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he amused himself by making them up; a different version every time.
He wasn’t amusing his captors though. He was keeping them nicely unsettled, and while that was hardly going to save his bacon, it was better than going out quietly.
All that first day they’d left him alone and tied up, but the next morning they’d come for him. The pain in his hands had been ferocious, and his knees and feet refused to function. He’d ended up on his face on the filthy cement floor. They’d had to haul him to a half constructed bathroom where they stood over him while he cleaned up the best he could with soap, water and his own bloody t-shirt.
And that set the pattern for the next three days. They’d bring him porridge and water. Allow him a bathroom visit and cuff him to the bed. No one spoke. He saw the same three men every day. No one answered any of his questions in English, Shanghainese, Cantonese or his excruciatingly limited Mandarin. He swore at them in three languages and made a promise that if he got out of this he’d learn to swear in Mandarin as well.
And he sang. Almost exclusively Green Day. Starting with Time of Your Life and then progressing through the other Green Day songs he remembered. 21 Guns, American Idiot, When I Come Around, Boulevard of Broken Dreams. And if not Green Day, he sang old Midnight Oil and Cold Chisel songs.
It was the only sign he could give them he wasn’t afraid, wasn’t cowered and wasn’t going to give in. He hoped it annoyed the crap out of them. The day they refused him water he laughed and sang harder.
Something had to give soon though. This couldn’t go on. Payday was approaching. He just wasn’t sure if he would live through the other side of it. He figured Pete would’ve worked out he was missing. There might be a search, a reward; police, military, consulate involvement. Something. He had to trust.
He mourned for Bo, a faithful employee, a trusted friend, the closest thing to a father he’d had. Every morning he asked about Bo. Every morning they ignored him.
Bo had been with him almost from the beginning when he had no language, few connections, and no real clue how he was going to get started. When Shanghai was a city in transition, growing fast, greedy for more. When his daydreams were bigger than his abilities, and his only assets were a quick mind, a slick tongue, and an inability to take no for an answer.
Bo had been his translator when no one else would do it. His cook when he forgot to eat, his bodyguard when things got rough, and his conscience when it was lacking. Bo’s son Keung would want for nothing if he got through this and Bo didn’t.
He passed each day by singing, asking about Bo, taking his one trip to the bathroom and daydreaming about playing truth and dare.
Thinking about Darcy, re-imagining all the moments he’d spent with her, helped him stay anchored to the world in a way the cuffs didn’t. If he got out of here he’d see her again. If it was only to see hate burn in her eyes, and walk into another of her punches.
In his head he saw her as he first had in the airport detention room. She’d checked him out, been pleased to hear his accent, more pleased to think he knew what was going on. She’d interviewed him when he’d been trying to interview her, and he’d fallen for her right then. When he’d amused her with push-ups, when he’d told her things he never talked about, and took her dare and danced with her scarf, and watched her face as he touched her body, taking her somewhere she’d never been while never leaving the room.
Will left the bed, the room, the enforced detention every time he thought about Darcy. Her defiance and her anger; her confusion and her hurt. The way she’d looked in her earnest work suit, in the hotel robe, in the grey silk dress. Her laughter, and the way she gave herself to him without question when she could have been cautious, without fear when she should have backed away. Without regret until he caused it.
They had unfinished business. If he got out of here, he planned to finish it. Meanwhile he remembered her singing in the big deep bath and he sang Green Day.
He was asleep when they came for him. More men, this time military. There were rough shouts and scalding lights, gunfire. They knew his name. He was loaded into a van. They told him he was under arrest, but they gave him water and didn’t restrain him. In a hierarchy of kidnappers, these guys had better vehicles, slick uniforms and hardcore weapons and equipment. Things were looking up.
They took him to Quingpu prison. He got food, medical attention, tape across the bridge of his busted nose to help him breathe, more around his ribs. He got hot water and western headache tablets, as much water as he could drink, Chinese pyjamas and a clean, quiet cell to sleep in.
They told him in the morning he’d see his lawyer, and he hoped to hell that meant Pete.
He got a boiled egg for breakfast but no information. The egg did nothing for his hunger and he was desperate for news. This detention was a marked improvement on the last one, but he wanted to go home and sleep in his own bed—for about three years.
At lunchtime there was rice and shortly after he was escorted to an interrogation room, a guard on the door, and told to wait.
He’d been working on a line to use with Pete, something along the ‘fancy meeting you here, we must stop meeting like this’ vein, something to make him laugh. But one look at Pete’s face and his wit was flattened. Pete looked like he hadn’t slept or eaten for a week. His eyes were caves. He was stooped over like he was in pain.
He came into the room and they hugged. Will tried to remember the last time they’d done more than roughhouse each other.
“Oh fuck, Will. What did they do to you?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing. You look dreadful. Bo, where’s Bo?”
“He’s all right. We’ve got him. He was badly dehydrated, concussed. They held him with you for five days, and then beat him, and dumped him in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. He knew you were alive because he could hear you singing. He’s the only reason we knew where you were.”
Relief made Will sag against the table. They’d been held together and Bo was okay. “Thank God.”
“You were singing?”
“Yeah. It seemed like a good idea at the time. So when am I out of here?”
Pete looked embarrassed. “That’s the problem. They’re holding you.”
“For what?”
