by Leon, Judith
Singh hurried toward the door. Nova watched as Jean Paul rose from the chair like an old, old man. The handsome features drooped. The lost-and-fearful-child look was gone now. His eyes were simply dull. Her heart wept as he followed Singh out the door like an obedient slave. Jean Paul was gone.
Maurus turned to Stephan. “We can’t change our command center in the middle of the operation. But we have to tighten security. Do it.”
Stephan left, leaving only four of them in the office. To Wyczek, Maurus said, “We have to know what they know, who they represent, how much they may have told anyone, and most important, if they’ve found or passed any proof. Find out however you can, as fast as you can. I’ll be in Communications.”
Giving Joe a final look of burning disgust, the man with the flaccid face left her and Joe in Wyczek’s hands.
“So what the hell is going on?” Joe asked Wyczek. “I can see why Hass is pissed with our snooping around for his formula, but what’s with all the violence? We didn’t find anything. Wouldn’t throwing us off the grounds be sufficient punishment?”
Wyczek snorted a chuckle. “Industrial espionage? We’re not into fairy tales, Cardone.”
The bodyguard—or whatever he really was—circled behind the desk, sat and propped his feet up. With eyes as cold as a meat locker and just as dead as its contents, he silently studied them. Finally he put his feet on the floor. “I think this’ll work best if we start with you, Cardone.”
The door opened and in walked Hass. The White Praying Mantis had arrived. Scowling, he snapped in German, “Get out of that chair.”
Wyczek obeyed and came out from behind the desk.
“I was told they were here,” Hass continued in German. “I want the woman.”
“Maurus told me to interrogate them.”
“You can have the man,” the White Mantis said, “but I want the woman.”
Tendrils of fear that had been writhing in her stomach became coiling spirals that made it hard for her to breathe.
A smile, full of acid, curled Hass’s lips.
He stared pointedly at her breasts, cupped in a black bra. A thin White Mantis digit reached forward and caressed the tip of one nipple. An electric wave of revulsion flashed over her entire body. In English he said, “We shall spend some time together, you and I. Indeed, we will get to know each other quite—intimately.”
Chapter 27
10:20 a.m.
Hass marched Nova down a short corridor, still headed north away from the mountain. They turned right and marched maybe another hundred feet. Hass, having taken her gun from Wyczek, repeatedly jabbed the muzzle into her spine. Apprehension—better not to call it panic—constricted her throat. She tried to but couldn’t ignore the niches along the corridor holding more bronze monstrosities.
You can survive. You know you can.
Several steps before they reached a door, Hass commanded, “Stop.” He stepped around her and pushed open the door. Beyond lay cosmic darkness. An acid smile twisted his pink lips. “After you, my dear.”
The wave of panic flushed up again and on its crest, fear of the dark unknown. Don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing weakness.
Hass followed behind her and flipped on the light. The large room was a sculptor’s studio. In one corner stood a four-poster bed, handcuffs attached to each post.
“What have you done to Jean Paul?” she asked.
“Jean Paul will soon be elected Bavarian representative. Then he will run for the chancellorship. What has happened to him in no way hurts him. It simply makes him loyal, permanently.”
That explained why they were going to kill Chancellor Gottfried. To ensure that Jean Paul would be elected. Gottfried was deeply respected, a man actually philosophically akin to Jean Paul. Doubtless the only man who might have a chance to defeat Jean Paul. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
“Not yet.”
He waved the gun toward another uncomfortable-looking, straight-backed, metal chair. “Sit!” he commanded.
She forced down another surge of panic. If Hass meant what he said and made the mistake of not killing her at once, she still had hope.
“You are feeling uncomfortable, are you not?”
She refused to play.
He ignored her pointed silence and went on. “It is a terrible thing to lack control of oneself. I personally can think of nothing worse than the humiliation it involves. A great deal of the distress you are feeling stems from knowing you are no longer in charge of your life—and never will be again. You know I control it.”
