Chapter 4
A/N: The Mandarin is written in pinyin, which is a romanized version that helps silly Americans like me learn the language and its pronunciation.
The noise wasn't just in his fuzzy mind. Someone was rustling around him.
Sark's head was throbbing like a heartbeat, only painful. He was lying on the ground, still bound and blindfolded. He slowly thought about what happened.
Who had him? Sark thought back the museum. Could someone have seen him there and known he took the artifact? He expected it to be discovered sooner or later, but if that was it, why capture him like this?
He remembered being repelled down the side of the hotel. Who would do that? Why go to all that trouble if it were local authorities? That ruled them out. A rival thief then? But his captors were too many and too well organized to be simple thieves.
He stopped questioning himself as he heard footsteps in front of him.
The person delivered a sharp kick to his ribs, and Sark fell to his side on the ground. He heard someone shout something, but didn't catch it.
His tormentor's reply, though, was clearly not English.
It sounded like Mandarin, but muddled. A native-speaker? That could prove difficult for his limited training. Not to mention . . . where was he?! He couldn't have been out that long, unless they had drugged him.
Again the question why tugged at his brain. It dissipated with another slew of Chinese, this one directed at him.
"Shuo ba!" He missed the question, but this command to speak was punctuated with a kick to Sark's leg. He felt two people flank him and lift him to his feet. "Shuo ba!" one man said again. Sark rolled his eyes under the ski mask. Evidently, they forgot about the tape over his mouth. Stupid pansies don't even realize— The guy punched him in the side.
"Ta bu keyi shuo!" Finally the other man stepped in. They half-dragged Sark forward. Sark let himself hang like dead weight, and tried to absorb the path they were taking.
His senses began taking inventory. The place was open and echoed. It was drafty, and there seemed to be some gritty dust on the floor, maybe sawdust by the sound of it. He heard machinery in the distance. Some sort of warehouse, maybe in an industrial district.
He heard the click of a door opening, and then was thrown to the floor. It was cold cement, that type that is always smooth and dirty.
Sark was blinded by light suddenly as one of his captors removed his mask. With a bully-like grin, the same captor ripped the tape off Sark's mouth, causing him to suppose he wouldn't have to shave that area for some time.
After his eyes adjusted, Sark saw his two ruffian captors, and another man. None of them looked Chinese. Before he could dwell on that any longer, the questions began.
"Nin jiao shenme mingzi?" asked the third man. He was asking for Sark's name. Sark was struck by the polite grammar the man used, but he held his tongue. The man gave a slight nod and one of his men punched him on the side of his face.
He tried not to groan, and shook off the blow.
"Nide mingzi shi shenme?" The question was the same, but this time the grammar was more gruff. Sark feared that meant this interrogation could take a nasty turn.
Henry had never said much on what to do if ever captured, and Sark never felt the need to ask. He knew how to deal with the authorities.
But Sark never suspected falling into the hands of a rival. Sark wasn't unaccustomed to pain, but this time it was received as he was helpless. He thought back to every movie he had ever seen about some stoic hero surviving any torture.
Stop it! Focus on what you know and what you can figure out! His interrogator was passively waiting for answer. Another nod at his silence sent a blow Sark's way.
His head snapped back and his cheek stung with pain and heat. He wasn't sure if there was a cut yet, or if he was imagining the feeling of blood running down his face.
Think, think!
Another blow was coming his way when he abruptly spat out:
"Wait, wait!" Sark's head bobbed around bit, but he caught his breath when the fist stopped mid-air. "I don't speak Chinese, or whatever!"
The interrogator nodded, and one of the captors continued with the punch. Sark muttered under his winded breath, swearing that blood was now trickling down to his chin.
"My name is Perry Smith! My father's an ambassador–when he finds out, you'll have Interpol and every other agency after you!"
Sark half-acted scared, but measured the effect of his words on the man. He thought he caught a smile, but it was gone too quickly. Does he know . . . ?
"Judging by your false papers, and your theft of the artifact, you're not who you say you are. Try again," the man said. His voice was smooth, eerily calm, and it took everything inside of Sark not to show the real fear in him.
"Why don't you tell me who you think I am?" Sark challenged. He let his eyes glaze with icy blue, electric and vibrant. He recognized the change inside of him, but hardly focused on it since his life seemed to be at stake.
Maybe his stare worked, because the interrogator seemed to falter. Sark thought the man looked like he was carefully considering his words, tweaking in his mind how to say something.
What is he hiding then? The interrogator had abandoned the Chinese. Sark thought about that. Why even use Chinese when it obviously wasn't native to him or his men? Throw Sark off, disorient him? It had worked, to an extent.
"Who do you work for?" The interrogator regained his authoritative presence. His question was calm, like before, but now just as threatening.
Sark was still analyzing his situation. His delay in any response earned him another punch. The interrogator's lackey was kind enough to hit the other side of Sark's face. Good, I'll have matching bruises.
