A Kick to the Head
Chapter 2
Sam's hands were starting to go numb. He flexed his fingers, trying to help the blood move. After the man had left, Sam found himself focusing on the steady drip of the IV into Spike's elbow. Spike never sat up again after that last lash. He stayed hunched, bent in half with his head almost to his knees. Only his hands tied to the chair kept him from collapsing entirely. Sam couldn't take his eyes away. He watched the slight rise and fall of Spike's back that meant he was still breathing.
Sam's headache returned, bringing with it a crushing fatigue, but he couldn't let himself sleep. Spike was unconscious, or asleep, or maybe so high he couldn't tell his ass from a teakettle, and Sam knew that one of them needed to be alert. So he narrowed his focus and willed himself awake.
He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, Spike unmoving and Sam counting his breaths. At some point, Spike started shivering. Sam clenched his muscles, trying to keep his blood moving and stave off the creeping cold.
The door opened again. The man didn't have the whip this time. Instead he held a phone to his ear.
"Very well," the man said into the phone. "Here is your proof." He tapped at the phone, activating the speakerphone. He held it out to Sam so he could be heard, then took his free hand and drew his gun, pointing it at Spike's head.
"One word answers," the man said.
"Samuel?" asked Sam's father. Sam wrenched his eyes from Spike and stared at the phone. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't his father.
"Yes," Sam answered.
"I've been told you have been captured. Is this true?"
"Yes."
His father sighed. Sam had to close his eyes for a second at the sound. Most people would have taken that sigh as annoyed, but Sam knew it was the only sound of distress his father allowed himself. He could still remember being nine years old, standing on his own front step with a policeman's hand on one shoulder and his sister's shoes in his hands. His father had listened, pulled Sam to his side and sighed, a heavy, despairing sound.
"Can you tell me where you are?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw the man put his finger on the trigger.
"No."
"Are you alone? Is your team with you?" Sam had to pause for a moment to think up one word.
"Spike," he said. He didn't think it would mean anything to his father, but he hoped it would be enough to tip him off to contact his team.
"I see," his father said, though Sam knew he probably didn't. "And do you know what this is about?"
"No."
"Then it's time for me to talk with the man in charge again."
The man cut the speakerphone, stuffed the gun back into his waistband and walked away. Sam heard him say "Listen carefully, your son's life depends on it" before the door closed behind him.
Sam made himself relax muscle by muscle. With the door closed, he found his eyes drawn inexorably to Spike. As he watched, Spike's breath became slower and shallower, harder to spot.
The door opened and the man came in again. He threw the phone down on the table and placed the gun beside it, then sat down on the edge. He lit a cigarette and inhaled, not bothering to look at his two hostages. Sam waited until he was half-way through the cigarette and looked a bit settled.
"Could you sit my friend upright? I'm worried about his breathing," Sam asked quietly. The man looked over at them, uninterested, then made a half shrug motion and stood. He went to Spike and grabbed him by the hair, pulling him up until Spike was sitting with his head tipped back. Spike's eyes were half open. They wandered, unable to settle on anything and focus, not even the man's face right in front of him. He was pale and sweaty, still shivering. Sam tried not to look at the angry red stripe across his chest.
"Thanks. Any chance you could slow the IV?" The man let out an abrupt, barking laugh.
"I don't think so," he said. "Not when it keeps him quiet and you under control." Sam tried to keep the annoyance off his face. It was true, but he hoped it hadn't occurred to their captor.
"I know my father pretty well," he said instead. "If you're willing to go this far to get something from him, you must have a really good reason."
The man's eyes narrowed as he dragged on the cigarette again. He exhaled in a long, thin stream of smoke and Sam realized he'd lost the settled look from before. Sam swallowed, suddenly nervous, and couldn't stop his eyes from darting quickly to Spike and back again. The man laughed.
"Yeah, a really good reason," he said. "Stop talking."
He ground the cigarette out with his heel and stalked away, slamming the door behind him.
