by Estes, Danny
“Well, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t love me quite that much right now, okay?”
“I’ll try,” she smiled, using a finger to brush a stray lock of hair out of his eyes.
Not understanding what was with her, Randolph got them inside and the door closed. “Jill, what’s going on with you? You’re acting crazy—you’re all touchy feely at a time I don’t need to be distracted!”
Jill looked on him with eyes uncomprehending to their situation, and laid a hand on his face tenderly.
Randolph grabbed her wrist. “Stop it! This is neither the time nor place. Now sit here”—he indicated a chair next to the door—“and be still!”
Jill nodded she would, and took off her jacket, laying it across her lap and interlacing her fingers, resting her hands on the jacket just as if she were waiting for him to try on clothing in an apparel department.
To her apparent submission to his will, Randolph nodded approval, and turned to view the room with the night vision goggles. Wood paneling made the room seem cozy, with the added lingering scent of cigar smoke. This told him Mr. Hilden had a habit of spending hours relaxing in the leather chair behind the desk, most likely eyeing the activity scrolling across the two screens, each angled to face the chair from the opposite corners of the desk. Behind this and in the corner was a coat and hat rack with a smoking jacket hanging off one prong. Possibly waiting to be worn for another day of destroying someone's life, Randolph remarked dryly, envisioning the evil smirk Mr. Hilden had given him in the execution chamber. Shaking off that bit of memory, Randolph noted no windows but eight video screens, each exactly placed, so it was child’s play to pick out the one with the wall safe behind it. With a smile, Randolph walked the few steps to the wall and set out his tools carefully on the rug floor. After eyeing the video frame a moment, he pulled out and turned on the pen-light, laying his head close to the wall to look over the edges without touching its surface, as some had movement sensors. Checking that security measure off the list, Randolph slid two exposed wires up underneath the frame and watched his palm meter screen. For a moment, Randolph puzzled over the lack of protection a blackmail artist used to keep his files locked away. But not one to argue that matter, Randolph looked over at Jill to make certain she was still seated, and found her bouncing her legs and gripping the jacket as if trying to stave off something.
“Bathroom?” he mouthed.
Jill bit her lip, and denied the need, though to Randolph she looked as if she needed something and whatever it was she needed it now. With a hope she was simply reacting to the stressful situation, he turned back to the frame and calmly moved it out of the way.
Seeing the Craymore 6000 nestled in the wall, Randolph smirked, remembering the sales commercial, advertising it as the ultimate in home security, with a forty-number keypad and switchable dial for changing the numbers to symbols, making the Craymore 6000 home security safe virtually un-crackable. Virtually.
Digging into his pack of goodies, Randolph removed two alligator clips and a length of electrical cord, but before he put them to use, he heard a whimper from behind and shot a glance Jill’s way. To his dismay, he discovered Jill sitting on the edge of her chair, in some agitation, watching every move he made. Not liking the situation, as he held no idea what to do with her, he proceeded to clamp the clips on the handle and dial of the safe, before plugging the cord into a common wall outlet for a brief second. He removed cord and clips, and calmly punched in the pad a standard set of numbers for opening the safe, should its circuitry ever get shorted out. With an easy turn of the handle, Randolph swung the door open and looked inside the normal-sized wall safe.
Just inside the door, sat a jewelry box as the obvious first item to be extracted. This he moved carefully, sliding the box to the edge of the safe and leaving it there. Next he took out the pen light and moved a few feet to his left in order to cut out a piece of the paneling to slide the box out on, without exposing the bottom. With the booby trap resting on the paneling, Randolph transported the box out of the way, on to a book shelf.
Now that he could inspect the rest of the safe, Randolph heard Jill’s chair creak as if someone stood. When he turned, lowering his arms, Jill was pulling off her shirt and approaching.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Jill dropped her shirt without regard of where they were, and reached out for him. “John, please hold me, love me, I need to feel your arms tight about my body, taste your lips on mine, feel the warmth of your passion on my skin.”
