Dorothy Mcintosh - The Witch of Babylon

They threw me inside. The room had a tiled floor and walls, no window, similar to the room in the video of Laurel. A weak light came from a fixture high up on the wall in one corner. The only feature giving the place any distinction was a niche cut into the back wall, arched at the top, about eight feet at its summit and four feet wide. It looked tailor-made to contain a life-sized sculpture. Inside it stood Shim, massive and silent. My own personal wrecking ball.

The door slammed shut with a clang of metal against concrete. I backed up to the wall farthest away from the Cyclops. He didn’t move a muscle. He just stared. The room was completely silent except for the jackhammering of my own pulse. I had no idea how long we stood like that, but we stayed in those positions, locked into a stalemate like the last two pieces on a chessboard.

They’d taken my phone and wallet, and with no watch or window to track the fading sunlight I quickly lost all sense of time. A few hours could have passed or the better part of the day. I focused on the tile floor and counted the squares, hoping to stem the messages of fright pummeling my mind. I noticed it was clean, almost too clean for a basement floor, and it smelled of bleach. I could see faint stains in the grout between the tiles.

At one point, my mind tricked me into thinking the brute really was made of stone. Shim was able to hold himself completely motionless. When not called upon to act, his mind simply shut down as if he were some giant windup toy. His one good eye stared unblinkingly straight at me like the homicidal gaze of a giant prehistoric bird of prey. I’d find myself dropping off, starting to slide down the wall I was propped against, when a surge of adrenalin would jolt me awake and I’d catch sight of Shim, who remained static, never uttering a sound.

I wondered what he’d been like before the explosion in his lab. A young genius anxious to make his mark on the world. Perhaps not even a bad man. He’d retained something of an emotional life. I saw that in his fierce attachment to Ward and Eris.

Every now and then I’d hear muffled sounds outside. Footsteps echoing down the corridor, two men’s voices in conversation, someone clearing his throat. Eerie, to hear those sounds of normalcy, imprisoned in this cell. What could be gained by prolonging my misery? Was this some kind of breaking-in exercise before they bled out every last drop of information they thought I had?

I heard the lock turning. Shim reached me in one giant step, forcing me against the wall, pinning my arms back. My shoulder screamed and my eyes teared up. I tried to prepare myself mentally for the torture I knew was coming. I was young and in reasonably decent physical shape. That would give them a fair amount of time before I broke down for good.

The door banged against the wall as Jacob Ward entered. “Let’s get started. You’ve had some time to think about your situation, so tell me where Tomas has gone.”

“I want to see Laurel first.”

“I thought we’d already dealt with that.”

“Not to my liking.”

A disabling pain hit my arm when Shim jerked it up. A gesture from Ward told him to ease off. “I’m willing to show some good faith,” he said. He motioned to Shim. The two of them led me out of the room and along a basement corridor to a similar room, but one with a cheap-looking cot and single chair.

Laurel lay on the cot. Eris rose from the chair beside the cot when I walked into the room.

I rushed over to Laurel, who lay face down, not moving.

“It’s John, Laurel.”

She stirred and rolled onto her side. I put my arm around her and helped her sit up, or rather, she slouched against my side, my body propping her up. Her eyes looked hazy; she blinked and peered at me as though she didn’t believe I was really there. I took her hand. It felt cold and sweaty. “Is it really you?” she said. “How did you get here?”

“They brought me here. I refused to talk to them unless I’d seen you first.”

She pulled away. “Don’t touch me.”

I remembered too late that her hands had been tied. “Your wrists must still be so sore.”

When she faced me I could see how angry she was. “What did you think seeing me would accomplish? You’ve taken everything away from me now. At least believing you were still out there gave me some hope. I wish I’d never opened the door to you that first time when you came, full of sympathy. So solicitous. Comforting me about Hal. Swearing you’d protect me. I can’t even stand to look at you.”

I wanted to tell her she was wrong, that she would have probably been killed by Eris had it not been for my efforts, but she was in no frame of mind to hear this. Besides, hadn’t I already berated myself for bringing bad luck to everyone I cared about?

I stood up and tried to think of a last word to give her some reassurance. “Try to keep up your strength, Laurie. I’ll find a way to get us out. All they want is the engraving.” I didn’t want to frighten her even more by telling her Tomas had made sure we’d never get it back.

A shudder spread through her body. She had one more bitter remark left for me. “Don’t fool yourself. We’ll never see each other again. That’s some kind of blessing, anyway.”

“She needs medical attention,” I said to Eris. “You have to release her.”

“Doctors are in short supply around here,” Eris shot back. “Time to go.”

Ward and the jester were waiting for us outside Laurel’s makeshift prison cell. “So, your part of the bargain is due now. Where is Tomas?”

I wasn’t about to give in that easily. “Tell me something first.

It was Eris who picked Laurel up, right? I assume Laurel was drugged?”

Ward nodded.

“So she probably hasn’t any memory of where this place is.”

“Yes,” Ward replied.

I was steaming, but I tried to keep a lid on it for Laurel’s sake. “And my guess is, she doesn’t know about you. Eris is probably the only person she’s seen.”

Eris let out an annoyed huff. “Forget it, Madison. We can see where you’re going with this.”

“We’re not letting her go.” Ward said this in such a matter-of-fact tone he may as well have been ordering up pizza. “At least not now. But I understand your thinking and you’re right, she’ll have next to nothing for the police to go on when we do release her. That should give you some encouragement. So you have a heaven-or-hell choice. It’s good to keep things simple. Cooperate with us and she’ll be free; don’t and she’ll end up dead.”

I had to admit my arsenal was empty. My only option was to wait for a new opportunity to open up. “He’s in Baghdad—I’ve got the address.” I felt in my pocket for the crinkled hotel memo on which I’d written the address I’d taken from Tomas’s room and handed it to Ward. He looked at it and passed it immediately to Eris. “Check this out,” he said.

Once Ward was certain I’d told all I knew, they took me back to Shim. An hour or so later, Ward and Eris returned and hurried me back along the corridor, the jester pressing my head down so I could see only Ward’s broad back, the muscles making his black suit jacket ripple as we followed in his tracks. “Where are we going now?” I asked him.

“To Babylon,” he said. “Lucky you.”

Twenty-seven

Thursday, August 7, 2003, 10:30 P.M.

We drove to an airfield in what I guessed was New Jersey. Laurel remained captive in New York to ensure my cooperation. I could smell the tang of gasoline and glimpse pavement glistening after the rainfall. We’d stopped beside a small jet. Our destination was Baghdad, not the actual site of old Babylon. But Ward didn’t need me to locate the address I’d given him. Why go to the trouble of sending me to a country I was totally unfamiliar with in the midst of a war? I got absolutely nowhere with Ward when I lobbed questions at him about why he was taking me there. The fact that they’d held off torturing me implied they needed my cooperation for some future plan. What was it?