Ziegler liked his sexual encounters kinky. The weirder the better. For months she had been his procurer, so she knew his likes and dislikes fairly well, as disgusting as they were. But they were his one major weakness.
She quickly peeled off her clothes and stepped into the costume she had bought at a small shop in a seedier section of Reykjavik: metal-studded, black leather bra and panties with cutouts in strategic places, black fishnet nylons, and tall, imitation leather stiletto-heeled boots.
From her large purse she pulled out a red wig and put it on, redid her makeup, then stepped back and looked critically at herself in the mirror. She had worked with Ziegler for some time, but she didn't think he had ever really looked at her. It had been his goons, not him, who had interrogated her. He was almost always too busy, in too much of a hurry. And now, the change in her appearance was startling. Besides, she shuddered, the holes in the costume exposed the nipples of her breasts and her pubis. She didn't think he'd even notice her face.
From her purse she extracted a razor-sharp knife, which she shoved down her left boot, then sighed deeply and opened the door.
"Herr Ziegler," she called out, but there was no answer. She stepped out into the corridor. To the left was the door that led back to the outer office. To the right was another door. She turned right.
At the door she put her ear to the wood and listened. There was nothing at first, and she was about to open the door when a telephone rang from within.
It was answered a moment later by Ziegler, she recognized his voice.
"Have you got him yet?" he demanded.
Roberta felt very exposed standing here. At any moment someone could come from the outer office.
"I want the entire core area totally surrounded. Bring up the big lights from engineering. Whatever happens, he cannot be allowed anywhere near the core, the building, the plumbing, or especially the core support. Your life depends upon that. Do I make myself clear?"
Damn, Roberta thought. Nick didn't have a chance of getting close now. She only hoped that he'd manage to get clear.
"Don't call me back until you have him," Ziegler said, and she could hear him slam down the phone.
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then knocked a couple of times and walked in.
Ziegler had been standing by the window. He spun around, his jaw dropping when she flounced in.
"There you are," she squealed, shutting the door when she was inside. "I waited and waited, but you never came."
Ziegler seemed flustered. It was very much out of his ordinary character, but then he liked to play these games.
"I'm… sorry, my dear," he whimpered almost contritely. "There was the phone call… and…" He let his voice trail off.
Roberta came around the desk and stood in front of him, her legs spread, her hands on her hips. She could see how excited he was becoming. Her heart was hammering. She had waited for a moment such as this for a very long time. Ever since she had learned that Ziegler was one of the men from Dachau. One of the killers there, where her mother had just barely survived with her life.
Ziegler had been her mother's lover. She had been kept in the camp brothel for the exclusive use of General Martel Zimmerman. He had brought her presents and good things to eat at first, but later his sexual appetites began to take on a new twist.
Painfully her mother had explained it all to her teenage daughter shortly before her death in the early sixties. It was a story she had never been able to tell her husband.
Looking now at Ziegler made her stomach turn. But her mother's story came back to her although she wanted to bury it.
At first he had used chains and whips on her mother. And then cigarette burns and finally even a soldering iron between her toes, in her armpits, in her anus, and on the lips of her vagina. The pain was so terrible, her mother remembered with tears in her eyes, but it was nothing compared to what came later.
He began to change, her mother said, slowly and subtly at first. He used to tie her up, but one time he forgot, and she struck out blindly, hitting him in the face.
He reared back, and she was certain that she would die that instant, but he was smiling. He had enjoyed it.
A few weeks later the same thing happened again, and this time she scratched him. He seemed to be in ecstasy.
During the months that followed, the transformation came faster and faster until at last she was handcuffing him, whipping him, and even urinating on him. At one point she was even cutting him with a knife.
The terrible thing about it, her mother remembered, was that by then she had been his prisoner for more than two years. She could have easily killed him during one of those sessions, but she had been changed so much by him that she merely did as he asked. She tortured him, abused him, kicked and screamed at him; it was the only way he could get sexual satisfaction.
Nothing had changed.
"Get down on your hands and knees, you swine," Roberta hissed. She meant it, and Ziegler loved it.
He got to his knees and bowed his head. "You must forgive me, my dear. The telephone…"
Roberta kicked him in the chest, sending him staggering backward, off-balance.
He grinned. "You're a feisty whore… I like that! More!"
Roberta reared back and kicked him in the chest again, just beneath his left breast. The air went out of him, and he fell back on the floor behind the desk.
She advanced on him as he began to laugh, long and low, the sound totally devoid of humor. He was some kind of a monster.
"What do you want now, Herr Ziegler?" she snapped.
He laughed louder. "Delicious, "he said. "Oh… God, it's so delicious. You're so much like your mother, my dear. So much… you'll never know."
Roberta's heart froze. Her knees suddenly felt weak, and she felt very obscene standing over Ziegler in the costume she was wearing.
He knew! Oh, God, he had known all along! He had waited for just this moment.
She reached down and quickly pulled the knife from her boot, but Ziegler had sat up, and he grabbed her right ankle with a meaty paw and jerked it out from under her.
She fell back, banging her shoulder on the edge of the desk, losing her grip on the knife. It went clattering across the floor, and Ziegler was on her.
"You want to hurt me, my dear?" he asked, breathing heavily. "That can be arranged. But later. I think first we'll have to soften you up a bit. Maybe take a month or two. Who knows, maybe it'll take eighteen months like with your mother the whore."
She struggled out of his grasp and scrambled backward across the floor to where the knife lay. But the office door burst open at that moment, and four guards, all of them armed, their weapons at the ready, came in.
One of them yanked Roberta to her feet, while the others helped Ziegler up.
He came to where she stood, and without warning reached out with the little knife and cut her bra so it fell from her body.
She struggled wildly. "Hold her," Ziegler barked. A second guard came over, and together with the other one they held Roberta still. Her stomach was churning. Oh. Nick, she thought. She had been such a fool.
Ziegler pulled off her panties, her boots, and the mesh nylons, leaving her nude.
"Nice?" he asked his guards. They were all leering at her.
"Your orders are simple, gentlemen," Ziegler said. "Take this whore over to Barracks B and teach her just what fine, strong men you are." He smiled at Roberta. "I certainly don't want her killed, nor do I want her damaged… too badly. Just have a little fun, that's all."
Twelve
The flames from the burning barracks were already beginning to die down when Carter made it to the motor pool area. He crouched just behind the large maintenance garage as he listened and watched for the sign of a guard or guards.