Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [36]
The finding of Harry Addison.
21
Still Wednesday, July 8. Same time.
THOMAS KIND STOOD IN THE DARKNESS, WATCHing the man in the chair. Two others were in the room with him, dressed in coveralls, standing somewhere behind him. They were there to help if he needed it, which he would not. And to do the work afterward, which should be simple enough.
Thomas Kind was thirty-nine, five foot ten and very slim, a hundred and forty pounds at most, and in superb condition. His hair was cut short and jet-black, as were his slacks, shoes, and sweater, which made him difficult—if not impossible—to see in the darkness. Besides the paleness of his skin, the only color about him was the deep blue of his eyes.
The man in the chair stirred, but that was all. His hands and feet were bound and his mouth closed, pinched tight by thick tape.
Thomas Kind stepped closer, watched for a moment, then walked completely around the chair.
“Relax, comrade,” he said quietly. Patience and calmness were everything. It was how he lived each day. Even tempered, waiting for the right moment. It was the sort of thing Thomas Jose Alvarez-Rios Kind, native Ecuadorean born of an English mother, might put on his resume. Patient. Painstaking. Well educated. Multilingual. Add to that, one-time actor—and also one of the world’s most-hunted terrorists.
“Relax, comrade.” Harry heard the phrase again. A male voice, the same as before. Calm. In accented English. Harry thought he felt someone moving past him, but he couldn’t be sure. The throbbing of his head overrode everything. All he knew was that he was sitting up and that his hands and feet were bound and there was tape across his mouth. And then there was the darkness that was all-pervasive. No shadows, no light spill from behind a door seam. Only dark.
He blinked. Then blinked again, twisting his head from side to side, trying to find some bit of light. But there was none. Suddenly it came to him that whatever had happened, wherever he was, whatever day this was, he was blind!
“NO! NO! NO!” he screamed, his voice garbled by the tape covering his mouth.
Thomas Kind stepped closer.
“Comrade,” he said with the same unhurried quietness. “How is your brother? I understand he is alive and well.”
Immediately the tape was torn from Harry’s mouth. And he cried out as much in surprise as from the sting of it.
“Where is he?” The voice was closer than it had been.
“I don’t… know… if… he’s alive…” Harry’s mouth and throat felt like sandpaper. He tried to make enough moisture to swallow but couldn’t.
“I asked about your brother… where he is…”
“Could—I—please—have some—wa—ter?”
Kind lifted a small remote control. His thumb found a button and touched it.
Instantly, Harry saw a pinpoint of light in the distance and he started. Did he really see it, or was it an illusion?
“Where is your brother, comrade?” This time the voice came from behind his left ear.
Slowly the light began to move toward him.
“I…”—Harry tried again to swallow—“don’t… know…”
“Do you see the light?”
“Yes.”
The pinpoint came closer.
“Good.”
Kind’s thumb slid to another button.
Harry saw the light alter its track and shift ever so slightly. Moving toward his left eye.
“I want you to tell me where your brother is.” The voice had changed sides and whispered in his right ear. “It’s very important that we find him.”
“I don’t know.”
The light was now moving toward his left eye alone and growing steadily brighter. The throbbing inside his head had been forgotten with the terror of his blindness. But with the light it began again. A slow, steady drumming that grew stronger with the approaching luminescence.
Harry jerked sideways, trying to turn his