Thanks to everyone who left a review on chapter 1. I appreciate it very much! To Mila who asked about A Midsummer Day's Dream, you can find it on Archive of Our Own. Many thanks to N!
"Chip, it's Lee. He's missing. They checked out of the conference hotel early yesterday morning, a day earlier than planned. Even with traffic they should have been back yesterday evening."
"What?" Chip thought he knew who he was but after several beers at the Brown Pelican and falling into bed a scant three hours ago, he wasn't thinking very clearly.
"I spoke to the highway patrol. They were on the PCH heading towards Half Moon Bay. The car blew a tire, driver pulled off the road, and apparently they were ambushed. Shot the driver. No sign of any of the passengers but obvious signs of a struggle. CHP found blood on the side of the road. Jacobs is en route. Said he'd call when he knows more."
Suddenly Chip was wide-awake. "You said there were signs of a struggle. The admiral?"
"Have you ever known him to go along quietly?"
Chip's sigh was audible. "Not if he can help it."
"Exactly."
"Want me to go with you?" Chip didn't have to ask if Lee was going; he knew without a doubt the skipper was already packing a bag.
"No, I want you here just in case something happens. But alert Sharkey, Kowalski, and Jamieson and have them on stand-by. Once I assess the situation, I'll send for them."
"Doc? You think…"
"I don't know what to think at this point but if there was a struggle, well, I want Jamie ready just in case."
"I'll let them know. Good luck."
"Thanks."
Chip placed the phone back on its cradle and rolled onto his back. Staring at the ceiling, something occurred to him that made him reach for the phone again.. Quickly dialing Lee's number, he counted off the rings, cursing when the answering machine played the recorded message. "Lee, it's Chip. Pick up!" Nothing. Pressing his palm against the throb in his right eye, Chip rolled out of bed and headed for the kitchen with Lee's words echoing in his head: they were on their way back. They. Angie had gone to San Francisco. She was in the car with the admiral.
Measuring out enough coffee for two cups, he cursed loudly when the glass carafe caught the corner of the countertop and shattered on the linoleum floor.
-xxx-
Roger Masgard leaned against the broad desk and flexed his right hand. He was a loyal man – loyal to money. And right now he was being paid a ridiculous sum to do whatever her highness asked. He didn't much care for her or her tactics and quite frankly, he suspected from the start that she had an ulterior motive, but that was what he agreed to when he accepted the transfer of funds into his Swiss bank account. "What do we do with the girl? She's of no use to us." He had no qualms about killing the young woman. It was Nelson they wanted. She was just baggage they didn't need but he was told to bring her along and so he did. He was being paid to follow orders after all.
"Quite to the contrary, she may have information on Invictus?"
"Her? How so?"
"She wasn't scheduled to be at the conference. Nelson requested that she join him. Upon her arrival she was sequestered behind closed doors with Nelson, Dr. Quentin Lamont, and two unidentified men for two hours."
Masgard let out a low whistle. "Invictus is supposed to be the brainchild of Lamont and Nelson, right?"
"It's Nelson's brainchild. Lamont was just along for the ride." She might despise Harriman Nelson but she did recognize that the man was a brilliant scientist. "But that does make one wonder why a lowly secretary would be locked in a room with two illustrious scientists for several hours."
"Taking notes?"
The woman shrugged. "Perhaps. Bring her into the observation room. Let's see her reaction when she sees the great Admiral Nelson now. If she does know something, then that could be the straw that breaks our little secretary's back."
"Or his."
Cocking her head to one side, she considered what he'd said. "Indeed."
-xxx-
Time held no purpose as he drifted in and out of unconsciousness, always coming to with a jolt, always anticipating the single white door to open and his tormentors to return, bringing with them the threat of more pain. But they didn't come. They were playing a waiting game now, toying with his sense of security and showing him they were in control. The convulsions continued, sometimes so violently his teeth rattled. If he hadn't been strapped to the chair, he would have easily slid to the floor. In front of him a light came on, illuminating one room behind the mirrored panels. He raised his head and tried to focus, seeing nothing at first but a blurred, motionless figure. As his vision cleared, he saw her more plainly.
