It was the last thing in the world Hannah wanted to touch, but she felt she had no choice.
With her back to the cameras, she lay upon the floor and pretended to take a nap, while furtively tucking the knife beneath the dried goo which once had been part of her body.
They probably knew exactly what she was doing, and would likely retrieve the knife very soon.
Still, she’d be doing a disservice to herself and to everyone she loved if she didn’t at least try.
If she got away with it… if they never noticed, she’d start formulating an escape plan. It wouldn’t be easy, since she didn’t know anything about what lay beyond that door. She didn’t know whether there were two men outside or two hundred. Whether she was still in Norwood or a thousand miles away. Whether there might be a vehicle she could steal, or whether she’d have to walk a thousand miles on foot.
Despite the odds of making a successful getaway, she had to try.
“She had to…”
Something was wrong.
And terribly so.
One minute she was going over various escape scenarios in her mind. And pondering her chances for a successful break.
The next minute there were spots appearing before her eyes. Her vision was starting to dim.
Then the room started to spin.
The bastards… they had tainted the food after all. She should have learned her lesson after the peach. She was a sap. She continued to eat because she couldn’t detect anything, felt no symptoms.
They undoubtedly suspected she’d be cautious and used a slow-acting agent.
She cursed them as her mind faded into a deep darkness, where sadness and pain no longer existed.
But she wasn’t dead.
Not yet.
They had other plans for her first.
Chapter 34
“Read it!”
“No! I won’t!”
“Look, lady. We’re not playing games here. If you’re not willing to do things the easy way we can make things real rough on you.”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot. You’ve been very sweet and kind to me so far. I’d better play ball or I won’t be able to stay in this little paradise you’ve created for me.”
“I wonder how attractive your husband would find you if we knocked out all your teeth and ripped half the hair from your scalp.”
“My husband would find me attractive no matter what you do. It’s called love. Something you apparently never knew. What’s the matter, you creep? Didn’t your mother ever hug you when you were a kid? Is that why you can behave like an animal and think it’s acceptable?”
The man stopped to regroup. He hadn’t expected Hannah to be so defiant.
And truth was he hadn’t been hugged much when he was a child. His mother was distant and seldom showed emotion. For a brief moment he considered Hannah’s words, and wondered if he really was a heartless animal.
Then he shook it off. He had a job to do.
At the same time, though, he softened his tone just a bit.
“Look,” he said, trying to reason with her. “What happens to you is honestly out of my hands. That’s a decision that’ll be made at a level way above my pay grade. Your ultimate disposition will depend on how much you and your husband cooperate.”
Hannah actually laughed, surprising even herself.
“Disposition? Is that what you call it when you decide whether someone lives or dies? Disposition? How can you call yourselves Americans? How can you even call yourselves human beings?”
“Just do us both a favor and read the statement. It’s not so bad, in the grand scheme of things.”
She picked up the paper she’d tossed to the floor and read it again. It said:
Tony, I’m desperate. They’re going to kill me and our child unless you tell them where Gwen is. Please, start cooperating and tell the where she is. My life, and the life of our child, depends on it.
“Nope,” she said. “It hasn’t miraculously changed since the last time I saw it. You’re still lying, it’s still a bullshit statement, and I still refuse to read it.”
He almost lost his cool again, but drew a deep breath instead.
As though dealing with a petulant child, he spoke slowly.
“Look, Hannah. I thought we understood each other. I know you’re very loyal to your friend. I get that. I’m the same way. I will always put myself in peril to protect my friends. We’re cut from the same cloth in that regard. I know where you’re coming from.
“You know I’m not a bad guy. I’m just trying to resolve this situation as easily as possible for all concerned.
“Somewhere, somehow, you got the impression we’re out to harm your friend Gwen. That’s not the case at all. We just got information from a reliable source she was trying to blackmail the Director of the Department of the Interior. That she was going to go to hostile governments like Russia and China and make wild claims about a super volcano that’s going to blow up the world or something.
“She’s trying to bring down the dollar and cause worldwide chaos. She’s trying to wreck the U.S. economy. She’s trying to convince American citizens to riot in the streets and to overthrow the government.
“You say that’s not true. You say she’s not a threat to the United States.
“And you might be right.
“But the only way to find out, the only way to know for sure is to take her into custody and ask her what her intentions are.”
“…And then to kill her.”
“No, Hannah, no. I don’t know where you got the idea we would do her harm. People have accidents every day. It’s an unfortunate part of life. Just because someone loses control of their car and crashes into a tree doesn’t mean we had anything to do with it. Pick up your local paper. See how often people get killed in car crashes each and every day. Are we responsible every time somebody dies in a car crash?
“And before you even go there, the same is true of people disappearing. People disappear all the time, Hannah. It’s really a common thing.
