The Couriers

by Jurgen von Stuka

  I can’t for the life of me figure out the rationale for cutting holes in the knees of anything this whacked out generation wears, Bibi thought. What is the statement? That they are too poor to buy a new pair of hose or jeans or that they crave peer acceptance for looking like everyone else in their group?

  Each of the receptionist’s legs ended with her French manicured toes displayed grandly in a pair of sparkling silver platform sandals that added to the jumbled, confused image, whatever that might be, Bibi thought. The two-tone toenail work, plus the rest of the incongruous ensemble seemed to cap the statement that Forcep not only lacked any fashion sense, but that she also didn’t have all of her marbles. Nevertheless, she seemed to serve some purpose as a go-fer in the TOE shop.

  Maybe, Bibi thought, it’s just an act.

  She’d seen Forcep enough times to know that this was just one of the woman’s get-ups and tomorrow she might be dressed and made up like some prissy librarian with her hair pulled severely back into a bun and smoked, metal rimmed spectacles to match.

  “You know me, Forcep,” Bibi said. “So let’s cut the crap. I know she’s here because her Lambro is in the garage behind this dump, being guarded by your friend and brainless accomplice, Lapse.”

  “She’s occupied now,” the redhead responded, no more cordially, still jiggling to something in four-four time. “You wait.”

  “You mean Twitch?”

  “Yeah. She’s occupied,” Forcep responded.

  “Five minutes,” Bibi said, taking her hand out of her leather biker jacket’s right pocket and exhibiting the MK-3 concussion grenade. Forcep stopped jiggling and pressed another button that opened a sliding panel in the left wall. Bibi eased through, keeping the grenade in her left hand and her right hand on the Sig cal .40 automatic in her pocket.

  Overkill? Bibi wondered. Probably not. Twitch’s gang had a reputation for disassembling their victims so quickly that the cops seldom even found anything even remotely resembling a corpse. One of Twitch’s favorite weapons was a tactical ax with short, ray skin-covered handle, a razor sharp blade on one end and an equally sharp pick on the other. More than once, the Berlin Coroner’s report had indicated that a crime victim’s death was caused by “deep penetration of the cranium by a sharp, pointed object delivered with extreme force, causing severe trauma to the cranium and immediate death.” Naturally, Twitch was never proven to have had anything to do with this.

  Bibi walked carefully down the dark, wood-paneled hall and pushed open the heavy plate glass doors at the end. Another office, this time populated by three tattooed female biker types who were lounging in various suggestive poses. One had her booted feet up and legs wrapped affectionately around the neck of slut Number Two. Number Three was just finishing her third bottle of beer and had a bit of drool or some other substance neatly cascading down the front of her “I got Laid In Amsterdam” Tee shirt. The one nearest the door pointed to an open passageway. Bibi nodded and went through. She took the next open door on the left and walked into the office of Twitch Orforres, owner, CEO, Chairwoman of the Board and controller of at least half the criminal businesses in Berlin and northeastern Germany.

  Twitch looked up from her desk and smiled at Bibi. She was a hold-over from the East Germany years when she had managed to be cozy with the Russians who left her alone, more out of fear than respect. A one time popular Italian fashion model for avant-garde clothing that usually displayed more of the wearer’s body than it obscured, Twitch was also a victim of that same fashion world. When her employers decided that although big tits were still acceptable in some venues, Twitch’s dimensions were a bit outside the norms favored by contemporary clothing designers and told her to move on, possibly considering a job doing clothing catalogs for plus sizes.

  Hurt, insulted and seeking revenge, Maltilda Grovenstock changed her name to Twitch Orforres, taking the last name from the maker of high end crystal wine glasses and tableware and the first name as a parody for the stupidly skeletal fashions of the model, “Twiggy.” She used her influence with the Soviets and acquired wealth to move in new circles which more often than not, included people who were on Europol’s wanted lists and those aspiring to such notoriety. In the process, she slept with and covertly videotaped both men and women in the criminal world and, via blackmail and other artful motivators, managed to “invest” in hundreds of small businesses which eventually, either legally or through criminal action, became totally hers.

