Chloroform--
the only thing that could make Jack's head loll back like this, a puppet with its strings cut, folding into the hands of the three men.
Three? Nadia ignores the fierce pain in her arm and spins to turn to her single assailant, indignation overpowering the ache. He advances, club ready.
So is she.
High-pitched screams at the edge of her consciousness are reminders of the civilians surrounding them--no firearms now. But she can work around that, actually prefers it that way.
The club requires range to be effective, so Nadia closes in. It takes two strides--past the hasty jab at her body--to put the target within reach, one strike to fell him. Already, she's swung around, using her momentum to lash out at the man trying to shield the two companions who've grabbed an unconscious Jack.
A spark of light hits her eyes and alerts her to a brightly polished blade. Nadia's shoe connects with a wrist, sends a dagger flying, and makes the adjacent man cry out.
"Anan cebi!"
"Hardly; never even met her." Nadia gives him a feral smile. She pushes down the current of fear beneath her fury. Jack.
The guy dodges her punch, shifts, and lashes out immediately; when she recoils, he tries to sweep her off her feet. He has a street fighter's quick instincts, but she's been there, done it. Been it. Nadia side-steps him; while her front thrust kick isn't perfect, it's fast and fierce enough. The sound of an unconscious body hitting the ground resonates in the portico.
Two down, two to go, and the latter look pleasantly astonished.
Jack's limp form between them is an obscene sight, a violation Nadia itches to avenge. When she steps closer, they hesitate, gape at her; one of them grabs his companion's arm, mutters something Nadia cannot quite catch. She catches the bulge beneath the left one's thin jacket, though--a small firearm, maybe a Glock--and the rag drenched with anaesthetic in the right one's tightly balled fist.
"Dikkat! Býrakmak!"
Nadia freezes at the commands from behind. The police? She'd rather fight against felons than work with Istanbul's finest, but with Jack passed out, there is no other option. She lifts her empty hands, turns slowly.
Two of the mosque security guards approach them. She catches the wide eyes of the smaller one who clings to his baton. Nadia gives him a smile. "Don't worry, I have these two under--"
Something (another baton?) hits her temple, and the world fades to black.
White lights, bright and searing.
Jack squeezes his eyes shut again. The cool burn of metal on his wrists tells him he's chained, a subtle jerk affirms that the chains are tight. He feels nausea, a side effect of the chloroform used on him, and, for a moment, concentrates on quashing it. On the bright side, he's already sitting up, shackled to a chair--no danger of undignified choking.
When he opens his eyes again, he finds himself in the midst of an interrogation scenario a little too classic to stem from a professional's hands--a bare room in a basement, a metal door with a small glass window, a nondescript table with a comfortable chair opposite the seat he's fastened to. Jack will admit that the lamp turned just so its glare is directed straight into his eyes makes for a nice touch.
He's not surprised when the door opens. The CIA-file photos weren't flattering, but then, they never are. Hamid Abd-ul Mustafa is slimmer in person, more defined; the look of perpetual surprise is wiped off his face. Perhaps it was never there for long to begin with.
"I see you have come to." Little fear and no hesitation. This is at once unexpected and promising. Jack prefers his opponents to have a clear purpose; it makes it easier for him to discern and deflect it while obscuring his own motives.
"What have you done to her? Is my cousin alright? Allah be my witness, if you've laid a hand on her--"
"You can't fool me. You can stop abusing the Turkish language, however."
Mustafa speaks English with an accent, but it's soft and tempered, courtesy of Harrow and Cambridge. He stares at Jack over his neatly folded hands.
"I know you think you are very smart. You are not."
Not something Jack hears every day. For the moment, though, Mustafa merely echoes the disapproving voices in the back of his mind. The decision against back-up or surveillance was perfectly rational, but the shortcomings in surveying the perimeter and making the hostiles long before their assault were not.
Jack knows why he was so unprofessional.
"The girl. You." Mustafa's eyes narrow. "You're not Turks. I know you're just infidels trying to steal the tabaruk."
Could it be advantageous to keep up this farce? Nadia will comply with protocol and adhere to their legend for lack of a better one; he might at least be able to buy her time by following suit. On the other hand, the man in front of him isn't asking, probing, or questioning. Jack recognises a statement informed by knowledge.
