The first thing Jet registered was that she was lying on a hard slab in the dark. She turned her head and tried to move her limbs, but it was no good. She had been bound with some kind of straps.
Her fingers worked on finding some weakness in the bindings, and she struggled to slide an arm free, but the straps were secure. Whoever had done this to her had known what they were doing.
Her head pounded, sinuses screaming in pain, but she choked the discomfort back while she tried to focus. Something dripped rhythmically in the corner of the small room. Water. One drop, every ten to fifteen seconds. It smelled like mold and must and dank, fetid air.
What the hell was this?
And then panic flooded her.
Where was Hannah?
Her breathing and pulse rate spiked as she fought against the restraints, exhausting herself as she flailed in vain, trying to break free. It took every bit of operational discipline she had to talk herself down and regain her composure. Losing it wouldn’t help anything. She needed to glean as much information as she could about wherever she was and wait for an opportunity.
Think. What happened?
Last thing she remembered was that she had been shot with a dart, and then everything had gone hazy.
Obviously some sort of tranquilizer.
But why? And who could have possibly known that she was at the motel? She’d been clean. No tails. She was sure of it. Nothing made any sense.
And yet here she was, bound in a dark room, imprisoned by unknown captors.
Footsteps echoed on concrete, and then metal scraped on metal. Light streamed into the room as the door at the far end opened, and a man stepped in. She could tell it was a man by his silhouette, as well as his cologne. Sickeningly sweet. Other men waited in the hall — there had been more than one set of footsteps.
The man reached to the side, and the chamber became flooded with yellow light. A lamp mounted to a collapsible tripod stood by the gray wall. She could make out paint peeling from its damp surface beyond the glare.
She had shut her eyes, pretending to be incapacitated. They might slip if they thought she was still unconscious.
“Come on. Wake up. The drug has worn off by now, so let’s not waste each other’s time. I know you’re listening to every word, so open your eyes, and let’s get down to business, shall we?” the man said. He pronounced his consonants oddly, with a slight lisp, but different. Almost like a speech impediment, the word ‘so’ sounding more like ‘tho’.
Jet opened her eyes and regarded him.
“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Sorry about the little bondage session, but I’ve been warned that you are extremely dangerous — that your entire body is literally a lethal weapon, cliche as that might sound. It seemed prudent to restrain you until we’d had a chance to chat.”
“Is that what you call this? Chatting?” Jet snapped.
“Well, you’ll have to forgive my manners. I’ve had to improvise. This was all the hospitality I could arrange at short notice. But yes, we are going to have a nice little chat, and you’re going to discover how you can help me so that I can help you.” The man’s voice and cadence were eerily menacing, even though he was soft-spoken, almost gentle in his cadence, which was more chilling than if he had been screaming abuse at her.
“Help you? I don’t have any idea who you are. Why would I want to help you? You’ve kidnapped me from a motel in the dead of night for God knows wha-”
“Please. Spare me. I know who you are. I know all about you. Again, don’t waste my time with denials or protestations.”
Jet bit her tongue.
“Let’s see if this rings any bells. Your code name was Jet. You were with the Israeli intelligence service for almost six years, during which time you broke every record for effectiveness. Assassinations, kidnappings, blackmail, insurrection, false flag attacks…when the Mossad needed the dirtiest of the dirty done, you were who they sent.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Who are you?”
“Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere. So you concede that we don’t need to play around anymore? You may call me Arthur. Nice to meet you…Jet.” He walked closer to her, and the lamp’s glow illuminated his face. There was something wrong with it. The skin. It looked like scar tissue, like…
“Yes, it was the result of a horrible burn. Six surgeries later, and this was the best they could do. But I’ve learned to live with it. A friendly dose of napalm in Vietnam. A long, long time ago. I’m actually very lucky I have sight in both eyes. You can’t have helped but notice that I have a hard time pronouncing some sounds, though. That’s a regrettable byproduct of not having lips.”
“Arthur. Fair enough. Who are you?”
“Why, can’t you guess? I’m very sorry to hear about David, by the way. He was a solid fellow. An honorable man.”
“You knew David?”
“Obviously. I arranged for one of my subordinates to help with information about the Russian. About Belize. I also helped him in sourcing weapons and blueprints…”
“You’re his contact with the CIA?”
“Not exactly — most of the grunt work went through my underling, Terry. But I was the ultimate authority. He couldn’t have done any of it without my approval.”
“Why does the CIA have me tied up in a cell?”
“Now we come to the heart of the matter. Because, my dear girl, I need your help with a matter of some delicacy. A matter that is right up your street.”
“Where’s my daughter?”
“I was wondering when you would get to that. She’s fine. I have arranged for her to be cared for by a temporary foster family — good people who will lavish her with love. I’m afraid you have caused some problems for me, and for yourself, with the original couple that raised her. I interceded and clamped a lid on the kidnapping so it doesn’t go viral, but it will leak out eventually. They adore her, and the only thing they know is that she’s been kidnapped. Baby Samantha, by the way. That’s her name.”
“That isn’t what I named her.”
He waved a black leather-gloved hand at her. “Call her whatever you like when this is over.”
“You have no right to steal my baby. She’s mine. You know it. This is wrong.”
“Well, I suppose it is rather wrong, but it is the only way I could think of to have my needs met. I want you to do something for me, and I’m quite sure that you wouldn’t have done it voluntarily, so I needed some leverage. I would say that having your daughter is pretty good leverage, wouldn’t you?”
She struggled against the straps, then relaxed. No point in using energy she might need later.
“See? I was right. It was prudent to keep you restrained for our first discussion. Imagine how unpleasant it could have become if you’d been able to reach me.”
“Unpleasant for you, perhaps. Not for me,” she spat.
“True. Which is why you are perfectly suited to this job.”
“What makes you think I’d do anything for the CIA?”
“I have your daughter. I have no fight with you. But I have an operation I have had nothing but trouble with, and nobody on my team seems to be able to solve my problem. But you? You could solve it, with your illustrious background.”
“You kidnapped my daughter and took me captive to get me to do a job for you? You’re insane. That’s not how this works, and you know it.”
“I do, indeed. I’ve been doing this for far longer than you’ve been alive. Trust me when I tell you that if there were any alternative, I would have let you go your merry way with your daughter, and that would have been the end of it. But extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions, and I have need of your skills. So I have had to take an…unconventional approach. I hope you’ll forgive me.” Arthur executed the hint of a bow, and she could see that his hair was white and that the scar tissue ran across his entire head.
“If you hurt her…”
“I am not an animal. I have no desire to harm your daughter. If these were normal circumstances, I would have removed myself from the entire affair once David died. Yes, I know all about the fire on the Russian’s boat. After considering the plans he had asked for, I guessed that his target was the yacht, and from there it was a simple matter to work out what had happened. He went dark after that night, so I suspected the worst. And then when Grigenko’s jet vaporized…well, let’s just say I surmised that you survived. Which created an interesting opportunity for me.”