Retribution

RETRIBUTION

(PART FIVE)

BY

WALLACE

He slipped quietly into the darkened office, pulled off his coat and hung it on the stand to dry. The rain had been threatening for the last couple of hours and now it was tipping it down. He sat in his chair without switching on the light and loosened his tie before pressing the redial button on his mobile phone.

He looked out onto the late rush hour traffic moving silently through the double-glazed windows of his office, Then he tensed as the number he had been dialling for what seemed like hours was suddenly answered.

"Bob! Bob where are you? I've been trying to get you for ages. Yes I KNOW I've rung Jimmy's mobile number but you two seem to be joined at the hip these days and I also know that YOUR phone was destroyed along with MY car!" He let that sink in for a few seconds.

"Bob, I've got the Assistant Commissioner on my back and she wants answers. Yes, Rose MacGregor, yes, she IS normally okay but you have to admit these are not normal circumstances and she's getting shit from the TOP…" he nodded to the window as if the person he was talking to was in the room with him. "Yes I know that Bob but apart from snarling up virtually the whole of London we have how many deaths to deal with? Five? Including one dead officer… and one critical! Oh God! No, no, leave that to me, I'm not having some spotty constable doorstepping the family in the middle of the night, I'll deal with it personally, it's the only way, I'll get the details later!" he leant forward in his chair.

"Now listen Bob, from what I've heard I'm quite sure that you did the right thing under the circumstances as they unfolded and I will back you all the way. The car, which I'm sure you were not responsible for, is explainable, just tell Sergeant Clarke to watch his arse for the next few weeks." Now he stretched out putting his feet on the desk and putting out his left arm to ease the tension in it.

"We need to put a lid on this Bob. We're into damage limitation now, so I'm going to need a full report first thing in the morning. Something solid I can fend Rosie off with. Okay? And Bob? I'm very sorry about what happened. Really sorry! What's that? Oh yes I've been here all night, I was downstairs fending off your friends in the press for most of the time and a right pain in the arse they are too but you're one of the few coppers I know who's got a good relationship with virtually every press and TV man, and woman for that matter, in the UK so I can't argue. Listen, I'm going to be here until late… very late, so if you want to pop in and talk that's fine, just make sure you bring coffee with you!" he smiled, " Or get Jimmy to do it, you can tell him that's his penance for ruining the best car I never nearly had! Oh yes, and for wrecking it in record time as well! Yes, okay Bob, see you later."

Chief Superintendent Ramsey pulled out a pack of Marlboro lites, lit one and sat watching the traffic with a concerned expression on his face. With everything that had happened he couldn't seem to actually ask after Charlie Wright Patterson outright, technically she wasn't a police officer but he still didn't know if she were dead or alive.

*

It's funny how people's attitudes to flying differ. Sheila, for example, could spend whole nights happily blindfolded, gagged and bound and could stay in one position almost indefinitely without moving a muscle but put her on a plane and she'd be restless within Five minutes and looking up and down the rows of seats for someone to have an argument with whilst I would be quite content to read a book or sleep the whole way.

This time of course things were slightly different. Normally I would want to get to sleep BECAUSE of Sheila but now there was no Sheila to hide from, an unmitigated pain in the arse had been replaced by a sore back that felt like it was on fire and was still leaking blood occasionally.

The hospital had not been exactly fun, partly because they had put me in a cubicle in Casualty next to an incandescent Emma Bannion, who, despite the fact that she was calling me names that were making even the hardened casualty staff blush, looked quite cute in her hospital gown, wriggling her toes and blaming me for just about every human ill since the beginning of time.

By the time she had been x-rayed and the doctors had decided she had three cracked ribs I thought she might have run out of steam but she hadn't. I was on my front having the glass removed from my back by a young student doctor with what appeared to be an overgrown pair of tweezers and Emma was cussing me ever so quietly under her breath. She'd already covered all the F and B words and now whilst she waited for the all clear to collect her painkillers and go home she had reached the C's.

