Memories
Can't Wait
By Jeanne Thorne
Chapter
Three: Aches and Pains
The human body is a fickle thing. Such an incredible machine, so complex that much of it remains an utter mystery to even the most brilliant of its students, and yet sometimes it insists on acting completely against its own best interests. The fight-or-flight response, for instance -- what sort of demented cosmic architect would make the most basic survival instinct a fifty-fifty crapshoot? Or take the present situation, the brain's pain-override tripswitch kicking in when such is the most patently stupid thing it can do...
"She's passing out," Arno Blevins said quietly, covering the mouthpiece of the phone.
"Is she now?" Justine Ducharme raised an eyebrow and circled the helpless girl's trembling body, her silk robe swishing softly as she moved. She reached down to take a fistful of the girl's dark pixie-cut, yanking her head up to view Ducharme's displeasure. Ducharme caressed the girl's tear-streaked cheek with her fingertips once, twice, then slapped her hard. The girl yelped into the thick red rubber ball wedged between her teeth and strapped in place behind her head.
"Paulette," Ducharme spoke in her throaty voice with its soft Gallic inflections. "You will not go to sleep. If you would like to be able to walk again in this lifetime, you will not go to sleep." Ducharme's eyes, emerald and feral, looked deep into her servant's, and the girl nodded slowly, whimpering. Ducharme released Paulette's hair and stepped back to retrieve her well-worn riding crop.
Blevins sipped his coffee and watched the women as he listened to his lackey's report. Paulette was bound in strappado fashion, her wrists tied behind her back and attached to a hook and pulley set into the ceiling, which forced her to bend over as her wrists were raised. Ducharme had also used cord to cinch the girl's arms so that her elbows almost met, her arms straight out and up. Blevins let his eyes roam slowly over the muscles in the girl's back and arms, cording and strained. Paulette's legs had been spread wide by a bar cuffed between her ankles by leather straps and she was tethered to the bar by a chain running from an iron ring in the center to the thick leather collar she always wore. The whole of it rendered the girl taut and helpless, with the only possible give being her trembling knees. If she passed out and her knees buckled, she'd dislocate her shoulders. Again Blevins ruminated on the body's foolishness -- despite the searing welts that crisscrossed her trim, naked, sweat-gleaming form from her mistress's riding crop, Paulette's brain should be protecting her against the greater agony to come should she lose consciousness.
Blevins murmured acknowledgement to his underling and broke the connection on the cordless phone. "Your men failed. Jones escaped in her time-honored fashion, as I expected she would. Your reliance on those muscle-bound clods will be your undoing, Justine."
Ducharme glanced at her paramour with that deadly arched eyebrow. "May I remind you that 'those muscle-bound clods,' as you call them, are responsible for your being here instead of in that windowless cell in Virginia?" She swept her eyes over his lean figure, resplendent in black leather pants and open-necked white shirt. He had obviously been working out during his time in the Organization's care, with his usual intensity. "Those orange prison coveralls were most unflattering. Did Jones leave any of them alive?"
"All of them, though Mister Haddock will have to learn to feed himself with his left hand from now on and Mister Gant will never sing in the shower again." He smiled wryly.
"And Sergeant McCready?"
"Took three tranquilizer slugs in his chest. I don't envy him his hangover when he eventually wakes up."
"Still," Ducharme tapped the riding crop against her thigh thoughtfully, "he will wake up. The Bethany Jones I know would not have been so careless. The years have taken their toll, it would seem." She pursed her lips as the memory of her own last encounter with Jones -- the blood... the fire... the blistering agony as her body was consumed... The reconstructive surgery had taken years and cost millions, the physical therapy had been pure unrelenting hell. Like Blevins, she too had been in a prison, the prison of her own ravaged body. The memory sparked a sudden white-hot flare of sheer hatred behind her eyes and without thinking she whirled and delivered blow after slashing blow with the crop across the backs of Paulette's thighs, snarling with rage as the girl keened into her gag.
