McGee awoke slowly to a symphony of pain. His head was thumping, his neck was stiff and every muscle seemed immobilised. There was a burning in his throat. His mouth was painfully dry but the rest of him seemed cold and wet. There was a familiar smell. He thought for a moment and then he recognised it: vomit. He could see nothing, that tight feeling around his eyes must be a blindfold.
He was cold, unusually so. It occurred to him that he had no trousers or jacket. Looks like whoever had put him here had dispensed with searching for hidden tracking devices and just thrown out the lot. He still had socks on though, that seemed bizarre.
His wrists were tied with some form of rope about half an inch in diameter, so were his ankles. He moved his head slightly and realised the same harsh twine encircled his neck. The ropes on his wrists were so tight they seemed to have worn through to his bones, but he could just be imagining that. The one thing he didn't want to loose was his hands (well after his head and some vital organs) and never be able to use his computers again.
He was sitting on a chair. What was it they said at training? The chair was the weakest link. He felt the chair with his fingers. What was this: cast iron? Then he recognised it as one of those garden chairs with the wrought iron lacework. 'Fantastic,' he thought: 'heavy and tough'. He paused to gather himself.
'WWTD,' he thought to himself. 'What would Tony do?"
"First kidnapping?"
The voice made him jump.
"Usually people feign unconsciousness first and try to assess the situation, but you just got straight in there, didn't you?"
McGee's shoulder slumped: Yes, that was what Tony would do.
"I find it refreshingly honest," said the voice admiringly making McGee feel even more amateurish.
"By the way: in case you're ever kidnapped again, which is unlikely by the way, you are rather sensitive to chloroform."
Actually, he knew that.
"What with the seizures and the vomiting, we nearly gave up and threw you in the river but you started coming round just in time."
McGee panicked momentarily and then calmed himself. If he was going to die, he wasn't going to let his guy have the satisfaction of upsetting him.
"Tell me about your lunchtime hobbies," said the voice conversationally.
This took McGee completely off guard. "What?"
"Your little foray into mysterious signal spikes," the voice prompted.
Realisation hit McGee but he tried desperately not to show it. Hopefully his face was too disfigured to betray his emotion.
"Yes, that's the one," said the voice.
Obviously his face wasn't that disfigured.
"It was only noticed by you and a group of SETI astronomers. They've now got extra funding by the way but they think we're transmitting from Persus A," there was a low chuckle. "You, on the other hand, got a little close to home."
"I thought it was a local spike," he lied.
There was a resounding whack across his face and he tasted blood.
"You are not a good liar."
He had to admit the guy had a point. Part of him began to panic, Abby knew about this too. He concentrated hard on an image of working alone in the lab, desperately trying to make himself believe that Abby had no idea. Perhaps he could try swamping himself and his interrogator with that image.
"OK," he began. "At first I thought it was a local spike but after I checked every device within a two mile radius I thought it must be more distant but strong. So I checked all the databases I could think of and came up blank. Then I started ringing around agencies, who all thought I was nuts for calling them during their lunchbreak."
"Did you share your search with anybody else?"
"Apart from the people who abused me during their lunchbreak?"
"Yes," there was mild amusement in the voice.
"No," said McGee confidently. "It was a lunchtime thing."
There was a pause and McGee tried to keep his breathing steady.
"Good," said the voice finally and McGee fought the urge to heave a relived sigh."Then that will be all." He heard a door shut.