Swiftshadow

by D S Kane

  Ask her the questions I gave you and store her answers for me using the cell phone’s recorder function. I must know exactly what she knows, everything she learned when she hacked our computers. Torture her to get her to talk, do anything you want to her.

  When you have gotten as much as she will tell, gag her. Carve these words into her chest and abdomen: “Such is the fate of American spies.” While she still lives, take proof of her death. A body part, an eye or a nipple will do. I can match it to the DNA profile our mole sent. Place the body part in a dry-cleaning bag from the closet in her room. Retrieve the pointed broom handle from the hotel’s linen closet. Bind the bitch’s living naked body onto the bed, and hammer the point-end of the broom handle as far up into her vagina as it will go. Use your shoe to pound it into her. Untie her and put the broom bottom through the foot of the bed frame’s wooden panel so her dying body is forced by the broomstick to remain in an upright position. Let her suffer as she bleeds to death.

  Leave by the hotel service entrance no later than 4 a.m. and wait by the pharmacy just west of the service entrance. Use your cell phone to call “PH” for pick-up at 966-405-5811.

  Salaam and may Allah guide you well.

  The tone of Lee’s voice told her he was more in fear for her than for himself. “That’s it. And, as you know, it’s the phone number you gave me.”

  Cassie went limp. She took several deep breaths, got up and walked the room. But as she listened, her knees became more and more unsteady.

  She reached out toward a chair to keep from falling to her knees. She sat, shivering in fear, repulsed by thought of dying this way. “Holy shit. My head’s spinning.” The words Ainsley said continued ringing in her ears. “Thanks, Lee. Now I owe you a favor for sure.”

  Long after she hung up, her nerves made her jump with every city noise. She didn’t think she’d sleep that night, or ever again. Nightmares would surely follow her into bed. She stared out the window all night long until dark turned once again into bright day.

  Cassie had previously made dinner plans with Judy Hernandez. She was more afraid than ever, so afraid that the voice inside her whimpered nonstop, telling her not to leave the hotel room, there was danger everywhere. But she felt desperate to find release and hoped being with her friend might relax her.

  Just after 6 p.m., Cassie arrived first at Shun Lee Palace near Columbus Circle. She found a seat with the wall at her back and a clear view of the entrance and the rest rooms. Across from her she saw her eyes darting around the room, reflected on the mirrored walls. She feared for her safety so much she could smell the rank odor of her own terror.

  Judy arrived and sat at their table, happy and more talkative than usual. She could see that Judy seemed to have her own agenda and didn’t notice Cassie’s jumpiness.

  Over hot-and-sour soup, Judy told her, “I’ve been thinking a lot about our after-workout encounter. You know, when I…when we…when you and I,” and she pointed to Cassie’s torso.

  “And?” asked Cassie, eager to lose herself in her friend’s issues.

  Judy shook her head. “I’m gay. You are, too, or at least you’re bi.”

  Cassie frowned. “I have no sex life. No social life. I don’t want one. Present company excluded. Imagine me on a date, and the guy squeezes my boob. At best it would be difficult for him to get past the shock. At worst, I have no idea what type of guy would want to be with me after that. But, the last time I had sex with a man, it changed my life in too many bad ways. But yes, I enjoyed our ‘encounter.’ I’d like another.”

  After dinner they walked two miles in the heat and humidity to Hernandez’s apartment in Chelsea on 20th Street and Ninth Avenue. Perspiration coated both of them when Judy opened the door to her air-conditioned studio. With the lone exception of William Wing’s apartment in Hong Kong, Cassie hadn’t been in anyone’s home in many months. Nowhere but a hotel, a restaurant, or the Y’ She found the apartment evocative of past memories. Sorrow at the loss of her apartment so many months ago. Tears budded in the corners of her eyes.

  Judy closed the door and pulled Cassie close. With deliberate tenderness, Judy hugged Cassie to her. She moved her lips to Cassie’s and they kissed. She lifted Cassie’s sweatshirt, exposing one breast. She placed her lips on the erect nipple and Cassie moaned. In seconds, their clothing was coming off. Judy strapped on a double dildo.

