Ingrams & Assoc 6: Downfall Ch. 04

There wasn't much speaking, a few "Oh yes," and "yes, master" and yips, and a lot of moans. Chris could see she was aroused, even more than before, and it hurt to see. He tried turning his head away, and one the guards cuffed him around the head, turning his eyes forcibly forwards.

The scene progressed, and eventually, Trisha was placed on her hands and knees, facing the window, her head up and staring, unblinking into Chris' eyes.

Her mouth opened slightly as the man, standing behind her, without preamble thrust his cock into her waiting wet orifice. It was savage and cruel and hard and her eyes closed at the pleasure she was receiving.

The man pounded her again and again, and Trisha fought to keep her eyes open and trained on Chris, destroying him with her obvious pleasure at what was happening.

Then, the man withdrawing, said, "Open yourself up. You know what I want next."

Trish whimpered, biting her lip, a self-conscious affectation Chris had seen many times, when she was about to do something outrageous or pushing herself beyond her normal limits.

She leaned herself forward, face down, and reached back with both hands, pulled her butt cheeks apart.

The man looked directly at Chris and said, "In the ass, just so you know. With no lube. Just the way she likes it. All slutty whores like it that way, and she's no different. Right, Whore?"

"Yes, Master. Anything to please you," she replied, muffled.

It was the final straw.

Chris barred his teeth and a primal growl erupted from him. He started to rise, and the two men on either side grabbed his shoulders and pushed down, with all their weight, in an attempt to force him back into his seat. All the physics of the situation were on their side, - he only had his legs to push up, and they had their weight and the strength in their arms, but for all that, he managed to at least push up a little. Not to full standing, but crouched upright, such was the anger he was feeding off.

And then, suddenly, he sat down. Not only did he crash back into his seat, he flopped off the seat entirely, onto the floor in front.

The two men, pushing down with all their might, abruptly finding no resistance, crashed forward, both leaning inwards. Their heads collided with a sickening crunch, and blood sprayed out. Both men fell back, unconscious from the collision, while Chris struggled to get to his feet with both hands ziplocked together.

The activities in the other room had stopped at the explosive action, both participants staring in horror at what was unfolding in front of them.

Chris knew how to get out of the ziplocked ties, - he'd done the same to enough people in his life in the army to know how to get out of it. Flexing his arms, he drew both hands up as high as he could, took a deep breath, then brought both hands down, flexing his back as though trying to pull both of his shoulder blades together.

The particular angle of power and movement moved the small trapping lock on the ziplock, releasing it under pressure, and suddenly, both his hands were free.

Instantly Chris was on the two men on the floor. It is a movie fallacy that people who are knocked unconscious stay that way for any period of time. If you are knocked unconscious and you stay that way for more than an hour, it's almost certain that brain damage is setting in. In his experience, most people started to come around within minutes of the initial act that rendered them unconscious. The two on the floor had already started to stir, and clutch at themselves, and he had to do something about that.

Where he came from, he was taught never to leave a man behind who might be an obstacle in the near future. Sometimes you just killed them, but sometimes you just want to ensure they can't come back at you, - it depended on the situation. While Chris was angry, - angry beyond belief, - his training also kicked in and he understood that even here, with this provocation, killing people wasn't the answer.

That just meant 'Other Methods', as his combat instructor used to say.

Chris reached down and grabbed the right arm of the first man, stretching it out, and then stamped on the man's hand and fingers, hearing them crunch under his dress shoe soles and the man scream at the sudden pain. He then moved down the man's body and jumped up and landed with both feet on the guard's right ankle. Not a killing blow, and probably not a long-term disability either, but enough that this man wouldn't be getting up to attack him, or pulling out a weapon to shoot at him from the floor.

It was unpleasant as a task, - this wasn't the heat of battle, this was cold-blooded short-term maiming, - but then Chris was in a pretty sadistic state of mind, so he was fine with it. It had to be done to protect his back.

