by Serena James
The other man carried a blanket. He looked at her with horror. He swore violently at Srisai and was allowed to get away with it. The next thing she knew he was at her feet immediately covering her with the blanket he carried. It felt warm and cosy against her shivering skin. She felt a sense of relief that Srisai could no longer gloat over her naked body. She looked up at the man’s face.
She whispered, “Jonathan? Jonathan Taylor? Is that you?”
The man handed her a bottle of water and nodded. His voice was gentle and quiet, “Yes, Rebecca. It’s me. I’ve come to take you away from this awful place. Come on, wrap the blanket around you. Can you stand?”
“I don’t know. Are you really going to take me away? Are you going to take me home? Do you work for the British Embassy? No, you can’t. They all went home.”
“You are rambling Rebecca. What the hell has he done to you?”
He helped her to her feet and made sure the blanket was securely around her body. “That’s it, lean on me. Put your arm around my shoulder.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere you will be safe.”
She saw Jonathan glare at Srisai as they slowly passed. She was so weak with exhaustion, her feet felt as though they were dragging along the floor. Without Jonathan’s support around her waist, she would have collapsed. She flinched away from Srisai as he caught her arm.
He warned, “Where he is taking you is not safe Rebecca.” He got in her face. She strained away from him. “Where he is taking you to is worse than the hell of your Christian religion. Far worse than this place. If you had told me what I wanted to know I might have let you go.”
Jonathan pushed him away. “Get back in your cage Srisai”
He offered no reply. Whatever Jonathan was, in South Bundhara his authority carried more weight than an officer in the Elite guard. It made her suspicious that Srisai was speaking the truth.
* * * * *
Her eyes were in pained by the bright sunlight as she was ushered outside of the building to a waiting car. Jonathan took the top off the bottle of water for her and made her drink. But he only allowed her a few sips before taking it from her again. She was desperate for liquid after being denied food and drink for several hours and she didn’t understand as to why he would deny her it now. She constantly questioned Jonathan about where he was taking her. He would only answer that he was going to take her to the hospital and get her injuries taken care of then he would be able to explain everything.
She started to feel very tired. Everything swam in front of her eyes. She looked at Jonathan in confusion, then at the bottle of water he still held in his hand. Her eyes felt like they were rolling.
“Jonathan. The water? You’ve drugged me? What are you going to do to me Jonathan?”
She tried to grab hold of the handle of the door. She flicked it back and forth not able to make the co-ordinated movement. Her intention was to fall from the moving car and somehow make a break for freedom. She cried with frustration when she couldn’t make the handle move.
Jonathan caught her hand. She struggled furiously. What was happening? Was this one of Srisai’s games to try and make her talk? Was she dreaming? Still stuck in that room being beaten? Would she wake up buried alive?
Jonathan caught her head in his hands and tilted it towards him. He studied her eyes. She couldn’t focus on him. He peered into them critically. Then he shouted at the driver. “Hurry, another minute and she will be fully under. Call Quayle. Tell him to get the client prepped for surgery. He will be able to operate on Rebecca as soon as we bring her in and harvest the organ.”
Rebecca fought Jonathan as though for her life, lashing out at him with all of the strength she had but the drug was too strong. Darkness began to seep in from all sides, suffocating her world. It swallowed her whole. This was it; this was the death she craved. There was no peace in it. It had let her down.
* * * * *
Rebecca blinked her eyes, trying to focus in bright white light. The whole room seemed to be white. She hadn’t expected to wake up. Someone was leaning over her. He wore a white surgical mask over his mouth and nose. Other figures moved close to the walls. Their whole bodies seemed to be swathed in white from head to toe. Only their cold unfeeling eyes were visible. They almost melted into the background giving the appearance that their eyes floated disembodied. These were the phantoms Doctor Somwan had talked about. There were four of them but one loomed over her face.
