Thanks a lot to the reviewers! Your comments motivate me a lot! And yes, I definitely agree with you that Charlie won't be able to bear this state for a very long time ]:)
31 – CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE – 1,117^31
"The problem is this that he could be telling the truth, Don."
Don didn't even look at O'Connagh, but just kept staring stubbornly straight ahead while they made their way from the interrogation room to Megan who, apart from her psycho-analyses, administered all their information. As time had gone on, they realized they weren't going to get anything from Bolshoyov. Momentarily, their greatest hope lay with their colleagues having more success with Petrov and Borisov.
O'Connagh continued, "It's well possible that he really doesn't know anything about Charlie's whereabouts."
"But maybe he does know something," Don retorted, "and if he does, I'll make that bastard tell me."
O'Connagh didn't answer, and so they fell silent until they reached Megan.
"Anything new," Don demanded.
Megan shook her head. "The other two haven't said much more than the last time either." She looked up at O'Connagh, her gaze a silent request.
The agent in charge nodded. "I think we should go on with the other mobsters and interrogate them. Maybe we'll find an accomplice of Ivanov and Chrushtchov among them. And as soon as we can interrogate Ivanov and Chrushtchov again, we'll get started, at least in case that we don't get useful information from the others."
Don contorted his face, unsatisfied. This regulation that you weren't allowed to interrogate a suspect 24/7 really got on his nerves.
0 – 0 – 0
Eventually, exhaustion had won.
After it had become apparent that none of the mobsters would make a statement regarding Charlie's whereabouts, Amita had fallen deeper into her hole. It was just... not fair. It wasn't possible they couldn't find Charlie; he and Don and the others had helped so many others, complete strangers. So why should all their best efforts fail when it was now he who needed them? It just wasn't fair...
It was hell.
Amita's eyes were permanently reddened. The queasy feeling in her stomach had increased immeasurably since Monday, since she had known about the abduction. She was frightened.
She had hoped to be able to bear it by plunging into work, by making herself useful, by bringing Charlie back. The pain and the fear had remained unbearable though.
She had done the work grimly and silently. Larry hadn't been more eloquent than she had been. She could imagine how he was feeling. Her own mental state helped her a lot in this context.
Again – no, rather still – she wondered how Charlie was. Maybe he was hurt? Was he in pain? Was he alone or were there other kidnap victims with him? Or mobsters? What was happening to him? Were they questioning him? Or torturing...? Was he maybe missing her just as much as she was missing him?
All of a sudden the question seemed to her unbelievably naïve and banal. Charlie might be struggling for his life in this very instant, and she was only thinking of herself wondering if he was missing her. It seemed to her so mean and egoistical... and yet she longed for an answer to this question.
And even more she longed for Charlie.
The agony had kept her in movement for a long time, until there had simply been no more for Larry and her to do. They had no more data to be analyzed; the rest would be done by the computers without them needing to be there. All they could do now was to wait helplessly.
Just as helplessly as Charlie.
After the main mafia mobsters' arrest, it hadn't taken long until Amita had fallen asleep in front of the monitor in the little conference room. Everything was simply too much. She longed so much to be able to relax, for serenity, for a feeling of home.
She could find what she sought in her dreams. For there, Charlie was waiting for her.
0 – 0 – 0
"I want to make a deal," Viktor Budanov said when O'Connagh and Don had hardly stepped into the interrogation room. The two of them faltered, looked at each other and then over at the criminal.
"What kind of deal?" O'Connagh inquired. He remained neutral, objective, as if he wasn't really interested at all in what Budanov could offer them. However, his interest was aroused. And he could sense that Don also, behind and to the side of him, could hardly bear it anymore. He instinctively knew that his colleague would have liked to go for this guy's throat this very instant in order to learn more about the bargain.
"I've got information that you might like to know," Budanov explained.
O'Connagh could hear Don's breathing accelerate. He himself however forced himself to stay calm. "What kind of information?"
"Kalinkov. I know everything about him and his people, their hiding-places, their plans, who the people are."
The two federal agents hardly managed to hide their disappointment. Of course, Budanov was offering them a Christmas present here. However, they would have preferred an Easter present. Instead of the discovery of the branch-mafia, they would have liked much more to be able to celebrate Charlie's resurrection.
And yet, this chance had to be made use of. "Where do you have this information from?"
"I was a mole. Bolshoyov sent me off to spy on Kalinkov and his plans."
That sounded logical, maybe a bit too logical. Everything here was going like clockwork. They had arrested one part of the mafia, and one member of this part was just about to lead them to another part of the mafia after less than five minutes of interrogation. The whole thing sounded even more suspicious to O'Connagh considering that since Charlie's abduction they had had to surmount one defeat after another. He didn't believe in presents anymore, no matter if for Christmas or for Easter. "Why are you telling us this?"
"Hey, I want a deal. My cover's blown anyway. As soon as Kalinkov knows that I've been arrested with Bolshoyov and the others, he'll put one and one together. He's suspicious already anyway."
"Of you?"
"Nah," Budanov said, as if it was obvious. "Norvtcharov. The guy was sniffing about looking for something. Came in quite handy for me. Kalinkov –" He stopped short. Something seemed to have occurred to him. "By the way, what about my deal? Conditional discharge?"
