by Jeff Abbott
“Help.” I felt my mouth move to shape the word. “Somebody help me.” My voice was a hoarse whisper. It seemed to echo in my ears. My mouth could barely function; it was as dry as sand. A sour chemical taste in my mouth.
I tried to calm my breathing. The air tasted slightly metallic. Then I noticed a slight hiss of air across my face. Constant. Unnerving. But air.
I tensed my fingers. They were inside…a glove? But I could move my fingers. I couldn’t tell what bound my hands, but my gloved fingertips could register that they were resting against a smooth surface.
Why…why would they bury me with gloves on?
I tried again to lift my arms. Both were bound, at the forearm and at the upper arm. Encased in sleeves. As sensation returned, I could feel that my legs were encased as well. My feet, too.
I tried to do a sit-up. I was bound across my chest. My neck wasn’t bound and I could lift it, but…my head was inside…something. I could feel it, like plastic, against the back of my head. Panic seized me again. My head…in a box? But I could feel the soft, insistent rush of air on my face; I could breathe.
I tried to listen. They hadn’t killed me, I told myself, full of optimism and then the dark side of me whispered, Well, this could be the start of a slow death. They don’t want you to suffocate, that just takes minutes. Starvation and thirst, well, we’re talking days. All in blackness. All while you cannot move. But…I could turn my head, without restraint. I felt a fabric or mesh stretched across the top of my head.
I called out, again and again, and there was only silence in answer. I listened. I couldn’t hear anything. The silence was as complete as the darkness.
Claustrophobia seized me and I struggled in vain. We all have our little fears, and when you run parkour you can’t be afraid of heights. I’d lived in jungles with my parents, so I couldn’t be afraid of spiders or snakes. But a guy like me, who runs and vaults and soars, what I cannot bear is to be trapped, pinned, unmoving. I fought down the wave of panic. To panic was to die. I had to think. I felt hazy, drugged.
But I was still alive. That was my hold, the idea that I gripped like an iron rung in a storm. If I was alive, I could get out of this. Somehow.
Unless they left you here to starve, to die of thirst, an unhelpful voice chimed again in my head. I strangled that thought. I closed my eyes. Maybe I slept. I didn’t know. I just breathed and tried to stay calm and tried to not start screaming, because I was afraid I wouldn’t stop. I thought of Daniel: I will come home to you. I will get out of here. Then thinking of him felt like a knife in the heart, because what if I never saw him again? What if no one ever found me? It would kill my parents after losing Danny, even with us not getting along. Mila, Mila wouldn’t know what had happened to me. She’d come after the Varelas and maybe they’d kill her, too, or bury her alive like they had me. Cori. What had they told Cori? Leonie, she would have Daniel to herself. Just like I thought she wanted. At least he would be loved. My teeth chattered. I had to hold on to hope.
I think I slept. In my dreams I ran parkour under a huge, empty sky, flying between ivory buildings with perfect grace and strength, unbound, the world wide above and below and around me. Nothing to hold me, to imprison me. Perfect freedom.
“Sam?”
I was startled out of my reverie. Darkness again. I struggled against my bonds and the panic was like bile in my throat. In my delirium I thought of Coma Thug, helpless in his hospital bed, how I’d felt sorry for him, trapped and defenseless. How I wouldn’t want to be him.
“Sam?” Kent’s voice.
“Yes. Kent, please.” I don’t even know what I said please for, and then I was ashamed of the weakness. “Please.”
“If you’re thirsty, lean your head forward a bit. There’s a plastic valve there. Gently bite on it and you’ll have water.” He spoke in a reassuring tone.
I did and cool, refreshing water filled my mouth. I could feel a plastic or glass surface against my forehead. I swallowed, drank again.
“It’s only thirty-two ounces. Make it last for the next day or so.”
Day? “Where am I?”
“When you need to relieve yourself, go ahead. There won’t be a mess. The suit will take care of it.”
Suit. A thought, a memory, fought through the haze of panic and drugginess. Suit. “Where am I?” I asked again.
“Well, that’s a relative term. You’re in transit. To a new life. Your old one is gone, Sam.”
