Chapter 05
SIS Information Extraction Unit – Down Steet Disused Underground Station, London, Friday, June 23rd 1939.
Section D were the anarchists of the British establishment, launching a political campaign against the Nazis on the basis of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', allying itself in particular with German, Austrian and Slovenian socialist groups. This shocked the Foreign Office, which had originally agreed to 'look the other way' when Laurence Grand explained that he intended to use the methodology of terrorist groups, especially the IRA … methods that the British government had roundly condemned as being unlawful.
And so the secretive and sometimes brutal regime of Section D, began.
Francine Agazarian was 26 years old in 1939, but already she had served time in the field across in her native region of Brittany in Northern France, where, as a key member of the information collaboration group and fearing that a German invasion was imminent, she had built a reputation for extracting information from known dissidents in as ruthless a way as was necessary.
When Section D was created Miss Agazarian was brought over to London to head up the information extraction team that was based in the disused Down Street Underground station, squeezed between Hyde Park and Dover Street, closed only 7 years previously. Now, though, it was being put to ‘productive’ use.
“Come along, Fräulein Mohr,” Francine Agazarian said kindly, but making sure to use the more disrespectful diminutive form of German honorific for Barb.
Barbara Moore stood up, but her knees gave way and she sat down again.
“You don’t really want to be carried downstairs, do you?” Agazarian asked.
Barbara held the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. Corporal Edwards, the second of Barbara’s abductors along with Agazarian herself, was actually holding the door for her. This can’t be happening, she told herself. I have met the King and am accepted into London society …
She had been returning from a gentle early morning stroll around Sussex Gardens in the backdrop of Paddington Station when a gleaming new black Ford V8 Model 91A DeLuxe had pulled up alongside her, a bag thrown unceremoniously over her head, cloche hat and all, before she was bundled into the back of the vehicle. When the bag was removed, she found herself in a dark, windowless room, possibly underground if the dank aroma was anything to go by.
But now she was on the move.
Francine Agazarian walked beside her on the stairs, holding her arm against a stumble, as she did from time to time.
“I know you’re from the SIS Madam, and I thought you were my friends,” Barbara muttered.
“We
are all your friends, Fräulein Mohr,” Agazarian said. “That is to be proven by the fact that you are not to be permanently harmed and that Major Grand wishes to give you every opportunity to prove yourself.”
“But you intend to torture me first?”
“We intend to give you all the encouragement you need to tell us the truth about who you really are Fräulein Mohr.”
They had reached the lower floor. Clerks and secretaries looked at them curiously, and then hastily looked away again. And in front of her was another flight of steps, these also leading downwards.
Barb shuddered as the air became colder.
The small entourage walked past a row of rooms. Although not barred, each room, upon its closed wooden door, held a sign that said “Internment Room” and had a number appended after the words, although they all had a sliding inspection hatch, and for a long moment Barb’s legs buckled. In her mind she was cast back to a time only six months earlier when a similar row of cells had formed a welcome for her at the Hamburg Gestapo’s detention and interrogation facility where she had suffered so terribly.
But the room at the end of the corridor was different, and again Barb’s knees threatened to give way, such that Agazarian’s grip tightened and jerked her upright.
“Listen to me, Fräulein Mohr,” she said in a low voice, “… let me give you some advice. Do not attempt to resist them. Submit to everything without a word. But when they hurt you, forget your pride and scream as loudly as you can. This will please them. But if they feel you are defying them, even in your mind, they will wish to hurt you more than ever.”
“Them you say, but are you not one of ‘them’? Will you not be hurting me too?”
“Yes, I will be hurting you, and I will enjoy doing so, because it is always enjoyable to hurt a beautiful, wilful woman such as you, but that does not mean I wish you to be destroyed.”
Her words sent a jolting quake through Barb’s body.
Edwards was holding the door for her again, most politely, but inside the room waited two men. Both were large, and both were in their shirt sleeves. They had been looking rather bored, but their eyes brightened at the sight of Barb. She entered into the gloomy space, and the heavy door clicked shut behind her. She waited, keeping absolutely still, trying to convince herself that this was not really happening.
“Would you undress, please,’ Edwards asked courteously.
Barbara looked at Agazarian, who smiled and said, “You would not like that lovely dress to be torn, now would you, Fräulein Mohr? Here, let me help you.”
She moved backwards towards her female keeper allowing her to release the buttons at the back of the dress, her fingers dextrous and nimble. Barbara drew a deep breath, shrugged the dress from her shoulders, and allowed it to slide down the petticoat underneath to gather around her ankles.
“I will hang it up for you,” Agazarian offered again. Barbara stepped out of the dress and it was dutifully picked up. Francine Agazarian shook out the creases, and took one of the hangers from the hook on the door, placing the dress beside the two men’s tunics.
Barbara waited.
“Now come along, Fräulein Mohr,’ Agazarian said. “The petticoat please. The sooner we get it done the sooner it will be over.”
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She took off her cloche hat and her hair tumbled down. The two men’s eyes gleamed brighter and wider, as did Edwards’s, as they watched their beautiful internee lift the petticoat over her head and hand it over, just as if the commander were her maid.
