Steel World Inc. Chapter Twenty Five

 

Miss Whitlock prepared a lovely meal from the impressively stocked freezer in the out building, which we ate with a green salad freshly picked from the garden and a couple of glasses of a superb Beaujolais that boasted the most exquisite tasting notes of dark cherries, violets and just a hint of dried herbs. 

 

“I could get used to this,” I said as I sipped the wine, and relaxed at the garden table.

 

“What? Being on the run from gangsters?” suggested Miss Whitlock.

 

“Well, I’m not sure they’re gangsters, as such. Just very dangerous men.” 

 

Miss Whitlock of course had far less experience of the operation than I did. She just had to trust me when I described what I had seen so far. 

 

“I can’t believe we’re working for them. The company just seems so ordinary on the face of it.”

 

It was probably six in the evening now. Miss Whitlock had suggested we drive into Southend-on-Sea to pick up feminine hygiene products of a nature that I chose not to delve too deeply into, and some bread and croissants, and a few other fresh things that the house tinned and frozen goods couldn’t provide, but I politely disabused her of that notion. I explained that where people often go wrong when they are on the run, is that they don’t stay put in places of safety. 

 

“Take the classis James Cameron film, the Terminator, for example,” I remarked, sipping my wine. “For a time Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor are quite safe from the marauding killing machine that is the eponymous Terminator, until Sarah Connor – it’s always the woman – Sarah Connor decides to break cover and phone her mum, reassuring her that she’s okay, and detailing her location, not knowing that she’s actually speaking to the lethal Terminator itself.”

 

“Why is it always the woman?” asked Miss Whitlock with a frown.

 

“Don’t take it personally. That’s just the way Hollywood films are.”

 

“Real life isn’t a Hollywood film. My sex isn’t stupid by nature.”

 

“Well, obviously not, but the analogy is a useful one. So, as you can see, had Sarah Connor simply done what Kyle Reese had instructed, they would have been quite safe, and the Terminator would never have found them.”

 

“I’ve never seen that film.”

 

I could hardly believe she said that. “You’ve never seen the Terminator?”

 

“I don’t much care for violent macho films with big explosions.”

 

“What sort of films do you like, then?”

 

“Well, when I was younger I went through an arty French phase. I loved Betty Blue. And I also went through a phase when I watched Audrey Hepburn movies over and over again, like Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday. Have you seen them?”

 

“Of course. I’m something of a cinema expert.” But had Miss Whitlock seen the extended director’s cut of Betty Blue from 2000 that adds an extra hour of footage and further explores the mental instability of the lead female protagonist, establishing new degrees of pathos for when she ultimately falls? Betty Blue is indeed a great movie, but I would refer to it by its original French title, which is ‘37°2 le matin’, as I’m something of a film purist. Hopefully Miss Whitlock watched the film in its original French, with subtitles, and didn’t opt for some appalling dubbed version, as girls so often do.  

 

“I just thought it might be nice to have some fresh croissants for breakfast tomorrow.”

 

And yes, I suppose it would.

 

I left Miss Whitlock to enjoy the garden as I thought I should really check on Emily in the basement kennel. She had been locked away since we arrived at the secluded farm house, early in the morning, and by now she would probably be feeling hungry. I put the uneaten food that we’d cooked into a bowl and carried it downstairs, together with a bottle of still spring water.  

 

As soon as I switched the basement light on, I saw her kneeling in her cage, looking angry. 

 

“Where have you been? I’ve lost track of time down here. It must be early evening!”

 

“It is,” I said. “Are you hungry?”

 

“Of course I’m hungry! I haven’t eaten for 24 hours. You just left me here in the dark.”

 

“Well, you can eat now. I’ve brought you some food.”

 

“I remembered Karl’s phone number while I was waiting for you to return.”

 

Well that was good news. See, everything continued to work out well. “Good, we’ll phone him and…”

 

“Only I can’t remember it now, can I? I’ve forgotten it again. If you’d left me a pen and paper I could have written it down. If you hadn’t just locked me in a cage and left me here, I could have told you as soon as I remembered it.”

 

“You seem petulant and overly critical.”

 

I watched as Emily gripped the bars. “There are professional killers who are trying to find us as I speak. I can have them killed as soon as I speak to Karl, and you just left me here, alone, so when I did remember his fucking phone number I couldn’t make a note of it or tell you!”

 

“Okay, so in hindsight I would have done things a bit differently. But I’m still not sure I can trust you, and I didn’t want you sneaking around while I was asleep.”

 

“How long have you been awake?”

 

Many hours, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. I didn’t like her attitude. She was trying to make this sound as if I was at fault here? That was a bit rich coming from a woman who when she did recall a simple phone number, promptly forgot it again a few hours later. And she was supposed to be an important manager! “Are you going to remember Karl’s number again, any time soon?”

