Black Pawn (Michael Cailen Book 1) (23 page)

Jessica woke in the back of a van, gagged and blindfolded. 
Her feet were bound and hands tied behind her back.  She heard men talking in
another language.  It sounded like Russian.  She subtly rubbed the blindfold on
the floor of the van, trying to push it up off her eyes.

“Looks like someone's awake,” she heard a voice disturbingly
close to her say.

She felt a surge of adrenaline and her breathing became
rapid.

“You'd better calm down or you'll just pass out again,” the
man spoke again.  He had a faint Russian accent.

She tried to scream, but with the gag in her mouth it just
sounded like pathetic whimpers.  Terrified, she began to cry.

“There, there,” the man next to her spoke again.  “Want me
to hold you?  Would that calm you down?”  he said mockingly.

Feeling him touch her arm, she recoiled and tried to move
away.  One of the men in front said something in Russian to the man in the back,
and they all started laughing.  Her heart raced, she had no idea what they were
going to do to her.  On top of everything, her whole body hurt from the crash. 
It felt like every muscle in her body was torn and being tied in that position
only made it worse.  Her cries intensified.

“Okay, okay.  Calm down.  We'll stop teasing you.  We have a
few more hours before we reach our destination.  Just relax, we have orders not
to hurt you.”  The man in back tried to calm her.

It didn't work.  She was already so distressed and she felt
helpless and alone.  She wanted Michael to jump through the back door of the
van and rescue her.  She started wondering if maybe they had gotten him, too. 
She worried about Josh.  She continued sobbing uncontrollably.

The men started arguing in Russian while she cried.

“Alright, enough!” the man in back shouted.  “Stop crying! 
I told you we're not going to hurt you.  If you do not stop, I swear to God I
will make you stop!”

Jessica struggled to get a grip on her emotions.  She tried
to take deep, calming breaths but with the gag and her nose plugged from crying
it was hard to breath.  Noticing she was having trouble, the man tried to take
off the gag, but when she felt him near, she started panicking again.

“Calm down!  I'm going to take the gag off so you can
breath.”  He was getting frustrated with her.  Removing the gag from her mouth,
he held it up so she could blow her nose.

No longer gagged and now able to breathe a little better,
she tried to calm herself.  The man in the back with her looked upon her with
pity.

The driver said something again in Russian and the front
passenger and driver let out some hearty laughter, but the man in back wasn't
amused.  He barked something back at them and they immediately stopped laughing
and didn't say another word for the rest of the trip.

The next few hours felt like an eternity.  Jessica was
trying not to fall into total despair.  The van came to a stop and the driver
shut off the engine.  Her heart pounded in her chest as she heard the back
doors open.  The man sitting with her cut the ropes around her ankles then
grabbed her arm and forced her out of the truck.  Still blindfolded, she had no
idea where she was.  They walked across some sandy gravel or pavement, she
couldn't tell which.  She heard the familiar squeak of a rusty metal door
opening.  She was told to watch her step.  Her foot hit a raised edge and she
stepped up onto it as they entered the building.  She was now inside walking on
concrete.  She heard the door close behind her as her captor escorted her
across a large room.  She heard another door open.  Her shoulder hit the
doorway as she was pushed in.  Something cold touched her hands, startling
her.  The man was cutting the rope from her wrists.  He removed the blindfold
and turned to leave.  She found herself inside a tiny room with a cement floor
and metal walls.  A disgusting cot sat in the corner.   She quickly turned to
her captor.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she blurted.

The man stopped in the doorway and sighed.  He turned around
and gazed at her.  His brown eyes showed no emotion.  He appeared to be in his
thirties, with light brown hair that was cut short.  He was tall, well toned
and actually rather attractive.  “If you cause me any trouble, I will make you
go in your pants next time.  Understand?”

