My Lucite container is attached to one … only, in this case, I’m the cargo.
I turn my attention to the area inside my cage and find a camper toilet, an insulated cooler, a blanket, and a pillow. There’s one more item, located on top of the cooler: a laptop computer.
I appear to be alone in this giant underground parking lot. I’m assuming “underground,” because there are no windows and no natural light, and moments ago, the room was so dark it seems impossible it could be located above ground.
My inner voice says, How long have we been stuck here, Sam?
I look at my watch: April 22, 2009.
That doesn’t make sense.
It was April 12 a few hours ago.
There’s no way I’ve been here ten days!
But what if you have? My inner voice says. Not in this cage, maybe, but what if they put you in a room somewhere to monitor you?
“Monitor me for what?” I ask myself.
What if they were waiting for you to shit out the monitoring device you swallowed? Maybe they kept you sedated somewhere all this time, and when you finally gave up the device, they brought you here.
“No,” I tell myself. “Wherever they would have put me, Creed would have found me in less than ten days. I’m still holding the device. He’s coming for me. He’ll get us out of here.”
I look at my watch again. Three hours have passed, and it’s now April 2, 2008. I watch the hours, minutes, and calendar going forward and backward randomly through time. Every few seconds, my watch resets to a different date and time, none of which hold any significance that I can determine.
I shout, “You people are nuts! Just tell me what you want and let us go!”
Across the parking lot, I see a huge garage-type door start to rise. When it gets to full height, the cab of a large truck enters. As it continues through the door, I can see that the bed of the truck is made of Lucite and has the same dimensions as my cage, which confirms everything I suspect about what’s beneath my cage.
I’m trapped in a Lucite container attached to a flatbed truck.
The other truck pulls up alongside mine and stops maybe twelve feet away. The windows and windshield of the truck’s cab are mirrored, so there’s no way to tell who’s driving it. I concentrate on the part I can see. I’m staring at a Lucite cage just like mine, equipped just like mine, except that it has no laptop that I can see. In the cage across from me, the blanket is covering what appears to be a body. I bang my fist against the transparent wall that holds me captive and shout, “Rachel!”
I bang the Lucite wall again and continue to shout her name, but I already know these units are completely soundproofed because the huge truck across from me entered the room and stopped a few feet away from me and I never heard the slightest sound as it did so.
I scream my wife’s name again and again. I kick the wall in frustration. I pick up the cooler and smash it against the wall, but it rebounds like a rubber hammer hitting a concrete wall. Several water bottles and wrapped sandwiches fly out and scatter across the floor of my cage. I stand with my palms pressed against the Lucite wall and stare at the motionless form under the blanket for what seems like an hour.
Could they have killed her? Beaten her to death? Have I lost the love of my life because of a stupid computer program?
Then I think I see the slightest movement. Are my eyes playing a trick on me? No—there it is again. She’s alive! Thank God! It’s destroying me to think about seeing Rachel like this, but I need to see her, need to reassure her, need to let her know how sorry I am to have caused all this to happen.
The blanket finally pushes away, and I can see it’s not Rachel who’s trapped in the cage twelve feet away from me.
My heart sinks.
It’s Donovan Creed.
Chapter 20
A voice comes through a hidden speaker in the floor of my cubicle.
“Mr. Case, I believe you already know the man in the unit before you. His name is Donovan Creed. Mr. Creed is a former CIA assassin and currently works for the Department of Homeland Security as a clandestine terrorist assassin. He tests crowd control weapons for the United States Army and performs freelance contract killing for various people, including a regional underworld crime boss.”
The voice goes silent. I look at Creed hopefully, but he’s offering no expression to encourage me. I wonder if his cubical is getting the sound. I turn my palms upward in the universal gesture, “What’s going on?”
Creed shrugs.
“That’s it?” I scream. “You promised me! I was counting on you! You were my only hope!”
Creed appears disinterested. He looks away, walks over to his toilet, and starts peeing.
The voice in my cubicle says, “Mr. Case—may I call you, Sam?” The voice pauses a moment and then continues, “There will be no rescue, Sam, not until you give us the codes. You do this by powering up your laptop and entering them. You can start with Mr. Creed’s.” The voice pauses again and then says, “Don’t waste your time trying to access the Internet to attempt a rescue. Your computer is not equipped for online access.”
When Creed finishes peeing, I start pounding my hands on the wall of my cell to get his attention. I hurl a number of curses at him for good measure, but he appears completely oblivious to the commotion I’m making. Instead, he goes to the far corner of his cell and presses his hands against the Lucite edges. He works his hands up and down the clear material, staring intently at the intersections of Lucite, as if trying to see what he’s gotten himself into and how he might possibly get out.
“It’s useless!” I shout.
The voice comes back on. “You’re right, Sam; it is useless. But don’t fault Mr. Creed. He’s not accustomed to being helpless. Nor is he likely to accept his plight quickly. You, on the other hand, are fortunate. You have something we want. Creed’s going to die in his cell eventually, but you can leave whenever you wish. All you have to do is enter the codes.”
