Chapter Three: Hero
Reese awoke a little later, sitting in a black leather chair behind the Board Room table where several men were sitting. His hands and feet were tightly bound with Zip-Ties. Looking around the room, he could see the table full of food but no one eating. The men's facial expressions disclosed their uncertainty about what was transpiring.
Avery Dodson sat at the head of the table also bound but gagged as well. His clothes were disheveled, and his face was battered and bloody. The men continued their heated discussion. All were blaming each other for something.
"Oh good, so you're awake now," the man across from Reese stated as he noticed John's eyes had fluttered open. He was young and wore a bright red tie.
John turned toward his voice. His head hurt. He must have hit it on the floor when he fell.
"You can help yourself," another man announced, getting up to go toward where John was sitting. This shareholder was older and round along his midsection. His lean face didn't match the corpulence of his body John thought.
"Only the five of us knew of our plans," the fat man spat, spraying John with his saliva as he spoke.
John turned his eyes to glare at the fat man and asked, "What's your point?"
He felt the blow to the back of his head as another man came up from behind him and sat down to join the other men at the table. John noticed that he was the Louis Vuitton man who had tasered him.
"My point is that only five of us knew, so one in this room talked," the fat man shouted.
John closed his eyes in an effort to slow the thumping of his head.
"And we're not leaving until you tell us who hired you to interfere with our plans," the Louis Vuitton man continued.
John kept his eyes closed and remained silent.
Another man who sat closest to Dodson got up from his seated position and put a gun to Dodson's head. "You might as well talk. We're going to kill our fine friend here anyway, so right now it comes down to whether or not you want to help yourself."
John opened his eyes to see how Dodson had responded to the threat. He could see in Dodson's eyes the extreme fear he was feeling. John had seen that expression numerous times in his CIA missions. Even though he had been hired and trained by the CIA to be a killing machine, he had never been able to sleep a night without seeing their horrified faces in his haunting nightmares.
"Which one of us hired you?" the Louis Vuitton man shouted into Reese's face.
John remained unshaken.
"If it wasn't one of us who hired you, then, how did you know Dodson was in trouble?" a man who could be a double for the 1980's Dennis Farina during his stint in Crime Story yelled out after taking a long drink of wine from his glass. Emptying the glass, the Dennis Farina double continued, "We don't care about you. We just want to know which one of us can't be trusted anymore!"
"You gentlemen have found yourselves in quite a predicament now haven't you?" Reese mockingly stated. The next moment he found himself in the floor with blood dripping down his face. He had wanted to be knocked to the floor so he could more covertly get the Zip-Ties off his wrists and ankles, but he had hoped the blow wouldn't be so painful.
The men startled as they heard a police siren outside. "Get them into the backroom and clean up any evidence of this situation," the Louis Vuitton man ordered. Several of the men got up and started cleaning up the mess while the others grabbed Dodson and dragged him to the backroom. Reese used this moment to go to the cuff of his pants that Finch had altered that morning. Pulling the grey thread, he was able to rip a large piece from his pants. As the men dragged him to his feet, he flipped the thread onto a butter plate on the table.
He struggled against their force then felt the lightning bolt again. The next thing he was cognizant of was hearing Joss through the door. He didn't know if he had fallen or if he had been pushed, but he lay too far from anything that could be used to get himself free of the Zip-Ties or to get her attention. As he began struggling to get to his feet to head toward her voice, he felt a shoe against his shoulder pushing him back down onto the concrete floor. The shoe then positioned itself onto the back of his head. Reese then stopped moving, straining to hear the conversation in the other room.
"Gentlemen, I'm Detective Carter of the NYPD," Joss announced. "These are my associates Fusco and Finch."
The Louis Vuitton man had let them into the building and had led them to the board room where the other men—except for Red-Tie— were sitting at the table, looking up innocently at her as if they were in the middle of a meeting.
"What is this about?" the fat man asked. "We're trying to have a Shareholders Meeting." He took a bite of his cold steak that had lain on his plate for quite some time now, losing its temperature and freshness as the group dealt with Dodson and the mysterious man hired to help him. He smiled as he moved the meat around in his mouth. The other men took note of the fat man's actions and began cutting up their steaks and taking small bites of their cold baked potatoes and broccoli florets.
"We've had a call from a Jeannine Hammond of Maryland who says her husband has not returned home. He had an appointment here this afternoon."
Finch stood behind Carter and Fusco. They waited for the men to respond.
"Detectives, we're a group of shareholders for this company and certainly don't know anything about a John Hammond who was here today," the Louis Vuitton man said.
"Looks like you have some missing shareholders," Carter said as she nodded toward Dodson's and Red-Tie's two empty dinner places.
"Yes, we have several absent members, detective," the fat man answered. "Matters like that certainly shouldn't concern you."
"Just checking," Fusco groused.
Finch looked down at the table. The grey thread from John's pants on the table beckoned him. Stepping from behind Carter and Fusco and walking up to the table, Finch reached out and picked up the wine bottle. "Romane Conti," Finch said as he brought the bottle to his nose. "Smell those spices and flowers. Someone here has fine tastes in wine." Finch put the bottle back on the table and snatched up the thread.