She nodded in compliance and he gestured for her to come to
him.  She glanced around the large room as they walked towards a set of metal
stairs on the other side.  It was a large warehouse that was mostly empty
except for a few stacked crates and some tables with automatic rifles on
them.   Two men sat at one of the tables playing cards.  They looked over at
her and their comrade as they walked across the floor.  The man never let go of
her arm as he escorted her up the stairs.

Located at the top of the stairs was a brightly lit office
with large windows that overlooked the warehouse.  They walked to another door
on the other side of the room revealing a small bathroom.

“You have two minutes exactly,” he said as he let go of her.

She looked in the mirror as she was about to wash her hands
and gasped at what she saw.  Small cuts covered her face from the accident. 
Glass had flown everywhere and it didn't spare her.  They weren't deep and she
didn't think she would have any lasting scars, but the sight of it took her by
surprise.  She started remembering more about the crash and worried about
Josh.  She wondered if Michael would ever know what happened to her and Josh or
even if he was still alive.  Her situation seemed hopeless and she was trying
hard to keep herself together.

A loud knock on the door startled her. 

“Your time is up.”

She was lead back to the room on the first floor.  It was
the first time she really looked at it and came to appreciate how disgustingly
filthy it was.  It made Michael's old hideout look like a five-star resort.  
The tiny mattress on the cot looked like it came straight from the dump.  It
was dirty and lumpy, and she thought she might rather lie down on the concrete
floor before laying her head on that.  But after closer inspection, the floor
wasn't much cleaner.   The door started to close behind her.

“Can I please have some water?” she asked before he managed
to shut it.

She heard him sigh. “Yes, I'll bring you some water.”

He shut the door and she heard a board slide across it,
barricading her in.  She looked again at her grungy surroundings.  Her body
hurt and she wanted to lie down, but she was so put off by the sight of the bed
she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Her feelings of helplessness started to take over.  She
could feel herself just barely hanging on.  Tears fell from her eyes and she
started to sob.  She took a deep breath, trying to regain control.

A few minutes passed and she heard the board slide off the
door and then it opened.   The man stood in the doorway and handed her two
bottles of water.  She took them and thanked him.  He started to close the
door.

“What's your name?” she asked as she wiped a stray tear from
her face.

He stopped, perhaps debating whether or not to tell her.

“What should I call you? In case I need something,” she
added.  He seemed to have a little compassion for her and she thought she might
try to use that to her advantage.

“Dmitri.”  He shut the door and she heard the board slide
back down against it.

She looked back at the disgusting cot and made a face. 
Grudgingly, she sat on the edge as she opened one of the bottles and nearly
drank it all at once.  Her body ached and it hurt to be sitting or standing. 
She resigned herself to having to lie on the wretched bed, cringing as she
did.  She tried to imagine that Michael and Josh were okay and that they were
already planning her rescue.  That hope was the only thing keeping her from
giving up.

Morgan strode through the hallways of the CIA holding two
cups of coffee.  He nodded at a few people he passed.  Reaching his destination,
he carefully balanced both cups in one hand as he knocked on a door with the
other.  The name plate beside the door read “Allen Price.”

A voice hollered through the door, “Come in!”

Still balancing the cups in one hand, he opened the door
with the other.

“Ed!  What a surprise.  You come bearing gifts too, I see.” 
Price relieved Morgan of one of his coffees.

“I was by that coffee place you love so much and thought I'd
pick one up for you.”

Price smiled and walked back to his desk.  “Have a seat. 
How are things?”

The office was small like Morgan's.  Just enough room for a
desk, a couple of chairs, filing cabinet and bookcase.  No window, just a
bright fluorescent light.

“Pretty good.  We finally wrapped up a big operation in
Columbia.  We have another going in Afghanistan that we're close to finishing. 
How about you?  Any more news on Cailen?”  Morgan sipped his coffee.

“Yeah, actually.  Remember I told you his prints came up in
a home invasion case just the other day?  Well they found two dead bodies there
the next day, and the woman who owns the home is missing.  I just got word this
morning his prints turned up at another crime scene.”

