Nina was forced to admit she had no idea.
She broke out of her trance, leaving her nine-year-old self behind and fetching a glass of water before returning to the study to find the cursor still blinking mockingly from its parking spot. She slumped huffily back in her chair, feeling trapped by her guilt and fear and uncertainty. She had to do something to break free, but what?
Elaine had been right, she decided. Clearing the air with her husband would be a good way to start. She reached for her phone, but then withdrew her hand. Eddie would be on the subway by now, and she knew him well enough to guess that he would still be pissed at her behaviour. Wait until he gets home, she decided. Until I’ve had my soup.
Eddie emerged from the 77th Street subway station and headed north up Lexington Avenue, holding a cardboard cup of hot soup and a bag of crusty bread. He had considered getting a cab back to the apartment, the subway journey from the soup store being a pain requiring two changes of train, but in the end he decided the longer trip might give Nina a chance to calm down about whatever had pissed her off this time.
Still, the fact that he had gone out of his way would hopefully show her that he wasn’t mad about how she’d treated him. Well, not any more. His initial irritation had faded, replaced by a resigned amusement. She had endured so much in the past months, and surviving everything the world had thrown at them only to face an unexpected – though far from unwelcome – pregnancy would stress anybody out.
He still wanted the old Nina back, though. And it would take more than fancy soup to do that. He’d done everything he could to be supportive and helpful and loving, but what if that still wasn’t enough?
He tried to put the depressing thought aside as he turned on to East 78th Street and headed for their building. Maybe the combination of time and food would calm her down . . .
Something triggered an alert in his mind.
It took a moment to work out what; all he initially had was a feeling of wrongness. But why? He was only a few hundred yards from home. Then he realised the cause.
A young man with dusty blond hair stood not far ahead, talking on a phone. Nothing unusual about that – except that when he had glanced in Eddie’s direction, his eyes had met the Englishman’s and displayed recognition, an involuntary split-second confirmation that somebody he was expecting had arrived. Then he looked away, but too quickly.
The mystery man wasn’t a mugger. He was waiting specifically for Eddie. And he had an oddly clean-cut air that felt out of place for a street criminal, a neat, conservative haircut and casual clothes that looked brand-new.
Eddie didn’t know him, but the face was somehow familiar. He had seen him before, though couldn’t place when or where. He kept walking, but tensed, ready to respond to anything that might happen.
The man seemed to pick up on his wariness. He pocketed his phone and stepped to the centre of the sidewalk. There was a parked van to one side, a wall to the other. If Eddie got closer, he would be caught in a channel, the only escape routes being either to retreat the way he had come – or go through his adversary.
He chose the latter. The man was younger than him – late twenties – and taller, but the former SAS soldier was confident he could handle him.
The other man’s eyes locked on to him as he reached the van – then flicked to something behind him.
Eddie spun as he heard the sudden scuff of someone breaking into a run, seeing another young man charging at him. The first ambusher rushed to catch him in a pincer—
The Englishman dropped the bag and swiped the top off the cup – then flung its contents into the running man’s face. ‘No soup for you!’
The jambalaya was still hot enough to hurt. The second man let out a yelp as he wiped his eyes – only for the sound to become a choked screech as Eddie’s foot slammed firmly into his groin. He collapsed on the pavement.
Eddie whirled to face the blond, but a lunging fist caught the side of his face. He reeled as the blow jarred his skull, recovering just in time to intercept a second blow with his arm.
He straightened and faced his opponent, who shifted his stance. The younger man had clearly expected an easy victory, but now that he had a real fight on his hands, he was stepping up his game.
One of the man’s feet lanced at Eddie’s kneecap. He jinked away, an elbow barking against the van’s side. Fists shot at him, left high then right low; he swatted away the first, but the second punch caught his side. He let out a grunt of pain. Satisfaction on his attacker’s face, then he darted forward to deliver another blow—
Eddie caught his arm with both hands. Before the younger man could react, he forced it downwards and twisted the elbow, hard. The joint crackled. The man started to cry out – but was silenced as Eddie head-butted him in the face, mashing the cartilage in his nose with a gushing squirt of blood.