  This time Cassie deliberately remained submissive, tried to enjoy being passive, and it paid off for both of them. Cassie let Judy’s fingers explore her, reach deep into her, slow and tentative at first, then more insistent. When Cassie tried to respond with her own fingers, Judy said “Shush, Denise. Let me,” and pushed Cassie onto her back. Judy said, “Let me have control, okay?” and Cassie nodded, trying as hard as she could to keep her hands from doing to Judy what she wanted them to.

  As Judy bent her knees between Cassie’s legs and the dildo touched Cassie’s womanhood, Cassie clenched her teeth. A quiet moan escaped her lips, soft and full of promise. Judy smiled and deliberately forced the dildo into Cassie, gliding through her core to its hilt. Cassie jolted as its end firmly slapped tight inside her. Judy slithered in and out of Cassie, slowly at first, then faster, harder. Cassie’s body shook as her first climax rolled in waves through her.

  Judy’s lips touched Cassie’s. Her hands kneaded Cassie’s nipples, and she thrust faster. Judy began building speed, moaning herself as the other end of the dildo stimulated her as well. She fucked Cassie and herself into oblivion, taking each of them to climax again and again. When they were finished, it was sheer physical exhaustion that stopped them.

  They climbed into Judy’s bed, naked, with Cassie curled in fetal position, her head on Judy’s shoulder, her legs wrapped around Judy’s waist.

  The last thought she had before drifting into sleep was she felt safe and secure tonight, for the first time in months.

  CHAPTER 16

  August 10, 3:35 a.m.

  Judy Hernandez’s apartment,

  324 West 23rd Street,

  Manhattan

  She woke with a start as the light came on. Making no sound, five men had entered Judy’s apartment. Four of them held Cassie down on the bed, two gripping tight her arms and two holding her legs.

  Before Cassie could scream the one she saw directing the others taped a gag over her mouth, while the others tied her hands behind her back with heavy rope and then bound her feet to the bedposts.

  She was forced into a painful kneeling position on the bed, their leader holding her bound arms raised painfully high behind her head. Her legs at the hips were twisted almost to the point of breaking. She wasn’t able to scream through the gag.

  Panicked, she noticed that even with the lights on, her vision seemed dim. Each was dressed in black but none had masks to hide their faces, a bad sign.

  She knew she would die tonight and examined her murderers. They all appeared to be Middle Eastern and, as Cassie turned her head toward them, from the corner of her eye she could see they had sliced Judy’s throat from ear to ear. Her friend’s blood filled the bed. Cassie gasped. No!

  She’d never experienced terror like this.

  “You will answer my questions.” The one she assumed was their leader pulled the gag from her mouth.

  Without thinking Cassie spat in his face.

  He pushed her back toward the bed and she heard her ankles and hips snap as they broke. A wave of pain crashed over her and the world dimmed.

  She sniffed ammonia and saw a rag under her nose. Her captor wiped her saliva from his brow. “Tell me all you know of Houmaz.”

  She grimaced through the pain and muttered, “Go to Hell.”

  Their leader smiled and kissed the blade of the long knife he held. “You go first. If you won’t be cooperative then—” He popped the gag back into her mouth, held the knife out to her as if offering it to her, but then he withdrew it. Cassie struggled, but was held fast. Her terror grew to a crescendo, echoing her pain. She could hear her heart
beat, marking time to the end of her life, as she watched. The voice in her head was so panicked it could make no sound.

  Their leader sneered at her. “We won’t rape you, so fear that no longer. Allah has given us other plans for you.” His accent was Middle Eastern but she couldn’t tell from which country he came.

  He clutched her neck to stop her from struggling and carved her chest with the sharp knife. “Arabic letters, but I’ll translate for you.” The man continued slicing deep into her, oddly stirring a detached memory of her father, years ago at their home in Half Moon Bay, as he carved a Thanksgiving turkey.

