Part 7 (1/2)

Those cells had been feebly lighted and deserted during Bolan's earlier visit. Now they were lit well enough to allow televised surveillance, and none of them were deserted. Young men and women appeared to languish there in att.i.tudes of suffering and submission, all naked and cowed and bound into the various types of imprisoning devices.

The monitors showing the harem room were something else. Here men and women lay about in a variety of luxurious accommodations, and in a scene combining the best of Arabian Nights Arabian Nights and the wildest in and the wildest in Roman Orgy. A Roman Orgy. A party was most emphatically in progress, and just as emphatically it was geared to the most offbeat varieties of erotic delight. Most of the men, it seemed, were middle-aged or beyond-except for an occasional consortium of aged lechery with pretty lad. The women were without exception young and beautiful, and there were many. Everywhere Roman togas mixed and contrasted with colorful harem pajamas, slave girl costumes, and the inevitable devices of ”bondage.” party was most emphatically in progress, and just as emphatically it was geared to the most offbeat varieties of erotic delight. Most of the men, it seemed, were middle-aged or beyond-except for an occasional consortium of aged lechery with pretty lad. The women were without exception young and beautiful, and there were many. Everywhere Roman togas mixed and contrasted with colorful harem pajamas, slave girl costumes, and the inevitable devices of ”bondage.”

On a small revolving stage at the center of all this, a huge black man was spread-eagled upon a simple upright cross, bound hand and foot. He was nude, and he was obviously in a state of wild s.e.xual agitation. A tall blond girl, also nude, was tantalizing him with a lewdly suggestive dance in which she frequently wriggled against him then swayed back to avoid his wild lunging after her. Following each of these sallies, the big fellow was punished for his impertinence by another girl, an Amazonian figure, with a wicked looking black whip. It was theatre in the round, a la Sade a la Sade, and it made Bolan's guts creak. He had to wonder how many other acts had preceded this one across that small stage, and he began to understand what Ann Franklin had meant by ”a paid staff.” These people were performers, actors actors and d.a.m.ned convincing ones in their own peculiar specialty. Even the cell-sufferers were undoubtedly acting out a role with all the stage vigor of any thespian anywhere. TV monitors were banked about the revolving stage, allowing the audience to also keep track of the activities in the cells. and d.a.m.ned convincing ones in their own peculiar specialty. Even the cell-sufferers were undoubtedly acting out a role with all the stage vigor of any thespian anywhere. TV monitors were banked about the revolving stage, allowing the audience to also keep track of the activities in the cells.

The console in the security station apparently was geared more to the entertainment angle than to items of security. Bolan wondered if they had video-taping capability-and he also wondered if the revellers upstairs realized that they themselves were on candid camera. Talk about blackmail mills-this one was a natural goldmine for anyone with such ambitions.

His attention was drawn to the monitor showing the cell with the barrel balancing trick. An Amazonian beauty in weird garb had just stalked into camera range in that cell. She wore thigh-high boots of glossy black leather and a tightly laced corset affair that sucked her into an hourgla.s.s from armpits to hips. Cutouts at the chest provided a free and high projection of magnificently sculpted b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Thick black hair descended in a free fall to her waist. Grotesque facial cosmetics conveyed a convincing impression of satanic evil. She must have stood six feet tall even without the high-heeled boots, Bolan guessed, and she carried the inevitable black whip.

A well formed young man occupied the balancing platform. His back was to the camera; he was imprisoned by the wrist irons with his face to the wall. The devil girl went directly to the task at hand, las.h.i.+ng out energetically against his nude flanks with the whip. He reacted with a believable display of pain, lunging away from the stinging tips of the lash, losing his footing, clawing desperately at the chains to relieve the harsh pressure at his wrists-just about as Bolan had visualized the thing earlier.

The performance was too realistic for Bolan. He supposed that the whip was made of some sort of trick material, but it was still too much for his stomach. He whirled away from the console, wondering what had become of Charles and what had prompted the old man to desert his station and leave it wide open. This was obviously a party night at the museum, certainly no time for the security watch to be relaxed.

Bolan made another quick inspection of the entire bas.e.m.e.nt area, returning none the wiser some minutes later to the control room. During his absence the black man had left the stage in the party room and another act had replace him. This consisted of two young men lashed nakedly together back to back and two girls bound to each other in a side-by-side arrangement. The nude foursome's problem of the night was an erotically obvious one, and their frantic attempts at resolving it were acrobatically ingenious.