Blevins lit a Gauloise, keeping one eye on Ducharme in her instantaneous psychotic fugue. There she goes again -- beautiful, brilliant, and now completely out of her mind. He felt himself stirring against the tight leather crotch of his pants and smiled to himself as he took a deep drag and sat back in his wingbacked chair. I'll have to take extraordinary measures to keep her from butchering Bethany Jones the first chance she gets... at least until Jones gives me what I need to complete the formula. After that, Justine can have her turn...
Blevins took another drag and stubbed out the cigarette in the marble ashtray beside him, standing up. The ardor in his leathers was profound and visible as he looked at Ducharme with smouldering eyes. "Justine."
Ducharme's head snapped up, her eyes wild, her blonde mane disheveled and everywhere, her silk robe untied and hanging off her shoulders, revealing glimpses of her naked body beneath, covered with an inviting sheen of perspiration. She was panting through gritted teeth. "What?"
"I want you. Now." Blevins' voice was soft but carried an unmistakeable growl of command. Instantly Ducharme's snarl of rage twisted into a catlike purr and she dropped the riding crop. The robe trailed along the floor as she slid into Blevins' arms and kissed him hungrily. Behind her, Paulette moaned and whimpered against the ballgag and fought to stay conscious against the blinding pain that shot through her entire body.
"There is something else, beloved," Blevins murmured against Ducharme's lips. "Our observer reports that Jones was not alone. There was a girl with her -- a girl in her late teens, very pretty. Very vulnerable."
Ducharme gripped his back, rubbing her exposed breasts slowly up the front of his shirt. "How interesting. Our Bethany has a pet. She should prove--"
"Useful?"
"Entertaining." Ducharme's smile was both sensual and terrifying.
"I thought you might like that," Blevins whispered as his lips slid down to her throat. "Will you being having your men killed for their failure?"
"Not at all," Ducharme gasped as Blevins' hands and lips sent charges through her body, already primed and raw from her beating of the servant girl. "Once they recover, they'll do anything to lay their hands on Jones and her little friend. Pain is a most effective motivator. Don't you agree, Paulette?"
The girl could only moan and tremble, shifting slightly in her bonds as a thousand fires raged over her scored bottom and legs.
As Blevins took his lover's hand and led her to the door of their study, he paused for a moment and deftly unlocked the winch holding Paulette up. The winch whirred and the chain rattled through the pulley in the ceiling as Paulette collapsed to the floor, still bound and in agony, squirming pitifully.
"Next time remember, my dear," Blevins sighed over his shoulder, "it's called a three-minute egg for a reason."
Blevins snapped off the light and closed the door, leaving the girl in darkness and silence broken only by her own muffled sobbing.
* * *
Chicago. Usually it was Madeleine's favorite city in all the world. Not that she had been to very many cities in her life, but it was here that Beth had usually taken her for weekend trips that she cherished as absolutely the best times. They'd pile into the Volvo and drive across the state and soon the skyline would rise in the distance and take her breath away, every time. They'd check into the same downtown hotel and order obscene amounts of junk food from room service. They'd shop and take in a ball game -- being suckers for lost causes, they were both Cubs fans -- and then they'd doll up and head down to a club to hear jazz or blues as it was meant to be heard. They'd make a point to go to the city for St. Patrick's Day, to look out at the Chicago River flowing emerald-green. Once they saw John Cusack on the street and Maddy about died...
But this time was different. This time was no freewheeling vacation but desperate flight. And the woman sitting in a lotus position on the other bed, head bowed and eyes closed, wasn't Beth, not the Beth she knew. She was now someone else, someone who had drawn evil men into their home, where they had bound and gagged Maddy and then destroyed all of their possessions. She was some stranger who had crashed through a third-floor window armed with smoke-bombs and dispatched the men with vicious martial-arts moves that her Beth could not possibly have known. A stranger who hurried her out of their building and hastily tossed a gun into the glove compartment before shoving her into the car.