He then did the same thing to the other man, glancing up briefly after landing awkwardly on the second guard's ankle, to see The Man and Trisha staring at him, Trisha with a horrified expression on her face, and the guy in black looking at him with a blank face, obviously surprised at what he was witnessing. It was brutal and it spoke of training. Training a logistics clerk was unlikely to have. Chris, evidently, was not what they had been led to believe, - they assumed, - he was. There might have been a miscalculation here.

For a second, gazing at the two of them, Chris' anger got the best of him and he slammed at the window, screaming primordially. Trisha took an involuntary step back, and the man's blank stare was broken. He immediately grabbed Trisha's hand and dragged her back, towards the door in the room that led to the outside.

Chris ran to the internal door, that connected the two rooms, and then saw it was futile, - it was a keyboard lock and obviously one of the two indisposed guards had the pass key. That was a failure of planning and intelligence on his part, but his training kept him on course. If he couldn't get to them, then he had to get out.

He went to the other door, - this one had both a key pad and also a palm pad. He turned around and dragged the nearest guard, - still moaning and cradling his right hand, - by the scruff of his neck towards the door. Ignoring the man's incoherent mumbling and mild screams, Chris grabbed his left hand and slapped it on the palm print panel. The panel went green and the door unlocked, and Chris dropped the incapacitated guard and opened the door. He had limited time before Trisha and The Man in Black raised the alarm, and he needed to get out as soon as possible, since he had no idea of the resources he might be facing.

Running through the corridors, he tried several doors at random. Several times he was presented with scenes of various sexual scenarios. Torture was a heavy theme in most of them, although who was torturing whom, and why, was often unclear.

Eventually he opened a door and found a cleaner's closet. He ran inside, an opportunistic plan occurring to him. Finding some meth spirits, a few rags and a book of matches, - for candles laid out on a shelf, obviously for some poor sap's romantic ideas of a 'special evening', probably, -- plus a small standing step, he ran out again.

Chris looked around and studied the ceiling. The building he was in was the usual drywall and wood structure, and there was a sprinkler system in place. That would make things more complicated, - it's hard to set a building on fire with a good sprinkler system in place, but not impossible. Chris needed a diversion to take attention away from him, and a fire would do nicely. He could blend in with people leaving the building.

The secret to setting a fire in a building with a sprinkler system is to set it high. Sprinklers are designed to blanket tables and chairs and basically hit everything from a six foot and down area. If you set your fire higher than that, it would have a chance to take, and if you were really lucky, eventually it would take down the structure that the sprinkler supply conduits were attached to.

Chris pulled out the step, stepped up and then did his best to splash mentholated spirits as high up the wall as he could. As an accelerant, it was perfect, and it was as if the designers of this building were helping him out, since the walls were covered in wood paneling, with wood edging at the top and bottom of the walls. One lit match thrown up high, and the wall was aflame.

However, Chris knew you had to do this in more than one place. One place of fire was too risky, since there was too much chance it could be put out. For the next five minutes, he ran through strangely empty corridors, repeating his act of arson, managing four different fire starters, before he ran into trouble.

Three men, all armed with tasers, of the type that throw-out-barbs variety. These three guards also had batons and were looking for trouble and they'd found it. By now, Chris' mood had moved on from sadistic to lethal, and he had absolutely no qualms about plowing into the group of guards and basically beating them to a pulp. At one point, he even used the body of one guard as a shield while another attempted to tase him, frying his buddy instead.

Like most fights where one person really knows what they were doing, it was over fast. Real fights don't take lots of draw out punch-counter punch. When you break someone's arm with a first move, they are out of the action almost instantly. And Chris most assuredly knew what he was doing. That's not to say the bad guys didn't get a few licks in, - most fights aren't all as one-sided as Steven Seagal movies would have you believe, either. Chris got a nice punch to the face and he could feel he'd bitten his tongue in the moment.