 

“Quite possibly.”

 

“You can join us for a while.” I picked up the key to the kennel door and unlocked it, allowing Emily to crawl out into the wider basement. 

 

“There’s nothing to do in a kennel,” she said as she paced about the basement floor to alleviate the stiffness of her legs. “I suppose you and Miss Whitlock have been having a nice time upstairs?” She stopped to regard me. 

 

“That is none of your business, Emily.” I straightened her tunic hem and smoothed the garment about her body. Touching her like that felt very good, indeed. I touched the steel collar about her throat. She said nothing, and didn’t seem to object. “Drink some water.” I gave her the plastic bottle and watched as she opened and drank it all, and, once refreshed, she wolfed down the food we had cooked. When she was finished, I picked up a pair of slave bracelets and motioned for her to cross her wrists behind her back.

 

“You don’t need to do this.”

 

“Refer to me as ‘master’, Emily.”

 

“Why don’t you believe me? I’m not plotting behind your back! You saved me from Frick. I’m grateful! Why would I turn on you?”

 

“I don’t know, Emily. Why would you turn on me?”

 

“I wouldn’t! Please don’t restrain me. I don’t like it.”

 

I turned her to face away from me, and I pulled her hands down behind the small of her back. She was close to me, with her briefly skirted bottom so very close to my groin. Again, I could smell the scent of an aroused female. 

 

“Your hands…” 

 

I rested one hand now on her left thigh as I moved a little closer to her. “Don’t pull your wrists apart, Emily.” I had released them now so I could touch her. She gasped, just the once. “I think you lie to me, Emily. I don’t think you really want be my slave. I don’t think you really want me to own you.” It was obvious to me it was all a pretence, and that she only wanted me to claim here so that I would then free her, for how could I keep Miss Emily Madison as a slave?

 

“I do,” she said in a quiet voice. “I want your collar. Yours. No one else’s.”

 

“You don’t even call me ‘master’, do you?”

 

“I’m sorry, Master, this is all so new to me. I’ll try not to forget again.”

 

I locked the first cuff on her right wrist, and waited a moment for her reaction. There was a slight tremor in her body as she knew she was about to be restrained. And then I clicked the second bracelet shut about her left wrists. She was now helpless. 

 

“You called me beautiful before,” she said in a low voice.

 

“I did, I suppose.”

 

“Was that a lie?”

 

“No. You are beautiful. That is why I don’t trust you. It is hard to trust a beautiful woman.” I turned her about and opened her lips with my finger. “Beautiful women know that their beauty can get them anything they want.”

 

“It’s not true…” she breathed.

 

“Oh?”

 

“All I want is a collar, your collar, and you won’t give it to me.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“You won’t even put me to use…”

 

A curious phrase, and one I had heard before. No doubt she wanted me to make love to her to deepen the bond she knew would develop on my side, to the point where I would be desperate then to please her. It would be dangerous to make love to Emily Madison. A man might grow desperately fond of her, and then she would have power over him. Just a sullen expression of displeasure on her part could reduce a man to his knees, and make him desperate to correct whatever he had done wrong. 

 

“Only a slave would ask to be put to use.”

 

“Yes!” she said. “Your slave. Yours, Simon!”

 

“No, you belong to another man. This collar is Karl’s.” I touched it with the fingers of my right hand. It was locked about her throat and there was no way to remove it. 

 

“Ask him for me as your reward. You want me, don’t you?”

 

Yes!

 

“Perhaps,” I said. I tried not to think how lovely it would be to own a slave girl called Emily. 

 

Fantasy can be a powerful thing if you have a vivid imagination. 

 

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“It’s probably best if I make the call,” said Emily. An  hour later she had remembered the mobile number again. 

 

I smiled and made no attempt to give her the phone. “I’d rather phone Magnus myself.” There were several reasons why I was being cautious. Firstly, who knows who Emily might call if I simply handed the phone to her? Magnus Yes, possibly. Or some team of gunmen loyal only to her? Possibly also. Why take the risk? Also, I wanted to cement my position with Magnus, and that meant retaining the initiative as the ‘man on the ground’ in control of this situation. How would it look if Emily handled things and I just acted as some sort of minion? 

 

Furthermore, even if she did call Magnus, as she said she would, how would I know she wouldn’t use some pre-arranged code word that would tell Magnus I wasn’t to be trusted, and must be killed when his men arrive?

 

No, far better for me to make the call.

 

I dialled the number Emily had given me and after several rings I got through to the man’s answerphone. The pre-recorded message was brutally simple. 

 

“Magnus. Leave a message.”

 

That was it. I suppose he was in meetings. And I also supposed that a man like Magnus didn’t spend a lot of time playing with his phone. 