“Where is Cordelia?” I could barely form the words.
“She’s safe. She’s no longer your concern. Cori has seen the error of her ways. She sees that you’ve brought us nothing but pain and discord. You’ve done our family a favor at long last, Sam, even better than the one when you saved Rey. You made Cori realize we would have to come before you. So thank you for that, you dumb, stupid kid.”
Two words he’d used felt like nails in my brain. In transit…“Where are you sending me?”
“To a place where you can share all your secrets. Like telling us who you really are and why you decided to interfere with our lives.”
“I will be missed.”
“I don’t think the police will look hard for Sam Chevalier.”
A new life, he’d said. They didn’t want me dead, not yet. Mila would look for me. Of this I was certain.
That was a fight he would lose, I thought, now that I was calmer. Mila. Kent would regret hurting me if she found him. The thought of her was a lifeline. Line. Suit. He said suit.
Suit? No. What had I seen on the e-mail on Kent’s laptop? “Spacesuit. I’m in a spacesuit.”
“Very good, Sam. It keeps you alive and comfortable. The suits are similar to standard NASA issue, but of course they’re not nearly as sophisticated. And the oxygen tank is bigger.”
“Where are you sending me?”
“You’ll see soon enough. Is it very dark to you, Sam?” Kent laughed. “I know what it is to be in the dark. I was afraid of the dark, as a child, and then I was in it permanently. It took me so long to adjust. Finally I did. I’m not sure that you’re strong enough.”
“I am going to kill you,” I said.
“I’m just a harmless blind man,” Kent said. “And you’re just a kid who thought he was tough.”
“You’re Mr. Beethoven. You work for the clients. You hired Marianne. You’re a traitor to the Varelas.”
“I’m a safety valve for the Varelas. But that doesn’t matter.” A pause, and for a moment I thought he’d disconnected the communications feed in the suit. “You killed Zhanna.”
“No. I didn’t. Someone poisoned her tea…”
“You did it. We all know it.”
“You did it,” I said.
“I wouldn’t. I loved her. Does that surprise you? I loved her so much.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“But you killed Ricky. You tried to destroy us, Sam, but you failed. The only reason you’re alive is because we want to know where you came from. Who you are. We’re sending you to a specialist of sorts. And if you’re alive, Cori will behave, so Rey thinks. We shall see. I’m not going to talk to you again, Sam, at least not directly. Safe travels.” A click of good-bye. Then instead of his mocking voice and blackness there was only…blackness. And somehow that was worse.
You are in transit to a new life.
They weren’t smuggling drugs, or information, or technology.
They were smuggling people.
Spacesuit. It had been mentioned in the e-mail to the person he called Nanny. Nanny had referred to “guests.” I remembered it now.
And suddenly I yelled my throat raw. Could anyone hear me outside of a spacesuit or the container I was in? I had no idea. I was being shipped. The Varelas were masters at transport.
I was in the belly of a FastFlex plane, marked with a bar code, another crate to be processed.
I stopped screaming myself hoarse. I gulped more water and then suddenly panicked that I’d drunk it all. I started to wonder if the wa
ter was drugged when I fell asleep again, and that was a mercy. It could have been ten minutes or ten hours. I awoke when the crate, coffin, cage, whatever it was, fell over. I was conscious of movement but not impact.
“Help me!” I screamed. “I’m inside, I’m inside!”
The crate was righted—I hadn’t been lying flat for all this time, but rather I was in an upright position. I could hear nothing outside, nothing.
They had done this to other people. How many? Terror flooded me in a fresh wave.
“I can pay more than they can!” I yelled. I nearly screamed I was CIA, then remembered Kent might still be listening to me.
I sensed movement. I was lifted and then roughly settled again on another surface. I stayed upright. I was suddenly scared as to what would happen if they loaded me upside down, all the blood surging to my brain. Didn’t people die from that after too long? But there were people outside, right now, probably looking at a label that told them how to arrange my coffin. I screamed. I fought with every ounce of strength I had against the restraints. I might have sobbed at one point. I hope not. My calm broke.
