A/N:Just to be on the safe side, this chapter has a trigger warning for brief threat of rape, so consider yourself warned.
The room was dark. Jane tried to curl up to try and conserve some heat, she was freezing. She tried to take a deep breath, but only ended up coughing painfully. She must have inhaled some of the water during one of the sessions. Her head was pounding, she had hit it on something when her captors had thrown her around as they moved her inside the room. The pounding was only enhanced by the music constantly coming from speakers somewhere in the room. There was no respite from it. The only time it stopped was when Campbell decided to have another shot at torturing her. Having worked with the CIA, he knew everything about their enhanced interrogation methods.
Jane couldn't see so she had to go by her other senses. The room had to be rather large, she could hear sound echo during the brief moments of silence. The sound of their boots sounded unnaturally loud as Campbell and his men moved about the room. The air was stale, it smelled musty, almost like the barn where she had killed Oscar. There was a leaking faucet somewhere in the room, she could hear the drops of water hitting metal, like the bottom of an industrial sink. "What is this place? And where am I? Am I even in the US anymore? They could've kept me drugged for God knows how long during transport."
Jane stamped down on the rising desperation and tried to focus her thoughts. "I have to try and figure things out. Maybe at some point Campbell will get complacent, or one of his men will," she tried to convince herself, although being kept handcuffed the entire time and having nothing to pick the lock with, she was starting to feel her resolve crumble. "Okay, think. How many men does he have?" There was at least one called Jerry, another one who smelled of cigars, and a third who kept snapping at something like a pen. At times she had heard Campbell go somewhere, what she assumed was the door, and talk to someone. So there might be more.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the heard the door opening, and soon the music stopped again.
Kurt sighed in frustration and massaged his neck before dialing Patterson's number and waiting for the SUV's handsfree to connect his call.
"There's no sign of them here either, Patterson," he spoke almost angrily as soon as the call connected. "Give me the next address."
He heard her sigh on the other end of the line, but her voice was soft. "Kurt, come back to the NYO. You've been driving around for hours."
After calling all the hospitals in the area of the five boroughs to see if any of them had had a patient matching his wife's description, and going through endless hours of CCTV footage to find any clue as to who had Jane, he was almost at a dead end. Her phone had been found close to her car, only showing the calls Kurt had made to it on the night of her disappearance. And there was still no activity on her credit cards. He had even called Allie, begging her to go check their old house in Colorado, to see if she was there. But there had been no sign of her.
It had to be someone with a connection to them, he knew that. Jane wouldn't leave without telling him, not again. So, in his desperation he had started driving around and checking any connection he could think of. He'd gone to the old Briggs house, he'd searched some of the old Sandstorm locations Patterson had, but there were still many on the list.
"Just give me the next address, Patterson!" He spoke, now clearly angry.
"No, I will not. I will not have you driving yourself off the road because you fall asleep at the wheel." Patterson's tone was adamant but compassionate. "Look, come here and rest up a couple of hours. You're no use to Jane if you're dead on your feet when we find her," she finished gently.
Kurt's voice was strained as he answered. "I can't just sit around doing nothing."
Before Patterson had a chance to reply, he heard another familiar voice. "Kurt, it's Reade. Look, I know you're not big on the idea, but what if we bring Keaton into the loop? Ask if he's heard from Jane, just to cover our bases?"
As much as Kurt hated the idea of bringing Keaton in, he knew Reade had a point. Exhausted, he rubbed his eyes before relenting. "Alright. I'll call him and ask him to come to the NYO. I'm coming back there now."
Jane bit down on her lip to muffle her scream as the tip of the knife sliced the skin at her side as she was suspended by her arms. She knew her torturer had to be tracing one of her tattoos. The warm blood dripped down her side from the shallow cut. He knew exactly what he was doing. Not deep enough to cause major injuries but enough to hurt like hell.