At this point it was obvious that he had done all he could to give himself a diversion, and as he was taking out the last guard, the sprinkler system suddenly activated, drenching all of them, and the fire alarm warble filled the air. Chris paused only to see if any of the thugs had more weapons on them, finding a USB key in one man's pocket, and a diver's knife on another. Taking both, he stood up, groaning as he realized the shot to his face hurt more than he had initially thought.

Running on through the corridors, he turned a corner and realized he could see windows, which meant he must be near an exit. As he hurried on, a door opened and an indignant man, dressed only tuxedo jacket, and with an obscene erection bustled out, directly in front of Chris.

"Now look here," demanded the man. "What do you think you are... oof"

Chris didn't even slow his gait. He plowed directly into the man and viciously headbutted him. Americans don't tend to expect that kind of move and are unprepared for it. Chris had spent two missions with members of the British Special Boat Service, - cousins to the SAS, the Special Air Service, - and he knew all about what people from various countries expected from close quarters combat.

As he stumbled to the external door he saw after the next turn of the corridor, he glanced into a mirror on the wall, and was brought up short with what he saw. Torn shirt, bruise on his face, and a cut on the top of his head, where the headbutt had landed that was starting to bleed. He needed to get out as fast as possible, and find his people.

He made it to the door, only to find it locked. Using up the last of his now flagging adrenalin, he ran at the door, and to his surprise, it burst open. He was out.

Running out, he found himself in the courtyard of what looked like some kind of mock Tudor mansion, surrounded by expensive cars. Smoke was starting to drift out from the roof, and, looking around he spied a motorcycle. That would do. But just before he left... time to make sure there was no pursuit from the cars he could see. A quick thrust from the diver's knife into the tires would do it...

A minute later, after having incapacitated the cars and then hot-wiring the bike, he was roaring off, only looking back when he reached the safety of the first corner of the drive way. The building was now obviously very on fire and people gathered in front of it, more stumbling coughing out of the building every second.

Time to go.

* * * * *

As he finished talking, there was silence in the room. Everyone was digesting his story, imagining themselves in that situation, and what they might have done in his place.

"What about your handlers? What did they say when you caught up with them?" asked Lindsey, hesitantly. "I mean, if the army knows about all this, why are we fighting this war ourselves?"

"Well that's just it," replied Morgan, heavily. "They didn't know. But, they follow orders, and they fed it up the chain of command, and very suddenly back came the order to Leave it the Hell Alone."

Morgan sighed. "We were told 'other services were on the case, and it would be handled by them.'" He used air quotes to emphasis the statement.

"I even turned over the small USB thing I picked up, after looking at it myself. It held all sorts of details on it, and I kick myself that I didn't make a copy. I just didn't think I needed to, you know? I got a quick look through it, and it had some shipping manifests and a lot of info regarding drug shipments, - legal stuff, not recreational drug, among other things. Well, that vanished, never to be seen again.

"Turns out these guys have installations all over the world. There's some serious money behind them. Always stand-alone, purpose designed buildings. Land around them. Usually in the style of some old guys 'gentleman's club' from last century, depending on what the local ordinances let them get away with.

"And then, suddenly, everyone was shuttled off to god knows where, with the fear of god put into them by the Military Police. I was left asking questions and not getting any answers. I got threatened with the stockade for insubordination if I carried it any further, so I resigned my commission and went into business for myself."

He looked around at the faces staring at him, with various degrees of stunned expression.

"Like you, I need to know what the hell this is all about. I mean, those people took Trisha and made her someone I didn't recognize at all. How? Why? Why Trisha? Who was the man in black? I was determined to find out, and stop them, if I could. All of you are the same. Lindsey, we met in London, scoping out the same Storm Clouds club building, looking for your sister. It didn't take much to figure out what you were doing. So, I invited you along. Beatrice, you found me, after looking for Anne. Darrel, everyone, - you guys are all looking for the same thing. Explanations. Understanding. And a way to stop these bastards. Expose them to the world, for what they are. And in the meantime, slow them down as much as we can.

