Part One.
There is no way he could have gotten the gun into the room. He could not have brought that in with him. That means somebody is in on this; somebody in the FBI is helping Jonathan F. Campbell pull this impossible stunt. Who the hell?
This is going through Sam's mind as she stands against the reflective interrogation room window, hands almost disbelievingly raised in front of her in what looks more like a gesture of comfort or solace than of surrender. Jack sits at the metal table, unmoving, hands out in front of him. His back is to her; she wishes she could see his face, watch for cues, something, but no such luck. He is talking, trying to bring Campbell down, get them out of this the easy way. Her part, at the moment, is to be as still as possible so as not to distract either one of them.
She wonders which techie is on the other side of the glass. Rosamond, maybe, or Ben. By now they'll have called in the situation. She wonders who all is behind her in that invisible room, watching the show.
Campbell is shaking his head, but not the gun. He is uncomfortable, but not freaked out. With the detached part of her brain that makes her a good cop, Sam realizes that the talking isn't going to work. Things are going to get interesting.
"I want you to leave this room." Campbell speaking to Jack, quietly, firmly. "Now."
Neither Jack nor Sam moves, because they both know what this is now. Campbell is hunting for a hostage, and he's going to take the least threatening prey. Always the girl, thinks Sam. They've always gotta hold the girl.
Jack hasn't left, and Campbell's getting angry. "I am not bluffing." His finger moves on the trigger, and Sam realizes with a start that he's serious. He really is willing to shoot an FBI agent right in the middle of the FBI office. Jonathan Campbell is a psychopath. She's got to act.
"Jack."
"Sam, don't."
"Go ahead."
"I am not leaving this room."
Campbell's finger on the trigger. "Jack, go!"
A moment. Jack rises. Campbell's gun rises with him, steady, straight. Jack turns his back on the gun and its holder, looks at Sam. "You sure about this?"
"Go."
Slowly, stiffly, he does. The door clicks shut behind him. Sam stares across the room at the man whose gun is now aimed directly at her head.
As soon as the door shuts, Jack strides toward the phone. Before he reaches it, however, it rings. He looks up; Sam is on the phone, looking blindly out at him.
He fumbles to pick up the receiver. "Sam?"
He watches her lick her lips. "He wants you to turn on the mic."
The microphone - suddenly Jack realizes that he is alone in this room. Where is the tech operator who was supposed to be recording this interview? Why isn't the mic already on, recording everything being said on the other side of the glass? Then he freezes. A better question: how does Campbell know the microphone is off?
No time for that now. Not with Sam and that gun alone in the other room. He flicks a switch. Presses 'record'. "Mic is on."
Sam hangs up the phone.
"Sam wait - " But he knows she doesn't have a choice. And anyway, he's got to call for backup.
Campbell's voice whispers into the room. "Jack Malone." The figures behind the glass look like dolls, figurines in a display case, so still.
"Jack Malone. Please examine the door you just went through. You will notice a wire and a red light."
He does. Something inside him drops.
"That is because that door is wired to blow the next time it opens. The same is true of the other door in your tiny room. This switch," holding it up in the hand not keeping the gun on Sam's head, "disables both bombs. If all goes well, we will all be walking out of here. But not before I set some things straight."
Jack's hands curl into fists.
"You will find that all phone lines and communications have been cut or locked, save for this one phone connection." Nodding at the interrogation room phone. "I am keeping you here because you will eventually be necessary. But not for a while, Jack. I don't need you right now. So why don't you take a nap and wait your turn? Sleep, Jack."
Suddenly the vent at Jack's feet is smoking.
"Have a lovely rest."
Sam's voice, faintly across the mic - "What are you doing?"
And then, the smoke stops. Holding his breath, Jack bends down to examine the vent, pulls off the grate, picks up the metal thing inside. A dud. He could laugh if he wasn't so concerned. A dud.
Jack carefully replaces the cylinder. He takes off his suit jacket, shoves it into the vent, just in case. Replaces the grate and stands, a grim victor.
Then he looks back into the room, and her slim form, so familiar, so fragile, reminds him that he has yet to win at all.
"What did you do?"
Campbell studies her, glances at the mirror-like window, answers almost absently. "Just put him out for a while." Without looking, he stashes the remote switch back in his pocket. The silence stretches.
