Hope in the Day of Torment, Part 2
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"Who's this?" the first man demanded, speaking Russian. He was short and stocky with brown hair and a nose that had obviously been broken more than once.
"A friend," Lina said, then repeated it in English. "He's a friend."
The second man, who was blond, a little taller and a little skinnier than the other, asked in accented English, "Do you know where Gennady Mikhailovich is?"
Lucas had never heard that name before. "Who? No."
"Then shut up and don't move."
In Russian, the brown-haired man told his friend to get a chair from the kitchen. Lina gasped, "What are you going to do?" but both ignored her.
Lucas kept his hands up and his face expressionless, pretending not to understand. He watched closely, however, hoping for a weakness or a moment of inattention on the part of the man guarding Lina. There was none. The blond man returned with not one, but two high-backed chairs, and the brown-haired man guided Lina to sit in one of them. Moving the barrel of the gun from her spine to her head, he stepped to one side, and the blond fished a roll of twine from his jacket pocket to tie Lina to the chair. He did each arm separately without hesitating, threading the twine around the back leg of the chair and then pulling it up to tie it tightly around her wrist before knotting it over the back of her hand and cutting the ends short with a pocketknife. Even while Lucas was gritting his teeth, recognizing that he couldn't do anything without endangering Lina, he was also thinking that the men were well-practiced in this kind of thing.
The blond man straightened up, grabbed the second chair, and arranged it so that it faced Lina, then spoke to Lucas. "You. Sit here."
Ignoring the fear that was rapidly spreading through his body, trying hard to concentrate on anything else that could potentially help him in this situation, Lucas sat down on the chair and did not resist as the blond man tied his wrists in exactly the same way as Lina's.
"Who are you?" Lucas asked in English. "What's going on, what do you want?"
Finishing with his hands, the blond man came around in front and hit Lucas in the face. "I told you to shut up!"
"Stop!" Lina shrieked, reverting to Russian. "You don't have to do this! I already told you, I don't know any Gennady Mikhailovich!"
"You are," the brown-haired man stated, "incredibly stupid, denying that you know him when there's a picture of you and him right there on that wall!"
He pointed in the direction of the photo that Lucas had noticed earlier, but Lina only sounded more confused when she answered. "What? That is my husband, Nick Barnes!"
The brown-haired man lifted his arm. Hearing the dull thud of fist meeting flesh and Lina's cry of pain, Lucas winced. Now that the men both had their attention focused on Lina, he flexed his hands. His fingertips brushed the twine wrapped around the chair leg, but he could not reach the knots.
"Where is he?" the man demanded.
"I don't know," Lina bawled. The man hit her again and asked the same question, but instead of answering, Lina only sobbed. Listening to her sounds of pain, Lucas felt as though a giant hand had reached inside his chest to twist his heart.
"Stop it!" Lucas called out in English. "She obviously doesn't know what you're asking!"
The brown-haired man turned around and gazed malevolently down at him, then flicked his hand at the blond man.
"Shut up!" the blond man shouted, and hit him again, this time hard enough to knock him woozy. By the time Lucas could think clearly again, the two men had gone back to Lina and in between the blows, he could hear the brown-haired man calling her a liar. Lina could barely speak for sobbing, but kept trying to say the same words over and over. "I don't know. I don't know!"
At last, the brown-haired man stepped back and to one side so that Lucas and Lina could see each other. There was blood running from Lina's nose and the corner of her mouth, and he could see bruises starting to form on the left hand side of her face. Lucas felt sick with worry.
"You say this is a friend?" the brown-haired man asked, coming around behind Lucas and placing one hand on his shoulder. Lucas tried not to shudder at his touch, and watched Lina nod.
"Just a friend," she gasped.
"A good friend?" the brown-haired man went on.
Lucas held his breath, wondering what Lina would say. She glanced at him, then looked away and shook her head. "I haven't … seen him … for years."