Closer inspection told her that they wore protective clothing, some kind of a boiler suit. She guessed it was for hygiene reasons. Her eyes began to focus better and she glared up at the figure above her in defiance of the fear the whole spectacle created.
The figure spoke eloquently and with a hint of humour evident in his tone, despite the muffle of his voice against the mask. “Relax, Rebecca. Try not to move. You’ve had surgery.”
She recognised the voice. She’d heard it recently. But her mind could not provide her with the answer to his identity. She was tired, confused and felt threatened. She wanted to move but her limbs and body would not respond. She tried to lift her head but it was too much of an effort. She fell back defeated.
The man’s voice contained a stern warning when he spoke again but his humour remained, “I will have to sedate you again if you don’t stop your struggling, Rebecca. You had some bleeding and internal lacerations from being raped. You were lucky your torturers wore protection. Always ones for misplaced purity, the Bundenese. We don’t have to do an Aids test.”
The Ball. That’s where you’ve heard his voice... Has a name like a bird. Grouse? No. You eat their eggs. Quayle? Yes. Quinton Quayle. The man with bad breath and terrible name. The one that slobbered over Karen and you at the champagne fountain. Anna Harker’s surgeon. Thank God he’s got that mask over his bloody mouth.
“What the hell have you done to me?” she asked weakly.
When she tried to struggle for a third time, she felt some movement return to her limbs. But when she attempted to move her arms she found that her hands were restrained at either side of the bed. Suddenly fear began to get the better of her and it filled her body with a shot of adrenaline. In blind suffocated panic she tried to raise her body from the bed, testing the limits of the restraints as she tried to free herself.
She turned to him. His eyes betrayed humour once more as he watched her struggle.
“Why am I restrained?” she demanded. “Why was I drugged? What’s going on? What is this hospital?”
“It is exactly what Doctor Somwan told you it is. This is where we extract organs and living tissue for transplantation and experimentation.”
Angry and afraid she attempted to raise her body from the bed once again. That was when she felt the dull pain to her side. Surprised she stopped. Quayle put out his hand. It was covered in a clear surgical glove. He rested it on her shoulder and firmly pushed her back down onto the bed. He held her there.
She said, “I know you. You’re, Quinton Quayle. Anna Harker’s renal surgeon.”
“Very good. That’s right. But you forgot that I am also a colleague of your brother’s at The Weber Grey.”
“And you are the influential friend that Srisai told me about.”
“Full marks again.”
“What about my brother? Is he involved in your medical murder conspiracy?”
“I mean it Rebecca. If you move again I will get our nurse here to sedate you. I can’t have you bursting your stitches.”
Rebecca gritted her teeth together, “What about my brother?”
“Well that would be giving the game away. Let’s just say I had to apply some pressure to make him see things my way. He knows what he has to do to put it all right and then that nasty business that caused his suspension will instantly go away.”
Disbelief echoed through her tone. “You’re threatening him if he doesn’t join you? He wouldn’t do anything like that. He wouldn’t take organs from people. He’s noble. He cares about h
is work. He...”
Quayle chuckled. “Looks like your fan club is here Michael.”
Rebecca swung her head around to the opposite side, so fast it spun. Another figure stood next to her bed. His head bowed. She knew by his stance and his dark brooding eyes that it was Michael. Tears welled up inside her. They flowed out onto her cheeks. He pulled down his mask and revealed his face.
His voice betrayed his emotion and disgust with himself. “I am so sorry, Rebecca.”
Quayle continued. “Michael isn’t just involved, he is the principal architect of this whole scheme. He’s a genius. Without him none of this would have happened and this hospital and all of the others around the world wouldn’t exist. Of course he isn’t in charge any more. The whole operation has grown too large now. We are run by a board just like any other business.”
She couldn’t speak.
