Phoebe would be proud of him.
Power. There was power in knowledge, in intelligence. He was supposed to do that. Gather intelligence. He’d forgotten it the first time. He’d given in to pain and despair, but he was more than just a grunt. He looked down at the floor. Polished marble. Expensive. He was in a residence. There were closed doors to his left and a half wall to his right. Upstairs. At least two floors. He would have to look out that window to figure out how far up he was.
They walked past a guard who stood by the stairwell, an AK-47 over his shoulder. He was lazy, leaning against the wall and not paying a lick of attention to anything but his phone. Jesse’s bodyguards muttered about it under their breaths, complaining that the guards here in Dubai were slacking.
He could use that.
“You need to get this one cleaned up and ready for transport. The boss will be in here soon. We’re leaving for the airport after his speech at the conference, so you need to keep this shit calm for the next few hours,” the larger of the two men said, this time in English.
He was dragged into a much bigger room, this one painted white. Antiseptic hit his nostrils and he had another shitty moment.
There had been a doctor. How could he have forgotten? There was always a trip to the “clinic” after the sessions. Couldn’t have the dog dying, now could they? The Cal…al Fareed would join him and the fucker would talk.
So much damn talking. Jesse was pretty sure he preferred the whip to having to listen to that fucker talk about how screwed up Western society was.
“Ah, Mr. Murdoch. Lovely to see you again.” The doctor was a skinny fellow with a receding hairline. He spoke English with a British accent, but Jesse thought he remembered hearing the man was from Pakistan. “It’s been a while since I had a subject. Our Caliph has been playing by the rules since he lost you. Put him on the bed. Facedown. I need to clean those wounds.”
Jesse groaned as they shoved him onto the medical bed. It was taller than a normal cot and twice as uncomfortable. His body ached, but he knew what was coming would be so much worse.
Could he do it? Could he run if he had the chance? He wouldn’t let them kill him. He had far too much to live for. This wasn’t some insane suicide mission. He would take the pain if he had to, endure the humiliation, but if he had a shot, he would take that, too.
The doctor seemed to be preparing some sort of tray, likely filled with shit that would make him howl. “I was surprised you would even place yourself on the same continent as the Caliph. You seemed a bit smarter of a lad.”
Jesse groaned and pretended to try to move his head. He let it fall back down, a conscious show of weakness. Let them think he couldn’t move, but already he felt adrenaline starting to pump through his system. He’d heard the door close, but not the snick of a lock. He was alone with the doctor.
“And you’ve lost some of your will.” The doctor clucked like a sad mother hen as he brought the tray over. Jesse could see it sitting almost within grasp of his left hand. There were a few bottles on it, some bandages, and what looked like tape. He caught the gleam of something metal. Scissors for the tape. And naturally there was a hypodermic needle. Narcotics. They loved their narcotics. He couldn’t let them inject him. He would be helpless when they came, unable to signal to his team.
“No,” he said without lifting his head. “The will is still there. It’s the body that’s weak. I’m out of practice being beaten half to death.”
“I suspect our leader will get you right back into practice. You were always his favorite, you know. He’s risked a lot to get you back.”
Awesome. The one place he was teacher’s pet. “Where is he going to take me?”
“He has a home in Riyadh. I suspect we’ll go there in order to keep up appearances.” He slipped a blood pressure cuff around Jesse’s limp arm and went through the motions. “His business partners will be a tad upset if they discover what he’s done, so he’ll try to keep it under wraps. He’ll go through with his speech and behave as though nothing has happened. Once we’re certain the heat has died down, as you Americans say, then we will move you to our training compound.”
“So he’s training terrorists now?” The cuff slipped off his arm.
The doctor made a note on the chart. “Soldiers. They are soldiers in our war, and yes, we are building our army. You’ll be our little mascot, I think. You Westerners love mascots.”
He would be the Caliph’s grand experiment. He would be tortured and brainwashed until one day he forgot who he was and where he came from and became nothing but a weapon for them to use. “I think I’ll have to get away before that happens.”