Chapter 225: Kidnapped

Thursday, May 19, 2005

I woke, instantly knowing something was very badly wrong. I had a SPLITTING headache, I was lying on my side on the hard floor of a vehicle driving over a rough road, I had a gag in my mouth, there was a heavy weight lying over my legs, a hood over my head, my arms and legs were bound, and my naked body was completely covered by what felt like a tarpaulin.

I turned my headache off with my subconscious control, then centered myself. Proximity showed me that the weight on my legs was an unconscious Prof, and that there was no one else in range.

The obvious connection between Prof and me to justify what was happening now was our millions. Probably not the money itself, because nearly everyone had been told that it was my money, so they'd only need to snatch me. That they'd grabbed Prof as well implied it was how we'd made the money that interested them: either the roulette truth or the LA cover story could be the motive. There were other quite different possibilities, but I thought they were much less likely. Some of the sillier ideas that occurred to me - such as that the Norrises had found out what I intended to do to their younger daughters - were laughable, not that I felt like laughing right now. That Binion's were getting revenge was far more likely.

My arms were tied together at the wrists and behind my back. Both my arms and legs were tied extremely tightly. There was no slack, but I hopefully tried to break the bindings. I achieved nothing, and soon gave up on that idea.

I was sure I'd want to pop the baddies' eyeballs at the very first opportunity, so I desperately wanted to get my hood off, or at the least make a hole in it big enough to see out of. I created NP-fingertips near my head and started feeling the hood. It felt like it was made of canvas. More feeling around, and I could tell that it was about twice the size of my head, so very roomy, but I could feel that it was not loose around my neck. It was tied mostly shut. Not tightly, as that would have already suffocated me. There was easily an inch or two of slack around my neck. Every time one of the bumps bounced my head around I could hear the sound of my hood rubbing against the tarpaulin that covered my body, so I could safely use NP on the hood without worrying about the kidnappers seeing anything. I tried using NP to pull the hood straight off the top of my head, but the neck of the hood was too narrow.

How was the neck held closed? I felt for it, and discovered a buckle arrangement. Not a buckle with a prong in the middle. Rather one of those buckles that relies on friction and little teeth on the buckle to stop the strap from sliding backward. I could easily imagine how quick they could be to put on a victim - drop it over his head and pull the strap almost tight; it'd take barely a second. Getting it off wasn't going to be nearly as quick though.

If the strap had been very short, say half an inch or less, then it would have been firm enough that I could've pushed back on the end of it to make it slide back into the buckle; but it was far too long for that. The hood had been pulled closed around my neck, lengthening the strap by several inches in addition to whatever it had been initially. Pushing back on the end of the strap would just cause the length of it to flop around uselessly; I had to grasp the strap near the buckle and push it from there. That made a big and unfortunate difference because I can't just push a strap with NP, because my NP-fingertips would simply slide along the strap. I need to pinch the strap tightly inward, and then push with new fingertips sideways against the pinching fingertips. Simplistically that halves the number of fingertips that can be pushing, because the pushing force can't be more than the pinching force, otherwise the pinching fingers would slide along the strap. That's simplistic because it depended on how much friction the strap had, but because I had to push at ninety degrees to it, I'd be maximizing the chance of slippage, so I'd need to pinch strongly. My maximum unbuckling force was going to be reduced by the force required to pinch, and a total of just over fourteen pounds isn't all that much force to start with, and that's assuming I was able to hold Active Center so I could use all four minds. I've been training for that, and getting better at it, depending on the level of distraction. The bouncing vehicle was a serious distraction, but I could recenter myself and try again after each distraction, as often as necessary.

The bouncing van (I thought it was probably a van) was a major problem in another respect. The road was rough, and every time the van bounced all my NP-fingertips lost their positions, as individual fingertips had very little maximum pressure, so were easily pushed by the small chaos caused by a bounce or me sliding back and forth on the floor. Not having sight of what I was doing meant relocating all the fingertips by touch, which took time, often more time than I had before the van bounced again. Several bounces in a row was fucking frustrating!