“But when we told him that we needed you and one of your kidneys, Michael wanted to leave. You will be pleased to know that he put you and your safety first. He threatened us that if we harmed you or attempted to take your kidney he would expose us. We could have simply killed him. But he’s a brilliant surgeon and his research on heart transplants is inspiring. He is far too clever for us to lose. So we did the next best thing. We threatened to expose him, ruin his precious career, have him blamed for the slip up at the Weber Grey and The Marsworth, not to mention his fraud. But that’s not the best bit, we told him we would make sure that somehow you were implicated along with him hence destroying your career and life with a heavy prison sentence.”
Rebecca’s voice was taut with tension. “Is this all true, Michael?”
“Yes... it is. But I didn’t want them touching you. You were never supposed to know about this. I was going to take you away, hide you from them. Just like you did for me that night when we were children. I was going to protect you. Kevin Boyle nearly ruined everything. The Board tipped him off just to prove what they could do. Please don’t be angry. I love you. I wanted to keep you safe.”
“Liar. You are a bloody liar.”
“Please listen to me Rebecca. Quayle told me that Srisai had caught you. He told me that he could get you out but the price would be your kidney.”
Quayle interrupted. “But that’s not all is it Michael?”
She watched Michael bend his head. He was quiet for a moment.
Quayle was impatient. He raised his voice at Michael, “Tell her.”
Michael gave her a sympathetic look that made her nervous. He leaned over her and cupped her face in his latex gloved hands. The smell of the rubber made her nauseous. His thumb wiped at her tears.
“Don’t be afraid Rebecca,” he whispered. “I will find a way to get you out and away from him.”
“I said, tell her.”
Michael looked up at Quayle and narrowed his eyes. “They won’t let you leave South Bundhara. They can’t. You will expose us. The Board want you eliminated but Quinton has persuaded them to agree to allow you to live but you have to stay here with him.”
“What do you mean, with him?”
Michael dipped his head again. She shouted at him, “What do you mean, with him?”
Quayle was impatient again. “He means that you will live with me. Well, that’s when I have need of you and your... affections.”
Michael’s face was twisting with anger as he listened to Quayle’s words. She stared back at him with revulsion.
Michael told her, “I’m sorry, Rebecca. This is the only way I can keep you alive. Do as he says and you will be safe. He won’t go back on his word. I will find a way to work this out. I promise.” He kissed her forehead. She wriggled and squirmed telling him to get away from her. She warned him that if she ever got free she would hunt him down and bring him to justice.
He moved away and looked at Quayle. She heard him say, “She’ll calm down. She will see this is the way it has to be.”
Quayle nodded. “You’d better get back to North Bundhara before anyone misses you. Keep playing the desperately worried brother for the media. We will give it a while before we give them a video statement from one of Somwan’s disgruntled ex-members saying that he has killed her. We’ll do a fake body shot.”
Michael nodded. He replaced his mask and gave her a last look. She turned away from him. He left quietly. Overcome, Rebecca cried to herself. Quayle patted her shoulder. He told her, “It’s never easy finding out the truth is it? Nurse, I want you to sedate Rebecca and make her comfortable.”
“No, I don’t want to sleep.”
“You need to. Your injuries were severe and it was touch and go on the operating table for a while there. I should have operated on you myself. Some of the doctors they give me in South Bundhara are barely medically trained. The tidying up of the injuries was dealt with reasonably well but they were pretty extensive. Sorry I wasn’t able to get you out sooner but I had to prove to your brother that I was serious with my threat.”
Rebecca tried to recover from her display of emotion. She didn’t want to give Quayle any more satisfaction at seeing her so helpless, degraded and defeated. “You’re all heart.”
She could tell by Quayle’s eyes that he was amused. “However the nephroureterectomy... That’s a rib extension op to take your kidney, was not as tidy as I would have hoped. I prefer a larascopy where we only make a small incision but we don’t have the equipment here for that.” He raised his eyebrows. “Low funds. So they had to open you up. They broke three of your ribs doing it. Sometimes happens. Although I think one of them might have actually been broken when you were beaten. We’ll never know I suppose.”