Campbell sounded amused as he spoke from somewhere behind her. "You are a tough one, aren't ya? Keaton was unable to get the information he wanted, but I won't make the same mistake he did. See, I know ya now."
She heard his footsteps coming closer and her pulse quickened.
"And you'll tell me everythin' I wanna know. Everyone has a breaking point, Jane. Even you. It's just a matter of the right tools. Now, let's try this again, shall we? What do ya know of the remainin' Regiment cells in New York State?"
"Go to hell, Campbell," Jane replied measuredly. She heard him scoff, and then heard a sound, like someone popping the lid off a container. Soon, she was unable to muffle a scream as the fresh wounds felt like they were on fire.
Campbell was almost analytical as he spoke. "Table salt. Such a common, everyday item. But somethin' that can be very useful also when acquiring information."
Jane tried to get her breathing under control, breathing through her nose. "I don't know anything more about the Regiment," she attempted to tell him through the pain.
"You honestly expect me to believe that?" His tone was almost berating.
"For an ex-intel contractor, you really should work on your people skills more." Jane retorted back. "That is probably why you were let go by the CIA. You're inept."
Her torturer's voice took on an edge with the next words. "No…they let me go 'cause of you. Because of whatcha did. You bitch!"
The next moment, Jane howled in agony and all she saw was white hot pain behind her eyelids, as Campbell grabbed her arm and violently yanked her shoulder back. She could hear the sickening sound as her you shoulder dislocated, and came close to passing out but her body wasn't quite that merciful.
The malice in his voice was clear. "Hurts like hell, don't it?"
"The DNA belongs to someone called Jonathan Campbell." Patterson told the group assembled in her lab.
Jonathan Campbell?" Keaton asked Patterson, and sighed.
Kurt spun around to face him, eying him suspiciously. "You know this guy?"
"If it's the same Campbell, then yes. I worked with him, when he did work as a contractor for the CIA."
"What kind of contracting work?" Kurt's voice was getting colder as he spoke.
"Come on, Weller. This guy has been a contractor on classified operations, you know I cannot share the information."
Something in Kurt's mind snapped. This guy has worked with the CIA, with Keaton…and now he has Jane.
He rushed Keaton, pinning him hard against the wall.
"HEY! Weller! Don't destroy my lab." Patterson protested, but Kurt did not seem to hear her.
"It's been almost a week! You better tell us everything you know about Campbell, right now!"
"I have to verify it with Langley first."
Kurt stared at Keaton, his arm slowly increasing the pressure against the other man's throat. "Quit with the bureaucratic excuses. He has my wife!" Kurt felt his anger only increasing at Keaton's calm look. "How the hell would you feel, if someone was holding your wife and doing God knows what to them?" he growled.
"Let him go, Kurt." Patterson asked, placing her hand on his shoulder. He ignored her.
"At least my wife is not a former terrorist," Keaton quipped, despite Weller's arm increasing the pressure against his throat.
Red-hot rage filled Kurt's mind and he punched Keaton in the gut, hard, about to take another swing at the CIA man when Reade forcefully yanked him back.
"WELLER! That's enough!"
He let go of Keaton who crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath.
Next, he found himself looking at Reade, his look a mix of concern and incredulity. "What the hell are you thinking? Go, get out of here. Go cool off."
Weller glared at the man collecting himself on the ground and pointed at him accusingly "This is on you, Keaton! You better clear that information with Langley. Or I will hold you personally responsible for what happens to Jane."
With that, he stormed out of the lab.
"Tell me what I wanna know!" Campbell shouted at Jane as she sat blindfolded in the chair again, her hands cuffed behind her back. Her shoulder felt like it was being torn out of its socket, which it technically had been. She raised her head wearily from her chest, and drew in a breath. She felt the painful rasp as her lungs protested.
"I can't tell you what I don't know," she replied tiredly.
Then, all she could do was yell as he pressed a cigarette into her thigh and held it there. "I got all the time in the world, Jane Doe" he snarled into her ear, so close that Jane could feel his breath of her cheek.
