Chapter 9
Daniel
She had to give her body credit. In the last twenty-four hours it had been drugged, doped, flown around the world, tortured, and from the sea sponge texture of her tongue, severely dehydrated, yet it still had the wherewithal to get turned on by a hot guy. A hot guy responsible for keeping her in prison.
Because that’s what this place was, no matter how many spiral staircases and potted plants Elkin had surrounded her with. The clink. There were hi-def cameras everywhere and Plexiglas over the windows. Even her handsome jailer had the look of former military. Not doofhead former military—good former military. That didn’t bode well for her escape. Didn’t bode well for her concentration either; he was one seriously sexy drink of water. The way he’d looked kneeling in front of her, broad shoulders stretching out his black t-shirt, liquid brown eyes trying not to stare at her tits…It was enough to give a girl goosebumps.
He was older than her, maybe forty, but that wasn’t a deal breaker. The gray at his temples and the lines next to his eyes toned down the beefcake aspect of hotness, lending him a classiness he probably didn’t have ten years ago. And those sparks, holy shit, those sparks were something else.
Her mind intervened. Maybe you should be thinking about something else. Like maybe how to get the fuck out of here?
She groaned. Her hangover, temporarily distracted by a shiny new man, had returned with a vengeance. More than anything she wanted to lie down and sleep but she couldn’t afford to. The best time to lodge an escape was in the first couple of hours, when your captors didn’t know your habits, were likelier to underestimate your abilities. “Okay, reconnaissance. Go, go, go.”
She staggered around the house like the living dead, marveling at the ostentatiousness of her new surrounds. Apparently Elkin and Walshaw weren’t coming in to say goodbye, which was a shame. She’d been hoping for an indication of how long she was expected to stay in this fortress of opulence. Then again the answer was kind of obvious—until you confess. Der.
She spotted an intercom box gleaming invitingly on the wall of the kitchen. Elkin would have ripped the guts out of the system before she arrived, but there might be something salvageable in there. With a quick glance at the camera she leaned against the wall, her arms folded over her head in a 2004 album cover kind of way. She slid the intercom panel back and almost laughed. “No fucking way.”
She dug her bare fingers into the panel, shocking herself twice, until she found…
“…mad as hell.” A southern accent came through the intercom loud and clear. “I can’t remember ever seein’ John this angry.”
“That’s ‘cause you weren’t in Ramadi.” That was Tarzan’s voice, low and a little raspy with a faint Boston accent.
Daniel couldn’t punch the air and cheer so she celebrated by shuffling from foot to foot.
“How’d he react when he saw her?” Tarzan asked.
“He went real still then he saw what you were doin’ and got pissed. You shouldn’t have stood around talkin’ to her once the cuffs were off.”
“Fuck you, hayseed. What would you have done?”
“I don’t know.” The Southern guy sounded terrified at the thought. “She’s really…”
“Sexy. I know.” Colt sighed. “It’s a sign of how fucked this situation is that I’m not bragging about being the one to uncuff her. Where do you think she’s from? Australia?”
Daniel scowled.
“New Zealand, Ms Elkin said.”
“Oh yeah, the guy said something about the boxes coming from a storage garage there. Is that the place where they made Lord of The Rings?”
Daniel scowled even harder. Fucking Lord of the Rings. Was anyone ever going to know her proud nation for anything else? Thousands of years of history erased by a movie about magic jewelry.
“Yeah I think so.” The Southern guy hesitated. “Do you think she looks like Khaleesi?”
“What?”
“The dragon lady from Game of Thrones. Without the wig.”
Daniel bit the insides of her cheeks to keep a big shit-eating smile from her face. Whoever this honey-voiced soldier of fortune was he was bloody charming. Khaleesi.
“Huh, she kinda does, especially in this one.” Daniel had the feeling Colt was holding his phone next to whatever screen they were watching her on. “I think she looks like one of those sisters. You know the models with the epic asses?”