  In the process of moving up into the luxury criminal environment, Twitch disposed of her previous rivals and employers in fashionably creative ways: a few went yachting and the boat simply vanished, supposedly torpedoed by a rogue Nazi submarine that roamed the Northern oceans and was available for similar wet work at a ridiculous price. Others took free and elegantly designed motor coach tours to out-of-the-way Rumanian villages, castles and restaurants, only to meet their fate at the bottom of some deep ravine in the Italian or Swiss Alps when the bus took a hard right turn through the guard rail to avoid a herd of goats that suddenly appeared on the icy roadway.

  Perhaps Twitch’s most creative venture into the systematic assassination of her enemies was in sponsoring a haute cuisine dinner for twenty of her old pals, dangling at the end of an industrial construction crane’s slim steel cable, high above the Milan landscape at sunset. While the company that ran these costly excursions had waiting lists that numbered in the thousands, Twitch arranged for this special dinner by touting the notoriety of the big name dinner guests who were on numbered lists of “persons of interest” to Interpol and other law enforcement agencies.

  The guests were securely strapped into their comfy seats as the crane slowly lifted them, the celebrity chef and servers to a point nearly thirty stories above the downtown area. Something went wrong with the crane’s electric lifting motor and the dinner group found themselves stranded too high for fire and rescue teams to reach them and impossibly stuck where helicopters could not get close enough for a rescue.

  It made all the news media and the best part, Twitch agreed, was when a daredevil rescue worker climbed the extended tower of the crane and attempted to free the lift cable which was stuck in the roller pulleys at the very end of the horizontal, steel-framed arm. As he reached the fouled pulley, the open frame structure of the arm began to slowly fold, bending in the middle and creating a sort of trebuchet effect for the two-ton dinner party dangling a hundred feet below. The entire crane began to sway. It took two long pendulum swings of the cable to cause it to part and send diners, gourmet meals, chef and table into an upward arc and then it plummeted to the streets and red tile rooftops below in a tangled goulash of bodies, bones and soup.

  TV anchors noted that the guests had refused parachutes before they took the one way ride to an abbreviated meal.

  “Nice to see you again, Lynx. Want to join me,” Twitch asked, pointing to something that was out of Bibi’s line of sight behind the massive steel and glass desk that took up half of the room.

  Bibi moved cautiously around the desk and saw the object of Twitch’s attention: a small, fit-looking young woman with braided, long black hair, no clothes and lines of hypodermic needles, without the syringes attached, neatly arrayed up and down her arms, legs and torso. Bibi thought there must be several hundred needles in the woman’s skin, but before she asked or commented, Twitch said, “three hundred, sixty-three, until you interrupted us. What’s up, Lynx? I’m busy.”

  The woman functioning as a pin cushion was tied eagle-spread to a chrome steel framework that was mounted on a single, heavy, circular post that sunk into the granite floor of the room. The post was apparently hydraulic and could be raised or lowered to floor level as it was now. The woman was tied with red hemp rope, the kind often preferred by practitioners of Shibari, the Japanese rope art of bondage. The four corners of the frame supported her stretched body via the multiple loops of red rope wound precisely around each ankle and wrist. She was gagged with a white cloth that filled her mouth and c
heeks and this was tied in place with many layers of more hemp rope. The woman still tugged ineffectively at the ropes on her wrists, arms, thighs and ankles, but it was evident that she wasn’t making any headway as Twitch posed another four inch length of sharp, hollow, hypo needle along side the curve of the woman’s left breast, which was already accommodating ten or twelve other sharps.

  “You do Kinbaku?” Twitch asked, using the aficionado’s term, as she rubbed the target area with an alcohol swab and inserted the needle with measured precision into a slim fold of breast flesh. The woman sucked a in lungful of air through her nose. The nose breath was somewhat enhanced, Bibi noted, by the twin chromed metal hooks that pulled her nostrils upwards and gave the unfortunate wearer of the hooks the facial appearance of a pig.

