Co-Authored by Tracey Arcieri and Karen LaManna

Chapter 3

Lee sat on the edge of the uncomfortable cot, careful not to tip it again. The last time he'd heard footsteps above him, he called out, but the footsteps retreated. When he rolled to his side to stand, the cot flipped over on him, dumping him unceremoniously onto the damp dirt floor. After righting the cot, he proceeded to sit down when he thought he heard a squeak coming from the corner. It's just my imagination, he thought. This isn't Istanbul, this isn't the catacombs.

Lee surmised there must be a trap door of some kind in the ceiling. He shuffled his feet, held his arms stretched out as he tried to find the wall. He kept moving until he finally managed to find the corner. He then began another systematic search of the ceiling, running his fingers along every grooved board above his head. He blinked rapidly as dust and dirt sprinkled down onto his face. He listened carefully as he tapped and inspected everything he could touch. When he reached the next corner, he turned and headed back to explore a new section.

As he approached the sound of the water dripping, he heard multiple squeaks and immediately a cold shiver ran down his spine. It's just the water dripping, it's just the water dripping, he repeated over and over, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn't push down the fear that crept in, as he remembered the week he spent confined to the dark, damp catacombs in Istanbul and the rats that would continuously run over him each time he sat down. The rats would search out the warmth of his body and try to snuggle down, much to his dismay.

"I can hear you out there," he spoke in a low voice, hoping to scare the rodents away. "I'm not going to bother you, you're not going to bother me, and we'll get along just fine." To calm himself, he envisioned Amanda, the night they spent on the Mata Hari. That was the first night he told her about his fear of sleeping in the dark.

With the image of her face glowing by candle light in his mind, he continued to move slowly, his shoulders hunched, but with his arms extended above his head, as he explored the surface above. He stopped several times to swing his arms and massage his shoulders when they became cramped up. He assumed he had been held hostage for at least twenty-four hours, but it was only a guess. With no way to judge the time of day and no way of knowing how long he was unconscious, he wasn't confident with his own estimation. He was hungry, so he knew it had to be more than twelve hours since he last ate unless the sedative he was injected with suppressed his appetite as well, in which case it could have been longer. He recently heard rumors from his Russian contacts, that the KGB was working on new sedatives that would not only incapacitate an individual, but the drugs would also suppress natural indicators in the body to confuse the prisoner as well. With no outside light source to indicate time, the only solution he could come up with, was to begin counting the drips and the time between them. The sound had been consistent since he regained consciousness.

"Amanda is going to know something's wrong, something happened. She always knows," Lee said aloud to the darkness.

What Lee didn't know, was that at almost that exact moment, Amanda was driving slowly down the long stretch of road where he'd been abducted. She left the agency after her fruitless search of his desk and gone home where she paced and worried most of the night. She slept restlessly, tossing and turning, her mind a whirling dervish, screaming out possibilities of all the horrible events that could have occurred. She awoke, more tired than she was when she went to bed. After a hot shower, two cups of coffee and a stack of pancakes she felt reenergized. She tried calling his apartment several times as well as his car phone. The only answer was either his machine or a message stating "your party is currently out of range".

She drove to his apartment hoping he was just asleep and hadn't heard the phone, but his doorman hadn't seen him nor was his car anywhere to be found. Her next stop was the Agency, where Mrs. Marston confirmed he had not checked in with her. Downstairs in the bullpen, she waited impatiently outside Billy's office as he finished his meeting.

"Amanda, any word from Lee yet?" Billy asked with a smile, offering her a chair to sit down in.

Amanda sat on the edge of the cushioned seat and shook her head, "No sir, I was hoping you would have heard from him by now, Mr. Melrose, sir."

Billy leaned back in his chair as he replied, "No, he hasn't called in nor has he been by my office. Did you check the Q Bureau? Maybe he headed–"

"No sir, Mrs. Marston said Lee hasn't been by her desk at all, since the day before yesterday. Sir, I'm really concerned about him now, it's been almost twenty-four hours since I last talked to him and he usually checks in with me when he's going out of town," Amanda insisted, after she cut him off.

"I will admit, it is strange, but Lee's been known to go off the grid before. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for why you haven't heard from him," Billy tried to sound reassuring, but his own red flags were beginning to fly. "Did you check his apartment?"

"I called, I talked to his doorman, nothing. No one has seen his car either. Sir, I'm really worried and scared now," Amanda explained, her anxiety clear in the quiver of her voice.

Billy leaned forward to take a long pull on his coffee mug as he contemplated what to do next when Amanda spoke up.

"Sir, I was thinking, maybe I could take a ride following the directions I gave him to where I was supposed to meet him. Maybe there's something there, some clue, if something happened to him," Amanda suggested.

Billy nodded as he agreed, "I think that's an excellent idea, Amanda. Keep me informed."

Amanda stood quickly, as she rushed toward the door, "Thank you, I'll call you right away if I find something, Sir." She walked briskly toward the elevator where she bumped into Francine.

"Amanda, where's the fire?" Francine scolded her, righting the folders she almost dropped.

"I'm just heading out to look for Lee, he's still missing," Amanda called over her shoulder as she stepped into the elevator quickly. Francine watched Amanda disappear into the elevator and shook her head as the doors closed silently.

Now, Amanda drove slowly looking for any signs of an accident or for anything out of place. She was beginning to drive around a bend on the deserted dirt road when a flash of light in her rearview mirror caught her attention. She immediately stopped her car and carefully backed up to where she first saw the glint in the mirror, but she couldn't determine the source. She put her car in park and looked around for any passing cars before she climbed out of her station wagon.

She walked slowly toward the source of the light looking high and low in the trees for anything that looked out of place. When she saw what appeared to be a silver piece of metal in the brush she began to run, fear clutching at her. As she got closer she could easily see something was hidden by branches and her heart sunk when reality struck. She knew it was Lee's car just by the bits of color she could see. She frantically pulled branch after branch off the vehicle, and called out to him, "Lee? Can you hear me? Lee?!" She desperately hoping he wasn't injured too badly but when she pulled the last branch aside her heart sunk when she found the car was empty.

Leaving everything where it was, Amanda immediately drove to the local country store and dialed Billy's number. "Sir? Sir, I found Lee's car. He's not in it but it was hidden in a ditch," she rushed out as soon as she heard his voice.

"Slow down, Amanda. Now, where are you?" he asked as he grabbed a pen in one hand and snapped his fingers at Francine with the other.

"I'm at a payphone at the Country Store on Old Post Road. Lee's car is only about a mile down the road from here," Amanda stated.

"Don't go anywhere. Francine and I will be there in about twenty minutes," Billy stood quickly after writing down the information.

"Sir, I'm scared something bad has happened to him," she admitted softly.

"Just try to stay calm Amanda. Francine and I are on our way," Billy said. "Everything will be all right."

"I hope so, sir," Amanda whispered before hanging up the phone.