I tried for several minutes, but completely failed to get the strap to slide any distance at all backward into the buckle. My meager force couldn't overcome the friction caused by the buckle and its teeth. I also tried the alternative strategy of pushing the strap away from the teeth, then pulling the strap backward from inside the buckle, but I couldn't even begin to budge it that way either. My NP was far too weak and the fingertips too large to get good grips around fiddly objects like the buckle and strap.

I had to give up on undoing the buckle. I had felt tiny breezes on my chin from time to time, so I investigated the cause of those. I found that the hood had small air holes just below chin level. I tried ripping them wider, but couldn't do that either because the hood was made out of a material that was too strong. I couldn't try to chew the hood either, because of the gag. I tried hard, but I couldn't think of any other ideas for getting the hood off.

I checked my wrist and ankle bindings, finding out that they were the same sort of straps that held the hood closed. Presumably the baddies had whacked me in the head (that's what it'd felt like before I'd canceled the headache), put prepared loops over my hands and feet and pulled them tight. Ditto with the hood. It would've taken next to no time. Thinking about that made me realize that I'd been sleeping next to Ava, and I had a massive wave of fear over what had happened to her. That paused me for a few seconds, but there wasn't anything I could do about it now beyond deciding that if I got a chance to attack the baddies, then I was going to make sure that I REALLY made them suffer for this.

While I had been trying to get rid of my hood, the van had braked sharply, causing Prof and me to start sliding forward. Our slides had been suddenly arrested, letting me know that my ankle binding was tied to the side of the van. I checked that out next, and it was another strap looped through the tie around my ankles, and also through a metal loop attached to the van's floor.

I felt around what parts of the vehicle that NP could reach, and confirmed that it was definitely a van.

I checked Prof, and he was bound and hooded identically, except he didn't have his feet tied together, for the obvious reason that he didn't have "feet", only "a foot", as his artificial limb wasn't attached to his leg. Nor was he tied to the side of the van, which was presumably why he was lying partly on top of me. I quickly checked to see if any of his bindings were loose, but they weren't. I spent a couple of minutes trying to undo his hand bindings, but without success.

I could think of several things to do. The trouble was I wasn't sure whether I should do any of them. I could:

• Use NP to try to open the rear door of the van. This might be useful if I heard another car behind us. If I got the doors open I'd pull the tarp off us, so anyone following us would see Prof and me. But it was very dangerous because the movements of the van caused Prof and me to frequently slide into the doors. That happened so often that I feared that my opening the doors would be quite quickly followed by our sliding out! Not only would the fall be very dangerous, but Prof was unconscious so not able to get off the road, and I had my feet tied to the van, so I risked sliding out and being dragged along the road on my head! That would very quickly be fatal, especially on such a bumpy road.

• Try to wake Prof. I wasn't sure whether that'd help. If he spoke, or even moaned, the baddies might investigate, realize I was awake, and knock me out again.

• Bend my legs to pull my hands down to my ankles. I could probably use my real hands to undo the strap that held my ankles together, which would also free me from the ringbolt in the van's floor. (A ringbolt is like a very huge sewing needle. In this case, a steel shaft through the floor of the van, with a nut on the underside to hold it in place, and with a large loop at the top suitable for passing a strap through.)

Assuming my legs were freed, then what could I do:

• The ideal next step was to get my hands in front of me by pushing my ass back through the gap in my arms and pulling my hands forward over my feet. Then I should be able to use my real fingers to undo the buckle on my hood, pull it off, and undo the gag, then use my teeth and NP to free my hands. I tried the most worrisome step, and as I feared, my wrists were bound so tightly that my forearms were held close together, and I couldn't get my ass through what little gap remained. With my feet loose, but none of the other restraints removed, our situation was not improved. There was no possible way I could run away, let alone get Prof away as well. The road was rough, which implied the area was remote, so chances were against there being a crowd of helpful spectators. If we tried to run away, I was sure to trip over something, run into trees or other obstacles, etc., making it very easy for the baddies to either come get me, or simply shoot me dead (I had to assume that the baddies had guns. Don't they always?).

