Mad Dog

by William Fegan

  The rules of the house were very simple and equally clear. They would eat, drink and sleep in the one room that they occupied. They would be allowed to use the toilet and bathroom facilities one at a time and always escorted by two guards. Jennifer would be the only one to be allowed alone in the bathroom but even she had to leave the door to the bathroom ajar.

  In the end they decided to push the three beds together and to all sleep together that way. Jennifer had thanked them all for their efforts and had genuinely meant “them all”. Julian however had become sullen following the struggle and was clearly ashamed and embarrassed at having hidden behind Jennifer when Abdul turned his attention to him. He swore to himself that he would redeem himself for his momentary lapse, assuring himself that it was just that, a momentary lapse and most definitely not a sign of cowardice.

  Peter became aware that his left had was resting just below Jennifer’s left breast and without opening his eyes slowly allowed it to move upwards until he gently cupped it. Her gentle, slow breathing became shorter and more pronounced and she slowly forced herself backwards pushing herself onto his already swollen member. Aware that she was as awake as he, he removed his had and inserted it beneath her blouse quickly recovering her breast but this time making contact with her bare flesh. He slowly rolled her erect nipple between his fingers, an action that produced a involuntary low moan of pleasure from her.

  -Very nice.- laughed Rashid in his thick scouse accent, -let me know when it’s my go.-

  Peter’s hand shot out of her blouse causing her to screech with pain as he inadvertently scratched her side with his watch as it did so.

  -Go fuck yourself you scouse prick,- blasted Peter, embarrassed at having been caught with his hand on the cup cake.

  -Breakfast time, get yourselves cleaned up first. I think you’d better go last Peter; you’ll need to get rid of that throbbing first, - laughed Rashid.

  Peter didn’t bother answering, the least said the better. Once Rashid had left the room Peter decided that it was time to allow his friends in on their secret. He was well aware that his friends would imagine what he had been doing and he didn’t want them to think that Jennifer was the sort of girl that would allow him to fondle her if they weren’t “together”.

  -Listen, I think you aught to know, but, Jennifer and I are an issue. We have been for several months now. -

  -You don’t say! -mocked Henry sarcastically –well we never would have guessed. For the love of God Peter, you two have been like a pair of love doves for months, if that’s the best you can do for a surprise then you’d better go back to the drawing board. -

  -Absolutely,- added Julian,- although I must say, if you’re going to be fondling each other every morning, Henry and I are going to need to request a wank break. -

  The surprise at Julian using such a word only heightened the humour of the moment as they laughed loudly together. The sound of they’re laughter, as incongruous as it was, was the first sign of how quickly the youngsters were adapting to their new circumstances.

  It was ten thirty when Hari entered the room. He glanced around like a fox in a chicken coup, choosing his defenceless prey.

  Peter and Jennifer where lying together on the far side of the bed and Peter unconsciously shot a protective arm around her as Hari glanced in their direction. Julian was seated, straight backed in one of the two chairs in the room, directly in front of the barred window, and Henry who was seated in front of Julian didn’t even bother to turn to see who had entered. No one bothered to ask him what he wanted having decided the previous evening as they lay trying to sleep, that they would try to avoid all contact with their kidnappers in order to avoid any further painful confrontations.

  -Julian, - said Hari pointing in his direction,- I need you to come with me.- As he did so he removed the safety on his rifle.

  Peter and Henry immediately stirred in order to protect their friend but Julian stopped them in their tracks.

  -NO! Its okay, I´ll be fine. - His voice was both authoritative and commanding; something that disarmed his friends completely and he rose and joined Hari in the door way.-

  It was a somewhat more sheepish Julian that returned half an hour later with a swollen right eye.

  His friends rushed to meet him as he was pushed through the door.

  -Are you alright? -they enquired in unison.

  -Yes I´m fine, it´s okay. -

  -What did they do to you? -

  -Nothing, just talked, they sat me in front of a camera and just asked me if we were all well, well fed etc..., that was about it. Listen I don´t really want to talk about it if you don´t mind, perhaps later. -

  It was clear that he wasn´t going to open up so they returned to what had become their positions in the room and Julian returned to “his” seat under the window. It wasn´t until Jennifer went for a toilet break that he spoke again.

  -Listen, I need to make this fast. I don´t want to worry Jennifer unnecessarily. Look, they made me wear an orange boiler suit, that’s when I got the swollen eye, I mean we all know what that means, they´re going to behead us, sooner or later, but they´re going to do it. They wanted me to read a message to my parents, they wanted me to plead. I refused of course but they aren´t going to just give up, they´ll find a way to make me do it, they´ll find a way for all of us to do it. -

  -Christ, -said Peter, -well we can’t just do nothing, we´re going to have to think of a plan. Let me think about it and the next time Jennifer goes for a break we´ll talk again.-

  Caroline Tattersall, co owner of Tattersall Estates estate agency prided herself on being discreet and above all on minding her own business. As fooling yourself is not a criminal act the death penalty that she was to serve was probably a little severe.

