May 2
Location Unknown
Southwestern United States
9:42 P.M. CDT / 10:42 P.M. EDT
Shane Yerkey’s head was throbbing, only partially due to the Aerosmith classic blaring through it in full stereophonic volume; it was on an audio loop, just one song, and at first it merely seemed ridiculous. But by now he was certain that he would never again hear the phrase “Walk This Way!”—or indeed, anything vocalized by Steven Tyler—without a teeth-grinding agony.
That alone would have more than sufficed for a full-blown Excedrin headache, but the rest of his experiences over the past several hours—much of it including the jouncing, swaying, stomach-turning vehicular movement unmoderated by the stabilizing factor of sight, aggravated by the additional spatial-sensory deprivation of back-cuffed hands—also had contributed mightily to his ongoing distress.
During the ordeal, Shane had but a fleeting instant of respite—that, immediately after he had been transferred from the SUV into a second vehicle perhaps a quarter hour after his arrest, or abduction, or whatever it was—when the bag had been yanked off his head. Even so, the subdued light of the closed van had pained his eyes; he could breathe better, but overall it was but a marginal improvement over the disoriented nausea that had threatened to spill into the stifling head-bag during the first part of his ride. Shane drew a deep breath, felt it quell the heaving of his stomach.
It was a merciful relief, but an all too momentary one.
Just as quickly, hands had fitted what felt like headphones over his ears; with a medic’s precision, other hands had wrapped tape over and round them, also covering his eyes and lower forehead with a half-dozen efficient turns that again plunged him back into gray-black darkness.
Shane had opened his mouth to protest, to plead, to demand an explanation.
The voice was terse, if muffled through the headphones and tape layers.
“Shut up, Mr. Yerkey,” it said. “It’s no problem for me if you want your mouth duct-taped too.”
Then the music had been turned on and dialed up, its volume completely isolating Shane from whatever world he had been thrust into.
• • •
Shane had long since lost all sense of time when he felt the van stop, and stay stopped.
Steven Tyler was again leering about someone’s damnable kitty-in-the-middle—hey, diddle-diddle!—when hands lifted Shane and half-carried him, stumbling, over what felt like gravel.
But the air smelled fresh, tinged with sage and cool on his cheeks. From the latter sensation, Shane realized that the sun had set sometime during his journey; from the former, he guessed that his arrived-at destination was decidedly non-urban.
More walking, Shane still on uncertain feet. Several turns along the way, the air even cooler now, if less scented…
Air conditioning. I’m inside … someplace…
Shane felt movement at his wrists, then a sudden freedom there. Strong hands held him on either side as he was lowered into a seated position, guided into what felt like a low-backed swivel chair…
The music stopped.
Shane was almost sure of that, despite the rhythmic echoes that persisted in his mind.
Cold steel pressed against the side of his head: gnawing, moving jaw-like…
The tape peeled away, stretching out his flesh, painfully taking with it some of his hair and what felt like all his eyebrows and lashes.
Compared to the music, it was a minor irritation indeed; Shane would have gladly bartered a full-body waxing for that exchange.
He blinked rapidly, mole-squinting.
The room was empty, save for a presence Shane felt behind the chair.
The headphones were lifted away.
“Take your time, Mr. Yerkey. We’ve adjusted the lights down for you. Would you like some water?”
A plastic bottle, gloriously chilled, was pressed into his hand. Shane drank deeply and with gratitude.
The liter bottle was empty when he finished; the same presence reached around and took it from him.
“Thanks,” Shane croaked. “And thank you—thank God!—for turning off the goddamn soundtrack.”
“We’re not monsters, Mr. Yerkey.” The voice sounded amused. “Though if you don’t enjoy—what was it? Oh, yes: Aerosmith—it might have seemed so.”
“Where the hell am I? And who are you?”
“You’re where people end up when they violate signed non-disclosure agreements with the government. And at this moment, for all intents and purposes, I am the government.”
