Flames (A Special Agent Novel Book 3) Page 3

  “Then be careful. I don’t want her dead before she talks. I’ll call in our little friend if that looks likely. If you can’t get it out of her, he will.”

  The way Geraud said ‘Little Friend’ put the fear of God into me, and I was quite positive I didn’t want to meet the bastard, whoever he might be.

  "Keep your pants on. She's a girl. She'll crack. Besides, the fewer witnesses we have, the better." Adie was trying his best to placate his father, but I didn't think Geraud was in the mood to be sweet-talked.

  “You get twenty-four hours. After that, I bring in the cavalry. Oh, and I’ve got a couple more mercenaries outside to make sure she doesn’t escape. They have a full arsenal of weapons out there, so don’t antagonise them, okay?”

  "Is that necessary, father? Since when have I not been able to take care of one little girl?" Adie sounded exasperated.

  “Since that girl wrapped her hands around my neck. Now go and give her something fun out of your kit and wake her up. It’s time to get back to work.”

  Geraud’s footsteps could then be heard marching from the room.

  After a long pause, Adie said dryly, “You can stop pretending to be asleep now, Lois. He’s gone.” His voice was once again very low, so the microphone wouldn’t pick it up.

  I opened my eyes and looked around. “How did you know I was awake?” I whispered.

  "I have my ways," said Adie. "Anyway, I take it you heard that conversation?" He had his back to the camera so that it couldn't see either of our faces. He was good. I'd give him that.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Well, that puts an end to our escape plan, Lois. There’s no way you can take out four heavily armed guards on your own.” I had a feeling that might be the case. On the plus side, it meant Adie was still on my side, which I’d come to doubt somewhat over the last few hours.

  “What now? Is this the point where I confess all?” I hissed. There was no question that Adie knew exactly who I was, and somehow, he knew James, too, but it was obvious Geraud was in the dark about me.

  “I wouldn’t. As soon as you do, Geraud will put a few bullets in you. His latest game is to see how long he can drag out someone’s death for. Loosely translated, that means he’ll put as many bullets in as many different places as he can, while he watches the blood slowly drain out of your body. There are better ways to die, take my word for it.”

  "So, what now? More torture?" I said slowly.

  "Now, we improvise. In the meantime, though, yes, more torture. I have to look like I'm giving it everything I've got."

  “Couldn’t you just get your knives out and accidentally slip one somewhere deadly?” I might have been being a bit fatalistic at the moment, but another one or two days of intense torture without the likelihood of escape loomed, and I can’t say I was looking forward to it.

  “Oh, Lois. I never took you for a coward. Shame on you.” Adie waggled his finger at me as if I was a naughty schoolgirl, and I glared.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” The question was a rhetorical one. I knew damn well that he was enjoying himself. His half-grin then proved it.

  “Lois, I know you don’t trust me further than you can throw me at the minute, but I am going to get you out of here one way or another. You’ve just got to hang in there. You can look on this episode as good training for the future because I can nearly guarantee you no torture episode on this earth is going to compare to one of mine.”

  Looking up at him, I sighed. What did I do now? My brief was to kill Alain Dumortier. If he left me alone for a few seconds, I could probably complete my earlier plan, grab a vial of something deadly, and stick him when he came back into the room. If there was nothing deadly, I'd go with a massive overdose. If the briefcase was no longer in the room, I'd resort to lumping him across the head with a wooden chair, before throttling him. All I needed was those few seconds of alone time when no drugs were messing with my head. Hang in there, I told myself.

  “Then I guess we’d better get on with it,” I said grudgingly. “What’s up next?”

  Adie pursed his lips as he thought about that. “I’ll let you choose. Food or a half-hour being Tasered? They are the next items on my hit list.” Fucking hell.

  "You're serious, aren't you?" I said, with a bleak look.

  “Afraid so, Lois. We’re playing to the cameras, remember. If I keep dear old dad happy, he’ll leave me be. The last thing we need is him breathing down our necks because he’d be hard pressed not to kill you. So, what’s it to be? Food or more torture?”