Every time she called me a cunt of some description, ever so quietly but just loud enough to hear, so the young doctor, a German girl called Annalise, would either tense or just start a little and each time it would be transmitted directly through to my already sore back and all the while DI Bannion would lay there with a smug, self satisfied look on her face.

*

"So where am I then?" Seven and Nine had helped Heather to stand up. Her ankles were still bound together and Seven was now blindfolding her whilst Nine was helping her to stay upright.

"We call it The Village," Heather could sense something. It was like a low kind of rumble. She nodded

"The Village huh? Don't seem very Villagey!" satisfied that she could stand whilst bound and blindfolded the two silver women were now pulling out a large drawer form the large single bunk in which Heather had originally found herself.

"Okay so if you're Five and these are Seven and Nine…hey, careful Nine! Or is it Seven? If you wanted my panties I could have taken them off for you." then she tried to move her bound wrists, "or maybe not!" she said reflectively, gentle, ticklish hands made her start," Hey! That's my pussy you've got there, I kinda wanna hang on to that… aaah!" it was a short little gasp. A gasp born not of pain but of pleasure. She felt soft gentle fingers sliding against her outer lips. They felt greasier than they should and then they went away only to return seconds later feeling softer and slimier than they did before. Five spoke bringing Heather out of the momentary reverie she had fallen into.

"It's lubricant, we need to untie your ankles, will you let us or will you try to run?" she was blindfolded for Chrissake but one silver being was holding her whilst the other was massaging her pussy softly and gently. It was a little overwhelming. She didn't speak, she didn't trust herself to, she just nodded her head and she could feel the girl behind her let go of her to crouch on the floor and begin to untie her.

"Seven, just make sure she doesn't try to get away!" it was Five's voice, soft but insistent. So Seven must be on her knees in front of her and Nine behind her. She could kick out blindly. She could try to run but how would she get the blindfold off with her hands still tied?

No, there was nothing for it but to bide her time and just accept, as best she could, whatever they were going to do to her.

*

Both Emma and I were still in Accident and Emergency when it was suddenly turned into something akin to a War Zone. The sound of sirens is never very far away when you're in the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel Road but now they were everywhere.

The walking wounded arrived first, either on foot or incredibly by taxi and then came the serious injuries. Even Five floors away the sound of the emergency helicopter that sits on the roof above Casualty waiting to go into action could clearly be heard coming and going as it ferried the most seriously wounded to the relative safety of the hospital.

The plain clothes officer who had drawn the short straw and accompanied myself and Emma soon found out about the carnage in the East India Dock Road but it was only when a deathly pale Charlie covered to the neck in blankets, being drip fed saline and blood through canulas in both hands and with an oxygen mask strapped over her mouth was rushed through Casualty and straight into the area occupied by the Crash and Triage team, did we realise just how bad things really had been.

*

She felt the pressure go from her ankles as the last rope was removed but then she felt her legs being pushed apart and something that felt like a leather strap being attached to first one and then the other.

"Hey, hey! I thought I gave you my word that I wouldn't try to run!" she felt a soft hand against her cheek for a few fleeting seconds and then the blindfold was removed.

"I'm sorry Heather but your word is not enough!" Blinking against the intense white light Heather looked around her. She was still in the same room and she was standing just a few feet away from the white bed but now there was a twelve inch metal bar between her ankles, a leg spreader attached by wide leather straps that prevented her from moving very far.

She didn't look Five straight in the eye at first.

"Mmm good title for a song or even a film that," Then she smiled benevolently at Five, "Y'know "Your Word Is Not Enough?" Five looked at her as if she was a little lost or maybe her mind was elsewhere. Heather tended to pick up on things like that.

"What's worrying you Five? What you afraid of?"

From her strange confinement, the shaven headed, bare breasted being known as only as Five looked up at the tall barefoot woman whose lilac panties were just above her knees and whose bra was now being undone carefully by one of the silver clad figures both of whom had now removed their gloves to reveal white and black skin respectively.