The presence moved into Shane’s field of view.
“I remember you,” he said. “You were at the board meeting with … do you have a name? He didn’t seem to.”
“Almost everybody has a name, Mr. Yerkey,” she said. “In some cases, more than one. You can call me ‘Elle,’ if you like.”
Shane was stumped.
“You want me to call you ‘hell’?” he demanded.
She pronounced it again.
Seeing his face, she spelled it out—first literally, letter by letter, then figuratively.
“‘Hell’ might be more appropriate, if you continue to be obstinate,” Elle smiled. “I’d prefer the other; it means ‘she’ in French. But again, whatever you like.”
“What I’d like is to know what you’re going to do with me.” His mind was spinning up again, and he tried on a pugnacious expression. “I didn’t tell anybody about anything, and you can’t prove—”
“But you tried, Mr. Yerkey. Several telephone calls to and from a certain New York number. You wanted to, didn’t you? You were going to, right?”
“I’m not a lawyer, but thinking about maybe doing something—and not doing it, for whatever reason—isn’t illegal, goddamn it. And as long as we’re talking about lawyers, I want one.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re holding me against my will. Hell, you grabbed me, cuffed me, threw me into a damn car and—” He glared at her. “Am I under arrest? Just answer that. Am I under goddamn arrest?”
She looked surprised.
“I wouldn’t think so. As far as I know, there was no arrest warrant filed.”
“Then I want—”
Elle interrupted, smiling sweetly. “Of course, there are no other records, or police logbooks, or—well, or any other tangible evidence that you are in custody. The custody of the ‘government’—as I said, right now that would be me—or anybody else.”
“So I’m free to go?”
“Oh, not really.”
“If I’m not arrested, what am I?”
Elle made a show of looking at her wristwatch.
“In a few days, you’ll probably be a ‘missing person.’ The police don’t like to rush into calling somebody that, so it would take a while. I don’t expect your employer will be in a hurry to report you missing from work, either. In fact, I’m quite confident they won’t be. They may even think that they transferred you to another location. Come to think of it, I’m sure that is what happened. So that’s what they’ll tell, let’s say, your coworkers…”
She nodded, as if having decided on a best option. “Yes, that would be believable, wouldn’t it? Even logical, given the mess your refinery is in.”
Shane felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
“You can’t keep me here.”
Elle laughed: the genteel tinkle of a bell ringing, as once taught at the better finishing schools.
“Did you not even read the form you signed, Mr. Yerkey? I mean, I don’t expect that you’ve ever studied the Patriot Act or any of the other many, many bits of legislation that come under the heading of national security. But just jotting your name on any piece of paper that you get handed? That seems unwise, don’t you think?”
She stood.
“Still, you are right; we can’t keep you here. But we can—probably even legally, Mr. Yerkey—we definitely can keep you elsewhere. You see, right now you are one of those who don’t have a name. And since you don’t exist in any file or folder, not really … well, we can keep you for a very long time. As long as we need to, in fact.”
Elle turned and gestured. Then she again walked behind Shane, out of view.
For the first time, Shane realized that three men in dark suits had been waiting outside the room’s door.
Not having seen their faces earlier, they might have been the same who drove him here.
Or not. He had no way to know or to recognize them.
But he had no difficulty in recognizing what one of them carried. At the very least, it clearly looked like the same roll of duct tape. The handcuffs felt familiar too, as Elle snapped them around one wrist, twisted his arms back, and clapped on the other.
Certainly, it could be the same set of headphones.
Shane tried to struggle, a futile effort, as Elle lowered them over his head.
The headphones were still damp with his perspiration: Indeed, they were the same.
So was the music.
“… Seesaw swingin' with the boys in the school and your feet flyin' up in the air. Singin' hey diddle diddle with your kitty in the middle of the swing like ya didn't care…” Steven Tyler sang, and Shane Yerkey opened his mouth to scream.