  Caroline was a thirty five year old divorcee without the complication of children. Her ex husband had left her for her best friend’s husband in what was the biggest scandal to have hit the village of Sutton in living memory. What made the scandal all the more important was that her husband had been the captain of the local rugby team and considered by all to be the most handsome and desirable male in the county let alone the village. It was clearly a view shared by her best friend’s husband but it caused her a lot of trouble apart from the obvious distress. The rumour mill went into a frenzy of activity and the generally accepted view was that she was to blame, that in some way she had put him off women. Caroline had spent the following six months demonstrating to every male that crossed her admittedly attractive path that she had no problems of a sexual nature and that she was more than willing to satisfy the desires, however bizarre, of any, and just about every, man. She even joined the local woman’s hockey team and enjoyed sporadic encounters with several of her team mates, particularly fond to her memory was an incident in the showers with a rival player that had been sent off alongside her for unsporting behaviour, them having engaged in handbags at five paces. What followed in the showers to the back drop of their team-mates shouting and moaning on the field of play was the nearest thing to sexual paradise that she could imagine. All this only served for the rumour mill to burst once more into frenetic activity and this time it was generally agreed that she was to blame for being too promiscuous and for having frightened the poor bloke off with such exaggerated sexual demands. This time however she didn’t give a damn, she was having far too good a time for that and there wasn’t a house, farm or cottage owner within a twenty mile radius that didn’t want to deal with her when they needed to rent out their properties.

  Caroline had become more than accustomed to being the object of desire and it was difficult for her to accept that any man would or could show indifference to her. It was therefore extremely frustrating for her when Hari breezed into her office to finalise the details of his rental agreement. His foreign accent had attracted her interest during their phone conversations but when she was faced with the real thing she all but drooled. Just under six foot tall, muscled yet lithe, agile of movements and with a hin
t of menace, he totally ignored her provocative behaviour insisting again and again on his clients need for privacy and complete discretion. Desperately bemused by her lack of effect on him she even, out of desperation, offered to visit the cottage with him so that they could “check out” all the facilities of the cottage prior to his client’s arrival, emphasising the word “all” with a knowing smile. She couldn’t believe it when Hari tuned down the offer claiming that he had been to the property prior to arriving at the office and that the gardener had been kind enough to show him around. She made two mental notes, the first was to sack the bloody gardener and the second to make a further attempt to lure him once he and his guests had installed themselves in the cottage.

  It was therefore in contra to her guarantee of discretion and solitude for Hari´s mysterious guests that she decided to visit him on the pretext of assuring herself that the gardener, with whom she would claim to have had a heated argument over his refusal to leave the garden unkempt for a month, had indeed obeyed her orders.

  Peter was beginning to worry about Jennifer’s bowl and bladder capacity when finally at three thirty that afternoon she decided that once more she needed to go to the bathroom. They had been served cold tea in plastic cups at eleven and a salad on paper plates at two o´clock. Julian, Henry and Peter had all gone to the toilet at some time during that time, Henry twice, yet Jennifer had resisted, “watched kettle” thought Peter.

  -Right, - started Peter, -I’ve been thinking about this and first of all I think we need to let Jennifer in on this. Look, firstly I think we´re being a bit chauvinist over this, she´s more than capable of coping with this, being a girl doesn´t change anything and secondly it will allow us to talk about this freely not just once every four or five hours when “super bladder” decides she needs to relieve herself. Are we all agreed? -

  -Yes, -agreed Henry immediately.

  -Well Yes, I suppose so, -agreed Julian reluctantly, protecting Jennifer from the news, had, in a perverse way, made him feel good about himself, made him feel stronger, manlier.

  -Well that´s settled then we´ll tell her when she comes back and then we can discuss what to do. -

  -Got any ideas? -asked Julian.

  -Well nothing specific, -said Peter, -but I have noticed something that may help us. -

  At that moment Jennifer re entered the room.

  -God that was fast, -exclaimed Peter jokingly.

  -Yes, well I didn´t want to give you too much time to talk about whatever it is that you don´t want me to know about, -replied Jennifer.

  -You mean you know,-gasped Julian,-how could you?-

  -Women´s intuition.-replied Henry.

  -Exactly! -Confirmed Jennifer. -So are you going to let me in on it or what? -

  -Well that’s exactly what we were talking about this time, -said Peter laughing, -Julian tell her what happened to you. -

  Julian explained about the orange suit and the message embellishing the story a little so that his resistance appeared almost heroic.

  -Well you know what happens to those that appear on the news in orange boiler suits, or they get rescued or they get beheaded, and it seems more often to be the latter. -concluded Julian.

  -I see what you mean, -said Jennifer calmly,-so what are we going to do? -

  They all looked hopefully at Peter, assuming that he would provide an inspirational solution.