"So you wouldn't care if we shot him?" the man asked. Lina stopped sobbing and her eyes went wide with horror. A moment later, Lucas felt something small and hard at the back of his head, and a cold chill ran down his spine. If Lina said no, then they wouldn't hesitate to kill him, but if she said yes, they would probably torture him to get to her. The thought of torture filled his mouth with the sickening metallic taste of fear, but he also didn't want to die knowing that Lina had forgotten all the love she'd once had for him.
"Don't – don't shoot," Lina finally gasped, and Lucas felt equal parts of relief and dread flow through him.
"You like him?" the brown-haired man teased. "Maybe he's not a friend, maybe he's your lover?"
Lina shook her head at the insinuation. "I'm telling the truth! I haven't seen him for years! He's just an old friend, but shooting him won't help, because I can't tell you what I don't know!"
"Right. We won't shoot him," the brown-haired man said, taking the gun away. He came out from behind Lucas and squatted down in front of Lina so that he was at her eye level. "But you already lied about not knowing Gennady Mikhailovich, and I think you're still lying about not knowing where he is."
Pretending not to understand, Lucas fumbled for the twine again, rolling it between his finger and thumb. Twine was made up of many little fibers twisted together, and he supposed he could break them one by one until he'd worked his way through. He tried to pinch the twine with his fingernails and separate the strands.
"I'm not lying," Lina said through gritted teeth. "Maybe your Gennady Mikhailovich looks exactly the same as my husband! It doesn't mean they are the same man!"
"If they're not the same man, then how did we find out about you?" the brown-haired man asked. "He had pictures of you in his flat, and all the information we needed, too, Kapitolina Sergeevna Zelenskaya, born on the 16th of May 1975, in Novgorod!"
Lina was silent, but Lucas could imagine that she was just as confused as he was. The brown-haired man straightened up. "Tell us where he is, and tell the truth this time."
Lucas kept his head up, glancing alternately from one man to the other, but continued to work on the twine.
"I'm telling you the truth! I don't know where he is! He didn't come home last night and I haven't been able to reach him!" she protested.
"Are you used to lying about the men in your life?" the brown-haired man sneered. "Are you going to lie to protect your lover?"
"What lover?" Lina murmured, and the brown-haired man indicated Lucas. Lina shook her head. "He's not my lover. He's just a friend! He's been away for eight years, he just stopped by to say hello!"
Now that the man's attention was fixed firmly on him, Lucas let go of the twine, and hoped fervently that Lina was indeed lying to protect him. The blond man knelt down at his side, pulling out the twine and the pocketknife again, and tied Lucas' legs to the legs of the chair. Then he grabbed the chair from behind, tilted it onto its two back legs, spun it around so that Lucas was facing away from Lina, and simply let go. Lucas slammed into the floor, banging his head hard despite the carpet, and Lina screamed. Staring up at her, Lucas sent her a silent message to be brave, despite his own fear, and was disheartened when she glanced away.
"What are you doing?" Lina demanded as the blond man began tying her legs to the legs of her chair. Without answering, the man finished, stood up, then turned her chair around and let it drop as well. Lina screamed a second time as she fell, and again as the blond man knelt down next to her. Lucas couldn't quite see what he was doing, but he heard him tell the brown-haired man to hold her before he got up and moved over to Lucas.
"Let me go!" Lina protested as the blond man knelt down and sliced through the twine holding Lucas' right hand to the chair. "I'm not lying, I swear it!"
Deciding it wouldn't be giving anything away if he struggled, Lucas fought back, but the man brought his fist down directly in Lucas' eye. Hovering on the brink of unconsciousness for a moment, Lucas was unable to resist as the man stretched his arm out full length above his head and tethered his wrist to Lina's. There was a good six inches of twine between his hand and Lina's, and Lucas thought he could make use of that much slack. But then the brown-haired man put one foot on the twine, and the other foot on Lucas' hand, grinding his fingers into the carpet. Trying not to wince visibly, and certain now that the two Russians had done this kind of thing before, Lucas watched as the blond man got up and selected two of the smaller stuffed animals from the back of the couch. Kneeling down, he wedged one of the toys under Lucas's wrist, and the other under his elbow, so that his arm was an inch or two off the floor.
