Lisette and the Cyber Geeks
by
Brian Sands
todadi, [title uncertain] HtF Vidcaps
Chapter Five: Escape Route
I have to get away from these people, thought Lisette desperately. But how?
They were back in the car and had just passed through the last of the suburbs and entered the countryside. Lisette had been blindfolded once more before they left the house and had only now been relieved of the disorienting bandage of black silk. It was the same as before, sitting in the back seat beside Sigrid who was balefully watching every small move she made. Her wrists remained tied together behind her. Those bonds had not been touched since they were applied back in the mansion and by now the warm air conditioning of the second house and in the car had caused her wrists to swell. This was only to a small degree but it was enough to make the three bands of cord press firmly into the soft fresh of her wrists, reducing to virtually nothing her ability to twist them around. There was no longer any play between her wrists and the cord that bound them and Lisette’s fingers were becoming swollen and stiff.
Lisette grew apprehensive as she saw her chances of making an escape becoming more remote as the vehicle put distance between them and the city. Her hands were tied. Her mouth remained taped. Her captors showed no signs of relieving her of those discomforts.
But they had neglected to tie her ankles. She kept very still, pretending that they were bound, and hoped upon hope that the oversight would remain undetected. There was a small chance that she could get out and run, if the vehicle stopped for any reason and Sigrid took her eyes off Lisette for a few seconds.
Small chances are so rare in a kidnap like Lisette’s that they are virtually unique when they happen. The trailing tendrils of a ground mist obscured part of the road ahead, and the driver had to swerve quickly several times to get back onto the correct side of the road every time he lost his bearings. All the same, they were cruising smoothly until they entered a thick belt of trees that hemmed them in on either side, when there was a loud report and the vehicle began to sway and then skew across the road. Doctor Kidd fought the steering wheel and managed to bring them to a halt on the edge, a foot short of a steep drop into a ditch. The car jerked, the motor coughed and went dead.
There was silence in the cabin for several moments, then Kidd began swearing under his breath.
"What is it?" asked Madame Vellum.
"Bloody front tire en’ it?"
Kidd climbed out and inspected the tire, giving it a frustrated kick for good measure then hopping on one foot in pain as the burst tyre resisted his soft shoes.
Vellum sighed and turned to Sigrid. "Get the spare out of the boot will you dear. I’ll help you. Left to himself there’s no knowing what that ignoramus will do, and we’ll be delayed enough."
Sigrid backed out of the door onto the road. She looked meaningfully at Lisette. "Be a good girl. Jus’ stay nice an’ quiet, little one ... or else!"
Lisette nodded, wide-eyed.
The prisoner watched as the two women opened the boot of the car and lifted out the spare tyre. They rolled it along the road to the front where Kidd stood, arms akimbo, looking helpless. Lisette turned her attention to the door on the side above the ditch. The tinted windows worked in her favour as she cautiously found the handle and turned it. The kidnappers could not see what she was doing, and their attention was focussed on the job at hand. Kidd and Sigrid were crouched down somewhere out of sight, wrestling with the wheel and a tyre lever as they removed the hubcap. Madame Vellum stood a little way back. But her attention was on the changing of the tyre.
As she felt the car beginning to rise on the jack, Lisette slipped first her feet out on to the ground then slithered on her bottom off the edge of the seat to the lip of the ditch. Her legs hung over the edge. She looked down. It was difficult to tell, but she thought that the bottom of the ditch was relatively dry and free of obstacles. Lisette gave a little push with her body and slid down the steep slope, coming to the bottom in a heap. She scrambled to her knees and listened. There was no cry of alarm. They were still too busy on the car. And the back door appeared to have drifted nearly shut, without slamming.
Lisette stood and ran at a crouch along the ditch in the direction from which they had come. She was glad more than ever that she had chosen to wear slacks that morning. They protected her legs from projections and brambles and made running easier than a skirt would have done. She thought of Donald’s comments about her smart narrow skirt, knee-length and completely unsuitable for running in ditches. In a moment of surprise, she realised that she had taken his advice seriously.