“Sometimes it’s because of marital conflict. Sometimes they’re guilty of some kind of crime and they go on the lam. Sometimes they’re up to their necks in debt and they see the only way out as running away and starting fresh somewhere else.
“There are two thousand missing persons reports filed in this country each and every day, Hannah. Why in the world would you think that just because somebody disappears we have something to do with it?”
Because Hannah had been quiet, patiently listening to his words, he thought he was convincing her.
She was just being courteous.
But now it was her turn to talk, and she pointed out to him something blatantly obvious.
“It would be a lot easier to believe you if you weren’t asking me to read a script to my husband, in which you threaten to kill me and our innocent baby unless he tells you where Gwen is.”
He fell silent. She had a point.
“Besides,” she said. “You’re wasting your time. If I was willing to make your video to coerce Tony into giving you Gwen’s location, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to just tell you where she was myself? Cut out the middleman?”
“But you won’t tell us. We’ve been through that. You claim you don’t know.”
“My point exactly. Gwen is my friend, not Tony’s. Tony’s never even met her. So if I don’t even know where she is, why on earth would you think Tony knows?”
“Look. I’ve told you before, it’s not my decision who to interrogate, who to take prisoner. Who to…”
“Murder?”
“I didn’t say that, but yes. Those decisions are made way above me. I just follow orders.”
“Well, go back and tell the people who make those decisions that Tony and I aren’t the kind of people who would sacrifice our friends to save ourselves and we don’t know where Gwen is anyway.
“Murdering us isn’t going to change that.”
Chapter 35
In ligh
t of Hannah’s flat refusal to cooperate, the St. Louis crew went to Plan B.
The next day Tony was taken from his tiny cell and unceremoniously dragged back to the interrogation room for another round of questioning.
The previous sessions hadn’t gone well.
He’d been beaten horribly and subjected to water boarding.
He still hadn’t revealed Gwen’s location.
His captors were starting to believe he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know Gwen’s whereabouts. And that he wouldn’t tell them even if he could.
The trouble was, though, that even if they believed him they weren’t being paid to think. They were being paid to find out where Gwen was, in the mistaken belief they could still put a lid on the whole Yellowstone situation and keep it under wraps.
Tony knew, and Bud knew, and Hannah knew, that it was impossible to get the Genie back into the bottle. That too many people knew about it now, despite the government’s efforts to silence them all.
The truth, as Tony succinctly put it, will always come out in the end.
Tony went to the latest interrogation session expecting more of the same.
More demands to provide information relating to Gwen’s whereabouts.
More denials and attitude and cursing on Tony’s part.
More being thrown to the floor and kicked and stomped on.
This time, though, they had a surprise for him.
“There’s something we want you to see.”
A computer monitor had been set up on the table in front of him.
A computer technician sat off to the side behind a keyboard, ready to start whatever Tony was to watch.
Tony was intrigued, though a little bit frightened at what he might be subjected to.
Still, watching video was bound to be better than being beaten.
The screen came to life and Tony almost bolted from his chair in rage.
Almost, because he was prevented to by two very large men, one on each side of him, holding him down.
Since he couldn’t lash out, he screamed, “What in hell is wrong with you savages?”
On the monitor in front of him Tony saw Hannah, tears streaming down her face, standing totally naked and facing the camera.
She wasn’t bloody and bruised, as Tony was. However, it was obvious she was in great distress.
She, like Tony, was flanked on each side by large men. The ones standing next to Hannah looked especially thuggish to Tony.
“Why do you have to do this to her? She did nothing to you. All she did was her job. Something she was asked to do by the government. Why are you treating her this way?”
Instead of answering Tony’s question, his fiendish interrogator asked one of his own.
“So you do recognize this woman, is that correct?”
“Of course I recognize her, you jerk. She’s my wife.”
“She’s very pretty, Tony. Many women who’ve just delivered a baby aren’t very attractive. It takes a few weeks for their bodies to tighten up again, especially around the waist. But your wife, she’s a tasty little treat, isn’t she? She appears to have recovered her body quite nicely.
“Bruno and Butch seem to think so as well.”
“Who in hell are Bruno and Butch?”
“Why, those are the gentlemen standing next to her.”
On the screen Hannah struggled against the men. They tightened their grip on her arms, causing her so much pain she was forced to her knees and started to wail.
A man said in a very sadistic voice, “Say hello to your husband, Hannah.”
She said nothing, prompting one of the men holding her to laugh and say, “She no longer wants her husband. She only wants us, her new lovers.”
Tony fought again to get out of his chair. He was held down, and was rewarded for his efforts with a hard punch to the side of his face.
He tried to turn away. A third man, directly behind him, grabbed Tony’s head with both hands and turned it back toward the screen.
“Oh, you’re gonna watch this whether you want to or not.”
