Thin Line (36 page)

Blood flowed from a gash on Brandon's forehead. I touched his wrist. He opened his eyes. They fluttered back in his head for a moment, and then his gaze
settled on me. He tried to speak, but his hoarse voice produced nothing coherent.

"Save it," I said, leaning in close to ensure he heard me. "I'm gonna move you back, out of the smoke."

He blinked a couple times and gave me a slight nod.

I rose, turned back toward Bear, still unconscious. Had it been the smoke? Was it choking him now? I didn't know if I'd have the strength to move him in
the current conditions. Perhaps by the time I returned from carrying Brandon, Bear would have regained consciousness.

Emergency vehicle strobe lights fought through the smoke surrounding the house. Maybe I wouldn't have to carry Bear. I decided to hoist Brandon over my
shoulder and carry him to the rescue crew. The clearing to the right of the house was wide enough that I could stay out of the thickest smoke. The wind
assisted by blowing most of it to the other side.

I dropped to my knee again, next to Brandon, and performed a quick assessment to verify nothing was severely broken, then worked my arms under the guy's
upper back and knees. My brain signaled that it was time to lift and rise.

But the blackness stopped that from happening.

MY HEAD FELT like a tire iron had split it in two. That was the first thing I noticed. The second was that my arms were behind my back and I couldn't
separate my wrists.

The air felt cool, still, and damp. My left eye wouldn't open. Forcing the issue produced a stabbing pain and flash of light, and both eyelids clenched
shut, resulting in additional discomfort. I sucked in a lungful of mold-ridden air. My chest burned as I held it in and counted back from eight. Exhaling,
I allowed my right eye to relax and open.

The room appeared to be carved out of the earth. It was dim, the only light coming from two windows that peeked out a half foot or so above ground. They
were coated in grime below the surface. I could make out trees in the distance. Not much else. The walls were slick with condensation. A leak produced a
droplet of water every five to ten seconds. It splashed like it was landing in a puddle and not on a barren floor.

Pain shot through my neck as I angled it downward. My shirt was missing. So were my pants. They'd left my socks and underwear on. Guess I should've been
thankful, but I wasn't. Not at that moment.

Turning to the right produced a tingle down that shoulder and into my arm. That corner of the room was dark. Oblong shapes pressed against the wall. Rakes,
maybe. An axe, perhaps.

I barely managed to turn my head to the left. Pain raced down my spine, leg, shoulder, arm, all the way to the tip of my pinky finger and toe. I feared a
fractured vertebra. Panic rose, and I drew in another moldy breath of air and held it. As the tension lifted, I wiggled my toes and fingers, and clenched
my hands into fists. I tried to draw my arms to the side again, but the lashing that bound them together at the wrist dug in. This produced no additional
pain. Possible diagnoses played on my mind. It could be as simple as a pinched nerve.

I'd go with that.

Millimeter by millimeter, I turned my head left until my chin hung above my shoulder. The pain stopped when my head did. Dried blood caked my shoulder. It
had flowed in rivers, now barren, down my back. From a wound on my head, I figured. With my left eyelid clamped shut, there was only so much I could see.
As I swept back to neutral position, I noticed a bundle of cloth moving against the wall. Chains rattled. They ran the length of the wall, attached to an
eye bolt near the ceiling, then disappeared into the dirty sheets on the ground. Slender and pale feet poked out from the linens. A woman groaned.

"Who's there?" I marveled at the grotesque sound emitted from my mouth.

The lump rose a few feet. The sheet fell away, revealing a head of dark, matted hair, thin black eyebrows, brown eyes. Her left cheek was bruised and
swollen. Other than that, her face appeared untouched.

"McSweeney," I said. "What the hell happened to you?"

She clenched her eyes shut and slowly swung her head side to side. The sheet continued to slide. They'd left her with a shirt, which had tinted brown from
the dirt she slept on. She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Each hand grasped the opposite forearm, drawing the chain tight.

"Your brother, ex, what happened to them?"

She lifted her head. Opened her eyes. Tears cascaded down both cheeks. They fell from her chin and landed on the dirty shirt. She took a couple of deep,
shaky breaths, and settled down.

"I haven't seen Brett," she said. "They won't tell me what they did with him."

"Tell me you know what this is all about."