  -Well physically they are stronger than us, they are armed and there are more of them than us, so a forced escape seems extremely unlikely, we need help from outside, the question is, other than praying, what can we do to get help? Now, I´ve noticed something, the garden, I mean it´s immaculate. I doubt that these guys are keeping it in order so someone else must be, you know, a gardener or whatever. If we could get a message to him, who knows, well it´s an idea, -finished Peter, almost apologisingly, conscious of the frailty of the only glimmer of hope that he could offer.

  -Right, - said Jennifer enthusiastically, - well perhaps this will come in handy then! - She continued triumphantly pulling a tube of lipstick out of her pocket. -This and my eye liner are about the only things they didn´t confiscate when we arrived. I don´t suppose they considered themselves endangered by the possibility of me giving them a makeover, although that prick Hassan could do with one. That´s one ugly Arab that is! -

  -Excellent,- said Peter, -right then I know what we´ll do. First we need to make a banner, we could use one of the sheets, we need to keep it simple, very clear and very simple. Then when they tell us it´s lights out we hang it on the inside of the window and pull the curtains to, that way even if they check on us during the night they´ll see nothing. We can delay getting up tomorrow as much as possible to give it more time but once we get up we need to remove it prior to opening the curtains. With as little luck it´ll be seen before we remove it. -

  -Well, yeah, -interrupted Henry, -but I can’t see them allowing a gardener in whilst we´re here, I mean if they did what would be to stop him from seeing us. Either that or they´ll move us out of the room before he´s due to arrive, in which case we won´t be able to either leave the banner or wave, signal or whatever at him. I mean I don´t mean to be negative but it just doesn´t make sense, it´s too simple. -

  -Yes, but do you have a better idea, who knows someone could see it when there out passing their dog first thing in the morning. -

  -Yes, but I´ve been seated in front of this bloody window all day and there is no sign of life outside, no sign of a road, path, neighbours, nothing. -

  -Fine, but DO YOU HAVE A BETTER IDEA? -insisted Peter.

  -Well no, -conceded Henry.

  -Well as we´ve got to do something let´s do this for now and if we can think of something better later on we´ll do that. -

  No one could argue with the logic of that so they sat silently thinking of the clearest message they could write. Finally they decided on HELP! KIDNAPPED! CALL THE POLICE!

  Jennifer was charged with the task of preparing the banner with Julian who claimed to have a talent for graphic design. The result was clear and concise and they congratulated themselves on the fact that it would do the job. All they needed now was a little luck.

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  Tuesday hadn´t started well for Hari, the first thing he found when he turned on the news channels was that the Times were quoting “reliable sources” that Al Qaeda was behind the kidnappings, it also became clear immediately that they had not issued the note that they had left at the scene and then he had to suffer the defiance of Julian and his refusal to read the prepared message.

  He decided to take action and called his contact at the Iranian Embassy.

  -Get the note to the papers! – was he curt instruction. Hari wasn´t willing to let the bluff go so easily, part of the plan was to cause embarrassment and confusion for the government but particularly for Harvey. He had thought all along that the note was too simple, that they’d see through it straight away but he also knew that if the press got wind of the note and the possibility that the Jackal was still at large and in consequence that they had been mislead right from the very top then the furore it would cause would divert attention away from them, equally it was true that they didn´t need to keep up the illusion for long, a week at the most and then they would make their broadcast. Nonetheless he wanted Harvey and his boss, the PM, to suffer and the press
attention that his note would receive would do exactly that.

  By midday the Sun had reached an agreement with Sky News for the use of the note.

  Sky News started its twelve o’clock mid day news programme with the flashing BREAKING NEWS logo, which was intermittently exchanged with the title IS THE JACKAL BACK? They left this for thirty seconds to achieve maximum impact before switching to the news desk and revealing the details.

  -Amazing new developments in the kidnapping of the four youngster’s yesterday afternoon in the centre of London. It appears that despite claims from the authorities that they have at this stage no firm clues as to the identities of those responsible, claims that they maintained this morning despite reports in the Times news paper that Al Qaeda were behind the kidnappings, they actually received a note from the kidnapper, a note that was left at the scene of the kidnapping.-

  At that moment a copy of the note appeared on the screen.

  -The obvious question therefore is why do they not believe that a note claiming to be from a known kidnapper and murderer found at the scene of a kidnapping, constitutes them having a firm clue. It also begs the question “IS FOWLER DEAD?”, because it is those same authorities that ensured us that he had indeed died in the now renowned fire at Howtowdie Farm and if he’s not dead why have they deceived us since the date of the fire. Our experts have examined the note and they concur that the format of the note is the same as that used by Fowler but unfortunately we have been unable to speak to either Harvey Jacobs at MI5 or those responsible for the investigation at Scotland Yard to establish their views on this matter. To refresh you’re memories we will now show video footage of the investigation into the kidnappings and murders of five women at the hands of Alf Fowler. We must advise you that there are several alarming similarities, not least that those kidnapped, in general, had links to the government. -