“So … you can hear me?” I say.
“We can hear you.”
“Where’s Rachel?”
“Somewhere safe,” the voice says. “And she’ll continue to be safe as long as you cooperate.”
“I want to see her.”
“You’re in no position to make demands, Sam. However, if you’re willing to give us Mr. Creed’s code, we’ll arrange for you to see her briefly.”
“I don’t know Creed’s code or any of the others.”
“You told our associate you had them memorized.”
“I lied. But if you can get me my personal computer, I might be able to access the data files—”
“Not going to happen, Sam.”
“I might be able to reproduce them,” I say, “but I’m going to need some time.”
“Take all the time you need, Sam. If you ration properly, you’ve got several days worth of food and water. But be advised, when your provisions run out, they won’t be replenished.”
“You’d let me starve?”
“Your health, like Rachel’s, is in your hands. You are free to go as soon as you provide all eighteen access codes.”
“You are aware,” I say, “that the access codes only begin the process, correct? My clients are the only ones who can access the funds by entering a second code, known only to them.”
“That being the case,” the voice says, “it’s not such a big deal for you to reveal them. And when you do so, we’ll set you free.”
“If I give you the codes, you’ll kill me,” I say.
“Not true.”
“Prove it.”
He pauses.
“We’ll do that, Sam. All in good time.”
I glance at Creed. He’s still inspecting his enclosure, moving his hands across the surfaces, slowly but surely, inch by inch. I notice he hasn’t pushed or hit or kicked the walls or thrown anything against them, as I did. Perhaps when he gets to that point, he’ll realize there’s no way out. Then maybe he’ll give me some sort of sig
nal or at least attempt to communicate.
I remove a sandwich from my cooler and begin eating. No need to worry about passing the metal tracking device Creed made me swallow. He’s found me already, for whatever that’s worth.
For the time being, I appear to be okay. While I’m not convinced they’re going to let me go after I give them the codes, I’m encouraged that they’re saying they will and even more encouraged by their comment about proving it to me “in good time.”
Chapter 21
Many hours have passed. I have no way of knowing the exact number. I’ve been unable to sleep because the lights have been burning since the moment they were turned on. There is a ventilation system that recirculates the air every fifteen or twenty minutes. I still haven’t powered up the computer in my cell. The voice has remained silent since making the promise about offering proof.
I glance at Creed’s cell. In all this time, he’s never taken his eyes or hands off the walls. He’s lying on the floor now, moving his hands along the bottom edge. He’s really pissing me off. I wonder how long he intends to touch the glass before trying to do something useful.
Suddenly, the lights go off and stay off for a couple of minutes. When they come back on, Creed’s truck begins moving. I wonder why they don’t want me to see the driver, but I’m thinking that’s a good thing. If they intended to kill me, they wouldn’t care if I could identify them, right?
His truck moves toward the far wall, maybe a hundred feet away, and the lights go off again. This time, they stay off for—I’m guessing now—fifteen minutes. When they come back on, Creed’s cage is covered with a black tarpaulin. Then the garage-type door opens again and another truck enters.
They’re going to show me Rachel!
The voice clicks on. “Sam, stand by. We’re going to make a gesture of good faith.”
The back part of the truck is covered with a red tarpaulin. It comes to a stop at an extreme angle, with a portion of the back facing me. Then another truck enters through the same door. This one has a blue tarp covering the truck bed. The driver of this truck positions it in such a way that our three trucks have formed a triangle, with my truck being the base. The lights go out again for a few minutes, and when they come on, I see that a small section of tarp on each truck has been cut away in such a manner I can see one person in each cage and they can see me.
But they can’t see each other.
The two people are Rachel and Karen Vogel. Karen sees me and immediately starts sobbing and banging on her glass. Rachel appears to be cursing me.
The voice says, “This should be interesting, Sam. Keep in mind, they can’t see each other or hear each other; nor can they hear you.”
Suddenly, I can hear both women through my speakers. Karen is shouting, “Sam! Sam! Can you hear me?”
I look at her and nod. Then I look at Rachel. She’s following my gaze but can’t see anything because her blue tarp is blocking her vision. She has no idea there’s a truck, a cage, or a woman less than ten feet away. As I turn back to Karen, I can see her also trying to follow my vision.
“What’s there, Sam? Are you safe?” she says.
“Look at me, you son of a bitch,” Rachel hisses. “Look at me!” she shouts.
I look at her.
She struggles to make her voice steady. “You can hear me?”
I nod.
“Give them the fucking codes and let’s get out of here,” she says.
I know Rachel can’t hear me so I mouth the words, “Are you okay?”
“Why can’t I hear you?” she says.
I glance at Karen. “Who are you talking to?” she says. “Can you hear me, Sam?”
I nod.
Rachel says, “Who the fuck are you talking to?”
