Love Immortal (36 page)

Collin practically jumped out of his seat;
this was exactly what he had been hoping for, an opportunity to
help. Kendryck and Percy looked uneasy, but they didn’t make any
attempt to push Collin back into the chair. Percy looked at Collin
sternly, the way he had when Collin was a child, just before he did
something by himself for the first time, like crossing the street,
or walking to school on his own. “You will do everything they tell
you. You will not make any attempt to rescue Jewell on your own. Do
you understand?”

“Yes sir,” Collin responded contritely trying
to suppress his eagerness. Percy stepped out of the way and Collin
walked toward Andy.

* * *

At the command center, the crisis negotiation
team had been patched into the line at the McKean house and two
negotiators had been sent to the McKean house as well. Because a
demand had been made, they hoped that they could negotiate Jewell
out of the situation which would be a lot safer for everyone.

After Collin and Andy arrived, they were
briefed on the situation. While the S.W.A.T. team had prepared a
rescue plan, they intended to wait for a couple more hours to see
if another call was made. Then the crisis negotiation team would
take over.

It was almost eight that evening before
another call came. It was from the same number as the previous
call. Tommy McKean picked up the phone. “Hello?” Kade Lee, one of
the crisis negotiators at the McKean house listened in on the
phone.

“We want the immortal. The girl will be
released unharmed if we have the immortal within twenty four
hours.” Kade hastily scribbled some notes on a pad next to
Tommy.

“What immortal?” Tommy asked, reading the
notes.

“Collin Sykes, the infidel.” The voice on the
other end of the phone responded curtly.

Tommy looked at Kade’s notes again before
responding. “How can we be certain that the hostage is alive?”
Tommy’s voice shook as he asked this question.

“We know about your surveillance. We’ll show
you the girl. Be assured though, that she will die should any
attempt be made at that time to remove her from our…care.”

“What time?” Tommy asked, glancing at the pad
again.

“Eight forty-five.” The voice was cold,
sinister. “You will have twenty four hours from that time to
produce the infidel. If we don’t have him by eight forty-five
tomorrow night, she will suffer the same fate he would have. We
will then hunt him relentlessly and mete out God’s justice to those
who oppose us.” There was an emptiness on the other end of the line
indicating that the caller had ended the call. Triangulation of the
caller’s location placed him near Reno. He was moving to avoid
being caught.

* * *

Someone eventually brought Jewell some water.
She didn’t know if she had been there for over a day, or not yet a
day. At one point, she smelled syrup and she could hear plastic
scraping on Styrofoam as one of her captors ate what she presumed
was breakfast. If that was true, she had been there for at least
twenty four hours.

When she heard the knock, and the scrape of
the lock at the door, she was relieved to know that she would have
a new guard. Some of them were actually nice. They were concerned
with her comfort and did what they could to make her more
comfortable, despite not being able to untie her. She had been to
the restroom three times. She looked forward to that, because it
gave her an opportunity to stretch and rub the pain from her
wrists. She was bound more loosely by the first man that had taken
her to the restroom, so the chafing had eased a bit, though she was
never bound loosely enough to escape.

When her next captor released her wrists and
ankles, binding her wrists in front of her, she had assumed that it
was so that she could be taken to the restroom again. Though she
didn’t have to go, she welcomed the opportunity to stretch, so she
didn’t argue; but when they left this time, rather than going
right, and then right again, she went right, and then left. She was
taken through another door onto a tile floor, led a short distance,
and then another door was opened. This one brought with it the
smell of the outdoors. The air was fresher, not musty, and smelled
of pavement and exhaust. The sound of the airplanes passing
overhead was deafening. She heard the door close silently behind
her, and she and her captor stood silently in front of the door.
What were they waiting for? They stood like that, silently for
several minutes before her captor turned and led her back inside,
securing her once again to the hard wooden chair in the empty,
musty smelling room.