It was a trap. Not only that, Greg concluded, it was a well laid trap, and it had worked. Once the team had realized Sam and Spike were missing, they had torn the place apart, but there was nothing to find. The farmhouse was abandoned and coming apart at the seams. It had four walls, half of a roof and absolutely nothing in between.
Greg was standing just inside the front door with the rest of the team in a huddle, surveying the destruction from the bomb and trying to think of something—anything— to go on when Winnie cut in on the radio.
"Boss?" she said. "I have Sam's father here, says he wants to know where his son is." Greg shared a confused look with Jules.
"You mean he knows Sam is missing?" he asked.
"Sounds like it," Winnie confirmed.
"Alright, patch him through. I want you all listening in on this," he added to the rest of the team. His earpiece crackled as Winnie connected the call.
"General Braddock? This is Sergeant Parker with the Strategic Response Unit."
"Sergeant Parker," Sam's father said in greeting. "Am I correct in assuming that you have lost my son?" Greg paused. He couldn't bring himself to admit to that out loud.
"How do you know that?" he asked instead.
"A man called. He let me talk to Samuel as proof of life. I'm afraid I didn't get much information though, Samuel's responses were limited." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jules writing on a piece of paper. She held it up so he could see the When? scrawled across the top.
"And when was that, sir?" he asked with a nod to Jules.
"About 10 minutes ago." Wordy shot him a thumbs up and turned away, clicking his radio onto a different setting so he wouldn't interrupt them.
"And did they have any demands?" They must have, Greg thought to himself. They wouldn't have called if they didn't have demands. They would have just killed Sam and been done with it.
"Yes. About a month ago, a special forces unit was deployed to eliminate a growing terrorist cell in the city. He wants the names and locations of everyone involved. Sergeant Parker," he paused and for the first time, Greg heard a hint of desperation bleeding into his voice. "That is not something I am able to provide."
"No, of course not," Greg agreed. Ed grabbed the paper from Jules. When he held it up, Greg saw that he had written Spike?! in big blocky letters, underlined it twice and circled it.
"General, did Sam say anything else? Anything about another hostage?"
"When I asked him if his team was with him, he said 'spike.'" From the way he said it, Greg could tell this meant nothing to Sam's father. Jules snatched the paper from Ed and scribbled furiously. "Does this help you?"
"It does. Spike— Constable Scarlatti— is one of my team." He read Jules' scribbles while talking. "Constable Callahan tells me he tackled Sam to get him away from a blast. Constable Scarlatti is our bomb tech. He has a nose for explosives."
"Then I owe him a debt," Sam's father said. "How can I help you?"
"I'm sending a team to pick you up." Greg gestured to his earpiece and Jules nodded. She wrote T3 to Sam's dad on the paper and turned to hand it to Wordy. "If they call back, I want you to stall. Don't say no or yes. Tell them you're working on it but it'll take a while. Just try and slow them down."
"Understood," Sam's father said, and hung up. Wordy came over to join them again, nodding absently as he listened to his headset and making notes on the paper.
"Winnie says Donna is on her way to pick him up," he reported. "The rest of team three will be here soon. Where's the map?"
Greg led them all back outside to the cluster of SUVs and spread the map over the hood. Wordy started marking a wide circle, explaining as he worked.
"The bomb exploded at 8:15 and Ed saw the van drive away a couple minutes later. General Braddock says he got a call 10 minutes ago." Wordy checked his watch. "15, now. Let's assume they drove at top speed and didn't stop. Which means they were on the circle when they called. And if they stopped before they called, they're somewhere inside."
"That's a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of ifs and maybes," Ed said. He had that slightly distracted look like when he was working on a plan. Wordy shrugged helplessly. Ed was right, but there wasn't anything they could do about it.
"Okay then," Ed continued, nodding as he came to a decision. "When Team Three gets here, we split up. Every barn, every house, every chicken coop, I want them all searched."
"We'll find them," he added decisively. "They are out there and we will find them. They just have to hold on until we get there."