"Detectives, I'm sure you have more to do than to go around inspecting people's wine bottles," the fat man said. "If we see the man you're looking for, we'll make sure he notifies his wife."
From inside the backroom, Reese was beginning to lose hope that they would be able to find him. Wriggling against his restraints, he felt the shoe go up under his shoulder and flip him over to his back. The shoe then pressed down on Reese's neck. The pressure from the shoe made it harder for him to breathe. Moving his eyes so he could look at whoever had him incapacitated, he saw the young man with the bright red tie bring up his finger to his lips to instruct Reese to be quiet. Reese realized that there were no options for him at that moment, so he remained still and quiet.
Finch turned to go back to where Carter and Fusco were standing. He gave Carter the expression that he didn't know what to do at that moment.
"Okay, gentlemen. Have a nice rest of your evening," Carter said. "Be sure and call me if you find out where Mr. Hammond is." Carter stepped forward and placed her card on the table.
Fusco nodded at the men as he nervously glanced around the room. "Come on, let's go call the wife and tell her that he's not here."
The Louis Vuitton man led them back to the front door and locked the door behind them as he watched them walk down the sidewalk.
As Reese pulled against the restraints, he could feel the rawness of his wrists. The plastic binding had dug into his skin. They were so tight that he wasn't sure he would be able to free himself of them any time soon. He then heard the door open and watched as the light spread out onto the floor.
"They're gone. Any problems back here?" the fat man asked.
"No, Richard, no problems back here. He tried to get up, but I stopped him," the young man answered, looking down at John lying motionlessly on the floor with his foot still on John's throat.
Then the Louis Vuitton man jutted through the door. "Bring them out," he ordered.
Reese deduced that the Louis Vuitton man was the one who wanted to be in charge. He was definitely the one who was not afraid to use physical violence.
"Our hero here thought he could escape," the fat man said.
"Oh yeah, hero. Is that right?" the Louis Vuitton man asked as he pushed Red-Tie out of the way, lifted Reese to his knees, and grabbed a handful of Reese's hair so he could pull back his head and grab out of Reese's mouth the cloth napkin that was serving as a gag.
Reese took a moment to get his mouth situated then answered, "You better watch yourself Alligator Shoes or I'll tell them it was you who hired me." He smiled as he slowly spoke. Reese recognized alligator skin when he saw it but had never heard of Louis Vuitton or his pretentious, expensive shoes before.
"You wouldn't dare!" the Louis Vuitton man snorted.
Red-Tie caught Reese's words and began inching backwards.
"Was it you, Craig?" the young man asked. Truth was, Red-Tie had never been involved in such maliciousness in his life. He was a family man for God's sake. The plan to eliminate Avery Dodson was one thing, and he had reasoned he could live with it because the payoff would be so grand. But now there was a second man, a seemingly innocent man, and all this brutality made him uncomfortable. Craig was making him uncomfortable.
"Of course not!" the Louis Vuitton man shouted.
Reese started to speak again when he felt the lightning bolts against his neck. The pain was excruciating. His mind became blurry then black as he lost consciousness.
At the police cruiser, Fusco was questioning what their next move should be to get their Wonder Boy back. Not a natural leader and certainly not having the ability for analytical thought, Fusco was designed to take orders and be a follower. "Finch, you sure he's in there still and these men have him?"
"I know he's in there," Finch answered. "And I know these men have him," he added as he held up the grey thread.
"What is that?" Fusco asked, squinting his eyes to it.
"This is the grey thread I used to hem John's pants this morning."
Carter looked from the thread to the building, contemplating what to do.
"He's in there, and we need to help him get out," Finch stated.
"We can't get a search warrant, and we have no probable cause to go busting in. I don't know what to do. The longer we leave him in there, the less likely he will make it out alive," Joss worriedly responded.
"We're not going to leave him in there. We just have to figure out a way to get to him. There's also Avery Dodson needing our help. I didn't see him, so I hope we're not too late to help him as well," Finch said. The air was cold, so Finch motioned to the car for them to get in.
Carter hesitated.
Finch caught her tentativeness. "We're not leaving, just getting out of the cold wind."
Carter then got into the front seat of the police cruiser.
"What do you wanna do Carter?" Fusco asked.
"I don't know. Let me think," Joss answered. It was obvious from her tone of voice that she was beginning to get a little panicky.
"Let's keep calm. John needs us to remain calm and reason out how to get in there and help him. Okay?" Finch stated.
Joss took in a long breath. She had come to care deeply for the man she knew as John Reese. During their time together this past year, she had come to see what kind of man he was, and she loved him for that. It frightened her to think what her life would be like without him in it.
"I think I have an idea," Finch announced from the backseat.
Carter looked at him through the rearview mirror.
"Okay?" Fusco asked.
"Well, at least one that gets us quietly into the building. What we do from there has to be on you two gun-slinging law enforcement officers," Finch stated.
"Time's wasting, Harold," Carter said, "Let's hear what you got."
"Cynthia…Cynthia Greenfield," Finch said as he started typing information into his phone.
TBC