What was that nice man thinking at the moment? What was he doing? Would he be worrying about her? They had made no arrangements, no lunch appointments. Lisette decided to change all that as soon as she was back in the city in one piece. But first she had to put as much distance as possible between herself and the gang.
She continued to run along the bottom of the ditch. There was still no sign that her disappearance had been discovered, no hint of pursuit, but she felt that only a minute had passed. They would guess that she had jumped from the car’s door above the ditch, and that would be the first place they would look for her. Lisette knew that she would soon have to get out and find another route along which she could continue her escape. It would be difficult to climb up those steep sides with her hands bound behind her.
As she ran, she noticed that the sides were becoming shallower, and that the ditch took a bend to follow the road. If she climbed out now, they would not see her. She came to a section of the ditch where one side had crumbled under a thin watercourse. The ditch was muddy at this point, another good reason for getting out. Lisette scrambled up the slope, slipping to her knees only twice before she emerged with the ditch between her and the road.
The trees were still around her - she had not run far - and the low fog and now a thin mist of rain would obscure her from the eyes of anyone coming round the bend in the road just along from her, if they were unobservant. But her captors, who knew what they were looking for, would see her easily enough. Lisette ran as quickly as she could, hampered by her arms tied behind her, until she was among the trees. As the welcome cover of the trunks and branches closed around her, Lisette heard a ragged shout. It sounded distant and remote in that fog-enshrouded wood, but Lisette knew she was still too close to her kidnappers for comfort.
She ran on, her feet catching and slipping on tree roots and muddy patches of ground. Then she forced herself to slow down. If she turned an ankle and fell, or blundered into a branch and stunned herself, she would be risking recapture. Anyway, her chest ached from the continual need to breathe through her nose only. The sensible thing to do was to take it carefully and to pick her way through the trees to the best advantage. She was walking away from the road, but the belt of trees was still thick. At one point she stopped and listened intently. There was no sound of pursuit. Then she heard the muted roar of a car’s motor that faded into the distance almost as soon as she recognised it for what it was.
Lisette breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe they’ve given up and driven on, she thought. But she also knew that it could be a trick that, while one of the gang stayed in the car, the other two could be in the same belt of trees with her even now. The thought gave her a panicky feeling that she immediately forced down. She had got this far; she was not going to throw it away by giving in to hysteria. She had to think clearly.
Lisette walked on. After another five minutes she became almost sure of two things. No one appeared to be pursuing her, and the trees were thinning out. She stopped under a particularly large and protective tree. All right, she thought. If they’ve really given up on finding me, which I sincerely hope is the case, I can take care of certain other matters.
The first of these was the tape sealing her mouth. It had become increasingly uncomfortable. It pulled at her lips whenever she forgot and tried to breathe through her mouth. She sought for and found a rough section of the nearest tree trunk beside her and began to rub her face against the bark. She worked with as much care as possible, telling herself not to hurry, and hoping that not a lot of skin would come away with the tape when she finally managed to dislodge it. It did not take long for the rough surface to lift the edge of the tape sufficiently to allow her to roll it up away from her lips. She stepped back, leaving the piece of tape dangling by one corner from the trunk, and licked her lips, which were dry and a little chapped. She had managed it without a scratch although her lips stung.
Getting her hands untied was another matter. Her exertions had swollen her wrists even more against the three loops binding them, and contacts with mud and water during the more slippery moments in the ditch had made the double knot tighter. She remembered being told by the security officer instructing her on escapology and self defence that knots which tightened when wet could be the very devil to get loose. Lisette gave up. Some innocent farmer is due to have the shock of his or her life to find a woman at their door with her hands tied behind her, Lisette thought ruefully.
*
The trees continued to thin out, and another twenty yards brought her to the edge of a field. It was newly mown and appeared not too damp. Lisette waited for several minutes, casting her eyes up and down the edges of the field to see whether anyone else was out there in the mist and rain. When the coast looked clear, she ventured out. She was wearing sensible shoes with her dark slacks, but the medium high chunky heels - manufactured for city pavements and carpeted offices - did not cope well with freshly ploughed fields. Lisette found herself sinking almost ankle deep in fine slightly damp soil as she trudged to the distant side.