  She gasped in pain as the knife punctured her skin, ripping her flesh as he moved it across her chest. She tried desperately to move away as he cut into her torso, but the four others held her tightly in place. He spit out each word as he cut them into her: “Such is the fate of American spies.”

  One of them pulled her head back by her hair, just long enough for gripping.

  Cassie knew what was coming next and panic overwhelmed her.

  The leader said to the others, still holding the knife dripping her blood, “We’ll need proof of what we’ve done.” He fondled her breasts and said, “You will no longer need these.” Quickly, so fast the shock and agony of the act took seconds to register, he sliced the nipple from her left breast. She screamed as pain jolted through her, but again, the gag kept her from making a sound.

  He showed her the bloody nipple and she stared back thinking, this can’t be happening to me. But, the throbbing sting registering through her torso replied it was.

  He gripped her right breast and caressed its nipple. She flinched in anticipation and once again, watched in shock as he used the knife to rip it from her. She stared in anguish at the growing stream of her own blood as it seeped down her flattened chest and pooled onto the bed sheet with Judy’s.

  The leader asked, “Tell us what you did when you stole from us. What did you take? We know you took money. Did you also take anything else?” He removed the gag.

  She was too weak to speak. The word came out in a whisper: “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe you. Your last chance for a painless death. What did you take?”

  She opened her mouth. “Noth—”

  “Liar!” He took the knife and said to his team, “Hold her head.” Without giving her time to think what would next happen to her, he plunged the knife into her right eye socket and carefully carved one of her eyeballs from her head. Again her consciousness dimmed.

  Once more she could smell ammonia on the rag under her nose. And again, the pain was beyond anything she’d ever imagined.

  From her remaining eye, she watched him place the damaged eyeball in a small wooden box with both her severed nipples. Cassie felt her life draining away. Blood flowed from her empty eye socket, down off her face, hot and wet. Tears flowed from her remaining eye but the gag kept her silent.

  “Force her legs open wider so I can finish the work Allah sent us to do.” He held a long broomstick with one end sharpened to a point.

  She knew what was about to happen, tensing her body and trying to keep her legs closed. Her strength was ebbing away and she felt helpless.

  She felt his fingers dig deep into her vaginal lips, parting them, felt the broomstick tear into her, felt a hammer pound the broomstick through her, ripping up through her vagina, penetrating her womb, plowing up through her belly and stopping just below her heart.

  The shock of the pain was almost enough to kill her outright, and she blacked out. When she regained consciousness, the tip of the broom’s point tugged against her heart’s every beat. Her pulse quickened and became erratic.

  Breathing rapidly, convulsing in agony, she heard him say words sounding far away, “Raise her up. Move her over the bed’s frame and place the end of the broom handle into the frame. Force her upright. Use the broom. Hurry!”

  The room grew foggy. She watched a blur of movement as they left through the open apartment door and vanished. Cassie heard the voice in her head whisper, “Why did I procrastinate? Why didn’t I act against them sooner?”

  In a pain-shrouded haze, she felt her pulse skip and stop.

  CHAPTER 17

  August 10, 3:16 p.m.

  Apartment 11A,

  324 West 23rd Street,

  Manhattan

  Someone was shaking her. “Wake up!”

  Cassie’s eyes opened, and shocked, she saw Judy once again alive. She bolted upright, breathless, her pulse faster than if she’d run a marathon. “What happened to me?”

  Judy shook her head, saying, “You were asleep and then you began flailing and screaming louder than a banshee. Scared the shit out of me. Probably woke everyone on this floor of the building.”

  The red LED alarm clock blinked. It was just after 3 a.m. Her attention remained riveted on the dream. She could still feel her mutilated body, bleeding, throbbing, dying. Still see the faces of the men who so brutally tortured her to death.

  It was as real as anything that had ever happened to her.

  First her career had been blasted from her. Then her face had been changed to something hateful. She’d been forced to tear her baby from her belly. And run for her life. Now, her life had just been ripped from her forever.

  Slowly, the room became normal, its colors less vivid, and the pain she’d experienced in dying melted away.

  Now, she felt different, changed from the way she’d been. Broken in some major way.