Morgan raised his eyebrows.  “Really?  Where?”

“Boston.  An apartment rented by a Joshua Lavene.  They had
worked together for many years, but as far as we could tell hadn't had any
contact for the past five years.  The place was trashed and there were two dead
inside.  No sign of Lavene.”

“Wow.  What the hell is going on?”

“I have no idea.  Some detectives working the case connected
Lavene to the home invasion case through calls made from a prepaid cell.  They
were on their way to question him when everything happened.  I think Cailen was
the one making the calls.  I still have more to read in the report.  I was just
looking it over when you came in.  It's all very strange.”

Morgan tried not to show how upset he was.  Hearing that
local police had connected Josh through phone records, yet Rick hadn't turned
up anything was enough to give him a coronary.  “Well it sounds like you have
your hands full,” Morgan remarked as he stood up.  “I'd better let you get back
to work.”  He smiled at Price.

“Thanks for the coffee, Ed.”  Price raised his cup to Morgan
and took a sip.

Morgan left Price's office and headed straight for Rick's. 
He didn't even bother knocking.  He just barged in.  “Whose side are you on?!”
he growled through gritted teeth.

Rick was a little surprised and frightened. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you found anything in the phone records that might
lead to Cailen?” he asked, wanting to see how incompetent Rick was.

Getting the feeling Morgan had learned about the phone
calls, Rick tried to come up with a reasonable explanation of why he hadn't
found anything.  “I just barely began looking over the phone records.  I
started with financials.”

“It took you all day to look over financial records?!” 
Morgan shouted.

Rick didn't utter another word.   He just stood there
looking petrified.  Morgan left in disgust.  Rick took a deep breath and
slumped down in his chair.  He swallowed hard and tried to stop shaking.  The
stress of everything was too much; his daughter being threatened, hiding things
from Morgan then having to deal with his wrath, reporting to Milovich.  He
entertained the thought of putting a gun to his head and ending it all.

Martin drove so Michael and Josh could get some much-needed
rest.   They slept a little, but it wasn't very restful.  Michael was worried
about Jessica, and Josh was dealing with the guilt of not being able to protect
her.

Michael woke about an hour before they reached Washington. 
They were starting to encounter some lunchtime traffic.  Martin slowed as the
highway became more congested.

The braking woke Josh, who sat up in the backseat rubbing
his eyes.  “Where are we?”

“We only have a little over an hour left,” Martin answered.

Josh nodded while yawning.

“Why don't we pull off now so I can call Kevin and see if he
came up with anything," Michael suggested. "Would help to know where
we're going.” 

They pulled off the highway and stopped at a gas station. 
Martin went in to buy gas.  Michael borrowed a pen and paper from the attendant,
then headed straight to the pay phone in the parking lot.

“I narrowed it down to three possibilities.  I'm sorry I
couldn't do better,” Kevin said.

“Three is better than three hundred,” Michael assured him.

“Yeah, I suppose if you look at it that way.”  Kevin gave
him the three possible Rick Hamiltons.

He looked down at the list in his hand and smiled.  “Thanks
for your help, Kevin.”

“Will you call me when you get her back?  Please.”

“I will.” Michael hung up the phone and returned to the
truck.  He handed the list to Martin as he got back in.  “You see one you
like?”  he asked with a slight grin.

Martin glanced at the addresses. “The second one.”

Josh leaned over the seat and took the list from Martin.
“Why the second one?”

“It's ten minutes from CIA headquarters,” Michael answered
as Martin started up the truck.

“Oh,” Josh said as though a light had gone off in his head.

Jessica managed to fall asleep on the gross, lumpy mattress. 
It helped that she was beyond exhausted.  She woke when she heard her door
open.  She quickly sat up as one of the guards entered her room, shutting shut
the door behind him.

The look in his eyes told her what he was about to do.  She
felt her body go numb as adrenaline raced through her veins.  She wasn't going
to give up without a fight, she told herself.

