Do-Gooder (13 page)

No matter how much I argued, he stubbornly refused to listen to reason. I swore he tried to make my body cooperate through willpower alone. Like he could just will my pancreas to do its job.

God, I hoped they’d bring us more water soon. They didn’t intend for us to die, right? They couldn’t ransom dead hostages.

Damn it, where was Chuck?

I dozed here and there, caught up in some twisted dreams about red school buses and Wendy and that damn gun. The damn gun that was the reason I was stuck in the middle of a rain forest in Cameroon.

I didn’t want to fall asleep again, but it was all I could do to force my eyes open. Maybe conversation would help. “During your time on the street—” I pushed myself into a sitting position against the wall and looked at Henry. “—were you ever arrested?”

His back straightened, and I could practically see the defensive wall being built up around him. “No, I lucked out there.”

“It’s not fun.” Not exactly what I had meant to say. I swallowed; the arid tightness in my throat made talking tough. “Being handcuffed in front of the world is a whole different kind of humiliating. I wanted to object, to tell them I was a good kid, and handcuffs and guns and flashing lights were overkill.” Overkill. What an appropriate word choice.

Jesus, Isaiah, pull it together.

“But good kids don’t have guns, especially that close to a school. Two hundred feet,” I told Henry. “That’s how close I was. Two hundred feet closer and no matter how good a negotiator my mom was, I’d have been expelled, arrested, whatever. They take things like guns in schools pretty seriously nowadays.” Nowadays. Such a quaint word. Quaint was a quaint word too. Yeah, me. Way to rock the old-fashioned vocab.

I blinked up at Henry when he pressed the water jug back into my hand. It took me a second to realize I’d been lost in crazy, wheezy laughter.

I pushed the jug back at him. “I’m fine.”

He scowled at me but didn’t argue.

I admired Henry’s Zen calm. Sometimes he stood, sometimes he sat, but always he was still. He didn’t fidget or pace or rock in place (all the things I did). He didn’t stare at the water jug, but I’d bet big bucks that he knew exactly how much liquid remained. I looked away from the jug. One glance and my parched mouth and throat tingled with thirst.

“MacGyver.” The name popped out.

Henry looked up, asking his question with the motion of his eyebrows.

“You know, that old eighties TV show?”

“Sorry.” Henry shrugged. “I didn’t watch much television, especially shows that aired more than a decade before I was born.”

I waved that aside. “The show’s about this guy—”

“Let me guess. A guy named MacGyver?”

I rolled my eyes. “Ha-ha. Yes, a guy named MacGyver. He always seemed to be in these crazy situations—I have no idea why—and always managed to get out of them by some clever invention he made out of random stuff on hand. Like, you know, a watch, a fart, and a paper bag, and he creates this explosive device that takes out an entire military bunker, giving him barely enough time to save the girl or the hostages and derail the evil plot or whatever.”

“So you think MacGyver will come and save the day?”

“Don’t be an ass. But we should totally MacGyver this situation.”

“How? We have, literally, the clothes on our backs and a jug of water. I’m not sure even MacGyver could rescue himself or anyone else with so little.”

“That’s not the point. He… he was smart. We may not be able to use our wits”—my wits were well on their way to being scrambled eggs—“to rescue ourselves, but maybe we can figure out what’s going on. What’s in the canisters? Who are these guys? What side are they on? Does it matter what side they’re on? You know, information that might come in handy down the line.”

After a minute’s pause, he said, “It probably wouldn’t hurt to gather as much information as possible. Who knows if it will come in handy?”

The door banged open. For some reason the guards always entered the hut with a certain level of force. Henry and I had long since stopped jumping at the abrupt entrances.

“You,” The Slav said, pointing at me. “Come.”

I stood and brushed my hands off on my dirty jeans to hide their trembling. A deep breath later and I stepped forward.

“What’s going on?” Henry leaned forward.

The Slav ignored him.

He led me along the same path I’d been on a couple of days ago, but this time I tried to pay more attention to our surroundings. One of the small buildings lined up along with Henry’s and my little prison seemed full of activity. Two guards stood by the door, and crates were stacked up along the outside wall.