  “Now and then. For relaxation,” Bibi responded, watching the piercing carefully.

  “Humor me,” Twitch said, aligning the needle with the others and then jiggling the breast until the woman moaned and shuddered. “What do you know about it?”

  “Kinbaku?” said Bibi. “It came from the Japanese Samurai who had a unique set of standards for keeping their prisoners. Among the key guidelines were,” she ticked off on her fingers: “One, not to allow the prisoner to slip the bonds or escape. Two, not to allow others to know the secret techniques of the art. Three, not to cause physical or mental damage and four, to make the rope work as elegant as possible. I have paraphrased this, but that’s the essence of it, as I understand it,” Bibi added.

  “Not bad,” Twitch said, preparing another needle with a small alcohol swab. “Can’t say that I follow it precisely, but it works for me. I like silk rope, but, gees, it’s gotten too expensive to use on these little piggies. So, what do you want? As I recall, you owe me, so there are no markers down, right?”

  “Right. Twitch. I’ll come right to the point. I need to know who is ripping off the bank couriers. I’m pretty sure you know because your people haven’t been hit, nor was your bank here in Berlin. I’m not sure about other banks or agencies you may use elsewhere.”

  “Ha. Even if I knew, why would I tell you? What you got for me?”

  “Nothing right now, but I suspect...no, I’m sure, that having the good will of my old friend Ernst von Holt wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Von Holt? The name doesn’t ring the chimes, but it sounds familiar. Was he involved in that nasty business in Amsterdam a year or so ago?”

  “If we’re talking about the same thing, yes. He is a good friend and a good man to know when you need some influence in very high places, especially in the LE venue. I can always get him to listen, so that’s my best offer.”

  “Wait,” said Twitch, tilting her head so that her long ponytail hung to the side and putting a blood-red finger nail to her temple. “He put out a very high bounty on his daughter’s kidnappers, right?”

  “Right. Two million Euros, to be exact”

  “And it was you who saved the daughter from that asshole Dutchman, right?”

  “Right,” Bibi nodded.

  “The Dutchman’s name was ...I’ve forgotten that one. But he died of, as the cops put it, ‘self-inflicted stab wounds’ while fleeing from the authorities. I assume you and Groff were the authorities?”

  “Right again. And his name was Fabian.”

  “Oh yeah,” Twitch said. “By the way, I really dig Jean Groff. She’s a tad more sophisticated than you, Bibi. No offense intended.”

  “None taken.”

  “You got the bod, she’s got the brains, I’d venture.”

  “Jean is quite well turned out, Twitch. Aside from her brilliantly good looks, she has about three black belts, speaks a few Asian languages and works out about three hours a day. Too much for lazy old me.”

  “Oh, indeed, yes. I wouldn’t mind a long weekend with either, or both, of you for that matter. I have this continuing fantasy vision of Groff tightly tied and collared at the end of a meter long steel rod connected to the wall. She’s harness gagged, blindfolded and wrapped in rope from toes to tits.”

  “Interesting fantasy,” Bibi said. “We should try that sometime.”

  “You know, I have a really plush dungeon here under this building. The East German Cops used it as a stash for prisoners who were too high profile to be kept at their other hangouts. Once we cleaned it up and left the blood stains, it turned out to be totally sound proof, among other things. The former occupants left some very quaint toys as well.”

  “Sounds worth a trip some night,” Bibi said. “I have a new cutie that might fit in as well. Nothing wrong with a foursome, is there?”

  “Not at all. We could use it and have a great time,” Twitch added, finishing yet another needle penetration of the struggling woman on the frame.

  “I appreciate the offer, Twitch,” said Bibi. “But it’ll have to wait until this courier thing is settled. I tell you what: you get us in so that we can nail the top guys in the game and there’s a bonus in it for you.”

  “Bonus? On top of what?”

  “On top of the reward of five hundred thousand Euros for the arrest and conviction of the key people. I can’t speak for Jean, but count me in on your dungeon party for three. No men. Just us...and maybe my new protégé, if Jean agrees.”