  My love/hate relationship with Adie was verging more on hate at the moment. I felt sure that after a few more of his ‘friendly' sessions, I would be cured of any attraction I felt towards the beast for life. Breathing in a deep and impressive lungful of air, I glared him. "I'll go with the Taser first. If I eat before, I'm liable to throw up all over you."

  "Your such a sweet, conscientious thing, Thirty-Eight. Fancy that, you thinking of me. Good choice, though. It would be pointless to eat, just to bring it all up again straight after, huh? What say we get this over with?" With that, Adie was all business once more, and the cameras were rolling.

  "So, who do you work for again, Thirty-Eight?" When Adie turned around to face me, he had a Taser in his hand that looked a lot like a gun, but thankfully wasn't quite as lethal. I'd never had the honour of being Tasered before, so I was really looking forward to getting an up close and personal demonstration. Ahem.

  “I work for Activity Advertising.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  Adie then pressed the trigger on the device, and two electrode wires shot out, heading towards my chest. Fifty thousand volts of electricity were shortly about to fry my nervous system, and I wasn't looking forward to the experience. I braced myself for disaster.

  Sure enough, all of my limbs locked, my muscles began to spasm uncontrollably, and there was a good five seconds of intense and extremely unpleasant pain as electricity ran rampant around my body. It was certainly an eye-opener in the torture stakes. I hadn't felt anything quite like it before.

  “Who do you work for, Thirty-Eight?”

  There was no point in Adie asking questions right now, as I couldn’t speak, but he didn’t care. He just gave me another five seconds of agony that sent me reeling all over the place. My body went into meltdown with the second blast, and the chair, already unsteady on its three legs, fell over.

  When the current stopped, I lay gasping on the floor, hardly able to breathe. The effort of trying to suck air into my chest was almost more than I could manage.

  "Ready for another one, Thirty-Eight?" His finger hit the trigger again, and my body liquefied. This was almost more agony than I could bear, not that I had any choice in the matter. When the current finally stopped, and it felt like it had been attacking me for an eternity, I found myself paralysed and unable to move a single muscle. Assuming this was because the current was still circulating inside me, I tried my best not to panic – but it was a close-run thing.

  “Want to know how Tasers work, Thirty-Eight?” Adie stood there, towering over me, looking mightily pleased with himself. It was nice to see he was having fun. As I couldn’t respond to his question for the time being, he took it upon himself to answer it.

  "So, basically, the electrical current I'm shooting into you messes up your body's communication pathways. The Taser uses the same kind of electrical pulses that your neurons use, interfering with the transfer of information between your muscles and brain. When I flood your nerves with a lot of pulses that are similar to the ones your body uses in frequency and strength, I can override your normal functioning, and make your muscles contract repeatedly and uncontrollably. It's basically a case of miscommunication. If I use it for long enough, temporary paralysis can occur, which is probably what you're feeling right now. So far, I've only given you five-second bursts, but studies have tried fifteen seconds on a few subjects before and no one's died. That doesn't mean you won't
be the first, but if I were you, I'd start talking. These beauties have already killed a few hundred people since they've been introduced, and they won't have had anywhere near the number of shocks that you're getting."

  Lying there, helpless as a baby on the floor, I waited desperately for my lungs to inflate. When they finally did, I wanted to cry. “Of course, it’s not quite as bad as being struck by lightning. Lightning carries around three hundred thousand volts, compared to the Taser’s fifty thousand, but you only get hit for a few milliseconds. Taser’s actually deliver a more efficient shock, although it isn’t quite as deadly as a lightning strike, which kills its victims ten to twenty percent of the time. So, as a matter of experimentation, what say we try twenty seconds? Sounds like fun?”

  "Are you going to kill me?" I whispered when I'd got the use of my voice back.

  "No, but it might feel like I am. Brace yourself." Adie fired the trigger again, but this time for much longer. The volts kept coming, I screamed over and over until I couldn't even do that. There is nothing quite like your whole body collapsing in on itself and shaking violently. You have no control over anything and are pretty much reduced to a blubbering mess of quivering limbs on the floor.