He lifted the cigarette and whispered. "No one's coming to get ya. You belong to me as long as we need. Oh, and soon we'll bring your husband here too."
Jane couldn't help an involuntary shudder from escaping at the thought of Kurt in Campbell's hands. No, God no.
"Oh, that got your attention did it, darlin'?" Campbell laughed. "Yeah, maybe having him here will encourage ya to talk."
Jane was unable to bite back a scream as Campbell grabbed her injured shoulder and squeezed it. "Then, you get to watch when I do all the same things to him that I did to you. Maybe even a bit more. He's got no intel value to us, and it is interestin' to test the limits of human endurance sometimes."
Lifting her head, she blindly sought Campbell to address him. "Leave Kurt out of this," she spoke, her voice betraying the fear she felt at the thought of her husband being tortured.
"It doesn't have to be like this." He sounded almost sympathetic. "Tell me what I wanna know and maybe we'll kill him quick."
"I can't tell you what I don't know," Jane pleaded with her captor, becoming desperate.
She froze as she felt his fingertips trail her neck.
"I have to hand it to ya, you are resilient. You withstood all that questionin' with Keaton, and still managed to escape. You got some spark in ya."
The hairs at the back of her neck stood up, as he whispered in her ear.
"I like that in a woman. I like it when they put up a fight."
Jane shivered as his finger traced the back of her bra.
"Tattoos or not, you do have a very nice body." Campbell traced the strap of her bra with his fingers, and circling in front of her, he rested his hand on her breast. "Or maybe…maybe I'll keep Kurt alive long enough so that he can witness me ravish his wife. He can't stop me, all he can do is watch. We'll see if ya have any fight left after I'm done with ya."
With all her military training, this was something that shook her to down to her soul. With Kurt there…"Please God, no."
Kurt was gripping the steering wheel as he drove, trying to push back the thoughts of all the worst-case scenarios involving Jane that his mind kept creating. Keaton rode shotgun with Reade and Zapata following in another SUV behind them. They were driving to upstate New York, planning to meet up with some agents from the Albany field office along the way, but there was still almost a two hour drive up north from there.
Thanks to a redacted CIA file on Campbell that Keaton had provided, they had been able to bring in one of Campbell's old associates for questioning. During the interrogation he had mentioned a cabin at Dewey Mountain that Campbell had bought from him a few years back. Using information from the DMV, Patterson had tracked Campbell using a northbound toll road a little over a week ago. They had immediately issued a BOLO to state and local law enforcement, but so far there were no reports. Kurt just hoped they were right and not just chasing a ghost. He knew the longer it took, the slimmer his chances of finding Jane alive.
Startled by the sound of his phone ringing, he answered the call showing up on the dash: "Yeah, Patterson?"
"We continued questioning Lawson this morning after you left, to see if he could give us anything more and he gave us a name that flagged a past case. You're not going to like it."
"Just tell me! What case?" Kurt replied, irritated.
"The Shipley tattoo case, with the Regiment. Apparently, Lawson and Campbell had a mutual friend we took down in that case."
Kurt felt a mix of frustration and fear. The militia being involved raised the risks to their operation significantly. The members most likely had training and a passionate hatred for law enforcement, Federal in particular. And the location they were going to might have boobytraps. He sighed. "So, you're saying that he might have had connections to the Regiment?"
"Yeah, he might. We took down the leadership, but a paramilitary organization like that might have cells still left."
Kurt glared at Keaton, wondering if there was more he wasn't telling. "Okay. Any new sightings on Campbell?"
"No. But based on this Regiment connection I have been doing some research on the location."
"What have you got?"
"I was thinking that a cabin, even a remote one would be too cramped to hold Jane and Campbell and his men. So, I drew up a list of non-residential buildings that have been for sale within a 20-mile radius of the cabin."
