In The Hands of Monsters (4)
Briefing Room, MI6 SIS Building, Lambeth, London, UK
“Sit,” Moore spoke to Kat as she entered the briefing room. It was 9am the following day. Agent Novikova’s jet lag was cleared and she had the warm feeling of time spent with the Jase the evening before to comfort her … and hopefully quell the antipathy she had felt the previous day.
Roger Moore looked like he had been in the room all night. On frequent occasions Kat thought Moore was a dick, more than that, she actually hated him when he used and abused her, getting off on her scars and welts … But at times like this, as with the time when he had orchestrated the rescue mission to Belarus
(see Death By Crucifixion), she also realised how devoted he was to his job.
Special Agent Novikova took her seat.
“No one else is to see this unless I’ve cleared it.” Moore’s tone was confidential in the extreme.
He gestured to a technician to start the tape. The MI6 team had been assembled in quick time. Kat looked at Moore across the table and turned away, determined not to catch his eye.
The film cut to a grainy image of a figure, hooded and bound, lying on the floor of a van. It had been filmed with a phone, or some other unsophisticated camera: the picture was shaky and slightly out of focus. Almost immediately, it cut to another scene. Now the camera was moving through the doorway of a small stone-built room, like an animal pen. A figure was sitting on the floor, handcuffed. The hood had been taken off, but only as she looked up did it become clear that it was Grace Miller. She looked terrified.
Then there was a brief shot of the same girl drinking from a plastic bottle. Once again, it was only on screen for a few brief seconds as the zoom moved in on the girl’s face in close-up. The camera pulled back jerkily to reveal that she was sitting in a chair. There was a murmur of disquiet around the briefing room as they saw that she was stripped naked, and that her limbs had been secured to the chair’s arms and legs with tight rope.
The framing was adjusted by an unseen hand, and the background was purposely blurred so as to give no clues regarding Grace’s whereabouts.
The screen went blank, all Officers and Agents in the briefing room collectively exhaled.
“But what do they want? And are we assuming ‘they’ are the Gaochung Network?” It was Kat that spoke first.
Moore took a deep breath. “The Gaochung Network is a collection of news terrorists. They take purloined headlines from other international states and release selective and fake news out to the world. Who do you think they do that for Agent Novikova?”
“The Chinese Government?” Kat made her answer sound like a question, although she already knew it to be correct.
“The Chinese Government, Ekaterina, yes.”
Moore paused fleetingly before adding, “Agent Miller is in the hands of The Chinese Ministry of State Security.”
“Fuck,” whispered Kat under her breath, because she knew just what the Chinese MSS were capable of.
“And you ask what do they want Special Agent Novikova?”
Kat looked up.
“The answer to that is simple, they want you.”
The abandoned former Capital Steel building, Shijingshan, South-West Beijing
The door of her cell opened.
“Come.”
As directed, Grace walked into the larger room, where she stopped short at the sight of a rope, hanging over a thick roof beam. On the floor was a coil of hosepipe. The fat man stood to one side, watching.
“Move.” Agent Miller, naked, wrists cuffed in front of her body, was pushed to where the rope hung.
There was another member of the group in attendance and he tied the cord to the short chain linking Grace’s handcuffs, then reached for the other end, pulling on it to raise her hands until they were above her head, whereupon he tied the free end to a bolt in the wall.
Strung up by the wrists, Agent Miller’s arms supported almost all of her body weight, the metal of the cuffs digging into her flesh. Suddenly, without any warning, the head monster grabbed her by the hair and pulled Grace violently towards him, then threw her backwards in the same manner.
As she rocked back against the rope, he slapped her, hard, across the cheek, with an open palm. The poor young girl screamed. It wasn’t just the pain; it was the sudden, shocking violence of it. Whimpering, she pulled away as far as the rope would allow.
The man, bulky and overweight, was breathing heavily now. He swung her round, then yanked Grace forward and grabbed her head in both hands, bringing it very close to his own so that she could see right into his eyes, inhaling his foul breath in the process. As he released her, he slapped her face again.
“Nǐ jiāng bèi pò zāoshòu jìnǚ,” Grace understood the words – “You will be made to suffer whore” Then she was slapped and punched until she vomited …
“You film this?” The fat man turned to another of his colleagues who nodded.
“Good, then we get the other whore as well.”
Finally, in her dazed haze, Agent Miller realised that she was being untied. Her aching body sagged with relief, but it wasn’t back to her cell that they were dragging her, it was to another location in the same room … her suffering wasn’t yet over for the day …
******
Sitting on the thin mattress, naked, Grace wrapped her arms around her knees and sobbed. As hour followed hour with nothing but her own thoughts to distract her, terror had been joined by an aching, dull despair. Locked in the small room she was free of cuffs and manacles, at least for the time being.
“I’m such a fuck-up,” the young girl muttered quietly to no one but herself. “Getting caught so easily …”
She saw now how the kidnappers were going to prevent this from dragging on: they were simply going to escalate her torment, little by little until she broke irreparably. They hadn’t even asked her any questions yet!
The onus would be on MI6 to find her before things got really nasty. Bizarrely she wondered if her parents had arrived safely in New Zealand, but the simple thought of her parents caused her despair to worsen.
Grace got onto her knees and tried to pray. At home, when she was younger, her family did this together every week; it was one of the things that daddy had insisted on. She wasn’t sure if she really believed – not that she’d ever dare tell him that – but right now it felt reassuring, as if it wasn’t God she was getting in touch with, but her family.
“Please don’t rape me, please don’t rape me, please don’t …” the quiet mantra was uttered under her breath. The girl feared penetrative rape more than being killed!
She thought of Kat. Had her friend, colleague … and, yes, would-be lover, escaped. The man had said they wanted to get her …
The sound of the chain rattling at the door alerted Agent Miller to the fact that her abductors were coming for her again. She pressed her hands even tighter together, squeezing her eyes shut too, whispering soundlessly into her fingertips. She heard the door open, but no command came. She went on praying. Still there was no sound. A minute passed. When she did eventually look up, she saw the fat leader standing there, framed by the doorway, waiting for her to finish.
“Get up,” he said simply.
To Be Continued …