"Wh—what are you doing?" Lina asked, her voice shaking with fear.
"Hey." The blond man grabbed Lucas by the chin and leaned very close to him. In English, he said, "You tell your lover to tell us the truth or we will break your arm."
He let go of Lucas and waited expectantly. Trying to keep from trembling, Lucas twisted his head around to where he could see Lina watching, horrified, and said simply, "Lina …"
"I'm telling the truth!" Lina exclaimed before Lucas could say any more. "I don't know anything about Gennady Mikhailovich!"
The blond man heaved an overly dramatic sigh and stood up. The brown-haired man stared down at Lina and told her, "Watch closely, because we'll be doing this to you next."
In the hands of the Russians, Lucas had practiced focusing his gaze on a neutral spot, away from the men tormenting him, and thinking, or trying to think, of something pleasant, such as lying in bed on a sunny Sunday morning with his wife. Daydreaming of Lina was no longer an option now, though, not with the picture in his mind's eye of her tied up, bleeding and screaming. And the torture would be worse this time, he knew, because he wasn't the one being interrogated. He wouldn't be able to make them stop by offering them information. It was all up to Lina, and Lucas was certain she was telling the truth about not knowing what the men were talking about.
The blond man broke his arm by jumping on it. When Lucas and Lina had both stopped screaming, the brown-haired man stepped away from the twine and nudged Lina in the head with his shoe. "If you don't want your arm broken the same way, then tell us now where your husband is!"
"I don't know!" Lina shrieked. "Nick didn't come home last night! I haven't been able to reach him on his mobile! I don't know where he is!"
The blond took the stuffed animals out from under Lucas' arm, making him groan at the torment caused by the movement, and positioned them under Lina's. This time, the brown-haired man did not step on the twine, and when he spoke, Lucas realized why. "Don't move your arm, or you'll hurt your lover more than yourself."
"No," Lina sobbed. "No, no, no!"
The blond man jumped. Lucas had expected Lina to yank her arm away instinctively, and braced himself for the pain to come, but to his great surprise, she didn't. Her screams were high and loud with agony and terror, and when she could form words again, she cried over and over, "I don't know, I don't know!"
"You're still not going to tell us?" the brown-haired man taunted her.
"Please stop, I don't know!" Lina sobbed. "Please stop, just stop, please!"
"Next arm," the brown-haired man said, and Lina howled even louder. "No, no, please stop, I can't tell you what I don't know, stop!"
When the blond man knelt down to cut Lucas' left hand free, Lucas spoke to him in English. "Whatever it is you're asking her, she doesn't know!"
"Shut up!" the man told him, slicing through the twine. In one quick motion, he grabbed Lucas' wrist with one hand and used his other hand to jab the point of the knife into Lucas' palm, giving him a silent warning as to what would happen if Lucas fought back. Lucas offered only a token resistance as the man pulled his arm into position and tied it to Lina's.
"No, no, no!" Lina repeated, but the blond man broke Lucas' other arm anyway. He was just getting ready to go for Lina again when an unexpected electronic chirping sounded from the jacket of the brown-haired man. Surprised, the man reached into his pocket and produced his mobile phone, checking the identity of the caller before opening the conversation.
"Yeah," he said, and then, "All right, we're coming."
He hung up and said, "Five alert. We have to go."
"What about them?" the blond asked, looking down and pulling his gun out of the waistband of his jeans.
"We leave them," the brown-haired man said. "As a warning."
Leaning down, he grabbed Lina by the chin and said, "If you see your husband before we do, tell him not to disappear like that again, especially not when he's got our money."
Lina made a frightened little noise of assent, and the men went out.
