She was awakened by the muffled sounds of men shouting, dull thuds, and the slamming of doors through the walls of her hotel room. She lay still, eyes wide open, straining to discern from beyond which wall, specifically, the noises were emanating. She sat up in bed. She could hear them out in the hallway now. It only took a few seconds for the young American to wrap her mind around what was taking place. She leapt out of bed, bolting for the window. Her room was situated on the ground floor of a small hotel in what the locals would consider a less than desirable part of town, and she was dismayed to find that for security purposes the window was barred from the outside in such a way that not even her narrow frame would be able to squeeze through. She heard the pounding of some blunt object against her own door. She dove under the bed just as it swung open with a violent crack. The lights went on and she watched, terrified, as a pair of military issue boots strode into the room.
She felt sure, even with the chaotic din taking place in the hall, he would be able to hear her breathing, but it wasn't so. He first went in the bathroom, and she heard the grating of metal on metal as he whipped aside the shower curtain. He flung open the closet before stalking toward the bed, throwing the covers off onto the floor. The boots stood still a moment, barely a foot from her face. Her heart stopped as five long fingers curled under the bed frame. Everything started happening in slow motion. His grasp tightened against the frame as the man dropped to one knee. The washed out green material of his uniform was worn particularly thin where it made contact with the hard wood. She experienced the moment with mesmerizing clarity, her heightened sense of awareness the product of utter terror. When his face finally came into view, peering through the incomplete darkness of her hiding place, she was unprepared for the sight of him. He was young, much younger than she had expected from his commanding gait and work worn fingers. He was lean and dark with a strong jawline. Curls of dark brown hair fell over his forehead and ears. Her body was seized by a momentary paralysis, and she stared helplessly into his deep green eyes as they flashed with surprise.
When he found her under the bed, it was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He stared back at her, dumbfounded. Her thin, athletic body lay taut on the floor, braced with panic and anticipation. Her blond hair was particularly foreign to him, and even though he had been briefed for this operation with pictures of all the targets, her dark brown eyes wielded a strange power he was entirely unfamiliar with. His whole body flushed hotly with desire. He was still kneeling by the bed when the others rushed it. He stood up, dazedly looking on as one of the men ran around the bed and dragged her out from under by her ankles, another forced a rag over her mouth. Her struggling subsided, and she was unconscious within seconds.
She sat before them in nothing but a short satin nightgown, a modest cotton bra, and thin cotton panties. She laid her cuffed hands in her lap and shivered uncontrollably, hoping this kidnapping would come with some explanation. She had been appointed to international affairs when she first joined the Company, and had been there long enough to understand the dangers of her position. Some of her coworkers had kidnapping stories of their own. So, although there was cause for alarm, everything she had heard about that possibility in this country was benign, a moderate inconvenience. Kidnapping had, in fact, become quite lucrative for organizations pushing some radical religious and/or political agenda. The Company, like many other multi-national corporations, was well insured and the transaction had become so commonplace as to be considered, "business as usual." Still, the entire situation up to this point had been more than just a little unnerving.
When they removed her blindfold she looked around to see a dimly lit room with a desk upon which sat a large black phone. A number of outdated computers were positioned against the wall in the back with innumerous colored cords running from them to various other instrumentation around the room and eventually into the walls. There were three men at the desk in military uniform. The one in the middle addressed her by name.
"Caitlyn Riley," he declared. They wore the uniforms of local military officials but the patching was different. Rebels, she determined. The Rebel Army had been seeking a theocratic overhaul of the National Government for over 50 years, but it was only in the past decade that they had gained any political favor. Over the past 5 years they had grown increasingly radical in their ideology and method. They entered into the kidnapping trade out of necessity a couple years ago to fund a modest increase in following and remain a competitive faction in the abundant pool of illegally operating separatist communities.
"Age: 24..." He was reading allowed.
"You go by Katie. Originally from Telluride, Colorado. You are currently a resident of Boston, Massachusetts. No immediate family, and you have been in the employ of the Company for almost 4 years."
She began to speak, stuttering, trying to affirm the information and question everything that was taking place simultaneously. He saved the silly American from an exercise in futility, cutting her off as he continued.
"We have already made contact with the appropriate personnel at the Company and will be in negotiations for your return within the next few days. We require that you abide by certain protocol while you are with us. Firstly, you will be blindfolded and accompanied by at least one guard during transport at all times. Transport primarily occurs between your housing to the mess hall, showers, or negotiations compound, where the accompanying guard will remove the blindfold at the appropriate time. At no point are you under any circumstances to remove the blindfold. Any attempt to remove your blindfold will be considered a security breach, a volitional intent to compromise our location, and is quite punishable, in a variety of ways..."
Katie nodded mechanically. She was still feeling the effects of anesthesia, and had gone into shock besides. She was no longer processing any of the information being given. He went on through a number of other rules before conferring briefly with the other two men at the table in a language native to the region and entirely foreign to her. He then began to bark orders at a number of other men present in the room. Katie turned around to see four other men standing at the door behind her. She had barely recognized this fact before her line of sight fell on the bizarrely magnetic green eyes of the young soldier from her hotel room.
"Riley!"
The man at the desk was shouting at her. She wheeled back around in her chair.