They drove in silence, the new Beth's face set in grim lines that made her look even more alien. In the next town they stopped at a Wal-Mart and Beth ran in, returning with a change of clothes for each of them. In the bathroom of a gas station Maddy had changed into the jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers and stuffed her dancewear, still tacky with the glue from the tape with which she had been bound, into the trash. She kept her point shoes, however, unable to part with them. Beth had changed too, into a tanktop and jeans, with a flannel shirt whose sleeves hit the angry gash in her arm she had sustained during the fight. They exchanged only a few perfunctory words and headed into the warm Illinois night, with God-only-knew-who at their heels, until arriving at their hotel in the wee hours.
Maddy watched this woman with Beth's face as she folded herself into the lotus and withdrew into herself. Whoever this was, it was not the woman who had cheered her on at dance recitals and helped her with her math homework and made the best s'mores in the known universe. It was not the woman who cried like a baby and hugged her tightly at the end of It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas. This woman was something else, something unknown and dangerous.
Maddy hugged herself under the covers of her bed and closed her eyes, feeling very alone and terrified and not at all happy to be in Chicago...
* * *
Floating deep inside herself, shutting out the groans of her aching muscles, Bethany Jones could hear Tanaka sensei's rough, disapproving growl: Stupid girl! Careless, foolish, stupid girl!
-- I am sorry, sensei. I did not think it through. My heart clouded my judgment.
That is an understatement. Three, there were at least three more advantageous approaches to the battleground than the one you chose. If you had used your head, you could have taken down your enemy without endangering the young one. Instead you risked both your lives -- and more -- needlessly in a blind fight. It was only the luck of the consummate fool that afforded you victory, and fool's luck is costly and fleeting.
-- I know that. But it has been so long. I thought I was free...
IDIOT! Did you truly believe your masters would never find you? That your enemies would just forget you?
-- I only sought peace, sensei.
You deluded yourself and grew soft. The pain in your body attests to that. There was a time when three opponents would have been as nothing to you, when you would have cut them down with single blows like a scythe through stalks of wheat. Instead you blundered through them, wasting movement and leaving them alive.
-- I could not kill them, not in front of Madeleine. I wanted to protect her.
If you would protect the young one, you must remove her from the battleground. You must gather weapons. You must find your enemies and destroy them before they discover her secret. You must again become a warrior.
-- I cannot. Everything I have done has been to end the shadow war. I have not the strength to fight it again.
Then you will die, and the one you love will die, and countless others will die for your cowardice. The only way to end a war, Bethany-chan, is to win it. You know this to be true, and you know what you must do...
Bethany's eyes snapped open and scanned the room until they came to rest on the huddled form of Maddy, sleeping fitfully. Sensei is right as always, she mused sadly. Though she knew her old teacher had been dead for years, the voice of cold reason in her head was always his. Someone was bound to find me sooner or later -- I should have been prepared. Now I must decide, take Maddy and run until we hit the inevitable dead-end, or again become the thing I once was and return to the Game?
There was no choice, really.
* * *
Among the glass and steel monoliths of Chicago's financial district, the Old World facade of the Banc Internationale du Suisse was something of an anomaly, an imposing stone edifice, fronted by thick oaken doors with ornate brass handles, that resembled a medieval church more than it did a powerful institution of finance. Still, it bespoke strength and security in a way that had always appealed to Bethany. She had always been enamored of old-style European architecture, and it was one of the things she sorely missed from her former life. One of the very few things. The apartment she and Maddy had abandoned had been filled with books on churches and castles, and Bethany used to spent hours gazing upon her framed prints of the cathedral at Chartres and Balmoral Castle, recalling the times she had spent in those places between missions. She stifled a momentary pang of regret and crossed the sidewalk to enter the bank.