“Continue,” Agazarian said.
“You mean you wish me to take everything off?”
“We wish you naked, yes.”
Barbara opened her mouth, but no words came out. She had thought herself safe here, secure under the protection of Henry Underwood, but where was he now when she needed him? And she was under no illusion as to the overbearing intent inside this room because these men reeked of sexual desire.
She closed her mouth again without speaking; to protest would be a waste of time, and might merely make things worse. “Do not make them think you are resisting them,” Agazarian had said.
Barbara removed her cami-knickers, and Agazarian took them from her hand, glancing at the neatly trimmed dark pubic hair that was now exposed, while the captive girl endeavored not to meet anyone’s eye.
“And the shoes and stockings,” Agazarian said. “You may use that chair.” She pointed at the straight- backed wood and wicker chair beside the desk. This was the most humiliating moment of the morning so far as, having released her suspender belt, she had to sit facing the men to roll down her stockings, unable to avoid making the display slow and provocative. Then, the cold of the stone floor struck upwards through her body and she could feel her nipples hardening. Don’t think, she told herself. Don’t think.
“Now, Fräulein Mohr please use the toilet,” Agazarian commanded.
Barbara looked from her to the open toilet against the far wall in consternation. She had never done that before another person in her life, not even Rudy.
“We don’t want a mess, do we?” Agazarian asked rhetorically.
Barbara stood up uncertainly, crossed the floor, and obeyed her; it actually was a very necessary and a considerable relief, and there had been paper with which to wipe away the residual droplets.
“Now stand against the bar,” Agazarian demanded.
Barbara had not noticed the bar before; she had been too busy trying not to look at any of her surroundings. The bar, a rounded steel tube, was situated to one side of the room, raised horizontally some three feet from the floor on two other rounded steel tubes. These had grooves into which the parallel bar fitted, and handles by which it could be raised and lowered as required.
She drew a deep breath, then stood up and slowly crossed the floor. Her knees felt weak and she almost fell. This time no one assisted her. But she had no doubt that if she did fall, she would be dragged to her feet, and the thought of them touching her was unbearable. She reached the bar and stood against it; the steel pressed against her thighs.
“Now bend over,” Agazarian said in a level and assertive tone.
Barbara obeyed, bending from the waist, every muscle tensed, because now she knew she was going to be touched, as intimately and indecently as it was possible to imagine. One of the men came into view, and, as he stood in front of her, grasped her right arm, to pull it down, so that she all but toppled over, prevented from actually falling only by the bar.
Then she saw the handcuffs attached to a ring in the floor. He did the same to her left wrist. Before he had finished, she felt other hands on her legs, as they were pulled apart and each ankle in turn attached to another pair of handcuffs.
“Make her tight” the instruction came with the same even intonation. “She must not be able to move.”
The men cranked the handles, and the bar came up until it fitted into her groin, stretching her away from her wrists and ankles, leaving her both helpless and utterly exposed, buttocks highest.
“Oh my God,” she whispered as she felt the smooth metal pushing hard at her stomach.
Agazarian stood in front of her. “If one is allowed to move when being caned,” she said, “one runs the risk of suffering serious harm, or permanent scarring. And we wouldn’t want that, would we? You are such a beautiful creature.” She reached under Barb’s arms and gently caressed her breasts. “There is no aspect of you that is not superb, Fräulein Mohr.”
Barb stared at her own legs, feeling tears running down her cheeks and hearing them drop on the floor. All hope had gone, a fact confirmed when the commander said “You may commence. The cane, remember. Not the whip.”
“Ahem,” said one of the men.
“What is it?”
“We have our perks, Madam Commander.”
Agazarian looked at Edwards, who nodded.
“It is boring work being confined down here, Madam commander, and there is so seldom anything … how shall I say … worth handling.”
They are talking about me as if I were a piece of bull-meat, Barbara thought as she desperately tried to raise her head far enough to catch’s Agazarian’s eye.
But the commander merely shrugged. “If it will enhance your performance in reaching our goal with Fräulein Mohr, I will allow it. But please be expeditious, Major Grand is waiting to be called.”
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SIS Headquarters. Section D, Century House, 54 Broadway, Westminster, London, Friday June 23rd 1939.
“Now go easy old chap,” Laurence Grand was at this moment attempting to calm his subordinate down, but Henry Underwood was not for calming.
“You’ve sanctioned her interrogation Laurence? But why damn it? She’s the real deal and you know it.”
It would have been easy for Grand to mention the King’s personal directive. But that was for his ears only. “Well, yes, she has passed the test so far …”
“The test … so far?” Captain Underwood repeated.
“Yes Henry, being, how shall we say, intimate with you. As you already said, you are convinced of her authenticity are you not?”
“Yes, yes of course, and so just tell them to stop Laurence, I beg you, for the love of God, man.”
“Well just so, Henry. And so now we need to ensure that someone more objective can be convinced, which is why we have instructed Francine Agazarian and her team to provide that objectivity.”
Underwood’s face visibly paled upon hearing that woman’s name, and as he flopped into the large leather armchair situated in the Major’s office he reached up and accepted the mid-morning tumbler of whisky from his boss.
TBC
