Glad to be able to welcome a new reader (and reviewer)! Thanks to the two of you, notsing and Kasadija957! I hope you'll continue reading :)
ad Kasadija957: Since neither English nor Russian is my mother tongue too, I understand perfectly what you mean ;)

30 – CHAPTER THIRTY – 1,120³°

Don's breathing was shallow.

Despite his tiredness his eyes were wide open. Although staring at the table, their gaze was vacant. Charlie had been kidnapped, Charlie had been kidnapped, Charlie had been kidnapped... The dreadful truth wound itself in an eternal mantra through his weary brain.

From time to time it was superseded by another one: Where is he? Where is he? Where is he...

Don bit his lower lip. They hadn't found anything. They just hadn't found anything at all. They could interrogate these two men as long as they wanted; they wouldn't get anything from them. And the more time they wasted, the longer Charlie was stuck in his confinement.

But maybe the other mobsters would bring them nearer to their goal? Maybe they would tell them something? But what if they didn't know anything... However, there was a possibility. Maybe O'Connagh and his men had just now caught these guys, maybe they would talk, maybe they would finally find Charlie then.

Charlie.

How long might he be able to hang on?

That depended on how well his kidnappers were caring for him (and on whether Ivanov and Chrushtchov were speaking the truth and really nobody but them knew where Charlie was). And that depended on what they wanted from him.

With that, Don had again reached the starting point of his recent days' thoughts: why had they abducted Charlie? What did they want from him? What had they done to him? If they only wanted to get rid of him –

Don felt sick and with desperate resolution he managed to push the thought aside. No, if they had simply wanted to get rid of him, they wouldn't have had to kidnap him. For sure. Don had dwelt on this for so long by now that generally there was no other possibility in his eyes: they had abducted his brother in order to distract them from the Janus List, for the same reason why the branch mafia had abducted them the first time. Successfully. Yet, the FBI had also combined two other teams that should be able to thwart the mafia's plans, but at least with Don the distraction had had its effect. The List didn't matter a jot to him anymore.

The problem was that with this assumption he couldn't tell what the mobsters had done with his brother. They could let him stay alive as well as... not.

A cold shudder ran down Don's spine. No... please, no...

It wasn't inconceivable, however. The impossible was possible. And even if they didn't directly... if they hadn't done it directly, they could just as easily reach their goal by doing nothing. If they just forgot about Charlie...

Without nutrition, a man could survive for a long time, up to a month. Without liquids, however, things were much worse. Two days, maybe three.

Three days had passed since Charlie's abduction.

Don ran his hands over his face. It couldn't be, it just couldn't... They had to find him, soon, before he'd... before it was too late. It just couldn't be possible that they'd arrive too late; they couldn't do that.

Don was frightened.

0 – 0 – 0

Charlie trembled.

He had crouched down as well as he could. It didn't help much, however. His clothes were wet and stuck uncomfortably cold and dankly to his body. His teeth clattered against each other. The sound created a slight, though by its slightness not less dreadful echo reverberating from the stony walls again and again, thus providing a background sound to the nerve-racking silence. Again and again new bouts of coldness shook him and shivers ran down his back. However, that wasn't the only way his body was stricken by convulsions. His diaphragm already hurt because the bouts of coughing just didn't want to stop.

His physical state completely justified his trembling. And yet Charlie was aware that his physical poor state wasn't the only reason for this reaction. Until now, he had deliberately neglected the psychological aspect. However, he knew very well that he couldn't ignore it forever. And who was he fooling? Should he really mobilize his last bit of strength in order to self motivate and thus give himself strength? The futility of the whole thing was deplorable and pathetic.

In any case, it was a fact that he couldn't recall an event where he'd ever been in a more miserable situation. The coldness and the pain and the lack of nutrition and liquids were wearing him out. And he couldn't imagine by any stretch of the imagination how Don would ever find him.

Don.

Charlie's heart contracted. The longing threatened to tear him apart from the inside. He wanted to get out of here, he needed his family and his friends around him, he needed them to help him live...

However, not only the longing made him feel miserable. Thoughts of Don were doubly painful. Thinking of Don represented his naïve hope; hope with an extremely short half-life of which the major part had already decayed. No, he couldn't really believe anymore that he would ever get out of here.

And Don could probably not really imagine it either. Of course, Charlie knew his big brother well enough to know he wouldn't give up searching for him, but he also knew that Don could take a sufficiently realistic view of the situation. He had to know that Charlie couldn't survive in here for long.

