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23 – CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – 1,146²³

Charlie crashed hard on the floor. His right leg buckled hitting the floor first and Charlie knew instantly that it hadn't done him any good. He screamed with pain. He wasn't sure, but he thought he'd heard something crack, and the hell his kneecap was giving him strengthened his suspicion. At least the pain distracted him from the bruises he had gotten in his fall, though that was only cold comfort.

While he was lying on the ground, panting heavily, he could hear a bang beside him. No human being, no. Some item, probably of plastic or synthetic material. He hadn't fallen far, judging from the sounds maybe five meters up there above him. It had been enough, though, to do some damage.

Before Charlie's brain managed to come to terms with the pain enough to start a verbal protest, he could already hear the rubbing of metal against stone that sounded like a closing separating him from the world out there for good. In a very unpleasant way Charlie was reminded of his latest dungeon adventure. However, at that time Don had been with him. And his situation hadn't been that hopeless.

Hopeless was the right word. And this blindfold was making him crazy. He had lost any kind of orientation. And the dizziness wasn't really helping him either. The darkness was absolute. With his forearms and fingertips and the cheek he was lying upon he could only guess that he was lying on cold, relatively smooth stone.

Charlie fought the dizziness enough so that he could sit up. He had to scream even with that little movement. The pain in his knee was devilish. He clenched his teeth, but it didn't help much. Seemed as if he had broken his kneecap.

As soon as he sat more or less upright a new surge of nausea welled up inside him and he waited until it had calmed down before he took another step towards freeing himself. He was anxious to see how far he could get.

Ignoring for now the dizziness and the nausea, Charlie dragged his bound hands under his body and in front of him. He couldn't turn off the pain though. He held his eyes closed tightly, but still single tears found their way out of them.

Again the dizziness came over him, but he tried to distract himself from it and from his knee by trying to feel with his lips what he was bound with. The material was thinner than the last time he'd been kidnapped, much thinner, and Charlie hoped desperately that it was also less tear proof, for there was no way he would be able to loosen the knot this time, not without help and not with this thin thread.

A strong thread. They had used a strong thread twisted of several thinner threads, Charlie was quite sure. He knew the material from his mother's sewing-box. And he remembered exactly how she had liked to use the thread to sew buttons onto clothes. Because it was so strong.

With increasing desperation, Charlie moaned. He wanted to lay his head back, but he regretted the decision at once, as nearly in the same instant his head made very rough contact with the wall behind him. Once more he was annoyed about the fact that he couldn't see anything, until it finally occurred to him that he could now rectify this deplorable state of affairs. With his hands in front of his body it was child's play to pull the blindfold from his head.

It was of no use, however. At first he thought that he might still have his eyes closed, but after some seconds he was sure that this was not the case. It was still pitch-black in here. As much as Charlie could detect, there wasn't the slightest ray of light coming into his dungeon.

As a next step Charlie tried to get rid of the gag, though his attempt remained without success. The rough cloth was knotted in his neck and he couldn't get to it. So first the hands.

Carefully, Charlie turned towards the wall he was leaning against in the darkness and felt it. Yes, stone. Smooth for the most part, but here and there he could also find a rougher parts.

Filled with new hope, Charlie lifted his hands to the roughest spot he could find and rubbed the thread over the stone. He paused briefly as his wrists were burning; he had scraped them. However, he soon started again. Grazed wrists were really his tiniest problem at the moment.

0 – 0 – 0

With desperate fury Don kicked against Larry's desk. David and Colby started. He kicked it once more before whirling around abruptly towards his co-workers. "Where is he?" he asked, reproach audible in his voice. "What happened here?" He knew that it was neither the fault of the two of them nor were they able to answer his questions. But damn it, someone, anyone had to be able to help him!

He ran both his hands over his face. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. What should he do now, what was he supposed to do... abduction... it was probably an abduction they were dealing with...

"Forensics", Don ordered. "I want forensics here, immediately." His voice sounded steady, even if the chaos in his mind made it difficult for him not only to express himself clearly, but also to do the right thing.

David, sensing how his boss was at a loss, stepped into the corridor cell phone at his ear.

In the strange state between numbness and the sharpening of all his senses, Don could sense Colby's penetrating gaze from his side. So Colby was expecting further orders from him. Don had to give him further orders. He had to settle this mess here. He was responsible. He had let it happen that far and now he also had to make it right again.

"Damn it!"

Larry's desk was unfortunately the recipient of another one of Don's kicks, harder this time. He had known it! Damn, he had known that Charlie should have left right from the beginning!