"That's a reach at best, Patterson…"
"I know, but hear me out. There were some industrial buildings, but they were too open. But then I discovered that the New York National Guard shut down their armory last year. It was vacant and for sale for a while, until it was bought by a small company called Roncal LLC four months ago. Going over the seized Regiment documents we discovered that its owner, a Steven Spencer, had made a donation to a charity that was actually a front for collecting funds for the Regiment."
"Alright, thanks. Keep digging, we need some confirmation that it is the place. We're still about half an hour from Albany, ideally we need the location when we brief their agents."
"I'll call you as soon as I have anything new." With that, the call disconnected.
Kurt threw a pointed look at Keaton. "Did you know about this Regiment connection? What are you not telling us?" He asked, an edge to his voice.
"No, this was news to me, too. Look, if he's associated with the Regiment, we would never have hired him."
"But you did, didn't you?" Kurt's voice was low and tight, his eyes on the road again. "How many times have you used him to do your dirty work at black sites?"
Keaton sighed in frustration. "Look Weller, the Agency has used him as a contractor, but I can't tell you more because those operations are classified."
"Then tell me about him! If anyone knows what he's capable of, it's you! And he has Jane."
"He's a former Army Human Intelligence specialist. Had a good service record, had worked for the same contractor for a number of years. He got the job done."
Kurt shuddered inwardly at that statement. He knew what getting the job done meant in Keaton's world.
"But you let him go, according to the file you gave us. Why?"
"He was working for some operation, I don't know the details, but something happened. He became volatile. I had people who had worked with him come tell me they didn't want to work with him anymore. That he was a risk. And he was recovering from an injury after….after Jane. So, we didn't hire him anymore."
Kurt swallowed hard and spoke quietly, voicing his inner thoughts. "So he blames Jane for losing the contract…"
Jane was shivering. Campbell had purposefully lowered the temperature in the room, and now, her skin still wet from the last torture session, she thought she could feel the heat leave her body. At first, she had hoped the cold would dull the pain, but it didn't. It only made her shiver, and when she attempted to ease her agony by shifting position on the hard, concrete floor, it just made it even worse, causing her to cry out, quietly, as the pain flared all over her body."
She couldn't see anything through the blindfold, so it was as if all sensation was multiplied. She could feel the handcuffs digging into her wrists, her injured body screaming with the pain. All she heard was the pounding music on a loop again, refusing to give her a moment's respite. And if she dozed off, she very soon woke up to a swift kick into her stomach. God, she needed to sleep.
How long had it been? Must be days, if not longer. It all melded into a continuous blur of pain and torture. They had taken Jane's sight with the blindfold, her hands were cuffed behind her back, and she hadn't slept in ages. How long could she take this? Not that it mattered. She didn't have the answers to Campbell's questions. And no one would find her, Keaton would make sure of it. Keaton had okayed taking her, Campbell had said. "But why? Maybe for the same reason as Campbell, maybe he wants to finish the job."
She just wanted for the pain to end. She couldn't block it out, not anymore. Not without sleep. She thought they had shut down the Regiment's operation when working with Kurt's old partner. But had they missed something? Based on Campbell's insistence, they must have. That, or he just wanted to make her suffer as much as possible.
Jane tried to think back to that case, to give him something if only to make the pain stop for a while. And most of all, to keep him away from Kurt. The thought of her torturer getting his hands on her husband had her feeling both angry and terrified. She knew she would not survive that, watching him subjected to all she had lived through so far. And then Campbell's threat of making Kurt watch as he raped her. How could Kurt ever look at her after that, assuming they would live. Kurt. God, she missed him. He must be going mad with worry. Hopefully he knew her disappearing was not by choice this time. "But what if Keaton told him I had left again and is leading him on a wild goose chase across the world? No one will ever come for you…"
Desperation was getting an iron grip on her heart, there was hardly a spark of hope left. She had never felt like this, not even during the three months with the CIA. She was on her own.