Brian Richards knew that tone of voice, and figured he had better not decline. So he allowed himself to be herded off to the drawing room with more coffee, more brandy, to be roundly trounced (but not too horribly, since Richards knew he had to show some strategic abilities) in a game of chess.
So why shouldn’t he be elated? he asked himself, turning out the light, watching the moon through the large bay windows, bordered by chiffon curtains. To even talk and flirt with a woman of Emily Elliot’s caliber was better than fucking your average American white-bread sort. God, she was delightful, he thought, drowsing off pleasantly into the shadows and the night, the high-quality alcohol wafting from him on the wings of his steady deep breathing.
He saw a glimpse of Walter Dolan’s face, white and wide-eyed in death; the loping of his pet retriever, Neisha, in the spacious backyard of his Great Falls home; the final incongruous flicker images before sleep.
Then came the creak of a door.
The sound startled him, bringing his CIA training to instant alert. The adrenaline tore through the leaden remnants of the alcohol.
The tentative tread of feet.
Automatically, he reached under his pillow for his gun. But of course there was no gun there—he didn’t even consider trying to smuggle a gun into Mitchell Cranston’s estate. Suicide. So he stayed still, very still, waiting for the next sound. If someone was sneaking into his room with the intention of attack, Richard’s best weapon was pretending to be asleep. And so he kept his breathing regular and sleeplike, biding his time.
He heard the rustle of some material; the closing (fainter creak) of the door.
He could feel the tensing of his muscles at the base of his back, and he prepared to leap up, and deal with anything.
“Brian?” came a soft, kittenish voice—inquisitive, playful, hopeful. The rustling of the material continued, susurrating along the floor. “Brian Richards?”
He recognized the voice.
He relaxed somewhat, but his adrenaline remained.
That soft, British accent! It was Emily Elliot’s voice.
Even as the realization came to him, she moved across the edge of the moonlit area. Richards could see a flash of a body clad in a nightgown. A translucent nightgown. A bare body.
The next thing he knew, she was by the edge of the bed. The note of invitation, erotic abandon, and eagerness in her voice transfixed Richards surer than any threat from an enemy would have paralyzed him.
He got a nose full of perfume as he propped up on an arm and said, “Emily? What are you doing here,” knowing smugly and full well exactly why she was there, and what she had come for.
She leaned over him, and he could sense her vibrant sexuality fuller and with more impact than if he could actually see her standing there naked, moaning for him to take her. That clearly, however, was not her style.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“No, no... I was almost asleep.”
“Bit cold out here. Mind if I use a little of these covers?”
“No. Of course not. Help yourself.”
She pulled up the sheets and blanket and slipped easily into the silken bed. Richards felt the slight rub of a toe—it was like an electric surge. Her head drifted down onto the pillowcase, and she turned to face him. “Well, then, Mr. Richards. How about a deliciously illicit kiss, hmmm?”
He could not say no to this proposition any more than he could have said no to the tug of sleep before. It was soft and delicious and insistent. He moved over to her and found his lips engulfed by a soft, sensuous active mouth smelling of spearmint and brandy. She broke for a breath, and her lips drifted down the side of his face to his ear, speaking with measured cadences, calculated to deliver just the right amount of breath to stimulate his earlobe. “Lovely. God help me, I must have you!”
The effect was intense. A wealth of tingles shot through his body. It was like special effects!
He reached for her and she was instantly in his arms, intensely alive and alight with passion. She kissed him again, and her hands traveled smoothly and expertly over his body, mapping out the territory of pleasure, clearly intent on further exploration.
For his own part, it was seldom that his hands had ever touched a more exciting body. The nipples of her breasts were hard, the rest soft and supple. Her body was perfect, just perfect, and when he pulled her out of the filmy nightgown, it released a sensual musk that was astonishing.
He kissed her; he licked her neck. He sucked on her breasts, and her moans were gentle and appreciative at first, growing more abandoned and hoarser as he continued his ministrations. It got to the point where she seemed to quiver with his every touch, writhing and arching her back as he slipped his hand down between her legs. She was wet and slick and ready for him already—and as for Richards, he had such a strong erection, even despite the drinking, that he was ready for her as well.
He moved over on top of her, but her excited tremblings suddenly stopped.
“No, not now,” she whispered throatily.
“What?” he said, his urgency making him unusually impatient. “You want to talk?”
“No, no, of course not, ninny!” She chuckled softly. Then, with an athletic push, she flipped him onto his back, and then was on him, an excited, rampant vixen.
She straddled him and he could see her perfect figure silhouetted in the moonlight from the window, her breasts quivering slightly as they hung over him.
“I’ve got something for you,” Emily Elliot purred.
Richards relaxed and settled back.
No question about it, he would take it.
It was as though she were posing for him, lost in her own imagination for a moment, letting her hands slide up her taut abdomen and cupping them over her breasts. She sighed as she ground her groin against his pubic bone. He had to check himself; he realized he was on the verge of coming from just that, but immediately she was off him, leaning over him, letting her long hair drag down over his face and chest. She took a handful of his chest hair, and leaned down more, her quick tongue flicking over his nipple in a way that no woman had ever done before. It was incredible! And that hard but liquid tongue scurried languidly down his abdomen, halting just short of his hips and then playing, playing, maddeningly playing with his nerve endings.