Part 3
"Who's this?" the first man demanded, speaking Russian. He was short and stocky with brown hair and a nose that had obviously been broken more than once.
"A friend," Lina said, then repeated it in English. "He's a friend."
The second man, who was blond, a little taller and a little skinnier than the other, asked in accented English, "Do you know where Gennady Mikhailovich is?"
Lucas had never heard that name before. "Who? No."
"Then shut up and don't move."
In Russian, the brown-haired man told his friend to get a chair from the kitchen. Lina gasped, "What are you going to do?" but both ignored her.
Lucas kept his hands up and his face expressionless, pretending not to understand. He watched closely, however, hoping for a weakness or a moment of inattention on the part of the man guarding Lina. There was none. The blond man returned with not one, but two high-backed chairs, and the brown-haired man guided Lina to sit in one of them. Moving the barrel of the gun from her spine to her head, he stepped to one side, and the blond fished a roll of twine from his jacket pocket to tie Lina to the chair. He did each arm separately without hesitating, threading the twine around the back leg of the chair and then pulling it up to tie it tightly around her wrist before knotting it over the back of her hand and cutting the ends short with a pocketknife. Even while Lucas was gritting his teeth, recognizing that he couldn't do anything without endangering Lina, he was also thinking that the men were well-practiced in this kind of thing.
The blond man straightened up, grabbed the second chair, and arranged it so that it faced Lina, then spoke to Lucas. "You. Sit here."
Ignoring the fear that was rapidly spreading through his body, trying hard to concentrate on anything else that could potentially help him in this situation, Lucas sat down on the chair and did not resist as the blond man tied his wrists in exactly the same way as Lina's.
"Who are you?" Lucas asked in English. "What's going on, what do you want?"
Finishing with his hands, the blond man came around in front and hit Lucas in the face. "I told you to shut up!"
"Stop!" Lina shrieked, reverting to Russian. "You don't have to do this! I already told you, I don't know any Gennady Mikhailovich!"
"You are," the brown-haired man stated, "incredibly stupid, denying that you know him when there's a picture of you and him right there on that wall!"
He pointed in the direction of the photo that Lucas had noticed earlier, but Lina only sounded more confused when she answered. "What? That is my husband, Nick Barnes!"
The brown-haired man lifted his arm. Hearing the dull thud of fist meeting flesh and Lina's cry of pain, Lucas winced. Now that the men both had their attention focused on Lina, he flexed his hands. His fingertips brushed the twine wrapped around the chair leg, but he could not reach the knots.
"Where is he?" the man demanded.
"I don't know," Lina bawled. The man hit her again and asked the same question, but instead of answering, Lina only sobbed. Listening to her sounds of pain, Lucas felt as though a giant hand had reached inside his chest to twist his heart.
"Stop it!" Lucas called out in English. "She obviously doesn't know what you're asking!"
The brown-haired man turned around and gazed malevolently down at him, then flicked his hand at the blond man.
"Shut up!" the blond man shouted, and hit him again, this time hard enough to knock him woozy. By the time Lucas could think clearly again, the two men had gone back to Lina and in between the blows, he could hear the brown-haired man calling her a liar. Lina could barely speak for sobbing, but kept trying to say the same words over and over. "I don't know. I don't know!"
At last, the brown-haired man stepped back and to one side so that Lucas and Lina could see each other. There was blood running from Lina's nose and the corner of her mouth, and he could see bruises starting to form on the left hand side of her face. Lucas felt sick with worry.
"You say this is a friend?" the brown-haired man asked, coming around behind Lucas and placing one hand on his shoulder. Lucas tried not to shudder at his touch, and watched Lina nod.
"Just a friend," she gasped.
"A good friend?" the brown-haired man went on.
Lucas held his breath, wondering what Lina would say. She glanced at him, then looked away and shook her head. "I haven't … seen him … for years."