Bolan's attention was suddenly diverted from the Siamese-twin act by a peculiar movement across the screen of one of the cell monitors. A satanic Amazon had uncharacteristically staggered past the camera lens, her face showing genuine shock and revulsion as she hurried out of the little room. Bolan bent closer to the monitor. The scene there, at first look, seemed a typical one. A ”victim” was imprisoned in a variation of the stocks-a particularly evil device consisting of a small platform raised a few inches above the floor, in which were set ankle holes for imprisoning the victim's feet; just behind this was another platform slightly higher off the floor, with holes for neck and wrists.

Bolan had noticed the contrivance on his trip through the maze, and there had been no puzzle as to its function. The victim would be required to bend over double, standing in the stocks in a grotesque position with his head practically between his feet. Too much bodily fatigue, vertigo, dizziness, or any other circ.u.mstance which would cause the victim to sway too much in any direction would undoubtedly choke him. Total imbalance would result in a broken neck. Bolan had gathered all this in one quick glance, the previous night. Now he realized that he had not grasped the full diabolicalness of this device. In its present usage the victim was doubled over backwards backwards, and an extra feature had been added. A narrow platform, resembling a sawhorse with steel spikes along its back, was thrust under the arched spine. If this had been a staged act, the role would have called for a contortionist.

But this victim was no contortionist. The closer inspection sent chills along Bolan's spine and sucked all the moisture from his mouth. This victim was no performer. He was quite an old man, and there was simply no way to feign the racking distress of that distorted body. The camera angle was in bad relation to the lighting, besides which only the back of the victim's head showed-but Bolan knew immediately what had become of Edwin Charles.

An animal growl rumbled past Bolan's lips and he was out of there and running up the stairs to the ground level before his thinking mind took charge. He erupted into the small room which lay just beyond the clubroom and smashed through into the party chamber. The scowling black clad figure with submachine gun in hand went virtually unnoticed through the crowd. Indeed, he looked no more out of place there than anyone present, and he received his first challenge at the l.a.b.i.al doorway.

Two of the leather-clad Amazons guarded that portal, standing stiffly spread-legged with crossed arms and dangling whips. The satanic-pretty faces registered puzzlement at Bolan's aggressive approach. At the last moment, one of the girls expertly curled her lash about Bolan's chest and the other stepped into his path. The whip, he found, was of soft and harmless nylon. The girl herself was something else, as big and strong as she seemed.

Bolan snarled, ”The old man's in trouble!” and pushed the girl roughly aside. He went on through and up the stairway, with one of the girls right at his heels and panting along in hot pursuit.

He had only a vague idea as to his destination as he hurried through the cellular maze, but he knew he was getting warm when he spotted a devil girl crumpled to the floor in a doorway.

To the girl following him, Bolan snapped, ”Help her!”

He stepped over the unconscious girl and into a reality much more horrible than could be gathered by a TV camera. The unmistakable smell of blood was mixed with the acrid odor of burnt flesh to overpower the atmosphere of the tiny airless cell; death had come there to release human agony and misery, and Bolan knew it the moment he stepped through that door.

Here was one old soldier who had not merely faded away. Edwin Charles had died hard.

The sawhorse affair was built of adjustable wooden legs and an iron crosspiece with conical protrusions along its top. The iron section had recently been intensely hot, and still was radiating considerable warmth. A blow torch lay discarded on the floor in the corner of the cell. Bolan decided that this had been used to heat the iron of the medieval device, which was then positioned beneath the arched back of the old man and probably slowly raised in height until the brittle old spine could no longer accept the demands placed upon it. He had sank back onto the red hot iron, and it had literally eaten its way into him.

It seemed likely also that the spine had snapped, and perhaps other bones as well. The red heat of the iron bar had probably cauterized and sealed ruptured blood vessels as it advanced into the body, but bleeding of an internal nature had found its natural exit through both the bowel and the mouth of the victim. It was a macabre scene. Bolan could understand why even the devil girl had fainted.

He grimly inspected the remains and muttered, ”The things men do to one another.” Then he stood there for a moment in angry contemplation of a grand old soldier's final moments. What was it the old fellow had said about the museum? Something about a deeper meaning, a sign of the times.

Bolan grunted, ”Yeah,” and went back out. He found the two devil girls leaning weakly against each other in the next cell.

”Is he dead?” whispered the girl who had chased Bolan up the stairs.

”He sure is,” Bolan muttered. ”Just how long has this party been going on?”