  When he’d finished this time, he sat down on his stool. “Feel more like talking now, Thirty-Eight?” My body was still twitching, and I felt like a massive lump of Jell-O. It was pretty safe to say I didn’t feel like doing anything.

  Adie gave me a few seconds to get my breath back, and when I did, I said, "I'm happy to talk about anything you want to, but my answers won't change. Give me a polygraph if you don't believe me. Anything but this," I whispered.

  "Oh, I intend to, but polygraphs are boring. This is much more fun." He sighed. "Where were we? Oh yes, who do you work for?"

  "You already know that, and the answer hasn't changed," I croaked.

  Adie held his Taser up, and his finger began to move. Before it could do any damage, I squeaked, "How about you ask a different question?"

  Adie looked thoughtful for a moment. “Such as?” He waved the Taser around in the air, which made me extremely nervous, so I got my next words out quickly.

  "Such as why did I want Geraud dead, perhaps?" I desperately needed ten seconds to get my breath back, and I'd do whatever it took to get them.

  My tormentor looked at me through narrowed eyes. "That is a good question, Thirty-Eight. Why did you want Geraud dead?" Adie gave me a warning look, and in case that wasn't enough, his voice dropped very low. "Well?" His head lolled sideways as he waited for me to reply, and I didn't rush to speak. I needed my seconds.

  “Master Sandburne seems to have dropped me into the middle of a prostitution ring. I didn’t sign up for this. The auction was supposed to find me a new master - someone who would care for me and teach me the ropes. I’ve only been doing this a year. Where the hell am I and what is happening here?” The conversation was a delaying tactic, and Adie was well aware of it, but he wasn’t entirely unsympathetic to my plight.

  “Poor baby. Next time don’t put yourself up for auction when you have no idea of what’s about to happen to you next. If you want some more good advice, I’d also make sure you don’t make an attempt on the boss’s life while you’re at it. He’s rather cranky at the moment.”

  “I just saw red. I’d found out he was in charge, and I thought that if I killed him – all this would stop.”

  "Yeah. You seem to be a pretty efficient killer, Thirty-Eight. There aren't many girls who could wrap a piece of cord around someone's neck and go for broke. Let's just say it's not normal Advertising Exec behaviour." Adie bit his lip. It was a good job his back was towards the camera.

  “They tried to set fire to me the first day I was here. They were going to kill me.” That was true enough.

  “So where did you learn your very adept strangling technique, Thirty-Eight? Did they teach you that at university?”

  “Hardly, but I’m an avid watcher of CSI, Person Of Interest, and Spooks. I figured it couldn’t be that difficult and believe me, I had enough incentive.”

  He nodded his head. "It's a good story, Thirty-Eight, and it might almost have been believable if you'd show the least bit of remorse about killing someone. You were as cold as a fucking polar bear after the event, and ordinary people are usually a little squeamish about death." Adie's eyes were now glowering at me. It was clear I was digging myself into a hole.

  “Ordinary people don’t like extreme pain BDSM sessions. I’ve always been a little weird.” I smiled weakly.

  "And who was it you worked for again, Thirty-Eight?" Adie looked at me expectantly. I wanted to scream. In the next heartbeat, I was guaranteed to get some volts, so my little break was over.

  "Activity Advertising," I wailed. The shock came three seconds afterwards, and by the time it had finished, I was a lump of meat on the floor. I didn't even have enough energy to raise my head upright. If Adie wanted to continue on this vein, I'd pass out within the next ten minutes, and quite honestly, I was looking forward to that part.

  My tormentor made those ten minutes count. The Taser attacked my body again and again until I couldn’t form a single coherent thought in my brain. Everything was fried, from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair. Screaming over and over again, I wondered how long I would last under this roof. There was no question I would spill the beans, though. If I did, all it would mean was a quicker death, and there was no actual guarantee of that, so I was damned if I would give them the satisfaction. If they wanted to hear me repeat myself over and over again, in-between a bit of screaming and yelling, that was their prerogative. They’d get bored of me eventually.