  She felt she’d died.

  And now she was reborn.

  She took a deep breath and looked at Judy. “I’m truly sorry. I almost never have nightmares.” She kissed Judy’s brow and forced a smile. “Won’t happen again, I hope.” She hugged Judy close and settled her friend back into bed next to her. Cassie was afraid to close her eyes, fearful of dreaming.

  I’m a danger to anyone who keeps me company. I can’t see Judy again until I succeed in eliminating the people who want me dead.

  It was then she realized she was now committed to the path. This dream was the big message. Kill them before they kill me and those I care about.

  * * *

  Cassie sat by the window of the elegant Algonquin Hotel at 59 West 44th Street, recommended by Andrea Brown’s Writers’ & Artists’ Hideouts. She thought how ironic it was that the hotel was legendary for the writers who’d stayed there, yet she’d discarded her disguise and her cover as a writer. She tossed the book in the room’s trash can. No longer needed.

  Her work now was more serious: the planning preceding a military operation. During the late morning, Cassie opened the project-planning software on her cell phone and created the initial pieces of a plan designed to eliminate the Muslim extremists she believed were still searching to murder her.

  Cassie was taught at The Farm that every effective project plan starts with a list of tasks and the resources required to complete each task. The plan would give her an overview of the cost and time to complete the project. A roadmap. She saw her plan to eliminate the Muslim extremists as a project.[1] Cassie worked compulsively, taking breaks when her bodily needs left her too distracted. Gradually, she made progress.

  She assembled a list of the overall phases of the project, and then filled in the tasks under each phase. The plan required a large team to execute it. Cassie estimated the time in calendar days and total staff required to complete each phase. She frowned and began editing it. As the afternoon passed into evening, she fleshed out her first incomplete draft.

  Night dawned into day. She continued working, not eating or going to the bathroom until there was pain in her bladder or her stomach growled. She rarely got up from the chair. She took hot showers, ate, went to the bathroom, then slept until she awoke to begin anew, working until she was too numb to think.

  It took Cassie another day to hone a complete draft of the plan. When she pressed the commands on her cell phone, the planning software produced a Gantt chart and a PERT chart.

  The Gantt chart displa
yed staffing levels by activity. It showed the timeline to completion was much too long, and she guessed she could never remain alive for so many years.

  The PERT chart showed the sequence of all the events in the plan—which events she needed to complete before starting others. This chart depicted her many faulty assumptions, inconsistent uses of the staff she’d have to assemble, and empty spots where she’d need more staff.

  Damn. She’d have to try harder. But at least she had an entire outline, and with that completed, Cassie felt emotionally drained and exhausted. She slept through the afternoon and didn’t wake until nearly noon the next day. Finally refreshed, she had coffee, showered, and continued working to correct the multitude of faulty assumptions in her first draft.

  As evening fell the next day, Cassie examined the charts and frowned. She felt like pulling out her hair, her hands clenching in frustration. It shouldn’t be this difficult to create a practical plan, she thought.

  The plan required twenty million dollars and needed over 300 people, with skills ranging from hackers to intel experts to mercenary soldiers. How can I even hope to fund it?

  But the most serious problem with the plan was that she’d be exposed from the time she initiated assembling her army until the operation was completed. And it was almost inevitable that word of what she was doing would leak. From then on, she would be easy prey for her targets.

  To succeed, everyone involved in setting up and carrying out the military operation must remain in seclusion until the operation commenced. Keeping a secret for a year, and keeping soldiers hidden while they trained for almost two months—it just wasn’t practical.

  In fact, it was crazy. Surely an act of desperation by a schizoid woman.

  Of course, if a miracle occurred, she might remain alive until the plan was ready for its final execution. And then she’d either be free or dead. The overall odds of success for the massive black operation was worse than 50-50.

  Cassie examined each task in every phase to see if manpower requirements could be adjusted to begin sooner or run in less time. By adding four more bodies, upping the total from nineteen to twenty-three in the “hacker” category, she reduced the time to completion from ten to seven months.