He walked around the bed. He walked like a vulture, his head bobbing forward as he slightly stooped. She eyed him with suspicion.
“They did a messy job. There was a slight intra-operative nick to your spleen but I intervened and it was sorted out very quickly. I’m good at that. You know, coming in and saving the day. You aren’t impressed? I guess you aren’t by your silence. Well there’s going to be pain. Be a good girl and do as you’re told and I will keep your medication topped up so you don’t feel it. But if you decide to be bad, then it all stops and you’ll find out just how much pain you are really in. Now get some rest.”
“Wait. Who needed my kidney? Why me?”
“I’ll just say you were compatible because you are related.”
“But I don’t have any other family apart from Michael.”
“Well, not even Michael. After all he isn’t really your family either. You were adopted as a baby. I know from Michael you are already aware of it. You weren’t the only one listening to those men who came to kill you as a child that night. He knows. But you do have family, your real family. Shame they don’t want to know you. They just want your kidney.”
She felt the prick of a needle in her arm again. Her world faded once more before she could challenge him any further.
* * * * *
Dominic had placed his arm around her shoulders as she narrated the memory. She was breathing hard, almost hyperventilating. His hand swept gently across her face and stroked soothingly. She couldn’t look at his eyes. She was frightened of what she might see. Anger, an anger that couldn’t be contained, just like her own. She strained to reach him over the arm of the seat, just wanting the safety of his arms that he was so eager to give her. He kissed the top of her head. He said, “God. I know this is killing you but we need to know. I’m here. Don’t be afraid. Michael and the rest of them can’t hurt you now. I’ll make damn sure they don’t. You’re safe, honey. You’re safe. I promise.”
She watched Stuart and Ramsay stare at him with a mixture of sympathy and horror. They appeared to be deliberately avoiding her eyes. They’d heard everything as her voice had risen with emotion. She didn’t care. Everyone would know soon enough. She didn’t see the look Dominic gave Stuart back but he nodded, his eyes betraying his disgust as he looked up the plane towards her brother. She calmed her breathing as much as she could. Funny, tears wouldn’t com
e now. She was numb, thank God. She continued with angry determination.
* * * * *
When she woke the second time she was in a different room. There was no window and the white walls were harshly bright in the hard electric light. She immediately tried to move again but her hands were still trapped in restraints. Someone was in the room with her. She turned her head to find Jonathan standing next to her. He was recognisable because he had taken his hood down on his white boiler suit and removed his mask. He looked human again.
It’s a good job I am in these restraints Jonathan or I would punch you out.
He looked sheepish. He said slowly, “You’re awake then.”
She didn’t speak and turned her head away from him in disgust.
“Okay, so you are giving me the famous Rebecca huff your brother always moaned about when we shared rooms at university. He said you always blanked him when you couldn’t get your own way on something. The only way to end it was to give in to you. It drove him nuts but he always did give in.” He raised his eyebrows with humour. “Nice to know things haven’t changed with you.” He leaned over her and began lifting her eyelids and shining a torch to check her pupils. She moved her head back and forth, trying to evade him.
He stopped and gave a sigh. He told her firmly. “I need to check you out after your surgery. Don’t make it difficult or I will have to get Quayle in here to help me. I really don’t want to do that. The man is an unfeeling monster but if I need to...”
Rebecca detected sympathy for her situation in Jonathan’s voice. She decided to try to manipulate it. Maybe she could talk her way out. Prick at his conscience and at the same time she may be able to uncover some more information on the organization.
Forever the bloody journalist even when you are cornered. Always looking for the personal angle. Damn right. It’s what keeps you going and it’s what is going to get you out of this mess if you box clever. Michael said Jonathan was always pliable.
She remained still and let him carry on with his examination. He lifted up her sheet and took a look at her surgical wound. She saw him frown.
