CHAPTER 10

Ema called for another viewing station to be brought in, but as we waited for the other computer she put the first disk in the computer in silence. At first the room was empty. Then we saw at least four men come into the room. Two carrying a limp pale thing in their arms that at first I thought was a bedsheet and then I realized it was Vera. I gasped a little seeing her body look so lifeless. It was freaky. She had a pillowcase or something over her head and they carried her to the chair in the room. One of the men pulled a roll of black electrical tape out of his jacket and proceeded to tape her to the chair while the others held her limp body in place. Their hands were all over her as they taped her up, and I thought maybe Phoenix was right. Maybe I shouldn't be watching this; it might drive me to kill someone. And there Vera was, head covered, taped up and left alone. No one was even there to make sure she woke up. She was left like that for hours.

"Sorry, but we're going to need to fast forward till she comes to. Phoenix watch the timer. Let's see how long she was out for." Ema said scrawling notes on a pad of notebook paper.

We fast-forwarded until Vera started to twitch a little.

"About four hours from when they brought her in."

"Shit! They didn't check on her once!" I couldn't believe anyone could have so little consideration for human life.

"They probably figured they didn't have to. They were watching her through the camera. Jerks!" Ema commented as she scribbled some more notes on the pad of paper.

Vera started vocalizing. At first it was just moans and groans, but then she started shouting. The sound on the recording was crap, but I could tell she was trying a bunch of different tactics to get help or at the least get the attention of her captors. She yelled for help. She yelled fire. She threatened them that Phoenix and I would find them and torture them, but she used more colorful language than I had ever heard her say before.

"I think you've been rubbing off on her." Phoenix commented somberly.

"That's not a good thing is it?" I asked, but he didn't respond.

I was probably driving Ema and Phoenix insane as I couldn't hold still while watching the tape. I was shaking and crying and pacing while attempting to stay vigilant, but they never complained.

We all wanted to see what happened between Vera and the one she feared so much came in contact with each other. And then we saw it. She was screaming her head off shouting for help or warmth or anything they would give her and he came into the room with a knife, a big knife. He looked at her menacingly and slapped her across the face. Ema set down the half munched Snackoo she was eating and leaned forward just in time to see as he moved towards her with the knife. He made a move like maybe to touch her breast…I leapt toward the screen. My hands formed into tight fists. Then a skinnier guy came into the frame stepping between Vera and the menacing one and used his own pocketknife to cut the tape that had held Vera in place for the previous ten hours.

Phoenix looked up at me and scratched his head. "That may not be enough."

Ema taped her fingers on the desk. "Well, we've got another sixty some hours to go." And then in a much softer tone I heard her murmur, "Poor, Vera."

I wanted to kill this guy. I wanted to rip him apart, but instead Phoenix and I just seated ourselves in front of the other viewing station that had arrived and prepared to watch more grueling footage of the woman I loved in the hands of totally evil people. Ema would finish watching the disk we had been watching and we would start the next one. Even with the three of us we still didn't have enough time before the trial to watch it all in real time. So we fast-forwarded stopping only to see the interactions between Vera and the kidnappers. I was glad we weren't watching and listening to it all, because there were parts of the time Vera was talking to her dead father and it seemed private, like something that wasn't met for me or anybody else's ears. We saw the kidnappers come in with some bedding and a sandwich for her which she scarved down. If I did my calculations correctly she hadn't been given food or anything to drink for at least 14 hours. They also gave her a bucket to use as a toilet just as she had described. One of the kidnappers gave her a spiral notebook and a pencil.

"Did she just thank him?" I asked incredulously.

Phoenix nodded and smirked.

"Then I'm not rubbing off enough on her. She should have stabbed him with the pencil."

Phoenix turned his bloodshot eyes at me and said, "Vera is much smarter than you. Don't ever forget that."

And I found myself smiling. "She's got much better manners, too."

We fast-forwarded through Vera drawing and stopped the tape when a different person appeared to tell her what they wanted her to do. They brought in a card table and a couple boxes of supplies, which she rejected and we saw her write a list for them of the things she needed. Later they returned with the items and she set to work. Now they kept one person with her to ensure she was working. Though mainly all the guys did was lean against the wall listening to a portable radio and chain-smoking, which made Vera cough.

