering her orientation, she looked around the small room. She didn’t see Sam anywhere. Did they only take her, she questioned silently.
The room resembled that of a dreary basement. There was a steel spiral staircase in the middle of the room and several boxes and old pieces of furniture stacked in the corner under the stairs. It was dark and smelled of dirty laundry, yet there was no washing in sight. Careful not to lose her balance Alex slowly got up to walk to the stairs but was instantly jerked back onto the bed. She looked down at her arm to see a rusty metal cuff around her wrist. A chain was attached to the cuff and ran along the floor underneath her bed. She bent down to follow the chain where it stopped at the foot of her bed against the wall. Attached to this end of the chain was another cuff fastened around a steel pipe that had been bolted into the brick wall. She pulled her arm in a wishful attempt to break free delivering no surprise that nothing happened. She was chained down like a caged circus animal.
Fear gripped her insides as she surveyed the room for any signs of Sam. Apart from her bed, there was nothing else in the space that indicated he was or ever had been there. She searched for a window, but this too delivered no results. Her watch showed it was about four hours after she was kidnapped, so she had been knocked out for most of the night. She spotted a small server with a glass of water on the floor next to her feet. The tray was red with several small images of white and gold flowers printed all over it. It was typical of the cheap kitchen paraphernalia sold at almost every corner market. At least it proved she might still be in Cambodia and hadn’t been flown off to a country in the middle of nowhere. She licked her dry lips. Drinking from the glass of water was very tempting, but she couldn’t help wondering if the drink might be spiked. She picked it up and held it up against the light of the small bedside lamp that was on a crate next to the bed. There was no visible evidence of any particles or discoloration. At least not to her naked eye. It also didn’t have any odor. If they wanted her dead they could have killed her already, so worse case scenario, it would knock her out for another couple of hours. She took a small sip and swirled it in her mouth. It was tasteless, so she gulped down the glass, sat back and waited to see if it had any effect. Several minutes went by, and nothing happened. Satisfied she would survive it she started fiddling with the cuff and chain again. The chain was no more than three meters in length, at best, which offered no opportunity for her to reach the bottom of the staircase and even if she could, then what? She was a sitting duck waiting for her fate. Her mind trailed to Sam hoping he would be ok wherever he was. If her kidnappers only took her, he would have sought help from the Commissioner-General by now, and they’d be out looking for her. On the other hand, if they captured him too, he’d be somewhere locked up in a room also. She knocked on the wall behind her bed.
“Sam! Are you there?”
She listened, knocked and called several more times, but the bare brick wall stared back at her in silence. Her mind pushed away from the nagging thought of Sam lying dead next to the car on the restaurant’s curb. He was tall and athletic; even with his injured leg. He would have fought them off for sure. Sam had become so much more than just a colleague. They were friends who depended on each other, and right now she depended on him to save her. The sudden realization that perhaps he could be worse off than her and depending on her to rescue him paused her trailing thoughts. She knelt down on the floor next to the bed and followed the chain to where it was fastened to the other steel cuff around the gutter pipe. The bed wasn’t fixed to the floor, so she pulled the shackle across the concrete and slipped it out from under the two legs of the bed allowing the chain to move freely up the pipe above her bed. It stopped at a join about halfway between the floor and the low ceiling. The join was fastened to the brick wall and covered by a metal clasp that was bolted in by two rusted screws. She yanked the chain back in an attempt to loosen the pipe from the wall. Fine cement dust escaped from the screws in the wall. It could work if she kept at it, she thought, so she yanked harder. The cuff clanged against the steel pipe and set off quite a racquet. A cloud of dust puffed into the air. Her pulse raced uncontrollably; exhilarated at the prospect of breaking the conduit and having an opportunity to escape.
A sharp burning sensation radiated from under the rusty cuff around her wrist. Her skin was red and inflamed from the friction, but she couldn’t stop now. She had a chance, and she would have to take it. Another jerk on the pipe and one screw popped halfway out of its socket. She gasped in excitement over her success which encouraged her to wrap her hands directly around the steel tube to pull it from the wall. She heard a noise at the top of the staircase and froze. Someone was unlocking the door. She hurriedly pulled the chain back down to the floor and underneath the feet of the bed, pushed the screw back into the wall and sat down on her bed just in time to see a pai
r of black combat boots come down the spiraled steps. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears as she struggled to regain her composure. Moments later a man dressed in black from head to toe appeared at the end of the stairs. His face was covered with a black mask, and he didn’t utter a single word. In his hand, he carried another small tray with a bowl of noodles and a glass of water and swapped it with the other one on the floor. Alex caught her breath as she spotted the black tattoo on the back of his neck. It was a scorpion similar to the one Sam said he had noticed on the biker’s neck. Could it be the same man? Alex tensed up and leaned away from him toward the end of the bed. If this were the same man, he would have a score to settle with her for throwing him off the motorbike and almost killing him.
“Where am I?” She braved.
The man didn’t answer or even look at her. Alex could hardly breathe, but she held firm even though her body was trembling with fear. She clenched her fists together to hide her shaking hands.
“Hey. I’m speaking to you! Where am I and where is Sam? I demand that you tell me.”
The man who had already walked toward the staircase stopped and turned to face her. His black eyes stared at her intently without answering before ascending the stairs; sending a shiver down her spine. The door locked behind him and she was left alone again.
She stared down at the bowl of noodles and then glanced at her watch. It was 5.30am. They were keeping her alive and making sure she was nourished. Why? What did they want from her? She wasn’t hungry, but she didn’t know what lay ahead. The thought that it might be poisoned or drugged crossed her mind again. Nothing had happened after the water she drank earlier. The food should be adequate too, so she decided to eat, all the while looking back at the loose screw in the wall. She needed to be smart about this. Should she successfully free herself from the pipe, she’d still have the chain cuffed to her hand and the door at the top of the stairs locked. Any kidnapper with half a brain cell would have at least one man guarding the exit. She scoured the room for some sort of weapon that could work. There was nothing she could see. It was hardly surprising they would leave anything that might pose as a weapon.
ALEX HUNT and The Golden Urn_An Archaeological Adventure Thriller Page 12