by kps
"Karim, I have a million things to do." She hated the feel of his fingers gripping her arm, bringing back the memory of the way he'd used her before. And she was also more than a little bit afraid of him.
"You always have things to do when it is I who ask for some of your time. But you would run off to spend a weekend with another. That .. ." She couldn't understand the string of Arabic words he used; fortunately, perhaps. And her meditation-the few minutes spent alone with Hal Brightman after the others had gone had really helped her. Better to block everything unpleasant out of her mind for the moment and exist from minute to minute. So she was able to look at Karim and force herself to stand still, not fighting the studied cruelty of his grip on her arm.
"I don't like being forced. Or tricked. Or hurt, either. And you're hurting me now."
"And I happen to know, also, that you are not always so icily controlled! Are you trying to drive me mad? Or is this your way of tantalizing me and leading me on? I thought you were different from most of these other women, especially the American bitches who think far too much of themselves and too little of their men. But now I am beginning to think that you are just like them-you act so independent, but like any bitch, you want to be taken and mounted and shown what a woman is meant for, don't you?" He shook her, his black eyes burning like coals.
At any other time she would have been frightened, but today her mind was numb-it had been dealt too many shocks already.
"Karim, you're all wrong. But there isn't time to talk about it now. Yves is probably looking for me already, and Harris .. ."
"Ah yes, Harris Phelps. Your protector, eh? But I do not think he minds too much.
And as for your other lover-perhaps you'll see him in a different light before too long.
And then you'll come crawling to me ..."
"Ah, I beg pardon for interrupting, but they are looking for you both, you know!"
Espinoza, strolling up the path towards them, wore his usual twisted, rather cynical smile. And why was it that they had happened to stop before the guest chalet that Webb occupied?
Anna-Maria, stretching and sleepy-eyed, came out the door, smiling as she came up without any embarrassment to link her arm through Espinoza's.
"So much noise so early in the morning! Hello, Karim. You look like a thundercloud."
She added unnecessarily, "I promised that I would wake Webb."
And that had ended that-for the moment. With the others there, Anne had made her mumbled excuses and fled back to the house; and even now, sitting with Sarah, waiting to be called, she didn't feel like thinking. Especially not thinking back.
She looked down at the script on her lap.
. . . 189. EXTERIOR-COURTYARD-LATE AFfERNOON.
"The light-the red light of the setting sun is most important. Very symbolic, eh?
Crimson sunlight-torches on the wall-and shadows. We must take advantage of this unusual weather while it lasts, eh?"
Yves Pleydel. Part of his usual preliminary pep talk.
Sarah whispered, "I'm sorry that I am supposed to be so bitchy towards you in this scene!" That was before Carol had visited, bringing out the bitchiness in both of them.
Anne wished that they could get started and have it over with. In spite of her conscious efforts to relax she was beginning to grow tense. Sal Espinoza, looking undeniably handsome and distinguished in his nineteenth-century clothes, came in to join them; he poured himself a glass of champagne, with which he toasted "two lovely ladies." He added his apologies to Sarah's. "I am supposed to treat you harshly-I hope you will remember that I am only a clumsy amateur pretending to be a real actor!"
Was she real? Were any of them? Outside, the sun had started to go down, throwing the crimson light Pleydel had been waiting for against the fake-adobe walls of the courtyard. Long, slanting light, matched by the fire that had been built-adding its flickering flame to complement the flaring torches set in sconces against the walls.
Anne tried to keep her attention on the script. This was the scene when Glory's father had the man who had kidnapped and violated his daughter punished. But while he was testing Jason Ryder's endurance, he was also testing his daughter ...
LONG SHOT. ZOOMING IN CLOSE, AS WE SEE ...
No big crowd scene on this occasion. Private revenge. The Spanish governor's men, avid for vengeance. The turncoat Mexican officer who looked for the same thing.
The setting was real and the feeling was real; hardly needing PleydeI's call for
"Action!" to set it all in motion.