The Englishman threw him against the wall. The second man tried to stand. Eddie kicked his head, then turned to run—
Something stabbed into the back of his leg – and a searing pain tore through his body as all his muscles locked solid.
He fell, paralysed and helpless as a Taser’s agonising charge burned into his thigh. Through clenched eyes he saw a third, older man emerge from the van’s side door and stand over him, shouting orders to his companions. They dragged him across the sidewalk and threw him into the vehicle. The stun-gun shut off, the pain fading, but Eddie had no time to move before his attackers delivered several brutal revenge-fuelled kicks, then secured his wrists and ankles with zip-ties.
The third man slammed the door and jumped into the driver’s seat. The van peeled away with a skirl of overstressed tyres.
Eddie struggled to break loose, but the plastic strips were unyielding. ‘Get off me, you fuckers!’
‘Shut him up,’ ordered the driver, looking back. Late forties, American, narrow eyes and a small, mean mouth.
‘You come and shut me up, you fucking shithead! I’ll—’ The words choked in his throat as the first man reactivated the Taser, another excruciating jolt of electricity blazing through him. A piece of rag was forced into his mouth, then a length of duct tape slapped roughly across his cheeks to hold it in place. The blond glared down at him. Eddie realised where he had seen him before – Little Italy, a month earlier, mistaking him for the Nazi who had attacked Nina. Whatever the men wanted, they had been following him for some time.
The current ceased, but all Eddie could do was scream muffled obscenities as the van disappeared into the crowded streets of New York.
The cursor continued to blink relentlessly, still fixed in place on the laptop’s screen.
Nina stared at it, then sighed. Maybe she would feel more productive after lunch. Which reminded her: where was her lunch?
She looked at the clock on the menu bar. Even allowing for the detour to the soup store, Eddie was late. That wasn’t like him; as an ex-military man, timekeeping was engrained into him at almost a cellular level, and if there had been some problem en route he would have phoned. So where was he?
A knock at the front door. ‘Speak of the devil,’ she said, going to answer it.
She reached for the lock – then hesitated. Why would Eddie knock? He had keys. It was possible that his hands were full . . . but the New Yorker’s innate security-consciousness prompted her to look through the peephole.
It wasn’t Eddie.
Standing in the hallway were a tall, short-haired black man and a white woman with a dark bob and unflattering thick-framed glasses, both smartly dressed in light clothing. She didn’t recognise either. ‘Yeah?’ she called. ‘Who is it?’
‘Dr Wilde?’ said the woman. ‘We need to talk to you about your husband.’
Worry filled her. ‘What about my husband? Is he okay?’ Were they cops? Had they come to tell her that something had happened to Eddie?
‘Can we talk to you, please?’
Again, she was about to release the lock when caution returned. If they were cops, they would have identified
themselves by now. She put the chain on the door and opened it a crack. ‘Who are you? What’s—’
Nina leapt away in fright as the door was kicked open, the chain ripping from the wood. The man advanced on her, drawing a gun. The woman followed him inside. ‘Stay where you are, Dr Wilde,’ she snapped. ‘Shut up and you won’t get hurt.’
Another two men filed into the apartment behind them. ‘What the hell is this?’ Nina managed to say, outrage pushing through her fear. ‘What do you want?’
‘Come with us,’ said the man with the gun.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she replied. ‘Get the fuck out of my house!’
One of the other men twitched in distaste at the obscenity. The woman ignored it, producing a tablet computer. ‘You will come with us, or your husband suffers. Look.’ She switched on the device.
Ice ran through Nina’s veins as she saw the image on the screen. It was Eddie, pinned to the floor by two men, his hands bound behind his back and tape covering his mouth.