“The Kardashians?”
Colt hooted with laughter. “What do you know about the Kardashians?”
The other guy muttered something indecipherable.
Colt laughed again. “You gonna tell your girlfriend you’re getting paid to watch a girl who looks like Khaleesi?”
More mumbling Daniel couldn’t make out.
“Hard to believe she’s a terrorist, huh?” Tarzan’s voice was wistful, as if he too was wishing they’d met in sexier, less prison-y circumstances. “She must have signed up young to have done all that illegal shit already.”
Daniel’s mind snapped back into focus. So whoever had sold her out had also provided a neat little backstory. The cunt.
Southern Guy cleared his throat. “I don’t get it, I’ve heard of Grassroots but I don’t understand why John’s freakin’ out.”
A door slammed open and both men fell silent.
“We’re staying,” a third man announced. Daniel assumed it was the aforementioned John. “We’ll be sued if we don’t.”
A weird thing happened. The goosebumps Daniel felt when Colt touched her rose again. Whoever this guy was he sounded…interesting.
“What about winding up in Grassroots’ crosshairs?” Colt asked.
“We’ll just have to risk it. Once the month is up we can pull out, no questions asked, and I swear to god, Colt, if you say ‘that’s what she said’ I will fucking end you.”
No one said anything.
“Situation isn’t ideal,” John continued. “But there’s a chance her org won’t find out where she is. We’ve gotta stay vigilant and ride this out.”
“Boss, I was just tellin’ Colt I don’t get it.” The Southern Guy sounded apologetic. “Why is her being from Grassroots such a big deal? I mean, don’t they just sorta do pranks?”
“No, that’s what they want people to think. They’re eco-terrorists. You’ve seen her rap sheet.”
“But—
“Listen to me kid, an organization that funds itself through theft isn’t harmless just because they set a whale free.”
“It was two whales,” Daniel muttered. She decided to go look for some tea. You couldn’t hatch a good escape plan without tea.
“They’re like the Occupy movement on crack.” John continued sounding like a man who had a lot to get off his chest. “They target rich people. Steal from ‘em, leak their offshore accounts, say they’re doing it to expose inequality.”
Daniel was sure John had used air quotes around the last two words.
“Your family wasn’t targeted, were they?” the Southern boy asked.
“No,” John said shortly.
So Sexy Voice was a blue blood, huh? Daniel had a sharp, powerful craving for technology. Five minutes on an iPhone and she could know everything there was to know about John. Instead she had to speculate like this was fucking 1999.
“Hang on,” Colt said. “Wasn’t one of your old man’s friends involved in some scandal with Grassroots?”
“It wasn’t a scandal. They emptied his accounts and turned his financial records over to the IRS.”
“How’d he know it was Grassroots?” Colt asked.
“He got an anonymous email, it was blank except for a symbol. Tree inside a heart. The same one she has on her ankle.”
Daniel hunted determinedly through the cupboards, knowing three pairs of eyes were locked on her tattoo.
“That’s what they do,” John muttered, his voice dripping with dislike. “Target people and companies they don’t like and rob ‘em blind. Use the money to fund their movement.”
Actually, the money they’d borrowed had probably been funneled into solar power initiatives or sustainable farms for the poor but why deprive a guy of his righteous rich boy indignation? Daniel located a small dusty box of tea. English Breakfast, but still, tea was tea. Now to find a kettle…
“And what is their movement?” The young guy still sounded confused. “I know they don’t operate within the law but they’re not violent, are they? I mean, no offense, John, but wasn’t your dad’s friend a criminal? Didn’t he get charged with embezzlement?”
“That’s not the point. The point is they stole from him.”
“But if his money was dirty…”
Daniel grinned as eased an old kettle out from under the sink and began filling it with water. She liked Southern Guy.
