***
The loud noise of a helicopter landing close by awakened me to a throbbing, debilitating pain in my right side and a sharp ache in my wrists. I slowly opened my eyes as an overpowering feeling of nausea caused me to vomit. Blood oozed out of my mouth and ran down my chin—dripping onto the floor. I gasped while surveying my surroundings. I was handcuffed—the links having been looped around the pipe of an incomplete sprinkler system installed overhead. However, even though the pipe was unfinished, a protruding cutoff valve effectively prevented me from sliding the chain off of the end of it. The man I had just fought was standing directly across from me with his right arm hung in a sling. Another powerfully built man was mixing what appeared to be cement in a large trough. Next to him was Reina's tanto. Chang must have taken it from me while I was unconscious, I thought. It was resting on a concrete block and the tip of the blade was being heated by an acetylene torch. It glowed orange.
While continuing to survey my surroundings, I saw Stacy, AJ, and Shannon standing on my left. They were still hooded and their arms and legs were bound to floor support posts. I straightened up my stance in order to take the weight off of my wrists. The steel cuffs had cut into them, adding to my suffering. Even the slightest movement of my body caused a wave of pain and nausea to wash over me. Colonel Chang walked up to me and after taking out a cloth, wiped the blood off my chin. While speaking in Mandarin Chinese and gazing at the tattoo on my left arm, he remarked, "You fought honorably and courageously for your family. Your teacher would be proud of you. But you are young and cocky. In a battle, just because a single skirmish has been won, does not mean the enemy is completely defeated. Remember this if you live to fight again." He bowed, and then turned about to face a man who had just entered from another door on the far side of the room.
One look at this man's face and I immediately recognized him to be Gunther Muller. He had short, blonde hair, deep, penetrating, blue eyes, and handsome, masculine, features. He was dressed in a white jacket with matching white pants. There was no doubt he was Shannon's father and I even observed traces of his face in AJ. Gunther walked over to Shannon, removed her hood, and then greeted her with, "Hello, Ursula."
I could see by Shannon's eyes that she had been crying. She wore the same expression as she had the Wednesday afternoon when Kyle Sloan brought her into her mother's room—a look of utter despair. She glanced in my direction and for a brief moment I saw a glimmer of hope light up her face, but it quickly vanished as she grasped my situation.
"Hello, Ingrid" said Gunther as he also removed AJ's hood. She too, had shed tears. Finally, he walked over to Stacy and removed her hood. Like her daughters, she had been crying as well. Gunther stared at her while smirking arrogantly but said nothing.
Colonel Chang greeted him and then while pointing to me said, "Hanging from the chain around his neck is an old style, Russian, I.C.B.M. launch key."
Gunther approached me, and then after examining my key in his hand, he yanked it hard. The chain painfully cut into the back of my neck before finally snapping. "Why do you have this in your possession and what do you need it for?" he curiously asked while continuing to examine it.
"It's—" I started to reply.
"Give it back to him!" AJ suddenly shouted—startling both Gunther and myself!
Gunther stared at her with his right eyebrow cocked. Then turning to Chang, he said, "Take this key and give it to my pilot for safekeeping. I'll be joining you both shortly."
Chang spoke to him for a few more moments but the words were inaudible. He then turned and left through the same door Gunther had entered.
"Colonel Chang says your fighting skill is extraordinary," remarked Gunther. "He has also informed me that he has gravely injured you. Your ribs are broken and they are cutting into your organs. You are slowly bleeding to death internally."
I responded by again, throwing up more blood onto the floor. Gunther looked at his watch and then at me while slowly shaking his head no with an expression of pity on his face.
"I don't usually get involved in mundane affairs like this," he continued while glancing over at the girls. "But since it's a family matter, it required my personal attention. I suppose you are wondering what's going on?"
I said nothing.
"Are you a student of history?"
I nodded in the affirmative.
"In the Bible, in the Old Testament, after King Nebuchadnezzar II of the Babylonian Empire had conquered Jerusalem, he set a man named Zedekiah in place as its king. As long as Zedekiah paid tribute, everything went smoothly for him. But Zedekiah didn't want to be subject to the Babylonians. He wanted autonomy, and so he rebelled. As a result, Nebuchadnezzar marched his army down and besieged the city of Jerusalem. He captured Zedekiah who was trying to flee. He brought him to Babylon, and there he made an example of him. He took Zedekiah's sons and made Zedekiah watch as they were killed in front of him. Then he immediately gouged out Zedekiah's eyes and put him in prison for the rest of his life.
After my daughters are dead, their bodies will be put in those two spaces you see in the floor over there. This cement will be poured over them. The floor of this building is going to be a new office for me. In a manner, I'll always have my daughters with me under my feet so to speak. I'll keep Stacy at my house solely for amusement. However, I'm not going to soil my hands gouging out her eyes," he remarked while glancing at her and then walking over to the tanto. He put on a glove and picked it up while closely examining the hot, glowing tip. "This should do the trick, don't you think?"
"I think when she said you were a demon she was being kind." I replied.
He laughed and then asked, "Am I right in assuming she never told you why I treat her the way I do? Why I treat her like the whore that she is?"
"Yes, you're right. However, I did a little investigation on my own and would like to venture a guess."
"By all means," he replied while setting Reina's blade back down.
"It all started when a handsome high school senior, an exchange student from Germany named Gunther Ajax Muller, came to spend his final year at a California high school. There he met a fellow senior; a stunning, blue-eyed blonde named Stacy Lou Johnson. Gunther wanted her sexually, and with his good looks and charm, he was able to seduce her one night. As a result of this passionate encounter, Stacy found herself pregnant. Given Stacy's social and family background, the stigma of her having to graduate being six months pregnant was too much of an embarrassment for her well-to-do family. Because she rejected their advice to abort the child, her family disowned her.
