Chapter 10 )
No matter what
It was dark, small and it was shaky.
When Eva awoke, she was quite confused and noticed than her eyes were bandaged up and also her hands and feets were tied up. She laid on a kind of floor and he moved; she reasoned that she must been in a van.
She couldn´t hear anyone talk; it was quite as death. Her head hurted like crazy. Slowly, she began to remember what happened. She just arrived at her room after having dinner and laied down her jacket. She was getting ready for bed, when someone knocked at her door; she did not look through the hole in the door, because she thought it would be someone from her team. But when she opened the door, she was hit by a heavy thing and she fell back into her room and lost consiousness.
This was the last thing she remembered. And now, she was here; in a very small Van on her way to somewhere only her kidnappers know.
She tried not to panic and fight against her chains. Deep within her, she hoped that the others already noticed, that she was gone and that they would already be looking for her. Suddenly, it turned quite silent; maybe they waited for a reaction by her. But she stayed silent and faked her unconsiousness.
After a few minutes, the van stopped and a door opened.
„Come on! Get her out! Get her to that room!", shouted one of the unknown voices to another person. Somebody pulled her up, so she stood on her feet and they brought her from the van to a dark room in an old and empty storehouse.
„Who are you? What do you want from me?", Eva finally asked her kidnappers.
„Be quiet and don´t move!", the man hissed.
„I´m an investigator of the International Criminal Court! They will look for me; you should think about this again!"
„Oh believe me, honey! We thought about this very well! And now, shut up, be quiet and sit down!"
The man pushed Eva and she landed hard on the betonfloor.
„What do you want from me?"
„You will notice that early enough! You guys wanted to have war, now you got it!", the voice said and then left.
„What?!"
„I think times there to finally take care of your friends and send them a little message, don´t you think?", said the other person.
Two. It were two men. And she knew one of the voices, but she doesn´t know where she already heard that voice.
„Back off of my team! You´ve got me, leave the team alone, please!", the Italian begged.
„No, no….I fear that we can not do so!"
And with that they left the room and left her alone in the dark, scary and cold room….
Meanwhile, Louis, Carl, Arabella, Tommy and Jade arrived at the Scotland Yard and Lennon already expected them.
„Any news?",Hickman asked.
„No, not yet! But I think, if they really need something or someone, they will contact us soon!", he answered.
Quite disapointed, they made their way to the conference room and sat down at the round table. „What are we gonna do now?", Jade finally asked.
„Oh, you, you won´t do anything! You stay where you are!", Tommy answered.
„Are you serious?! You won´t think, that I will sat around her doing nothing while my crazy family has Eva and this just because of me. You said that I need to come with you and that I can help you so, once again: What are we gonna do now?", she said a little pissed, and her brother lost his words.
„She´s right! We could really use her help!", the Major answered for him.
„Okay, we do it like this: Tommy, you and Arabella, you stay here with Jade. Jade, you´re gonna tell the both of them again everything, what happened in the last few years at your camp; especially for your father and Collin. Sebastian, Carl, Lennon and me, we will drive to them camp and will look for any evidence. Maybe we´ll found a trace, where they could have brought Eva. In addition, I would like to talk with Mrs. McConel and Collin and if necessary also the other members of the camp.
„Maybe it could also be helpful if we talk with my dad again?", Tommy asked.
„But he´s here, in the Scotland Yard?! What should he probably know?", Jade asked too.
„In your family, nothing worked without letting your father know!"; Lennon said.
„Great! Good, that everyone know what´s gonna happen next, everyone, except of me, great, just great!", Jade hissed angry.
„Maybe it was better that way!", Arabella tried to calm down the girl.
„Okay, fine! Let´s go! Let´s find Eva!", Carl tried to motivate them team.
Suddenly, a mobile phone rang, Jade´s phone.
„Who´s that?", Tommy wanted to know.
„ I don´t know! It´s an unknown number and he calls via Skype!", the young girl said.
„This could be our people, right?", Sebastian said, who suddenly sat down and tried to build a connection to Jade´s cell phone to retrack the Skype call. When he gave her a sign, she picked up the call.