She settled back onto her haunches, tickling his scrotum gently, and then drifting up the shaft with such expertise that it almost took Richards’s breath away.
“How’s that, Brian. Hmm? How’s that?”
He couldn’t talk, he just swallowed.
She leaned over him and tongued the tip of his hard penis. She had it in her mouth for just a moist moment and then let it pop out again.
“Jesus!” he gasped. This woman was reading him like a goddamned book! She knew about strings he didn’t even know he had, and she was pulling them!
She seemed momentarily involved with something else and the tension till her next touch was almost unbearable. But finally it came: that smooth knowing hand on his member again...
And something hard and sharp pressing against his testicles.
At first he thought there was some kind of mistake. Yes, his nervous system was simply overloading, misinterpreting overwhelming pleasure as sharp pain. But the pain was cold and prodding and persistent enough that it forced a gasp from him. He tried to hoist himself up on his elbows, but that caused the pain to become more unbearable.
“Emily! What—Ow. God!”
She moved aside and in the moonlight he saw two things that froze his blood.
Her white teeth set into a sneer.
A glimmer of a sharp, thin stiletto, ruthlessly set against his genitals.
His erection wilted immediately, but the woman kept his penis gripped in her hand.
“A new position, Mr. Richards,” she said, her eyes still glistening with excitement. “Like it?”
Richards’s mind churned with panic and deep elemental male fear. He could not think clearly; his head swam w
ith confusion; he could not respond.
As though to confound his astonishment, pain, and vulnerability further, the lights switched on. The door opened. And a man walked into the room.
“Excellent, my dear. Well done. A consummate professional.”
The old man’s voice. Mitchell Cranston’s brusque growl.
Brian Richards dared not move a muscle. It took all his training to keep his mouth shut, to ascertain what was happening here, to measure what he could do, what was expected of him—but most important, how to keep his private parts connected to his body.
However, he could not help but sweat.
“No problem,” said the woman, tossing back her dark mane of hair. “A lark! Do you mind bloody sheets? Seems as though I’ve pricked the prick slightly!”
“Oh, the sheets have been bloody before here,” said Mitchell Cranston. He padded slowly across the room, his eyes glowing with a sadistic pleasure that Brian Richards had never before seen in the old man’s eyes. “Thought you’d get away with something, eh, Richards? Sly dog. Thought you’d pull off something right beneath the old fool’s nose! Fuck his grandniece, right beneath his own roof!”
Richards suddenly found words in his mouth. He spat them out. “Christ! She crawled into my bed. She—”
“My dear, he’s talking back.”
With great, almost surgical skill, the woman pressed the blade harder against the point just at the base of the penis and the scrotum. For a moment, Richards thought she was cutting off something and almost screamed; but then he realized that it only felt that way.
He staunched his cry.
“That’s better, man. Richards, be very still and you’ll retain your manhood. I only wish to impress upon you the serious trouble you are in—and that you have no hope whatsoever of getting away with anything. Do you understand? Does the concept sink through your thick skull? Less patient men would have you dead by now, but I’m the sort to give you a second chance. Sound good, eh? A second chance? But only if you take this lesson home with you. Will you, lad? Hmm. Are you properly impressed?”
“Damn you!” said Richards. “Yes! Yes, I’m impressed. Now get her away from me!”
It felt as though his consciousness had been penetrated deeply by a Roto-Rooter service woman. He felt horribly violated. He wondered if he could ever possibly get an erection again after this—though he supposed he was just lucky to have something to get an erection with.
“Darling, I believe that’s enough!” said Mitchell Cranston, motioning her off the bed. The brunette she-devil actually seemed reluctant to go; but go she did, hopping blithely off the bed and striding over to stand by her master.
“She’s not my grandniece, of course, and I won’t burden you with her real name. Just one of my hounds, Richards—just to keep you on your toes. I’ve not only set them on Scarborough’s heels—they’re on yours as well!”
Richards reached down to his crotch. His hand came back bloody.
“I’m bleeding! I’m going to need stitches!” he said numbly, still in shock. The bitch had not only set him up, she’d traumatized him and cut him. How was he going to explain this to his wife Jeanne?
How was he going to get an erection ever again? The moment he got sexual with a woman not his wife, and maybe even his wife—and this was something that was important to Brian Richards—he’d think of this deadly eroticism practiced by this woman.
He’d think of the cold touch of that knife on his genitals.
“Just a nick, Mr. Richards. Nothing so serious!” said the woman who had been called Emily Elliot. Her eyes shone in the light with fierce humor.
She winked at him and then licked her finger. Then she turned and sauntered from the room, throwing her head back with a tinkling laugh.
“I suspect you’ll find Band-Aids in the bathroom cabinet,” said Cranston. “I trust you’ve learned your lesson here, Richards. And please, do not harbor any notion whatsoever that your employers are anything shy of ruthless fellows. Should you be fired, Brian Richards, you will not be receiving any pink slip. No—your slip will be drenched in blood.”
