Harrogate, England
Oh, God. Give me strength.
Another powerful blow snapped his head to the side. Joe tensed, waiting for another strike. And another. One of Kane’s goons kept pounding him with blows. Face, stomach, kidneys. His tormentor knew how to hurt someone.
Pain came in waves, each blow taking away his breath, making him cry out. Fear almost paralyzed him as he struggled to free himself from the chair. It was useless.
Kane emerged from the shadows and waved off the attacker. He moved closer, inches from Joe’s swollen face. “We are just getting started, O’Rourke. Remember Chicago?”
Just the mention of that city, that attack, made his heart jackhammer. God help me stay strong!
Kane looked into his eyes and leered. “This is going to get much worse. You’ll wish my boys had dropped you off the roof in the Windy City by the time I am finished. Unless you tell me what I want to know. Do you understand?”
Joe glared back, fighting his fear.
“Have it your way.” Kane stepped back and motioned for the attacker to continue. “I’m going to enjoy watching this.”
The next blow almost made Joe lose consciousness.
Joe slowly woke up, his arms still cuffed to the chair, eyes puffy, almost closed from the rain of blows. That had just been a warm-up. A pain in his side told him a least one or two ribs might be broken, and two of his fingers felt painfully swollen after Kane tried to force them in a direction they were never designed to bend.
Joe had finally passed out. How long had he been out?
Running his tongue over his teeth, Joe felt at least one tooth had been loosened. Amid all the pain, he enjoyed a moment of joy. He had not caved in.
The door opened and Joe acted as if he was still unconscious.
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Joe. You’re being watched 24/7.” Kane came closer and grabbed Joe’s swollen jaw. “Wakey, wakey. We have more fun planned for you.”
Joe opened his eyes, realizing his ploy wouldn’t work. The pressure Kane put on his face alone was excruciating. He tried to raise himself and face his tormentor.
Kane stepped back. “Uncuff him and put him on the table. It is time Mr. O’Rourke realized that we mean business.” The muscle-bound ape that slapped him around earlier waddled from the darkness and unlocked one end of the cuffs holding Joe to the chair.
Once loosened, he was jerked to his feet as the bigger man twisted his arms behind his back and forced marched him across the large room. Another light came on that illuminated what appeared to be a hospital bed. Flinging Joe on the mattress, Muscle Man quickly produced another set of cuffs. He immobilized Joe’s arms, securely anchoring the wrist restraints to two metal stanchions anchored to the concrete floor on each side of the bed. He pulled on each restraint.
Escape was futile.
His captor moved back into the shadows and Kane and another man in a white smock moved closer. Kane leaned over the bed, partially blocking the blinding light above, his face and shoulders silhouetted, his body a black outline like a paper target posted on a gun range.
“You are not going anywhere, O’Rourke. Make this easy on yourself. Tell me what I want to know and you just might live. Resist and I will kill you.”
Joe looked up at Kane’s unseen face and spit.
Kane slammed his fist into Joe’s face. “Get him ready,” Kane screamed, moving back into the shadows.
The man in the white smock wrapped a rubber hose around Joe’s arm to create a tourniquet. He disappeared for a moment, only to return with a hypodermic needle the size of which made Joe shudder.
One thrust into his veins and soon Joe felt a panicky euphoria creep through his limbs. His head started to spin. He was about to lose consciousness again. A moment later, he blissfully blacked out.
Richard watched Joe’s body slump as the injection took hold. “You used sodium pentothal, right?”
The medical technician nodded as he put the serum away.
“You idiot, he’s nodding off. You must have given him too much.”
Worriedly, the technician thumbed Joe’s eyelid to see pupil reaction, then felt for a pulse. The man glanced at Richard, concern tightening his face. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s hard to get the right dosage under these conditions.”
“I don’t want to hear excuses. Let me know the moment he can respond to our questions.” Angry, Richard made his way back to the office. A red message light flashed on his phone. Punching the code, he waited for the recording to begin.
A man’s voice came over the speaker, an explosion and gunshots in the background. “Sir, we are under attack. We-” is all he heard before the recording stopped.
He glanced at the last number dialed. The call came from the lab in Albuquerque. He dialed Collette’s number and listened to her cell phone ring until his call rolled over to voice mail. She was not picking up. Or unable to answer his call.
Something went wrong.
Frustrated, he tried to think of someone on-site who might be able to give him an update. He did not want to leave a phone trail to the lab, and if he called his contacts in Albuquerque, he’d be leaving a trail to those contacts with a timeline corresponding to whatever was happening at the lab.
He dialed a Seattle number. As soon as his contact answered, Richard demanded an update from New Mexico. “You have any contacts there you can trust? I need a quick assessment as to what’s happening.”
“Call you back in a few, sir.”
Richard hung up and thought about Joe O’Rourke and the interrogation. He dialed the medical technician standing by. “Move him back to the holding cell. Something has come up that needs my attention. We’ll have to continue this later.” He slammed the phone down, waiting for a call back.
Ten minutes later, the phone rang. He snatched it up. “Speak to me.”
“Sir, looks like all hell broke loose out there. They got police and fire responding. Reports of a bombing and a firefight going on. The cops are holding everyone back until they can assess the danger.”
“They have to get in there right now. Before anyone can escape.”
“I know sir, but the cops are playing it real cautious. Things are really volatile. They may be even calling the feds-ATF, FBI, and the rest of the federal alphabet-soup agencies.”
Richard shook his head. “No. No. We can’t have everyone poking their noses into that lab. We have to contain. Now!”
“It may be too late, sir. It sounds like a war just started.”
Richard ended the call and quickly dialed another contact in Justice. He needed to start containment immediately. Before too much information got out. And he needed to kill whoever did this before they could talk.
They needed to be silenced.