"So you wouldn't care if we shot him?" the man asked. Lina stopped sobbing and her eyes went wide with horror. A moment later, Lucas felt something small and hard at the back of his head, and a cold chill ran down his spine. If Lina said no, then they wouldn't hesitate to kill him, but if she said yes, they would probably torture him to get to her. The thought of torture filled his mouth with the sickening metallic taste of fear, but he also didn't want to die knowing that Lina had forgotten all the love she'd once had for him.
"Don't – don't shoot," Lina finally gasped, and Lucas felt equal parts of relief and dread flow through him.
"You like him?" the brown-haired man teased. "Maybe he's not a friend, maybe he's your lover?"
Lina shook her head at the insinuation. "I'm telling the truth! I haven't seen him for years! He's just an old friend, but shooting him won't help, because I can't tell you what I don't know!"
"Right. We won't shoot him," the brown-haired man said, taking the gun away. He came out from behind Lucas and squatted down in front of Lina so that he was at her eye level. "But you already lied about not knowing Gennady Mikhailovich, and I think you're still lying about not knowing where he is."
Pretending not to understand, Lucas fumbled for the twine again, rolling it between his finger and thumb. Twine was made up of many little fibers twisted together, and he supposed he could break them one by one until he'd worked his way through. He tried to pinch the twine with his fingernails and separate the strands.
"I'm not lying," Lina said through gritted teeth. "Maybe your Gennady Mikhailovich looks exactly the same as my husband! It doesn't mean they are the same man!"
"If they're not the same man, then how did we find out about you?" the brown-haired man asked. "He had pictures of you in his flat, and all the information we needed, too, Kapitolina Sergeevna Zelenskaya, born on the 16th of May 1975, in Novgorod!"
Lina was silent, but Lucas could imagine that she was just as confused as he was. The brown-haired man straightened up. "Tell us where he is, and tell the truth this time."
Lucas kept his head up, glancing alternately from one man to the other, but continued to work on the twine.
"I'm telling you the truth! I don't know where he is! He didn't come home last night and I haven't been able to reach him!" she protested.
"Are you used to lying about the men in your life?" the brown-haired man sneered. "Are you going to lie to protect your lover?"
"What lover?" Lina murmured, and the brown-haired man indicated Lucas. Lina shook her head. "He's not my lover. He's just a friend! He's been away for eight years, he just stopped by to say hello!"
Now that the man's attention was fixed firmly on him, Lucas let go of the twine, and hoped fervently that Lina was indeed lying to protect him. The blond man knelt down at his side, pulling out the twine and the pocketknife again, and tied Lucas' legs to the legs of the chair. Then he grabbed the chair from behind, tilted it onto its two back legs, spun it around so that Lucas was facing away from Lina, and simply let go. Lucas slammed into the floor, banging his head hard despite the carpet, and Lina screamed. Staring up at her, Lucas sent her a silent message to be brave, despite his own fear, and was disheartened when she glanced away.
"What are you doing?" Lina demanded as the blond man began tying her legs to the legs of her chair. Without answering, the man finished, stood up, then turned her chair around and let it drop as well. Lina screamed a second time as she fell, and again as the blond man knelt down next to her. Lucas couldn't quite see what he was doing, but he heard him tell the brown-haired man to hold her before he got up and moved over to Lucas.
"Let me go!" Lina protested as the blond man knelt down and sliced through the twine holding Lucas' right hand to the chair. "I'm not lying, I swear it!"
Deciding it wouldn't be giving anything away if he struggled, Lucas fought back, but the man brought his fist down directly in Lucas' eye. Hovering on the brink of unconsciousness for a moment, Lucas was unable to resist as the man stretched his arm out full length above his head and tethered his wrist to Lina's. There was a good six inches of twine between his hand and Lina's, and Lucas thought he could make use of that much slack. But then the brown-haired man put one foot on the twine, and the other foot on Lucas' hand, grinding his fingers into the carpet. Trying not to wince visibly, and certain now that the two Russians had done this kind of thing before, Lucas watched as the blond man got up and selected two of the smaller stuffed animals from the back of the couch. Kneeling down, he wedged one of the toys under Lucas's wrist, and the other under his elbow, so that his arm was an inch or two off the floor.