"Watch closely, daughter. Revenge is no substitute for your virginity, but you should derive some satisfaction from it. You were abducted against your will, were you not?"
She stood as stiffly between them, hardly feeling the bite of his fingers over her wrist.
Her father, and her stepmother. Don't think of them as merely Sal Espinoza and Sarah Vesper-it was her frozen expression that the cameras had to capture at this point.
Yves, mindful of the light, didn't call for too many takes. "It'll do, it'll do!" he said impatiently, shrugging his shoulders.
They were all eager to get into the real action-Karim in his dapper uniform that suited him, somehow, standing across from them with the coiled-up whip tapping against his high, shiny boot top, glancing over at her with a strange, pent-up expression for all that his teeth flashed white under his thin mustache. Even Sarah seemed tense, like all the other watchers-even those who weren't playing an actual role in this torch lit drama.
"I would like to shoot this scene without interruption- that is why you see so many cameras set up. We are going to concentrate on facial expression, the reactions of everyone to what is taking place. So, we will all remember this, and the sunlight we cannot waste. Come, we will begin now ..."
Carol Cochran, dressed in a forest-green pantsuit that complemented her eyes, let her lazy-lidded glance slide from Harris to Anna-Maria, who stood on his left, her teeth nibbling at her thumbnail.
"Yves is quite a perfectionist, isn't he? I wonder how long this is going to take?
Because I'm beginning to feel very thirsty."
"Yves knows what he's doing." Harris sounded unusually short, and Carol raised one slim, arched brow as she lit a cigarette.
"Darling! No need to snap my head off. It just seems different to me, watching from the other angle, I suppose. And I must say that sweet, innocent Anne has begun to surprise me lately."
"What? Oh yes." Harris sounded abstracted, and Anna-Maria ignored her. Carol wasn't used to being ignored. She directed her next comment at the other woman, who hadn't taken her eyes off what was happening before the cameras.
“Webb really does have a nice body, doesn't he? In spite of being such a bloody bastard. Especially without a shirt on .. ."
Funny how some remnant of the old fires continued to flare up at the oddest times; even when she was hating him most. And it wasn't that Jimmy wasn't a good lover-only he did tend to become somewhat boring when he went on and on about his daughter! She had two whole days left to enjoy herself before she had to fly back to New York like a good little girl, and there hadn't been a single time before when she and Webb hadn't managed to strike sparks between them. Why not? It would put both Anne and this common Cuban bitch in their places.
Chapter Forty-one
"WELCOME. You have been made comfortable, I hope?" Karim's voice came from behind him, and for no real reason Webb could feel the muscles in his back tense.
Had it been Karim's prompting that had made them tie his wrists so tightly to the crossbar that they had already begun to swell and grow numb? He could already feel the strain on his arms and shoulders; and damned if he hadn't suddenly begun to feel distinctly uneasy about this particular scene, especially in view of Pleydel's insistence on what he called realite.
Wet rawhide strips-he tested them and there was no way he could get free. He heard Karim laugh as he ripped the shirt off his back-it tore with a convincingly loud sound.
&nbs
p; And now, mixed with the raging anger at his own unsuspecting foolishness, Webb could feel the nerves all over his body begin to crawl.
"How do you feel? I hope you are afraid. You have reason to be. It is not in my nature ever to forgive injury or insult, as you will soon find out."
The first explosion of pain was white-hot and unexpected, like the sting of a scorpion across his shoulders, and worse than anything he could have imagined. From somewhere outside himself Webb heard the breath escape from his lungs in a gasp.
Karim laughed jeeringly, the sound overlaid by the whistling swish of leather thongs cutting through the air before they bit deeply into his taut flesh.
Separate knife slashes of agony-hardly giving him time to draw in his breath between. The sweat was pouring down his face and down his arms as he concentrated fiercely on not screaming, lips pulled back from his teeth in an animal rictus of agony as he clamped them together.