Then I realized my box had been still for a long time. I couldn’t scream anymore.
“Sam,” Kent’s voice whispered in my ear. “This breakdown is unbecoming of you. Truly.”
He could hear me. He was listening to me scream and beg and bargain. The rotten bastard. It’s worse to be afraid and to know your enemy is laughing at you.
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I said nothing more. I said nothing back. But I decided then and there the last thing he would ever hear would be my voice, telling him good-bye.
53
I MIGHT HAVE slept again. The steady hiss of air kept me company. I would doze, my brain fighting against the horror of imprisonment, awaken, then my mouth would grope for the water valve. A drink. I wished I could smear the water on my face, but I couldn’t. Then I felt the crate—I won’t call it a coffin, I won’t, I won’t—being jostled again, moved, thudding. I couldn’t hear the thud, I could feel it. I shivered against my bonds.
Kent’s voice had been replaced by another voice. A woman’s voice, calm yet stern.
I will obey. I will do as I am told. I will obey. I will do as I am told. I will tell all that I know. Information is freedom.
“Who are you?” I screamed. “Let me out of here!”
I will obey. I will do as I am told. I will obey. I will do as I am told. I will tell all that I know. Information is freedom. The chant, seductive as the summer sun, inescapable, like a fly buzzing in your ear on a warm summer’s day. It droned and droned and droned and the words tried to become brain cells in my head. I realized it was a recording, playing for me inside the soundproof container.
I stopped screaming. I thought of Daniel. I cried. I couldn’t help myself, the shame ran so deep. Then I fell back into the darkness.
The droning voice in my ear stopped.
After another eternity, light.
The box was opened.
The suit’s helmet cut the glare of the light but I blinked, the light like a razor in my brain. I could see three people, a woman and two men, standing in front of me.
One of the men, in medical whites, removed the helmet. Light lanced my eyes.
“You’ve had such a long trip,” the woman said. She spoke in English, but with an accent that suggested to me she was from South America. She wore a very nice business suit with an odd chain of whitish rectangles threaded on a golden necklace.
“Let’s establish a few ground rules before we let you out into your exciting new life.” Her voice was fake-sweet, horrible, like Mary Poppins on acid. “Who you used to be doesn’t matter. Except in what you can tell me. Information is your best hope for happiness. I do not care about your titles or your money or your background or your family. That’s all gone—poof!” She mimed blowing dust from her hands. She studied me. She was fiftyish, perhaps, with dark hair streaked with gray. A plain face, but for her eyes, which were a remarkable green, the color of a snake’s scales. “Let’s be clear, sweetheart. I cannot be bribed. Neither can my guards. Offer a bribe, or attempt to escape, and the punishments will be most dire. You are number 47. Repeat after me: I am number 47.”
“My name is Sam…”
“That was your old name. You don’t have a name anymore. You are 47. Isn’t that a nice number? Such a pleasing shape. And it’s a prime number.”
“My name is Sam Chevalier and if you call…”
“Goodness, someone’s not using his listening skills. You know, the suit only has so much oxygen. I wonder how much is left!” And then, smiling, Nanny—it could only be her—reconnected the helmet and they closed the box. They sealed it again. I started to scream again.
After an hour…or two or ten, they opened the box again. I shuddered against the light. She wore a different suit. How long?…I tried to steady myself. Her persona had to be calculated, a performance to produce a specific reaction, designed by psychiatrists and professionals. It had to create confusion, surrender, an effect of powerlessness. So don’t give into it but don’t show that you’re resisting. I closed my eyes.
Daniel, I want to come home to you.
“Let’s try this again, 47.” Nanny explained the rules again. I stayed still and quiet. “I won’t ask you if you understand. I assume you do because I know you’re ever so clever.” Her voice was like sugar soaked in honey. It was cloying; it rubbed against every nerve. How could she stand to listen to herself? “I know you’ll be a very good boy now, won’t you?”
I nodded.
She gestured at the guard. He undid the cords binding me to the inside of the crate. I sagged and he lowered me, still in the suit, to the ground. He pulled off the helmet and I tasted the fresh air.
