Jonas Saul - The Hostage

A single bulb hung suspended from the ceiling, lighting what looked like an interrogation room. She had been in many over her short life. This one was no different other than the wet, musty smell.

A wooden table and chair sat to her right. She crawled over and got on the chair with great effort. She eased her head down to the table and rested it, forehead to wood, until the pain rescinded.

Her right hand felt around the back of her head and then her neck, pushing the muscles in that area to loosen them up. Something flicked across her fingers. She shouted out in pain.

“What the fuck?”

She touched the back of her neck again, this time more careful to not push or cause further damage. Stitches were sewn into her skin behind her ear, just under the hairline.

Did that guy hit me with the baton so hard it split my skin? No wonder I’m in so much pain.

She raised her head high enough to look at the two-way glass.

“Assholes, get me some fucking Advil. And get me Rod Howley. Tell him I want to talk. But not until I have a conversation with Mr. Advil. We have business to attend to first.”

She lowered her head slowly and rested it on the wooden table, her fingers at work on her temples again.

She wondered why Vivian hadn’t warned her about Rod. Or maybe told her to take a different flight. Was this one of those, let Sarah walk into a trap, only to break her out and in doing so, catch the bad guys as that was the only way to nail them? If that’s the way it’s supposed to be, that sucked. She hated having to figure shit out as it happened. People got hurt that way. Sarah got hurt that way.

She knew Rod was powerful. His government gave him more control over others than he should have. They had an agenda and it was to be achieved at all costs. She wondered what their real agenda was and why the urgency. If they really believed Sarah had some kind of psychic powers, which evidently they did, then Rod had shown her he could do anything to detain her. If she was really psychic, couldn’t she have seen him coming? Would she ever get out, or were they that powerful? Could Rod and his group make her disappear?

She understood that her situation grew increasingly dire each and every day. The longer she stayed locked up, her chances of escape worsened. But if she showed them what they wanted, Sarah felt she’d never get out. Their appetite would never be sated.

The door to the room cracked open and something got tossed in. She looked down at a small bottle of Advil as it settled a few feet from her chair. Moving her head ever so slowly, she scanned more of the floor but couldn’t find any water.

Fuck it. I’ll chew the little bastards.

She lowered herself off the chair and slumped to the floor. The pain stayed constant, but didn’t spike as she took care to move slow and calculated. The Advil bottle held six tablets. She popped all six in her mouth, chewed and swallowed them as fast as she could, then lay back and stared at the ceiling.

Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and I’ll feel this knife lift out of my skull.

The door opened again. Someone stepped in and closed it behind them. Sarah didn’t bother to look. She knew whoever it was would present themselves soon enough. Her visitor walked the few steps to the table and slammed something on the top hard enough to flare her head.

“Fucking asshole. I asked for Advil because I have a headache the size of Texas. Don’t slam things around or I’ll get pissed off. Right now, I’d prefer to not have any fun, so stay quiet.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay quiet,” Rod Howley said. “We have business.”

She opened her eyes and toward him. “ We don’t have any business. Unless that business is you opening that door over there and escorting me outside to wave goodbye with that funny hat you wear on your head. By the way, how long have I been here? What day is it?”

She closed her eyes again and heard him walk closer. When she opened them, his face took the place of a ceiling tile. It really bothered her to see him every time she turned around in Europe, and now here he was again. She had tried to evade him. Almost died in the Danube, only to be pulled out by Parkman. They had been flown by helicopter to Romania and escorted to a private airport after most of her wounds had healed. Parkman had taken an earlier flight and was supposed to be in Toronto waiting for her. Rod had somehow seen through all that and here he was again.

He nudged her with his foot. “Get up. It’s Wednesday morning. You’ve been here for two days. Now, get up, I have pictures to show you.”

Two days? Wednesday? Drake is going to be shot Wednesday afternoon. Could there still be time?

“You talk first. Let the Advil get a grip on my headache. Hey, by the way, why the hell did your guy have to hit me hard enough to cause stitches? What was that for? I was handcuffed and shackled, for fuck sakes.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. That was excessive. I ordered everyone to think of you as an enemy combatant who had infiltrated our rank to kill all of us. By the time we had you cuffed, my men were pretty pissed at you. I didn’t think it would go that far.”

“Thanks, dick fuck. Now I’ve got a nice-sized migraine and you’re still a dick. Help me up and we’ll walk out of here together and forget this whole misunderstanding.”

Sarah raised both her arms and waited.

“Forget it, Sarah. I won’t be touching you. I’m still healing from Hungary too. I won’t risk my life tangling with you right now. Get up on your own, or I’ll have the men standing behind that mirror come in and put you in that chair. You don’t want that, so get up.”

Sarah lowered her arms and rolled onto her side. Doing her best to avoid any sudden movements, she got up and sat in the chair. The pain in her head showed signs of receding already.

Oh Advil, blessed Advil, oh how I love thee.

“Sarah, I need you to show me how you do your automatic writing. Work with me and I will make your stay with us much more comfortable than this. Trust me. The ones who comply get whatever they want. Your life would be so much better and less dangerous than it currently is.”

Sarah raised a hand for him to stop. “What are you talking about? What’s automatic writing?”

“Don’t bullshit me, Sarah. Before I came to Europe I talked to Esmerelda, Dolan, and many others. I know what you are and how accurate you can be. Your talents have to be clinically tested. We have to show it working and have proof.”

“You lie,” Sarah said, her head clearing even more. She blinked slowly and then watched Rod for every facial movement, every nuance in an attempt to figure out what he was up to.

“About what?”

“There’s no way Esmerelda or Dolan would have betrayed my confidence. They would have never talked freely with someone like you. Not about me, anyway.”

“Ahh, but they did,” Rod said, holding up his right index finger. “What they didn’t know was who I am. They thought I was a writer who had been saved from that burning building a few years back. They thought I already knew about your abilities. Neither one thought what they told me was news to me.”

“Let me get this straight. You just knocked on their door and chatted about me? That’s it? Is that how it happened?”

“Not exactly. I posed as a cab driver for Dolan. We chatted for an hour in New York traffic. I told him that you and I talked once in a while and that I missed you. Esmerelda and I talked it up when a bouquet of flowers were mistakenly sent to her home address. I delivered the flowers and told her I recognized her name. Wasn’t she the friend of Sarah Roberts, who was also my friend? Boy, can that woman talk. She was so appreciative of what you did for her daughter.”