Then this morning they came for Susan. Because her cell was on another row within the block, Merrick couldn’t be sure, but it had sounded as if they’d yanked her to her feet by her hair. They had bundled her past him on their way out the room’s lone door, a thick metal affair with peepholes.

Susan was pale, her eyes already sheened over with despair. He had called her name and rushed his bars in an effort to touch her, to give her a token of human compassion, but the smallest guard smashed the bars with a nightstick. Merrick fell back helpless as they dragged her away. Estimating the heat that had built in the room he believed four hours had passed since then. It had been quiet at first and then the screams came. And now Susan was well into her second hour of torture.

In the first hours of their kidnapping, Merrick had been certain this was about money — that their captors would demand cash in exchange for their release. He knew the Swiss authorities had a zero-tolerance policy when dealing with hostage takers but he also knew there were companies that specialized in negotiating with kidnappers. Because of the recent spate of abductions in Italy, Merrick had instructed his board of directors to find such negotiators if he were ever taken and secure his freedom no matter the cost.

But after being flown blindfolded for at least six hours, Merrick didn’t know what was going on. He and Susan had whispered to each other late at night, speculating on their captors’ intentions. While Susan insisted it had to be about his money and she was caught up in the abduction as a witness, Merrick wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t been asked to speak to anyone in the company about getting a ransom together or been given any indication that his people even knew he and Susan were still alive. Nothing so far fit what he knew about kidnapping. Admittedly, the rudimentary executive security course he’d taken had been years ago, but he recalled enough to know his abductors did not fit the usual profile.

And now this. They were torturing poor Susan Donleavy, a loyal, dedicated employee who knew little beyond her test tubes and beakers. Merrick recalled their conversation a few weeks back about her idea of ending oil spills with her trick plankton. He hadn’t told her that while her goals were indeed lofty, her concept seemed a bit outlandish. His whole speech about revenge being a great motivator was just that, a speech, one he’d given an hundred times in a hundred variations. She’d have better luck overcoming a childhood trauma with a psychiatrist than in her laboratory.

Thinking about her project made him consider all the other research currently under way at Merrick/Singer. He’d done this many times since landing in the cell. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, they were working on that would warrant what was happening if this was a case of industrial espionage. They weren’t close to patenting anything new or revolutionary. In fact, they hadn’t had a really profitable patent since he and Dan Singer first marketed their sulfur scrubbers. The company was basically a vanity project for him now, a way to keep his hands in the world of research chemistry and to get invitations to speak at symposiums.