"I was going to say the same to you." She offered a smile. The left corner of her mouth retreated. From the pain, presumably, of her cheek.

"What happened to your face?"

"Fell down the stairs." She looked away. Her gaze swept the floor.

She didn't have to say anything else. I knew what she meant.

Shadows raced across the wall like fleeing spirits. I turned my head. The move was met with resistance and pain, knifing through my spine and shoulders.
Two feet walked past a window. Another set followed a couple seconds later.

"We're about to get visitors," I said. "Get back under those sheets and don't come out. I don't care what they say or do or what sounds you hear out of me.
Stay under there."

"They know I'm here."

"That's fine, McSweeney. I don't want them finding any reason to beat on you too."

"Why won't you call me Reese?"

Before I could tell her it was because I hadn't thought to, the door opened. Wind barreled through the small room, diesel fumes riding the gust. The back
of my throat thickened with mucus after being inundated. Wherever we were, these guys had driven here to pay us this visit.

The first thing that appeared from behind the wall was the barrel of an M4 Carbine, a standard among FBI SWAT teams as well as the armed forces. I
recognized the man in possession of the rifle. Short, squat, thick, older. His cropped hair glistened with sweat. Odd, considering the temperature. The
ex-SEAL that I had encountered outside the brownstone. And then seen getting into a Mustang near I-95. He took a few steps into the room, raised the
weapon, and aimed it in my direction. Then he held still.

"For Panama," he said.

Joe Dunne, the man who'd contacted me for information on McLellan. The guy I'd seen for mere seconds outside of a hospital in McLean, Virginia, followed
the ex-SEAL. Joe cast a glance at me, then went over to the pile of sheets on the floor. They rustled as he peeled them back. The man whispered something
to McSweeney, too low for me to make out. Then he kissed her. She choked back a sob. Joe whispered something again, still inaudible, but the tone was
enough that I could tell he was angry.

Perhaps he'd flipped. Why? I supposed I was about to find out.

His slow footfalls echoed inside the chamber. Step by step he approached, looping around behind me. Unable to see out of my left eye, I scanned the floor
back and forth with my right. Perhaps his shadow would give him away. The footsteps stopped. A foot, maybe two, behind me. I could push off the floor,
explode back. Maybe neutralize him by landing the perfect reverse headbutt.

The ex-SEAL smiled as he white-knuckled the M4. Had he read my mind? Or was I as transparent as a piece of plastic wrap?

The glinting wire passed in front of me. Instinct told me to bring my arms up. That couldn't happen. The thin steel ligature wrapped around my neck and
closed in. I kicked back, but that only served to get me off balance and allow Joe to draw me in closer. I tried to kick, but couldn't get close. I caught
a glimpse of his face, beet red, lips curled back, teeth bared. Strands of spit hung from his lips. He grunted maniacally.

The edges of my vision darkened. I hadn't drawn a breath in close to a minute. Could have been longer. Wasn't keeping track. My shoulders, arms, torso, all
went limp.

Then Joe Dunne let go. He stepped back, and I crashed backward. The resulting slamming of my head onto the floor put me under once again.

I WAS SEMI-UPRIGHT, slumped back in the chair, when I came to. The base of my skull rested against the wood railing on the back. The dull pain in my head
was exacerbated by the light Joe Dunne was aiming at my face. It was the kind of device used when you wanted to see a thousand yards away in the dead of
night. His voice was the only reason I knew it was him.

He cut the light. Everything turned red. I couldn't see the end of my nose. Joe laughed and snapped his fingers in front of my face. If I could've located
them, I would have bitten one off. Since that wasn't a possibility, I tried the next best thing. Only I found my legs bound to the chair, so the sweeping
action only served to jerk the chair forward a couple inches.

Joe's hand came out of nowhere and slapped backhanded across my face. It stung, but did no damage. He taunted me, daring me to move again.

I did.

He struck again, a little harder, still backhanded.

The retinal-burned image of the light shrank and darkened and hollowed out. A pinprick at first, the space in the middle expanded. I saw Joe, a couple feet
away. He leaned forward. His gaze met mine.

Rising, Joe said, "Want to tell me what that disabled brainiac friend of yours was doing pinging my computer non-stop?"