"Hey, Don." Colby fell silent and bit his lower lip. He had wanted to ask, 'You alright?', though considering Don's current obvious state of mind the question would have sounded like sarcasm. Instead he tried to put as much optimism as possible in his words saying, "We're gonna find him."

Don stared at him. What the hell was Colby doing there? Was he trying to console him? Don swallowed, then tried to answer calmly, "I know, Granger. And now you are going to look for witnesses and interrogate them, alright?"

A bit surprised, Colby nodded. He could understand Don's tenseness; the thing he couldn't understand was why Don was mad at him. However, that of course didn't prevent him from following his orders.

Don watched him leave, breathing shakily. We're gonna find him...

Of course they were going to find him! Why had Colby said something like that? He didn't need to say it; it was self-evident! To verbalize it meant to query it! Why did Colby do something like that? Did he think he had to cheer his boss up? But he didn't have to! Don could handle this on his own! He would do his job, as always, and there was no doubt that they were going to find Charlie; there couldn't be any doubt!

0 – 0 – 0

With a relieving rip Charlie's bonds were torn. For some seconds he wasn't sure if he'd really done it, but despite the feeling of numbness he could sense that his wrists had gotten a bit more space to move. He tried to pull his hands away from each other, but the burning sensation of pain stopped him from doing so and instead he tentatively felt for the end of the yarn with his lips. When he had found it, he took it between his teeth and carefully unwound the thread.

His wrists stung devilishly and also the hands themselves were extremely uncomfortably tingly so that he had some difficulty in taking off the gag. But Charlie didn't have time to worry about such obstacles. He first had to find how to get out of his prison as quickly as possible.

"Help!" he shouted with little hope. "Help!" He waited for some seconds, but nothing happened. It would really have been just too great (and his kidnappers just too stupid) if his cries for help managed to produce the result he was hoping for. He had to be in some sort of cave, even worse, a hole in the floor of a cave. Very improbable that any human being could hear him down here. Maybe if he had a megaphone. Or some other instrument to make himself be heard –

Charlie hit himself against his forehead. He was so stupid! Why hadn't he thought of that at once?

With nervous movements he checked his pockets. It had to be somewhere here, he always had it on him...

Hopeless. His mobile was gone. And not only his mobile, everything was gone; his keys, his wallet, even the notepad and the pen from the breast pocket of his jacket. The mobsters must have taken the things from him while he had been unconscious.

He should have thought of that, Charlie admonished himself. These guys were professional enough that they wouldn't leave his mobile with him when they wanted to be sure he couldn't get out of their grasp.

A sudden shudder ran through him. It was true these guys were professionals. They were experienced in kidnapping, in torturing, in killing. They wouldn't allow themselves to make any mistakes. And who knew what they wanted from him? He had to get out of here, out, out...

His breathing accelerated while he tried to make out something, anything in the dark. But he could see nothing. He couldn't see anything, he couldn't hear anything; he was sitting somewhere in nothingness, unable to perform any kind of manoeuvre that could bring him out of here. And he couldn't inform anyone, no help...

I'm going to die in here, the thought crossed Charlie's mind. No one will find me, they'll –

Images of his father, of his brother suddenly drifted in front of his mind's eye. They would never see him again... his father...

It couldn't be, damn it! He had to be strong now, had to hold out. They would find him eventually. Don would find him. For sure.

Calm down again,Charlie admonished himself. Stay quiet. Don't panic now. Calm down. And indeed his breathing regulated again. The short panic attack passed nearly as quickly as it had come. Well, fine. Take a deep breath. So he tried the next possibility.

He struggled to push himself up against the wall and stood – with difficulty due to being able to use only the knee on his left leg – and at once the blood sank in his legs. He held on to the wall, but since the feeling didn't fade he squatted again on the floor. He examined his surroundings by crawling as best as he could, carefully paying attention that he neither moved his right knee much nor that it touched anything.

The first thing he found was the plastic bottle. Judging from its weight and from its changing center of gravity it contained a liquid. It had to be the item his kidnappers had thrown down after him.

Charlie carefully unscrewed the lid and smelled at the opening. Odorless. He briefly weighed up his possibilities, then shook a few drops from the bottle, just enough to moisten his tongue. Water. He sighed, trembling with relief. At least it seemed as if his kidnappers didn't plan to make him die of thirst. It couldn't be more than a liter, but nevertheless Charlie felt a disproportional amount of gratitude welling up inside him that he nearly cried.

He breathed deeply and screwed the lid on again. His throat was burning and the nauseating taste of the narcotic still didn't let go of him, but he didn't know how long he would have to hold out in here and knew he should conserve his resources.