Angie.
Letting his head drop until his chin rested against his chest, seeing blood mixed with perspiration matting the hairs on his chest, staining his white cotton boxers, he felt ashamed, completely devoid of self-respect.
Strip away his defenses, his dignity, reveal his weaknesses, wear him down, make him wait; he knew the game. He'd been through it before. The first rule of effective torture techniques is to never actually torture the victim. Self-doubt, humiliation, suspicion: take away his dignity in front of someone he…
Lifting his head, he tried to purge the thought. He wasn't going there. He wasn't going to let them use Angie against him. But already the feelings of guilt were seeping in. He was the one they wanted. She was just collateral damage. It had nearly happened once before; an assassin targeting her to get to him. She'd handled herself remarkably well, brushing off the incident as if it were just part of her job. But this time it was different. This wasn't simply a near miss with a poisonous dart and neither he nor the institute's security could protect her. If anything happened to her, if they hurt her in any way, he'd be powerless to stop them. Powerless. The single word repeated through his brain like some sort of mantra until he realized he was saying it out loud. He could shake away the thoughts but he could not shake away the images of Angie, hurt, alone, scared.
"No!" he shouted to the empty room. "No, no, no!" He wasn't going to play this game. She was his secretary and while he cared about her and felt responsible for her safety, he wasn't in love with her. That was against protocol. Feeling the perspiration run down his nose and drip onto his chin, he let his head drop once more and laughed at the joke. Protocol, decorum, they'd always been barriers to him. Even now.
He'd tried to break down the barrier at least temporarily. San Francisco wasn't Santa Barbara. They might have known him at the conference but no one knew Angie. So he had ignored protocol and asked her to dance. He'd wanted to ask her ever since he spied her trying to mingle with some of the guests. She was breathtaking in the black dress and when he'd maneuvered his way to her, she had looked both relieved and surprised. He never could resist a damsel in distress.
They had danced but when the music ended, he could sense her uneasiness. He might have tried to break down a barrier but she could not. He should have known better. He was her boss; she was his subordinate.
And never the twain shall meet.
-xxx-
Angie entered the room hesitantly, encouraged by a not too gentle push. Behind her the door slammed shut.
Immediately, her eyes fell upon him, slumped forward in the chair in the middle of the room, nearly naked, bloodied and bruised, muttering to himself. Feeling both embarrassed and uneasy, as if she were intruding on his privacy, she quickly looked away. Perhaps this was to be her torture: seeing the man she most admired divested of his dignity and broken into nothing more than an empty shell. It wasn't right, not for Admiral Nelson.
Standing there, staring at the floor, not daring to bring her gaze up, she thought about the perversity of the situation. She had been in love with Harriman Nelson since the day she had walked into his office and found him trying to type on an old Underwood typewriter. She had spent countless days dreaming of him and now here she was, standing not ten feet away from him and unable to look at him.
"Not so imposing any more, is he?"
Angie turned sharply at the sound of the voice. "What have you done to him?"
"Would you like a demonstration?" She took the device from her pocket and rubbed her thumb across the dial.
"No, I wouldn't."
Ignoring her reply, the woman nudged the knob slightly but enough to get the desired response.
Angie watched, eyes wide in horror as the admiral's head came up sharply, his whole body tensing against some unseen force, and then heard the agonizing, guttural yell that tore from his throat.
"Stop it! Stop it, please! You're killing him!"
"You care a great deal about him, don't you?" With a satisfied smile, the woman did as she asked and turned the device off.
"He's my boss," Angie said. Once unable to look at him, now she couldn't take her eyes off him. Even from her vantage behind the glass she could see his chest heaving, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, as he tried to recover from whatever she'd done to him. Putting her hands over her eyes, she couldn't watch any more. The admiral had always been a very private man. She felt as if she were invading that privacy.
"You didn't answer my question." Pulling Angie's hands away from her face, she continued in an almost soothing tone, "You care a great deal about him. I'll even go so far to say," putting her hand on Angie's chin, the woman turned Angie's head so she could not look away, "you're in love with him." Seeing the slight flush in the younger woman's cheeks, she laughed. "I felt the same way about him once. He's a very charismatic man." The woman picked up a carafe of water and filled a glass then set it in front of Angie. "Tell me, why were you in San Francisco?"
