Girl, Taken (2)
SIS HQ, South bank of the River Thames in Vauxhall, London. Office of Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service of the United Kingdom, Roger Moore, 2 pm, Wednesday April 3rd 2024
“It’s a fucking nightmare Roger, that’s what it is.” The Home Secretary was not happy. Although the holding of MI6 Major Jason Underwood was technically an issue for the Foreign Office, what the Chief of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service was asking for required sanction from the Home Secretary, and so Roger Moore was currently on the secure line to the Head of the Home Office.
“Yes Mister Home Secretary, I know but …”
“So let me summarise your request …” The Home Secretary cut in. “… you’re holding Jason Underwood pending a trial for treason, believing that he intervened in a joint US and UK operation to bring down an international drugs and sex trafficking ring so that he could save his wife
and his lover.”
“Well, yes, that’s true Sir …”
The Home Secretary laughed incredulously. “And now you want to have him released as part of an operation to find and free his daughter, who is currently being held at the hands of these criminals?”
“Yes Mister Home Secretary. Underwood is their real target and they have taken his daughter so that he will go to them. Despite his untimely intervention in a major operation a few weeks ago, Underwood was key in bringing most of that organisation down, and it appears that the parts of it that remain want revenge on him.”
“And how do you know this?
“We have received a video of her captivity and treatment, which is more than a little harrowing Sir. It was sent directly to Underwood’s phone, which we had in our possession, and so they clearly do not know that he is being held by MI6 Sir.”
“And so,” The Home Secretary continued, “… you intend to show Underwood this video and then offer him up as bait so that we can secure his daughter’s release and catch the bastards who have her?”
“Yes, precisely.”
“No.” Was the Home Secretary’s one word answer.
“No?” Moore repeated.
“No. If I agree to that, and I think you’ll find my colleague in the Foreign Office agrees with me, then our American allies will be all over us!”
“So, what should we …?” Moore hadn’t expected that, nor did he expect what the Home Secretary said next.
“So what you will do, is quietly release Underwood and let him go alone, without support or backup, to find the bastards. You will instruct him to get as close as he can and then call you in, and his involvement, as well as being ‘dark’, will also be conditional upon him turning himself back in when we have secured his daughter’s freedom and have her captors in our grasp. IS that understood.”
“Yes, Mister Home Secretary.”
Roger Moore had to sit down after the call. Did he get what he wanted? In truth he wasn’t really sure.
Conference Room 1, SIS HQ, South bank of the River Thames in Vauxhall, London. 5 pm, Wednesday April 3rd 2024
A small group, including Roger Moore, was assembled in conference room 1 at the SIS HQ in London, England. Jason Underwood sat cuffed waiting for the video to begin. He already felt sick.
Then the lights went down and the film started up.
On the screen is a girl tied, arms and legs, to a chair. She is dressed in a torn white shirt and jeans that are opened at the zipper.
A light shines into her face as the bag flies off her head.
It’s a dim light but it’s clearly Issy. Jason Underwood stands and viciously remonstrates, needing to be restrained by the guards either side of him, before, with his chest heaving, he settles back down into his seat.
Four men stand around the captive girl. They're dressed all in black. Long sleeves, long pants, boots, and black ski-masks. All anyone can really tell is their heights. Not much for anyone to go on. One of them steps forward and crouches down in front of the chair.
“What is your name?”
“You k ... know m … my name,” she stutters, obviously terrified.
“I know your name,” he says. “I know a lot about you, but I want you to say it again for the film.” His voice is calm and menacing.
“Issy Underwood,” She answers clearly.
“Okay, good. And, your father?”
The girl looks at the camera, and seems to quietly sob. “Jason Underwood.”
“Good girl,” the man says, before reaching behind his back to pull out a knife.
Issy looks at the man. “What do you want with me? Please, tell me.”
He slips the knife blade under the short hem of her tee shirt, pushes it against the fabric and then slits it up the middle, exposing her bare breasts underneath. Then he turns to the camera.
“So, Major Jason Underwood, from this minute onwards your very pretty daughter will be our sex toy, so the sooner you find us and come to us, the better it will be for her. But we don’t want you to spoil our fun too quickly, and so you need to figure out for yourself where we are holding her.
And with that the screen went blank
Jimmy Mac’s Bar, Langley, Virginia a short distance from Broadmoor Luxury Apartments, 11 pm, Wednesday April 3rd 2024
“Thar she is … right on schedule as always,” drawled the bartender, his back-country Virginia drawl on full display. “Eleven o’clock! Without fail.”
The customer to whom he spoke, an out of town businessman in a dark suit, spun about on his barstool to take a gander, across the way, at an obviously tipsy young woman engaged in rudely shoving her way past a departing couple.
“What’s the skinny on her?” The customer asked. “Quite the looker, if you ask me!”