The mass in her stomach exploded and shivers swept over her skin in waves. There wasn’t any point calling this anxiety. This was galloping fear, and Hass had named its exact source.
“Psychiatrists say the happiest people are ones who feel they command their destiny.” He was almost crooning to her. “This is true regardless of whether, in fact, anyone can actually guide their fate. To achieve happiness, it is enough for people to merely feel they are in control. We will have time to talk about destiny.”
As quick as the flash of a strobe, she understood him. Hass was an ultimate control freak. Not just of his own life, a compulsion they shared. No, Hass needed to control others, body and soul. She wondered what in his past might have so twisted his spirit—and as a result, left her helpless now in an insane man’s clutches.
He smiled again, a sly, knowing smile. “I am now in charge of your fate. I imagine it would surprise you to know that I plan to make you immortal.”
Wyczek grinned at Joe. “I gotta piss. Then we get down to business.” He chuckled, the first time Joe had ever heard Wyczek make any sound of pleasure. The bodyguard stood, walked to the door and said, “I’ll be back.” He stepped out and closed the door.
Hell. The creep even sounded like Arnold Schwart-zenegger in The Terminator. Same accent.
Joe squirmed against the metal chair. His arms were bound behind it and his chest was tied to it, but his legs were free. He tried to wiggle down and out. No go. The rope was way too tight.
He was pretty sure he was still bleeding, but more slowly, thank God. For maybe twenty minutes his arm had been more or less numb. He hopped the chair once toward the door. Sparklers shot through his head. If he could crash the chair into the door when Wyczek came through, maybe he could throw the guard off balance.
He hopped the chair again. And again. Ignoring the hot flashes of pain, he made it to the door. If he positioned the chair too close to the door, he couldn’t hit Wyczek with much force. He’d only make the sonofabitch mad. Too far back and he might miss altogether and topple harmlessly backward.
He heard footsteps and the door opened. Automatically, he slammed his feet against the floor and thrust backward.
With a resounding wham, the chair back struck the door and the door bounded backward and cracked Wyczek in the forehead. “Sheist!” Wyczek yelled. He lurched forward and bumped into the door again, then fell onto one knee.
Joe kicked backward at the door. It rebounded again from the bodyguard’s head. Wyczek tilted forward, put a hand out to break his momentum. Joe whipped the same leg sideways. His foot connected with the side of Wyczek’s head. He was clearly dazed. The door hit the chair then swung backward and closed. The chair toppled and Joe crashed to the floor on his right side.
“I didn’t like how you touched Nova,” Joe muttered, kicking again: the arch of his foot connected with the bridge of Wyczek’s nose. Through his shoe, he felt the nose give. Blood gushed. Wyczek collapsed sideways and rolled onto his back.
With his arm in fiery agony, Joe twisted and wriggled to a better angle. He lifted his foot, then smashed the back of his shoe’s curved heel onto the man’s bleeding nose. The crunch this time was sickening.
Shaking from exertion, he took in a deep breath.
Wyczek’s eyes were wide open and lifeless.
Joe’s arm burned as though someone had lit gasoline on it. “Bloody mess.” With his right leg he pushed against
the floor and twisted his shoulders and tipped the solid chair so his back was against the floor. Pain lanced through his hands, which were still tied behind his back, and he rolled again so that he was lying on his left side where, at least, the overall agony was less.
He needed to stand. He rolled facedown onto his knees. The damn chair made him crouch into a bent-over position and he couldn’t straighten his legs to rise. He just kept scooting backward.
This was ridiculous; he was on the floor and hog-tied to a chair. He glared at the door’s shiny brass knob, unreachable, four feet above his head. Nova was out there somewhere with Hass. Possibilities of what was happening to her kept flashing through his mind. He clenched his fists. He was useless.