If you would protect the young one, you must remove her from the battleground. You must gather weapons. Both of those objectives would require money, much more than the dwindling supply of cash she had pulled from the ATM during their flight from Cooper's Landing. That's why they had fled to Chicago. Over the years of her service to the Organization, Bethany had been paid extremely well and had deposited a tidy sum in a Swiss bank account for her retirement. She could never have dreamed that she'd need the money to come out of retirement.
Before arriving Bethany had stopped at a boutique and purchased a new outfit -- a pearl-grey blouse, black skirt that accentuated her trim hips and tight bottom, a black leather belt and calf-hugging boots with low heels, and a smart black bolero jacket. Showing up at an international bank that catered to the rich and powerful on five continents in jeans and a flannel shirt would arouse more suspicion than she liked and, if truth be told, she had in her day been something of a clothes-horse, relishing the wardrobe she had accumulated in the course of undercover work in some of the most glamourous cities in the world. Her current ensemble, though bought off the rack, helped to bring back that old feeling, put her mind even more in the predatory mode she would need to get her and Maddy through this.
To this end, she wished she could have worn the Walther P99, still in the glove compartment of her car, but it was impossible. One did not enter the Banc Internationale with a gun unless one wished to be arrested very quickly. After all, security was the institution's greatest asset. She carried a few of her remaining smoke-grenades in her purse, however, and falling back on one of her old customs, she had used spirit gum to attach her hard-plastic lockpicks to her body in certain strategic locations. They felt strange after all this time, but she ignored the slight discomfort they afforded. They had saved her life more times than she could count.
As she passed through the bank's metal detector she gave the two security guards in their immaculate grey shirts and ties a coy smile and a slight flip of her copper hair over her shoulder as she caught them both sliding their eyes over her backside. They grinned sheepishly and watched her glide across the lobby's marble floor to the customer service kiosk.
Bethany fished out a passport, one of several she had kept in the black briefcase containing the scant reserves of her tradecraft, and her Banc Internationale bankbook, both of which identified her as "Elizabeth Stroud," the name under which she kept the account, and asked to make an electronic withdrawal. The girl behind the desk stood and led her out of the lobby to one of the private rooms reserved for the use of particularly valued customers. Inside was a small oak table with a computer terminal set into it. The girl left and Bethany locked the door, glancing at the tiny video camera in a corner of the ceiling as she sat down and tapped in her ID and password.
ACCESS DENIED
Bethany blinked at the monitor for a moment, her brow furrowing. She was sure she had entered the correct information. Her password was obscure but simple -- there was no way she could have forgotten it. She cleared the fields and retyped the information.
ACCESS DENIED
This was impossible. Banc Internationale's electronic system was supposed to be impregnable and glitch-free. No one knew about this account. It had been her safety net, her bulwark against hard times. Not even the Organization--
Suddenly it hit her like a lightning bolt behind her eyes. "Jack," she murmured. "You bastard."
It had to be Jack. Her controller had known her like the back of his hand. It was his job to know her, to anticipate her needs in the field and supply her with information and equipment, sometimes before she even asked for it. She had been one of the best partly because he was one of the best, a wizard of behind-the-scenes operations with an almost eerie sense of prescience. Pulling off the impossible had been routine for him. How he had found out about her account she had no idea, but the fact that he had was something she knew with instant certainty. Jack wanted her back in the Organization, wanted to find out what Blevins and Ducharme were looking for. It would be exactly his style to hack into her supposedly hack-proof account and head off her escape.
Escape. Bethany bolted up out of her chair. If Jack truly had broken into her account, then her attempt to access it had just sent up a flare that revealed precisely where she was. I've got to get out of here now.
She took a moment to compose herself, reaching for her center of calm alertness. Perhaps there had actually been some technical failure after all -- in any case, she would need to be cool and collected to walk out of there. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she unlocked the door and strolled out into the lobby, eyes scanning the room for anything amiss.
There. The two security guards at the entrance. One was hanging up a phone at their station. Both had the flaps on their holsters undone and were moving toward her, their eyes cold and steely with the authority and purpose of cops on the job. No doubt about it, they'd been alerted to apprehend her.
