Two weeks had passed since Irina abducted the two agents
while they were on their way to the train station in
Michael Vaughn was first. He was an easy victim. A damsel in distress. A woman on the side of the road with engine trouble. Or so it seemed. The only thing he didn’t know was that the woman was also carrying a needle full of a strong sedative. His unconscious body was in the car’s trunk in less than ten seconds.
Irina’s second target was harder to plan.
“No harm is to be done to her,” she instructed the men.
They returned with her daughter’s limp body by nightfall. The same sedative used on Vaughn coursing through her veins.
Irina left them alone for a week. She came to see them during the second. Vaughn was in one room. Her daughter in another. Irina watched them through the double-sided wall. She noted the way Vaughn paced back and forth in his cage. How his green eyes darted to every corner as if he was drawing a map in his head, an escape route. On the fifth day, she saw him wait for the hand that appeared in the bottom door slot. The hand that provided him with food and water. She saw him slam his foot into that hand. Vaughn grabbed it, bending it recklessly. There was no sound coming from Vaughn’s room. Irina had decided against bugging the rooms in case the agents were to do a sweep and find the planted evidence. Irina squinted and read Vaughn’s lips as he accosted the guard.
“Who do you work for?” Vaughn asked.
He must have not received the answer he wanted because he twisted the guard’s hand in a sharp angle. He could have broken the wrist. He probably did.
“Who do you work for?” Vaughn repeated.
Irina glanced to the guard on her right and gave him a slight nod.
A moment later, Irina watched as another slot in the door opened. This one was at eye-level with Vaughn. The guard aimed a gun into the room and fired. Vaughn stumbled back, letting go of the hurt guard’s hand. Vaughn looked down at the tranquilizer dart injected into his chest and crumbled to the ground.
When Vaughn awoke several hours later, Irina was still in place on the other side of the wall. Both she and Vaughn turned their attention to the door as it opened. The guards tossed in the dark-haired woman. She fell to the floor beside Vaughn.
Irina watched his mouth move.
“Nadia,” he said.
Irina watched her daughter throw her arms around Vaughn. He returned her embrace.
That night, Vaughn and Nadia slept on opposite sides of the room. As their third week of detainment passed, they were sleeping in each other’s arms. He began to feed her, allowing her to take the last piece of bread, the last sip of water. He consoled her when she cried and brushed his fingers through her hair as she slept.
The fourth week came and went.
Irina was patient though. She watched from her hiding spot, knowing that sooner or later, it would happen.
And it did.
She watched her daughter kiss Vaughn. He responded and his hands vanished underneath Nadia’s shirt, then down her pants.
Irina’s mouth twitched and she smiled.
The next day, Irina was present as the door was opened for Vaughn and Nadia. They hesitated as they approached it. But the temptation of freedom was far too alluring. Vaughn took Nadia’s hand into his and they walked out the room together.
She reached for her cell phone and dialed a number. “Has Mr.
Sark woken up yet? Good. Keep him there.” She dialed another number. “When is
your next available flight to