Buzz: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  “Do you like the performance?” John whispered in her ear.

  She honestly didn’t know how to reply.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He was back in the saddle! That whole experience with Anna Argos had in some weird way almost made him doubt his abilities. But now everything was back to normal!

  Although . . .

  Obviously, there was nothing normal about what they were doing. Normal stuff was for average Swedes! His body was shiny with sweat, probably due as much to the acid as the fact that he was taking Sophie from behind like there was no tomorrow. Rilke was lying on the bed a short distance in front of him, with Sophie’s head between her legs, and to judge from the noises she was making, She-woman knew what she was doing.

  He closed his eyes for a few seconds to enjoy the light show of the pill he had popped just a minute or so ago, but quickly opened them again. To be honest, he didn’t want to miss a second of the scenario unfolding in front of him. His overloaded brain was on the point of exploding from all the information it was absorbing.

  Not to mention his cock . . .

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  There was undeniably something titillating about watching other people have sex at the same time as her, even if the trio on the screen were still some way ahead of them. She suddenly got the feeling that the man on-screen was vaguely familiar. There was something about the way he held his head, the way he moved . . .

  John’s mouth was on its way from her breasts down over her stomach and she shut her eyes for a couple of seconds. When she opened them again the gang on the screen seemed to have changed angles, and she found herself mainly looking at the man’s back.

  He had short hair, was fairly slim, and didn’t look like a regular gym-goer. Not really the ideal porn star. But, on the other hand, this film didn’t seem to be a terribly professional production.

  He was pretty suntanned, though, even below his waist.

  When the man moved into the light a jagged pattern of long white scars suddenly came into view at the base of his spine.

  Suddenly she froze.

  She sat up and pushed John’s head away.

  She snaked backward across the bed to get a bit closer to the screen. He grabbed hold of her legs and pulled her back.

  “Stop it,” she muttered, kicking free.

  The similarity became more and more striking the closer she looked.

  He pulled her back again, harder this time, and tried to spread her legs.

  “Stop it, for fuck’s sake,” she snapped, and shook herself free again.

  She rolled over onto her stomach and made another attempt to crawl closer to the screen. Could that really be . . . ?

  No, it was impossible!

  Suddenly he was on top of her, landing so hard that she almost lost her breath.

  He put one hand around her neck and pulled her head up.

  “I give the orders around here,” he hissed in her ear, and suddenly his voice didn’t sound anywhere near as gentle as before. She opened her mouth to protest, but he just squeezed her neck tighter and she couldn’t get a sound out.

  Her eyes began to flicker. She could feel his weight on top of her, pressing her down onto the bed. Could feel him fumbling with his free hand.

  What the hell was going on?

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  This couldn’t be happening! Brewer’s droop—now—of all fucking occasions! In the middle of a freaking porn film fantasy, and the tool of the trade was letting him down!!!!

  How the hell could he be stupid enough to mix drink with acid like some blasted rookie?! He looked down at his deflating pride and joy, and suddenly felt close to tears . . .

  Damned bastard bloody . . .

  The girls hardly seemed to notice him.

  Sophie was lying on top of Rilke, and they were exchanging increasingly animated oral services, but neither the sight nor the noises they were making did anything to ease his predicament. All he could do was watch.

  Completely fucking . . .

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  . . . paralyzed.

  Unable to move—hardly able to breathe—while the man on top of her did his best to penetrate her from behind.

  The hand around her neck, the body pressing her down. His panting grunts in her ear. All so familiar, so . . . so . . .

  Reassuring . . . ?

  And wasn’t this, in spite of everything, what she had really wanted? What she had been looking for the whole time?

  What she deserved . . .

  She caught sight of the television screen out of the corner of her eye. All of a sudden he was just sitting there watching as the two women carried on without him. His shoulders slumped, his head hanging.

  He looked so small and helpless. Almost sad.

  She could see her own reflection in the screen. Her own helpless face superimposed on his. And for a second she could have sworn he was looking at her. That he turned his face toward the camera and looked her right in the eye . . .

  “You’re my little whore now, aren’t you,” John hissed in her ear.

  Or was it actually Dag?

  “No,” she replied drily.

  And a moment later she broke his nose . . .

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Here.”

  Rilke seemed to have noticed his condition. She rolled away from Sophie and managed to grab hold of her handbag.

  A little blue pill, and another white one.

  It took him a couple of seconds to realize.

  Then he downed them both, swallowing them with the last dribble in the bottle of tequila.

  The effect was almost instantaneous.

  He was back!

  Back in the damned Game!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Her swiveling elbow caught him right across the nose. There was a crunching sound of bone and gristle breaking, then she was free. She kicked out with her knees and rolled off the bed. Then both feet firmly on the floor, fists clenched, ready to fight.