Angie eyed the glass but did not drink. She was so thirsty but she couldn't in good conscience accept it knowing the admiral had probably been deprived of water since they arrived. "The conference planner was ill. I volunteered to help out." Angie worried that she'd said too much but all of it was true.
"So he didn't ask you to go?"
"No, he never even suggested it." Angie noticed a change in the other woman's demeanor. It was almost as if she were disappointed. "It was my idea."
"You spent two hours behind closed doors with Nelson, Lamont and two other men. Why?"
Angie recalled the meeting very clearly. "Admiral Nelson and Dr. Lamont were laying out terms on a usage agreement with regards to the institute's lab. He…Admiral Nelson… asked me to document their agreement. He said Dr. Lamont likes to create his own terms."
"Did you know the other men?"
"No, I assumed they were part of Dr. Lamont's team."
Turning her back to the secretary, her arms folded across her chest, she watched Nelson fight to stay conscious. As sincere as the secretary sounded, the woman wasn't convinced that she was telling the truth. "I don't believe you're telling me everything. I think you know much more than an agreement about lab usage. I think the meeting was about Invictus and if you don't want your admiral to suffer any longer, you'll tell me all about it."
Angie had been subjected to many project names over the years, most of them with little meaning to her but very important to the admiral and the Institute. Some of them, like Project Anteater, had her convinced that the admiral was having a good laugh at someone's expense. But she wished with all her heart that she knew something, anything about Invictus. Fixing her concerned gaze on Nelson, seeing his head slowly rise until he was looking at her, she tried to give him her best reassuring smile. "I'm sorry," she said dejectedly, "I don't know anything about it." Feeling as if she'd just signed his death warrant, she looked away from Nelson and choked back a sob. "Believe me, if I knew anything that would make you stop hurting him, I would tell you." Biting her lip, Angie felt a sickening lump forming in the pit of her stomach.
The woman locked her hands behind her back and sizing up the secretary, took a deep, gratifying breath. "Yes, I believe you would. However, if you don't know then he certainly does and soon enough he will tell me what I want to know. I'll take great pleasure watching him plead with me to make it stop."
Realizing his release was never really an option, that he was just a toy for her to abuse, Angie stood a little straighter. "You disgust me. You'll never break him."
The woman laughed, amused by Angie's blind loyalty to the man. "Oh, but I will. The only question is whether he'll die in the process. He has no doubt taken a course or two on how to withstand brainwashing and torture as part of his training but like everything else in his life, it's only ever been books and theories. He's never been in this situation before. What he does, he does on his own instincts and resolve. At some point his instincts and resolve will fail him and he will give up. However, his strong sense of duty and responsibility will conflict and he will concede to death as his only option."
"How do you know what he's been through before? He's been through more than you'll ever know. He's much stronger than that." She realized the implication of what she said after she spoke and suddenly she wished he wasn't so strong and stubborn.
"Look at him. Does he look like a strong man now?"
Angie looked again at the admiral. She'd always thought Harriman Nelson was indestructible, that despite his many enemies and the attempts on his life, he would always persevere. But she could see the starkness of dried blood on his pale skin, the tremors, the heavy rise and fall of his chest as he labored for each breath, and knew that deep down Harry Nelson was nothing more than flesh and bone.
Turning, the woman smiled mirthlessly at Angie. "Our idols often have feet of clay."
Maybe so, Angie thought. But she still believed in her hero.
-xxx-
It seemed as if an eternity had passed before someone finally came into the room. He expected her but this time it was a man who loosened the bindings and then left the room. Nelson knew they were watching, waiting for him to fall on his face, but he wasn't going to let them have that pleasure.
Gripping the chair firmly, he lifted himself up and stood on unsteady legs. Stubborn perseverance got him to his feet; luck was going to have to take him the rest of the way. The spasms in his legs became more intense as abused muscles bore the full weight of his body but he managed to take his first steps. With concentrated effort, he let go of the chair only to reach out for it quickly as his legs gave out and he landed painfully on his right knee.