She continued forward without a drop in her stride, purse slung over her shoulder, hands loose at her sides. They would try to make this as quick and quiet as possible to avoid a scene that might disrupt the austere atmosphere and alarm the Banc's patrons and employees. That meant they'd have to get close to her.
The guards were just doing their job. Bethany almost felt bad for what was about to happen.
The beefier of the two came forward to stand over her, speaking in low tones, "Miss, I'm afraid we'll have to ask you to--" His next words vanished in a loud croak as Bethany brought her knee up with startling speed and slammed it into his groin. He doubled over and she grabbed his necktie, pulling it around his throat as she planted both hands on his back and vaulted pommel-horse-style, whipping her legs around in a blur of motion to crack both bootheels into his partner's jaw. As the second guard went down, Bethany landed and yanked hard on the first man's tie, hauling him forward and over. His head hit the marble floor with a ringing crack. Bethany released him and bolted for the doors, the gasps and screams of the others in the lobby following her outside. Whipping off her new belt, she wrapped the thick leather twice around the doorhandles and buckled it, effectively locking everyone inside the Banc.
Brushing past startled passersby, she sprinted down the sidewalk, bootheels clacking on the concrete as she scrambled to fish her car keys from her purse and thanked whatever fates had allowed her to find on-street parking in downtown Chicago. She had to get moving before whatever troops Jack had dispatched arrived to take her in. There was the Volvo, and here was the key. She rounded the car and slid the key into the lock.
Just then a large black van roared around the corner in a squeal of tires, causing other cars to swerve out of its way. Bethany dropped her keys and started to run, but only got a few steps when the van cut her off, screeching to a halt in front of her, the side panel already sliding open. Bethany stopped short, staring down the oiled,sinister barrels of a pair of Uzi submachine guns held by two men in dark suits. Trapped between the van and her own car, Bethany was caught and she knew it.
One of the men smiled crookedly. "Ms. Jones, I presume."
Flow -- allow the moment to provide, said Tanaka sensei's voice inside her head as two more suits emerged, snatching her purse away as each took an arm and shoved her roughly into the van. The men climbed in after her and the door slid closed with an ominous thunk, and the van pulled out into the morning traffic and disappeared into the canyons of the Windy City.
* * *
I'm missing my trig exam. Clad in just her new powder-blue T-shirt,white cotton panties, and her point shoes, Madeleine executed a slow plie', drawing it out to stretch her hamstrings, her brow furrowed as stray thoughts bounced around the inside of her skull. The spring recital is in two weeks and I'm going to miss that, too.
Rising back to point, then down, she shook her head to clear it, but to no avail. She was alone in the suite, Beth having left before she woke up, with no one to talk to but herself, and the sheer triviality of her inner concerns bothered her. It was an aspect of herself that Maddy despised, this tendency to focus on minutiae whenever she found herself in a stressful situation. It could be worse, I suppose. I could do that nervous giggling thing that Sherry Brock does. Oh God -- I borrowed Sherry's black sweater and never gave it back! She'll kill me!
She rolled her eyes at that last thought. If anyone was going to kill her, it certainly wouldn't be Sherry Brock. Her eyes strayed to the table where the barely touched breakfast Beth had left lay, with the terse note beside it: Maddy -- Went out to get some traveling cash. I'll be back soon and then we can talk. While I'm gone, DON'T OPEN THE DOOR FOR ANYONE! Everything will be all right, I promise. I love you. Beth. Short, sweet, and scary as hell -- if Beth's note was meant to reassure her, it failed miserably. Maddy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, closed her eyes and dipped into another slow plie'.
Halfway down she froze, eyes snapping open at the sound of scratching at the door behind her. Then she heard the familiar beep-click of an electric keycard sliding into the lock. As the door open, she turned, relieved. "Beth, you scared the--" Her words died on her lips as the man-mountain she knew only as "Sarge" filled the doorway.