“Name’s Barbara Moore. And, yeah, she’s a looker alright. Been turning up here at Jimmy Mac’s, about this time, every night for quite some time now. Usually she’s already half soused, comes in and orders herself a drink, pops a pill or two, and then goes and occupies a booth until near closing. By the time she leaves, she’s downed a few more, attracted quite a lot of male attention … like bears to honey .. and ends up leaving on some lucky son-of-a-bitch’s arm.”
“She’s a hooker then?”
“The usual!” She slurred, perching herself on a barstool, but not without nearly knocking it over.
She wore a short and slinky little black sleeveless dress, silver heels and carried a matching silver bag. And was quite the sight, alluringly perched on the barstool with shoes planted on its highest supporting rung, the hem of her dress creeping high enough on her thighs to offer a tantalizing glimpse of the black thong she wore underneath.
“Coming up,” responded the bartender with a knowingly sly wink at the bemused customer. “What’ll it be, Barb? The usual glass of Riesling?”
“You got it,” she asserted, withdrawing a couple of pills from a container that she’d extracted from her handbag.
“James Steele,” offered the customer softly, acting on a whim and extending his hand.
She popped the pills, washed them down, and directed her attention to him, appraisingly looking him up and down several times with her beguiling doe-like brown eyes.
“Pleased to meet you … uh … James, was it? I’m Barb. You married?”
Taken somewhat aback by her impertinent manner, and glancing at the barkeep, who gave him a sly wink, he answered, “not to my knowledge.”
“Mmmmm,” she said, swiveling around to face him fully and placing a warm hand on his knee to give it a gentle squeeze, “care to join me in a booth?”
“Uh … sure … why not.”
She took him by the hand, slid down off her stool, and escorted him over to the relative seclusion of one of the establishment’s high-backed booth’s, signaling on her way to the bartender for a refill on her drink.
Rather than taking a seat across from him, she ordered James, who had set himself down on the right hand side of the booth, to move over. And when he did, she promptly planted herself down right alongside him.
Together they talked and drank, and it wasn’t too long before she’d laid her head on his shoulder and, beneath the table, began to gently and suggestively stroke what soon became a growing bulge in his pants. A highly provocative advance to which he responded in kind, stroking her between her parted thighs … the tip of his forefinger engaging the damp and slippery fabric of her thong.
Moments later she had just playfully lowered his zipper when they were suddenly and unexpectedly accosted by another bar patron, who slid in on the bench alongside Barb with a hearty, “Hey Babs, how’s tricks? What’s this? Got yerself a new beau here? Hey! Better watch out pal! Babs here is a real nympho. Ask anybody ‘round here, and they’ll tell ya that she is!”
“Go away, Beau!” she hissed.
“Awww … that’s not very hospitable of ya, Babs. What’s he got that I ain’t got? Huh? I’m quite the stud, ya know that from experience now, don’t ya? Why just the other night, you and I …”
“Look friend,” intervened James, half rising to his feet. “Buzz off!”
“You gonna make me?”
“I can take care of myself,” she snarled, suddenly rising to her feet and gently pushing them both back and away from a direct confrontation with her in the middle.
“You’re stinking’ drunk, Babs! Maybe you’d fancy a double fuck tonight … me and him .. you sandwiched between us? Whadda ya say?”
“Leave, Beau! Now!”
“Why should I? Who’s goin’ to make me?”
At which point her CIA training kicked in. Moving quickly and deftly, she took him by the wrist, snapped his arm sharply behind his back and toppled him to the floor with a knee to the groin.
“Come on, James, we’re leaving,” she announced, taking him by the hand and leading him around her victim who lay doubled over, moaning pitifully on the floor.
Calling out to the bartender as she headed for the exit with James trailing close behind, “put the drinks on my tab.”
“Right.”
******
Two hours later she and James lay naked, side-by-side, on the bed in her apartment. They’d lost no time after reaching her place. They’d had an unbelievably wild sex romp together … in which she’d insisted that he slap and mistreat her. And, after which they’d fallen fast asleep in one another’s arms … a sleep from which they’d now awakened.
“I think I’m in love,” he said dreamily to her as he raised himself on one elbow and casually began to trace tight little circles with his index finger around one of her erect nipples with the intention of initiating another go. “I have to say, Barb, what we did earlier was the best sex ever. I hope you agree.”
“It was okay,” she allowed noncommittally.
“Uh … ouch! … I’m not sure I understand you.”
“Don’t even try, James, ‘cause you can’t,” she murmured, blocking him with a raised arm from taking her nipple into his mouth. “I’m complicated, you see … I mean really complicated … carrying a helluva lot of baggage you’d never ever understand.”
“Seems so, but ….”
“Shit, my phone is ringing. Who could possibly be calling at this hour...?”
O’-fucking-Shaughnessy, that’s who, Barb thought to herself, “Stay here. I’m going to go answer it.”
Sliding out of bed, she padded naked across the bedroom to the table onto which she’d tossed her silver handbag, opened it and pulled out her iPhone. The screen showed an incoming international call from what she knew to be the UK.
“Hello? Who’s calling?”
There was a pause.
“Oh my God! Jason? Is it really you?”
TBC
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