"You thought you could trick us, and I have to confess that you were clever. Who sent you? Mossad?" The corner of his mouth curls in distaste. "CIA?"
Funny how the SDECE, BND, or MI-6 don't get blamed nearly as often as they should.
"Playing dead, are you?" A darker note in Mustafa's voice now. "Useless; I know you've seen the Signs and followed them. Smashed one of them. But you can't destroy the truth--it will always be preserved in the minds of the dutiful and recognised by those who have the eyes to see."
Galata Tower. Nadia had defaced what had been carved into the stone of its walls, but the mechanism that protected the hidden clue? So simple others would have discovered it: An architectural joke for the staff, their little secret, not to be shared with the pesky tourists. Of course, the friendly if somewhat intense countrymen who came bearing weapons in order to enhance their memory would be a different matter.
But while a gun pressed to a young waiter's temple may jog his memory, it cannot procure what his brain had never stored away in the first place: the particular shape of the twin tombstones, the word in the upper right corner written in a language he would only know from Qu'ran school, if at all.
"Your silence serves no purpose." A note of urgency; Mustafa's leans forward almost imperceptibly. "Just tell me about the last Signs-- the tombstones, what you found in Süleymaniye."
So Nadia has not been forthcoming with this information--yet.
He isn't particularly worried about himself at this point. Sydney and Vaughn, already on orange alert after they missed scheduled check-in, should intervene long before Mustafa's torture could make him even contemplate sharing intel--falsified intel, at that--but Nadia is a different matter. Her past suggests excellent coping mechanisms, her present work courage, but Jack has seen older, more experienced agents crack under torture, and the situation is too volatile to let the relic fall into Mustafa's hands. This leaves him with two viable options. The easiest and safest for him would be to break down slowly and keep talking for a while--take up their flimsy legend and skilfully weave in a few strands that will mislead Mustafa for the time being. Every minute Jack spends in this room, however, heightens the chance that somewhere in the vicinity, one of Mustafa's hired brutes will decide to handle Nadia's interrogation. Handle Nadia.
Jack does not consider himself the sort of agent who will let his partner in the field suffer unduly.
Nadia comes to in darkness.
She's lying on a lumpy mattress--not bound and fully clothed. Breathing a sigh of relief, she takes inventory: chilled, unable to see anything, and plagued by a dull headache the origin of which can be found in the lump on her temple, but it could be worse. Nadia sits up slowly. The pain in her arm exists on the very edge of her awareness, but there are other things to worry about, other people.
No reason to assume Jack hasn't been taken to the same place. She hopes he's neither hurt nor still unconscious, but seeing as either is possible, it is her top priority to search for and, if necessary, rescue him.
Right now, unfortunately, she's still in a cell, certainly a room in a basement. It's not so much the lack of light—windows can be barred and shuttered completely--but the stale air, the low temperature. When she reaches out and is met by a cold stone surface, her fingertips come away covered with a fine film of moisture from the humidity seeping through subterranean walls.
She stands. The mattress is lying next to the wall; four steps carry her to the other side. From the corner of this wall, it's another five steps to the other wall.
There's a door, wooden and strong, intricate carvings alternating with smooth polish; she can feel its age under her hands. They don't build massive doors like this anymore, but Nadia has no time to reminisce about carpentry in days of yore. After a quick search for other possible exits, she returns to the door. No sound from outside, but that says little about guards or the lack thereof.
Her surroundings do tell her that she's not in the custody of the Turkish police--unless their jail accommodation has been downgraded drastically; with European Union accession as the carrot dangled before the Turkish administration, Nadia wagers the human rights situation hasn't detoriated quite this badly, though.
No time to worry why she's fallen into the hands of Mustafa's goon; more important to find out how she can escape her makeshift prison in this Ottoman mansion by the river. There doesn't seem to be a way to open this door from the inside...but she will certainly be prepared for the moment someone opens it from the outside.
After a blissfully short time, Mustafa seems to have realised that Jack is not prone to talking, and leaves--only to return with two of the usual suspects from Süleymaniye Cemetery, the wiry fellow and the one with the slight perspiration problem.