  But this man wasn’t Dag. His counterattack was halfhearted, almost as if he didn’t know what he was hoping to achieve. Trying to slap her from a kneeling position with the back of the hand that wasn’t clutching his shattered nose. He probably wasn’t used to anyone putting up any resistance—at least not properly . . .

  She parried the blow easily and as he tried to get up from the bed she kicked his legs out from under him. He fell flat on the floor and she quickly kneed him in the back as she dragged one of his arms back in a rock-solid shoulder lock.

  Her head was still spinning slightly, but the adrenaline shock seemed to have taken the edge off her drunkenness.

  “Okay, this is what we’re going to do,” she said, as calmly as she could. “In a little while I’m going to let you up from the floor, and then I’m going to get dressed and leave. I suggest that we simply pretend that this never happened. I never actually told you what my job is—I’m a police officer, so if you’re considering attacking me again, I can assure you that you’ll end the evening in the cells of Norrmalm police station on suspicion of attempted rape and assault. Nod if you understood what I just said!”

  His head raised and lowered mechanically.

  A trickle of blood from his nose was dripping onto the white carpet, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Good! I’ll let you up in a minute so you can take care of yourself out . . .”

  She glanced over at the screen, where the three-way seemed to have got going again with renewed energy.

  “But first you’re going to tell me what my little brother’s doing on your television . . .”

  28

  JOE BLOWN

  Pillars of Society forum

  Posted: 21 December, 06:51

  By: MayBey

  Sometimes people actually get what they deserve.

  But not often enough . . .

  This post has 2 comments

  HE WOKE UP slowly.

  His mouth felt parched, his tongue was stuck to his palate, and the Met Office had ju
st issued a warning about an impending headache. He was also naked. Not that that was much of a surprise . . .

  What was probably more unexpected was the fact that his hands and feet had been tied to the ends of the bed with velvet straps. He twisted to get loose, and felt the patches of candle wax on his chest peel off. What a hellish night!

  The little flat belonged to the company, he had worked that much out. It was next door to Philip’s own attic apartment, and was evidently used as an emergency crash pad, probably most often by Sophie, seeing as she had been the one with the key.

  He grinned and made a fresh attempt to get free.

  He certainly had no cause for complaint when it came to ArgosEye’s personnel policies. Even if in hindsight it felt a bit odd to have shared Rilke with someone else.

  So where had the two women gone?

  The room was still in darkness, even though it ought to be morning. There was no clock in the room, and his own ridiculously expensive watch was probably on the floor somewhere between the door of the flat and the little bedroom, along with the rest of his clothes.

  He was just about to jokily call for help, when he suddenly realized that he wasn’t alone.

  There was someone sitting in the armchair over in the darkest corner of the room.

  Someone he recognized . . .

  “Good morning, Magnus . . .” Philip Argos said slowly. “But perhaps you’d rather I call you by your real name?”

  HP started, then tried to stay calm. It was mostly all rather embarrassing, something they could laugh about later over a few beers. But for some reason his heart was still galloping. There was something about Philip Argos’s tone of voice, something creepy. Damned creepy, in fact . . .

  He twisted to break free, but the ties around his hands were knotted tight.

  Philip got up slowly from the armchair and took a couple of steps toward the bed. To his surprise HP saw that his boss had a large bandage over his nose. What in the name of holy hell was going on?

  “Henrik . . . Henrik Pettersson. That is your name, isn’t it?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Obviously she ought to go straight home, get in the shower, and try to wash off the whole of this terrible evening as best she could. Just the thought of it was enough to make her stomach churn.

  John, or whatever his name was—for some reason she felt certain that wasn’t his real name—may not have been a Dag. Not when it came down to the actual violence. But somehow they still belonged in the same league. The only difference was in the tools they used.

  It was all about power, being able to control another person down to the smallest detail.

  Dag had preferred to use confrontation and brute strength, whereas John was considerably more sophisticated in his approach. In his little world, violence was just a spice, something you used because you could. When you no longer anticipated any resistance. That was probably what she found most disturbing.

  They had only met a few times, had talked on the phone, and eaten one meal together.

  But he had still managed to get such a grip on her that he had dared to do what he did.

  As if she had unconsciously been transmitting helplessness signals? Actually, how unconsciously . . . ?

  On some level or other she had worked out what type he was the very first time she saw him in the gym, she could hardly deny that. Yet she still hadn’t given him the brush-off. Quite the contrary . . . she had flirted with him, got all dressed up, and gone around to his flat the moment he called. Got drunk and let him take control, and had even wanted him to. But once again Henke had come to her rescue. Saving her from herself.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Dammit to hell!

  For a moment he thought he was going to shit himself. Then he had to fight a sudden urge to burst into tears.

  “I . . . I . . . er . . .” he quacked, but Philip interrupted him.

  “Shhhh!” He put a finger to his lips. “From now on, you only speak when I say you can. We’ve got a few little things to sort out, you and I . . .”

  He leaned over HP, showing him his two black eyes.

