All or Nothing Read Online Free PDF Page A

aching from the running. The back of his hand wiped his sweaty brow.
    “Hang on?” He startled himself by speaking.
    Rupert’s feet came up against a concrete step. He placed the soles of his feet on it. He felt deep satisfaction, knowing that his footing was secure, as he climbed more steps. He peered at the diamond of light, which was now inches from his nose. The sudden strong light hurt his eyes for a few seconds as they became accustomed. He put his fingers against the diamond shape and felt. The darkness ended beyond this...window?
    It seemed as if it was a window, embedded in painted wood. Running his fingers down further, his hands came across a shape, not part of the woodwork, something nailed to it after the window frame’s manufacture. His fingers traced it and he made out a cross shape, his suspicions confirmed when he felt the blob of metal attached to its epicentre. It was the shape of a man nailed to a cross. Jesus on the crucifix.
    This was a door with a crucifix nailed to it. A religious person’s front door. Was this a sign? And who the hell has a tunnel like this leading towards their front door?
    Rupert’s eyes had become accustomed to the light now, and he found that the window - or whatever it was - had a picture in its centre, silhouetted by the light behind it. It was a number. Tracing his fingers around it (using his sense of touch seemed more efficient than ever now, since his eyes remained useless in these conditions), he discovered the outline of the numbers six and four.
    Rupert caught his breath.
    Shaking his head, he stood back away from the light, which he now saw was certainly a window.
    There's no way .
    He had seen enough front doors in his life to know what this was. The problem was that the door was very familiar. So much so, it hurt him to recognise it. The shape and feel of it, the significance of the numbers and of the pane itself. The smell of it, the rhythm as you climbed the steps below it.
    There's no way in hell! 
    The number 64. His favourite psalm. Psalm 64 spoke of protection from the conspiracy of terror. He knew it off by heart, had memorised it when he was fifteen, when he realised what he had wanted to be when he grew up. Saying the words in his head only made it worse. His personal life had now come back to haunt him.
    This was his front door.
    The Reverend Rupert Shaw was home.
     
    ***
     
    Impressive.
    The first man clapped his hands together once and returned them to his lap. Staring at his monitor, he was both appalled and proud of what he had just seen. Appalled because of the stakes, impressed and proud because for a man to do what Rupert had done in pitch blackness was both immensely exciting to watch and breath-taking to witness. A hint of comedy sprang to mind as he remembered seeing the man wave his hands blindly for minutes before discovering something as humble as a block of wood and some rope.
    The man removed his spectacles and wiped them with the silk handkerchief he kept in his breast pocket. He put them back on his nose. He smiled and lifted his tumbler of red wine to his lips.
    It was getting exciting now.
    His victim stepped through the door he’d been standing in front of. The interior view of the well-lit room behind it filled the monitor. The camera’s angle changed the screen’s view to show the same man from a different angle, walking into a vast room. No darkness here.
    The man rubbed his chin and continued watching.

FIVE
     
     
     
     
    Fifteen minutes.
    Fifteen bloody minutes!
    Kathryn Cox struck her bunk in anger. The bunk replied with a faint squeak, the age of its bolts and nuts and screws obvious, its lack of maintenance even more apparent. The dark room gave away nothing about the surroundings, but Kathryn knew she was being held captive.
    At first she thought that to lock her in a room with no light, food or water was someone’s idea of a lame, but very sick, joke. She even thought she'd been placed in a police cell for