Jack's line had gone dead.
It was as though my tether, my safety line had been cut and I was floating out in the middle of the ocean alone. Scared seemed like an understatement. I checked for his location on my phone. It was gone.
Jack was in trouble.
I locked in a fresh magazine and tried to breathe steadily. Panic was always there, just below the surface, ready to boil over. I couldn't let it. Right now, he needed me. Right now, I had to be the safety line for him. I needed to tread water.
Sam dropped the phone from her ear and moaned. "What about Carter and Fusco?" she asked, replacing the phone on her ear as she walked along the perimeter of the park.
"They are giving us a chance to get John out first before they arrive with a squad of officers. But I can't get to him alone."
Us. Just like old times, which was what she was afraid of. Sam's hesitation wouldn't leave her. "I'm - I don't know, Harold. John's always in over his head."
"Believe me, I do understand how you feel, Sam," Finch said. "But, I trust that you will also understand me when I say that I have not heard from him in over ten hours. Something is very wrong. I wouldn't have contacted you unless it was absolutely necessary. And I can say that – "
"It is absolutely necessary," Sam finished his sentence and sighed. John was in danger. That wasn't news. But Finch sounded panicky, and Sam had that familiar lump in the pit of her stomach that she hadn't felt since the last time John's life had been hanging in the balance. If anything happened to him… "All right, I can – "
A black car sped up to the side of the road, making Sam jump onto the grass. Finch rolled down the window. "Get in, I'll explain on the way." He was being assertive and demanding. Something definitely was wrong.
Sam ran around to the passenger side of the car and barely sat down before Finch sped away.
"Hi Harold," she said. Her smile was unstoppable. It was nice to see Harold's familiar pop eyes behind the rectangular glasses again. The whole effect was reassuring somehow.
"There's a Welcome Home present for you in the glove compartment," Finch pointed.
Sam opened the glove box and out slid a black, nine millimeter: Sam's gun. "You sentimental fool." She ejected the magazine and saw that it was only half full. "John keep any extra mags in here?" she asked as she locked it back into the gun.
Finch reached into his jacket pocket as he drove haphazardly through the streets and pulled out a new magazine.
"Harold, I missed you," Sam said with a laugh in spite of how desperate he was acting.
"And I you," Finch nodded without looking at her.
"So where is he?"
"I can't be exactly sure. We are heading to his last location, which was transmitted over six hours ago. We'll start there."
"Harold, why are you so worried? John handles himself pretty well," Sam said, leaning back in her seat and buckling her seatbelt.
Finch glanced at her, then back at the windshield. "We were working on another number. Only now, it is very possible that instead of preventing a murder, we may have only switched the target to Mr. Reese."
"But you've lost contact with him before," Sam reasoned, trying to keep her panic under a tight lid. Finch was not helping.
"Yes, but he was not surrounded by a dozen heavily armed drug runners in any of those previous situations. Mr. Reese somehow diverted one of their shipments in order to help our latest number to escape. It worked perfectly… until they captured him."
"And you think he's still alive?"
"He knows the location of that shipment. They are most likely interrogating him."
"For more than ten hours," Sam said helplessly. "Why can't Carter or Fusco come now to help?"
Finch jumped a curb as he made a sharp right turn. They bounced in the car as he sped on.
"The detectives have to keep up appearances, Sam," Finch explained while running a red light. "These men are the leaders of some of the most dangerous smuggling gags in the city, perhaps the country. They come from all over, Germany, Turkey, Russia, France even. Let's just say that they are difficult to catch. The police received an anonymous tip this morning about the last location Mr. Reese was known to be. They are planning to converge upon that in less than an hour. Mr. Reese will be arrested with the rest of those men if we don't get to him in time. Detective Carter gave us a window, that is all she was able to manage."
"How do we even know that John and all of them are still in that place?"
"We don't." Finch said. "I'm only hoping."
Finch slowed and stopped quietly in front of a row of houses. They looked old and run down on the outside.
"We need to go in, find out if he's there. If he is, I send a message to Detective Carter, and we get him out."
"With a dozen drug lords running after us screaming in foreign tongues," Sam said as she stowed her weapon and got out of the car. "I love this plan."
Everything was too familiar. This was the part of that life that Sam hated the most, the fear and dread at what lie on the other side of a door, or a wall; and worse, at what state John would be in when she found him. And she would find him. She always did. That was never a question.
Sam walked up to the front door of the first house along the street. It was a two storey and, judging from the junk pile dumped on the curb, was in the middle of being renovated. Finch pulled out his phone and looked at the screen for a moment.
"No," he gestured to the left. "It's this one."
They stepped off of the porch and approached the next front door. It looked like a duplex, the two houses joined together on one side.