Mustafa turns to the latter, switches back to Turkish.
"Kemal? Go and get the girl." A sideways glance at their captive. "In the mean time, Cenk and I will see if this one talks when we become a little more persuasive."
Tedious. Jack doesn't bother to watch Kemal leave. Cenk will have his grudging attention far too soon.
"I knew you were one of you bastards when you left the cemetery with the girl."
Cenk steps forward, puts his palms flat one table. Big hands for a man of his size, with gleaming silver rings on every finger. He's close enough that Jack can feel his nervous energy. His anticipation.
"When she started walking around, I realised she'd been at the Tower, too, when we were just a bit too late and only saw you leave--really, what are the chances of a body like that running around in all the right places?"
A grin that's full of crooked teeth and malice.
"But you know all about that body and all the right places, I bet. I hear what you told Mr. Mustafa here. Cousin? You're shitting me. And fucking her."
Jack freezes.
"Well, she'll be here in a little while; I'm sure I can come up with some…interrogation techniques, just for her." Cenk actually winks. "Maybe you'd like to watch? Might learn something, old man."
With cool, perfect clarity, Jack watches the shift of expression on Mustafa's face--lips tightly drawn, eyes dark and wide; finally, he looks like the man on the surveillance photos. Without another word, he opens the door and steps out.
It falls shut with a soft click.
Cenk looks up, taps his nose thoughtfully, never taking his eyes off Jack. The only one, certainly, but he's definitely pleased. "A man of faith, Mr. Mustafa. Me, now, I'm just a soldier of fortune. And the girl--yeah, she's what I consider good fortune."
Again, he inches closer. Looking past him, Jack can see shadowed movements behind the glass.
"Of course, I'm not a bad man. If you tell me what you found in Süleymaniye before Kemal comes back with her, I'll leave her be. Won't touch her, no."
An exaggerated hands-up gesture.
"So, it's all up to you. Mr. Mustafa says you're Mossad, Kemal says you're CIA. Know what I say?" Another grin. "I say, who the hell cares for that as long as you care for her?"
He doesn't seem fazed by Jack's lack of a response. Hands in his pockets, he strolls around the table, approaches him from the side.
"Yeah, you're playing it tough. Well, as I said--your responsibility."
The strike is a lazy one, just a knuckle-first swing at the side of his face; it hardly comes as a surprise but is still jarring, a sudden shock to his system.
This will not end well.
Cenk steps back into his field of vision, flexes his fingers. Distantly, Jack notes that there is no blood on his rings--beautifully ornamented Turkish silverware. He doesn't need a mirror to know that his face is a different matter; he could feel the sharp rip of skin, can now feel warm wetness trickling down the side of his face.
"Might as well have some warm-up till the real fun starts. Feel free to interrupt me anytime and tell me what the last clue was all about; I'll stop. See, am I not nice?"
Movement behind him. Jack can hear the rustle of fabric, something plastic.
"I bet you're a Christian--would you like some help turning the other cheek?" He makes a fist, pushes Jack's chin roughly so that his unbloodied cheek faces the light. "No? Okay. I got something better."
In front of his face, on Cenk's palm, a miniscule blue plastic box.
He opens it, takes out a needle so fine Jack has to squint to see it. He closes the box and shakes it to let Jack hear how many are left. He winks. With what is supposed to be a kindly smile, Cenk steps around him again, lets his fingertips trail over Jack's immobilised, outstretched hands. He strokes and then gently lifts Jack's index finger.
"This might sting a little."
No amount of expectation can prepare Jack for the object shoved under his fingernails--it feels as if the needle is endless, just the tip of a shard of ice travelling across nerve endings with the speed of light, filling every inch of his body with sharpness. Jack's head jerks back involuntarily; he can swallow the sound he nearly makes but he cannot help the fact he has to blink to clear his eyes.
"You could tell me," Cenk suggests conversationally, "what the clue is. Then I would not have to keep pulling these out of the box." He shakes the box again, opens it, and reaches in to pull another pin out.
The door opens, and Mustafa enters.
"Enough--the girl, she should be here any minute; she will tell us what we need to know. Unfasten him and bring him to the high-security cell."
