Come home

Sorry for the delay. I've been rather busy this week. Also, a warning. It gets much heavier in this chapter, there's fairly detailed description of violence and a small amount of cursing.

9/5/98

Adam gasped for air. Kick after booted kick impacted his stomach. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He could hear Josif's cries through the bag over his head. The bag which stank of the fear of god knew how many prisoners, and the blood of some.

He was not going to break. They were not going to get a useful word out of him. He was going –

A booted foot came down hard on Adam's bare one. He shouted in pain and drew his legs up.

"How many times?" A voice shouted next to his head, leaving one ear ringing. Adam felt himself being pulled up to a sitting position. Pain tore in to his side. He gasped again. Cracked rib? Possibly. The bag was pulled from his head. Adam spat blood-tinged fluid on to the floor and stayed still, gasping. That last bout had been worse than the previous two, the throbbing foot was new, but, as his breathing began to slow, Adam knew he still had resistance left. "Who do you work for!" The same voice shouted. The shouter was pacing between him and Josif, glaring at them. Silence, apart from Josif's dry sobs and Adam's laboured breathing. "Answer me!" Adam looked hard at Josif, willing him to stay strong. The shouter spat on the ground. "Very well. You give me no choice. Bag their heads. Hans, find something hard and wooden, are boots are too soft, perhaps." Adam gritted his teeth, biting his tongue as rough hands forced the bag over his head again.

"No!" Josif cried. "No! Please, stop! Wait? Please!" Silence. The bag was pulled from Adam's head again.

"What?" Shouter asked slowly, walking over to Josif. "Why should I wait for traitors?"

"His name is Adam Carter." Josif said in a rush.

"Matteus-" Adam started, but a kick in the painful rib cut him short.

"Mine is Josif Mihailovitch."

"Matteus, stop-" Adam was silenced again, this time by a cold, sharp piece of steel pressing in to his neck.

"And who do you work for?" Shouter growled to Josif. Adam stared emphatically at him. There was a long silence.

"He works for the British government." Shit. This was about to get bad, really bad.

"So," Shouter spat. "you sell the knowledge of your own people to these interfering mongrels. You are worse than a whore." Josif bowed his head. "You pass your knowledge to this..." Shouter flung a hand in Adam's general direction. Josif shook his head. Bad. Very bad. He was going to give up his handler, Jed Ivory. Even the false name Jed had given Josif could lead these men, whoever they were, to Jed. Thinking of that, how had Josif known Adam's real name? Someone had messed up. Adam continued to stare hard at Josif, not knowing what else he could do. The knife was still in his neck.

"Who do you sell secrets to?" Shouter snarled. Josif froze up. Shouter drove his foot hard into Josif's abdomen. Josif cried out. Shouter grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head up. "Who?"

"His name is Alex Chekov. I used to meet him where you caught me. That is all I know." Shouter released Josif's head.

"Good. Give this one water." He turned slowly to Adam. "And you, Adam Carter? Is there anything you want to say?" Adam stared coldly back at Shouter, forcing any trace of fear off his face. "You are trying my patience, Adam Carter. That is not wise."

"Go to hell." Adam said shortly, fearing suspense more than pain. Shouter cuffed him across the face. Adam had relaxed his neck in time to roll with the blow, but the side of his face was still smarting. Shouter hit him again, this time in the stomach, winding him.

"Don't panic." Adam told himself firmly. "You'll be able to breathe in a few seconds. Just calm down and wait." Another blow sent him sprawling sideways, hands still tied behind his back.

Adam didn't know, or want to know, how long that beating went on. He wasn't hooded, so he could try to evade the blows, or shield himself with his legs. But with his hands tied, there wasn't much he could do.

Once it was over, however long that was, Adam was pulled back to his knees and tied to the girder again, legs, chest, one foot throbbing continually. Even after their captors had left, Adam and Josif were silent for a long time. Eventually, shifting his weight, Adam said,

"I don't think that rib is broken, you know." Josif made a sound half way between a cough and a sob.

"How could you do that? Just lie there while..." Adam paused for a moment before answering.

"Perspective, I suppose." Josif looked at him blankly. "Look, these men wouldn't have a problem with killing us would they?" Josif shook his head. "So why haven't they?" Josif shook his head again. "Because we've got information they want; names, places times. That's information they don't have. For as long as that's true, they've got a reason to keep us alive. As soon as we've given up all we know, we're useless to them. And then they'll kill us."

"Adam, I'm not brave like you. I can't-"

"Brave isn't something you're born with." Adam cut him off. "Brave is a way of behaving. You can decide to be brave, just like I can." There was a moment's silence.

"Adam, are we going to die here?"

"No." Adam answered matter-of-factly. It wasn't much of a lie, by Spook standards. He didn't know that they were going to die. "No, of course we're not. I'll have missed my check in by now, they'll be looking for me. And we've both got things to get back for. What's yours?"

"What?"

"What in your life do you need to get back to?" Josif thought for a minute.

"My sister's wedding. It is in June, at the church where we grew up. I was going to give her away, our father died two years ago."

"You are going to give her away." Adam corrected. "What's the church like?" Josif began to describe it, in so much detail Adam thought he could have planned a siege of the place. Richard, Adam's first head of unit, had once told Adam that, if captured in a group, spend every moment you can describing far away things to each other (and `never be taken`, of course). Richard had claimed that it let you isolate yourself from whatever was going on around you. At that moment, Adam had to agree with him.

"And you?" Josif asked when he had finished, sounding much calmer. "What do you have to get back to?" Adam smiled.

"I won't say her name, because she's one of us. She's a spook."

"She? A woman?" Adam nodded.

"The kind of woman you have to look twice at to believe, because you don't think anyone could be that beautiful."

"What does she look like?" Adam smiled again.

"Hair so dark it looks black unless there's sunlight on it, always feels warm when you touch it. Eyes so deep you think you could fall in to them. Her skin looks gold in the sun. She looks delicate, but I've seen her take down men bigger than me in moments, get straight back up after she's been thrown across a room."

"Is she with MI6?"

"Cannot answer that question." Adam said mechanically. "If they're listening, it might put officers in danger. But they are coming for us."