Nanny aimed a gun at my head, a regretful smile on her face. The guard and the man in medical whites eased me out of the spacesuit-like contraption. Beneath I was in a mesh white suit, skintight, a sort of heavy fabric wrapped around my groin. They kept the gun leveled on me while they let me drink a bottle of cold water and I gulped the first few swallows so fast I thought I would retch.
“We were told you were very dangerous,” Nanny said, waving a disapproving finger at me. “I don’t like dangerous little boys. I want you to remember that. Be good.”
I nodded and finished drinking the water and the guard and the doctor pulled me up to my feet and stripped the mesh off of me, pulled off tubing and a bag to catch my waste, and removed sensors and tape and wires that were webbed across me. I shivered, I stood naked. I could smell my own rankness.
Nanny eyed me. “Such a strong boy! So many guests here could benefit from more exercise.”
I covered myself, tried to curl up into a ball. The room was cold.
“Cleanliness is very important here,” Nanny said. The doctor hosed me off with a jet of water and foamy soaps. Filth and grime sluiced off me, and blood, too. I’d been bandaged on my arm where Kent’s bullet had nicked me, and my hands were scraped from the rope.
They toweled me off. The doctor examined me, smeared antibiotic ointments on my wounds and scrapes. He injected me with three different syringes, whispering, “Just some immunizations you will need here, have no fear, 47.” Then they put me into clean underwear, an orange jumpsuit, and flip-flop shoes. “47” had been written on the front and the back of the suit in thick black. Then Nanny uncapped a heavy marker and wrote “47” on my right cheek, then my forehead, like I was undergoing a fraternity hazing.
“That way all your new friends can learn your number!” Nanny said. “Of course—who can you really trust? Some of your new friends might be my special friends too.”
I thought of the different ways I could silence that diabetes-inducing voice of hers.
“You must be hungry,” Nanny said. “You haven’t eaten in a long while. Tomorrow is a busy day, what with the surgery, and travel is so tiring. Even when you don’t hassle with boarding passes and airport parking.”
; The surgery? I tried to speak, but only mumblings came out of my mouth.
“Now. We don’t want any problems here with you, 47, or we’ll take extreme measures. It’s hard, for instance, to fight without thumbs. Did you know that? It really does affect one’s ability to grasp weapons or to make an effective fist.”
I nodded, as you would in this insane conversation. Then I saw again the necklace she wore, an accessory to her impeccable suit. No. Not whitish rectangles. Thumb bones, linked on a chain of gold. Couldn’t be. But was. Four of them. Covered in some clear compound to keep them from yellowing. She toyed with the bottommost one like it was her favorite bead.
Panic thrummed in my chest. I wanted to hide my hands from her. Her gaze was fixed on mine. “You’re a bit young. We don’t have many guests your age, 47. Learn from your elders here. Your life will be much easier.”
I said nothing. It was struggle enough to keep standing. “Shall we dine? I could do with a snack.”
She turned. The guard and the doctor each took one of my arms to keep me from falling, but I steadied myself to walk. We went out of the concrete room and out into a hallway. Also concrete. Steel doors along the hallway. All shut. The building was silent. Nanny opened a door and the escorts led me in. A cot, bolted to the floor, a toilet, a table, two chairs. They sat me down in one of the chairs. A woman, dressed in a gray smock, wheeled a cart of food into the room.
“47,” Nanny said, “this can be a place of comfort, or a place of unhappiness. I believe people decide to be unhappy. It’s the number-one problem in our world.”
The drugs warring inside me made me shiver.
The smock lady brought me a bowl. Tomato soup, with chunky vegetables in it. There was a plastic spoon. And a glass of water.
“Go ahead,” Nanny said, although I hadn’t waited for permission. I was just suspicious. It made me rebellious that she thought I was kowtowing to her until I thought about what she’d said about thumbs. I needed thumbs to hold the spoon. Or the knife I’d hold at her throat one day. So I said, “Thank you,” and I drank down the water. The soup was cold, but it was supposed to be. It was gazpacho.
