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A foggy image formed in Lili’s mind that she couldn’t quite grasp. The fog suddenly dissipated, and an unfamiliar room appeared. She was reclining in what seemed like a dentist’s chair. An IV containing clear fluid dripped into her right arm. Her wrists and ankles were fastened to the chair with blue cable ties. The tray table held several surgical instruments. It looked like the typical torture setup she’d seen in spy movies.
Lili frantically tried to free her hands. The cable tie on her right arm was a bit loose, presumably to enable good flow from the IV. She moved her hand around and the bottom edge of the chair’s arm seemed to be slightly sharp. She aggressively moved her wrist back and forth, trying to saw the cable tie. A sudden wave of nausea hit her and she forcefully vomited off the side of the chair. When she recovered, she continued to saw her cable tie.
Snap! The cable tie flew off Lili’s wrist. She heard footsteps coming. She snatched a scalpel from the tray and hid it under her wrist on the arm of the chair. A disheveled woman with a mop of frizzy dark hair and large glasses entered the room. “Ach, you were sick. I’ll get something to clean it up.” She spoke with a strong foreign accent of some sort.
As the woman left the room, Lili grasped the scalpel and furiously cut at the cable tie holding her left arm. Snap! It was free. Next, she freed her left leg. She feared that the woman would find the cut ties as she cleaned up the floor. She heard the footsteps returning, but hadn’t finished cutting the tie holding her right leg. She hid the scalpel under her right wrist again, and sat back as if she were still bound.
The frizzy-haired woman entered the room pushing a large metal bucket with a mop. The woman stopped and said, “Lili D’Amico, you are going to die today. My job is simply to get you to tell me how to find Martha Eames. If you just tell me, I will not have to torture you. You will die quickly and painlessly. Think about that.” The woman pushed the bucket around to the right side of her chair. Lili grabbed the woman’s hair, pulled back her head, and stabbed her in the eye, as hard as she could. The woman grabbed Lili’s arm and collapsed, shrieking. Lili was pulled over the arm of the chair awkwardly, with her right leg still tied to the chair. The woman released Lili’s arm and scrambled backward, crab-walking. Lili grabbed a long, metal tool from the tray and pried the cable tie on her right leg until it snapped.
The IV stand and instrument tray crashed to the floor as Lili scrambled out of the chair. Lili pulled the IV out of her arm. She ran to the door, set the door lock, and pulled the door shut as she left. The woman had come from the right, so she ran to the left, down a hallway. She heard people running to the interrogation room. They were yelling in what sounded like Russian. Lili kept running until she reached what appeared to be an exit door. She stepped out of the building cautiously and saw no one around. She heard a vehicle approach the building on the other side. Reinforcements.
Peering around the corner of the building, Lili saw a fence surrounding the building. The fence had only one gate, but it was open. Her bladder was about to burst, so she pulled down her pants, crouched, and urinated for what seemed like a very long time. When she finished, she ran for the gate as fast as she’d ever run in her life. There was a small paved road beyond the gate. It appeared to be a rural area, but there were very few trees, and not many leaves had appeared on the bare branches. Turning to the right, she ran along the open road, eventually veering off into a small grove of trees. She looked in all directions and she saw no place to hide. She tried to calm herself. She’d been running on instinct, fight, flight, or die. Now she had to stop and think. She had been at an abandoned airport. In one direction, it looked like there was a town in the distance. In the opposite direction were farm fields offering little cover. The town would offer more opportunities for concealment, disguise, and help. She ran, staying just off the road and heading for cover wherever she could find it. When two cars suddenly sped out from the airport, she dove into a grassy ditch.
––––––––
GIL PULLED INTO JULIA’S driveway. He paused, mustering up his courage to discuss Lili’s situation. He’d already told her on the phone that Lili had been kidnapped, but hadn’t yet updated her on new information he’d received. He got out of the car and saw five-year-old Dez jumping up and down in the window. He couldn’t help but smile at her.
When he entered the house, Julia and Dez gave him hugs. Ziggy gave him a fist-bump. “Will you color with me?” asked Dez. “Where’s Lili?”
“Grampy will color with you after supper,” said Julia. “Go wash your hands. You too, Zig.”
“Lili isn’t in Saratoga today. She had something else she had to do,” said Gil, forcing a smile.
As the kids went to wash up, Julia asked, “Any word?”
“I do have an update. We’ll talk after dinner.”
During dinner, Gil was distracted. He was comforted by Julia’s wonderful lasagna along with the normal family conversation. He was doing his best to hide his anxiety, fear, and feeling of helplessness. He kept smiling. Jazz seemed unusually cheerful. “Jazz, it’s good to see you so happy. Do you have a boyfriend?” he teased.
Her face and neck turned crimson. She looked at her parents with a panicked expression. Julia smiled at her and said, “No way!” Jazz ran upstairs and slammed the door to her bedroom. Julia went up after her.
“How can a ten-year-old have a boyfriend?” asked Mike. He seemed upset.
“At ten, I’m sure it’s just a boy who is her friend. It’s too soon to ask if he has a good job with benefits.”
“How come you see Jazz for only twenty minutes and you can tell she has a boyfriend, and Julia and I had no idea?” asked Mike.
“Maybe I’m just gifted at reading people. Or maybe it was obvious.”
“Can I be done?” asked Ziggy.
“Me too?” asked Dez.
“Okay Zig, bring your dishes to the kitchen. Dez, you take four more bites.” Dez ate four more bites and left the table.
Julia came down the stairs. “I guess we could have handled that better.”
“I’m sorry I was so abrupt,” said Gil. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“She’s alright. She’s friendly with a boy from her class named Rory. He kissed her twice, on her cheek. He’s nine years old.”
“Is he rich?” asked Mike. Julia punched him in the shoulder.
“So tell us about Lili, Dad.”
Gil took a deep breath. “You know how I told you that she has a tracking tag? Well, she was flown to a sort-of country called Transnistria.” His voice was shaking.
“Where is that? What do you mean, a sort-of country?” asked Mike.
“Transnistria is an unrecognized country on a strip of land between Moldova and Ukraine. It’s basically the city of Tiraspol and its surrounding area. Officially, it’s part of Moldova, but they have declared their own government, and have suspicious ties to Russia. It’s one of those areas like Crimea and Eastern Ukraine where Russia sets up a puppet state until they invade the area and declare the area part of Russia.”
“So, she’s kidnapped by unknown people to a non-country with Russian ties, near Ukraine which is at war with Russia?” asked Mike. “Could she be in any more danger? Holy shit!”
Julia looked up Transnistria on her phone. “She’s very far from any country that looks safe.”
“There’s more,” said Gil. She was initially flown to a defunct military air base, but now she seems to be wandering around the surrounding area. The FBI thinks she may have escaped and is on the run.”
“Seriously?” asked Julia. “I can’t even imagine that. I doubt anyone within three hundred miles speaks English.”
“This all sounds like a movie plot.” said Mike.
“The FBI says they’re working on getting her out of there,” said Gil. “I’m going nuts because there’s nothing I can do about it. Lili’s a trained police officer, so if anyone could escape, she could. Plus she’s a warrior! She’s part Native American.”
“Really?” asked Julia. Gil nodded.
“I am so glad I came here for dinner. It was so nice to be with you guys, and it took my mind away from fretting about Lili’s situation, for a little while. Even just talking to you about it has helped me.” Gil was tearing up.
“Oh, Dad. This is so horrible. Tomorrow you should do a workout of some sort. Exercise helps with stress.”
“I think I’ll head back to Greenfield tomorrow and use my robot to search for clues in the tunnels again. That will keep my mind occupied. Please keep this situation between us.”