At eight forty-five that night, Tommy McKean
sat in his daughter’s room, looking at the screen on her computer.
A secure internet link sent a live image video back to him of his
daughter, standing handcuffed and blindfolded in front of a
warehouse. She had bruises on her face and arms. A long, deep cut
went from her shoulder to her elbow.

Andy confirmed that the video he was viewing
was live. Jewell had walked from the warehouse on her own. She
walked stiffly, as if she had been held in a position that allowed
little movement. The look on her face was one of mixed terror, and
relief though why her father thought that he could see relief in
his daughter’s face was beyond him. Could it be that she thought
they were going to let her go? He knew that wasn’t the plan, not
until they had Collin. Not until they believed they had carried out
God’s justice.

Collin backed away from the screen that
everyone had gathered around and screamed. The rage he felt at the
pain Jewell had suffered at the hands of those monsters, at his
expense, infuriated him. “Why aren’t we doing anything?” He paced
furiously across the room to where Sheriff Payne was sitting. He
leaned down, placing his hands on either arm of the chair lowering
his face to within inches of the focus of his fury. “We know what
they want, why don’t we give it to them?” he hissed through
clenched teeth. Though his voice was barely louder than a whisper
it carried across the suddenly silent room. “She’s suffering what
was meant for me.”

Hugh Payne sighed and rubbed his face with
his hands. “What she’s suffering was not meant for you,” he stated
in a matter of fact tone. “What’s meant for you is far worse. The
men gathered in this room,” he scanned the gathered forces with his
eyes, “are experts at what they do. Let them do their job.”

Collin lowered his hands to his sides, making
fists that shook with his combined desperation and fury. He scanned
the room finding the captain of the S.W.A.T. team and holding the
Team Leader’s eyes with his own. “What are you waiting for?” His
fury had not diminished, though it had found a new focus. None of
the men in the room would be intimidated by Collin, but all
understood his pain.

“We’re waiting for information.” Jeff Wagner,
the platoon’s Team Leader responded calmly, returning Collin’s
glare with one filled with sympathy. “We need more information
before we move.” One problem they had was that the interior of the
warehouse was almost completely concealed, and getting close to the
warehouse was nearly impossible.

Currently, lack of information was their
biggest enemy. They didn’t know how many captors there were, or
where Jewell was being held, or the types or quantities of weapons
the captors had. Those on perimeter duty had guns and swords. If
the team chose to take an aggressive approach, they weren’t
comfortable that they would be able to locate and secure Jewell
before she was killed.

They had tried to establish communication
with the kidnappers, but all attempts had been rebuffed. In
addition, attempts to gain surveillance through gifts of food had
been refused. At this point, waiting was their best option.

Hugh’s phone rang. He looked around the room
and stepped into a corner to separate himself from the group. He
spoke into the phone in low tones. After a few minutes, he turned
and walked to Collin holding the phone out to him. “It’s Kendryck,”
he said as Collin looked at him questioningly, holding out his hand
to accept the phone.

“Hello?” He asked into the phone. “Yes sir.”
Collin was silent for several minutes. “Yes sir, I understand. I’ll
do what I can.” Collin hung up the phone and handed it to Sheriff
Payne. He looked at the S.W.A.T. leader. “I need someplace where I
can be alone, away from all of this activity. I need some time to
be by myself.”

Jeff was quiet for a moment as he thought. “I
reckon the best place for you to get some quiet would be that
office next to the bathroom. It’s furthest from the entrance, and
it might be far enough away from this room to give you some peace.”
His voice was full of sympathy.

“Thanks,” Collin replied, grabbing a chair by
its back and dragging it towards the office. As long as people
weren’t going in and out of the bathroom, it should be quiet enough
for him to concentrate. He didn’t know if he could do what Kendryck
had suggested, but he had to try. He placed the chair in the center
of the empty room and started thinking about Jewell. He tried to
think about every detail until he could see her in his mind, and
then he tried to speak to her. “Jewell, I need your help. Can you
hear me?”