• With my feet untied from the ringbolt, I'd be able to slide farther forward in the van, possibly far enough to come within proximity range of the baddies. That gave me some possibilities. I could use NP to very carefully feel around. If I discovered a cellphone I might be able to dial 9-1-1. I wouldn't be able to hear the operator, but I could continue to press 9-1-1 which I guess the operator would hear and might be something people do who can't communicate normally. Hopefully the cops could find out the location of the cellphone (a wonderful feature in baddies' cellphones) and come to rescue us. Or maybe I could find a loose wire and disable the van, which would delay the baddies' plan, whatever it was, and might create an escape opportunity.

• With my ankles freed from the ringbolt I had more freedom of movement. I should be able to maneuver my back to Prof, and to get us both into a position where my hands could undo his hands, whereupon he'd undo mine, then we'd undo everything else. Prof needed to be awake for that, which he was showing no sign of. Prof's gag meant he had to be breathing through his nose, so I could pinch it closed and possibly wake him. Unfortunately he might spasm before getting fully awake, or after awaking might make movement or sounds to attract the attention of the baddies if they were able to see or hear into the back of the van.

None of the options appealed to me enough to risk. I could too easily imagine that even with my legs free, I'd be unable to do anything useful because my arms were tied to close together. When the van stopped and the baddies came to get us out, my legs being free might caused them to react badly, or even just be more careful by deciding to leave my hood on. I decided to do nothing beyond pretending to be unconscious while concentrating for any information that might be helpful. I had three major reasons:

1. Escaping from our current predicament was extremely problematic, even just for me to get away. Trying to get Prof away as well was so hard as to seem far too dangerous to attempt, and impossible to succeed with. His being unconscious was a problem, as was his being unable to run without his artificial leg. We were so well restrained even the first stage of an escape - getting untied - might not be possible. For all I knew, our attempting to get untied might be seen and immediately lead to our being knocked out again, shot, or who knows what.

2. I'd REALLY like more information. Like how many baddies there were and why they were doing this. Maybe Vanessa and Ava might be in another van ahead or behind of us, in which case Prof and me escaping might lead to really bad consequences. Maybe even all my family and Julia were in vans too. Or maybe they were all dead, in which case running away from the baddies would be the last thing I wanted to do. Bursting their eyeballs would be the first of a succession of similar activities I'd prefer over escaping.

3. It appeared they wanted Prof and me alive. They couldn't know of my eyeball popping and other abilities, so sooner or later I should (I hoped) to have an opportunity for a much better informed and less risky escape attempt. I wanted the baddies to think I was a helpless pussy, to maximize my chances for getting a good shot at their eyeballs.

Something might happen that provided an opportunity, but until that happened, I'll just concentrated on trying to undo my hood's buckle enough to get it off my head. That improved our situation so much it was worth trying for, as it increased by my ability to gather information and attack them.

I had worked fruitlessly on that for less than ten minutes, when the van slowed down, turned ninety degrees, and started driving slowly up a steep hill for what I guessed was about a hundred yards, then it proceeded on level ground for a few yards before stopping with the engine running. The passenger door opened and I felt and heard someone getting out. A few seconds later I heard the sound of a garage door opening. The van immediately drove forward a few yards, stopped and the engine was killed as the garage doors were closed again.

#3: <So at least two baddies, and probably no convoy of vehicles. If there are any others, they might be traveling spread out or to other destinations, but I suspect this is just about Prof and us.>

#2: <Yeah. Either they hate mathematicians, or it's something to do with $11.1 million dollars.>

We were bound to be questioned, which would allow us to learn a lot about the situation, and give me opportunities to do some eyeball bursting.