The two guards stepped back, letting a small man in a white lab coat bustle out. He reminded me of a rat, scurrying the way he did. The guards stayed where they were. Obviously, he wasn’t a hostage like me, but why the guards?

Hands pushed me from behind, and I almost tripped. “Move,” The Slav growled.

It was impossible to keep an eye out for the odd ratlike man as The Slav prodded me forward. Shorty sat at the same computer-laden desk as he had before, punching buttons and scowling at monitors.

“Sit.” He jabbed a finger at a rusty folding chair against the wall, never taking his eyes off the screens in front of him. As soon as the order was out, The Slav shoved me into the chair.

I waited in silence. The only sound in the little room was the click and clack of computer keys and Shorty’s heavy breathing. They hadn’t moved me to the other room, the one I considered their interrogation room, which I took as a good sign. I pressed at the slowly healing bruise on my cheek. I really hoped they weren’t going to add any more color to my face. The color wouldn’t be so bad, but the pain… yeah, I could really do with no more aches and pains.

“It can’t be done!” The odd ratlike man burst into the room. “I need those supplies, Sarge. Without the other components, there’s no way the sarin will be ready by the deadline.”

“Hvatit!” Shorty stood up so fast his chair shot out behind him, crashing into the wall. He pointed at Rat Man. “Stop. You will shut up.”

Rat Man stood there, quivering, hands working restlessly. “You told me you’d have it by now. It takes time; it can’t be rushed.”

Shorty snarled. He actually, honest to God, snarled like a rabid dog or something. “You will be quiet. I will have your supplies soon, and you will complete your task. That is it. That is all. Now shut up and get back to your lab.” He nodded at The Slav.

“Come, Doctor.” The Slav crowded into Rat Man until he whirled with a huff and left the building.

I held my breath, hoping that the frigid rage pouring off Shorty wouldn’t be directed at me next.

Shorty pushed his chair into place and stood behind it. He focused on me fully for the first time. “Your father is being difficult.”

“My father?” I licked my lips.

He ignored me. “So you will send him a message.”

My whole body throbbed in time with my pulse, and numbness flashed and flickered along my skin. “I don’t know how to reach him.”

“After much research,” he said with a cold sneer that made me wonder exactly what kind of research he’d done, “I have the contact information for the Lobéké refugee camp. However, when I reach out, I am denied.”

Oh my God. Chuck refused to talk with him? I tried three times to speak before the words actually came out. “He… he’s not willing to work something out?” Did I really matter that little to him? Now, instead of flashes of numbness, my whole body was numb. No feeling, nothing.

“I am told he is unavailable.”

Unavailable?
What the hell
?

“So we will send them a message, and he will become available.” He pulled his arm back and hit me with a full-palmed slap across my left cheek. The swelling that had finally gone down bloomed and the scabby abrasions broke open, but I managed to stay in my seat. Points for me.

He answered my unspoken question. “We want him to know how… tenuous… your situation is.”

He turned one of the monitors to show me rows of text. My script.

“Now,” Shorty said, adjusting the angle of the webcam, “explain to your father why he should return our canisters.”

My head jerked up from the words on the screen.
What?
These guys thought
Chuck
, king of the do-gooders, had the canisters? Shorty had to be kidding, right?

His emotionless, stony face proved he was dead serious.

He stabbed a key at his work station and then pointed to me. “Read.”

“Chu—Dad?” My voice croaked, and I swallowed, then tried again. “Um… it’s me. Isaiah. Your son?” At the cold look from Shorty I got to the text. “You have something they want. You will return it to them or—” I was breathing too fast. Light-headed and shaky, I read the words aloud through force of will alone. “Or I will be disposed of. And so will the other boy. Henry,” I added, in case Chuck didn’t know that Henry was with me.

“They are going to send this video with instructions on contacting them. If they don’t… if they don’t… if they don’t hear from you, you and nobody else… within forty-eight hours, the other boy, Henry,” I added again, “will be killed. Then, if you have still not contacted them, they will… they will. Oh God, they’ll kill me too.” I whispered, more than spoke, the last line on the screen. “Isn’t your son more important than your work?”