With that and a chuckle that seemed to hang in the air after him, Mitchell Cranston turned and left the room.
Chapter 19
It had been hell, of course, this past month—but otherwise, it hadn’t been all that bad. The food was good and in between his sessions, he’d had access to a number of different kinds of recreation, including a regular game of spades with the guards and some of the other prisoners. A terrific tape and book library, a wonderful gym. He’d even improved considerably on his racquetball game. Although this place certainly wasn’t minimum security, it had a feel to it that was far better. There was a matter-of-fact friendliness to the people around here, when they weren’t opening up your brain and dumping it into the Mixmaster.
The killer element for Timothy Reilly, however, was the uncertainty.
He didn’t know where he was. There was a mountain range nearby, he knew because he could see the peaks rearing up above the rolling barbed-wire on top of the wall. The air was fresh and clean with a touch of chill in the evenings—since he estimated that it was May by now, maybe even late May, that would imply that they were at some elevation. But then, it was hard to say. Sometimes, with the drugs they were giving him and the exercises, the treatments, the games they were playing on him in Session, he just got so confused.
Sometimes, he even forgot how he’d come to be in this place.
What was his name again?
Oh yes. Timothy Reilly, professional college student at the University of Kansas.
Mid-twenties, Irish good looks, curly reddish blond hair, that was himself.
Now dressed in grey slacks and a soft red flannel shirt.
What was he supposed to be upset about? Some woman, he remembered. What was her name? Debbie? Daphne. No. Diane. Diane somebody…
He remembered something about a guy in his apartment, a guy with pockmarks, a guy with a gun. There had been a fight... yes, Tim remembered that. And then he’d woken up tied up in that room that looked like a mad doctor’s office... with that beautiful mad doctor—
And then... Then they had dissolved his brain, they’d dragged the information they’d wanted out of him.
Diane. Diane Scarborough. Yes, that was her name, and even the thought of it burned him, hurt him, though now, truth to tell, he wasn’t quite sure why—or what he’d told that woman in crisp starched white during those long tortured hours.
Actually, the big surprise was that he was still alive, which meant, he’d tell himself sometimes, that they needed him. Needed him for something.
And then, on that bright peaceful day, indistinguishable from the others, the man came for him.
“Hello, Tim,” said the man, sitting down on the chair in Tim Reilly’s room. Tim was laying on the bed. He’d been reading a Fantastic Four comic. Tim knew that this wasn’t just any white coat. A big clue toward this was that he was wearing a businessman’s suit. Crisp white shirt, powder blue tie. Friendly expression crinkling the lines around the dashing grey eyes. “How they treating you in here?”
“Okay,” said Tim, cautiously. He was confused, but also he was standing a little outside his confusion. The drugs they were giving him were psycho-active, like the marijuana, the LSD, Ecstasy and peyote he’d smoked or taken over the years—but these drugs were much stronger and different. It was like they were tearing apart his personality, but somehow preserving his sanity. No mean trick, that!
“Good. Glad to hear that. Do you know where you are, Tim?”
“No, not really.”
In truth, Tim Reilly had a number of guesses. He was still in the United States, he knew that. The only other possibility, climate-and mountain-wise, was Canada, and it didn’t seem likely that he’d be smuggled out. The people here were American—they were deliberately nondescript, but they just felt American. Tim had that kind of instinct, that second-sight. There was the possibility that this place wa
s some sort of international place, but Tim doubted that.
No. He remembered vaguely that this all had to do with Diane sighting that UFO. This was government, U.S. government. Clandestine operations, CIA, probably—or something so secret it didn’t have an official name. Either that or it was something government that the government didn’t even know about.
This guy before him now, smelling of Old Spice and Mitchum deodorant, also had the scent of government about him. And he was much too casual and friendly to be straight, day-to-day government. No, this was something else, something special, something strange.
These thoughts, drifting incoherently in his head, were not quite coalescing. Which is why what was left of the old Tim Reilly slunk back, hiding behind the mask of a slightly burned-out husk of a prisoner.
“Fine. It doesn’t really make any difference, does it? Not now, anyway.” The man took out a package of Wrigley’s Doublemint gum, opened up a stick, and stuck it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, politely, mouth closed. He offered the pack to Tim.
Tim found himself reaching forward and taking a stick. He didn’t know why, he didn’t really feel like chewing gum. He just automatically did what they told him to do these days. They had him trained, disciplined for that.
He tore off the foil wrapper, popped the stick in his mouth, chomped down. Although he chewed it thoroughly, he barely tasted it.
“Thanks.”
“The doctors say you’re a good patient, Tim.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember much?”
Silence. Tim just chewed the gum.
“Do you remember Dr. Julia Cunningham, Tim?”
“Yes.”
“She hurt you, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Well, maybe you’ll take satisfaction in knowing that she’s dead.”
Tim wanted to. He remembered, even now, the sadistic pleasure that the cold blonde woman had taken in extracting the information from him.
However, he just didn’t seem to care.
“Sorry to hear it,” he said.
“Hmm. They warned me you’d be somewhat impassive. My name is Brian, Tim. I want you to consider me as a friend.”
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 92