"Wh—what are you doing?" Lina asked, her voice shaking with fear.
"Hey." The blond man grabbed Lucas by the chin and leaned very close to him. In English, he said, "You tell your lover to tell us the truth or we will break your arm."
He let go of Lucas and waited expectantly. Trying to keep from trembling, Lucas twisted his head around to where he could see Lina watching, horrified, and said simply, "Lina …"
"I'm telling the truth!" Lina exclaimed before Lucas could say any more. "I don't know anything about Gennady Mikhailovich!"
The blond man heaved an overly dramatic sigh and stood up. The brown-haired man stared down at Lina and told her, "Watch closely, because we'll be doing this to you next."
In the hands of the Russians, Lucas had practiced focusing his gaze on a neutral spot, away from the men tormenting him, and thinking, or trying to think, of something pleasant, such as lying in bed on a sunny Sunday morning with his wife. Daydreaming of Lina was no longer an option now, though, not with the picture in his mind's eye of her tied up, bleeding and screaming. And the torture would be worse this time, he knew, because he wasn't the one being interrogated. He wouldn't be able to make them stop by offering them information. It was all up to Lina, and Lucas was certain she was telling the truth about not knowing what the men were talking about.
The blond man broke his arm by jumping on it. When Lucas and Lina had both stopped screaming, the brown-haired man stepped away from the twine and nudged Lina in the head with his shoe. "If you don't want your arm broken the same way, then tell us now where your husband is!"
"I don't know!" Lina shrieked. "Nick didn't come home last night! I haven't been able to reach him on his mobile! I don't know where he is!"
The blond took the stuffed animals out from under Lucas' arm, making him groan at the torment caused by the movement, and positioned them under Lina's. This time, the brown-haired man did not step on the twine, and when he spoke, Lucas realized why. "Don't move your arm, or you'll hurt your lover more than yourself."
"No," Lina sobbed. "No, no, no!"
The blond man jumped. Lucas had expected Lina to yank her arm away instinctively, and braced himself for the pain to come, but to his great surprise, she didn't. Her screams were high and loud with agony and terror, and when she could form words again, she cried over and over, "I don't know, I don't know!"
"You're still not going to tell us?" the brown-haired man taunted her.
"Please stop, I don't know!" Lina sobbed. "Please stop, just stop, please!"
"Next arm," the brown-haired man said, and Lina howled even louder. "No, no, please stop, I can't tell you what I don't know, stop!"
When the blond man knelt down to cut Lucas' left hand free, Lucas spoke to him in English. "Whatever it is you're asking her, she doesn't know!"
"Shut up!" the man told him, slicing through the twine. In one quick motion, he grabbed Lucas' wrist with one hand and used his other hand to jab the point of the knife into Lucas' palm, giving him a silent warning as to what would happen if Lucas fought back. Lucas offered only a token resistance as the man pulled his arm into position and tied it to Lina's.
"No, no, no!" Lina repeated, but the blond man broke Lucas' other arm anyway. He was just getting ready to go for Lina again when an unexpected electronic chirping sounded from the jacket of the brown-haired man. Surprised, the man reached into his pocket and produced his mobile phone, checking the identity of the caller before opening the conversation.
"Yeah," he said, and then, "All right, we're coming."
He hung up and said, "Five alert. We have to go."
"What about them?" the blond asked, looking down and pulling his gun out of the waistband of his jeans.
"We leave them," the brown-haired man said. "As a warning."
Leaning down, he grabbed Lina by the chin and said, "If you see your husband before we do, tell him not to disappear like that again, especially not when he's got our money."
Lina made a frightened little noise of assent, and the men went out.
Part 3