CHAPTER TWO

Proof of life

Gwen was as worried as everybody else for Ianto, but she couldn't help but think of Jack. He hadn't spoken a word that wasn't a direct command since the terrorists drove off with their wounded friend. He was hiding his emotions, Gwen knew that look on his face. She wanted to ask how he was, but thought better of it. However he was it wasn't good, and asking about it wouldn't make him feel any better. So Gwen concentrated on her job in silence.

She and Jack had gone about halfway through the warehouse and she was starting to feel tired for real. They looked through every box, opened every container to try and figure out what the terrorists had been after. Whatever it was, they had been forced to leave empty-handed — well, not counting Ianto, of course.

The whole thing puzzled Gwen. This was the fourth break-in in a month by this group of terrorists, all against locations known to store military supplies and weapons. The red van with the huge headlights had been seen on all four of them, and so had an unusually high reading of alien radiation. They did not know what their scheme was, but there was something alien about it for sure.

"Found anything yet?" The question slipped Gwen's lips before she could stop herself.

"Nothing," Jack muttered, much to Gwen's surprise. "There's nothing."

"Maybe what they were after wasn't inside the warehouse?"

Jack looked up and met her gaze. There was compassion there, an invisible hand reached out for him to hold. 'As if things aren't bad enough', he thought with a raising heartbeat. 'Ianto gets kidnapped and she's pitying me'.

Gwen's cellphone signal broke the silence. Jack continued to check the crate he had just opened until he realized that the ringer was Owen.

"What?" Gwen breathed, horror on her voice. Jack looked up again, fearing what Gwen had just learned. She looked back at him her expression serious. "They want to speak with you. The terrorists want to bargain for Ianto's life."

— — —

Owen had just finished wrapping Tosh's leg in the Hub when the main door slid open and Jack rushed inside, Gwen not far behind. Owen gave Tosh a staff to support herself with and then scurried up the stairs.

"Jack, they're on the line," he explained, pointing the captain to Tosh's computer desk.

Jack ran over to the desk and leaned forward over the phone. He took a few seconds to catch his breath before picking up and putting the call on speaker.

"How did you get this number?" he demanded immediately. He feared the answer although he already knew — they must have forced it out of Ianto somehow.

The voice on the other end belonged to the terrorist leader. "We got it from your friend. He's being very cooperative."

Anger and fear surged through Jack like a poison. He could not lose his head now. "What do you want from us?"

"We know you deal with aliens," the terrorist declared. Gwen was shocked by this but said nothing. "We know that you can track the activities of the space crack that runs underneath Cardiff. We want that technology."

"Can I speak to Ianto?" It wasn't a question. He knew where this information came from. The question was what had they done to Ianto to get it within the three hours since his capture? How much pain had they put him through?

"And why would I let you do that?"

"I won't discuss anything with you until you let me speak with him."

The terrorist gave a faint laughter of disbelief and went on to mocking Jack. "He doesn't want to—"

"I saw his injuries," Jack snapped, smashing his fists onto the table so that Gwen and Owen nearly jumped next to him. "Nobody can survive that for long. You put him on the phone right now!"

"I'm the one who's making the demands here, so listen to me—"

"You listen to me, you spineless motherfucker," Jack growled, his face a hot red color and his eyes on fire with rage now. "If your hostage isn't dead already then he is dying. And if he dies we'll be coming after you. We will hunt you to the end of the earth if we have to. And I will personally make sure that when we catch you, you will stay alive long enough to witness your own autopsy. Now let us help him!"

There was a long silence with only Jack's heavy breathing and the white noise of the phone line to break it. Jack knew that the terrorists couldn't refuse Ianto help now — he only hoped their leader wasn't cocky enough to think they could hold up against Torchwood without a hostage. Gwen glanced Owen's way for comfort, but he looked more at loss for words than ever. Finally the voice on the other end replied.

"We have a first aid kit here and a tool box. We will let your doctor speak to one of my men on your man's phone."

A weight like a mountain fell off of Jack's heart. Ianto was alive. "Owen, call Ianto's cell. We don't have much time."

Owen grabbed his own cellphone and dialed the speed number. As soon as the terrorist picked up, Owen hurried down to his office, fully focused on the task at hand. Gwen stayed with Jack. It both saddened her and frightened her to see her boss this shattered. Jack was unpredictable when he was angry. But now that Ianto had been allowed to live a little longer, Jack was no longer furious. Now he was just afraid, and that was something Gwen rarely got to see.

"This doesn't change anything," the terrorist leader said plainly. "If I find you interfering with our business again I won't hesitate to shoot your man."

Jack didn't even blink, but his inside cried out for Ianto to be safe. He gave a faint smile. "Wouldn't be a challenge otherwise," he sighed inaudibly.

Then, before he could say anything else, the terrorist leader hung up. Just like that. Jack remained silent, watching the phone as if it would somehow come to life again with the raspy voice of the terrorist leader. It didn't, of course.

It was Gwen who broke the silence. "Why would he hang up like that without finishing his demands?" she asked. She couldn't make any sense of it. "Jack?"

This was getting out of hand, and Jack hated when a situation wasn't under his control. There was only one reason why these terrorists would not use Ianto's life to try and get what they wanted out of Torchwood, and that would be that they knew of another, easier and possibly more beneficial way. The thought worried Jack. The energy readings they had gathered pointed to the terrorists using some kind of alien technology in their heists. If they wanted to monitor the rift activity then their plans were bigger than what Jack had anticipated.

And as long as they had Ianto he could do nothing to stop them.

I simply love writing this story, and I'm overwhelmed by all the positive reviews - thank you, guys! Please, continue to review and tell me what you think, it's the best gift I can be given. Chapter three will be up soon!