The man moved quickly towards her and she clambered to get
away, but there was no where to run.  She tried to take a swing at his head,
but he easily deflected her punch.  He threw her back on the bed and stepped
closer to her.

“I won't let you!”  She tried to make her determination
known.

The man laughed. “What makes you think you have a choice?”

He took another step towards her and she tried again to punch
and kick him away.  She started to feel she was doing as much damage as a
pillow when he backhanded her across the face and she fell to the floor dazed. 
Grabbing her off the floor, he did it again to the other side of her face.  He
threw her on the bed and punched her so hard she blacked out.

When she came back around, her shirt was pushed up and the
man was trying to get her pants off.  She felt despair.  She had no hope of
fending him off.  She started sobbing.  She wanted to throw up.  She remembered
what Michael had made her promise.  “Next time you find yourself in a
situation, and you see no way out.  I want you to fight like hell ... fight
like hell.”

She looked back at the man as he pulled off her pants and
then turned to throw them on the floor.  She saw her opening and took it.  She
kicked him in the groin as hard as she could.  He was not expecting it, to say
the least.  He looked at her with utter shock and surprise as he clutched his
genitals and fell to his knees.  She wasn't done.  She leapt up and with a
barrage of obscenities knocked him to the ground, kicking him.  She got on top
of him and began punching him as hard as she could in his face, calling him
every filthy name under the sun, the pain in his groin still crippling him.  He
tried to grab her wrists to stop her from punching, but he couldn't manage to
grab them.

Jessica was on a rampage.  Her wrath overflowed on the man
she had pinned to the ground.  Suddenly she felt an arm wrap around her waist
and she was being lifted up.  She didn't stop her attack.  With one final blow,
she kicked him in the crotch again.  The man rolled on his side and curled up
in a ball.  She was thrown on the bed again and finally saw who had grabbed
her.  It was Dmitri.  She started to fear that she was now very outnumbered.

Instead of attacking her, Dmitri looked down at the man
curled up on the floor.  “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted in Russian.

The man didn't reply.  He lay on the floor writhing in pain,
humiliated that he had been overtaken by a woman.  His ego was just as sore as
his genitals.

“Vlad is on his way here right now.  What do you think he
would do if he found you screwing around instead of guarding your post?” 
Dmitri continued yelling at him in Russian.  “You didn't even hear me come in! 
And where is Yuri?!”

“I sent him to patrol the perimeter.”  He coughed the words
out.

“A lot of good that did!  Go find him!” Dmitri grabbed him
by his hair and threw him out of the room.  After he was gone, Dmitri turned to
Jessica.  “Put your clothes on,” he said then looked down at the floor.

She wasted no time getting dressed.  She stood nervously
rubbing her arms, not knowing what to expect.

“My boss is on his way.”  He looked up at her.  “It would be
better for you to tell me where the drive is before he arrived.”

She shook her head.  “I don't know where it is.”

He studied her for a minute.  “I don't believe you, and
neither will my boss.  Where is it?”

“I don't know,” she said again, louder this time.

He grabbed her by the neck and pushed her against the wall,
nearly lifting her off the ground.  “Where is it?”  His tone was much more
forceful.

She clutched at his hand in vain. 

“I don't know,” she repeated fearfully.

With a groan of frustration he released her.  He appeared
upset, shaking his head as he left.

Jessica sat on the bed.  Her face stung and felt like it was
burning.  Her hands shook.  She started thinking about escaping.  She decided
even if she got killed trying to escape, it would be better than the fate she
would suffer at the hands of her captors.

DMITRI STOOD
just outside the warehouse as Milovich
and his bodyguard drove up.  Another car followed with two more men.  One
carried a small cosmetic bag.  They were greeted by Dmitri and entered the
warehouse.  The two men from the second car started chatting with the guards
already there.  Milovich's bodyguard never left his side.

“I don't suppose she has told you where the drive is?” 
Milovich asked Dmitri.

He shook his head.  “She says she doesn't know where it is.”