His interrogator went on, “It seems that Bruno and Butch have taken a liking to Hannah. They’d like to become her new boyfriends. Bruno, especially, found her extremely attractive even before she had your baby.
“Bruno mentioned to me that he thinks women are their most attractive when they’re with child. He’d like the opportunity to give Hannah another one. I told him I didn’t think you’d mind.
“The way I see it, if you minded, you’d tell us what we need to know so we could let you out of here.
“If you do that… tell us what we need to know, I mean, you can be back home in just a few hours. Hannah will already be there waiting for you, and you can be together to heal and put all this ugliness and misery behind you.
“You can move on with your lives as parents, and start raising your new baby. You can go back to being boring people with no excitement in your lives, other than having to change diapers.”
“Just where is my baby, you animal?”
“Oh don’t worry, Tony. Your baby is in a safe place. If you decide to cooperate with us and give up Ms. Lupson, you’ll be holding your baby in just a few hours.”
“I’ve told you saps a thousand times I don’t know where Gwen is. I’ve never even met the lady. She’s a friend of Hannah’s. They worked together. She’s a nice woman, according to Hannah. I swear to God that’s all I know about her.”
“And therein lies the problem,” his interrogator went on. “I simply don’t believe you.”
“Screw you, creep.”
“And since I don’t believe you, I have given consent to Bruno and Butch to become your wife’s new lovers. Provided…”
He paused for dramatic effect.
“Provided you don’t tell me what I need to know within twenty four hours. After that, I will give them the go-ahead they want so badly. I suspect your wife will never be the same again.”
Tony screamed out in anger and struggled to get free as he watched Hannah cowering at the feet of her tormentors.
“One more thing, Tony… you’ll notice she doesn’t have any marks on her body. That will soon change. You see, Butch is a sadistic sort by nature. He’s been asking for permission to knock her around a bit. I told him he’s free to do so… after they finish with everything else.”
He switched off the monitor and looked at his guards.
“Take him back to his cell.”
To Tony he said, “Twenty-four hours, Tony. The clock is ticking.”
Chapter 36
As they dragged him down the corridor, Tony fought every step of the way.
Had he gotten free, he was angry enough to kill the two men dragging him with his bare hands.
Then he’d claw his way back to wherever the interrogator had gone and do the same to him.
“What kind of animals are you?” he wailed at the men.
“We are patriots, Tony. Simply patriots, trying to do what’s best to protect our country.”
“By keeping secret a coming disaster? The biggest natural disaster ever in recorded history? A disaster that’s going to kill millions of Americans? That’s how you define being a patriot? What in hell is wrong with you?”
The men stopped short.
They looked at one another.
Then they looked at Tony.
One of the men never changed his facial expression.
The other, the shorter one, looked… puzzled.
Tony didn’t know why. And the look didn’t last long. But it was definitely there.
The big one didn’t know it, but he did Tony a big favor when they deposited him in his cell and the man brutally kicked Tony in the head.
Tony lost consciousness instantly. He’d be out for awhile.
The big man didn’t realize it, and wouldn’t have kicked him otherwise; but knocking Tony out was the very best thing he could have done for the prisoner under the circumstances.
For hours
later, when Tony came to, he’d wail and pace and rip some of his hair out, agonizing about what he saw on the television screen.
In his mind he’d see Hannah being forced to do unspeakable things against her will. He’d see her brutalized in a hundred different ways. All the time crying out to him and begging him to find a way… any way, to help her.
In reality, 850 miles almost due west of him, Hannah was sleeping peacefully.
She’d been traumatized by shooting the video the day before. She knew the anguish it would cause Tony, the sight of her totally naked, being held by two shady men.
And all that it implied.
She’d been so traumatized she’d fought her way from their grasp, forcing them to stop the video shoot early. She’d broken free and ran down an unguarded corridor, smashed through a plate glass window.
Suffered minor cuts on her head and arms and a gash on one ankle.
Unfortunately, the window opened into a courtyard with a high privacy fence.
And six more men who were doing a change of shift briefing.
She was vastly outnumbered and stood no chance of progressing farther.
A medic was called in to dress her wounds, and gave her a powerful sedative.
“She’ll be out for at least twenty four hours.”
Hannah was unaware she was moved, along with her wooden box, to a more secure location.
Both husband and wife were blissfully unaware of the world around them. Or even whether they were still alive.
Yet they somehow made a connection.
For each of them dreamed of the other.
Each of them held the other in their arms.
Swore their love for one another.
And swore something else too. Each of them swore that somehow, some way, they’d get through this and would be together again.
Neither knew how, but took it as fact nonetheless.
Down the corridor from Tony’s cell, Bud sat forlornly in his own.
He was bored. He’d paced until his feet were blistered. Then he removed his shoes and paced some more.
The Yellowstone Event (Book 2): A National Disgrace Page 12