Struggling to control his anger, Helmut Hass moved the spotlights. He needed a better angle on the chair in which Nova Blair sat. Later he would move the lights back to their usual place in front of the bed.
He flicked them on. She blinked several times. Using his left hand, his gun still fixed on her, he placed new tapes into the video recorders and started recording.
From the moment he’d received Maurus’s call, he’d been infuriated. Jean Paul had led informers into the heart of their operation. If not controlled, his rage could confound his judgment.
Perhaps they would be required to flee—a contingency he’d never believed they would have to use. But Maurus seemed to think not. So until Maurus said otherwise, Hass would proceed as he had done with all the others.
He addressed her. “You should not be thinking immortal in the sense of living forever, of course.” His lips felt dry. He licked them. “Perhaps that will be the brilliant Dr. Singh’s next project for Hass Chemie. But, no. I mean, immortal in the artistic sense.” He spoke slowly, for emphasis. “I intend to make you the subject of my next sculpture. Perhaps you noticed some of my work along the hall.”
He watched her face closely. She had remarkable poise. Only the close-up camera would catch the tiny twitch at the corner of the eyes, a tiny blink. There was no swallowing, no blanching, to hint that she understood, but she did. She’d seen his statues and she was afraid. “What do you think of that prospect?”
He waited, but she said nothing. Not surprising. Remaining silent was probably what she’d been trained to do.
“Since my having you is so unexpected, I have, naturally, no theme yet for your piece. But I can share with you the general subject on which my thoughts have concentrated of late. The obedience relationship of the controlled and the controller. My first pieces were inspired by Dante’s Inferno, but I have begun to add some of my own punishments. Are you familiar with Dante?”
Again he paused. She was still doing a heroic job of revealing little, but her breathing was a bit more shallow, her nostrils slightly flared. She was afraid but also angry. Defiant. Superb. Of course she must be of tempered steel to be in such a business. Their obedience conflict would be a great test of wills. This strong woman might well inspire him to his greatest work.
“As I’m sure you know, Dante was a writer who described with remarkable imagination the eternal punishments which would befall individuals who would not submit to divine authority. You and I are going to have a test of wills, and you will learn to bend yours to mine. And when you do not, I, like the omnipotent God, will deliver a proper punishment.”
She’d begun blinking more frequently. Wonderful!
“Have you wondered about my sculpting methods?” He removed the cattle prod, the carton razor and a roll of tape from the drawer and placed them on the center table where she could study them. Her control was good, but her eyes widened in the way that always excited him. “I use live models, Nova. It’s what gives the pieces such realism and power.” He picked up the cattle prod. “We will begin with something simple.”
Until she was bound to the chair, he must be very careful. He mustn’t get into a position where she could disarm him.
“This is my first command. Kneel and then lie down on your belly.”
She didn’t move and he felt the beginnings of arousal. He let his mind linger on the sensation a moment.
He nodded at the prod in his hand and explained in a patient tone. “This is a cattle prod, intended to stun a misbehaving animal. A negative reinforcer, the psychologists call it. It has three settings and will cause you a great deal of pain at any of the settings. I will repeat myself only one time, Nova. Lie down on your belly.”
She looked at him, and he had to fight a flicker of anger. What he saw was disgust.
He touched her arm with the prod. She stiffened, but did not cry out.
“Do as I ordered,” he repeated softly.
He waited.
He touched her again with the prod at the same spot, and again she bit back a cry of pain, but she dropped out of the chair and onto her knees in front of it. A tiny drop of blood appeared on her lower lip.
“Lie on your belly.” He waited again.
Her head was bowed, as if she were praying. He had never possessed a subject this physically intriguing, man or woman. Somehow her exotic beauty would have to be incorporated into her punishment. Perhaps its defacement.
He touched her with the prod again. She jerked even more forcefully and then collapsed face first onto the floor. But she did not cry out. Her jaw muscles strained. Her back rose and fell with labored breathing.