"We need to put you into Lock Down and we need to do it now, both Allison and Angela are now ready." as if in corroboration of her statement the door opened slowly. Two more silver creatures stood there but Heather was more concerned with their companions. She gasped in horror and turned slowly back to Five.

"What the hell have you done to them?" she asked, her voice no more than a shocked whisper.

*

She pulled her anorak around her as best she could and tried to find the leeward side of the steps up to the hospital, the side that would protect her most from the wind. Hands deep in pockets, mobile phone tucked under her chin she was relieved to hear it being answered.

"Hi! It's me. Yeah, best I could do, it's chaos here and it's the first chance I've had to get out. No. I'm okay, cold and a bit shaky, bloody cold in fact. My tights were in tatters so I've binned 'em and I'm absolutely freezing! Yes, soon. It's a mess but I've sorted it out as best I can. Yes, he's gone, she's taking him, yeah, as we agreed, so it worked out all right in the end didn't it?… But bloody hell - Semtex! Bloody Semtex! I'd have expected C4 or something similar but Semtex? What century is he in? Is he hoping they'll blame the IRA? Anyway, just as well I was there or he would have missed it completely. No, couple of cracked ribs but they're bloody sore. No, I don't think he suspects and before you ask I don't know HOW she is, I couldn't even get close. There's a couple of knuckle draggers from SO19 on the door as well so I've got no chance even if I flash my warrant card and smile, no one, but no one, is getting in there!"

She listened intently for a few moments to the voice on the other end of the phone.

"WHAT! Gerda's surfaced? Christ! No wonder the shit's hitting the fan. Look, you'll have to tell me later, I've got to get back; the doctors will be looking for me. Yeah, American Airlines flight 304, leaves just after midnight, gets into JFK around eight thirty. No, of course he doesn't know! I'm staying downtown from him and yes, I WILL be careful and I'll keep in touch. Yes, of course I will. Okay! Bye!"

Detective Inspector Emma Bannion took hold of her mobile phone and dropped it into her pocket then she looked across the road to the market stalls outside Whitechapel Underground station and watched them being rapidly dismantled in the cold night air. They sold a lot of clothes over there and she made a mental note to come and take a look sometime.

Sometime when she didn't have quite as much on her plate as she did now.

*

Angela had a chain tattoo on her left ankle and it was now the only recognisable thing about her. The two new silver guards led their captives in on short chains. Short because they needed to control them closely. The girls could obviously not see and the short spreader bars between their bare ankles meant that that they could only take tiny, stiff little steps.

Apart from Angela's tattoo there was little visible that even hinted at the identity of the two people now being led to the white bunk and helped to sit down. Their feet and legs were bare and it seemed as if they had been thoroughly cleansed even down to the removal of their nail polish. Their freshly waxed legs shone in the strong light.

They were both dressed in shiny black PVC, their bodies covered literally from crotch to head. It appeared to be a one-piece garment at first although closer inspection would give the lie to that and it was quite obviously a distant cousin to a straitjacket. Their arms, rather than being crossed over each other below the breasts, were held rigidly at their sides and zipped uselessly into fists by soft, padded, shiny black gloves, very similar to boxing gloves but with just a little less bulk.

As Heather took in the full horror of what they were wearing she heard Five's voice in the background.

"Their arms are held in padded splints," she said in a dull monotone, " and although you can't see them, their necks are in orthopaedic braces. They couldn't move them if they tried but they ARE comfortable, I promise you that." It wasn't that Heather was unaccustomed to severely restrictive clothing, she'd used a lot of it on Angela AND Ally for that matter in the last few months but only for short periods of time. When Five had referred to Lock Down she had felt that she was talking about something a lot more permanent, "None of you will come to any harm," it was Five again, " as I said before we need to keep you out of the way for a while!" Heather was still stunned.

It was the heads of the two girls that particularly concerned her because, to all intents and purposes, they no longer had any.

THE STORY CONTINUES IN PART SIX

© Wallace 2004. The writer maintains the right to be recognised as the author of this piece. This is a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any places, either real or imaginary or any people or characters real or fictitious, living or dead.