Cenk doesn't complain, but when he bends down to remove the needle, he pulls it out at an angle.
Jack exhales; when Cenk jerks him up on the chains, he stumbles forwards on legs that have gone slightly numb after the prolonged lack of sufficient circulation. The metal bites into his wrists, and he shuffles along slowly, the chains tight.
"Move!"
A few slow steps into the corridor, head low, Jack winces, drops down a little to rub his left leg with two hands. Cenk, behind him, snorts in derision but doesn't stop moving, stepping next to of Jack instead.
Handcuffs may be constraints, and the chain a leash, but it's not prudent to forget that it has two ends. With one smooth movement, Jack steps back; the sudden jerk makes Cenk stumble sideways before he thinks of letting go. Jack's twist has already spun him off-balance, so side-stepping Cenk is child's play, and flipping the chain connecting the handcuffs over the man's head from behind is even easier.
Jack rams his knee into Cenk's back and pulls the chain tight around his throat. The choked sound from the other man's throat is oddly musical to his ears. Jack will let him sing one more stanza.
"Where is the woman?"
A twitch and a nod; there is some frantic scrambling for purchase on the floor, but for Cenk, movement is impossible without strangling himself. Jack eases his hold, a little, and Cenk inhales with a gasp.
"Down the corridor, left--right--left, very last door. Please, let me go, don't--"
The rest is cut off when Jack jerks once, hard. The sound of cracking vertebrae is not quite hidden by the clank of the chains.
Quickly, Jack hooks the keychain out of the man's right pocket and unlocks his handcuffs. The Glock from the holster beneath the jacket is a welcome weight in Jack's hand; he can already hear footsteps coming down the corridor just around the corner.
Standing up, he swings the weapon around, aims--
--and stares into the barrel of Nadia's gun.
They both freeze. Nadia is the first to lower the Beretta she's holding.
"Jack." She's also the first to crack a smile, wide and relieved. "I got your messenger."
He can feel part of the tension leaving his body and the warmth of her eyes dispel the chill of the basement; this reaction--while far more pleasant--is more unsettling than the events of the previous hour.
Slowly, he lowers the weapon and puts it away.
"Good. I knew you would be able to deal with--"
Nadia has stopped listening, a frown marring her brow. She briefly glances at the dead body to their feet but, looking at him again, steps closer. Gentle fingers touch his cheek.
"You're bleeding—what happened? Who did this to you? Are you alright?"
"Just a minor cut. It doesn't matter now. We must leave."
She looks doubtful for a moment, lets her hand lingers longer than strictly necessary. But after searching his face for clues and not finding any, she simply nods.
They quickly walk down the corridor leading away from the cells.
"Nadia, did anyone follow you?"
"No. The only person I met was the goon who told me Hamid Abd-ul Mustafa wanted me to join an interrogation session with--his words were 'the stubborn bastard'."
Another flash of amusement in her eyes, but it's slowly replaced by concern. At the next corner, they hesitate, then turn right, following the faint draft.
"Jack, how did we end up abducted in spite of the mosque security guards' intervention?"
"Because of the mosque security guards' intervention."
On her face, incredulity and a flash of anger. "Doesn't aiding and abetting religious extremists go just a little above and beyond the call of umma solidarity?"
"I don't imagine it had much to do with the worldwide community of Islam." Jack leads her around the corner and rifles through the keys on Cenk's chain to find the proper one. "Mustafa is no fool. He has both the mind and the means to prepare and made sure--beforehand--that the security force would not only stand by but act."
Next to him, Nadia exhales slowly, and her her warm breath tickles his ear, momentarily distracting him from methodically inserting each key in the lock. "They pretended to be the police--undercover."
Finally. He presses down the handle, and the wide metal door swings open. "That, or they pretended to be MIT."
"Fanatics disguised as Turkish secret service?" Nadia follows him outside, squints into the early evening sun to scan the savaged garden, the old mansion they just exited. "Here I thought I'd seen it all."
"A common but usually false assumption."
The dazzling flash of her smile is the only response she offers. Passing him, she carefully starts to walk down the gravel path, away from the house. She turns around. "Are you coming?"
Her eyes still bear the traces of that smile. Jack nods slowly. "Of course."