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After all, it was by no means clear what John Benson would order Ice to do. Benson was a huge unknown.
In fact, Benson hadalwaysbeen strangely unknown to her, perhaps something unknowable.
She’d been intrigued by Benson’s presence back when he’d recruited her eight years ago. He exuded a curious mix of mystery and openness, somehow able to project an almost paternal warmth alongside a dangerously dark coolness. He knew things about her past that she’d never been able to independently verify.
But yet Indy had immediately believed him, seen the truth in Benson’s shining silver eyes that seemed to reveal as much as they hid.
In fact it was those dark revelations about how her parents died that drew Indy into the CIA, sealed the deal on her recruitment. In a way it felt like she’d always known of her tragic origins, like those memories were burned into her body, seared into her psyche, somehow recorded in her soul, hidden in her heart even though she’d been a newborn when her mother died, a week old when her father killed himself, her consciousness barely focused in the physical world, her mind just an amorphous mass of swirling connections and impressions that would form the deep-seated base of the woman she’d become.
The woman she was destined to become, fated to become, born to become.
And was that fate finally coming to fruition?
Was that destiny finally being delivered?
Was little Indy all grown up now?
“Grow up, you two,” came a crackling voice from somewhere above them, somewhere beyond them, somewhere in the amorphous ether, the spinning cosmos. “There’s no such thing as a rubbing-post. I checked with Jack, and he confirms that if there were such a thing, his big brother would have never left his room.”
Indy stared as Ice’s face reddened like he was about to erupt like a hot volcano. Crackling laughter came from above them, and it took Indy a moment to realize the man’s voice came from Ice’s phone on the bed.
“Benson, you piece of shit!” Ice sprung off Indy and lunged for the phone, seemingly forgetting that he was still lashed to the bathroom pipe. With a roar he fell back on top of Indy, squeezing the breath out of her. “Dammit.”
Indy gasped in a breath, then craned her neck towards the bed. “What’s going on? How is Benson talking to us through your phone?”
Of course, Indy was a spook herself and the answer came before anyone needed to say another word.
Which was just as well, because there were no real words being spoken. Just thundering guffaws from the phone and thunderous bellows from Ice as he wrenched and jerked against his restraints, his movements bringing forth more gasps from her as Ice’s weight shifted erratically over Indy’s body.
Ice had released her wrists in his embarrassed rage and desperate attempts to break free, and now Indy shimmied her body out from under him, scrambling out of range on her hands and knees as he tried to grab her bare ankles and drag her back.
She clambered to her feet, pushed her wild hair away from her eyes, took another gasping breath to refill her lungs after Ice had emptied them with his weight.
Then she stormed over to the bed and grabbed the phone. Sure enough, Benson’s voice was coming through the speaker even though there was no active call. The sonofabitch had been listening. For how long was anyone’s guess, and Indy was too mortified to make that guess.
Especially when she heard another man’s wicked laugh and realized Ice’s brother Jack was on the line as well.
“Toss me my damn knife, Indy,” Ice shouted from the carpet. “Or I swear to hell I will break this pipe and then your damn neck before hunting Benson and Jack down with extreme fucking prejudice.”
Indy frowned down at him, then held the phone up and sighed into it. “Hey, Jack, why is your big brother nicknamed Ice when he blows his top like a volcano at the slightest inconvenience?”
More roaring laughter from the phone. Indy saw the camera flash to life now, and she couldn’t resist pointing it at Ice hog-tied to the bathroom sink and throwing a temper tantrum on the carpet.
“No fuckingway!” howled Jack through the phone. “Damn, brother. You gotsmoked! Please tell me you’re recording this, Benson. I need a copy of this video.”
Jack hooted some more, but then his laughter faded into the distance and Benson’s voice came on the line. “All right, that’s enough comic relief. O’Donnell, go ahead and cut Ice loose.”
Indy hesitated. Jack’s laughter had been infectious, and she couldn’t help but smile at the brotherly teasing. But at the same time that voice in her head whispered that Benson was still an unknown.
She looked into the camera and shook her head firmly. “Not until I have your word that you believe I’m innocent, that you know this is a setup, that you aren’t going to order Ice to break my neck the moment he’s free.”
“He won’t need to order that last part if you don’t toss me that knife right now, Indy,” came Ice’s growl from the carpet. “As for you, Benson. You’re next in line. Then Jack gets his ass kicked.”
Indy glanced at Ice, saw that he was on his back and grinning up at the ceiling. He’d cooled down just as fast as he’d heated up. Clearly Benson was telling him to stand down, giving Ice the green light to do what Indy secretly hoped he was going to do anyway:
Trust her.
Help her.