That meant... Don didn't even know where he was. He didn't know that the mobsters had trapped him without food in a dungeon that was regularly filled and emptied with seawater.

Basically, it was strange. If the mobsters really intended to let him perish in here – then why had they given him the water bottle? And if they wanted to keep him alive, maybe only as a means of exerting pressure, then why were they treating his life so carelessly? What on Earth did they want?

It was so illogical; nothing made any sense. And nothing could help him, nothing and nobody.

But maybe Don understood all of it. In any case Charlie could very well imagine that he was trying his hardest. He was surely leaving no stone unturned; just like the time Megan had been abducted. And just like then he probably reproached himself.

Charlie's face twisted, struggling for a wry smile. Yes, that'd be the customary thing for Don to do. Reproaching himself for something he wasn't possibly to blame for.

Oh God, all this had to be so difficult for his brother! The pressure that was laid upon him, the pressure he inflicted upon himself – and all maybe for nothing?

Another shudder ran through Charlie. Maybe for nothing. Maybe all their exertions were in vain. They wouldn't find him in time or at best his corpse.

Charlie crouched even further, but the trembling got worse. And there was no sense anymore in telling himself that the coldness was the only reason for that.

Charlie was frightened.

0 – 0 – 0

Only three of the mobsters were led into the FBI head-quarters in a strange procession: Bolshoyov, Borisov and Petrov, the first because of his position in Charlie's network analysis and the latter two of them due to their last stay here.

They had only got arrest warrants against the mobsters that appeared in Charlie's network analysis; they had, however, also taken the others into temporary custody and sent them over to the LAPD. The others were being held, separated, on remand. They would deal with them later.

Don's hands were still trembling when he, together with O'Connagh, entered the interrogation room where Max Bolshoyov was sitting. Colby and David would take Petrov to task and two of O'Connagh's team, Martin Harrior and Daniel Richardson, would take care of Borisov. They were getting closer to Charlie with every passing minute. Don could feel it. This was another chance.

The trembling of his hands became more violent.

"Where is Professor Charles Eppes?" O'Connagh demanded of Bolshoyov when they had hardly got done with cautioning him.

"I beg your pardon?" the mobster boss asked politely and you could have believed that he really didn't know what all this was about.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, and I advise you not to try playing any games with us. That could become nasty and unhealthy for you."

Don was struggling for composure, though his chest was trembling. He had been told by O'Connagh to stay in the background and not to 'lose it', as James had put it. Until now, though, he thought bitterly, he was being quite successful.

The mafia-boss smiled indulgently. "Is this supposed to be a threat, agent? Since when does our government's administrative machinery condescend to illegal methods such as violence?"

Don bent down to him, closely. He spoke softly, but his sharp voice could be heard without difficulty. "Not the government. But this is about the life of my brother and in this case I don't give a damn about what some pencil-pushers think they can order me to."

Even though for the moment Don didn't seem to care about his career –O'Connagh was still relieved that he'd later be able to explain the tape recording as 'special interrogation techniques'.

Bolshoyov seemed to be slightly caught off-guard by Don's words. However, he took the time to think about his words first before they exited his mouth. The feds could wait until hell froze over; he wouldn't give himself away. "So this professor was your brother?" He didn't expect an answer, so he continued at once. "That has to be hard on you. You have my heartfelt sympathy."

Don clenched his teeth. He hadn't missed Bolshoyov's dramatic choice of tense. "He's been abducted, not killed. We're going to find him, you can bet."

The mobster actually managed to mock Don without giving himself away. "So you're sure he's still alive? That's nice for you. So everything that remains for you to do is find him."

O'Connagh noticed that Don's features took on an inhuman expression, and he found it was high time to cut the thing off. "Stop these games. We know that you're the head of a criminal organization. Do you want to tell us anything about it or should I tell you how blotted your copybook is?"

"With pleasure. I think that'd be very amusing."

"Amusing?" O'Connagh repeated. He hoped that Don wouldn't let himself be carried away to say something that might lead to a disciplinary hearing, but he detected with relief that Don was really controlling himself. The tension on his face and in his posture, however, told of how difficulty that seemed to be for him.

"Amusing? You'd better take good care that you won't be laughing on the other side of your face. We've got proof of your crimes, Bolshoyov." They didn't have evidence for all of them, but that wasn't something the mafia-boss had to know. "Smuggling, people trafficking, drug dealing, several robberies and murders; everything that organized crime dabbles in. Including the abduction of a federal consultant."

