The moaning and the screaming of her female employees had finally broken her reserve. As Hartline had known it would. And he had not touched Ms. Olivier-yet.
The students at the University of Virginia, after hearing of the takeover of the NBC offices and studios in Richmond, had marched in protest. But this was not the 1960’s and 70’s, with constitutional guarantees protecting civil disobedience. Now all police were federalized, and the FBI was nothing like that old and solid organization of the past.
The students were met with live ammunition and snarling dogs. Many were killed. Hundreds more were arrested, and in the process, beaten bloody. VP Lowry ordered the university closed.
Hartline smiled and nodded to a man standing by the door to the office. Within seconds, the screaming and sobbing ceased.
“You see.” Hartline smiled at her. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
If looks could kill.
Sabra watched, a curious look in her eyes, as a mini-cam was brought into her office, carried by an agent. She did not understand the smile on Hartline’s lips.
Hartline pointed to a TV set behind her desk. “Turn it on,” he told her.
A naked man appeared on the screen. One of her anchormen. She knew with a sudden start this was live action, not taped. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “I told you I’d cooperate.”
“Insurance, Sabra baby,” Hartline replied. He picked up a phone from her desk and punched a button. “Do it,” he ordered. He looked at Sabra. “Watch, darling.”
She swung reluctant eyes toward the screen. A cattle prod touched the man’s naked buttocks. His scream chilled her. The prod touched his thigh, then his genitals.
“Stop it!” Sabra shouted.
The man screamed and ground his teeth in pain. Several teeth broke off, bloodying his mouth.
“Goddamn you, Hartline!” Sabra yelled. “Stop it.”
“You’ll cooperate with us?”
“I said I would, Hartline.”
“Anything I say?” “Yes!”
“I have your son ready to perform for us. Would you like to see that?” “Goddamn you!”
Hartline laughed. He spoke to the mini-cam operator. “Start rolling it.” He unzipped his pants. His flaccid penis hung out. “Come here, Sabra baby. This one is for VP Lowry. And if you ever fail to obey an order, if you ever let any copy air without government approval, this tape gets played-in its entirety-on the six o’clock news.”
“You goddamn low-life, miserable son of a bitch!” Sabra cursed him.
“Strip, baby. Take it all off while facing the camera. Let’s give Lowry a really good show. That’s it. Play with your puss a little bit. Good, good, now you’re getting into the spirit of things.”
Naked and embarrassed and trembling with anger, Sabra faced the mercenary.
He hefted his penis. “In case you have it in mind to take a bite of me, Sabra baby, bear in mind your son is now bent over a table just down the hall. You get kinky with me, he gets gang-shagged. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Kneel down here, baby. On your pretty dimpled knees. You know what to do. You probably sucked cocks getting to where you are in the network anyway.”
She took him as the camera recorded it all.
Just as Hartline climaxed, the semen splattering the woman’s face, Hartline laughed. “It’s just so fucking easy when you know how. Just so fucking easy.”
The tiny hamlet of Vienna was deserted, completely void of any type of life, human or animal. “Strange,” Ben muttered, conscious of Gale’s eyes
on his face. “I don’t recall ever seeing anything like this.” He ordered scouts out to give the place a quick once-over.
Gale put her hand on Ben’s thigh. “This place scares me,” she admitted.
Ben, as usual, kept his emotions in close check. At least outwardly. Inside, he felt a little shaky. This place was, he concluded, a place of death-but somehow much different from all the other towns he had seen.
A Rebel jogged toward the pickup, his words breaking into Ben’s deep thoughts. “You gotta see this, General. It’s unreal.”
Ben, with Gale in tow, followed the Rebel on foot to a weather-beaten old frame church. The church had once been painted white. Now the paint was almost gone, the wood rotting from years of abuse from the harsh elements of sun and wind and cold.
“The door is locked, sir. From the inside. I looked through the window around here at the side. But you both better brace yourselves for what you’re about to see. It’s tough, sir.”
The scene grabbed at Ben’s guts. Fifty or so people-or the skeletons of what had once been people-filled the pews. Many of the ladies still had rags of what had been their Sunday hats perched on their white, bony skulls. About half of the worshippers still sat upright, grinning grotesquely and staring through sightless eyeholes at the bones of a man who sat in a chair directly behind the rotting pulpit. He would wait forever to deliver his Sunday sermon.
“Look at the watch on that guy’s … wrist,” the Rebel said, pointing to a nearby skeleton.
Ben rubbed at the dirty windowpane and stared.
The watch was a LCD type and was still silently exhibiting the time in the House of the Lord, to pews full of bones.
“What happened, Ben?” Gale asked in no more than a whisper, almost breathlessly. “I mean, how could this be?”
“I can’t answer that, honey,” Ben said, his eyes still fixed on the scene before him.
“I can,” Lamar Chase said.
“Jesus Christ!” the young Rebel blurted, jumping about a foot off the ground.
“Naturally, he can,” Ben said dryly, but with a grin.
Lamar glanced at the badly shaken young Rebel. “I warned you about keeping late hours, son. Bad on the nerves.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said, grinning, red-faced with embarrassment.
“It was airborne,” Lamar said. “At least some strains of it.”
“Airborne, Lamar?” Ben said. “The plague?”
“What the hell do you think I’m talking about?” the doctor said. “Gonorrhea? Yes, the plague. The only answer I can give is there must have been several strains of it. Very short-lived. What are you going to do with these … remains?”
“Leave them right where they are,” Ben told him. “I can’t think of a better resting place than this, can you?”
“Yes,” Doctor Chase said with a sour grin. “Don’t die.”
“Little sweetmeat,” Hartline said, stroking the unwilling
flesh of Peggy. His touch made her skin crawl as if covered with thousands of lice. Somewhere in the old warehouse-turned-interrogation-center for the IPF, a human being was wailing in agony. Gender was not identifiable by the hoarse yowlings.
Hartline raised his head at the sounds, a smile on his handsome face.
“That would be Mr. Linderfelt, I should think,” he said. “Would you be at all interested in knowing what is being done to him, sweetmeat?”
“No. I’m sure it’s horrible and perverted. What are you going to do with me, Hartline?”
“Oh my, sweetmeat, that does present a dilemma. Yes, it does. Quite a dilemma. You see, I just haven’t made up my mind as yet. How about you calling the tune, dear.”
“Your humor is sick, Hartline. Just as sick as the rest of you.” She struggled against the leather straps that held her to the operating table. She was naked, her legs spread wide.
Hartline’s right hand was busy between her legs, his middle finger working in and out.
He laughed at her struggles.
“Let me tell you what is being done with Mr. Linderfelt, dear.”
She screamed and fought against the straps. She struggled until her slender body was bathed in sweat, light bronze shining under the harsh lights that hung above her. Hartline stood and watched her, a smile on his lips. She finally ceased her futile writhings and glared up at the mercenary.