"We'll see what we can do. We should at least be able to allow mitigating circumstances." This time, O'Connagh was serious.
"Okay. But I warn you, don't you dupe me. Then you're gonna pay for it personally, is that clear?" He looked at the two agents fiercely, then continued without waiting for an answer. "So as I said, Kalinkov suspected that there was a mole loitering about. And since Alex asked questions all the time, he became suspicious of course. In the meantime I could spy on Kalinkov's plans without being hampered. The idiot really trusted me."
"And the information you got you then gave to Bolshoyov, right? What kind of information are we talking about here?"
Budanov shrugged. "Plans about their intentions. Different things."
O'Connagh accepted the empty answer. After all, they already knew about the Janus List and Budanov on the other hand didn't have to know what they knew. "So Kalinkov let Norvtcharov be killed because he considered him a mole?" he asked instead.
Budanov nodded. "Right. By Pyotr Malenkov. That's the one who nearly always attends to the higher-class dirty work."
When O'Connagh turned towards Don, his look was returned. Pyotr Malenkov was the murderer of their colleague. Charlie had been right with his analysis. "And why did Bolshoyov buy a witness to incriminate Kalinkov?"
Bolshoyov raised his eyebrows. He seemed honestly surprised, but quickly put on a mask of mocking appreciation again. "You figured that out? Respect; really, man. That's a thing not many know even among us. But you're right, Kalinkov's group got on Bolshoyov's nerves; they kept on messing up our plans. And since you were too stupid –" He faltered and then apparently thought that considering he'd just made a deal it was probably not politic to insult his negotiation partner. "So since you apparently had no evidence against the others, Max got hold of a witness. But I don't know where he got him from; I only know that this guy does this and that for us every now and then. Dirty work." Budanov seemed to be immensely proud that he himself didn't have to dirty his hands with this sort of work.
"Okay, Budanov." All that sounded surprisingly good. Budanov's statements matched their previous investigation results. It was time to search for the really interesting facts. "And who abducted Professor Eppes?" O'Connagh could almost feel Don tense behind him.
"Kalinkov and his people," the mobster answered like a bullet from a gun. He was about to continue, but Don didn't let him.
"Where are they?" He demanded, and there was a dangerously determined undertone in his voice.
Budanov held his hands high in defense. "Hey, take it easy. The guy and his brother have been free for a long time already. They managed to escape."
It took them some seconds for the two agents to realize what their informant was talking about. O'Connagh was faster. "The second time. Professor Eppes was abducted a second time. By whom?"
"Oh, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you there. I'd have to grope in the dark just as much as you in this case."
That was too much. O'Connagh knew it and held Don's jacket from behind, even before he had even got close to Budanov. Don tried to break lose, he wanted to charge at the mobster, he wanted to do something, anything, that would bring him a tiny step closer to his brother – but James didn't let it happen.
Don ceased to fight against his colleague. O'Connagh slackened his grip and Don struggled to get out of the room, leaving the two men alone without a word. He couldn't stand it any longer. Each time hope came from somewhere, igniting a spark in his soul that grew, swelled up, glowed until somebody would stamp it out with brutal truth. He wouldn't be able to bear that fact that they weren't making any pogress for much longer. There had to be a possibility somewhere...
They had seldom been in such a fix as now, and Don didn't have any doubt that everything would have gone in a different direction if Charlie had been with them. The problem was that sides had changed. Charlie was the victim here; he couldn't help them anymore.
Don knew that it wasn't completely fair towards Larry and Amita, and probably he was wrong; still, he couldn't quite get rid of the thought that with Charlie's help, they might have been able to find the abduction victim's whereabouts by now.
0 – 0 – 0
Exhausted, Charlie lay on the stone floor, trembling and coughing. The water had subsided. It had been close, close and hard. He had managed though. He was still alive.
Inevitably, the For how long? pushed its way back into his mind, but with the perpetual repetition, thoughts about dying gradually lost effect .
The next question however couldn't be ignored that easily: What for?
What was he fighting so hard for? Sooner or later – and there was a certain tendency to sooner – he'd die of thirst down here anyway.
He smiled wryly. It sounded very cynical that with all probability, he would either die of thirst in this hole or drown.
The question was if there was even a sense in all these exertions, the agony, the woe. If he was going to die anyway – why should he torture himself before then? Just for a few more minutes of life? But what life?
As if the salt water from the sea hadn't been enough, Charlie's body was now also producing some of it himself. What had he thought of just now? He didn't want to die, he mustn't die, there were so many reasons to stay alive...
He just couldn't think of them right now.
If he couldn't get out of here anyway, at least not alive – what was the meaning of the warm images of Amita and Larry and his father and Don? If he wouldn't see them again anyway – why should he fight for them?
I owe it to them.
The sentence echoed in Charlie's empty mind with all its pathetic melodrama. And yet he knew that it was true. Out there, there were still people who confided in him, who relied on him coming back to them, who wanted him back among them. And he counted on them not giving up him on him. They had silently agreed upon an alliance in which his life was at stake. They had all agreed upon it, and he owed them that he too did his bit to aid his rescue. He wouldn't give up.
The pain and the longing and the woe were still inside him, but a great part of him was determined. And as long as he had enough strength to breathe he would continue fighting.