  “So,” said Twitch, abandoning her needle work. She pressed a foot switch and the steel frame and its needle-stuck luggage slowly sunk into the floor and then disappeared. The trap doors over the vanishing frame slid silently shut. Sitting back in her desk chair, Twitch studied Bibi and the grenade.

  “So, can you help me out?” Bibi persisted.

  “Maybe if you put away the grenade and take your paw out of the pocket. If I had wanted to hit you, I would have had the kids down the hall do it, so sit and relax...or hang around and push a few pins into this cunt, if you like.”

  Bibi put the grenade in her left pocket, sat down in the offered designer steel chair and then placed both hands in her lap.

  “That’s better. Friendlier too,” Twitch said, her mouth a slightly compressed straight zipper and neither grinning nor frowning. “Truth be told, I think your old buddy Brillcart may have a hand in this thing. It has some of his touches if you think about it.”

  “Brillcart? Again?” Bibi said truly surprised. “I thought he was laying low in South Africa after his close brush with the Zurich SWAT.”

  “I’m just throwing that out, Bibi,” Twitch said, reclining in her chair and half closing her eyes, which were overtly enlarged with a mixture of pink and black eyeliner. “The media presented only some of the details, but to me, it sounds like Brillcart. Certain nuances are his style.”

  “Such as?” Bibi said.

  “The women who are doing the hijacking act like automatons, under some high degree of remote control. They may be hot-wired or forced to do this work because someone else is being held, tortured or otherwise damaged...like Carianne down there.” Twitch gestured to the closed trap door, pressed the foot switch and the frame and wiggling woman emerged from the darkened depths.

  “She’s not been very cooperative and when I get done with the needles, she gets hung up by them, right Sis?” Twitch said, kicking the bound and needle-decorated woman in the ribs, which thus far hadn’t been pierced. Carianne moaned into her gag and struggled unsuccessfully.

  “Brillcart?” Bibi pondered. In fact, the possible Brillcart involvement had been reviewed and dismissed by the entire LE team a few months ago, mostly because there wasn’t a shred of evidence linking the obese Swiss watchmaker with any of the robberies.

  “Why not?” said Twitch. “He’s as good a suspect as anyone else. He has the motive, the means and the need. Check on his little wholesale slave operation over in Ulm. He bought an empty factory that once made engine parts for the SST. Got it for a song because it was seriously toxic. He promised the gummint that he’s carry out level five remediation on the buildings and land, then renovated the main facilities as a high security generic drug manufacturing plant. Berlin loved the idea and n
ever really checked it out. But I hear that it’s doing well. He gets slave candidates, trains them either as hit and run thieves or sends them off to pony camp...and you know what that means.”

  “Good points,” Bibi conceded. “I know about the Ulm operation and it has some very heavy players backing it. The occasional inquiry gets a few succinct threats, possibly a pay off and usually goes away. And that may also explain how the thieves get so much inside information. Thanks. Again, I owe you.”

  A sudden scream from the frame bound woman indicated that while talking to Bibi, Twitch had removed the woman’s gag and was now inserting longer needles into the lips of the screamer.

  “Don’t worry, Lynx,” Twitch said. “She loves it. I’ll sew up this nasty little pie hole and feed her through a tube for a week or so. She’ll lose about ten kilos and be happy as a clam afterwards.”

  “I guess I’ll head on out,” Bibi said as the woman’s shrieks increased n volume.

  Bibi rose from her seat, took a final look at the grimacing woman on the frame and then turned again towards Twitch. “The three way offer stands if you can deliver, but leave your ax at home, okay?” she said.

  Twitch winked.

  Bibi left the office. On the way out, she grinned evilly at Forcep and waved the grenade, simulating tossing it into the creep’s cubicle. She had no clue as to how useful Forcep would be in the future.

  Chapter Ten

  Cassandra & Loki

  “Is Casi using a cane on your pussy?”

  The two young women in the black body suits sat comfortably in the driver’s cabin of the semi parked in one of the roadside service areas of the autobahn about 30 kilometers west of Frankfurt. They studied once again the maps and printed instructions they had been given.