by Jonas Saul
Someone set this up. Someone is setting me up.
All eyes in the immediate area were on her. She was sure that the passengers surrounding her seat weren’t thinking about their delay to Toronto anymore. They wanted to see some action.
Fucking rubberneckers.
“Hard or easy, huh?” she asked. “Those are my options?”
“Wait!” a man yelled from down the aisle near the front of the plane. Heads turned to see the new arrival. A man in a long black overcoat and a black fedora made his way toward her.
Rod Howley. Motherfucker.
“Ahh,” Sarah said. “Now I understand what’s happening here.”
“Fall back, men. Give her a chance to stand on her own legs before they’re both broken.”
“Is that how it’s going to be?” Sarah asked. “How did you do it? How could you reroute this plane? Are you that powerful now?”
The thin aisle offered little wiggle room when two well-built men needed to pass one another. Rod forced his way through as best he could and stopped at her seat.
“Sarah, we have danced together too long. It’s over. You’re on American soil now. You’re mine. You don’t have Parkman here to help. No one on this plane knows who you are.” He leaned closer. “Have you no honor? Do this to help your fellow American. Have you no soul? Do what I need you to do to help your fellow human being. Come with me willingly and show me what you’re made of. Help me help them,” he said, waving an arm around the cabin.
She looked away. Outside, all she saw was a distant city, grass and tarmac. It looked like the terminal stood a mile away. Even if she figured out how to get past this many men, where would she run to?
He had finally done it. He got her. She had no choice.
Without looking at him, she said, “Yes, I have a soul. That’s why I do what I do in the first place. That’s why I fight for the weak and I won’t work for the government.”
The couple in the seat in front of her gasped at the same time. She realized they were assuming she justified murder in such a way.
It was time to leave. This wasn’t the place or the time to make a stand.
“I’ll come peacefully,” she said. “Step back, give me some room, and I will leave this plane with you.”
“You’re right you’ll be leaving this plane with me.”
“Cocky much?” Sarah asked.
Rod stepped back and motioned for his men to give her room. Sarah lifted her carryon and edged along the seats until she reached the aisle where she stood and turned to face Rod.
“You bastard. You, sir, are a fucking whore. You have sold your soul to the government. I think I will have to kill you one day, Rod Howley. There will come a time when I will fear you no more.”
Rod didn’t smile. He didn’t act cocky. He stepped aside and nodded his head.
Sarah’s legs were swept out from under her. She barely had enough time to brace herself and protect her face as she hit the carpeted floor of the airplane aisle. She tried to spin onto her back but couldn’t. Too many men pounced at the same time. Someone’s knee jammed into her back with another knee on her neck. They were doing something to her feet.
It ended as fast as it started. Rough hands grabbed her and lifted until she stood on her feet again. She looked down at the two large, iron cuffs on her ankles, connected by a chain.
“Are you serious?”
A nearby passenger asked Rod if that was necessary. Rod cautioned him to mind his own business.
“You will not run from me again,” Rod said. “I assure you of that.”
Her carryon bag lay on the aisle floor having slipped off her shoulder when she was knocked down. One of the men grabbed it.
“Hey!”
Another man grabbed her forearm and, before she could stop him, slapped handcuffs on her wrists. He stepped behind her and turned her shoulders until she was facing Rod again.
“There. You’re all tied up and ready for transport to prison. Let’s go.”
Rod turned and started up the aisle. Sarah caught a glimpse of the couple who had sat in front of her. The woman shook her head back and forth in disgust.
If they only knew.
Sarah shuffled forward as the ankle cuffs offered little leeway. A staircase had been rolled up to the side of the plane. The sun broke through the clouds, reflecting off the white metal steps. The space between her ankles wasn’t enough to manage the stairs. Even before she could protest, a man on either side lifted an arm each and carried her down the steps to the tarmac where they set her back down.
Both her arms felt like they’d be bruised bad. All the way down she fought the urge to scream from the pain of their combined grip.
The SUVs all sat with their doors open. They guided her to the middle one parked near the tip of the airplane’s wing.
Rod moved up beside her. No one spoke. She knew the drill. Do this, do that, comply with them, and then find a hole in Rod’s armor. She’d get out. There’s a way. There was always a way.
At the vehicle, the ankle cuffs prevented her from lifting her leg high enough to enter so she turned to Rod.
He grabbed her hair behind her right ear and twisted her head back until his face loomed over hers.
“Shit, that hurts,” she said through clenched teeth.
Water filled her eyes. It had been awhile since that much hair had been pulled at the same time.
“You’re mine now,” Rod said, his nose an inch from hers. “We parlayed too much in Europe. Until I’m satisfied you have a gift or not, you will never be out of my sight again. Got it?”