“Jill? Now is not the time for this,” he stressed, eyes wide to her behavior. “I’ve perhaps ten more minutes and we can go.”
“But that’s such a long time,” she complained, her wide eyes and swollen lips exposing her desires. “Could you not spend a few moments and love me?”
“Control yourself!”
But in answer to his request, Jill took his head in her hands and forced her lips on his.
Randolph grabbed her shoulders to push her away, but she slid her arms around his neck, making it that much harder to dislodge her hungry mouth from his. At the same time she worked her leg up and down his.
Stunned and confused, Randolph got her lips off only to have her nuzzle his neck. Fearful of being found out, he took her head with considerable strength and pushed her away. “Will you stop it! We’re going to be discovered!”
“I’m sorry. I can’t control this, I need…I need so desperately to feel you deep inside, the rock hardness of you between my thighs, please, John, can’t you tell I’m on fire for you?”
“Yes I can, but—”
“Then shut the hell up and screw me damn it, before I burst into flames!” she demanded loudly.
Wide-eyed and shocked that she said that with such volume, Randolph used all his strength to separate them and prepared to strike her to render her unconscious.
But before he accomplished that, the lights came on and a voice from the door said with amusement, “I really underestimated how well that stuff works.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Randolph blinked repeatedly, and snapped his head toward the doorway as Jill reapplied her body to his.
Still at the doorway, Mr. Hilden remarked further, “I must admit, I’m very impressed.”
With their discovery, Jill whimpered in misery before she slid down Randolph’s body to the floor at his feet, seemingly in immeasurable distress, still trying to unbuckle his pants with trembling fingers, which Randolph grabbed to keep her from accomplishing.
Feeling a lead weight pole-vault into the pit of his stomach, accepting these as his last minutes on earth, he still couldn’t help but feel the fool inside as he asked, “What’s wrong with her?”
The two men he’d seen earlier, accompanied by two other redundant guards, spread out about the room with pistols raised. Mr. Hilden remarked easily, “Nothing a man’s dick won’t solve.”
Still puzzled, Randolph watched Mr. Hilden stroll confidently over to his desk, assured in Randolph’s defenselessness, and lit an overpriced cigar. “You see, she’s under the influence of a powerful drug I’d placed in the ventilation system earlier. This remarkable drug makes women horny as hell.”
Ill-tempered at Jill's constant efforts in clawing at his belt, trying to get his pants off, Randolph slapped her hands away and kneed her to the floor as Mr. Hilden chuckled.
“It’s an illegal drug, if you hadn’t guessed. One that some of my associates request from time to time if their desires cannot be met by position or ego.” Mr. Hilden ignited his cigar, and took several starter puffs as he strolled over to his open safe. He eyed Randolph’s handiwork, made a face of disgust to the destruction of his paneling, and closed the safe.
With an amused look to Jill’s half-naked, shaking body, Mr. Hilden explained, “The drug was originally designed to induce frigid women with the desire for sex. However,” Mr. Hilden remarked, toeing Randolph’s small bag of tools, “a lab assistant with a grasp of understanding in economics f
elt the black-market was a more profitable proposal for himself, and the rest is history.”
By this time Jill’s pain became very evident to Randolph as her tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks, and she pleaded for him to end her agony. But Randolph had more serious matters to consider as two of Mr. Hilden’s men motioned him to turn to the wall, all the guards thus far totally ignoring Jill.
“Now, please don’t be a bore, Mr. McCann, and do as my men direct. I give you my word I’ll make your deaths relatively painless.”
Before he capitulated, wishing nothing more than to stall, plead, or beg—anything to gain him time in considering other possibilities than receiving a laser burst through the brain pan, Randolph asked, “How did you know Jill would be with me?”
“An educated guess. Once an acquaintance passed over the video of your anti-climatic escape, I couldn’t help but note how well Major Wander worked with you. And seeing as I’d set you up so Mr. Stanton could take out the rather bothersome Henderson family, I felt it a good bet you’d set aside your reputation this one time and accept her help in eradicating me.”