I met his stare, held it, and said nothing. An educated guess would place Joe's office inside Quantico. One of the three possible destinations for the call
I'd placed from the Brooklyn café's bathroom.

Joe smiled, glanced down, dropped to a knee, and then brought his hands up swiftly. Held between them was the light, and he cut it on before I managed to
close my eye. Even with my lids shielding them, the beam burned. I felt the heat radiating across my cheeks, chin, lips, and forehead.

"Come on, Jack. This is the easy stuff." He switched it off. "Answer my question."

"Piss off." I opened my eyes. The light-etched image had returned, and I couldn't locate him.

He slapped me. Open handed. A move that would do nothing more than sting for a few seconds, but meant to humiliate me.

"Why don't you lean in closer so I can spit in your face?"

Joe laughed. The light-burn had faded again, leaving the man visible in a dark shade of crimson. I watched as he wiped his face with his left hand. Then
struck me in the mouth with his right. A dead-on shot that split one of his knuckles. And knocked my front right tooth loose. I drew from my reserves and
spit, sending a wave of white-hot pain through the nerves in my gums, and bloody saliva out in a mist. Some of it managed to strike his shirt. Most of it
fell on my chest and stomach.

"God dammit." Joe struck me again. The blow loosened the other front tooth. Split another of his knuckles, too. Blood flowed down Joe's fingers and dripped
to the floor. I imagined a puddle forming at his feet. I wanted it to grow into a pool.

"It really doesn't matter," Joe stepped back and shifted toward the sink. He turned on the water, ran his hand underneath. The basin turned a pinkish
color. When he spun around, a wet towel engulfed his hand like a misshaped boxing glove. He continued. "About your friend, I mean. The only one I wanted
was you. Well, friends of mine do. Bullet in the brain for the others, I told my guys. They did. The big freak and the little freak, both of them. Left for
dead."

I made no outward show of emotion, although at that moment my stomach clenched and twisted, and my heart pounded against my chest wall. Felt as though it
was a bull trying to take down a brick wall.

"What did he want, Jack?"

"Fuck you." The blood in my mouth spilled over my bottom lip, down my chin, dripped onto my chest. I added, "You should have seen Vogel beg for his life as
his blood spilled onto the floor."

Joe stood stoic, expressionless. What would his next move be? Slowly, a smile spread. "God, I wish that whore ex of mine was around to see you die."

I hadn't realized they had moved her when I was unconscious.

"What'd you do with her?"

"Not so much what I did, it's what I'll do, if you don't give me a few answers." He unwound the wet towel, pulling it tight with every reverse revolution.
"I'm not gonna lie to you, Noble. You're not leaving here alive. So, if you want to hold all this knowledge in, that's your prerogative. But, if you do,
Reese is going to join you in that grave she's digging." He nodded toward the window.

I turned my head in that direction. The pain I felt throughout my body doubled in intensity from earlier. Through the grime, I made out a pile of dirt, and
Reese standing in a pit wearing only her shirt. She heaved a shovel up and down, flinging earth behind her. Clumps stuck to her arms and bare legs. As my
head spun back toward Joe, the towel whipped in my direction. It caught me on my cheek with a thunderous crack. It felt as though my face had split open. I
waited for the warm flow to start. It didn't.

"Ever been water-boarded, Jack?" He drew the towel wide. I took in the look on Joe's face. He seemed excited about the prospect of torturing me not with
pain but mental anguish. He wound the towel up a couple times around each hand. His next step, presumably, would be to fix that towel across my face.

"Why me?" I said in an attempt to buy a few minutes. "I never had any beef with you. I don't remember your name from my days in the SIS. Did I step on your
toes one day? Take a case away from you?"

"You think this is over something that happened three or four years ago?"

I said nothing.

"Actually, it is." He circled behind me, tilted the chair back, turned it, and set me down. "Come on in here."

Words formed on my lips, but the breath needed to say them couldn't escape my tightening throat.

The bearded Syrian man that appeared had looked like a teenage boy the last time I'd seen him in person. Of course, Bashir al-Sharaa had been in his
twenties then, living in the U.S. on a student visa, committing low-level crimes for a group of terrorists that financed their intentions by running a
kidnapping ring. He'd done this while he waited for his own number to be called.