Afghan Bound (3 page)

David's jaw dropped in surprise. How could they gather so much information about him in such a short space of time?

As if he had anticipated the question Nikolai answered smugly. ‘We have our ways too, Mr Harper.'

‘I want to see the British ambassador!'

Nikolai smile a second time.

‘No point. He has already been informed of your death and subsequent cremation in a burning vehicle during a rebel raid. Tragic really.' The smile became a sneer of victory. ‘Now, shall we stop these games?'

‘And if I say no?'

‘Then,' answered Nikolai, turning nonchalantly away to face the others, ‘we have another position available. It involves being upright in front of a wall, at least for a short time anyway.'

Suddenly the options became crystal clear.

David's duties were simple, frighteningly familiar, and immediate. With little time to collect his few possessions he was escorted to building eleven and his new quarters. By lunchtime he had been briefed on all he needed to know – like how to withdraw drugs from the dispensary and how, if he performed well, a new life in the Soviet Union was possible. The food was good, if not the company. They washed down thick steaks with bottles of Stambolovo, then made their way back to the building. This time however, they turned right and travelled down a long corridor lined on either side with a number of doors.

‘Those on the left,' said Ustinov, ‘are male rebels. On the right, female. We deal only with the females. Nikita's team looks after the men. The added humiliation of being interrogated by the opposite sex makes our job a little easier.' He guided David through the final door and straight into the female interrogation room. Inside, the two doctors he had seen the day before were hauling a naked woman up by her ankles until she was suspended from the low ceiling. Her wrists were manacled to the floor so that her entire body was being stretched until her muscles glowed red and must have burned with the pain. Her head twisted and snaked but David did not hear a scream from inside the black hood that covered her face. Ustinov went across to the men who were attaching the ends of the ropes to a hook in the floor, leaving the woman suspended and spread-eagled upside-down.

‘I see you've already started.' He laughed, then turning to David said: ‘Such dedication to their work, anybody would think they enjoy it.'

David looked at the two men grinning from ear to ear. They certainly enjoy it, he thought to himself, that much was obvious. He pointed to the woman who, by this time, had stopped writhing and was now completely motionless.

‘What's she done?'

‘She ran a safe house for the rebels in Kabul, but that is of no concern to you. What is your concern is keeping her alive until we have discovered where the other houses are.' He cleared some space on a nearby table, produced a pack of cards, and the three Russians sat and played.

‘What about her?' asked David.

‘She's going nowhere,' said Karl, without taking his eyes off his card hand. ‘We're giving her time to think.'

‘Check her if you like,' added Ustinov. ‘You may as well start somewhere, but don't remove the hood.'

David moved over to the still body and searched for her vital signs which, he noted, were very weak. She was near to exhaustion from the beatings she'd been given, which the raw stripes on her back clearly indicated. From the tone of her body he could tell she wasn't old, around thirty he guessed, and despite the bruises from the canes she looked as if manual work was alien to her. There was little doubt that at one time in her life she had been a woman of wealth.

‘Well?' asked Ustinov with a shrug.

‘She'll live.' David pointed to a chain. ‘What's that for?' Against her chin rested a metal clip at the end of a length of light metal links. He traced each link until they reached a bar pierced through her clitoris.

Ustinov looked up with a grin. ‘It's her little holding pin. We run it under her legs and clip it to the wall. Few of them try to escape from that.' He threw the king of spades on the table. ‘Besides,' he added, ‘it saves us having to install heavy doors on their cells.'

Karl picked up the king to go with his other two, and then placed the entire hand on the table in triumph. ‘Rummy!' he announced.

‘You are always the one with the luck,' said Ustinov, gathering in the cards to shuffle them for a new game. ‘Perhaps we should up the stakes.' His associates agreed and three large slabs of bhang were thrown on the table; enough marijuana to keep a Rastafarian happy for a year.

‘Are you in this time?' asked Karl. David pulled up a nearby chair and sat down beside the doctor.