‘Hit him,’ said the woman. In response, the men punched their prisoner in the stomach. There was no sound, but Nina could almost hear the impacts. Eddie writhed in pain, cheeks blowing out as he struggled to breathe behind his gag.
‘No!’ she cried, horrified. ‘Let him go!’
‘If you come with us and do what you’re told, he’ll be safe,’ said the gunman. He gestured towards the open door. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Not until you—’
The woman cut her off. ‘Hit him again.’ The screen displayed another blow, this one to Eddie’s face. Blood oozed from his nostrils.
Nina stared at him, terror rising. ‘Oh God! Stop!’
‘Then come with us,’ the man repeated. ‘Now.’
It was a command that she had to obey. The two other men went back into the hall to form an escort. She stepped out after them, the man and woman falling into place behind. The latter pulled the door shut as they left.
They took her down to the street. She thought about yelling for help, but while the man had concealed his gun between himself and the woman, he was still pointing it at her back. And even if she did get help, their comrades had Eddie at their mercy. She gave the oblivious passers-by a last despairing look before being ushered into the rear of a van.
A large box, worryingly close in form to a coffin, occupied most of the space. Its lid was open to reveal a padded interior. ‘Get inside,’ said the woman as her partner closed the doors.
Nina stared fearfully at the confined space. ‘Are you insane? I’ll suffocate! I’m not getting in there.’
‘You’ll be okay,’ said the black man. The woman opened a small plastic case, revealing an ampoule of some colourless liquid – and a syringe. ‘We’re going to put you out for the journey.’
‘Fuck you!’ Nina spat. ‘You’re not injecting me with that!’
The woman’s mouth tightened, and she nodded to her companions. The two other men seized Nina by her arms, the African American tugging up her sleeve. ‘Clean it,’ the woman told him. ‘We can’t risk infection.’ He rubbed a sterile wipe over Nina’s pale forearm.
‘No, no!’ she cried, panic rising. ‘Don’t drug me, please! I’m pregnant!’
Her kidnappers froze. The woman looked at Nina’s belly, almost doing a double-take when she saw the small bulge. She examined it in profile, then straightened with an expression of dismay. ‘Simeon, I think she really is. We can’t drug her; we can’t risk killing an innocent. What do we do?’
‘I’ll call him,’ he replied, taking out a phone.
The two other men kept hold of Nina, tightly enough that she knew she couldn’t break free. Instead she used the unexpected pause to try to calm herself, and assess her captors. They were appalled at the thought of harming an unborn child – yet were more than willing to torture Eddie to force her to cooperate. And as she watched the man wait for his call to be answered, she realised that there was something very odd about his clothes. The woman’s, too. The style was modern, but the material was extremely coarse, as if they were made from burlap. That couldn’t be remotely comfortable, but they were apparently enduring it by choice. Who the hell were they?
Simeon finally got an answer. ‘Prophet,’ he said, the reverence in his voice suggesting to Nina that it was more than a code name, ‘we’ve got Dr Wilde, but there’s a problem. She’s pregnant. Anna thinks we can’t risk drugging her for the journey. What should we do?’
A man replied, his tone both thoughtful and authoritative, but Nina couldn’t make out what he was saying. ‘Yes . . . yes, we will,’ Simeon said when he’d finished. ‘Thank you.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Anna.
‘He agrees that harming an unborn child would be a sin, so we can’t drug her. But he doesn’t want her to know the Mission’s location.’ He gave the casket a meaningful look.
‘I am not getting in that box,’ Nina warned him.
‘You’re coming with us, no matter what.’ He raised his gun. ‘You don’t need your kneecaps to give birth.’
She felt a jolt of fear. His deadly earnestness warned her that he would have no compunction about carrying out the threat. But Anna spoke before he could do so. ‘We only need to blindfold her.’
Simeon nodded. He took off his tie and put it over Nina’s eyes, knotting it behind her head. It was made of the same rough, scratchy material as the rest of his clothing. She fidgeted, but was unable to shift it, her vision completely blocked.
‘Now what?’ she demanded, trying to hide her returning fear.