At the beginning, the screen was dark, but then a person with dark clothes came in front of the camera, but did not say a word. In the background, you could see that they were in a dark room, nobody could say what kind of room exactly.
„Hello? This is Jade McConel! Who is there at the end of the line?", Jade asked.
„I think we have someone you are looking for, right?"
„Oh, so with out being nice, okay then! Yeah, if you mean Eva than yes! We would indeed like to have her back!"
„Do you think this is funny?"
„No, not at all!"
„You little, immature creature! You´ve made the biggest mistake ever! You will regret it! You will never forget this, that´s a promise!"
„But what has Eva to do with all of this?! If you want me, why didn´t you knidnap me?!", she asked desperated.
„Oh, this would have been too easy. I needed to choose someone, who means a lot to you all, but especially to you and Tommy. And now I know why, she is stunning and strong, and she clearly says what she thinks. I bet you can have lot of fun with her!"
„Touch her and you´ll regret it!", Tommy shouted.
„Oh, listen there! If this isn´t Tommy McConel, the man who betrays his family! This gets more interesting every minute!"
He needed to know who they are, they knew him and her! But from where? Who ist his guy?
„Stop playing games! Who the fuck are you and what do you want?", Tommy asked nervous.
„What I want?! Well, that´s easy. You´ll get your sweet Italian back under one condition: We´ll get Jade and you leave us live in peace for ever! Sounds easy, don´t you think?"
Jade would have agreed directly, but Tommy took the chance and answered before her.
„No!"
„No?! Isn´t Eva´s life worth that much?"
„No, she´s worth living. But we don´t exchange humans."
„Well, that´s pretty sad!"
Silence…for a few seconds, nobody said anything.
„How much time do we have to decide and think about it?", Jade asked.
„Jade? What the..?", Tommy asked her.
„Well, I think someone´s pretty clever over there! Okay, to show how nice I´m, I´m gonna give you two hours to decide."
„And what happens, if we don´t decide until then or our decision does not change?", Tommy wanted to know.
„Well, then I need to set a sign, whích you and especially Sergeant Vittoria would not like!"
„Okay…and how do we reach you?"
„Oh, don´t worry about that! It´ll work! So, two hours from now!"
And with that, the phone call ended.
„Were you able to retrack the phonecall?", the Major asked.
„No, I´m sorry..He´s too good…he fought my signal, I don´t know how he did it, but he was successful!", Sebastian admitted.
„What a bastard! He can´t really think, that we´ll agree to this exchange, or?", Tommy said.
„I have no die, but anyway, we need to try and trace him before time is over! So let´s start!", answered the Major and they started to go after their excercises.
„Everything´s alright?", Tommy asked his sister and carefully layed his hand on her shoulder.
„Yeah, yeah, I think so! Come on let´s start and find Eva!", she answered and sat herself next to Arabella at the table.
She heard the voice of the caller once, but she couldn´t find a face to the voice. She did not tell Tommy and Arabella about this.
It was her fault that Eva was there and she would get her out of there, no matter what.
Tommy recognized, that something was off with his sister, but he did not want to push her; this would not help at all. He decided to wait and maybe she would tell him by herself.
He sat himself down next to the two women at the table and they walked through the last years of Jades life up and down, and they especially talked about persons, Collin and Mr. McConel met in these years.
It weren´t much, but they were potential candidats who could have kidnapped Eva.
They printed the files of the suspects and went through them. Maybe they would find the important evidence there…
At the same timme, the rest of the tream plus Lennon and his cops arrived at the camp. When they arrived at the road who lead into the camp, they stood still, got out of their SUV´s and met.
„Okay, how will we go on?", Carl asked.
„I would say, that we will go in there and go through the whole camp; without any regrets…My people will go through all the wagons, every corners of the camp and search for your team membber. The others will arrest the McConels and the the travellers…they are all possible suspects!"; Lennon said.
„Good, that´s how we do it! But please, be careful! There are living kids, women and old women and men in the camp!"; Louis warned. them; he knew how important this would have been to Tommy.
So they made their way to the camp and while the commando of Lennon started to look through the wagons, the team went to the McConels traveller. They did not need to knock, Tommys Mother came straight out of the wagon.