‘Not unless you accept Old Holborn.' he grinned. One game led to another, and what looked like the entire produce of the golden triangle seemed to exchange hands across the table. As they played, David's attention returned to the girl, helpless, naked and motionless, not two yards away. Disturbingly he found himself studying her breasts with hungry eyes, watching for the slightest movement that would increase his growing excitement. Unlike her back, her stomach was free from the welts left by the cane. Firm and flawless, the colour of nutmeg. He followed the line of her skin as it dipped at her waist then curved up to perfect feminine thighs, between which the slit of her smooth available cunt marked the centre like an exclamation mark. A further hour passed before Ustinov rose from the table.

‘I reckon she's about ready to talk.' He walked across the room to a table, where he picked up what looked like two micrometers. He laughed as he tightened and released the shiny chrome bar. ‘Just in case she's not, though, we'd better have these.'

The men cut her down and carried her across to the examination table in the middle of the room where, still hooded, they strapped her wrists and ankles to restraining buckles. Each of Ustinov's men took a breast in their hands and squeezed tightly while he attached the nipple presses, which themselves were attached to chains in the ceiling. Once the presses were fixed the chains were pulled taut until the girl's breasts pointed desperately skywards.

‘Shouldn't you at least remove the hood?' David asked. ‘How can she tell you anything with that on?'

‘Please, David.' Ustinov was clipping a collar around her neck to pin her totally against the table. ‘If you allow them to rest, that's exactly what they do. Now we can't tell you your function – don't presume to tell us ours.' Having said that Ustinov began to roll the hood from her head and David waited in anticipation for the first glimpse of her face. The material clung like a second skin as the Russian doctor peeled it away, releasing yards of jet-black hair. Across her eyes was a moulded rubber blindfold that was buckled tight behind her head, and even with the rubber tongue depressor, which forced her mouth into a gape, there was no mistaking the fact that she was a beautiful female. Such exotic features; high cheekbones and long, long hair; incredible in any language.

Karl pulled a cone-shaped plug from each of her ears. Instantly her head jerked and she winced; obviously the suddenness of the minimal noise in the room was too great after so many hours in complete silence. She rolled her head from left to right until Karl forced a brace down onto her forehead, locking it and her head into position on the table. Only her fingers and toes were now capable of movement.

Without removing the gag Ustinov began his questions, one after the other in rapid succession. ‘Where? When? How?' he shouted. ‘Who is the boss? Where is his base?'

David thought it a bizarre way to carry on; how could the poor girl tell them what they wanted to know if they didn't even give her the chance to. But he soon realised that was the intention. When and only when Ustinov knew she was totally broken would he let her speak. Only then, when her power to resist was spent, would she tell the truth.

Ustinov walked calmly to the foot of the table and placed a hand on each of her ankles. With a sudden thrust the table split in two and her legs were splayed wide apart. He took her now dangling clitoris chain and passed it through one of the many rings that hung within easy reach from the ceiling.

‘Here you are,' he grinned, pulling the chain until her clitoris strained out from between her lips. ‘We don't want that in our way, now do we.'

Ustinov moved further in between her legs, took a length of pipe from one of the trays beneath the table and eased it up her open vagina, leaving it sticking out of her like the barrel of a Chieftain tank. Once the pipe was in place Karl brought across a glass case that contained a squirming, hissing snake. The realisation of what was about to happen hit David straight away.

‘You're crazy! You can't put that up her! What if it bites?!'

Ustinov reacted angrily, annoyed at David's outburst. ‘Be quiet!' he growled. ‘Just you do your job and shut up!'

‘How the fuck do you expect me to keep her alive if that fucking thing bites her? I know nothing about snakes and their venom.' On the table the prisoner tensed at the word snake. Aware now of what was coming the only thing she could do was clench her fingers until her knuckles turned white, otherwise she was completely helpless. Despite the Englishman's protestations Ustinov carefully took the wriggling creature from its case and began feeding it, tail-end first, down the tube. David looked on in horror, his only relief being the sight of a tightly drawn thread behind the jaws of the reptile to prevent it from biting. The snake squirmed, and so did she, which meant that part of it must have already slipped inside her; perhaps four or five inches, no more, but inside it undoubtedly was, twisting and writhing against the wall of her clenched vagina. David was repulsed by the actions of the men, but they were obviously loving every sadistic minute of it.