"What makes you think I work for anyone but myself?" Sark questioned back. His face was throbbing, and he resisted the temptation to rub it gently on his shoulders.
"We know otherwise," the interrogator ventured.
"Really?" Sark said, with an elevated note of skepticism. "Well, you know differently than I do. Take a look at the picture. Did you notice how I got the artifact?" The interrogator waited for Sark to continue.
"I went in with no backup, no high tech gadgets, and not much of a plan," Sark said. He stopped there, waiting for the reaction.
He couldn't read the interrogator's face, and that worried Sark.
Finally, he spoke.
"So you say you have no employer, but just work for yourself," the interrogator summed up. Sark stared ahead at him, blood slowly clotting and drying on his face.
The man smiled and laughed silently to himself. He turned to leave the room, and quickly murmured some instructions to the two alternating hitters.
Sark was left alone with them, and as they started to kick him in the ribs, he realized his bluff had failed completely.
When he came to, the blindfold and gag had been replaced, and his hands tied to a pole behind him as he lay on the cold floor. Groaning, he righted himself.
His ribs felt tender and on fire. Breathing just added fuel to that fire. He settled for shallow breaths, and took inventory of the rest of his injuries. His face felt somewhat numb, but he could tell it was swollen. His wrists stung as the binding continued to dig into his skin. And last, but not least, his legs was asleep, making any additional movement even more difficult. Not that he was encouraged to move much anyway, given the rest of his state.
His mouth was cotton-dry. Sark swallowed hard, trying to relieve something about his condition. That's when he heard it.
Sark assumed he was alone, but he could hear someone else . . . breathing.
The breaths were purposely quiet, but the exhaling made a slight noise that broke the silence he assumed he was in.
Sark doubted it was another prisoner. The breaths were too casual, too normal. So his interrogator again? Sark hoped not. Pain wasn't something he relished.
He thought about what he had deduced so far—the Chinese, the tells of the interrogator, and his rough treatment. Something stood out about each, something that all pointed to one thing: a test.
Henry could have set up some elaborate charade as a test. Sark mentally shook his head. Henry would never have him tortured. But it would explain the questions. They want to see if you'll give up Henry, one side of Sark thought. Maybe this was Henry's way of teaching him to survive capture and torture. Sark easily assumed he would survive, an assumption he didn't dwell on or want to question.
"What's on your mind?" The voice, surprisingly, was that of a woman. It jolted Sark out of his thoughts. He had been quite happy to play along with the pretense of her not being there. Too late.
She was calm also, but not threatening as she spoke. An accent rolled out with her words, something European, maybe closer to Russian. It was soothing, really, to hear her. After his previous treatment, Sark would have blurted out all his thoughts, had it not been for the gag.
In his silence, he heard her approach him. She was wearing heels, Sark decided. He caught a slight scent of perfume, but let it go when he felt her touch him.
Her fingertips lightly traced his face. It was so soft, and almost enticed him to relax. But he was too tense, between the unexpected gentleness of her touch and the injuries' pains shooting through his body.
She let her fingers walk down his face, to the edge of the ski mask that still worked as his blindfold. Slowly, she peeled it up, stopping to leave his eyes covered. She undid the gag, which was simple cloth this time.
Sark was able to speak, but this sudden change in events left him speechless and doubting his analysis.
"You're trying to figure out who captured you, and why. What have you come up with?" the woman asked.
Sark licked his parched lips, stalling.
"Could I get a glass of water, please?" he asked. Why he was so polite, he didn't know. But he felt his tone matched hers, in civility at least, and in ease and confidence at best.
He heard her pace around him.
"A meal has already been ordered. It's on its way," the woman answered.
That freaked Sark out. In his previous session with consciousness, the game was nothing but brutality and sniffing out lies. Now it was a daring game of mental chess, cloaked with this ease and friendliness that threw Sark off enough to worry him.
"Tell me. What's your best theory?" she asked again. Sark hesitated, still trying to piece things together.
"You've made me believe we're in China, to unnerve me and make me question where we are and how long I was out the first time," Sark began. He swallowed as he tried to solidify his theory with any indications he could hear from the woman. "I've been asked who I work for, though the evidence of my robbery points to my lack of experience and know-how in this realm."
"What does it all mean?" the woman asked. She stepped closer, until Sark felt the tips of her shoes against his legs.
His mouth opened once or twice before any sound came out.
"It means I'm being tested, to see how long I might last if this were for real," Sark finally guessed, as confidently as he could sound.
There was no reply for a moment, just a resumption of her pacing around him.
Sark half held his breath, waiting for some reply by which to gauge his correctness.
The circling stopped, and Sark felt the rest of his mask being removed.
The room was dark, with faint light from outside the room. Windows allowed that light to shine on the woman's face.
Sark sucked in a breath, shocked by who he saw. It was the woman he had sparred with.
"Who are you?" he asked. His heart started to race and a dangerous temper started to build within him.
"Your new boss," she said without losing a beat.