”Since eleven,” the girl replied in a funereal whisper.

Bolan looked at his watch. The time was then shortly past midnight. He shook his head and said, ”I don't know how long the old man has been in that room, but he hasn't been dead for more than half an hour.”

The implications of that decision hit him immediately. Edwin Charles had died with his agony on full display in the party room below, the reality of the gruesome scene concealed by the bogus suffering going on all about him. Quietly, Bolan told the girls, ”He's been dying through half of this nutty party.”

The girl who had fainted seemed in danger of doing so again. Her hands clutched at Bolan for support and she told him, ”I was in and out of there many times. I didn't know he was...” Her eyes rolled. ”Until it started to smell smell so terrible...” She looked as though she wanted to be sick. . so terrible...” She looked as though she wanted to be sick. .

”Who puts these people into these nutty devices?” Bolan asked.

The other girl murmured, ”Normally they attach themselves, and they can get out any time they wish, without aid. It's all in fun, you know. I mean, who would've thought... ?” Her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s shuddered with the unspoken horror of the idea and she swayed toward Bolan.

He steadied her and muttered, ”Yeah, this is some kind of fun place,” and then he left them to console one another and he went back through the harem room. Little had changed down there, except that the frantic foursome had discovered a way for s.e.x en ma.s.se s.e.x en ma.s.se to overcome the physical limitations of human anatomy. to overcome the physical limitations of human anatomy.

The cell of Charles' final agony was in prominent display just above this living exhibition. As he walked past, Bolan drew his Beretta and sent a quiet round into the monitor. There would be no more ghoulish jollies from an old man's final torment.

He pa.s.sed on through, spurned the stairway to the bas.e.m.e.nt, and strode purposefully toward the main exit. As he approached the door, he loaded the Uzi Uzi and made it ready. Mack Bolan was in killer mode, and his mood was now definitely inclined toward thunder and lightning. and made it ready. Mack Bolan was in killer mode, and his mood was now definitely inclined toward thunder and lightning.

Chapter Eleven.

THE PRISONER.

Danno Giliamo sat in quiet thought on the rear seat of a large black sedan which was parked just off the square near Museum de Sade Museum de Sade. He was alone except for one other man who sat quietly huddled over the steering wheel. The sound of an approaching vehicle intruded into the silence. Moving slowly, it swung close then halted at the curb just opposite Giliamo's car. A man stepped out and the car moved on. A moment later the sedan door across from Giliamo opened and Nick Trigger slid in, hastily closing the door to deactivate the domelight mechanism.

By way of greeting, Giliamo emitted a bored sigh and said, ”I guess you was right, Nick. He ain't showed up here. Nothing on your end either, huh?”

”Nothing, h.e.l.l,” Trigger replied quietly. ”We had plenty on my end. But you were right about that lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he's as slippery as melted jello.”

”You mean he got away again?” Giliamo replied in a dulled voice.

”Yeah, he got away.”

”Well he ain't turned up here.” Giliamo nervously tamped a cigarette against his fist then shoved it between his lips and lit it, his eyes weary and disturbed in the glow of the lighter. ”So what happened?” he asked.

Trigger sniffed and settled deeper into the seat. ”We had him bottled in a rock joint over by Soho Square.” The ma.s.sive shoulders raised and settled again in a tired shrug. ”He busted out, that's all, got away clean.

And cops all over the G.o.d d.a.m.ned place, I mean crawling out of every hole.”

Giliamo took a nervous pull at the cigarette and asked, ”Okay, so what happened to my boys?”

”Six of your freelancers are dead,” Trigger reported with a sigh. ”Also Looney and Rocky got arrested. Don't worry, I'll have 'em sprung first thing in the morning.”

Giliamo mouthed a string of half-audible obscenities, then said, ”You see what I been up against, Nick?”

”Yeah.” The London enforcer punched his elbows into the backrest with a loud sigh. ”I don't see any sense in hanging around this neighborhood, Danno. Leave a couple of boys to keep an eye out, just to make sure, but I guess we might as well tuck it in for the night. Bolan isn't going to run from one setup right to another. Arnie Farmer and his army is due in first thing in the morning. We'll huddle with them and see what we can come up with.”

”I was hoping to get it all over with before they showed up,” Giliamo muttered. ”Do you know this Arnie Farmer?”

”We met a couple of times,” Nick Trigger replied heavily. ”Do I get it right that you feel about this Capo Capo the way I feel about him?” the way I feel about him?”