“In truth, I had thought about it. Jill told me she could have taken you out more than once in her surveillance, but I wouldn’t hear of it, unfortunately my principles are far stronger than you give me credit for.”
Mr. Hilden waved his cigar in a dismissive gesture. “A weakness I dare say in your genetic make-up that made you useless to me, save for that one job.”
“So why me? What was so detrimental to your empire you’d waste an entire family and servants over?” Randolph wished he could do something about Jill’s whimpering, her hands still working to draw his pants down, which forced him to keep his own busy in keeping the pants in place.
Mr. Hilden tapped off the ashes of his cigar before drawing in a long lungful of flavored nicotine, then expelled the smoke Randolph’s way. “I had no real choice. Their underage daughter was very persistent one evening at a party I was holding. A rather enticing prospect, I might say, had she been of age. However, as she wasn’t, she received my negative response unwell and upon slipping me a Mickey, got her wish.” He took another draw, and watched Jill’s antics with normal male interest.
“Her desires were of course guided by her father, a rather embarrassing blackmail plot he concocted in his political ambitions to hold sway over me, or face arrest for statutory rape once I was proven the father of her growing child.”
Not having turned around, Randolph began forming an ideal about what to do. But he still needed time to develop it out.
“So why the whole family? Why not simply take out the girl? And above all, why involve me in this?”
Mr. Hilden leaned back on his desk, eyes looking off into space a moment before returning them to Randolph, deciding to be gracious. “You really don’t know the depths of the world you inject yourself into, do you?” He took another puff before signaling one of his guards to pour him a drink. “Disposing of the girl singularly would only dispose of future irritating expenditures on lawyers in family courts, while doing nothing in protecting my wealth and reputation from countless innuendos from Mr. Henderson, his family and servants. Thus my response was really none of my doing, but a pragmatic resolution in countering his ambitions. And as for you, well, let us say there are some very influential people I have gained monetary and positional gains from in disposing of a tiresome threat. A rather fortuitous side effect which made the whole episode acceptable.”
While Mr. Hilden took a sip of his drink, Randolph sought one more stalling action. “So what tipped you off we were here? I know I hadn’t missed any security system and even though Jill’s outburst was loud, it wasn’t enough to carry into your room.”
“Knowing full well you could surpass any system you set your mind to, I bought a simple low-tech baby monitor and set it on my desk.” Mr. Hilden moved his hand to indicate the simple black speaker box with his cigar. He took another sip of his drink, obviously enjoying the look of pain on Randolph’s face.
To be out witted by a simple sound amplifier. Randolph scolded himself, losing his train of thought.
Though Randolph ranted within, he still saw Jill’s apparent need for sexual release over-ride her repulsion of the men near at hand. Clawing her way up Randolph’s body, she turned to the men in the room and unfastened her pants in a manor to draw all male eyes.
“Please, sir,” Jill began, stepping out of her pants, dropping them behind her only after freeing up the two pistols from their concealment. “I can’t take this burning desire any longer, I need a man! I’ll die if I can’t get a man inside me!”
The demanding tone in Jill’s voice lent a certainty in Randolph’s mind to whom of Jill’s personalities now stood before him. Not a simple-minded average woman, or a doped-up female on pheromones, but a cold-blooded killer. One who expertly thumbed off the safeties to two pistols behind her back while Mr. Hilden and his men eyed her as nothing but a sexed-crazed woman in heat.
This mistake only registered on Mr. Hilden’s face when Jill stretched out her arms to either side, leveling pistols and firing in a swiping motion, taking out the four guards with precision accuracy before aiming at Mr. Hilden, telling the man in deadly calmness,
“One move and I’ll cut you in two.”
Still unable to stare on her bare form without disbelief at such a personality, Randolph saw Mr. Hilden’s forgotten cigar fall to the floor while Jill, standing stark naked without shame, ordered.
“Randolph! Quit gawking at my ass and make certain the bodyguards are dead.”
