voices.
Five men. The first was Gil himself, looking very pleased. Nate was being dragged in. Two of Gil’s soldiers were gripping his arms, his hands fastened behind him. Another man followed, carrying a small black plastic clamshell suitcase.
Elisa locked eyes with Nate. His mouth was bleeding, but his eyes blazed with intensity. He couldn’t seem to look away from her. His eyes seemed as if he were trying to tell her something.
Oh, God, Nate, why?
“So,” Gil said. “Here he is. The famous Nate Murphy. Nice of you to come.”
Nate made no sign that he’d heard the words. He just stared at Elisa.
“Look at me when I talk to you,” Gil rapped out.
Nate did so.
“Josh wasn’t at the Amity Springs ACU, you lying son-of-a-bitch,” Gil said. “You’re going to regret saying that by the time I’m through with you. Where is he?”
“Safe,” Nate said. “Being treated for his injuries someplace safe. Where you can’t touch him.”
Gil snorted. “You’re boring me. We’ll discuss that issue later, with William’s expert help. William knows how to motivate people to tell the truth like no one I’ve ever seen. Did you brought the flash drive?” Gil demanded.
“It’s in the suitcase,” Nate said.
Gil gestured to the man holding the molded plastic case. “Why in there?”
Nate tried to shrug, but the men holding him just tightened their grip. “Because that’s where I’d put it. When the call came in, I just grabbed the whole case.”
Gil looked down at it. “Put it on the table,” he ordered his men. “Make him lean over it when it opens. Any dirty tricks, and he gets the first face full of it.”
The two guys holding Nate exchanged grim looks. The man holding the case hoisted it up and laid it carefully upon the big, heavy table that dominated the next room. Gil kept his distance. His guards continued to hesitate.
“Well?” Gil asked impatiently. “What are you waiting for? Open the goddamn thing. Hold him over it.”
One of the guys shoved Nate’s face down, leaning back as far as he could himself. The other reached out tentatively, and released the latch, jerking away.
The clamshell case popped open. Both men flinched.
“Fuck,” one of them muttered. “What a stench.”
Gil crossed his arm over his chest. Elisa strained to see more, but all she could see were the table legs and men’s boots. “What’s in the case?” Gil asked.
“Dirty underwear,” Nate said.
Gil approached the table cautiously. “That’s disgusting,” he snapped.
In a moment, Gil was back in her line of vision, carrying the flash drive, wrapped in a tissue. Gil cleaned it carefully as he sat down in front of a laptop.
He opened it, and Elisa twisted around to watch him.
“For the love of God, close that case,” Gil said impatiently. “I can smell it from all the way across the room. And get him over here.”
One of his men slapped the case closed and jerked Nate away from it, dragging him by a handful of his hair toward Gil.
“If this is, in fact, the drive I wanted to retrieve, I’ll be able to tell if you’ve decrypted it, or copied it,” Gil told him. “If you have, things will be very bad for you. But then, they already are. One moment here, while I…just…decrypt this…”
They all listened to the clacking of the keyboard in the silent room.
The video began to play. The computer’s speaker was tinny, but clear. They heard a sharp smacking sounds. Hands striking flesh. Choked whimpers. Shrieks. Pleading, as the blows continued to fall.
Gil stared at it, as if hypnotized. His face was lit up with the eerie glow of the keyboard, and his eyes had little points of blue. His mouth looked heavy. Slack.
Then he appeared to suddenly realized that they were all there, waiting and watching him.
“Sorry,” he said with a rueful smile. “Just curious, you see. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to see this with my own eyes. Stimulating. I’ll study it later, at my leisure. From what this program tells me, it has not been opened, copied or touched in any way since that day eight months ago when Erasma decrypted it and played it for you. Good for me, but pathetic for you. You’re such a pussy, Louisa.”
She let out a sharp laugh. “You had my brother, you asshole.”
“Love makes you weak,” Gil said. “Or so they tell me. I wouldn’t know.”
He stood up, pulling the flash drive out and tucking it into his pants pocket. “One thing I definitely learned from you,