A small shack of some sort came into view and she headed towards it. But the interior of the hut was disappointing. It had been cleaned out with only bits of stubble lying scattered on the earthen floor. Very unlike a farm building not to have something sharp and readily available, thought Lisette. She shrugged. There was nothing for it but to push on. Where there’s a storage shed, reasoned Lisette, the farm house itself should not be far off.
In fact, Lisette found that on the other side of the shed, across another field and through a stand of trees, she could just make out a chimney.
"Hullo," she called at the door of the farm house, "Please help me."
There was no reply. The building had that feel about it of a temporarily empty home. I can’t stand here and wait for the farmer to get back from the cows or whatever he works with, thought Lisette. Her wrists were hurting from being bound for so long, the water-tightened knots making her fingers tingle. With her foot she pushed open the screen door, stepped onto the threshold, and pressed her shoulder against the wooden door. It was still closed, but Lisette found with a flood of relief that it was not locked. She managed to turn the handle with her fingers. She walked in.
Lisette had entered at the back of the farmhouse and found herself immediately in the kitchen. A garish flyer held to the side of the refrigerator by a gnome magnet informed her that most likely the farmer and his family were attending the local cucumber fair and would not be back until dark after the judging at four.
Like all farm houses, the kitchen offered a variety of knives, and Lisette lost no time in selecting one that would do the job. After about a minute patiently sawing at the cords, taking care not to hurry lest she cut herself, Lisette was free at last. She ran her stinging wrists under the cold water tap in the kitchen sink and dried them with stiffened fingers on a towel that hung in front of the stove.
She was about to go in search of a phone when she saw it over against one of the kitchen walls. I’d better do two things, she decided. First I’ll send a message to myself. That way, if I’m caught again, they’ll know what’s happened to me. Lisette dialled her own number and waited for the recorder to start up.
"It’s Lisette here. I’m making this call, to myself, so that if I disappear whoever hears this message will know that it’s the result of foul play. I’ve already been kidnapped, but I got away from my kidnappers, and I’m now in a farm house ..."
Someone inside her apartment picked up her phone.
"Lisette! Where are you?"
It was Donald.
"Don? Oh I’m so glad to hear your voice. You got into my flat somehow?"
"That’s right. It wasn’t hard. You really must do something about your security arrangements. Your front door’s ludicrously easy to pick open ... But, Lisa ... Lisette. Are you all right?"
"I’m okay. Just a little ruffled up, with sore wrists from the rope they used to tie me. Don ... can you come and rescue me? I don’t think I can face a taxi driver, looking like this!"
"Like ...?"
"Oh, muddy. With red marks on my wrists. And my hair’s a mess." Lisette was studying herself critically in a small wall mirror above the phone. "And there are marks around my mouth left by the sticky stuff."
"Well of course I’ll bring you in. Where are you?"
"I’m at a small farm just off the main road. It’s ... Let me see ..." Lisette read aloud the address from several envelopes lying on the kitchen table, making sure it was most likely to be the right one.
"Hmm. I think that place is about half an hour away, after I’ve left the city that is. Try to make yourself comfortable. Make sure the doors and windows are locked, and don’t open them except for the people who belong to the house, okay?"
"Will do. I’m learning fast about being careful. You’ve no idea how I gaily swanned in on their city mansion with a totally unconvincing story."
"On the contrary, my dear, I think I have a very good idea how it went. Now, don’t go away."
Donald Caisson hung up.
*
"You’re a very lucky young woman," said Donald grimly.
They were in a car speeding back towards the city. It was a different vehicle from the one the little spiv had been driving. Donald had abandoned that stolen car at the first opportunity and made his own arrangements.
"I know," said Lisette wearily. "Please chide me as much as you think I deserve. I feel a complete fool, walking into it like that."
"I don’t think it was entirely your fault. It was obviously a trap ... They knew about you. It was not only the closed-circuit TV that gave you away."
"I think you’re right. Don, I did some homework - checked on our office records and found that our very hush-hush legal division has been investigating some aspects of the case I’m on."
"Their investigations may well have placed you in jeopardy!"
"Not only that but ..."
Lisette told Donald about her firm identification of Chérie Chalmers as the kidnapped woman in the photograph.