„What´s the matter?", she asked angry.
„Our colleague, Eva, she was kidnapped!", Carl told her.
„And what do we have to do with this?"
„Oh, I think a lot!"
„That´s rubbish! This is all just because of Tommy. Don´t listen to him, he is such a betrayer!"
„Okay…", Hickman said and in the same moment, Sebastian arrived from the back and went to Mrs. McConel to get her arrested.
„What.."
„Charline, McConel, you are arrested for assistance of kidnapping an investigator!"
„That´s so stupid! I didn´t do a thing!"
„Where is Collin?", Louis asked, while he walked out of the wagon.
„I don´t know where he is!"
„We will find him!", Hickman assured her and they gave her to a cop of the Scotland Yard.
After a little more than an hour, Carl, Louis, Sebastian and Lennon arrived at the extrance of the camp. The search for Eva wasn´t successful and Collin was missing too.
„Don´t you think that´s a huge coincidence?", Carl asked.
„I mean, Eva dissapears and suddenly, Collin is also away and nobody can find him! This can´t be coincidence!"
„It´s too big, but we have nothing; less than nothing, what could be helpful, to find Eva and Collin!", Sebastian said.
„We´re running out of time! We should drive back, the kidnapper will call again soon!", the Major meant and everybody nodded. They entered the car and drove back to the Scotland Yard.
„And? Did you find anything? Any trace?", Tommy asked, when they entered the bureau.
„No, no trace of Eva! And Collin is also missing! Such a weird coincidence!", Sebastian meant.
„Collin has to do with this, after all he did here, I think he is able to do anything!", Jaade said silently.
„Did you have something?", the Major wanted to know.
„Well, not really! We have some specific names from people which my father and borther met in the last few years and we´ve checked their background, but we´ve found nothing suspicious.!",Tommy admitted.
„Did the kidnappers call again?"
Suddenly Jade´s phone rang.
„No, but I think that´s what they wanted to do right now!", Jade answered and got her phone out of her pocket.
Again, Sebastian gave her a sign and she answered the call. This time, it wasn´t via Skype.
„And? Did we found a decision?", the kidnapper asked.
„Well, we stay with our decision from the last call!", Jade told him.
She talked with Tommy about it before and they finally agreed to this.
„Well, that´s very sad and very very regrettable for Eva! Did you hear that? They don´t care about you!"
„No, that´s not true!"
„It is, otherwise you would have decided different. Whatever! I have work to be done!"
„Wait!"
„What?"
„Please, just let Eva go! She has nothing to do with all of this! We will everything you want, but please!", Jade begged.
„I won´t want nothing else than you! Understand it! But I don´t have time now for you and your games! I have work to be done! You will hear from us!"
With that, he ended the call and the line went dead.
What would he do now? Could Eva take it? Jade couldn´t take it anymore; everything went too slowly for her. They needed to find a solution pretty fast…
„This sick bastard!"; Tommy hissed.
„Hopefully, Eva ist strong enough to take it!", Arabella hoped.
„She is strong and she´s a fighter, she will make it! Let´s continue on working on how to find her!", Carl said and everyone began to move.
Jade just wanted to leave the room, when her brother stopped her.
„Wait, where do you wann go?"
„On the toilette! Don´t panic, I won´t ran away!"
With that she turned around and walked to the toiletts, while Tommy stared at her quite worried.
Arriving at the toilettes, she locked the door of the toilette cabin behind her and grabbed her phone.
She finally knew who the person was, with who she was talking! But she did not want to share this with the team! They would not do anything and if, then when it would be too late!
She had a plan and hoped, that it would work.
Jade send a message to the now known guy and she immediatly got a text back with an adress and time in it.
She put her phone back in her pocket of her ripped jeans.
She went outside, looked in the mirror once again and then took a look outside!
She needed to be sure that nobody would see her!
The team faced her with their back…the perfect opportunity to escape quickly.
A last time, her thoughts wandered over to Tommy and she whispered: „I´m so so sorry! Please forgive me!"
Then she ran silently out of the building and on the street. She was on her way to the meeting point.
She would get Eva out of there, no matter what!