“Kid, you’re not getting it. Grassroots doesn’t sew love beads; they recruit people like that girl downstairs to burn down housing estates and blow up coal mines, and no matter how fucking high-minded and Robin Hood they pretend to be they’re committing crimes.”
“Maybe,” Daniel said in an undertone. “Of course, you could say hoarding the earth’s resources and turning it into a deadened husk unfit for human existence is a crime, but what the hell, it’s not like we have long to debate the idea.”
She stopped suddenly, the water rushing into the kettle, overflowing spilling onto her hands. The world was ending. Why was it so easy to forget the world was ending? She looked around as though expecting to see a big clock ticking down. A reminder that there were only five and a half years left.
“Has she eaten yet?” John asked.
“No, why?”
“She looks fucked up. Middlebend took her blood, and with all the other shit in her system, if she doesn’t get some food in her she’ll die, and as convenient as that’d be we wouldn’t get paid.”
“Gee thanks, bro.” Daniel tipped the excess water out of the kettle and put it on the stove to boil.
“What do you mean ‘other shit in her system?’” Colt said.
“Listen to this.” There was a rustling of paper. “Ms. Daniel Esther Schwartz has tested positive for the following; MDMA, ecstasy, cannabis, LSD, PCP, cocaine, Adderall, Psilocybe subaeruginosa mushrooms—”
Daniel turned off the tap, put the kettle on to boil and wandered over to the intercom box.
“—Ayahuasca, speed, acid, and a low-grade horse tranquilizer.”
Daniel pressed the intercom button. “That last one is from being roofied.”
She would have gladly gone down a cup size to see the looks on their faces. It sounded like a fucking riot, lots of stomping and swearing and what sounded like a chair toppling over.
“Can she hear us?” Southern Guy asked. “I thought the intercoms were disconnected.”
“I reconnected them!” Daniel gave the camera a thumbs up. “I don’t know what was in that dossier you got on me, but electrics is kind of my thing. Anyway, pleased to meet you. What’s your name?”
“Uh, Sebast—”
There was a crackle and the intercom went dead. Daniel laughed. “Oh, but if it were that simple.”
She pulled a butter knife from the cutlery drawer and re-opened the panel. A few adjustments and…
“—you need to stay focused.”
“We are,” Colt protested.
“No, you’re acting like she’s some girl you’re tryna fuck in a nightclub restroom. Get your head together. She’s not a piece of ass, she’s a terrorist. Don’t let some slutty dress confuse you into thinking otherwise.”
Daniel pressed the intercom button. “Slutty dress? This thing cost eight hundred bucks.”
Their reaction was even funnier than the last time. The audio equivalent of listening to three chickens running around with their heads cut off.
“How are you doing this?” John said through gritted teeth.
“I’m very smart. By the way, what have you got against sluts? All men love sluts. They’re like the bacon of women.”
“Get off this line. Now.”
Daniel who was enjoying the addition of a steely tone to his already sexy voice was going to do no such thing. “Or what? You’ll beat me up?”
“You do not want to fuck with me Schwartz.”
“Or do I? What do you look like?”
Someone, it sounded like Colt, stifled a laugh then and the line went dead. Sighing Daniel re-opened the panel. This time when she tapped back in she could hear John shouting something from a distance. “Hello, anyone there?”
“You shouldn’t be doing this.” Colt didn’t sound pissed though, it seemed like he was trying not to laugh. “John’s gonna find some way to get you for this.”
“Let him try. I’m already bored and in jail. How much worse could it be?”
“You could be down off a dozen different drugs,” Colt said, his voice a little harder than before.
Daniel rolled her eyes. “Relax, Just Say No, it was a bender is all.”
“A bit of a bender? You could have OD’d on half that shit.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, it was just a bit of fun.”
“Fun that’s illegal.”
“Says who?”
“The government.”
Daniel snorted. “The government. Wow. You got me there. You know they used to say it was illegal to do anal right?”