"He won't make it. He'll have to admit defeat…" Arms crossed over her chest, the woman stood defiantly before the mirror.
Using the chair as leverage, Nelson slowly got back to his feet then scooted the chair along the tile floor, the loud scraping noise echoing throughout the big, empty room.
"You said your device could break him. As usual, you underestimated him." The man who spoke had an edge to him that belied his rather passive demeanor. "Lamont would have been a better choice but you let your ego interfere."
The woman pivoted quickly on her heel. "I did not!"
"If it weren't for me, you'd be rotting in prison right now because of him."
"I told you I could do it. It's just going to take more time." She turned her attention back to Nelson, watching as he made it to the steel door, tried the door then proceeded to push the chair along the wall. There was no way out and yet, he persisted in trying to find one.
"How much more time? If anything he only looks more defiant. You know the consequences if you fail." It was a statement, not a question.
"I am aware."
"Then you know the agreement. You have forty-eight hours." The door opened and the man exited.
"Would you like me to restrain him?" Masgard had made himself invisible in the other man's presence. There were only two people he feared; being in the same room with both of them made his skin crawl.
The woman slapped the small control device against his chest. "Put him through the paces and after he starts drooling on himself, throw him back into his room."
"What about the girl?"
"What about her?"
"Kill her?"
"No, not yet. We may be able to use her to our advantage." She smiled at Masgard and for a moment the image of a barracuda flashed through his mind. "You know, I do have a second device," she said as she opened the door.
Masgard shook his head. "But I thought that one was still in the first subject."
Lingering by the open door, she flashed a predatory smile. "I wasn't going to leave it behind."
"You aren't planning on using it on the girl?" Killing the young woman was to be expected but torturing her? Masgard wanted no part of that. However, he knew she hadn't expected Nelson to hold out this long and now the woman was desperate not to fail.
"Why not? Our little secretary has to serve some purpose."
Masgard watched her leave the room, wondering just what purpose the girl could possibly serve.
-xxx-
Nelson came to himself with a shuddering jolt, suppressing the urge to cry out only when he realized he was no longer strapped into the chair and was instead lying on his side on the dirty floor of a stinking, darkened room. Confusion, panic and fear quickly gave way to an all-encompassing pain as muscles he didn't know existed screamed in agony.
Carefully, he rolled onto his stomach, the cold stone floor helping to alleviate some of the pain, his shoulder knocking against something cold and metallic in the process. He could hear liquid sloshing against metal and as he crawled closer, he smelled the brackish water.
"Three," he muttered to himself, continuing to repeat the number until its relevance finally registered. It had been a survival course he'd taken years ago:
Three minutes without air
Three hours without warmth
Three days without water
Three weeks without food
Thankfully, he was breathing easily and not having an appetite quelled any hunger pangs but he couldn't ignore what felt like a mouth full of cotton. He knew the water was foul but he was so thirsty, he didn't care. The relentless twitching in his abused muscles made it impossible for him to sit up. Instead he reached out with one shaking hand and tipped the bowl so that some of the water trickled over his dry lips and into his mouth. He felt the sting on his swollen tongue and the tang turned his stomach, making him gag, but he drank anyway.
When he could stand no more of the foul-smelling liquid, he pushed himself away and rolled onto his back. His arms and legs contorted in jerky, irrepressible motions making sleep nearly impossible. Rolling onto his side, bringing his knees close to his body as the convulsions continued, he closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate on something else, something safe and pleasant.
He remembered how small and delicate her hand was as it intertwined with his, the way her hair smelled like coconut nectar, but most of all, he remembered the way he felt when he saw her. He had never really noticed Angie before—not like this anyway. Closing his eyes, he envisioned their dance once again. If they took everything from him, he hoped that at least he could keep that one memory. He needed something to cling too; something sheltered that they couldn't take from him. Drifting, his ragged, beleaguered thoughts lingering on the pretty secretary in the black dress, he finally fell into a fitful sleep.