He painfully crawled inch by inch and he quickly became aware that his dungeon was tiny. He first put out his hands to see if he could stretch himself out. Both the width and length of his prison were too short for that; he estimated the walls to be about one meter thirty each; That meant that the space was only about one point seven square meters. And he was lying on a square. That didn't lack a certain irony.

Some minutes later Charlie carefully stood again, and it was a bit better this time. He was still quite dizzy, had a headache, and the nausea was going to kill him, but he tried to suppress the sensations by keeping his mind busy.

And his body. As soon as he stood, he searched the walls with his hands. When he stretched out his arms, he could feel both sides of his hollow cube. He tried to do the same upwards. There, the wall ran the same way as in the lower part of this stone cube, partly smooth, partly rough, and very vertical. And it ran high. For as much as Charlie stretched – he couldn't reach the ceiling.

This time things were really looking bad for him.

0 – 0 – 0

"Why... what's going on here?"

Don whirled around. The unit that had come to secure the evidence had just arrived and he had, rather unnecessarily, given them their orders. However, they didn't seem to be the only group that had just arrived, for as Don turned around upon the question, he saw Larry approaching his office, his forehead lined in a frown. And Larry wasn't alone.

"Don! What happened?"

But Don just stared at the two newcomers. He had opened his mouth in order to stammer an answer and to explain something he didn't even comprehend himself, but no word would come out. At least not fast enough to have answered before Megan's second question. Who now seemed to have a vague suspicion of what had happened.

"Where is Charlie?"

Don swallowed while Megan took another step forward, glancing past him into Larry's office that was currently being examined. "I don't know," he then said. His voice sounded hoarse. He didn't know, didn't comprehend anything. It was too much, everything was just too much...

"Don, what's going on here?" Megan's voice sounded more urgent now. At the same time she gently laid a hand upon her former boss's shoulder.

Don inhaled deeply. Just stay calm. Don't panic. Be professional. "He hasn't answered his mobile. And neither the telephone at home nor here at the office." Slowly, gradually the professionalism slid away from him. Damn it, after all this was about his little brother... "And when we got here, the chair was knocked over and his bag on the floor and... Megan, they've got him! They've kidnapped him!"

Somewhere in his sub-consciousness, Don realized that Larry had gone pale, and grotesquely his own panic seemed to lessen by seeing it. He had to maintain a clear head. He had to regain control of the events...

"The mafia?" whispered Megan and it wasn't until now that Don realized that she didn't know anything about what had been going on, that theoretically she wasn't even here.

He nodded silently. "They kidnapped us once already and shortly afterwards assaulted him in his garage. And he... he believed he was being observed or eavesdropped, maybe... even... both..."

Don's voice faded away when the terrible truth hit him. Oh God, why for heaven's sake hadn't he recognized the danger earlier? Everything had been laid in front of him so openly!

"Don, don't worry, we'll fix this. We'll –"

Not Megan, too. "I know that we'll fix this!" Don yelled with growing frustration.

She stared at him, a bit like Colby had some minutes earlier. Colby who'd been acting so strangely since they had found out the thing with the Janus List, with whom nothing was right anymore. And now nothing was right anymore at all... Evidence was being gathered at half past one in Larry's office and people were here that weren't supposed to be here...

"What are you doing here after all?" It was an impassioned attempt to put his brain at least halfway back into order. Why weren't things the way they were supposed to be?

He hardly listened to Megan while his eyes sprang from one point in the office to another as if he hoped to find any hint as to Charlie's whereabouts. "I came with Larry when he flew back from his conference in Washington; after all he told me about your problems with the mafia, and I took a few days off to see if I could help you somehow. We wanted to quickly drop off some documents from the conference and Larry said he wanted to see Charlie and offer him his help once more..." She swallowed. "Do you have any suspects?"

Don stared at her with vacant eyes. Did Megan just want to torture him? Of course they knew that it was the mafia that was behind this whole thing! But did she seriously believe that he could give her concrete names?

He shook his head with growing desperation, running his hand over his face again. Megan understood that it'd be better to leave Don alone now, but there was still one question she couldn't stop asking, "Have you told Alan?"

There it was again, this staring gaze, as if she had asked whether he didn't prefer to leave Charlie with the mobsters. He inhaled deeply. "Megan – no. I... I'll call him as soon as we know anything more precise." He could tell from her look that she was going to argue, but he couldn't stand it any longer. "Please, just let it be for a moment."

And without deigning to look at her, he strode down the dark, deserted corridor.