"She was investigating those people, and they’re obviously holding her somewhere. You know what that horrible woman Red Vellum said? She said that this whole affair was bigger that mere tax evasion."
"That could cover many possibilities. Drugs for instance ..."
"Don’t you know for sure, from your own experience with them?"
"My experience was that they tried to frame me for fraud. And I suspect it’s a pay-back for something I did to the Alpine branch of their cartel. I have one or two suspicions, but nothing definitive."
They were entering the city outskirts. As though by mutual consent, Don and Lisette fell silent and spent the rest of their journey wrapped in their own thoughts. At Lisette’s apartment, Don accompanied her to the door. He looked at his watch.
"Tell you what. If you get yourself tidied up, I’ll take you to dinner - if you feel up to it - and we can talk this business over some more."
"I- I think I’d like that, but only after soaking in a good hot bath."
*
The bath was the most sensible thing she had done all day, thought Lisette as she dried off. She now felt relaxed, most of the stiffness in her hands and arms, not to mention the rest of her body, was a faint memory, and she felt tolerably human once more.
In her bedroom, she slipped into the flimsiest of thong panties and the best lacy under-wired uplift bra she owned. Both bra and panties were black and edged with thin blue piping. The suspender belt and stockings she added next were black. Over her head Lisette slipped on a dress of light blue and smoothed it down over her breasts, and around her waist and thighs. It was form hugging, of fine high quality wool, the slit skirt ending just above her knees. Black high heeled shoes followed. Lisette combed out her hair and tied it up in a smart chignon and, for added effect, she slipped on a light pair of black gloves. It was a calculated choice. Gloves were not entirely out of fashion for evening wear but, more practically, there were still marks on Lisette’s wrists that she preferred to hide.
Lisette looked herself over in the bedroom mirror. Her shoes and gloves matched the black handbag that stood on the dressing table. A large pink silk scarf looped around the shoulder strap made an understated colour contrast with her dress and the black shoes, gloves and bag. A light touch of makeup smoothed out the faint chafe marks left by the tape. A strip of blue and black lace highlighted her dress’s cleavage point.
Lisette Ruisseau, you’re going to knock that nice Donald Caisson for a six, she thought, with forgivable vanity.
She took up her handbag, patted her hair one last time in front of the mirror, and stepped elegantly from the bedroom into the living room. Lisette was halfway across the living room, heading for the door, when she heard a slight movement behind her. She started to turn, a cry of alarm forming on her lips, when something hit her hard on the nape of the neck and everything went dark.
When she regained consciousness, Lisette’s initial perception was of the sound of someone moving quickly around the room muttering impatiently - she thought it was a man - and of furniture being shifted about roughly, even turned over. That was enough to make her lie very still and feign unconsciousness. Whoever it is, it sounds like they’re trashing the place, she thought.
Gradually her head cleared, but that was hardly an improvement, for it allowed her to become more aware of a splitting headache. The back of her neck and her shoulders felt sore and tender. Lisette kept her eyes closed and concentrated on what her sense of touch told her. She was lying face down. From the way she had been rolled into that position, her breasts pressed uncomfortably into the red and blue patterned scatter rug of her living room. She allowed her eyes to flicker open an instant to verify this. The rug was one of those manufactures with an open-weave pile of soft strands that made its surface resemble the water anemones of a tropical reef. (The apartment had an aquarian ambiance). This was not the cause of her pain however. Her breasts hurt because they had been almost pushed out of the bra cups so that the under wiring pinched the delicate skin. The abominable ache in her head she guessed was caused by the blow to the nape of her neck, and exacerbated by the scarf tied tightly over her mouth to hold a wad of cloth between her teeth. She guessed that it was her own pink silk scarf that was sealing the gag in place.
Lisette’s shoulders were on fire because her wrists were tied behind her and linked to her ankles in a hog-tie. The cord at her wrists circled the point where her gloves ended. Her knees were bent sharply back. Oh god, not again, she thought wearily. Self preservation warned her to continue to lie still and pretend that she was still unconscious. Who can it be? she wondered. The little spiv? The angry movements suggested this. But she dared not open her eyes to look. Is it Sigrid? she speculated. That would mean most likely that she would be kidnapped again.
