1st July 2016
Jordan struggled against the two large men who had grabbed him off the street on his lunch break and forced him toward a waiting car. He yelled loudly, "No, don't let them take me, they're terrorists!" He continued to struggle, kicking out at his assailants as the crowd turned to watch. Let them shoot him in broad daylight, but he wasn't going anywhere with these two thugs, he thought. He yelled loudly about terrorism and continued to fight against the powerful men until four young guys had tried to intervene and his assailants held up guns.
A woman in the crowd lifted her phone and yelled. "Pull the trigger, bozo, it's all on camera!"
'Shit, scenes like this only happened in the movies,' Jordan thought, and wrenched himself free of the arms restraining him and jogged into the crowd surrounding the car. The car, he noted, couldn't move due to the crowd and, still in shock at the whole scene, Jordan barely acknowledged the sirens coming closer as he went to walk away.
"Shit!" he hissed under his breath, realising he would have to stay and talk to them. He quickly called Carrie, leaving her a quick message and warning her not to go home when she didn't answer. It wasn't unusual for her not to have her phone at work, but he couldn't shake the bad feeling he had about these goons trying to pick him up the way they had. Jordan re-emerged from the crowd just as the police arrived and identified himself as the complainant, along with his would-be rescuers.
An hour later he was sitting in the police station with still no word from Carrie and was unable to shake the bad feeling he had about almost being kidnapped. He had asked the police to pick her up, telling them a story about a crazy art dealer who was robbed a couple of months ago, that had been stalking the museum employees who had been at his house when he had been robbed. He didn't know how accurate this story was until the men who tried to grab him were identified as being from Miles Rackham's personal security team.
The police had gone to pick her up at the museum, but had found both she and her boss were missing and had no scheduled appointments in their diaries. With Carrie unofficially missing, Jordan could think of only one other place she might be and decided to call Sinclair Mansvelt before he panicked entirely and alerted every friend they had left in the underworld about her disappearance.
"Sinclair, this is Jordan Ward," he said, relieved that someone was answering their phone today.
"Hello, Jordan. Did Carrington ask you to call me?" he asked hesitantly.
"She's not with you?" Jordan asked, feeling a heavy weight press in on his chest again. He wasn't sure what to say now, if he said anything at all.
"No. Is she missing?" Sinclair was guarded in his response, which confused Jordan, but he also knew that, if his instincts were right, this man was probably one of the only people who could help him find Carrie. The combined thoughts caused the dam to break, and he blurted out the real reason he had called Sinclair.
"I'm at the police station, two of Rackham's goons just tried to grab me off the street. I thought they were terrorists until the police told me who they work for, I dunno, they might be terrorists as well. I don't understand any of this, and I can't find Carrie. She's not at the museum or answering her phone. Do you have any idea where she would be?" Jordan asked point blank, the anxiety in his voice clear.
"No, sorry, Jordan," he said in the same guarded voice, "If I see her I'll give you a call." Sinclair hung up abruptly.
Jordan stared at his phone wondering what to do next. He couldn't shake the feeling that Carrie was in real trouble now, and he needed to find her. He was still trying to work out what his next best move should be when a young woman appeared, taking the seat beside him.
"Hey there, chickadee. You're Jordan, right?" she said in a cheerful, friendly voice, as if they should know each other. "I was on the street when those guys jumped you, and you dropped this," she looked him in the eye and nodded meaningfully as he opened his mouth to protest. "Your friends have been trying to call you on it. I guess they saw the video online. Someone uploaded it to Facebook almost immediately."
"They have?" he asked, looking down at the phone, trying to keep the confusion from his voice and expression.
"Just give it a minute, they'll call back," she said reassuringly. "I'm Debbie, by the way," she smiled and whispered. "He'll find her. It's what he does; he's a fixer."
Jordan was about to ask who would fix what, thinking this woman was crazy, when the phone came to life, and the name of Mansfield Sin came up on the phone's display.
*****
Sinclair was rushing through the traffic, feeling a sense of dread. "Fucking Rackham," he swore. He wasn't going to get anything back by threatening Carrington and her brother. "I was handling it; fucking bastard, he just couldn't let me handle the only lead we'd had in a decade!" Sinclair yelled at the car interior. He punched the display on his dash and listened to the phone ring, furious that this was happening.
"Jordan," he said abruptly, as Jordan answered the phone he had sent with Debbie for him to use. "The woman beside you is my assistant, you can trust her. She'll take you to some place safe until I find your sister. If Rackham has her, I'll find her."
"What's going on?" Jordan asked in utter confusion.
"Rackham believes that your sister is the Fool who robbed him, and he wants his pistol back!" Sinclair said tersely.
"The who?" Jordon frowned as he spoke.
"Just stay with Debbie, she'll look after you!" Sinclair barked and hung up. Even though he was almost positive that Carrie was the Fool, and her brother aided her in her thefts, he had no real proof, as yet, and their continued denial and absolute confusion at the accusations made him wonder if he was missing something important.