There was another smothered laughing sound. “You know, I’m starting to see how you wound up in this position.”
“I wind up in all kinds of positions, Tarzan. Why don’t you come down here and I’ll show you?”
There was a very pregnant pause. Daniel would have given up another cup size to be looking at Colt’s face, seeing what he and Southern Boy were undoubtedly mouthing to one another.
“Look, we can’t keep talking to you. What d’you want, Daniel?”
Colt said her name like all Americans did—‘Daaaniel’—but it didn’t annoy her as much as it usually did. “I want lots of things. Right now I’d settle for a face-to-face meeting with your boss.”
“Not going to happen.”
“He accused me of being in hippie ISIS, don’t I get a chance to defend myself?”
“This isn’t a court of law, sweetheart.”
“Tell me about it. In a court of law you’re so rarely roofied and brought halfway around the world by a man called Alan.” Daniel stared moodily at the box of miserable looking tea. “You know I was in London yesterday? Today. I forget what the time difference is.”
“London’s eight hours ahead,” Southern Guy said helpfully.
Daniel perked up. “Hey, man, I didn’t catch your name before.”
A short pause and then Colt answered. “He’s Seb.”
Daniel twirled a lock of hair around her finger. Seb. Cute name for a cute guy. At least she assumed he was cute. In her head he looked like a movie cowboy, blonde hair, chaps, wheat hanging out of his mouth…“Hi Seb, thanks for saying I look like Khaleesi.”
“Aww, you’re embarrassing the boy,” Colt laughed. “He’s gone all pink.”
There was a dull thud as though Seb sunk his fist into Colt’s arm.
Daniel smiled. They were obviously good mates. Even though they were ruining her life it was nice to hear the affection in their voices. She hadn’t talked with a real friend since Cynthia died. The thought welled inside her like a wave and as it rose to her head, purple sparks began to pop behind her eyes. Her hand slid from the intercom button, slapping uselessly against her thigh.
“Colt, look.” Seb said. “Ms. Schwartz, are you okay?”
Daniel’s stomach heaved so hard she could almost taste it. “Yup. I’m fine. I’m…Very…Incredibly…Fine…”
“You need to eat something,” Colt said. “You’re dead on your feet.”
“Not as dead as your boss’d like me to be.”
There was an awkward silence was broken by the sound of approaching footsteps.
“Alright, you two, listen up, I think we should—”
With monumental effort Daniel forced her hand back to the intercom. “Hey John.”
“Goddamit!” John banged something loudly. A pot? Why would he have a pot? “Tell me how you keep rigging the intercom.”
“I will if you come down here and talk to me? We can have coffee. Or beer. Or something. I have no idea what’s in this house to be honest. Could be anything.”
“Stop reconnecting the intercom.”
Daniel yawned. “Is John short for Johnathon or are you just John?”
“I mean it—”
“Because rich people are often called Johnathon.”
“—get off this line!”
“But then I guess John’s still pretty regal. Pretty sure there was a King called John. Or maybe I’m thinking of George…”
“For fuck’s sake, if you don’t leave I’m going to rip this intercom out of the wall.”
“Or…” Daniel let her voice trail off tantalizingly. “We make a deal. You come down here and I’ll stop annoying you. Within reason.”
“Not going to happen.”
Daniel yawned again, her eyelids heavier than lead. “I thought you’d say that. Tell you what; I’ll give you some time to think. In the meantime I’m going to sit here at this kitchen counter, not drinking, not eating and not sleeping, and we’ll see who cracks first.”
“Do whatever you want I’m not gonna come and see you.”
Daniel laughed. “Yeah, you say that but if I die I think your paycheck’ll bounce.”
She kissed the intercom and left a faint purplish mark. She stared at it in wonder. Despite everything her lips had been through some of her lipstick remained. It was a mouth miracle. A mouthracle. Yawning so wide her jaw cracked she sat in one of the leathery kitchen stools and began to wait.