  It took the longest fifteen minutes of my life before I eventually passed out. When the black lights came calling for me, I sank into them with tears of gratitude.

  “Wakey, wakey, Thirty-Eight. It’s time to eat something.” My eyes rolled around groggily in my head as I tried desperately hard to ignore the voice that wanted to bring me back into the land of the living.

  Unfortunately, the voice did not want to be ignored. “Don’t make me get the Taser out again, Thirty-Eight.” That woke me up rather quickly. Opening one eye cautiously, I realised I was once again upright, and my whole body felt like I had been run over by a train. Adie, of course, looked fresh as a daisy, and utterly fuckable to boot. By now, his face should have had me screaming in terror, but no, the pull was still there. Dammit, I was one crazy lady.

  “Oh God,” I groaned, as the memory of what had just happened returned.

  “Feeling a little sore?”

  I decided that the question didn't deserve an answer. My head had fireworks exploding in it right now, and the pain between the back of my eyes was almost blinding.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Anyway, you’ll be pleased to know we’re moving on to bigger and better things.” Yeah, I was super excited at that. Why couldn’t the bastard just kill me now? If I did manage to get out of here alive, I was requesting one of those cyanide tablets for all future missions. "Right now, though, you've got to eat, else you'll just pass out on me again, and we can't have that, can we?" Managing to open both of my eyes at the same time by sheer force of will, it was to find Adie on his stool with a plate of food on his knee. It was pasta Bolognese, and when the smell assaulted my nose, my stomach rumbled in protest. He laughed. At that moment, the man appeared almost human, but I knew better.

  "Hungry, Thirty-Eight?" He then waved a forkful of penne under my nostrils, and I groaned.

  “Is this some new style of torture?” My head lolled backwards as I tried to control the pain radiating from behind my eyes. It was probably a combination of dehydration and drugs, and it wasn’t likely to go away any time soon.

  “Nah. You’ll get some in a minute. Like I said, it’s no fun playing with someone who can’t stay awake long enough to enjoy my efforts.”

  “We might have to disagree on that one,” I whispered.

  Adie put down his plate and held a bottle of
water up to my lips. "Drink," he ordered. I didn't need to be told twice. He gave me slow gulps of the fluid, little by little until the bottle was empty.

  “Think you can eat something?”

  “I’m not sure,” I whispered. As much as I wanted to, my body was rebelling at the mere thought of food.

  “Try. I’m going to need to shoot you up in a bit, so that will take care of the pain, but I don’t want to give you anything until we’re half-way in. As it’s going to be a long session, you could do with some food in your stomach, and you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  “Knives?” I murmured, my stomach sinking into the depths of hell.

  “Knives,” he confirmed, nodding his head.

  “Any chance I’m getting out of here soon?” I asked softly. Adie’s back was towards the camera once more, so I felt reasonably safe asking the question.

  "I'm working on it. I need some kind of distraction to get rid of the guards, and then we need an exit plan for you. We won't be able to use the same one as last time, which presents more than a little bit of a problem. I might have to call in outside help."

  “Why are you helping me?” Although I wasn’t entirely convinced he was, after the last catastrophe, it didn’t hurt to ask.

  “You’ll figure it out, Thirty-Eight.” He then held a forkful of pasta out in front of me, teasingly just out of my reach. “Open wide, slave.”

  Being fed by my captor should not have been an intimate experience. It should have been repulsive and abhorrent, but I can assure you the exact opposite was true. The chemistry between Adie and myself fairly crackled between us, and it made me wonder how I was ever going to kill the bastard. It shouldn’t matter that he was playing the nice guy routine, or that he was trying to help me. My objective was to kill him, and that’s all I should have been focusing on. The chance of escape shouldn’t sway me to let the bastard go. He was a cold-blooded killer who had done truly terrible things, of which I had first-hand experience. He’d killed Kiel for fuck’s sake! How could I even bear to look upon the guy? What was happening to me? This was all wrong.