“I can’t. I can’t get up. I need something to drink. I’m going to be sick if you don’t stop pulling me.” She felt the lead go slack. Relieved, she let her body drop back to the ground.
He was carrying a large backpack, which Emily had tried to ignore. She hated to think what it contained. Now, he bent to pull it off. She watched powerful muscles move under his shirt and as he crouched over the pack she noticed the same strength in his legs. He bent over and began rummaging.
Her jacket was still tied around her waist. For some reason that made her happy. Then she remembered the ID in her pocket. She hated carrying a purse into a bar, so she kept it minimal with ID and a lipstick. The lipstick and ID should be in the pocket of her skirt. She reached behind her as if to push herself up. She knew it was risky, but she had to take the chance. Emily slowly pulled her driver’s license from her back pocket and dropped it. She scooted back and hoped it was hidden.
He was holding a bottle of water and motioned for her to take some. She was desperate to drink. He let her have only a little and when she seemed all right he gave her some more. Evidently her capturer didn’t want her sick.
She sat for a few minutes, and when the lead again grew tight around her neck she attempted to stand up. She was wobbly, but she managed to get to her feet. As soon as she was up he pulled and she began to follow. “You know it’s going to be really hard for me to walk with my hands tied around my back, if you’re going to pull me. I can’t keep my balance.”
There was no answer and no change, so she started walking. At first she tripped a lot and she tried to fall to her knees. They were on a narrow trail that was relatively flat. The first couple of times she fell, it was jarring and irritating but she didn’t hurt herself. As the trail became rockier, it became more difficult because she knew any fall here could really hurt her. She followed along like this for a long time before she realized that he wasn’t stupid. She had been concentrating so intently on not falling that she had paid no attention to her surroundings. She thought they had changed direction a few times but she wasn’t sure. She could have kicked herself.
They walked for hours, and Emily was so exhausted she no longer cared about her feet or her surroundings. She fell hard a couple of times; once cutting her leg on a sharp rock. The blood had dried on her shin but she ignored it along with the gnats that hovered around the wound as she focused on trying to stay upright. The trees formed a canopy above them, but even with that thick covering she could feel the strength of the sun slipping as the day grew late.
Emily couldn’t understand what was happening to her. Why was he dragging her into these godforsaken woods? Surely if it were about rape and murder, she would be dead by now. She couldn’t believe that the torture of this forced march could just end with a simple bullet. There was something else going on. She forced herself to abandon those thoughts, and focus instead on remembering any details of her abduction. It didn’t make her feel any better, but it certainly felt more productive.
Suddenly they walked into a clearing. The sun, though brighter, was waning in the late afternoon. There was a single, large oak tree in the center of the open meadow. Emily’s first thought was that it was pretty.
In continued silence he walked her to the solitary tree and pushed her down to a sitting position on the ground. She closed her eyes and thought of her parents. She didn’t want to die. Strangely, she wasn’t afraid now. She just hoped it would be quick. Nothing happened and when she heard him rustling around in the backpack she opened her eyes just in time to see him drag out a heavy chain.
She wanted to cry, but her eyes refused to tear. They had long ago dried past the point of tears. He stood up with the chain in one hand, and a bottle of water in the other. He dropped the bottle in her lap and Emily stared at it with true lust. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small knife. Before she could react, he had leaned behind her, and cut her hands free. The feeling of release was wonderful and painful, as the circulation kicked in to her numb arms. She grabbed the bottle and drank greedily. She paid little attention to the man as she drank. She let the water run over her lips and down the front of her torn and dirty t-shirt. She drank too fast and as the cramps tore through her stomach she had to twist quickly to her side and vomit. There was little for her stomach to give up and she lay on her side panting until the nausea passed. When she sat up he was closing a lock on the chain, which he had wound round the base of the tree. She stared at the lock for a moment and then followed the other end of the chain. With growing horror she saw that it ended at a shackle. The shackle encircled her ankle.
He was staring at her when she looked up at him. The sound of his voice was almost as terrifying as her chained ankle. “I’m not going to kill you. I promise.” His voice was soft for such a large man and Emily thought she heard a soothing tone.
She took a breath trying to relax. Maybe she did have some chance.
As if she had spoken her thought aloud, he squatted in front her and reached behind his head. Slowly he pulled the balaclava off.
Emily began to sob. She knew then she had no chance at all.
Nero waited in almost complete darkness but not alone. He was used to the former, having lost his eyes during World War II, but the latter disconcerted him as it was a novel experience. Over the decades he had only tolerated brief visitors to his sanctum three hundred feet below the National Security Agency, but never a long-term presence. The woman had been here for ten days, leaving only in the evenings to sleep in her room above.
He could hear her breathing. She had turned her light off about ten minutes ago and not said a word after reading the very thin file they had accumulated so far on the Emily Cranston situation. She was sitting behind what had been his desk for over six decades. He was lying on what appeared to an analyst’s couch next to the desk, a pillow behind his head, an IV drip stuck in his left arm.
Nero wearily raised the metal wand that amplified and transformed the air coming out of the hole in his neck. “Any thoughts, Mrs. Masterson?”
“Ms.,” she corrected him.
Nero sighed, the sound a metallic wheeze. “I apologize once more for my antiquated ways. Any thoughts, please, Ms. Masterson?”
“There’s not enough data,” she said.
Nero nodded. It was good she did not jump to conclusions. Over the course of the past ten days, Ms. Masterson had repeatedly impressed Nero and confirmed his decades of efforts to prepare her for recruitment to sit behind that very desk. It had not been an easy process and the fall-out from recent events involved in the recruiting was something they were still dealing with.
“Have you heard from Ms. Neeley?” Nero asked. That was one loose end to the affair that he wasn’t satisfied with.
“I talked to her last night.”
There were times when Nero knew Ms. Masterson was punishing him. This was one of them. “Did you discuss the weather? Sports? Or might it have been shoes? I understand that is a topic of much interest between women. I once listened to that show on the television — Sex and Shoes.”
“Sex and the City. No. We didn’t discuss shoes. We talked about you. And Gant.”
“Tony Gant?
“Yes. We never met his brother Jack. Which I’ll be rectifying in a few minutes.”
“And where is Ms. Neeley?”
“She was visiting in West Virginia.”
“The family?” Nero knew Neeley’s history.
“Gant’s family.”
“Yes, Jesse and the boy.”
“She’s—“
“Very special,” Nero said. “As is the boy.”
“Yes. And they almost got killed because you put them in harm’s way.”