  “To begin with, I thought you might like to tell me who employed you to infiltrate us.”

  He raised his eyebrows to indicate that he was expecting an answer.

  “Er . . . hmm . . . What?” HP mumbled as he desperately tried to snap himself out of the urge to start crying and kick-start his aching brain. “I mean . . . well . . . No one did . . .”

  Philip nodded.

  “I would have been disappointed if you’d given up that easily . . . Henrik.”

  He gestured toward the door.

  “As luck would have it, we’re quite good at persuasion . . .”

  Elroy came into the room. In one hand he was carrying two jumper cables. In the other was a car battery.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She was sitting in a rental car a block from the doorway. John hadn’t been particularly talkative, even with his arm in a half nelson. But she had worked some of it out in retrospect. There had been no DVD to pop out, no hard drive to take away with her. And the reason for that was simple: what she had seen on the screen hadn’t been a recording, but live images.

  The trio were only there for one reason. Because John had arranged it. A helpless little doll on the bed, and three marionettes on the screen. She really did manage to attract some great guys . . .

  In theory the three-way could have been taking place anywhere, and been broadcast via a webcam. But she was convinced that wasn’t the case.

  She had made a mistake, albeit perhaps an understandable one given the circumstances.

  Instead of just asking general questions about the people on the screen and trying to winkle out a few details, she had immediately blurted out both Henke’s name, and the fact that he was her younger brother. John hadn’t said anything, the expression on his face had hardly changed from the moment she dragged him up off the floor until the door slammed shut behind her. But for a split second she still imagined she had seen something when she said Henke’s name. A tiny, involuntary microexpression that his brain couldn’t stop. Surprise, anger, and something else, something even less benign.

  The expression had only been there for a fraction of a second, but she still saw it.

  Half an hour or so ago a dark Mercedes had pulled up outside the door and a well-built man had got out. He got some things out of the boot, but before she could get a closer look at him he disappeared in through the door.

  There was something about the man’s posture, the decisiveness of his movements, that finally convinced her.

  Henke was inside that building, and not only that. He was in danger.

  And it was probably her fault . . .

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The first shock wasn’t actually quite as terrible as he’d expected. A sudden shooting pain that made his thigh muscles cramp for a couple of seconds. Then it was over. Elroy had started just above his knees. Giving him a warning shock so he realized how serious the situation was, which wasn’t really necessary. He got it. The next shock would be rather higher up . . .

  How the hell had they cracked his cover? Who had talked?

  “So, Henrik. Both Elroy and I would very much like to know what someone like you is doing in our company, and right now, of all possible occasions . . . ?”

  HP opened his mouth before he realized that Philip wasn’t finished.

  “I’m very disappointed in you, I have to confess . . . We had such great hopes for you, Henrik.”

  For some reason the tone of Philip’s voice hurt almost as much as the electric shock he had just got in his thighs, and once again he felt close to tears.

  “Well, it wasn’t . . .”

  Bang!

  Another shock, halfway up his thighs this time. The muscles in his stomach and groin contracted into a little ball of pain and he groaned loudly.

  Fuuck!!

  When he opened his eyes Elroy’s grinning face came into view. These guys were dead
ly serious. But weirdly enough, fear was no longer the strongest thing he felt, more like . . .

  Sorrow?

  As if he were sad about disappointing Philip?

  Screwed up!

  “I obviously didn’t make myself clear enough, Henrik. You speak when I give you permission, understood?”

  HP nodded.

  “Good! As I’m sure you realize, we know all about you now. You’ve got something of a reputation, to put it mildly.”

  Philip gave him a long look, and HP had to bite his tongue to stifle the urge to reply. But he certainly wasn’t going to give Elroy that satisfaction again. The guy looked almost disappointed as he stood there bent over his legs with a jumper cable in each hand.

  “As you probably know, our company is going through a particularly sensitive time,” Philip went on. “Things are going on in the world around us, things that have great significance for our future. There are forces out there that are trying to stop us, Henrik, and the best way to do that would be to send someone like you. A sharp, unscrupulous individual who is prepared to do practically anything as long as it serves his own interests, if you understand what I mean?”

  HP nodded again.

  “Good, it looks as if we understand one another . . .”

  Philip sounded pleased, and oddly enough this made HP feel a tiny bit glad.

  “So, let’s get back to my original question: Who sent you to infiltrate us, and what were your exact instructions?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  So what the hell was Henke doing here?

  How long had he been in Sweden, and why hadn’t he got in touch?

  And who was this mysterious John, and what was his connection to her hapless little brother?

  A bleep from her phone interrupted the spiral of thoughts going around her head.

  Fuck, you were seriously tarted up last night. New boyfriend, or what?

  Does the old one know about him?

  Her heart began to beat faster and she couldn’t help looking around, then checking carefully in all the rearview mirrors. But it was still early Sunday morning, and not a car or even a bleary-eyed dog-walker was visible on the street.