Startled out of his amazement, Randolph noted how tense Jill’s shoulder muscles were, and got the impression she was fighting something off with a tremendous force of will.
“Now damn it all, before I kill him,” she ordered Randolph like a drill sergeant.
Goaded into motion, Randolph moved to the unmoving men and removed all guns while checking for pulses. His heart sank as he found not one. Although he hated the deaths, Randolph consoled his beliefs they aided Mr. Hilden in killing others. Removing the last of the hardware, Randolph told Jill solemnly, “They’re beyond any-one's help.”
“Good. Now tell me, do we really need this piece of garbage alive?”
Randolph took note of the quiver in her voice, but before he could answer, Mr. Hilden’s clinched jaw, telegraphed his intent to Jill’s military training. Jill deftly burned off his arms as they came up, and brought the gun handle down on his cranium as he passed, felling him in a wasted heap of unconscious flesh on the floor.
Randolph swallowed his heart. “Damn, Jill, I’m so glad you’re back!” Wanting to hug Jill like never before, Randolph halted his approach when Jill turned, her face contorted in pain. Uncertain if she was in full control of her mind, Randolph backed away, raising his hands to show he was of no danger to her.
Jill dropped the guns on the closest chair and demanded in an angry screech, “Damn it Randolph! Quit backing away and drop your pants. I can’t take much more of this!”
Before Randolph could react, she cleared off the desk with a swipe of her arm, grabbed his shirt, and jumped on the desk’s edge, gathering him into her arms, wrapping her legs tightly about his torso before he could step out his pants.
Feverishly locking her lips on his own, with demanding force, Jill fused every inch of her skin with his, deftly stripping his clothes with fast moving hands.
In spite of the fact there were four dead men and one unconscious lying in the middle of the floor, Jill’s expert manipulation of her body forced Randolph’s mind into another world where she could work through her demanding need for sexual release with her chosen partner.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Randolph sat heavily in the desk chair when Jill’s needs finally subsided enough to let him go. Collapsed like a rag doll, filling his lungs with great gulps of air to reintroduce oxygen into his blood, he barely noticed Jill did the same lying a-top the desk.
Only after Randolph was able to breat
he semi-normally did he set to work reapplying his clothes before clearing out the safe. Though he was bothered by his performance with such carnage sprawled about him, Randolph was pragmatic enough to move around the bodies and help Jill into another chair so he could turn on Mr. Hilden’s personal computer and hard wired unit.
Now is not the time to fall apart. And taking his own advice, he preceded to take advantage of this once in a life time opportunity. After cracking his fingers over the desk, Randolph dropped chip after chip into Mr. Hilden’s private computer and saved file after file on his own disk, skimming each for what he was looking for.
Mean while, as Randolph involved himself in the computers, Jill stood and stretched out her lithe body in an effort to work out the soreness which would develop later before putting on her shirt. While doing so, she took notice of Mr. Hilden stirring, picked up one of her guns and sprayed him with a wide beam to keep him unconscious. After which she lower her arm in irritation at her inability in controlling her body’s desires. In disgust with her action that could have gotten them both killed, Jill tossed the pistol into Randolph’s bag and started pacing the floor without bothering to put on her pants.
While Jill paraded before him in agitation, Randolph located Mr. Hilden’s assets, bank accounts and investments. Now able to work on the computer hooked up to the hard line, Randolph entered passwords, and moved right into the online broker and proceeded to make Mr. Hilden a pauper. With fingers flying, he sold off stocks, bonds and investments, switching next to online banking and initiating maximum loans on all properties, vehicles and registered insured valuables.
As each delivered payable credits, Randolph dumped all acquired funding into Mr. Hilden’s bank account before transferring the credits into his own Switzerland account. After this, he remembered Mr. Hilden’s company ties, and ignoring Jill’s impatience, her eyes imploring him to finish up, he broke into the company’s accounts and payrolls, dumping all funding into Mr. Hilden’s bank account before rerouting to his own. Then only after leaving an electrical foot print in the accounts did Randolph refinance the building to its absolute maximum.