‘What's the matter with you anyway?' laughed Ustinov, ‘we're not hurting the snake.' The other two men roared at this pathetic joke while David was forced to witness their disgraceful behaviour.

Shortly afterwards they pulled the snake back out and Ustinov declared that they had done enough for the day. David helped Karl remove the nipple presses and unhook the clitoris chain from the ring, then they removed her shackles and helped her to stand.

‘I'd like to examine her,' said David. ‘She's taken quite a bit today.'

‘Then do it in her cell,' Ustinov dismissed him with little interest, then said to Karl: ‘Strap her up again at eight tomorrow.'

Karl took up the clitoris chain and led the compliant prisoner back to her cell. David followed anxiously; relieved that her ordeal was over but strangely aroused at what he had witnessed. He was confused by the erection growing in his trousers; an erection brought on by thoughts of this beautiful female and what she had had to endure.

His bizarrely erotic thoughts were interrupted by their arrival at the cell. Karl kicked open the door and led her to the back wall where he pulled her wrists behind her back and fixed them together with heavy rubber cuffs.

‘Turn around,' he ordered. With her back to the wall he reached between her legs for her chain, drew it beneath her and attached it to a metal ring embedded in the stone. With a twisted grin he signalled his departures to David and left the room.

At the sound of the closing door the girl dropped to her knees and collapsed on her side. David crossed the cell to help her, but the sound of his step betrayed his unexpected presence. She at once struggled desperately to her knees, back straight, breasts pushed out. There was little doubt she had been trained to present herself in this provocative manner.

‘It's okay,' he whispered as soothingly as he could. ‘Don't worry.' He placed a steadying hand behind her back and eased her down to the dusty floor. ‘I just want to see if you're all right.' He ran his hands over her body; caring, professional hands, searching for any broken bones. She seemed detached, uncaring. They were just more hands feeling, groping, probing, the same as the others, touching and pulling at her simply because they could. David wouldn't have wanted to see her like that. He was a doctor, a healer. He examined her ankles, her calves, her thighs. He lifted her legs until she lay like a laboratory frog and carefully felt inside her to check that she was unharmed – but it did feel good; warm and soft and so available. His fingers no longer belonged to the doctor, but to the man. In and out he pumped – harder, faster. He located the pin that pierced her clitoris and squeezed her hard between his finger and thumb. His fingers pumped ever faster and with little consideration for her comfort; he was suddenly like a man possessed. With his free hand he frantically tugged and pulled to open his trousers. He was close to coming in his pants. Never before had a sexual encounter brought the rush of climax so irresistibly quickly. His head was in a spin. What was happening to him? This was no way to behave – he was letting down his whole profession.

Suddenly the door swung open. It was Ustinov carrying a dish of something that resembled food. He surveyed the situation and smiled sarcastically. ‘Now that's what I call a thorough medical examination.'

David snatched his slicked fingers away as though he'd been scorched by a hot iron, blushed, and bumbled something about giving her an internal.

‘Then put your thermometer away,' laughed the Russian, dropping the metal dish onto the floor and spilling most of its contents. At the sound of this the woman struggled back to her knees while David removed the tongue restraint. She remained in the kneeling position until she was given permission to eat. With the blindfold still tightly in place she looked like a chicken pecking at the ground in search of food. Eventually her face fell into the dish and she ate hungrily and quickly. In no time the slop was gone and, unable to hold the dish with her tied hands, it began to scrape over the floor. In a rare show of compassion Ustinov stooped and held it steady for her to lick. When it was clean he straightened, motioning for David to follow. In the corridor Ustinov told him of a small party being held for the officers and staff.