Donna struggled to get up, but four strong arms pulled her down and flipped her onto her back.
“ No,” she shouted, as they tied her arms and legs to the four corners of the bed. She was trussed up, spread eagled, and there was nothing she could do about it, but scream her rage at her betrayal. After a few seconds she stopped screaming.
She glared swords at the two big men. She was in trouble. “If you’re coming, Jim Monday, come now. Please come now,” she thought desperately, but he didn’t answer. The connection had been broken.
“ Okay, start the equipment and get out of here.” The doctor with the Death’s Head said and Donna watched without struggling as the big men fiddled with the cameras, then the men and the fake policewomen left the salon, going up through the galley and onto the deck.
“ It’s just you and me now.” The doctor’s laughter was a guttural rasping, like a mean dog’s growl. “I’ve waited a long time for this. Generations.” He looked at her with glassed over eyes. “We should get to know each other better.” He grabbed her robe by the left lapel, balled it into his fist and ripped it off, leaving her naked before him-defenseless.
Her bound hands started to shake as he kicked off his shoes.
“ First I’m going to use you,” he said through a Nazi killer’s smile. “I’m going to have to do it fast, because it’s almost midnight.” He reached down and pulled his socks off. Then opened his coat, took it off and she saw the shoulder holster.
“ Big eyes, I see the gun frightens you.” He pulled off the holster, took the gun out of it. “It’s a Beretta Cougar. The most beautiful thing I have ever owned.” He held the gun up, stroked the barrel. “You want a closer look?”
She shook her head.
“ Yes you do.” He pointed the barrel between her eyes, touched it to her forehead. “Nine millimeter, fifteen rounds in the magazine, double action, a point and shoot weapon. But not with the safety on.” He laughed, then with the gun still on her forehead, still between her eyes, he clicked it off.
“ Now it’s ready to go.” He wrapped a powerful right hand around her jaw, squeezed, forcing her mouth open, forcing the barrel in.
“ Suck on that.” He laughed again, a devil’s laugh. “I could blow your head right off.” He pulled out the gun and Donna gasped for air as he ran the barrel down to her breasts, first covering one nipple, then the other, then he took it down further, to her sex.
“ I’d shove it in, but I’ve got something else I want to shove in first.” He pulled the gun away, eyes glazed. “Almost no recoil with this wonderful weapon. It’s because of the rotating barrel.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, sickened by the sight of him.
“ Ah, you’re not interested.”
She tried to will him away.
“ Open your eyes.”
She refused.
“ I’ll shoot off your kneecaps. It’ll be very painful for you.”
She opened her eyes.
“ That’s better. Now we can talk.” He tossed the gun on the bed and pulled off his shirt, revealing a dirty tee shirt. His body odor was overpowering.
“ It’s true I don’t bathe much anymore. I suppose it’s been the anticipation. I’ve been wanting you for a long time.” He pulled off the tee shirt and leered at her. “Do you like the accent, the Nazis had so much to offer, it’s a shame they lost.”
“ You’re not German?” She was confused.
“ Of course not, the accent’s affected.”
“ I don’t understand.”
“ Come on, you know me.”
“ Ngaarara,” she whispered.
“ Yes.”
She squirmed against her bonds, wishing him dead and gone.
“ I didn’t think you had it in you,” he said, changing the subject as he unzipped his pants. “You cast your spirit halfway around the world, even I can’t do that.” He paused, staring at her. “You cost me a good deal of money and several years of pleasure. I only wish there was some additional torture I could induce to make you pay for your sins, but time is short.”
He flipped his erection out of his pants and she flinched as its single eye stared at her.
“ It is large, isn’t it?” He massaged himself. “I like it when it works out that way. Sometimes I get a body with a small one, they work fine, but they don’t frighten the young girls nearly as much as something like this.” He pulled on himself.
Her eyes were frozen wide and she struggled against the ropes.
“ I will be able to masturbate to your deflowering for years upon years, enjoying you forever.” He stopped massaging himself and dropped his pants. He laughed, a devil’s rasp, as he stood before her, naked.
“ After I fuck you, I’m going to call in my German bully boys. They’re going to stuff you in the oven.”
She pulled harder against the ropes.
“ We have a very modern industrial galley on board, including an oversize stove, perfect for you. You’ll be cooked alive and I’ll have every delicious scream on video.”
Jim pulled himself up on the first rung of the dive ladder and caught his breath. He transferred the knife from his mouth back to his right hand and quieted his heart by taking long deep breaths. He was in a hurry, but he didn’t want to blunder foolishly over the side and get himself killed before he had a chance to free Donna. He climbed two rungs of the ladder and poked his head over the rail.
The man on watch had his back to him. He appeared to be watching the four old Maori men beyond. They were involved in a heated argument of some kind. Jim climbed up over the rail, glad that Mohi was doing his job. If he had any doubt about how to handle the man on watch, the black sweater and seaman’s cap he was wearing made up his mind. The last two men he’d met who were dressed like that had tried to kill him. Jim eased up behind the watchman and silently slit his throat.
He saw the Maori men start toward the boat, but he didn’t have time to wait for them. He slipped down the open hatch and found himself looking down a long companionway, with cabin doors on each side. He eased down the corridor. Donna could be in any one of these rooms, he thought, but he knew differently when he heard a familiar voice traveling from beyond the partially open door at the head of the hallway, and all of a sudden he knew what the connection between himself and Donna Tuhiwai had been.
“ I have so much to get even for, fucking you and burning you doesn’t seem like enough. If only I had more time.” The voice and the accent almost threw him into shock. Maybe the man called himself Manfred Penn now, but that wasn’t the name that Jim knew him by.
He moved quickly down the corridor, taking the plastic enclosed gun out from the front of his wet pants as he walked. He stopped just before the door, took the gun out from the plastic bag, took a deep breath and kicked the door open.
“ You?” a bald, clean shaven Bernd Kohler said.
“ Me!” Jim pulled the trigger, but a scream filled the night air, throwing a chill through his spine and throwing his aim high and wide. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end as Bernd Kohler answered the scream of the gecko with one of his own. Before Jim could fire again, Kohler dashed up into the galley, tore through the hatchway and was gone.
In seconds he would be up the ladder to the pier and away and there was nothing Jim could do about it, because he couldn’t leave Donna tied and naked. He moved quickly to the bed.
“ What’s that? He nodded toward an automatic pistol as he sliced through the ropes.
“ A madman’s gun.” She grabbed it the instant he’d freed a hand. “Mine now.”
“ We have to hurry,” he said.
“ Don’t have to tell me twice,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“ Not yet.” He took her hand and led her out of the salon, up into the galley. They backed against the wall opposite the hatchway, as far from the hatch and the adjoining windows as they could get.
Donna gasped as the giant reptile shot out of the water, a second scream escaping from its shark-like mouth.