The Housewife Assassin's Ghost Protocol (6 page)

When I pull back, I’m smiling. I can’t afford to let the worry in Jack’s face be reflected in mine—not if we’re to complete our mission and bring Salem to justice.

Besides, I’ve got Acme backing me up. And the first chance I get, Salem gets pricked with the Roofie-filled syringe.
 

Jack knows this. It’s why he doesn’t punch Salem in the gut when our host steers me toward the grand staircase.

Isabelle and Sophie set upon Jack like wolves on a sacrificial lamb. He does his best to keep his eyes on me, but can’t for more than a few quick moments as the crowd envelops us.

I don’t think Jack sees it when Salem detours us to the right of the staircase, into an alcove. It holds an elevator. He pulls a tiny brass key from his tuxedo pocket and turns it in the lock beside the elevator. It opens silently.
 

Before I know it, he shoves me inside, and against the back wall.
 

His mouth grinds into mine. I try to push him off, but he slaps me across the face so hard that my head ricochets off the wall, knocking the tiny Bluetooth out of my ear.
 

It pings as it hits the floor, but he’s too busy fondling me to hear it.
 

Sadly, I’m too far away to grab it. Still, I struggle as hard as I can to free myself, but Salem seems to have the strength of three men. With one broad forearm, he pins my arms above my head, ripping the chain strap of my clutch off my wrist, and tossing it onto the floor.
 

His other hand yanks my hair—

And my wig comes off in his palm.
 

He stares down at it, then back at me.
 

“Why…you’re…” He laughs uproariously.

Oh, hell. He recognizes me
.

He must also remember what I did to him the last time we saw each other.

Well, I remember what he did to me too.

I remember his rough touch. His promise of pain. And his total disregard for life.

That last nasty little trait cost him his own–or so I thought.

When he moves in to smother my mouth with his, I hear everything in my clutch purse crunch beneath his foot: the syringes, not to mention my cellphone.
 

Damn it! How will Jack be able to find me? I’m now naked, figuratively. (But, I dread, soon literally.)

It’s up to me to save myself.

My guess is that we’re not going up toward the private cabins, but down into the hull of the ship. Quite frankly, it’s a wonder I feel any gravitational pull on my body at all, what with all the poking, prodding, and grabbing Salem is doing, all the while crooning sadistic taunts as to what he’ll do with me when we get to (as he so lovingly puts it) “one of my many torture chambers.”

Finally, the elevator door opens into a wide hallway. Salem’s elbow goes around my neck, making it easier to drag me along.

Like the main ballroom, strobe lights plunge the hall into a freeze-frame chiaroscuro of darkness and light. When my eyes finally adjust, I realize that each room we pass is some sort of torture chamber. Every now and again, Salem will stop in a doorway in order to admire the sex play of his guests.
 

One of the rooms seems to run on forever, both in its length and depth. Inside, it looks like a free-for-all of sex and pain. The walls are lined with shackled captors, both male and female. Their varied stages of undress are the result of the whip slashes on their blood-striped backs.
 

Not all of their shouts are muzzled by the various accoutrements placed between their lips. The ones who can scream have gags made of metal fingers or plastic rings that leave their mouths open for anything their torturers want to shove into them. If their torturers’ engorged cocks are any indication, they’ll soon be silenced too.

Some of the onlookers are too engrossed in their own sexual machinations to watch the flogging action. They’re stacked three or four deep on the floor. If so many of them weren’t thrusting, wriggling, and moaning, their orgy could be mistaken for a mass grave.

In another room, a naked woman is bent, spread-eagled, over a vinyl barrel horse. Her wrists and ankles are chained to the hardwood floor. Her torturer—a man thick in the neck, broad in the shoulder, and taut in the abs—wears only leather chaps and an executioner’s mask. Her head jerks back each time he strikes her back with a cat-o-nine-tails. Her screams pierce the air.

The guests watch from the couches scattered throughout the room. For the most part, the female observers flinch with each squeal from the bound woman. Their eyelids are raised only to half-mast. Whether this indicates a clouded stupor, abject fear, or numbed resignation, I can’t say.
 

On the other hand, the men—many who have already shed their tuxedos—cheer him on. Some are so riled up that they emulate his moves, smacking the women at their sides and in their laps with their hands or some of the torture toys scattered around the room.
 

Every now and then, one of the men will gobble yet another pill. If his submissive struggles to get away, he’ll force her mouth open in order to pour the dregs of the closest champagne flute into it.

So much is poured into one of the women that she convulses. Her captor’s attempt to revive her is to pump her chest, but touching her breasts brings him to climax as she takes a last sad gasp.

She is Nicolette’s friend, Suzette.
 

This is not how I want to die.

Suzette’s rapist doesn’t notice, and likely doesn’t care, that she isn’t breathing.