I used NP to pull up the small gap at my hood's neck so I might get narrow glimpse of something. Seconds later the rear doors of the van opened and the tarp was pulled off us. I'd expected that and had the narrow gap held open. I could see very little, and 90% of that was my own chest. Most of the rest was the floor of the van, but I did manage to glimpse a large pair of thighs in jeans briefly, until he pulled Prof off me, which moved my body and ruined my little window's view. I didn't try to reopen it now, preferring to lay still in case playing possum gave me a useful opportunity.

I listened carefully while Prof was carried into the house. I heard two sets of footsteps walk away, no voices, and no sound of anyone near me. I adjusted my position slightly and rearranged my hood's narrow gap again. Looking out the back doors of the van I could see a low quality garage door. It was not the sort of garage door I'd expect in a government or any other authority building. The rough road and garage door indicated this was a private enterprise, reducing the likelihood of some of my sillier conspiracy theory guesses about what this was, based on my fear that the Government had overheard someone in my two families talking about my abilities during a phone call.

It took the two baddies about five minutes to come back, which was quite a long time. I'd taken a small risk of leaving myself in the position where I could look out of the gap. I saw the large legs appear again. I knew it was the same guy who'd lifted Prof because he'd stood within three feet of my feet then and was doing so now, letting me proximity sense him.

Proximity showed him pulling something from his side and waving it near my feet. I felt a tug on my feet, and guessed he'd used a knife to cut the strap that tied me to the ringbolt. He put the thing back roughly where his hip would be, reached forward, grabbed my legs and pulled me down the van toward him. He grabbed me, easily hoisted me over his shoulder and walked in the same direction they'd taken Prof. I pretended to be unconscious.

#4: <Cutting the strap might mean they have spare straps for any more journeys we'll be making, or maybe they're not envisaging any more journeys.>

#2: <Yeah. I would've preferred him to take it off carefully. Not a good sign. On the other hand, we haven't seen their faces yet, which implies they might be intending for us to live.>

The other guy was walking ahead of me and my carrier, but I'd been close enough to him already to have got a proximity reading on him too, so I now had both guys' proximity 'color' memorized. If any more guys arrived I'd recognize them as additional people, even if the hoods stayed on. The guy carrying me was very big and very strong, and the leader was medium-sized. I caught a few glimpses of the ceiling or walls, and we were in a wooden building. It was something like a good-sized hunting cabin or a rough home.

I was carried along a hallway. I used NP to feel the walls and ceiling I passed, but felt nothing other than an ordinary hallway. Then we went through a doorway and down a flight of stairs into what felt like a basement as the echoes were stronger. The brief glimpses I got confirmed it. I was carried across a concrete floored room, through another doorway, into a room where I was dumped onto a cold, metal chair. Other than the hood, I was bare-assed naked, so the nature of the chair was easily discerned.

The medium-sized guy backed off and the big guy bent down and I heard the sound of a heavy chain being dragged from under my chair.

#4: <Before we get chained up we could use light TK-fingertips to feel for the eyeballs of the guy standing out of range, do his eyes over, and then do the eyes of the guy with the chain, but I think there are too many risks.>

#2: <Agreed. There's too much chance of not getting all four eyes and then we'd be in a shit load of trouble if they've got guns, and there could be other baddies in the house.>

The chain was inserted through the band holding my ankles together, and its entire length pulled through. Judging by the accumulated length of the big guy's arm movements, the chain was something like ten to fifteen feet long. I felt around, finding a large ring bolt set into the concrete floor directly under me, with one end of the chain already padlocked to it by a huge padlock. The big guy bent down and looped the chain around my foot band and reinserted the end through again, repeating the process of pulling its length all the way through.

Medium Guy said, "Push his feet back and take out the slack."

Big Guy grunted agreement then shortened the chain so my feet were held under the chair. There was no chance of me kicking anyone walking in front of me even if they were brushing my knees. Medium Guy tossed Big Guy a ring of keys, judging by the sound. Big Guy got the first key wrong, but the second worked. He unlocked the padlock, pulled my feet back a bit more then locked them in place. He tossed the keys back then pulled his knife out and cut the band around my wrists.