The front door was shabby. Paint peeled from the wood, flaking off to the ground. The porch was dusted with paint chips. Sam tried the doorknob. The door was open. It gave way a little, and then stuck again. The swollen wood of the door, combined with the sagging of the framework made for a difficult entry. She pushed and shoved at the door until it left her and Finch enough space to slip inside.
The room itself seemed to be wrapped in a blanket of silence. Once Sam stepped in, she drew her weapon, and the absence of sound pressed against her ears. She swallowed, trying to make them pop, but there was no need for it. It was the room, the house itself.
She was right. It looked like the entire place was being renovated. Plastic covers were draped over furniture, and taped over windows. White sheets and tarps covered the floor.
Her dread doubled once she looked around the room. How many times had she done this with John, followed him into an unknown building. But this time, she wasn't reassured when she looked up and saw him in front of her, leading the way. Sam looked up and saw the ghost-like room in front of her, not John's back. Finch was close by, but now it was all on her.
Sam stopped in the entryway and listened. Air was coming in from the outside into the room somewhere, she could hear it. Some of the plastic and sheets moved gently with it.
"I don't think anyone is here," she whispered.
Finch nodded ahead of them. "You check in that other room. I'll look down here. We have to be sure." He was whispering as well, which made Sam feel a tiny bit better. He also sensed the strangeness about the place.
Sam moved to her right, around the perimeter of the front room. Careful not to step on any of the plastic covers, she headed towards an open doorway as Finch went down the opposite hall.
She stepped into what looked like a dining room that also shared the same space with a small kitchen. A dividing counter in the kitchen split the room. The dining table and chairs were also covered in protective plastic and sheets. Sam then saw where the outside draft was coming from. A window was open in the kitchen above the sink.
Sam tiptoed into the kitchen, her sneakers squeaked on the linoleum. She stepped carefully past the sink to a closed door, most likely a cupboard or a broom closet.
A muffled noise stopped her reaching for the door. It sounded like a voice, but she had to be sure. Sam waited, holding her breath Her ears began to ring she was focusing them so hard. The voice came again. It was faint, but Sam was sure she heard it.
She reached forward and opened the door as quietly as possible. It wasn't a cupboard or a closet. The door opened to a set of stairs moving downwards. Another closed door sat at the bottom landing. The voice spoke again, it was clearer now. They were downstairs.
Sam shut the door and moved as quickly and quietly as she could back into the main room.
"Harold!" she hissed.
Finch came back down the hallway. She waved him over to her and led him into the kitchen, where she opened the door and they listened.
"Ich möchte, dass dies für Sie einfacher. Dies schmerzt mich mehr, als Sie. Sag mir einfach, wo es ist."
"Is that… German?" Sam whispered. She didn't know what they were saying, but she was pretty sure it wasn't 'Do you want fries with that?'
"It sounds like it."
The voice stopped, and their ears were assaulted with a loud metallic pang! Sam covered her own mouth to keep from making any accidental noises out of surprise.
Finch closed the door and led the way back outside to the car. Sam followed him to the trunk of the car. He opened it and took out a large pair of bolt cutters.
"What are you going to do with those?"
"I'm going to cut the power to the building. They're down in the cellar, using artificial light. I'll distract them while you get John out."
"We don't even know if he's down there!"
"My German is rather rusty, but I believe that man was demanding to know the location of something."
"The shipment," Sam said, squeezing her eyes shut and rubbing her face. John was there. "They've had him down there this whole time?"
"I doubt he'll last much longer."
Sam looked in the trunk and went over the arsenal John had stored in there. There were two shot guns, an automatic rifle, several tear gas grenades, a gas mask, and extra magazines.
Sam picked up two tear gas grenades. "Finch, is there a way I could get into that cellar from the back?"
Finch pulled out his phone and tapped it a couple of times. "In anticipation of a plan to infiltrate the place, I downloaded the building schematics. There is a back entrance to the cellar."
Sam stared at him. "Harold, sometimes you're too smart for your own good, you know."
She loaded a new magazine into her gun, grabbed the gasmask, and stuffed the two grenades into her pockets. She nodded once at Finch and headed around the house to the back where, sure enough, there was a dug out set of cement stairs that led below ground.
The heat of the sunlight was already beginning to annoy her as Sam stooped and crawled along the side of the house. There were tiny windows set just at ground level. They wouldn't be in complete darkness when Finch cut the power.
Sam lowered herself onto her belly on the grass, and peered into the one of the windows.
There were at least ten men in there spread across the room. A few of them walked around the focal point of the room, a man tied securely to a chair. One of them held a fire poker in his hands; another had a large knife. The end of the fire poker was smeared with something. That explained the pang they'd heard earlier. Sam's anger awoke inside of her.
She took a breath, her eyes on one of the light bulbs in the low ceiling. She waited, her gun in her hand, cocked and ready, and the gasmask perched on top of her head.