Salem does, and he isn’t happy about it. He punches a wall intercom with his fist.
 

It squawks, “Yes, honorable patron?”

“Chamber Eight. A guest is no longer with us. Remove her playmate as well.”

A mere moment later, two of Salem’s security guards have entered the room. One swings the dead girl over his shoulder while the other tries to nudge the man toward the door.

Seeing Salem standing in the threshold, the man angrily heads our way.

I suddenly realize that the man is Pinky Ring.

“How dare you, Salem!” he screams. The words are English, but his accent is German. “I won’t have it—not after what I did for you tonight—”
 

Salem lets go of me in order to grab Pinky Ring by his throat and slam him against the wall. “Shut up, you little fool! Not in front of
her.
”

Pinky Ring’s eyes slide in my direction. Although gagging, he must like what he sees because his pout turns into a clown’s grin. “Please don’t remove me from all the fun and games. I’ll…I’ll behave, I promise! And I’ll give you my vote against…against The Other.”

His declaration intrigues Salem enough that he releases the choke hold on Pinky Ring. Still, to play coy, he shrugs. “You mean to tell me that I didn’t already have it?”

“The Other can be quite persuasive too, as you know all too well.” Pinky Ring straightens his bowtie, but his eyes shift to me. “Yes, you’ll have my vote—if you throw this one in as part of the deal.”

“You little imbecile!” Salem chuckles raucously. “Perhaps, when I’m done with her. So then, do I have your vote?”

Pinky Ring’s beady little eyes slide my way. He moves in for a closer look—too close in fact.
 

He cups my breast, as if that might jog his memory.

It won’t since we’ve never met. As a way of reminding him of this, I slap his face.

He yelps in pain. He draws back his hand to retaliate, but Salem grabs it before it makes contact. “Forget it. She’s mine to punish. Go pull another woman from the pens.”

As he crushes Pinky Ring’s hand in his fist, the smaller man whimpers,
 
“They’ve been passed around too much! And they certainly don’t have her desire to live.”

“We have a few new ones in there. Whomever you choose, you’ll be her first.” Salem’s arm goes around my waist in order to jerk me along to another door further down the hall. It is closed.
 

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as he taps in the necessary code on its numbered lock:

19*29#

It slides open to reveal a room holding wall-to-wall cages. They are so small that the captives—both men and women—are on their hands and knees. Their mouths are gagged, and most are naked.
 

Water bottles are strapped to the rail of each cage, as if these people are lab rats. I imagine the liquid is drugged, which is why they are so docile.

The women who are still dressed whimper the most. When one of them realizes the door has opened, she bangs on her cage with her bound wrists.

Salem goose-steps me to the wall. There, he reaches up with his free hand in order to pull down a short metal rod: it’s a cattle prod.

He takes it over to the woman’s cage and smacks her hard across the shoulder. She shudders from the jolt of electricity that runs through her body. Her eyes roll up into her head before she passes out.

The others cower in the farthest corners of their pens.

“Too bad. She was the prettiest,” Pinky Ring murmurs.

I recognize her. She is Jean-Pierre’s friend, Gigi.
 

“The auction starts at midnight. I anticipate she’ll go for ten million Euros.” Salem cocks his head as he scrutinizes her. “Then again, I may keep her”—his gaze shifts my way—“if this one doesn’t last the night.” He jerks me close enough that his whisper is hot on my neck. “What do you think, my pretty? Are you up for some fun and games?”

He wants me to be frightened of ending up like Gigi. He wants me to barter for my life; to beg him to let me go.

I want to make him pay for all the suffering he causes.

I want to kill this son of a bitch
.

I summon a smile. With a throaty laugh, I murmur, “Lead the way.”

His grin grows into a leer. “After the head games you’ve played on me, naughty one, I’d say be careful what you wish for.”

His arm goes around my waist again. He’s strong enough to lift me off my feet as he strides purposefully out the door, to another at the end of the hall.
 

I carefully watch as he opens the door with the same six digit code as the one he used to access the slave pens:
 

19*29#

As Salem shoves me inside, the door slams loudly, echoing through his private torture chamber.

Like the other rooms on this level of the ship, there are no portholes, and its walls are padded—to muffle any screams, I imagine. Only in here, the walls of the room come to a V at one side. From that I deduce that we are at the bow of the ship.

The fluorescent lights from overhead cast deep ugly shadows of the only things in the room: the two chains that hang from the center of the ceiling, and above a stainless steel table to one side are several items: a cattle prod, a Taser, pliers, and a cleaver—undoubtedly there to torture this twisted bastard’s unfortunate guests.
 

With more than a little luck, one of his torture tools may save me.

More goodies hang on a wall: whips of various shapes and sizes, spreader bars, more chains, choke and jolt collars, straightjackets, paddles, butt plugs, and dildos. On another wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves hold every high heel imaginable.