She tried to nod. When he let go, she righted her head, the pain fresh and sharp.
The man behind her held a baton.
Where the fuck did that come from?
He lifted it and swung.
She had no chance.
The end of the baton hit her in the exact spot where Rod had pulled on her hair.
Sarah was out before she hit the tarmac.
Chapter 2
Elmore Ackerman looked out his kitchen window as he poured his coffee. He thought about his prisoner in the basement and how sweet she was. Had he broken Jackie yet? Was it time for a new slave? Maybe she needed further lessons, one that brought out the animal side of human nature. Or maybe she just needed to die quickly so he could move on.
He set the pot back, stirred and sipped his coffee and then started for his office. Jackie could wait in her cage. He would deal with her later tonight or tomorrow. By then, he would have decided her fate.
At his desk, he turned on his MacBook and brought up his finance page for the twenty-two vending machines he had scattered across Japan. The used panty business had been flourishing for years. Japan was the leading country selling used panties and Elmore was no stranger to the business. Vending machines had popped up all over Japan with Elmore’s machines going in almost two years ago. Now it financed all of his ventures, from the cages in the basement to his photo studio downtown Toronto where he collected the best panty shots for verification and authenticity.
Craigslist had made him a certain amount over the years, but the vending machines were his golden goose.
He leaned on the desk with his elbow while he picked at the ten-year-old scab on the side of his head. He’d banged his head many years ago and it had never healed properly. He wouldn’t leave the scab alone, picking it until it bled. Only recently had he tried to calm it down to facilitate healing, but the Jackie situation stressed him out. She’d been his sex partner for almost six months now. He had grown bored recently. He needed someone new. And Jackie cried through the night too much for his liking.
A piece of the scab came off and lodged under his nail. He examined his nail and then eased the small piece of bloody crust out from under it, tossing it in the trash can.
Elmore opened the desk drawer on his right and grabbed a little black container that originally held a roll of film. He flipped off the lid and looked inside. The fingernails stored within were
for moments like this. A few of his were in there, along with Jackie’s and the girls who came before her. He shuffled the contents and reached in to grab one of the thicker toenails. Then, carefully, he placed the lid back on the film container and set it on his desk.
After another sip of his coffee, Elmore eased the toenail between his front teeth and began the long task of diligently rolling the nail between all of his teeth over and over. He could never get bored with a good nail in his mouth. The simple pleasure of moving the nail around the tongue and between the teeth brought back wonderful memories of girls now dead and buried on his property. Girls who had performed beyond their years and given him hundreds upon hundreds of photos for his panty business at no charge. Actually, they paid him with their feminine gifts.
He examined the sales increases on his computer screen and smiled, the nail stuck near his molars. He scratched another piece of the scab off his head, tossing it in the trash after careful examination.
The sun shone through the window behind him, bright and warm on his back. In that moment, he decided: Jackie needed to go. He would get a new girl this week, he was sure of it. The scab on his head felt great. Sales were up. Life was good, and Elmore needed to kill again. The urge was too intense to ignore.
Maybe one day he could get the girl he had always dreamed of. Women like Jackie were kind, gentle. Elmore felt he needed a challenge. Girls like Sarah Roberts, now that would be fun. He wondered how she’d react to being photographed in a pair of panties. He wondered how she’d take the drugged sex and violence he enjoyed.
On the opposite wall sat a large cork board that Elmore had purchased at a store that catered to teachers. On the cork board sat every picture he could ever find of Sarah Roberts. The newspapers had reported on her exploits at a Mormon compound. Elmore had been able to locate old editorials on people Sarah had saved from kidnappings, burning buildings and car accidents. It was amazing and awe-inspiring. Not many women had those kinds of talents and those kinds of looks. Sarah Roberts was model-stunning gorgeous. There was no doubt about it.
“One day, Sarah Roberts,” Elmore said, staring at the pictures across the room on his wall. “I will get you and the two of us will have many months to get to know each other better. I’m sure you taste as good as you look.”
He lifted his coffee, toasted her, and took a large sip. Before he could stop it, the coffee washed the toenail down his throat as he swallowed.
“Shit.”
He grabbed the black container and pulled out another long, thick one, placed it near his wisdom teeth and shoved it down in between. His tongue found the nail and began to coax it around.
He had studied Sarah ever since she was rumored to have saved a news anchorwoman from a car accident on the St. Elizabeth Bridge almost five years ago. He knew she had recently been in Hungary and she would want to come back to North America soon.
“Knowledge is power, and Elmore is knowledge,” he said to the empty room.