A hand took her roughly by the hair just above the knot of the gag and shook her. Lisette resolutely feigned unconsciousness.
"Damn!"
She could not recognise the voice, but at least she established that it was a man. Her head was let fall none too gently back to the carpet, sending a further spasm of pain through her temples. Although her eyes were closed, she saw stars. So it’s true, she thought vaguely as the rough handling tipped her back into unconsciousness.
When Lisette swam into consciousness once more, everything was quiet. Cautiously she opened her eyes. Her handbag lay beside her, its contents strewn out onto the carpet. Another handbag, the spare one she remembered leaving on the coffee table, lay near it. It too was open with some of its contents spilled. She raised her head cautiously and looked towards the door. The sofa had been overturned. She turned her head back and surveyed the wreckage on the other side of the room. Things had been turned over or scattered around. Nothing really appeared to have been broken. Except for me, thought Lisette.
She allowed herself a little self-pity. How many times have I been bound and gagged now? She counted the experiences. Once when Donald, bless him, tied me up in the cottage while he got some sleep. Talking of whom, where is he now that I need him more than ever? Then that young man trussed me up in a hog-tie and I rode in state in the boot of the car. He tied me to a post in the warehouse. Then there was her capture by Madame Vellum and her associates. And now this. But her intruder seemed to have gone.
Lisette lifted her head and tried to call for help, but her mouth was already dry from the gag and she only succeeded in bringing on a fit of coughing that sent her head reeling once again.
It was then that she heard a male gasp, and strong hands were untying the knot at the back of her neck. The silk scarf came away, fingers were inserted between her jaws and extracted the gag.
"Oh my god. Don?"
"The very same."
"Get me out of this, Darling, for pity’s sake!"
Without wasting breath on speaking, Donald Caisson cut away the cords at Lisette’s wrists and unfastened the other end of the tether from her ankles. Lisette was then rolled onto her back and cradled in the man’s arms.
"D- Don, please unclasp my bra. It’s killing me."
Slender fingers slipped beneath the V of Lisette’s dress and found the small clasp that held her bra together. Lisette sighed with relief as the pressure of the under wiring disappeared.
"Thank you. Don, I feel like a child who needs a lot of comforting, and my head’s ringing."
"I think you may have a slight concussion. Did they hit you very hard?"
"Hard enough. I don’t know what it was. Right on the nape of the neck. I was out like a light. I didn’t see much, but I’m sure it was a man."
"Doc the Spiv?"
"No ... No, I don’t think so. Someone else."
"Shall I phone for a doctor?"
"No, I think I’ll be all right. But, Don ... Put me to bed, please?"
Lisette was picked up in Donald Caisson’s arms and carried through to the bedroom, which also showed signs of the intruder’s hasty search. The young woman was laid gently onto the coverlet of the bed.
"Don. I- I don’t think I can undress myself."
"It will be my pleasure."
"I’m sure," replied Lisette with a faint smile.
She cooperated as much as she could and soon the woolen dress was removed, the bra coming away with it, followed by her shoes, garter belt and stockings. Lisette was rolled gently under the sheets and blanket still in her panties, her head arranged on the pillow. Don straightened up. Lisette raised her eyes to his.
"I- I think I’ll be all right in the morning. It’s- It’s been a long day."
"I don’t like leaving you this way."
"You don’t have to, darling man. Get your clothes off and come to bed too. Hold me. I’m not much use. I just want to be held."
"You know," Lisette added as Don Caisson slipped into bed beside her, "I intended to seduce you tonight. The best laid plans of woman ..."
"You looked wonderful, even tied and mussed up. I would have been a pushover," said Don as he slipped an arm beneath Lisette’s head and arranged her so that she lay with her face against his chest and shoulder.
"You- You can take me now, if you want," replied Lisette sleepily, "But I’m not at my best."
"Whatever the circumstance, you are always at your best. Sleep, sweetheart. Donald Caisson can control his animal urges, when needs be. But I shan’t be accountable for my actions when you’re well."
"I’m so glad," whispered Lisette as she drifted into sleep in the arms of the man she was beginning to like very much.
ã Brian Sands 2004