The moment of silence and frozen shock seemed to stretch for days, electric and terrifying. Then suddenly they were both in motion, the mercenary lunging forward as Maddy bolted for the bedroom like a rabbit, banging her right thigh hard on the corner of a chair as she ran past it. She slammed the connecting door and fumbled to lock it, but the man charged the door, splintering the frame and knocking her backward. Maddy scrambled onto the bed, snatching desperately for the phone on the nightstand. Then he was on top of her, pinning her down and yanking the receiver from her hand. She opened her mouth to scream bloody murder but all that came out was a tortured "MMMMPPHH!" against the enormous hand that clamped over her mouth.
"Settle down now, Madeleine," Sarge murmured, his weight crushing her against the bedcovers. "You're only going to get yourself hurt. The more you struggle, the worse it'll be. Do you understand?"
Maddy stopped thrashing, tears welling in her eyes as she nodded slowly, just trying to breathe.
"Good girl," Sarge grunted and spoke to someone over his shoulder. "Give me three of those napkins."
As the man shifted his weight, Maddy's eyes flicked toward the end of the bed, expecting to see more goons like the ones who had been with Sarge when they'd broken into the apartment. Instead there was a woman, a short, stocky brunette dressed in the uniform of the hotel's housekeeping staff. She had come in behind Sarge, wheeling in a large canvas laundry hamper. Maddy mmmpphhed and squirmed, her eyes widening as she realized what was coming next.
"I said hold still," Sarge said through gritted teeth as he wadded the first linen napkin into a tight ball and forced it between Maddy's lips, pushing it in with his fingers until it filled her mouth and pressed down her tongue. The woman took a second napkin and rolled it diagonally, then handed it to Sarge, who pulled it between her teeth, trapping the wad inside. The rolled napkin cut into the corners of her mouth as he pulled it back, pushed her cascade of brown hair forward, and knotted the cloth tightly behind her head. The "maid" folded a third napkin with deft fingers into a wide band. Sarge took it and pulled it over the cleave-gag, mashing her lips as he tied this one as well. Maddy made a sound, but even she could barely hear it. She began to weep quietly, mewing against the layers of linen that gagged her as Sarge picked himself up and pulled her arms behind her back.
The maid produced four neat rolls of white cord from the pocket of her apron, handed two to Sarge, then came round with the others to Maddy's futilely kicking feet. While the man wrapped the girl's wrists several times, palm to palm, then cinched the cords with a couple of turns between her wrists, the woman did the same with her ankles. The pair of intruders worked with almost mechanical efficiency, Sarge pulling Maddy's arms and shoulders back and wrapping more cord about her upper arms until her elbows were almost touching as the "maid" tied her bare legs above and below her knees. Maddy cried out in pain and terror against the multilayered gag but again barely made a sound. Finally the woman bent Maddy's legs back until the heels of her point shoes brushed against her pantied bottom and Sarge used the long ends of her wrist-bonds to tie wrists to ankles.
Sarge picked himself up off the bed and looked down at their captive, squirming feebly on the bed in a brutal hogtie. Meanwhile his accomplice went to the laundry hamper and pulled a layer of sheets off the top, then spoke for the first time in an unpleasant, husky voice. "Ready."
Sarge nodded and scooped Maddy's bowed form in his arms, depositing her carefully into the nest of sheets and towels at the bottom of the hamper, wedging her in. Maddy shook her head wildly and mewed as the smell of used linens assaulted her senses. She struggled but between the hogtie and the unyielding canvas of the hamper she could do little more than wiggle feet and fingers helplessly, and when the woman dropped the layer of sheets in her arms on top of her, it was all Maddy could do just to breathe.
Silently the pair moved out of the suite, Sarge pushing the now-heavy hamper while the "maid" took the point. As they wheeled their burden out into the hall and closed the door, they passed a bellhop who wished them both a very pleasant morning. Though the hop was but inches away from Maddy, who struggled and screamed for all she was worth, he didn't detect a thing.
* * *
To be continued...