Sarah was everything he desired. The only small problem, which he felt he could get over, was her age. She was at least seven years older than he would normally look for in a hostage. At twenty-four, she had been used up too much, but Elmore was willing to let that go, if only for a year of her time. One year in the cage, her food drugged, blacked out most of the time, she’d become dependent on him and learn to love him. Then, when completely docile, she would bore him, and he’d give her a proper burial out back. She deserved it after all the people she’d saved. If only he could tell where she’d be next.
“Where will you turn up next, Sarah?” he asked out loud.
A few of the newspapers he’d read suggested that Sarah had died in the Danube River outside Esztergom, Hungary, but he knew that to be false. Sarah was too tough, too strong. She’d turn up again, and when she did, he would be waiting.
Elmore picked up the black container and spit the nail back in. He replaced the container in his desk and stood.
“Sorry, Jackie, but you have to go. Sarah’s coming. I’m sure of it, and I want to be ready. Gotta make room for her. She’s on her way and wherever she lands, I will find a way there and find her. Then I will bring her back here. I will own Sarah Roberts. She will be my little pet.”
Elmore walked away from his desk and headed for the basement, a crooked smile on his face. Maybe he should have Jackie one more time before he killed her. Or, maybe one more time after he killed her. He’d decide when she showed him how much she loved him.
He opened the basement door and started down the stairs, becoming aroused with each step.
Chapter 3
The pain never seemed to stop. Sarah woke slowly, sprawled out on the hard floor of a small, dank room. Any sort of movement caused her headache to flare. It felt like a brain-eating cockroach worked on her insides and the little light in the room caused it to scurry through her frontal lobe searching for a hiding spot, but finding none.
With both hands on her temples, massaging in slow circles, Sarah tried to roll over and get to her feet, but she did this act of bravery as slow as her fingers moved.
A single bulb hung suspended from the ceiling, lighting what looked like an interrogation room. She had been in many over her short life. This one was no different other than the wet, musty smell.
A wooden table and chair sat to her right. She crawled over and got on the chair with great effort. She eased her head down to the table and rested it, forehead to wood, until the pain rescinded.
Her right hand felt around the back of her head and then her neck, pushing the muscles in that area to loosen them up. Something flicked across her fingers. She shouted out in pain.
“What the fuck?”
She touched the back of her neck again, this time more careful to not push or cause further damage. Stitches were sewn into her skin behind her ear, just under the hairline.
Did that guy hit me with the baton so hard it split my skin? No wonder I’m in so much pain.
She raised her head high enough to look at the two-way glass.
“Assholes, get me some fucking Advil. And get me Rod Howley. Tell him I want to talk. But not until I have a conversation with Mr. Advil. We have business to attend to first.”
She lowered her head slowly and rested it on the wooden table, her fingers at work on her temples again.
She wondered why Vivian hadn’t warned her about Rod. Or maybe told her to take a different flight. Was this one of those, let Sarah walk into a trap, only to break her out and in doing so, catch the bad guys as that was the only way to nail them? If that’s the way it’s supposed to be, that sucked. She hated having to figure shit out as it happened. People got hurt that way. Sarah got hurt that way.
She knew Rod was powerful. His government gave him more control over others than he should have. They had an agenda and it was to be achieved at all costs. She wondered what their real agenda was and why the urgency. If they really believed Sarah had some kind of psychic powers, which evidently they did, then Rod had shown her he could do anything to detain her. If she was really psychic, couldn’t she have seen him coming? Would she ever get out, or were they that powerful? Could Rod and his group make her disappear?
She understood that her situation grew increasingly dire each and every day. The longer she stayed locked up, her chances of escape worsened. But if she showed them what they wanted, Sarah felt she’d never get out. Their appetite would never be sated.
The door to the room cracked open and something got tossed in. She looked down at a small bottle of Advil as it settled a few feet from her chair. Moving her head ever so slowly, she scanned more of the floor but couldn’t find any water.
Fuck it. I’ll chew the little bastards.
She lowered herself off the chair and slumped to the floor. The pain stayed constant, but didn’t spike as she took care to move slow and calculated. The Advil bottle held six tablets. She popped all six in her mouth, chewed and swallowed them as fast as she could, then lay back and stared at the ceiling.
<
br /> Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and I’ll feel this knife lift out of my skull.
The door opened again. Someone stepped in and closed it behind them. Sarah didn’t bother to look. She knew whoever it was would present themselves soon enough. Her visitor walked the few steps to the table and slammed something on the top hard enough to flare her head.
“Fucking asshole. I asked for Advil because I have a headache the size of Texas. Don’t slam things around or I’ll get pissed off. Right now, I’d prefer to not have any fun, so stay quiet.”
“I’m afraid I can’t stay quiet,” Rod Howley said. “We have business.”
