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CHAPTER FOUR: THINGS GET WORSE As the train sped through the night, Wildey convinced Sydney that they should head straight for Rouen, where the book had been stolen from. He had apparently first encountered Bellimo and his gang when he arrived there to find the old man dead, and his great source gone. Sydney reluctantly agreed that this was their best shot - for now. She was desperate to hear something that meant she could ditch this lowlife—if this really was a kidnap, surely she would hear from the perpetrators of the crime soon to find out exactly what they wanted? With this thought in mind, she managed to get a seat to herself, behind Wildey, and e-mailed Karen with the news, asking her to contact Cate. On arriving in Paris, Sydney was keen to get the first possible train north, to Rouen. Unfortunately, however, nothing ran until 6 a.m. It was too late to try and get hotel rooms and attempting to sleep on the busy station was impossible. Eventually, Wildey persuaded her to accompany him to a shabby all-night bar, a sad shadow of the more beautiful Parisian cafes hung with faded and fraying red velvet décor. He promptly ordered two single malt whiskies. Wildey was rebuffed by the barman. They only served brandy: Cognac or Armagnac? He ordered two Armagnacs and then sat down at a small, wobbly table next to Syd. ‘Bloody French,’ said Wildey taking a swig and then wincing as the force of the alcohol hit him. ‘They obviously just can't take real liquor.’ Sydney raised her eyebrows. God, this guy was arrogant. ‘I prefer brandy. It's so much smoother, and just as potent.’ ‘You would, you're a woman,’ Wildey ventured to move his face a little closer to Sydney’s, so she could smell the brandy on his breath and see the speckled brown in his sea-green eyes. His gaze lowered towards her cleavage, visible as ever in her low-cut, tightfitting black top, beneath her leather jacket. ‘And, may I add, you're an incredibly beautiful woman.’ Sydney's jaw dropped, even as she forcibly pushed his leering face away from hers. ‘You can clear those thoughts out of your mind right now, you creep. This is not a date.’ Sydney downed the brandy in one, and started to the door. ‘I'm going back to the station.’ ‘Alright, alright, just being friendly,’ murmured Wildey as he followed her out of the door. All the while he eyed her backside, clad in black trousers as figure-hugging as her top, much as a crocodile might observe its next meal. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX During the time this little contretent was taking place, Nigel and Sydney had only been a few miles apart, although this fact was unbeknownst to either. Nigel, indeed, had been flying over the outskirts of Paris in a small jet which was taking him south. ‘To God knows where,’ he thought miserably to himself. The previous few hours had been grim. Just after the houses in suburban London had turned into country lanes, they had pulled up in a barely lit side road and he had been bundled out of the car as unceremoniously as he had entered it. The unbearable thought flashed into his head that they were going to shoot him and leave him in the ditch, dead or dying. Struck with a sudden desperate panic, he struggled as hard as he could to free himself of the two, large men’s grip. Having successfully kicked both of them several times, and rather hard, the side of the pistol barrel crushed painfully into the back of his head. The blow was harder this time, and Nigel crumpled to his knees, his head slumped forward, and his arms raised instinctively to protect him from further blows. The fighter in him had gone. He saw nothing but black before his eyes - dark though it was, it wasn't that dark - and he was worried he was going to be sick. They tied his hands together, placed a gag over his mouth, and dumped him in the boot of the car. The car had driven on a little further, but not far. Then he had heard the two men, and the driver, get out of the car and walk away. They had left him there for what seemed like hours. His head hurt like hell, he felt nauseous, and he could barely breathe. Every now and again there was a terrifying roaring noise. The first time it came, Nigel thought it was an enormous truck rushing towards the car, about to hit and smash him into oblivion. His heart, already racing as if he was running a marathon, beat so hard that he thought it might explode. But the roaring passed, and after a couple more similar incidents, he realised he was probably parked near, or in, an airport. By the time the boot was opened, he was gasping for air. He found himself leaning weakly - how he hated himself for it! - on the bald man with the gun, who thrust the weapon back in Nigel’s side exactly where he had left off. He was relatively relieved, however, when the hairier man, who seemed marginally kinder, removed the gag. It was now obvious that they were on a small airstrip, and a tiny, executive jet