Sam's arms are getting stiff. "So what's the plan, here, Jonathan? Why all this effort? What are you hoping to gain?"
"I told you. We're going to set some things straight."
"Okay, what things?"
He shakes his head. "It's not that simple."
"Let's make it simple. Just tell me what you want and I'll do my best to make it happen."
"Oh yeah? Well here's what I want." A pause. "I want you to lie down on that table."
She doesn't move. "Jonathan, I think we should - "
"Stop, okay, just stop. Get on the table."
His cool is already inching toward the edge. She wants to push him just far enough for him to lose his balance; but if he goes over, she's the one who will take the fall.
"Okay, Jonathan, I'm getting on the table. Okay." She watches him a moment, eye contact, making sure he knows she is cooperating, gauging his mood. She slowly pulls herself up until she is sitting on the table. Then, deep breath, she lowers her upper body to the cold metal. She is lying flat on her back, staring at the ceiling. She can see him out of the corner of her eye. He stuffs the gun in the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back.
"Now we're going to talk."
She doesn't trust herself to reply just yet, so she waits. She hates this new position, this feeling of vulnerability. She doesn't think that rape is on his mind, but as a women, her subconscious is already preparing for the possibility, and she hates that it's scaring her. She needs to breathe, to think. He put her up here so that he would feel safer. That means he may soon lower his guard enough for her to take advantage. She just has to breathe.
"I'm going to ask you some questions. You just have to answer them, and when I know who I'm dealing with, we'll get down to business."
He's going to profile me, she thinks. He is going to profile me.
"Where were you born?"
"Wisconsin." She remembers from his file that he was born out west as well, a city in northern Nevada. She files the information away under 'similarities' for future use.
"Do you have any siblings?"
"One sister, older. Her name is Emma." Her sister's name is Emily, but he doesn't need to know that.
He starts to pace, in and out of her line of sight. When he doesn't say anything more, she asks, "What about your family, Jonathan?" Though she recalls that he is an only child, raised by his mother while his father was in and out of jail for assault. His mother still lives in Nevada, and she had never returned any of the FBI's calls about her son.
"I ask the questions," he scolds. "You just answer them."
Okay, then.
He is still pacing, but suddenly he stops. "Do you live with a man?"
She has to wait a moment, unable to reply until she can suppress the reflexive tightening of her chest. "No." She forces herself to examine his question logically. He did not ask if she was married or had a boyfriend, but if she lived with a man. He asked after her physical state, not her emotional state. Low warning bells start in her brain. He is seeing her as an object, not a person.
His pacing resumes. "Have you ever been pregnant?"
The little girl in her is shaking, but the strong, capable woman says, "No." Then the cop thinks shit, because even she can hear the lie in her voice.
He draws closer. "No?"
She remains silent.
She can only register what happens next as a list of facts. She cannot panic, cannot let go of the steely core that got her into the FBI, cannot try to process her situation. Instead, she catalogues.
He is standing over her. Now he is climbing onto the table. Now he is on the table, stretched above her, looking down at her. He holds himself up with an arm on either side of her head. She can feel the twitching in her scalp as strands of hair are caught beneath his hands.
"No man has ever looked at you like this?" he whispers, and his eyes lock onto hers, helping to pin her down. "No man has ever held you here?" His head slowly lowers, and for just a moment her grip slips, and the terror roars into her. Heat, weight, pushing, screaming, crying. She clamps down. She is not that girl anymore.
He is kissing her neck. No, he is speaking, speaking against her skin. Whispering. "No man has ever filled you?"
The cop has had enough. He does not get to have power over her. She cannot attack him without getting hurt, but somehow she has to end this. What's the boldest thing she can say, the most brazen, the least expected? "I didn't say I've never had sex."
Startled pause, stillness. "What?"
"You heard me."
And the spell is broken. Just like that he is off her, jumping down from the table, pacing away. Only then does she realize that she was within a foot of his gun and didn't take it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If she wants to get out of here she's got to wake up.
Wake up. She wonders how Jack is doing.
Campbell is pacing again.
Sam sits up on the table, trying not to shiver, and waits.
Jack's palms and fingernails are bloody, and he's laughing. "That's my girl," he mutters, "That's my girl." His fingers ache from being clenched so tightly. He wants to kill Jonathan Campbell.