Karim, as if he recognized exactly what he was thinking, taunted, "Why don't you cry out? They say it helps. I will have you begging for me to stop before I am finished with you, my friend. And I think you know that, don't you?"
He tried to detach his mind . . . they said women could stand more pain than men could. Childbirth, the Resistance heroines of World War II. And this had all been planned, because Harris and his friends weren't exactly stupid. He should have guessed, should have ...
Christ! How long before he did break? Was that what they were all waiting for? No escape-no exit until Pleydel yelled, "Cut," and that would probably be a long time coming.
Pain had limits-didn't it? He could feel the involuntary jerking of his body and tasted blood in his mouth, smelled blood-his own-in the humid air that seemed to clog his nostrils, making breathing difficult.
"You're more stubborn than we'd thought you might be, but soon .. ." Karim sounded out of breath.
Tongues of liquid fire overlapped each other, and there was a red fog of smoky agony in Webb's brain, almost dulling it, but not quite.
"Fuck you! I'm going to kill you, you bastard. With my hands . . ." Each word was a rasping torture that had to be forced out of his throat. Cling to the thought that it had to end-sometime. Because he couldn't take much more ...
It wasn't real, of course. Somehow, this was all being faked. Special effects ... But Anne could not help shuddering everytime she heard the whip crack against bared flesh, every time she saw the look of concentrated enjoyment on Karim's face, with the sweat trickling down it now. The same look he had worn when ... God! Either she was crazy or everyone else was.
Acting ... we're all supposed to be acting. Metronome thought in her mind. But how did they fake the blood?
She looked desperately at Yves, who kept squinting through his viewfinder. Took an involuntary step forward, to be stopped by a hand, gripping her arm.
"What-aren't you deriving some satisfaction from what you are witnessing, daughter?
You should be smiling, but your face has gone quite pale. I am revenging all the brutalities this man inflicted on you while you were his-unwilling hostage. You were quite unwilling, were you not?"
Anne felt dizzy-the flickering torches on the wall and the blood-red sunset gave the effect of hell. The script-something in the script-but her legs didn't belong to her any more than the heavy long skirts Glory had to wear. It was like being suddenly trapped in a fog bank where lights reflected back at you and every tiny sound was magnified and the most familiar places looked unfamiliar and strange, and even time seemed to be suspended.
"No." The first time the word only echoed in her mind, hanging in silence while Karim's arm kept rising and falling like a pendulum that didn't tick, and nothing else moved and no one did anything.
"No!" This time she screamed it out loud, wrenching her arm free as she began to run. "Stop it-tell them to stop, do you hear? Has everyone gone insane? Can't you see that it's realit's real?"
"Gloriana!" She heard a voice thunder after her, but she wouldn't stop. She stumbled over her skirts and kilted them up with one hand; not pausing, even when she heard the swell of murmuring voices all around her, or when Karim turned to meet her, an ugly smile curling his mouth.
"You want to see what good work I do close up?"
He stood in her way, and she felt her face contort as she hit him as hard as she could-all the pent-up hatred inside her behind her two fisted hands driving into his solar plexus. Something purely instinctive, learned long ago.
"You sadistic bastard!". That couldn't be her own voice, screaming the words like a virago.
And then she was up close, seeing the blood everywhere-real blood. "Webb?"
He didn't answer her, but she heard him suck breath into his lungs-a loud, rasping sound like a groan.
Webb heard the voices coming from a long way off. Anne's voice-he thought it was Anne's voice, before it was drowned out by other voices and the sound of the blood pounding in his temples.
Hate and fury kept him fighting to stay conscious, battling against giving in to pain tha t sank inexorably through his skin to paint itself on every nerve and muscle in his body. Pain he hadn't believed possible, reducing him to cringing anticipation of each fresh wave of agony while every muscle strained against what was inescapable.
"I'm afraid our friend Karim let himself be carried away. I'm sorry. You should have called out, said something. Mon Dieu, he really did a nasty piece of work . . . ah, here is the good doctor." Pleydel's voice sounded smug beneath his falsely commiserating shower of words.
