Richard Castle - Wild Storm

“Thank you, thank you,” Ahmed was muttering. “May Allah bring blessings to you.”

Storm was finishing his rudimentary first aid job just as Rodriguez returned to the phone.

“This is freaky, bro,” Rodriguez said. “D.C. cops just found Jared Stack strangled to death behind a crack house in Southeast. They haven’t said a word about it to the media yet because it just happened. How the hell did you know about it?”

“Long story,” Storm said. “I’ll tell you later.”

He disconnected the call then thought about what his father said that night they had first stumbled on William McRae and his work on promethium. Carl Storm had warned his son that terrorists came in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, he said, they looked like Osama bin Laden. Sometimes they looked like Ted Kaczynski.

And sometimes they looked like Xena: Warrior Princess.

A SECURED ROOM

William McRae flexed his fingers, groaning when they creaked back at him.

There must have been a storm coming. A big one, judging from the pain he was in. He could feel the drop in air pressure in his aching joints, as well as or better than any barometer. He also noted a slight increase in the humidity of the air being pumped into his room, like it was ever-so-slightly more tropical.

He sat up in bed, dreading the day’s toil ahead of him. He kept thinking that the men he was working for would run out of promethium, eventually. They had to. There simply wasn’t this much of the stuff in the world.

But every five to seven days, they’d come in with more of it and McRae would start the process over again, turning the promethium into crystal, setting the crystals in the sequence needed to get enough power to the laser.

The newest shipment hadn’t yet arrived. It was due any day now. He still had enough from the last shipment to keep him busy. Alpha had shown him a new round of Alida pictures the night before, just to keep him motivated.

It was the usual stuff: Alida heading out to the grocery store, Alida checking the mail, Alida doing all the little routine things he suddenly missed being a part of so desperately.

The one that had really broken his heart was of Alida sitting by herself, eating supper. He felt lonely for her just looking at the picture. She was a bright, engaging woman who felt that meals — and especially the evening meal — were a time for conversation and for sharing. He wished she would start inviting friends over. He couldn’t bear the thought of her just sitting there by herself.

Alpha had made it a point to show William that behind Alida in that particular photo was a calendar that showed the date. The calendar had broken William’s heart, too. Not because it proved they still had a man stalking her, but because of the content.

It was her fake daily-inspirations calendar. The sayings in it were just like Alida: smart, sassy, a little irreverent, but full of humor. The one for the day in question was, “Some people say you’re racially intolerant. I just say you’re an a**hole.”

McRae smiled at the thought. It was one of the rare ones that had graced his face over the last month. Now that he was upright, his wakefulness clear to the cameras, it didn’t take long for one of his captors to appear. This time it was the one McRae called Epsilon. McRae assigned him the lowest rank in his imaginary pecking order simply because he wasn’t quite as sharp as the others.

“Good morning, Dr. McRae,” he said officiously. “I’m here to get your breakfast order.”

McRae yawned. Lately, he had taken to asking for more elaborate breakfasts, because he noticed they didn’t put him to work until after he had eaten. It was a pathetic stall tactic, yes, but it felt like a small victory.

“I’d really like some waffles, if your chef can handle that,” McRae said. “And maybe some fruit on the side. Strawberries, perhaps. Oh, and some grapefruit. But make sure he cuts out the sections this time. Unless you fellas want to give me a knife, someone needs to cut my grapefruit for me.”

“Okay,” Epsilon said, then turned and departed.

McRae listened for the click that always accompanied a guard’s departure.

Except — were his ears failing him? — this time it didn’t come. He quickly swung his legs down off the bed and studied the door. It had stuck against the doorframe without closing all the way. The humidity must have swollen the wood a little.

He scrambled over to the chair where he had draped his pants and pulled them on, then jammed his feet into his shoes. He waited another thirty seconds, just to make sure Epsilon was gone, then tentatively opened the door.

The hallway was empty. Every day, he had been led down that hallway to the left, toward his workshop. That and his cell were the only two rooms he had seen during his captivity.

He was glad he had asked for waffles. Mixing the dry ingredients, then the wet ones; separating the egg whites, beating them stiff; combining all of the above ingredients, then cooking them in a waffle maker. It would take at least fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. No one would be looking for him during that time. They would think he was just lingering in the shower. There were no cameras in the bathroom.

This was his chance to make a break for it. Wedging the door barely open with one of his socks — so he could rush back in if he felt the need — he turned right down the hallway. When he reached the end, there was a metal door on the left.

Again with great caution, he shoved it open. It was a narrow staircase that only led up. McRae climbed the stairs to the top, where there was a small landing and another door.

But this one had a window.

It was the first time in a month that McRae had been able to look at the world outside his confines, and he could barely believe the view.

It was water. He was at sea. This was a boat. An enormous boat.

It all suddenly made sense: the motion he sometimes felt was from the waves, but only at the rare times when they got large enough to actually rock a boat that size; the rumble of the engine, which he thought was some kind of generator, had actually been powering the boat on its journey.

He opened the door and stepped out onto a narrow corridor that ran along the outer part of the deck. On one side was the ship’s superstructure. On the other side were the waves, which were getting to be of the size that rocked the ship. He peered over the edge. It was a significant drop into the water, even though this was one of the lowest decks. He had half a thought to simply jump into the water. He was reasonably sure he could survive the fall.

But then what? He didn’t know where they were. Even though the air felt warm, the water could be cold. Even relatively warm ocean water could cause hypothermia within a few hours. He could see land, but only barely. It had to be at least ten miles away. He wasn’t that good a swimmer. Plus, there was that storm coming, the one he felt in his bones. He’d never last.

Maybe he could find a lifeboat. Or a smaller vessel attached to this boat — didn’t super-yachts have stuff like that? Maybe then he’d have a chance.

Or maybe he’d have to recognize he was a prisoner on this boat until someone decided to let him go. Or, more likely, kill him.

McRae scampered along the corridor until he reached another door. He turned in. This hallway was very different from the one he had been in before. His hallway, the one he had seen every day for a month now, was very plain, almost institutional for its lack of decoration. This one was lavishly adorned. There were paintings every few feet, little end tables with jewel-covered lamps, elaborate woodwork, gilded trim.

He turned blindly into one of the doors off the hallway. It was a guest room — one of many, given the size of this boat. He was about to turn out of the room and leave it when he spied an old-fashioned, rotary-style telephone, sitting on one of the desks.