"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."
Dan awoke in a dark cell. It was damp, and smelled of mildew. Attempting to get his bearings, he searched for the sun, but there was no natural light.
"Patrick?" Dan called softly into the darkness, "anyone?"
"Nnngh," he heard from the far corner, and squinting in that direction, could barely make out the figure of a person. Dan hadn't yet attempted to move, and he tried to arise but found his wrists were shackled.
"Are you bound, stranger?" Dan asked softly, "Can you speak?"
"I'm really swollen Dan," a voice that resembled Patrick's spoke back, "while you were out they interrogated me and beat me. I'm not bound, but I can't very well move."
It flashed back to Dan then, how they had been shot, how he had flashed in and out of consciousness for several hours to see the inside of a van, how they had stitched him up upon arrival. He could vaguely recall being dragged to the cell, and hearing Patrick's yells for help. He remembered the men but not the faces. There had been a few of them.
This wasn't a good situation to be in...Torn between his known responsibilities, and Patrick's need to know, he decided to let him in a little.
"Patrick, you're going to have to listen to what I'm about to tell you. I'm an elite agent of MI6."
"MI6?" whimpered Patrick. "The secret bloody service?!" he mustered, regaining some strength and with it, a sense of outrage. "Well I appreciate that knowledge now that I've been kidnapped, thanks Dan. You going to pick the lock with a toothpick then, and disarm the bomb with a coffee mug then yeah? Macgyver style?"
"Yeah, listen Patrick, we could be in serious danger here..."
"Y'know Dan, I think I realized that when they nearly broke me bloody nose thanks."
"... and I'm going to tell you why they've kidnapped us. I've been undercover on assignment here in town for some time, trying to get to the bottom of a notorious drug cartel; as it turns out drugs weren't all they were running. These men were and are running serious firearms into the country, Patrick, and I've figured out their headman. I won't tell you his name so they can't torture it out of you, but I'll promise you this, they're not going to take us alive, all right?"
"Believe it or not Dan, that is a very small comfort."
Stay tuned next week, for Part 2 of the all-new series, The Spy Who Called Bingo.