Warning: We're on to you . . . Ria. Question-and-answer games.
"Goddammit, I don't need a shot .. ."
"But I'm afraid you do." Brightman's voice, sounding very professional. Pinprick of oblivion in his arm.
-They were all being very nice to her-even Carol. Although -and in spite of the turmoil of her emotions Anne found herself thinking cynically-Carol always carried a little needle even when she wore velvet gloves. Which was a strange, almost medieval tum of thought. Hadn't Carol played Lucrezia Borgia in one of her early movies?
"I'd watch out for that Karim if I were you, darling. His reactions are really quite primitive, aren't they? My God-I was like everyone else, caught up in the action .. ."
Had she been? Had Ria, who was now with Webb? PleydeI, who hadn't called a halt until the last minute? Anne didn't quite understand her own reactions, and she hadn't had time yet to sort things out in her mind.
Why had it happened? Why had everyone let it happen? There was a tap on the door, and Anne twisted around to see Harris, wearing a worried frown.
"Anne? Carol seemed to think .. ."
"Why? You knew, didn't you? You all knew ..."
At least he didn't make excuses as the others had. He closed the door behind him, looking at her searchingly before he nodded shortly.
"Yes, of course. And you're not used to violence, are you? But violence is sometimes the only answer-the only message that is clearly understood by those who live by that particular code."
She gripped the edge of the dresser with both hands behind her back. "You're always warning me, Harris. I think I partly understand why. I remember when Craig, of all people, tried to-to warn me, too. In London. I wouldn't listen then. But ... all this ..."
She swallowed hard and made herself go on. "If-if Webb is dangerous-then why .. ."
Harris came up close and caught her arms, the touch of his fingers subtly caressing.
"I came here to explain to you. I know you've been held down and protected most of your life-I sensed that when I met you, when you were trying to break free, not sure where you ought to run! And I've tried to let you find your own way, in your own time.
But you have to try to understand. What happened today-very well, what we let happen-was in the nature of a warning. If Carnahan realizes we're on to him, his instinct for self-preservation should make him cautious. I gave you a gun, but I didn't know if you'd use it-even if your life was threatened. And mind you, I don't blame you for it. Y
ou've never gone hunting, have you, Anne? You don't know if you'd ever be able to pull that trigger, knowing that gun that looks like a little toy can kill. But you must know that he would kill you. Acting is his cover; killing is his profession. Anna-
Maria understands that. She's playing a dangerous game, but at least she realizes the risks-now. She had to learn about surviving the hard way. But you, Anne-" He shook her gently, because she was very still, staring at him as if she had been turned into a frozen statue. "For Christ's sake, do you comprehend what I've been trying to tell you? This isn't a game of patty-cake or a lurid television script-it's reality. We're fighting your father, and the others like him-those secret, shadowy behind-the-scenes figures that nobody quite believes exist. The manipulators, who aren't elected by the people, who send us into wars we don't need, who cold-bloodedly arrange for assassinations, connive with the Mafia-run this country! So far they haven't let anyone stand in their way-a president who thought for himself, anyone who spoke out or acted on their own. Do I need to remind you of what happened to the Kennedys, to Martin Luther King-not to mention the other killings ... ?"
"Oh, Harris-s don't!"
"I'm sorry, Anne. But you have to realize the scope of all this. Try to be objective."
"I think she understands," Harris told the others afterwards. If they weren't convinced, they didn't show it outwardly. Randall merely grunted from behind his cigar. "How did he react to the sodium pentothal?"
"Parmenter warned us it might not work. Anyone who retires or resigns from the Service gets the full treatment. I understand it takes a couple of months. A process of tearing down and building up again."
"In other words, they fixed it so that he wouldn't talk under questioning."
"Brightman thinks it's only that they've made him immune in some way to answering questions under the influence of a drug-that consciously, his memory would be quite normal." Harris was frowning, his finger brushing at his mustache.