#1: <Still can't try anything. We can't stand and it'd take too long to get the hood off.>

#All: <Agreed.>

I kept playing possum as one arm was placed on its armrest. He picked something up off the floor, then put a metal band over my arm. There was the rattle and click of a padlock closing, holding that arm in place. I used TK to confirm that a short metal tube was wrapped around the chair's metal armrest and my forearm, to lock them together. The armrest had a solid support pole near its end, so I wouldn't be able to free my arm by sliding it forward off the armrest.

The same thing was done for my other arm, the keys temporarily tossed to the Big Guy again, the chain unlocked, and then threaded all around the chair's various beams, my legs, one arm and waist.

Medium Guy said, "Tight."

"It is."

Big Guy pulled it tighter around my waist, around the last arm and armrest, around my legs again, then finally back to the ringbolt's padlock.

#4: <We sure as hell aren't going to be slipping out of this easily. Me might have been better off making an attempt earlier.>

#1: <I don't think we ever had a chance. These guys know what they're doing.>

Big Guy spoke, "We got 'em."

"Yeah. I gotta take a piss and get some grub. We'll go to work on 'em after that."

#1: <That doesn't sound like the "Hold them for ransom" possibility.>

#3: <Or if it is, it sounds like the holding period isn't going to be full of nice, safe boredom. He said "them" so Prof should be nearby.>

The two baddies walked out of the room, there was a click as the tiny amount of light leaking up into my hood ended, the door shut behind them, there were a couple of barely audible metallic scraps from behind the door, and then the footsteps faded out heading toward the stairs.

I explored around me with TK. The floor was bare concrete. The ringbolt was securely driven into the floor. Fourteen pounds of pushing upward on the bolt predictably had no effect. It'd need at least a hundred times as much, if not a thousand. The chair and I were very well wrapped and secured. I was pretty sure I couldn't tip the chair over, not that I could think of a good reason for doing so. I'd seen TV heroes escape hundreds of times starting with tipping their chairs over, but it wasn't going to happen in reality.

There was only one minor piece of good news - other than my still being alive, which definitely counted as "good" - the baddies had used a chain with excessively large and strong links. The large links meant that when Big Guy had been running the chain around the chair and he'd pulled to remove slack, he'd often partly failed because a link had hung up on the previous corner. I imagined they wanted me to be immobile, but I did have a small amount of movement. Some jiggling and TK pushing moved what slack there was so none of my circulation was cut off.

I could move my feet backward about an inch. With the slack that created, I could move them from side to side about the same amount. That was all, and it was useless. My arms could 'jiggle' on the armrests, which I doubted would scare the baddies into phoning the cops to surrender. I was securely restrained and unless something changed, totally fucked.

After using NP to thoroughly feel the chair, chain and what little of the bare concrete floor that was within my proximity range, I ran out of things to check. I thought to turn off my headache control to see if it was better yet, which immediately resulted in me deciding to turn it back on again. I felt around the back of my head with NP and found a couple of sizable impact lumps. They hurt when I poked them, but otherwise seemed fine.

I tried grunting through the gag, "Prof?" quietly a few times, but got no response.

I waited for the baddies to return, hoping they'd bring me a nice breakfast.

The two baddies returned half an hour later. I could hear their voices before their footsteps, although not their words well enough through the door. They were presumably feeling more relaxed now. From where I was sitting, I couldn't think of any reason why they shouldn't be.

They opened the door, flicked on the light, and I caught the tail end of a conversation about spending money on luxury items as they walked into the room. So, presumably, this was all about money, which was a little bit hopeful.

Medium Guy (whom I'll call "Boss" from now on) said, "Take the hoods and gags off."

