I've tried to make the chapter longer!!
When Jack woke, Philip was already at his bedside. He blinked a few times before speaking, despite a slight slur to his words it was clear he was aggravated.
"I'm getting sicker."
Philip smiled. "No, Jack, you're still as sick as you were before, it's just the antibiotics running their course."
"It feels different," he said, before glancing around for the doctor who wasn't there, "they're making me sicker."
The smile was replaced with a frown, and this time, Jack's father's words were sterner and more clipped. "No, Jack, you aren't. Paranoia is expected with what you've been through though."
Jack started to shake his head and Philip cut him off before he could say anything else. "Everything is prepared. I'm going home tomorrow. China needs the information from me early, then we can leave. If you are getting sicker, as you seem to believe," he said in a patronising tone, "I can have a doctor on board the plane."
"The doctors one of them," Jack said, again searching the room for some sign of him.
"No, I brought the man in myself, he is in no way affiliated with the Chinese government."
"Oh."
"I'm leaving now," he said as he got up and stretched his legs, "I have to pack and clearly we wont get anywhere if we try and talk right now. You're too worked up, I hope you are calmer tomorrow. I'm not going to try and pressure you into giving me the information because in your present state of mind you'll probably decide I'm working for China too. I just hope you do the right thing, it will be a lot of wasted time and effort on my part, and you're friends too. "
Jack just stared at him.
"So tomorrow you can give me your decision, and I will relate it to Cheng. He is eager to see how you respond, either way he wins. Please don't think that refusing to help yourself will hurt him, because he will just be allowed to hurt you some more. I'll see you later son."
Philip left the room and headed through the maze of the prison until he reached the outskirts where the offices were housed. Stopping at the door marked CHENG he entered without knocking. Cheng made no effort to rise from his seat behind the desk, instead he eyed Philip expectantly.
"Well?"
Philip paused for a moment as he glanced around the room. "The drugs are working. He's weakened, slightly disorientated. I think tomorrow will be our day."
Cheng smiled greedily and began to rub his hands together. "I'll ring the doctor, have him increase the level-"
"No. That will not work. His file indicates you used this treatment previously and it didn't work then. It certainly won't now, it will make his suspicious as it is. Hell, he is suspicious, and rightly so. But I think my presence is what will tip him over the edge."
Cheng nodded. "Okay. I suppose I ought to have the air force prepare you're ride back."
"Yes," Philip agreed, "have everything ready. As discussed, I will be taking him home with me."
"If he gives you the information."
Philip nodded. "I know what we agreed to Mr. Cheng. If he doesn't tell me, he stays."
Cheng thumbed the phone. "I hope arranging your transportation home will not arise too much suspicion with my superiors. It would have been easier if you could use your own plane-"
"That would have gathered unwarranted attention from my government. This way is better. Don't worry about it, we both know we're doing the right thing. It just depends on Jack."
When Philip re-entered the following morning as promised, Jack's wrists were red and scratched, bloody in places. "I hope you didn't think you could get out of them yourself," he said, nodding his head to the cuffs as he sat down, placing his briefcase onto his knees. Jack took in the smell of leather and the suit his father wore and immediately felt insecure.
"Feeling any better?"
Jack wasn't sure how to respond. He felt sluggish, hot and cold at the same time and his thoughts kept moving from one thing to another. He felt no better but wondered whether he should admit that to his father - would he see him as weak? Jack laughed suddenly, surprising Philip as he wondered how the man could not see him as weak - he was a mess; beat up, dressed in rags chained to a hospital bed in China. How could he not seem like a failure now, in his fathers eyes? He had left home for the army at sixteen with a promise to prove his father wrong, now over twenty years later he realised just how far he had fallen.
"I'll take that as a no then," Philip said coldly, an Jack realised once again his thoughts had been meandering from one thing to another. A cell phone chirped and Philip quickly plucked it out from his well tailored suit pocket. Jack watched his father but instead of following the conversation he watched the way the man's forehead creased as he spoke, a frown littering his face, and then the way the light reflected from his phone onto the grey dirty bedding that covered him.
The clasp of the flip phone snapping shut brought Jack's attention back to his father. He was speaking again. "A plane has been prepared to take us home. In order to reach it in time for take off we need to leave here in an hour. They must be scared, they've stood my own plane down. They don't want to lose you. That was CTU," he added, "they've organised this transport for us. We should move soon."
He said nothing else, and simply waited for Jack to speak. Jack was thankful for the silence, he thought about the agent, if he was already undercover, hidden away with a new identity, was he really giving him up? Was he giving his own soul up by selling out? Even if he refused, surely the two agents in question would both be persecuted - he would achieve nothing. He thought back to the note from Chloe, and then imagined her and Bill in his office, searching through satellite imagery for him, trying to help him, to save him. Would his stubbornness prevent him from allowing them to succeed?
Finally, he cleared his voice. He noticed Philip checking the time on his gold Rolex as he did so. "If I give you the name, I can't see any more bad coming, other than what would happen even if I didn't." He found it hard to verbalise his thoughts and his words were spoken clumsily as the pain in his head ached constantly. He watched as Philip nodded, before continuing. "Would you see my giving up the name as, as … weakness?"
Philip looked down for a moment, and Jack found himself willing the eyes to meet his own. Eventually, they did. "No. I see your inability to prevent yourself from ending up in this situation as weakness. But giving me a name, I see it as logical. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Nobody else has anything to lose, other than the people who have been hurting you. I think to hold out, and let me leave alone, would be incredibly ill thought out, and would reflect failure and ignorance."
Jack mulled the words over, then shifted against the bed; the clinking of the cuffs seemed intensified by the surrounding silence.
"Hong," Jack whispered, an then a little louder added, "the man they want: Hong."
Philip nodded, "good man," he said, and then picked up his briefcase and stood to leave. "I'll be back in a little while, then we can go home."