I sigh. The voice was right. It is interesting.
Karen says, “Sam, look at me. Are you okay?”
I mouth, “I’m fi ne. Are you okay?”
“I can’t hear you, Sam. I’m scared. What’s happening?”
I shake my head while mouthing the words, “I don’t know.”
“Sam?” she says. “Can you still hear me?”
“Yes.”
“I love you.”
I bite my lip.
“Do you love me?”
I nod. “Yes.”
Rachel says, “Sam, look at me. What’s going on? Who are you talking to?”
I gesture toward my ears to imply I can no longer hear her.
My captor’s voice says, “Chicken shit.”
I say, “No kidding.”
In my cell, Rachel’s and Karen’s voices suddenly go mute.
The voice says, “Sam, we’ve shown good faith. Now it’s your turn.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve proven to you that Rachel is alive and unharmed. And we’ve shown you Karen as a bonus.”
“So what?” I say. “You said you’d give me proof that you’ll let us go.”
“That’s not quite what I said. But let’s not split hairs. We’re still willing to let you go if you enter the codes.”
“What about Rachel and Karen?”
“We have plans for all of you,” the voice says. “But those plans depend entirely on your cooperation.”
“What kind of plans?” I say.
“For now, we’re going to play a little game,” the voice says. “We’ll start by having you turn on your computer.”
I pause a minute. The voice says, “We’re not kidding around, Sam. Just power up your computer and look at the screen. The rest is up to you.”
I sit on the floor and put the computer in my lap. I glance at the two girls and see their mouths moving a hundred miles an hour. I can tell they’re both asking me over and over if I can hear them. Jesus, you’d think they’d get a clue. No, I can’t fucking hear you! I say in my head.
I power up the computer. Moments later, I hear the familiar tune that tells me it’s ready. A screen appears with the numbers one through eighteen, one under the other. To the right of each number, there are sixteen white boxes and a larger yellow box. I’m supposed to put the codes in the boxes. I wonder what the yellow boxes are for.
Ah, I realize. The names.
I instantly start typing on the keypad, trying to find a way to get online. But I can’t even get beyond this screen.
“Your computer is locked,” the voice says.
“I’m not going to give you the codes,” I say.
“You might want to reconsider.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because if you don’t give us at least one of the codes in the next sixty seconds, we’re going to remove the girls’ covers, turn on their speakers, and tell each of them what you’ve been up to with the other.”
“They’re going to find out anyway,” I say. “It’s just a matter of time.”
“Is that your final answer?” the voice asks.
I lean to my right and look at Creed’s truck.
“He’s not going anywhere,” the voice says.
“Okay,” I say.
“Good choice. Now enter a code.”
“No,” I say. “I meant okay, you can remove the tarps and tell the girls what I’ve been up to.”
I think I hear the voice sigh. “It’s your funeral,” he says.
The lights go out.
Chapter 22
When the lights come on, the tarps have been removed. Now I can see both cages, both girls, and they can see each other. They stare at each other and then at me. The voice says, “They can see each other, but we haven’t turned on their speakers yet. It’s not too late, Sam. Karen doesn’t know you’re married, and Rachel doesn’t know you’re cheating. Type in a code, and we’ll tell them a story to get you off the hook.”
I look at the girls. Each of them saw me talking to someone else. Now they know it was the other girl.
“Fuck it,” I say. “I’m toast.”
“Very well,” the voice says. “But rest assured, you will give us the code
s. And soon.”
“We’ll see.”
“We will indeed.”
The girls’ mikes and speakers are activated, as are mine. We can all hear each other. Rachel starts things off. “Who are you?” she says to Karen. To me, she says, “You know her? Who is she?”
Karen says, “Sam, I don’t understand. Please tell me what’s going on. I love you, Sam.”
I sigh, thinking, Oh shit!
Rachel says, “You what? What the fuck did you just say?”
Karen says, “Sam, who is this woman?”
“She’s—”
“I’m his wife!” Rachel says. “And you—what?—you love him? You’re fucking my husband?”
Karen starts to say something to Rachel, changes her mind, and looks at me. She’s frightened and confused. “Sam,” she says. “Please. It’s not true. It can’t be true.”
I grimace at Karen to show how pained I am to have to reveal it to her this way, in this setting. It’s a sincere look. I’m honestly in pain over this. But of course, she is too, and her pain is ten times greater.
“You’re married?” she says.
When I fail to answer, Karen bursts into tears. She covers her face with her hands and sobs. Her shoulders and upper body shake and heave. “No!” she cries. “Oh God, no!” Then she says, “Why? Oh my God, Sam. Why?”
“Why?” Rachel sneers. “He probably likes fucking you, that’s why.” She narrows her eyes and looks at me. “Don’t you, Sam?”
I give my wife an angry look. “What’s that?” Rachel says. “You do like fucking her? Or you don’t? Which is it?”
Karen lowers her hands slightly and looks up at me. Apparently, this is something she would like to hear.