New World Disorder

Chapter Five

The layout of the van, including the foam pallet on the floor, several tie points which they attached his restraints to, and the cage around the driver, all pointed to a custom refit with kidnapping in mind. The fact that the men were almost silent during the drive marked them as either very nervous, or professionals used to the job. My money is on the latter. The question is, who wants Oran and why? Pope pondered.

Concerned that he may have waited too long, Oran took the opportunity when none of the men had their eyes on him to test the cuffs holding his wrists behind his back. He had been shown a trick to wriggling out of cuffs by an old spook once. While he tried to see if he could make Oran's hands small enough to pull through, he found that the part with the ratchet teeth pulled free of the locked part.

What the hell?

Moving slowly so as not to draw attention, he felt the metal of the cuffs and found it to be soft under his fingers. He realized he could break free of them any time he wanted. But he did not want to do so yet. He needed the captors to think him subdued if he was going to find out what was behind this abduction. He decided that if it got too bad he could use his energy powers to escape. He careful reinserted the metal strand back into the locking mechanism. He relaxed and started looking though the walls of the van.

Oran was able to keep track of where they were going. Over many years of scouting and piloting Pope had developed a natural sense of direction, altitude, and velocity. He was pleased to find that talent had made the transition into Oran's body with him. Between that and Oran's eidetic memory of the street map of Manhattan, it was like he had a GPS with him. When they crossed through the Lincoln Tunnel into New Jersey, Oran's memories became useless. He had not bothered studying the area across the Hudson. After almost an hour of careful driving, stickling mostly to surface roads, the van pulled into a small chemical warehouse.

Oran could smell a sulfurous stench overlaying the caustic odors of bleach, chlorine, and other less familiar scents. He played along as the men maneuvered him, still carefully shackled, out of the van and into a sturdy chair. Once again the chains were attached to blots in the concrete floor. He carefully looked around, noting the pallets of barrel, each labeled with the chemical identification sheet - Sodium Carbonate, Hydrochloric Acid, Sulfuric Acid, Hydrogen Peroxide, Calcium Hypochlorite, and others. Several bore some pretty ominous warnings. Even more ominous to Pope was that there were no workers in the building. In the distance, across a truck yard, there was a larger warehouse which was busy with people loading and unloading similar pallets. But he and his captors were the only one in their building.

"So now what?" the driver asked.

"The client said we are to wait. He's not available until six," answered the African American man.

"Does that mean we are going to wait until we contact him to ..." the short-cropped Hispanic, possibly the broadest of the four men, trailed off without finishing his question. He was prepping a large metal barrel, pouring in bottles of sulfuric acid and other chemicals. A mask kept the fumes out of the man's face.

That doesn't bode well, Pope thought.

"Not necessary," the bald leader answered. "The first act is top priority, so we move forward with it. The ransom demand is iffy at best." Oran saw him remove a syringe from a padded container. He checked that it was already loaded and there was no blockage in the needle.

As the dark man with the ominous injector approached, Oran decided he needed to do something. "Hey, what do you want? Why are you doing this?"

"You'd be horrified if you knew," drawled the driver. "Better to save you the heartbreak."