The Fusion Cage

XVI

Breathe.

Ethan sucked in a mouthful of dusty air that scratched the back of his throat and made him cough. The choked coughs reverberated through his chest like war drums, fear scraping the lining of his stomach like a convict’s nails down the walls of a cell.

He could see nothing through the coarse sack that was bound with rough cord around his neck and filling his nostrils with musty, stale air. His arms were tied behind his back with rope that tore the skin on his wrists. He knelt with his head between his knees, kept breathing and tried to remain calm.

Fear scalded like acid through his veins, and the blackness messed with his sense of balance, further amplifying his asphyxia. He had been incarcerated by Saudi militants who would kill both him and Lopez without hesitation, and their captors had wasted no time in transporting them through Riyadh’s dangerous streets to what he presumed was a safe house likely far from the reach of the authorities.

Breathe.

He was buzzing now on nervous energy, poisoned with paranoia, fear and hallucinations. The oppressive heat closed in around him and a brief burst of Arabic punctured the silence.

A door opened with a crash and rough hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. Ethan tried to stand but his legs would not respond and he sprawled awkwardly as the unseen hands dragged him across the rough, uneven ground.

‘Get up!’

Broken, accented English. Ethan staggered upright and swayed as stars of light sparkled in the darkness before his eyes.

‘This way!’

A hand shoved him and he stumbled blindly forwards, colliding with the walls of a corridor. Footfalls around him suggested two men, one in front of him and the other behind.

He was shoved into what sounded, from the echoes and timbre of the sounds from outside, like a larger room and a hand grabbed his shoulder, turned him around and shoved him down. Ethan thumped into a wooden chair. Before he could react he felt himself being tied to the chair. Something wrenched at the hood over his face and a harsh white light burst into his eyes. He blinked away from it, squinting and struggling to focus on his surroundings.

A bare room, one shuttered window facing out across the city, bright sunlight outside and blue sky. Heat, close and oppressive, the stench of old tobacco heavy in the room.

‘Welcome.’

Ethan squinted up and to his right to see a pair of dark eyes observing him. The man was young and fuelled with the arrogance of that youth, perhaps twenty — five years old, his hair thick and black, coarse stubble darkening his jaw.

‘Who are you?’ Ethan asked.

‘What does it matter?’

Ethan managed to hold the man’s gaze with a thin veneer of bravado.

‘It matters to me, I’m the one tied to a chair.’

The man leaned close to him. ‘You’re an American. You deserve to be tied to a chair.’

‘Where is the woman I was brought here with?’

The features creased into a smile poisoned with brutal delight. ‘She is safe, in a manner of speaking.’

‘I need to see her.’

The man whirled and ploughed his fist deep into Ethan’s stomach. Ethan’s eyes almost burst from their sockets as he bolted forward over the blow.

‘Who sent you here?’ his captor demanded.

Ethan sucked in a pained lungful of air, waves of nausea flushing through his guts.

‘We’re looking for somebody.’

The militant sighed and shook his head.

‘You were inside the Seavers compound, talking with the American oil man.’

Ethan shook his head, slowly gaining control of his breathing.

‘We came here looking for a man named Stanley Meyer. We think that Seavers may have abducted him.’

The militant looked across at his companion, whose face was almost completely concealed behind a thick beard.

‘That would seem highly unlikely,’ Ethan’s interrogator leaned close to him, the smell of tobacco thick on his breath. ‘Why would an American abduct an American? That’s our job.’

Ethan looked at the man and performed a swift mental calculation. Keep telling the truth. Don’t get caught in a lie or they’ll cut your throat and feed what’s left to the carrion birds.

‘There’s more to it than that,’ he said. ‘Stanley Meyer is who they’re looking for too.’

A cruel smile creased the man’s features. ‘Yes, so I keep hearing.’

He raised a hand and clicked his fingers. Instantly the bearded militant grabbed something from inside one of the nearby crates. The man reached inside and produced a series of images, handing them to his companion.

The militant held the images out one by one to Ethan, shots taken from a parked car of armed police guards beating a Saudi protester, of the water cannons hosing them down in droves, and of Ethan and Lopez fleeing the scene in the stolen truck.

‘You’re a servant of the Great Satan, are you not?’ he hissed. ‘And now you’re here, seeking to conspire with the oil men in their compounds.’

‘Where is Lopez?’ Ethan demanded.

‘Your friend, the woman?’ the militant asked. ‘Where she ends up depends very much on what you do next.’