Big Guy (hereafter "Goon") approached me and cut the strap of the hood, pulling it over my head and throwing it aside, then removing my gag and discarding it in the same general direction. I was still pretending to be unconscious, with my head resting on my chest. I had two hopes: that they might indiscreetly say something useful, or they'd look at me and say, "They haven't woken up yet. We'll go to work on them some other time."

Goon moved away, in the direction I was facing, and I soon heard the sound of him removing another hood. In the middle of that I was suddenly hit in the face by a bucket load of cold water.

I automatically jerked my head and spluttered, ruining my ability to act unconscious any longer. I added, "What? Where am I? What's going on?" while I looked up and around.

Prof and I were facing each other about eight feet apart, both in effectively identical situations, differing by his having only one foot to attach to a chair leg, and he was luckily wearing PJs. There was still no sign of his prosthetic, so we'd have a problem if we ever got a chance to run for it.

Boss ignored me, waiting to throw the rest of the bucket of water at Prof after Goon had stepped back from removing Prof's hood and gag.

Prof was slower than me to wake up, needing several slaps from Goon.

I looked around the room. I specifically searched for surveillance cameras, finding none, so I should be able to use my abilities if we had privacy. It was a VERY stark room, containing no furniture other than the two chairs we were chained to, no pictures on the walls, or anything else. It had a bare concrete floor and three bare concrete-block walls. The fourth wall was the one separating this room from the one that had the stairs in it. That wall was completely built but unfinished, in that I could see all of its studs. The side of the wall that was in the other room was covered in panels of some sort, probably drywall, but this side of it was exposed. If we did somehow get loose while the door was locked on us, it'd be easy to kick the panels off the wall or make holes in them, and crawl though the studs, although that'd be a noisy escape. There were no windows and only the one door through to the previous room, and I noticed that the light switch was actually a pull string suspended from the ceiling just this side of the doorway, with the light in the center of the room.

The chairs we were in looked strongly constructed, which was probably irrelevant because even if they were made of matchwood, we were still very well chained to the bolt in the floor. Everything I saw about our restraints now confirmed what I'd discovered through NP-feel previously. The only new piece of information was that the tubes holding our arms to the armrests appeared to be from some sort of machinery unrelated to prisoner restraint, as the padlock holes were clearly recently drilled. A discovery that didn't help at all, as they still looked totally capable of doing the job.

I caught Prof's eyes as he recovered, giving him a quick smile and shrug, hopefully conveying that I was fine but had no idea what was happening.

That changed moments later when Boss said to Prof, "We want to know how to beat roulette. Tell us an' we'll let ya go, else you're in deep shit."

Dozens of TV programs had been unanimous: "If you've seen their faces, they aren't going to let you go." Prof was silent.

The baddies waited a few seconds, then Goon wandered over to me and broke the first of my fingers.

^

[I'll digress to explain who Boss and Goon are. Boss's real name is Dominic King. "Dom" to his friends, "Donkey" otherwise. I'll continue to call him "Boss" as that's was my name for him at the time. He isn't really a boss of anything, other than Goon now, being just a reasonably successful "robbery with violence" Vegas career criminal. He happened to be in the casino when he saw Prof's second win. He also heard Ted Binion's speech about Prof having won his previous big bet, and Boss didn't believe the two wins were legit.

Boss very much wanted to know how it was done, as the idea of free money appealed to him greatly. He'd taken advantage of the commotion to snatch Prof's cellphone off his belt pouch, which had been an easy grab. He took it to a bathroom, copied as many of the names and numbers as he could into his phone, then destroyed and discarded Prof's phone in the trash can for used paper towels by the bathroom's washbasins.

Boss saw that that 95% of Prof's phone numbers were in Corvallis, so Boss booked himself a flight to Corvallis to check out the situation there. His first problem was that there were no rental cars available, because of all the private investigators that Binion's had already sent to Corvallis. Getting a taxi driver to drive him around while he was planning a crime wasn't Boss's MO, so he caught a bus to Salem, and rented a car there, driving back to Corvallis.