* * *

Jewell sat tied back in her chair. Her guard
sat beside the door. He had fastened the E Z Cuffs loosely; for
which she was grateful. Her wrists were chafed and she could feel
the sores that had formed on both her arms and legs. She tried to
concentrate on rearranging herself so that she was as comfortable
as she could make herself. As she shifted from side to side trying
to get comfortable, she heard Collin’s voice, “Jewell, I need your
help. Can you hear me?” She looked up, not that she could see
anything through the blindfold. “Excuse me?” she said out loud.

“Excuse you for what?” her captor asked.

“I’m sorry; I thought I heard you say
something.” Her captor just grunted. Jewell shook her head, as if
something had crawled inside her head and she was trying to shake
it free. She thought she had heard something but wasn’t sure what
she was hearing, or if she was actually hearing anything.

Collin felt the shift in Jewell’s emotions
from desolation to confusion when he made contact. He had to try
harder.

“Jewell. Honeysuckle. It’s Collin. You’re
hearing me. Listen, I’m sorry I left. I love you. I can’t help you
though unless you help me. Please Jewell; I can’t help you unless
you can talk to me.” Collin focused all his energy into his
thought.

“Collin?” Jewell whispered.

She heard the guard shift in his chair. How
could she answer him without drawing attention? Did she need to
talk out loud, or could she think what she wanted to say.

She heard him! He couldn’t hear or understand
her words, but her feeling of relief washed over him in response to
his pleas. He didn’t know if she could understand his words either,
or just his feelings, but as he thought the words, he tried to
convey what he needed with his feelings as well. “Oh God,
Honeysuckle! God, I love you. Don’t give up. I need you to give me
some information about where you are and the people who are holding
you.” He tried to organize his thoughts so he could get as much
information as he could.

“We know you’re in the warehouse. Where are
you in the warehouse? We have a map. Just think about where you
are, don’t say anything out loud, and just think it.”

She knew she was probably hallucinating, but
at least it was better than sitting in silence waiting for someone
to attack her, or worse, kill her. Where was she? Now how was she
supposed to answer that? She was blindfolded and being led
everywhere they went. Wait, they had just gone outside. From the
front door, they had gone left, then right, and then left through a
door. After the door, they had gone right, walked down the hall a
little ways, and taken a right into the room. She concentrated, how
had they got to that room from the warehouse? Through a door, then
right, then right again into the room. And the bathroom, out the
door, then right and the bathroom was just down the hall on the
left. Those were the only places she had been.

Collin could almost feel her movements as she
traced the paths through the warehouse. He could feel her captors’
hands tight around her arm, controlling her, pulling her through
the office. He tried to suppress his anger and the overpowering
fear that Jewell was feeling as it washed through him, and tried to
focus on how she was moving. He could feel her movements as they
came in from outside, as they came in from the warehouse, and as
she went to the bathroom. He didn’t have the building blueprint
with him so he wrote down the directions. “Good love. Now tell me,
how many people are there with you?”

How many people, she thought? She tried to
think through the guards. Some of them she recognized as being
different, but some, she didn’t know if they were people that had
already been there before, or new. If they hadn’t left, the
original four were there, plus the two in the car. One of them had
guarded her at one point. She pressed her fingers into the arm of
the chair to keep track; that was six. She thought the first guy
with the hamburger may have been one of the people there when she
transferred cars; his voice had a distinctive Southern drawl, if
she had to describe it, she would say Redneck. One of her guards
wore Fahrenheit cologne; it smelled like he bathed in it. The only
reason she knew the smell was that Mike Forester at the firehouse
wore it. He said he wore it as a joke, Fahrenheit because he was a
fireman. She smiled a little thinking about Mike. As far as she
could count, there were at least nine, but she didn’t think there
were more than twenty.

At least nine, but no more than twenty he
thought. The emotions were flooding his mind quickly. He was trying
to make sense of what she was thinking. There was too much. The
terror in her thoughts was overwhelming.