“No time for this, move on, move on!” he told himself.
Leaving the elevator, his ears still ringing with a high-pitched song of complaint, he set off for the interrogation room. He guessed he had a good five hundred metres to his destination and would encounter three corners and countless doors. The rooms off the main corridors were not just storerooms; some provided accommodation for the guards. He knew that before he got to Lisa, things would very likely get very lively. His main problem would be guards exiting rooms from behind him, as he moved down the corridors. If he wasn’t careful, he could easily get flanked and surrounded. Quickly patting down the dead guard, he removed a pistol from his inside jacket pocket, clicked on the safety, and stuck it down the back of his trousers. He had often seen similar scenes in action movies and shook his head to make sure he stayed focused.
The alarm bell started after he took out his third victim. The guard emerged from behind a closed door. He too was dropped with a head shot from point-blank range, but the door slammed shut behind him, and moments after that came the sound of a siren. It bellowed down the narrow hallways, calling the guards out of their sleep and galvanising them into action. There was nothing Michael could do about it, so, pulling the second gun from behind his back, he flipped off the safety and fired three rounds with each gun into the closed door, before kicking it in. The second inhabitant of the room was hit by three of the six bullets, and the wall behind him had been transformed into a mural of red and white. Dispensing with the empty weapon, Michael found two more on his latest victims, and, tucking them both into his belt, he ventured slowly back into the hallway.
“You know, Mrs Jarvis, electricity is one of man’s greatest inventions. But it can be very painful.”
Von Klitzing brushed the second clamp over Lisa’s right nipple, and her whole body convulsed. Straining against the chair’s straps and fighting uselessly against the thick brown leather, her teeth ground themselves to powder as the relentless electricity forced its way through her flesh, contorting her face into a grotesque death mask. Von Klitzing finally pulled the clamp away, only a moment before she was convinced she would die. A mouthful of chipped teeth and excruciating pain racked her head. Perspiration soaked her entire body, and salty sweat ran from her forehead and into her eyes, blurring her vision and combining with tears of pain to create a waterfall of despair over her face.
“You know, a women’s genitals are a very sensitive place.” Von Klitzing said this after detaching the bulldog clip from her breast. Holding both clips in front of her face once again, he made their jaws open and close in a demonstration of the pain they would cause her. Then, very slowly, he moved one of the clamps down between her legs, stroking her thigh with the cold metal as he went.
“Please, don’t!” she pleaded. But looking into Von Klitzing’s eyes was like staring Death in the face, and she knew there would be no sympathy.
Holding the second clamp just inches from her left eyeball, he watched her strain to move her head away, a small whine of helplessness escaping her lips. That seemed to please him, and, for a second, she hoped for a reprieve, but none came, only a sharp pain from between her legs as the first clamp was applied.
“A last chance, Mrs Jarvis?”
Lisa swallowed down the pain and sent another volley of spittle in Von Klitzing’s direction by way of a reply. When the alarm sounded, she mistook it for more pain, her senses’ confusion tricking her mind. Seconds later, the door was flung open, and two guards rushed into the room.
“Sir, we are under attack! You must leave immediately.”
“I am not finished; just do your jobs and leave us!”
“Sir, you know the rules. You must leave now.”
“Can’t you see I am busy? This woman has valuable information!”
“She is not going anywhere, sir. You can return to her later, as soon as we have the situation under control.”
The men took an arm each and forcibly lifted Von Klitzing from his chair, dragging him out of the room.
“You imbeciles!”
Lisa watched the men drag Von Klitzing away, wriggling and squirming like a spoiled child. They hit the lights before the steel door slammed behind them, and she was plunged into darkness. Alone in the room, just the screaming siren assaulting her ears.
Michael was only fifty metres from the interrogation room, and every nerve in his body wanted to make a run for the door, with only common sense holding him back. They would be coming from both directions along the hall now, the larger force coming from the communications centre, which was next to the interrogation room.
This will be the decisive fight, he told himself.
When the clink of steel on stone came, he knew it could only be one of two things, a grenade or a flash bomb. Diving instinctively to his left through an open door, he did a forward roll, smacking his skull hard against the far wall of the room. Covering his head with his arms, he hoped the blast would go in the other direction. Not one but three blasts shook the building around him, and the room instantly filled with a thick fog of dust and mortar. Taking a chance, he pulled his sweater up over his nose and made another forward roll back into the corridor. Ending up in a crouch, facing towards the interrogation room, he was just in time to see three figures moving down the inside of the wall towards him. Six muzzle flashes later, they were all down. Remaining in the crouch, his senses trying to reach out and feel for the next aggressor, he was relieved when nothing more came than an eerie silence. Back on his feet, he was off at a run. Hitting the guard room door with the sole of his right foot, he was greeted by nothing more than dust, and he admonished himself for being impatient.
You idiot, you could have gotten yourself killed!
A few deep breaths and Michael went on the search for new ammunition. The room was full of a mix of electronics and gun racks. Taking an assault rifle down from one of the racks, he searched the cupboards. The very first one revealed grenades. The second bore an ammo belt and ammunition, which he put on, clipping four of the grenades onto the belt before moving carefully back out into the hallway. He crept to the door of the interrogation room, looking both ways along the hall and listening for the sound of more guards. When none came, he gently opened the door to the interrogation room.
“Lisa, are you in there?”
The muffled sound of his voice was like music to her ears, and the relief she felt was palpable.
“Michael!”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes, yes!”
She was about to continue, but he was already in the room, flicking on the light and closing the door behind him.
“Oh my God, what have they done to you? Are you all right?”
Tears welled up in his eyes. Seeing his wife strapped to that chair was more than he could bear, and the rage inside him grew.
It was my job to protect her. What if I can’t do that? He was racked with guilt.
Her left thigh was caked in blood, and a cable was hanging from between her legs. He rushed to release her, ripping at the leather straps and gently removing the clamp.
“Lisa, I am going to have to remove this.” Michael gestured at the scalpel.
She nodded and bit down on her lip. He wasted no time, pulling the scalpel from her leg with one swift tug, before applying pressure to the wound like a trained medic.
“Can you hold this a second?”
She nodded and pressed down on the wound with both hands. He found her clothes in the corner of the room neatly folded and placed on the concrete floor.