"What? No, I don't want to wake up, leave me alone!" Then the memories flooded back, along with the pain. Laura gasped and looked up to see a man wearing black over her. His face was covered. Laura scrambled away, only to find herself trapped on a boat of some kind. She felt seasick. The man handed her a bucket, which Laura used to vomit into.
"Where am I?" She demanded. He was silent. "Fine. I'll just try to escape then,” Laura said, flashing him a mischievous smile. He remained stone still. Another man entered the room and spoke to her capturer man in a foreign language that Laura didn't recognize. Her capturer nodded, then walked towards her, grabbed her arm, and dragged her to the door.
"No, let go of me!" Laura shouted. She then screamed, only to have the man cover her mouth. Laura resisted as much as she could, but to no avail.
"Good, you brought her." An unfamiliar voice said. "Put her in the machine." The men did as they were instructed. "Leave us." After they left, the man turned to face Laura.
"Do you know why you're here?"
"No."
The man pressed a button. Electrical pain went through her.
"Let me repeat: do you know why you're here?"
Laura paused, realization dawning on her. She answered, “Yes."
****************
None of this made sense. Rebecca looked around the room at the other agents. They just stared at her, like she was the one who was supposed to have all the answers.
She thought hard, back to previous conversations. Jace had let slip something about Kosovo…what was it? Oh, that was where he said he needed to take the rock. Maybe he was taking Laura there, now. There was no way she could be sure.
But then…Laura had been on a mission before to Kosovo. She remembers now. There had been terrorists there that had captured Laura and five others. They wanted some kind of information. What was it?
Think! Rebecca willed herself, focusing. It had been in one of the reports. Something Laura knew that the others didn’t. They had kept her alive, knowing that she was valuable, but they underestimated her skills and she was able to escape. She was the only one. The only one that knew the secret, and the only one that got away. But how?
There was an anti-terrorist connected with the HIA that was able to take her away as soon as she got out. What was his name? Enver…Come on, what was his last name? Enver…Enver…
Enver Fakaj! That’s what his name was.
“Caitlin!” she shouted.
“Rebecca?” came the response.
“Pull up all references and files to Enver Fakaj!” Caitlin quickly pulled out her laptop and began typing. “We better hope he’s still alive,” Rebecca said, chewing her fingernails and staring out the window.
****************
“Don’t deny it, I know you were in that group!” the man screamed at her.
The machine shocked her again, and her head drooped. It was getting hard to focus. She couldn’t make out the bands around her wrists. She couldn’t look for a way out anymore. “I…don’t know what you’re talking about…” Laura said in a raspy voice. Her head was spinning. The lights seemed to be flashing.
“You were the only one that escaped. The only one that knew the combination,” the man hissed.
“I…I can’t remember,” Laura mumbled. It was getting hard for her brain to grasp anything. She was going out.
“Aaagh!” the guy yelled. It echoed in her head. He hit her, and her head flung sideways. The pain was accentuated, as if she was living in slow motion. There was a ringing in her ears, a ringing in her head. She looked up, tasting blood on her tongue. The man began to disappear and come back, and she couldn’t focus on his figure. He was shifting from side to side and was extremely fuzzy. “I will leave you here until you finally decide to remember,” the man hissed. He spat and left the room. And then the blackness came.
****************
“I found it!” Caitlin yelled. “He’s from Pec, Kosovo. He’s been trying to track down an Albanian terrorist group for six years and—Hello.”
“What?” Rebecca asked impatiently.
“There’s a file he wrote about what he knows. There’s something here that might help…a ship called the Zog Deti. It seems it’s owned by an organized Albanian terrorist group known as the Chrys Ghoad gang. Do you know about that?”
“That’s it! Where’s the last sighting of that boat? Can you tap into the HIA satellite cameras?”
“Um…here it is. It was last seen in…oh my gosh.”
“What?”
Caitlin looked up at her. “It was last sighted in the National Harbor. In Washington DC.”
"Set the course to Pec, Kosovo." Rebecca commanded. Caitlin did as she was instructed. "We're going to find this Enver Fakaj."
****************