"I wasn't about to let this slide, no matter what the army says. They can go fuck themselves. I've no doubt at all that someone high up was compromised and put the skids on what investigating I was trying to do. I mean, we know we've been hunted by pretty much every security group in existence, and we've kept ahead of them by being extremely paranoid. But this is it, April," he continued, shifting his attention to April. "This is what we do. We have some money, - we helped out a rich guy in Canada, - he got his son back, and we got a commission of several million dollars, so we can afford to move around and get the supplies we need. But this is us. Small, ragtag but honest and one hundred percent targeted at the same thing. Bringing these scumbags down."

"Why don't you just go to the press?" asked April, the question being the first one that occurred.

"We did. We had a journalist for the New York Times on the hook, running with us for a month and seeing everything we saw. We even took him on a tour, like we did with you, just to make the point. He went away to write the story and we never heard from him again. He just vanished. One day he was there, the next he had 'resigned to spend more time with his family.' Only he was an only child, and his parents were dead. They get to people, April, we've seen it happen. Like Beatrice's Anne, for example. Christ alone knows where Markus is now. In some dungeon in Germany, probably. Its' really Just Us. The people in this room. I trust them and no one else. You've seen the lengths they will go to find us. Hell, they used your entire agency. And then tried to kill you in the bargain, just to get to me."

Chris stopped to refill his drink, emptying the bottle. After taking a long sip, he asked, a little bitterly, "Does that answer your question?"

"Yes," answered April, quietly. "But all that does bring up one more."

"And what's that?" asked Morgan, wearily.

"Why are you really doing this? I mean, I believe everything you just said. I do buy it all. It makes a lot of sense. But that's not all for you, is it? I may not be a secret agent, but I'm a damn good therapist and I know incomplete rationalization when I hear it. What's the rest of the reasoning? I mean, I'm pretty sure I already know, I'm just curious as to whether you do. Or will admit it to yourself."

"April," Morgan warned, "I don't think..."

"Yeah, you don't," she interrupted. "The thing is, if you aren't honest with yourself, then how can you be honest with all of them?" She gestured to the other people in the room.

"These people put their trust and their lives in your hands. And you haven't explained the deepest reasoning for you at all."

Morgan just looked at April, and sighed, shaking his head.

"I honestly didn't have you down for a chicken shit, Chris Morgan. Why can't you tell these people that you need to know why? Why your wife left you? Why she chose that life? Why you weren't enough for her?"

There was another stunned silence after her words. Morgan's eyes suddenly blazed at April, but she wasn't afraid. She had the measure of Chris Morgan now; his story opened up the closed off areas she couldn't perceive and she knew this man now. She knew what he was capable of and what he wasn't, and she knew, right then and there, she had nothing to fear from this man. He had his own code, his own honor, and hurting an innocent was not part of it. He could be ruthless, brutal, even, but never without reason. Never without it being part of a reasoned response.

And what's more, she ached for him. She could see the damage Trisha had wrecked on him. For a man dedicated to the intelligence profession, not knowing the reasoning for an unexplained left turn would itch like a scab in his brain. And when it was so personal; when it attacked the core of who he was, who he believed himself to be, it would be maddening. He HAD to know why, and it would consume his every waking moment. All the other reasons were valid too, but for him, this was the biggie. And to April, it was maddeningly obvious, if not to everyone else. It just took the right set of glasses to be able to see it.

"Look, you are making decisions here for everyone. I mean, this isn't a democracy, right? You aren't voting on what you do next, are you?" she continued, trying not to sound confrontational.

Lindsey nodded, slowly, and so did Beatrice, after a while. The others just stared at her.

"Right. So, you are making decisions, with an undeclared reason driver. They deserve to know, Chris. They are following you, and their lives are in your hands. They deserve to know what might be driving some of that decision making. No one is saying that you shouldn't make the decisions you are; you are clearly the man with the experience here, no question. But, equally, they," she said, nodding at everyone else, while holding Morgan's gaze, "need visibility in the reasoning. Surely you can see that?"