My stomach cramped, and I curled in on myself. This was a nightmare. It had to be. The worst part was the two voices yelling in the back of my head. One blubbered and pleaded for my father to do what they wanted, to just come and get me. The other, fueled by ten years of bitterness, cackled hysterically. Chuck had been given that choice before, the job or his family, and he’d chosen his job. What were the odds he’d make the same choice again?

THE SECOND
the door closed behind me, I roared. A straight-from-the-gut bellow to release all the impotent rage, terror, and frustration seething inside me. Funny thing, once I started, I couldn’t stop. “
Bastard
.
God damned son
-
of
-
a
-
bitching bastard
! How could he do this to me? To us?” I stalked across the room, but it wasn’t far enough to do any good. I kicked the wall, relishing the sharp pain in my foot. I spun and took a few more steps, kicking out at the water jug. It sailed across the room, missing Henry’s head by inches before it crashed into the wall.

I stormed after the jug, grabbing it up and throwing it against the other wall. Why? Why was this happening to us? We didn’t deserve it. There was nothing we could do to stop it, and it looked like my father was involved in it in some way.

I spun to face Henry. “This is what doing a good deed gets you. It gets you sent to fucking Africa, to be kidnapped by fucking mercenaries. That’s it. I’ve had it. If we get out of this—and that’s a big if, let me tell you—I’m focusing on me and me alone. I should have let Wendy do whatever with that gun. Her father’s a bastard too. She played it off like it was no big deal, made excuses, but the guy treated her like crap. It may not have been physical abuse, but he broke her. If she’d have shot him, no one would blame her.”

I rushed the water jug and punted it with all my strength. This time when it hit the wall, it cracked along a seam and spilled the last inch of water on the ground. Henry watched me like he would watch a crazed bear loose at the zoo.

“But no, I just had to take the gun. I was saving her, you understand. Saving her. Better I get in trouble than she does. No telling how he’d react if her father, the honorable Detective Sorenson, charged to serve and protect”—mockery thickened my tone—“had even suspected her involvement. No telling what he’d do. So I took the gun and lied about where I got it, and now I am in this godforsaken country, waiting for my deadbeat father to take a minute out of his busy fucking schedule to save my fucking life.”

“Isaiah—”

“Don’t! I’m going to die here, you know. If not by the gun-happy militia out there, then by the damned diabetes. And Chuck can’t be bothered to come to the fucking phone to trade the damn canisters for my life.”

“What?”

“Yeah, they say he’s got them. Somehow he’s involved in this whole mess.”

“He couldn’t be—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I interrupted. “I know you think he walks on water or some bullshit, but he’s involved in this thing somehow.”

My knees suddenly lost all of their strength, and I collapsed to the packed-dirt floor, weak and trembling. And sobbing. Great gulping sobs were wrenched from my body, from my soul, and I sat on the ground like a blubbering toddler. I couldn’t stop.

Henry scooted up behind me and wrapped his arms around my chest. Eventually my breathing slowed, and I gained back some of my lost control. It was like his arms, so tight around me, put a lock on my out-of-control emotions. My head throbbed and stabbing pain pierced the backs of my eyeballs as dry tear ducts worked fruitlessly.

“Question,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“Are you scared?”

Henry’s arms tightened still more. “Sometimes.”

“I’m really scared,” I admitted.

“I know.”

We rocked there in silence for a while. When my breathing had slowed to normal levels, Henry loosened his grip. I was glad he didn’t release me. I needed the contact, the comfort, even if I no longer needed him to hold all my broken pieces together.

“What happened in there?” He traced a finger down my newly swollen cheek. “What did they want?”

I told him about the video and the script, about how Chuck wasn’t responding to their requests for communication. When I mentioned we had two days before Shorty would have Henry killed, he clenched his jaw and pressed his lips together, but otherwise showed no reaction. His superhuman control firmly in place.

Sadly, I couldn’t be so calm. My voice cracked when I asked, “Why won’t he take their calls?”

“You said they were told he’s unavailable, right? Maybe he’s not at the camp.”

“Where would he be?”

Henry looked at me like I’d asked something stupid. “We were supposed to arrive at the camp four days ago. He’s probably out looking for us.”