 

It was unlikely he had a Facebook account, for example. 

 

“Sir, I’m sorry to trouble you, but it’s Simon Rogers. Things have happened. Mr Frick turned against you as soon as you left. He tried to take Miss Madison. I rescued her and we’re both on the run. It’s very important you call me back.”

 

See how smart I am? At no point was I going to give a clue as to where we might be found on an automated message. Those things can be hacked. Tabloid newspapers did that regularly in the 1990s with celebrities. Even when Magnus rang back, I was going to play it safe and refer to our location in general terms. He would know where the Southend-on-Sea safe house was located, so I need only mention I was in Southend. There was no reason to suspect Frick might be able to hack Magnus’s communications – they would surely be very secure – but why take any undue risks?

 

“Well?” asked Emily, anxiously.

 

“His answerphone. We wait for him to call back.”

 

And we didn’t wait long. Ten minutes later my phone rang with Magnus’s number on the screen display.

 

“I’ll take this in the garden.” I said, much to Emily’s annoyance.

 

“You really don’t trust me, do you?”

 

“Call me ‘master’, Emily.. And no, I do not.”

 

“I don’t, either,” said Miss Whitlock. She placed her hand on my arm and was about to follow me into the garden.

 

“You stay and watch over, Emily, Arabella. I won’t be gone long.”

 

There was a look of surprise in her eyes, so I added by way of explanation, “We will be talking man to man. You’d just be a distraction. A lovely distraction, of course.” I kissed her softly on the forehead. 

 

“If you think so, Simon.”

 

I smiled and walked out into the garden where I took the call.

 

“Sir, thank you for calling me back so quickly.”

 

“What’s happened?” He sounded curt and not inclined to make small talk, so I quickly outlined the events that had occurred since he’d left for Amsterdam, perhaps painting myself in a brighter light than might otherwise have been the case. He listened quietly and waited a few seconds before he replied.

 

“You’ve done well. Frick will regret this. It will take me a while to get back to England, but I’ll send a car to you now. Where are you?”

 

“Southend-on-Sea, Sir,” I said, not giving the precise location. “I assume you know the place in the countryside I’m referring to?”

 

“I do indeed. And you do well not to mention it precisely on an open line. Now listen carefully. I’m sending two of my most capable and most trusted men. They are both Goreans from Treve, so they have no possible loyalty to any of the American families. The car will be here within an hour. Stay where you are until it arrives, and don’t answer any other calls. When I have details of the car – the colour and licence plate - I will text them to you, so you will know my car when it arrives. Do you have a gun?”

 

“I do, Sir. I thought it sensible to use your key card to acquire one when I spirited Miss Madison out of the house.” Magnus was going to be very impressed with me.

 

“Good. Load it, and if you haven’t fired a gun before, fire a couple of test rounds.”

 

“Won’t that be a bit loud, Sir?”

 

“You’re in the countryside, and the sun is setting. Farmers fire off shotguns all the time. No one’s going to raise an eyebrow. You need to be familiar with the kick of the weapon before you might have to use it.”

 

My pulse quickened a bit. “You think I might have to use it?”

 

“No, I don’t, but I can’t rule out the possibility. You’re on your own for an hour before my team will reach you. Be prepared. If anyone other than my men in my car turns up, shoot them dead.”

 

I swallowed. “Shoot them…”

 

“Dead. Shoot first and don’t ask questions.”

 

“If it’s just someone stopping by to ask directions because they’re lost?”

 

“The possibility is remote. I’ll text you my car details as soon as I have it arranged. Any other car is potentially Frick’s. Is Emily well?”

 

“Very well, Sir. I’ve been looking after her. She’s had water and food. She’s very scared, Sir, but you’d expect that, wouldn’t you?”

 

“Yes, she’s just a girl. I won’t forget this, Simon. You’ve done very well.”

 

And there it was. Handled perfectly by me. I wasn’t going to make the sort of mistakes an amateur protagonist might make in a tense fictional thriller. As you might imagine, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself by now. Can you imagine how many mistakes would have been made if Emily or Miss Whitlock were in charge? But not me. I like to think that many student years spent playing Dungeons & Dragons had left me well equipped to react efficiently in problem situations like this one. 

 

“Well?” Emily looked at me as I entered the living room and sat down on one of the sofas. 

 

“Everything is sorted. Karl Magnus is sending a car with two of his men. They should be here in about an hour.”

 

“Perhaps you can uncuff me then?” she asked, turning so I could see the beautiful slave bracelets still confining her slim wrists behind the small of her back. She had neglected to call me ‘master’ again, and so I simply stared at her.

 

“Master,” she said. “Please.”

