"Now, turn around slowly and move over to the chair by the window."
Chloe turned, refusing to look directly at him. She walked to the chair and sat with a heavy sigh and an even heavier look in his general direction.
Jack holstered his weapon and walked towards her. He knelt in front of her chair, hands either side and leaning in so his face was barely inches from hers. "Look at me Chloe" he demanded.
She reluctantly looked at him, defiance written all over her face. Good, he thought, taking it that he hadn't freaked her out too much. "Chloe, I will tell you why I need you here but that's it. I can't tell you any more."
Chloe's eyes fell to the floor again, her frustration making it difficult to maintain eye contact. She was always like this with extremes of emotion. She was fine with other people when everything was calm, when the status quo was being maintained in her own mind. But as soon as she started swinging emotionally she found it difficult to relate to others, preferring instead to cocoon herself and steer clear of any entanglements. "Jack, why did you kidnap all those people? I don't understand any of this" she said, blowing her hair out of her eyes as she finally looked up at him.
"I needed your help Chloe and I had to make it seem like you came here against your will. If they thought you were doing this willingly then they would have been suspicious that I was double crossing them."
"Who?"
"The Chinese. They believe that I am now working for them and my first task was to get you to help me with their mission. I had to make them believe you were doing it against your will otherwise they would have realised their plan hadn't worked. They used sensory techniques for the past year to get me to do what they wanted. At first I resisted then realised they were doing it to get me to work for them so decided to go along with it as a way to stop them."
"What do you need me to do?"
"First we need to get out of here, then I need you to hack into CTU's mainframe undetected to transfer some information."
"What information?"
"A list of all CTU's operatives abroad and details of planned operations in the Middle East and Asia."
"But Jack, where am I transferring the information to? If I release it then our national security will never recover. Are you sure they weren't at least partially successful when they tried to brainwash you?"
Jack felt a smile come to his lips at her candour, only Chloe could say it like it is without using a more cunning approach to identify whether he really was working with the terrorists. Just then, the conference room phone rang for the third time in 10 minutes. Jack stood up "We need to get out of here Chloe, answer the phone and ask that we have a chopper here in 15 minutes."
Chloe did as he asked although it was not that easy. Curtis was on the other end of the phone demanding to know if she was Ok, asking who this guy was, what he wanted and most importantly where he was intending to take her. Chloe told him that the terrorist wanted information but that she didn't know the details yet.
"Curtis, if the chopper is not here in 15 minutes he will kill me, and then he will release a bomb somewhere in the US, followed by another then another until he gets what he wants. The people he is working with will know if we double cross him so let's just give him what he wants."
"I'll get back to you" Curtis said before hanging up.
As Chloe hung up she looked at Jack who said "You're good Chloe, I think you must have done this before."
"Well you should know Jack"
Jack moved into a small room at the back of the conference room and Chloe followed. There were video screens surveying the area, they showed troops on the ground and some on the lower floors of the building. "When Curtis calls back tell him to get his men to stand down Chloe. I don't want anyone but us in this building when that chopper lands on the roof."
"Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you really have shot me?"
Jack walked towards her "would you really have walked away?"
Chloe rolled her eyes "what sort of answer is that?"
"The only one you're gonna get because the real answer should be obvious Chloe. If you had walked out that door I would have dragged you back in but I knew you wouldn't have come quietly and I didn't want you screaming like a banshee and bringing Curtis and god only knows who up here – Ok?"
"Banshee? Since when have you heard me scream like a banshee?" she asked, her outrage clear.
Jack chuckled and moved away to open his bag and pull out essential items for their getaway.
"I wouldn't have walked out the door you know" she said in a quiet voice.
. "I know".