Vera didn't ever go to the bedroll. She just worked at the table. She moved things around.

"I think she's stalling. Vera doesn't fuss that much with her supplies." I pointed to the way she was lining everything up and moving things from one side of the card table to the other.

Phoenix nodded. "Yeah, Vera's normally really efficient. I think you're right. She's trying to buy us time. She really didn't want to have to forge anything ever again."

It was about 6 hours before her release when at least five men entered the room. We could see Vera get up from the chair to talk to them. We heard them say something to her and then she threw herself at them screaming and pummeling them with ineffectual punches.

"What the hell'd they say to her?"

Ema got up from her viewing station and came over to see what we had found.

We turned up the volume and all three of us strained our ears. It was choppy but after watching it a few times we could finally make it out.

"Vera, you…ly girl. Did you think…n't figure out? You are taking too long…"

"These things take time…months…" Vera sobbed. She was pleading for them to give her more time.

"We don.. ave time!"

"I can't work any faster and have………..ok credible. I'm do…best…can."

"Well, I ..ess you need some incentive. That youn…ttorney…ou'r…fond of…I think your pet name… is…olly. Well, we have him and……ttle…friend."

"No!! You couldn't. You're bluff… Ther…no way…"

"Oh, we are professional criminals just like you. You have tools…we have ours…he's so fond of you…was too easy."

And then Vera threw herself at the speaker and they slapped her away like a fly. She lay on the floor looking up at them begging for the lives of Trucy and me.

"I'll do anything! Anything…ease…don't hurt…"

And then the leader said something that immediately struck me as ominous. "Well you just work faster and we'll see what we can do. In the meantime we'll have Ron keep you company." And the one we had seen threaten her with the knife stepped forward. They all knew what he wanted and they were using her fear of him.

Vera got up and ran to her table and continued to work looking terrified and the man moved to sit by her feet still holding his ridiculously large knife. Vera was shaking and he seemed to be enjoying it. She was crying and trying not to get the forgeries she was working on wet. He was saying things to her in such a low tone we couldn't hear most of it. But we made out enough to know he was trying to lure her to the corner of the room where the camera didn't go and he was using Trucy and I as a bargaining chip. Vera was breaking down. She got up from the chair and I found myself screaming at the screen.

I put my head in my hands and was crying so hard I couldn't see. "Vera, Vera, no. They're lying. He's lying to you!"

"Polly, Polly look! What is she doing?" Ema pointed at the screen and I saw that Vera had grabbed something from the art supply table it looked like a little blade or something. At first she pointed it at him, but he just sneered at her. He was easily twice as big as her and his knife was ginormous. There was no contest. She looked like her resolve was about to give out but then suddenly Vera's eyes shot over to the radio and she went from looking panicked to having a kind of self-satisfied determination on her face. They were playing my dedication to her on the radio and it inspired Vera to switch tactics. Now she held the blade right up to her own wrist.

And then clear as a bell we heard her voice say, "You make a move and I'll kill myself." Her attacker looked stunned and shouted back at her, "Don't you want your friends to live?" Vera looked at him and pressed the blade closer to herself. "I know they're not letting me out of here alive and I don't believe you have Trucy or Polly…and if you do they'll just have to forgive me."

But as she said it her resolve faltered ever so slightly and he made a move to jump at her knocking her to the ground. Her head hit the floor and the blade got knocked from her hand. He grabbed her arm and started dragging her out of the view of the camera as Vera screamed for help, but we knew the police wouldn't be arriving for another hour. I cringed. Why hadn't she told us? Why?

And then a bunch of the other kidnappers came into the room. They punched him in the face and drug him out of the room. Vera was sobbing and rose to her knees thanking them for getting him away from her and all the leader said was that they would have let him do whatever it was he wanted, but she had work to do. "Remember you may think you've got nothing to lose but I know you want your friends to live. So don't pull another stunt like that or we'll have three bodies on our hands."

Ema stopped the tape.

"I need to go talk to Klavier. Right now." Phoenix nodded and Ema ran out of the room.