in front of them was preparing for its flight. Security here was much less stringent than in the major airports, but he supposed they had locked him in the boot just so as not to arouse any suspicion. Glancing about, he figured this was probably an old World War II airstrip. From the direction they had driven out of London, he guessed it was probably Biggin Hill. How ironic that this airport, from which men had flown in the Battle of Britain, often to meet untimely ends, was now the one from which he was apparently to depart to an unfortunate fate, and probably to far less glory. It was only once the jet was in the air that Nigel realised just how cold he was. On his top, he was still only wearing the thin cotton shirt that had clung to him in the rain when he was talking to Sydney earlier. How long ago that seemed now! In the boot of the car he was far too worried about trying to breathe, and being pulverised by a truck, to notice that he was also freezing. Now, with his hands still tied together, he huddled himself into a small corner at the back of the jet - nobody had offered him a seat - and he tried to keep himself as warm as possible. The bald man sat not far off, eyeing Nigel with beady, piggy, little eyes, keeping the gun trained more or less in his direction. Nigel shut his eyes and tried to think about other things: Sydney, Claudia, Cate, Karen… everyone he knew, they would all be looking for him. They'd find him soon, he told himself. Then he thought about Ancient Studies. There was a reason he picked it as his specialisation: it had got him into trouble, but not as much of a mess as this modern European history rubbish now had! In the future he'd stick to what he was best at. Eventually though, he allowed himself to think of Sydney, and Sydney alone: her positive nature, her warm smile—at how determined she would be to find him. He even let is my drift over the joys of her beautiful hair, her curvaceous body. and the sexy way her bottom wiggled when she ran… He was aroused from his attempt at mental escape on feeling somebody place a blanket, or something like it, around his shoulders. Looking wearily up, he saw the guy with the long hair standing over him, still smirking, but apparently not with any violent malice. ‘You're shivering,’ he said, seizing his sniggering for a moment. ‘I thought this might help.’ Nigel saw that the man had placed his own flight jacket around his shoulders. ‘Thanks,’ he murmured, but he did not favour the man with any eye contact. He had just become a little worried that this guy may be threatening to him in quite a different way to his fat, bald friend. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX After over two hours in the air, the jet landed. The airstrip they arrived at was practically deserted and even smaller than the one they had left. In fact, it looks barely used. A derelict jet lay on the grass not far off the runway, and there was nobody about apart from a man in a car with a French number plate parked nearby. He was obviously waiting to take them away. Early morning cicadas were singing in the grass and bushes, so Nigel knew he was somewhere in the south of the country, near the Mediterranean. Despite all his worries, aches and pains, what was really concerning Nigel by now was the matter that he was desperate to go to the bathroom. This was getting urgent. He expressed it so to the guy who had lent him his jacket as he helped him down from the jet. ‘We’ve got at least an hour's drive from here, kid. You'll have to go in the bushes.’ ‘It'll do,’ mumbled Nigel. The man accompanied him over to near the shrubbery about fifty metres from the edge of the runway. Fortunately, he stopped short and untied Nigel's hands, allowing him a small amount of privacy in the foliage. Nigel finished his business quickly, and was about to come back out - there was little point running away as he knew the gun was still trained upon him - when something heavy in the pocket of the jacket, which was still draped around his shoulders, hit against his hand. His heart leapt, as he fumbled in the pocket. It was a cell phone, he knew it was. He only had a matter of seconds, so he dialled the first number which came to mind: Karen's, at the office. It rung, but there was no answer, and it clicked to answer phone. Knowing this was his chance, Nigel suddenly threw himself to his knees. Now completely out of sight, but with the men approaching fast he whispered quickly into the phone: ‘Karen, its Nigel. I'm in the south of France. A small airstrip somewhere, with a derelict jet. There’s some guy named Bellimo involved…’ He hung up, and stuffed the phone back in the pocket milliseconds before he came into the vision of the two men. ‘I slipped… I don't feel that great,’ pleaded Nigel, as he was hauled, roughly to his feet. When the phone fell out of his pocket, and landed with a soft thud on the ground, he knew he was in trouble.
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