The lights went out. The men surrounding John looked up and around as Sam pulled the pin in the first grenade and chucked it through the window, breaking the glass. The room instantly began to fill up with the noxious fumes as she threw the second grenade into the room.
She leaped up and ran down the cellar steps, pulling the gasmask over her face. She tried the doorknob first. It was locked. One shot from her weapon unlocked the door and Sam wrenched it open. It fell shut again once she was inside. She wove in between the confused and choking men and got to the chair.
John was coughing on the gas as well, his eyes half closed. He looked a horrible mess, but she would have to assess the damage later. She reached into his jacket pocket and found the knife he always kept with him. She pulled it out along with a piece of paper that she ignored and stuffed in the back pocket of her jeans.
The smoke was thickening and Sam felt a slight stinging at her eyes from it. The gasmask was a little loose on her and was letting some of the fumes in. She cut John's bonds, freeing his arms and legs.
Sam's breathed and coughed into the mask, fogging up the visor as she stood and pulled John up into a standing position. He was very weak and leaned heavily on her.
"Move it, John! I need you to walk, soldier!" she shouted.
John forced his feet forward as Sam half carried him to the cellar door where she met the drug lord with the fire poker in his hand. His eyes and face were lobster red, but he took a swing at Sam, who ducked and fired at him. She had aimed low, but had no idea where he'd been hit.
He went down with a heavy thud, the fire poker clanging to the floor.
Sam pushed the door open and hefted John out into the open morning air. She shut the door, wedging the fire poker into it. They'd be able to open it eventually, but that would at least slow them down.
John was close to a dead weight. Moving up the stairs with him was slow work, but she managed it.
"John," she breathed as they walked on the grass. "Can you hear me? John?"
"L'expédition est à la maison de votre mere." John mumbled.
"What? Are you speaking French?"
"Je ne sais pas," he continued.
Finch met them halfway around the house and took John on his other side. Together they moved him to the car just as the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance.
"He's completely out of it, Finch," Sam said, pulling off the gas mask. "They gave him something."
"We'll deal with that in a minute. Let's get him in the car."
Sam tossed the gun and the gasmask into the back seat before gently lowering John inside and jumping in after him.
Finch started the car, and they were off just before the first squad car turned the corner.
Sam propped John up against the seat and looked closely at him. His face was covered in blood and bruises. Red stained his shirt just above his waist.
She swore loudly. "Finch, he's been shot. They gave him something and shot him."
"Part of the interrogation no doubt," Finch said as they gained speed. "They weakened him, then drugged him, making him as vulnerable as possible."
John teetered in his seat and fell to the side as he mumbled gibberish. He lay down in the seat, his head on Sam's leg.
"John," Sam cupped his face in her hands, looking down at him. "John, look at me. Can you hear me?"
"لا يزال هنا. لم تكن قد كسر الرقم القياسي الخاص بي.
"Sechzehn stunden. Immer noch hier."
"I believe that first one was Arabic," Finch said.
"He's shorting out," Sam said helplessly. "Almost like he's hallucinating."
"John!" she tried again. "English, remember?"
John's eyes rolled until Sam saw the whites, then back again and she saw the blue under his heavy lids. He opened them a little more. "Jess," his voice creaked.
"What?"
"Jessica."
"No, it's me, John. It's Sam, remember me?"
"Sam's gone." John's eyes rolled again.
"Harold, we need a hospital right now. I've never seen him this bad." Sam took John's hand and put it to her face. "No, it's me. I'm right here. You're going to be okay."
"Elle est partie. Elle a quitté." John's eyelids fluttered and Sam saw the whites again.
"He's going to go into shock," Finch said from the front seat. "Keep him awake."
"I don't think he's in a lot of pain. He's not feeling it at least," Sam patted John's cheeks until she saw his eyes again. "Hey, don't you go out on me like this, you idiot," she said.
John's eyes opened. They were dilated enough that the blue was very thin. But for the first time since she got to him, they seemed to focus directly on her and understand what he saw.
His brow furrowed in confusion. "Sam," he said simply.
"I'm here. I'm right here," Sam said unable to hold back her smile. She checked the wound on his side and tried to put some pressure on it to slow the bleeding. Her other hand ran absently through the hair on top of his head as she held him there.
"You got a hair cut," John said, reaching up to the long bangs that Sam had swept over her forehead, and the layers that were cut around her face. He brushed at them with his fingertips, gliding over Sam's forehead and cheek.
"I did, yeah."
"I like it," John said before he closed his eyes.
Sam patted John's cheeks and he opened his eyes again. "You have to stay awake, John. Stay right here with me. You promise?"
His eyes opened again, reluctantly. "If you promise," he replied.
I definitely believe that John speaks all of those languages, probably more. But, I don't. I used Google Translator. I apologize up front if any of that is inaccurate. :P