Gunther, now feeling guilty about what he had done, promised he would marry her after graduation. He married Stacy, not out of genuine love, but solely out of a sense of obligation. Unfortunately, because he was not fluent in American English and because he had only a high school education, he had great difficulty in finding a job that paid enough to support his wife and new born daughter. Out of desperation, he turned to the business of organized crime where the pay-off is equal to the risk. The risks got bigger as he moved up the ladder in the criminal organization in which he was a part. I speculate that over time, Stacy was not entirely happy about her marriage or about her husband's employment, but she had her hands full trying to raise three young girls.
Gunther's assignments began to take him away from home more and more, and Stacy saw him less and less. Her emotional tank became empty and it went dry for a long time simply because she had no one to fill it. She began to look elsewhere for affection and fulfillment. I'm thinking she found it in someone close; someone who she could see but not raise suspicion about being around; Gunther's personal bodyguard perhaps? He was possibly a well-built, good-looking man. She was a very beautiful woman and her advances would be hard to ignore. However, one day Gunther found out about their little clandestine tryst. But I'm not sure how."
"In a drunken state, he bragged about it to the wrong people," Gunther interjected.
"When you found out about it you
went ballistic," I continued. "Jealousy and paranoia consumed you. You beat her and had the bodyguard executed. Hence, your current bodyguard, Colonel Chang; a man who's appearance would present no adulterous appeal to your new wife. This affair also led to your becoming apprehensive about your two youngest children. Now you weren't even sure if you had fathered Shannon and Amber-Joy, even though there's no mistaking the family resemblance. But paranoia and jealousy will do that. You accused Stacy of being a whore, even though I believe she begged you to forgive her—to give her a second chance. However, you were unwilling. From the beginning you never genuinely loved her, and now your ego had been bruised.
Life with you became miserable and unbearable as you could not get over this one incident. You were and still are riding a power 'high' as you continued to physically abuse Stacy, Shannon, and Amber-Joy over the smallest incidents. For Stacy, divorce and a restraining order became the only means of survival—further wounding your pride. Of course you weren't going to let her go. If she couldn't be your wife, she would now be the plaything that satisfied your men. Knowing you would and could kill her and her daughters at any given moment has kept them in bondage all these years. How Stacy has been able to maintain her sanity and emotional stability throughout this continual ordeal is completely beyond me.
The only positive thing to come out of all of this is that Shannon has learned from her mother’s mistakes, hardship, and instruction and is not going to follow in her footsteps when it comes to her own relationship with guys.”
"A dazzling display of deductive reasoning," remarked Gunther while appearing visibly impressed. "Your research and observational skills are nothing short of brilliant; that is, apart from your shameful attempt at trying to psychoanalyze me as a deranged villain."
Our conversation was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Inspector Carter into the room. He appeared nervous as he walked up to Gunther and handed him a manila envelope.
"You're late as usual," remarked Gunther with disgust.
"Listen," replied Carter. "There are four more of your men lying dead outside on the ground!"
"I saw their bodies as the helicopter circled the building," replied Gunther nonchalantly.
"Isn't a police officer supposed to be a person of honor and integrity?" I challenged. "Didn't you take an oath of office and swear to uphold it?"
"You've got a big mouth and a big nose," he replied while glaring at me. Then he walked over to me and back-handed me across my face. Next, he turned and exited the room.
"Kevlov," remarked Gunther while turning to face the man who had been stirring the concrete mixture. "Follow him. Use his gun and make it look like a suicide. Park his car in a secluded spot. When you are finished, come back here and dispose of the four bodies lying outside. Then cement the bodies of my two daughters into the floor space over there."
Kevlov nodded yes and then followed after Carter.
Now turning his attention back to me Gunther remarked, "I have no further use of the police and since he is a liability…"
He reached inside the envelope and pulled out its contents. They included my passport and student visa, along with some other paperwork. He carefully examined each one and then finally remarked, "Now we come to the matter of you."
I was suddenly seized by a nauseous feeling mingled with dread and once again, I vomited blood up onto the floor.
"My question now is this: Who are you?" he asked.
I did not reply.
"According to your high school application, your name is Lance Joseph Rock. You are a Canadian citizen residing in Ontario. Santa Barbara Area Senior High School made you take the S.A.T. as a prerequisite to being accepted into their Student Exchange Program. You finished that test in record time with a perfect score. Record time with a perfect score," he repeated while slowly shaking his head in amazement. "You are fluent in over a dozen languages and you are well-versed in at least a dozen more. I won't even attempt to speculate as to what your I.Q. level is. It says here that you were homeschooled by your mother. There is no father listed. My organization primarily employs proven, distinguished, ex-military personnel, yet you went through them like they were nothing more than boot-camp recruits!"
I noticed that the whole time he was talking; Shannon was staring at me with a look of astonishment on her face.
"I ask you again," continued Gunther while walking over to retrieve the tanto. "Who are you?"
I shook my head, sighed, and weakly replied, "Just a guy who found himself in the wrong place at the right time."
He strode over to Shannon, grabbed her by the back of her head and held the glowing tip of the knife an inch away from her face. He screamed, "IF YOU DO NOT ANSWER MY QUESTION, I'LL KEEP HER ALIVE WITH A FACE SO SCARRED SHE'LL NEVER WANT TO LOOK IN A MIRROR AGAIN!"
Dawn of the Knight: The Lance Rock Chronicles Volume 1. Page 45
