Chapter 14
Jed stirred, hearing a number of unfamiliar voices speaking Russian. 'What's happening?' After struggling to open his heavy eyes, he noted the men with guns in the room as well as the three women walking about the room.
"Hey, what's going on?" As he spoke, he realized his arms and legs were restrained. Pulling on them only offered more resistance. "Hey! Anyone talking here?"
The biggest man walked over and smiled down at him. "Oh, you're awake."
"Yeah. What's going on? Who are you?"
"Welcome to our world, Mr. President." Although heavily accented, the man's English was good. "I'm Spitimir and I'm the one responsible for this. And the bombing. You shouldn't have supported my Russian enemies against us. The Chechen people deserve their own homeland and we are using you and your wife to promote our cause."
Jed's heart stopped. 'Abbey? Was she in this mess too?' "My wife? Where is she?"
Spitimir stepped back as he motioned to the other side of the room. "Here. With you. It is so good we got both of you."
Jed leaned up as far as the restraints would allow him to see Abbey lying limply on her bed, unconscious. "Is she okay?"
Spitimir laughed. "Well, sort of. I mean the medication seems to be affecting her breathing but we don't care. If she dies, no problem. We still have you."
Jed bit his lip, trying to restrain the angry comments that welled up inside of him. "You can't let her die. She has done nothing to you. I'll do whatever you want me to."
At this point Kiska walked over to his bed. "Now you see why we have both of you. We know she's your soft spot. In Chechnya, women are tough and men don't get upset about losing a woman. They just go and find another one. So it is to our benefit that we have both."
Jed looked at her face, thinking she looked familiar. "You were my nurse? You gave me the pain medication, didn't you?"
Now it was Kiska's time to laugh. "Yes, I did. And you had a nice little sleep as well, didn't you?"
"What time is it?"
"Oh, I think about nine pm."
Jed leaned back. If Ron hadn't freed them yet, then something else was going on. He tried to make some sense of this but his drugged brain was having extreme difficulty.
His thoughts were distracted by the woman standing by Abbey's bed screaming something in Russian. He saw Kiska run to her side and yell something back at her. Then Kiska grabbed the oxygen mask above Abbey's bed and placed it over her face. Kiska reached above the bed and turned the dial on the monitor.
Jed knew then that Abbey was having more difficulty breathing. He lay back on the bed, sending a prayer of hope upward that she was not going to die. She couldn't die.