 

“I prefer you like this. Compliant and helpless, and in a state where I don’t have to be too watchful.”

 

She fumed silently as I rose and went to fetch the box containing the handgun and its ammunition.

 

“What are you doing, Master?” 

 

“Magnus suggested I should load the gun and fire off a few rounds. Just as a precaution. He doesn’t think there’s any danger to us in the time it will take for his car to reach Southend, but he’s wise to suggest I arm myself, just in case.”

 

I think we are like minds, Magnus and myself, when it comes to strategy and tactics. I think he’d be a good Dungeons & Dragons player. 

 

And so the girls trooped out into the garden to watch, anxiously, as I consulted a google FAQ page for the Sig P226 handgun. The P226 is a big wide weapon with a fat bottom, and that fat bottom fits a generous fifteen rounds of 9mm. I was pleased to find that the P226 offers plenty of grip to fill your hand, and the rear of the gun features a slight beavertail that allows you to get your hand nice and high on the gun to maximize control. SIG’s controls are placed expertly and are very easy to access. My thumb found the magazine release without issue and this made it easy to drop magazines and reload. Pretty soon I discovered that the firing pin can only be released by actually pulling the trigger. The pistol is also equipped with a de-cocking lever that drops the hammer without firing the pistol, and, unusually, the pistol does not have an external safety. 

 

I loaded the weapon, following a helpful YouTube video, for which I took the trouble to click on the ‘like button’ for it in my appreciation, and left a flattering comment, and then I set up some targets where the garden was screened off by thick shrubs. 

 

“You’re really going to fire that gun?” asked a worried Miss Whitlock.

 

“You can relax, Miss Whitlock. I know what I’m doing. I watched a very helpful YouTube video.”

 

And then I adopted a very efficient firing stance and squeezed off a few shots. The P226 weighs 34 ounces, so that’s a hefty gun, but that’s not all bad. Thirty-four ounces of gun helps reduce recoil and makes the P226 easy to control. 9mm doesn’t provide much of a fight in the recoil department, and when it’s trying to fight 34 ounces of weight, it puts up even less of an argument. I found that the P226 bucks just a bit, but it is a flat shooting, easy-to-control pistol. It’s pleasant to shoot without snappiness, at least in 9mm.

 

“You do look like you know what you’re doing,” said an anxious, but smiling Miss Whitlock. “I feel a lot safer now, actually.”

 

“Thank you, Arabella.”

 

And that was it. I replaced the spent rounds and took the gun back inside. Now all we had to do was wait.

 

A text message came through sometime later. I picked up my phone and read the words Magnus had sent me: ‘Car is north of Southend. Should be with you in five to ten minutes. Car is an Audi A6 Avant. Car color is charcoal grey. License plate RMD 283.’

 

And there it was. We were almost home and dry.

 

“Good news, girls,” I declared as I looked up from the phone screen. “Karl’s car is just ten minutes away. He sent me details so I wouldn’t mistake it.”

 

“Can I see?” asked Emily. 

 

I saw no reason not to show her the text. “Charcoal Audi A6 Avant,” I said as I held the phone screen for her to see. “Pretty good car, actually.”

 

I saw Emily’s brow furrow as she looked up from the screen and then looked at it again, as if to make sure.

 

“It’s Frick,” she said, and there was a sudden coldness to her voice. “He’s found us. Those will be his men.”

 

“What on Earth are you talking about? The car is from Magnus. It has two of his men from something called Treve.”

 

“No, it’s Frick. Those men are going to kill you.” The fear in her face looked surprisingly genuine.

 

“What do you mean? How can you tell from a make of car?”

 

“It’s not that. The word ‘colour’ is spelt the American way, without a ‘u’.”

 

“So?”

 

“Karl learned English in England. He probably doesn’t even know there is an American way of spelling some words. He’d have typed that the English way. That’s not Magnus.”

 

A cold shiver ran down my spine. No, that didn’t make sense. It had to be Magnus. I’d spoken to him. Those would be his men.

 

“I think you’re wrong.”

 

“Listen to me, Simon, and for once in your fucking life pay attention! Those men are Frick’s! They will kill you, they will rape Arabella and me, and then they will take us both back to Frick. You will have one chance to kill them, and that’s when they first get out of the car. They won’t be expecting any trouble, so as soon ss they step out of the car, you shoot them both at short range with the Sig and you keep on fucking shooting them to be sure, until all your bullets are spent. If you hesitate, if you waste that precious moment, they will draw on you seconds later, once they’ve confirmed I’m here, and you will be dead.”

 

“You’re asking me to shoot two men who I’ve been told are coming here to help us, just because of the way a single word was spelt in a text message?”

 

“You will have one chance. If you don’t take it, you’ll be dead seconds later. Now get the fucking gun!”