Bolshoyov didn't lose a jot of his casualness. "I'm afraid you must have mistaken me for someone else, sirs."

Don was seething and was doing everything in his power to stop himself from attacking the bastard. "I hardly think so," he hissed. "And we're going to nail you, Bolshoyov. And if anything happens to my brother, I'll personally that your life becomes such a hell that you'll wish you were never born."

The cool mask did not even slip in the face of Don's heated mood. "I'm trembling with fear. But you can threaten me as much as you like, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. I don't have the slightest clue of what you're talking about or the whereabouts of your consultant."

0 – 0 – 0

He didn't like it. Not at all.

Maybe Charlie only imagined it – and he hoped fervently that he was mistaken – but he couldn't get rid of the impression that the rustling of the sea had increased in volume. And a second one confirmed this impression; that apparently the water was filling his cell with increased velocity.

Immediately, the next moment Charlie scolded himself. If he assumed that the rustling was louder, it was completely natural that he told himself that the water was rising faster. By assuming it, it appeared to him that way, because he only observed what he wanted to observe.

His theory was however gravely called into question by the fact that there was no way he could want to observe something of the kind. Might be he only told himself those things – seriously, he'd be glad if he were wrong. However, the unpleasant feeling of dread remained.

Approximately two hours later, there was no doubt for Charlie anymore; the water was rising more quickly than during the previous floods. Already the last one had been more violent than the others, but this sixth flood seemed to be outdoing even that. Right now, the water was already up to his larynx throat and his heart seemed to be hammering somewhere in this region also regardless of the fact that he was trying to save energy.

"Help!" He shouted and was aghast about how rough and cawing he sounded. "Help!" He wanted to shout once again, but his voice failed him. He had used it so seldom during the past three days that he seemed to have forgotten how to make human sounds. And the lack of liquids hadn't really helped the development.

And yet, it was senseless anyway and Charlie knew it. Nobody would be able to hear him down here, not during low tide and even less during a flood.

But why? Why had fate suddenly decided to make everything just another bit harder for him? Was it getting bored as time went by or what?

It had to be the weather. Charlie couldn't think of any other explanation – unless someone had dammed the Pacific in an attempt to create electricity from it. No, the only rational explanation for the greater rise of water in his cell was a storm. The floods out there had to be more violent, the waves and the water level higher. It meant for him that the water would splash down to him for a longer period of time, and that therefore the water amount would increase. Which, of course, didn't exclude fate's mischievousness as the reason for all this.

Well, those are really rosy prospects. Charlie would have liked to convince himself that he was wrong, that he was only imagining the rise of the water and therefore also the storm, but this damnable logic supported his theory. Logic and his observation.

The water rose higher and higher, and soon Charlie couldn't stand anymore without his mouth being surrounded by salt water. For a few seconds he tried to keep himself above the water by swimming, but the pain in his knee and his exhaustion made him manage that for only a very short time. Panic attempted to pull him down when he thought he was going to drown, but then his hands brushed against the wall and he knew he wasn't lost yet.

He forced himself to remain calm and extended both his arms out to the sides. They easily touched the two opposite walls of his stony cuboid and held him some inches above ground.

However, even though the water helped him in keeping himself up high, his shoulders and upper arms soon became heavy. They were just as exhausted as the rest of his body and not able to carry him for more than a few minutes. He had to hang in there, though, had to...

He got a cramp in his left shoulder. He tried to ignore it, tried to keep himself up high, but he couldn't. His muscles weren't up to the requirements anymore, and suddenly Charlie's feet touched the ground. The water closed over him, and for a tiny instant he forgot where was up and where was down. Salt water came into his mouth. He frantically tried to spit it out; he couldn't. He wildly flung his arms around him. Up, he wanted to find the surface, but he didn't know where that was. He couldn't rise anymore, no more, he was going to drown...

With an immense effort of will Charlie struggled to pull himself out of the sea of panic. His mind started to work rationally again. Swiftly, but not frantically, he groped with his left foot until he found something solid, and he pushed himself off it. A fraction of a second later, his mouth also was free of the salt water, and he coughed to get it out of his lungs.

He now tried to support his right arm with his left leg, but he slipped off. Again he tried, again the bare sole of his foot slipped down from the smooth stone. Eventually, the third attempt kept him above the water.

Charlie was breathing fast. The pain in his knee was there again. Also his lungs now stung uncomfortably. He needed air, he needed to get out of here, he needed to rest...

However, as long as there was water in here, he would have to continue to fight. On and on. Again and again.

Until the end.