I’ll be okay. He said he won’t kill me. Whatever happens, I’ll be okay.
The voice in Nova’s head sounded twelve years old. What was happening to her?
A sense of residual electricity at the prod’s point of contact had her nerves squirting paroxysms of neural alarms and her muscles cramping in mass confusion. Her flesh, where the prod had touched, seemed on fire. Candido had used candle wax.
Remember, said the child in her mind, the pain goes away.
She heard Hass set the prod down. He stepped close. From the corner of her eye, she could see the razor in one hand and the gun in the other. An icy wave of alarm ripped through her. He knelt beside her thigh, ran the muzzle of the gun down the center of her back and said, “I’m going to cut your hands free, but do not move when they are loose or you may never move again. Do you understand?” He prodded the gun muzzle against the base of her spine.
She nodded, revolted at how eager she was to obey. I always did exactly what Candido asked. The spasms in her arms seemed to shake her whole body.
He placed the tape beside her, then cut the ropes with the razor and quickly moved in front of her. “Get up, slowly, and pick up the tape and sit in the chair again.”
She complied, her knees wobbly. Submission was the way she’d always responded—and she’d loathed herself. Right up to the moment she’d plunged the knife into Candido’s side, she’d loathed herself. Her trial shrink had said, “Killing Candido saved your sister Star. You did what you had to.” But the thought of her body coupled with Candido’s still triggered panicky feelings of loathing and shame and guilt. Feelings that made her want to curl into a ball in a dark corner and never uncurl again.
Because sometimes you enjoyed what he did.
No. No. No. No!
She felt her mind tiptoeing away to hide. Some truths were unbearable.
“Take the tape and bind your right leg to the right leg of the chair.”
She plucked at the edge of the tape, pulled a few inches free. She bent down toward her right leg.
“That’s right,” he said.
She started to wrap the tape around her pant leg.
“No,” he snapped. “Pull up your pant leg. I want you to tape your bare leg to the chair. As soon as you are secure, I will remove those slacks.”
He’s an amateur. She wanted to believe that. Only a sickly, pale copy of Candido. I prevailed then. I will again. But her heart said Candido’s brutality had been, in comparison, merely average lust. Helmut Hass’s was a practiced, systematic evil.
She tried to think of a way out of this new nightmare as she did a reasonably efficient job of securin
g her leg.
“Now the left leg.”
Her fingers were trembling. Even his videotapes would see her fingers shaking.
“Now use your right hand and tape down your left forearm.”
She darted her gaze around the room, looking for another door, as though there were some possibility she might be able to leap up and run out.
“I have asked you to do something once, Nova. Do it, or I shall be forced to use the prod again.”
She looked at him, narrowed her eyes. Obey, Nova, and you will be utterly in his power. Do you remember your own words, Never again? She dropped the tape in her lap. “I’m not going to tie my hands for you or any man, you piece of shit.”
The prod produced a click as he advanced the setting a notch. He touched it to her belly. She couldn’t stop the scream. Her hands flew to the arms of the chair, clenched them so hard her knuckles seemed to melt into the metal. She slumped forward and gasped for breath.
“Do what I asked.”
“Never.”
“You must do what I ask or the pain will come again.”
He waited a few moments.
She couldn’t think.
“Nova! Do what I ask.”
“Never,” she managed to whisper.
Nova’s hair hid her face. Hass worried that she might be sufficiently stressed that if he used the prod again she could very well pass out. “Throw the tape to me.”
With shaking fingers, he watched as she took it from her lap and threw it into the far corner.
“That was childish.” He walked to the drawer, took out another roll of tape, unwound several inches of it and walked to her right side. “Put your arms onto the chair.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
If he wanted to secure her, he had to risk putting down the gun. He dropped the gun to the floor and leaped to her. He grabbed her right arm, pulled it down, wound the tape twice around, binding her arm to the chair. A burning sensation raked his face.