She heard movement as Simeon climbed into the front of the van and started it. ‘We’re taking you to the Prophet,’ said Anna. There was a thump as the coffin’s lid was closed, then hands pushed her to sit upon it. ‘Get comfortable – it’s going to take a while.’
3
Anna was not lying.
The journey to their final destination took several hours. The van headed out of New York to an airport; Nina had no idea which, but guessed it was a smaller satellite terminal rather than a major hub like JFK or LaGuardia, as they drove right up to a waiting private jet. She was quickly hustled aboard, and within minutes they were airborne.
Even in flight, she was not allowed to remove the blindfold. She lost track of time, only able to estimate that four or five more hours passed before the plane eventually landed.
The first thing she felt when she was escorted from the aircraft was heat – wherever she was, it was much closer to the equator than New York. The concrete had been baked by the sun, the only relief a wind blowing in from . . . the sea? There was a salty tang to the air. She was either on the coast, or very close to it.
She was also at a commercial airport, not a private field. The whine of idling airliner engines was audible over her own plane. But any hope of attracting attention was immediately dashed as she was bundled into a car and driven a short distance to a waiting helicopter. Squeezed between Simeon and Anna during the flight, she still had no opportunity to see where she was, although this leg of the journey was much shorter, barely fifteen minutes.
At last the helicopter touched down, ending the nightmare odyssey. It was searingly hot, and the ground underfoot felt like gritty sand. She heard the low crash of waves. Definitely on the coast – but where?
Gravel gave way to paved slabs as her captors guided her from the helicopter and up a slope. She entered shade. The rattle of a door being opened, then she was pushed into a building, the coolness of the air-conditioned interior like going from an oven into a fridge. ‘Wait here,’ ordered Simeon. The door closed behind her.
Nina stood still, listening. As far as she could tell, she was alone. She cautiously reached up to the blindfold and, when nobody challenged her, took it off.
After the increasingly frightening scenarios her mind had conjured up, the reality was almost disappointing. Her surroundings looked like any business traveller’s hotel suite, neat and comfortable but utterly characterless. The lights were off, the only i
llumination slits of daylight leaking through shutters outside the single window. But even this was dazzling after hours of darkness. Nina squinted as her eyes adjusted, then tried the door.
Locked.
She was unsurprised to find herself a prisoner. Going to the window, she discovered that it too was sealed. Even if she broke the glass, the metal shutter outside would keep her trapped. She turned . . .
And froze.
Hung on the rear wall was something that would definitely not have been found in a chain hotel. Instead of generic prints of landscapes and cities, she saw a tall cross, the wood raw and chipped. Crude iron nails jutted from its arms and base. The stylised symbol of an eye, six feet across, was painted on the wall behind it.
‘What the hell is this place?’ she whispered. The small relief on finding that the nails were speckled with rust and not blood did nothing to counter her unease and disorientation. Prophets, crosses, followers dressed in sackcloth – her kidnappers were clearly members of some religious sect, but what did they want from her?
She found a wall switch and turned on the lights, then checked the rest of the suite. Another door led to a bathroom, as anonymously businesslike as the main room, while a counter in one corner demarcated a small kitchen area. Cupboards contained an assortment of boxed and fresh ingredients, as well as pots and pans. Hunger pangs rose in her stomach, but she resisted the temptation to eat. First she wanted answers.
Nina went back into the main room. Two single beds, couch, armchair, desk. No television. The cross was the focus of attention – or contemplation.
A small box was mounted high in one corner. A red LED blinked as she moved: a security system with a motion sensor and camera. She was being watched. The eye behind the cross was more than merely symbolic.
Another box overlooked the kitchen. She was not surprised to discover a third surveying the bathroom. Every inch of the suite was under observation.
She returned to the first camera and put her hands on her hips as she glared up at it. ‘Okay, you can see me. When do I get to see you? I know you’re watching – what, are you afraid to show yourself? You’re scared of a pregnant woman?’