“Do you believe her?”

Dmitri shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Do you think it could still be in the apartment?”

“I searched everywhere.  If they hid it, they hid it very
well.”

Milovich nodded.  “Well, even if she doesn't know.   It will
be fun.”  An evil smile crossed his lips as he walked alongside Dmitri.   He
turned back to his men chatting with the guards.  “What do I pay you for?  Get
over here!”

JESSICA HAD
been trying to listen to what was going
on outside her door.  She stepped back when she heard the door opening.  She nearly
fainted in fear when she saw Milovich's giant bodyguard in the doorway.  While
dressed in a nice suit, the lifeless look in his eyes and the scars on his face
and neck made him look terrifying.  He grabbed her arm and yanked her from the
room.

She glanced at the six other men standing around watching
her.  The bodyguard brought her to a chair and sat her down.  Dmitri was by a
table, mixing something in a tiny metal container.  One of the men stepped
forward.  The best dressed out of everyone, she figured he was in charge.  She
looked back at Dmitri.  He was holding a lighter under the cup.  She started to
get an idea of what was about to happen.  She swallowed hard and her breathing
became more rapid.

“Miss Nickoli,” Milovich addressed her.  “Do you know who I
am?”

She shook her head as she watched Dmitri pull a syringe from
the bag on the table and filled it with whatever was in the cup.  She looked
back at Milovich.

“Well, I guess that's not important is it?”  He smiled.  His
smile looked sincere and disarming, but with all the other thugs standing
around and with what she just witnessed Dmitri doing, she wasn't feeling any
more relaxed than she was a second ago.  “What is important is the location of
the flash drive.”  His smile vanished, and she saw a cold and ruthless man
standing before her.

She started to panic as Dmitri turned around, placing the
syringe on the table.  Frantically, she looked for some way to escape.

“Just tell me where it is, and you can go.”  He smiled
again.

“I don't know where it is.”

“Where do you think it is?  You must have some idea.”  He
was still smiling.

“I don't know.”

Milovich sighed, but didn't seem upset.  It was more like a
sigh of contentment than of frustration.  “Are you familiar with heroin Miss
Nickoli?”

She didn't answer.  She was preparing herself to make a run
for it and hope for the best.

“Tolerance builds quickly and addiction can be very hard to
overcome.”  He was still smiling and more and more it was giving her the
creeps.  “Withdrawal can be quite insufferable, and sometimes deadly.  Tell me
where the drive is and you won't have to learn that from personal experience.” 
The smile was gone again.

She couldn't stay there any longer.  She had to try to get
away.  Most of the men were gathered off to her right.  She saw an opening to
her left.  She shot up from her chair and slipped right past the group of men
before they had time to react.  They all went after her.  She didn't manage to
open the door before one of Milovich's men caught up to her.

It took two men to drag her back kicking and screaming. 
They tried to sit her in the chair, but she fought so hard they ended up having
to wrestle her to the ground.  A third man came to assist.  They held her down
and extended her arm as she screamed and pleaded with them not to do it. 
Dmitri tied a tourniquet around her upper arm and in seconds it was over.  Her
body went limp and the men stepped away.

Milovich stood over her, smiling.  “Soon, you will be
begging for it.”

She tried to focus her eyes, but they just wanted to close. 
She fought to stay awake.  Her whole body relaxed and then she was unconscious.

Milovich didn't look happy.  He turned to Dmitri.  “How much
did you give her?”

Dmitri looked surprised.  “I only gave her a little.”

He looked back at Jessica.  “Is she still alive?”

Dmitri knelt down and checked her pulse.  “Yes, she's still
alive.”

“Good.  Don't go breaking my toys, Dmitri.”

Dmitri stood up.  “No sir.”

“Besides, we might need her to get the drive back from
Cailen.”

Dmitri looked like he had just seen a ghost.

“Is something wrong?” Milovich asked.

“No.”  Dmitri smiled.  “Nothing.”