The Octopussy Necklace Ch. 01

He nodded grimly. "And her cell is now shut off."

"Maybe she doesn't want to speak now."

"But then why ring up so late in the night? Unless it was important"

"Something must have come up," she said in a consoling tone. "Or maybe her boyfriend is keeping her busy," she added with a giggle.

Tom looked up at the ceiling, "She is working undercover in this classy bordello about a hundred miles up north on the highway," said Tom before he could stop himself.

"Wow!" exclaimed Nikki, her eyes wide with interest. He gave a shrug, "Maybe you are correct, she will most probably call back again in the morning." Nikki nodded and snuggled up close to him chatting idly before slowly drifting into sleep.

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A blaze of lightning lit up the night as rain continued to come down hard from the dark, thundering clouds. He walked leisurely to his office and lit up a cigarette. He smoked calmly for some minutes till the burning end was close to his fingers.

"She must have undressed by now," he thought. Her nakedness would save him a lot of time later. Then he crushed the stub and moved over to the concealed levers and flipped the lever that would send gas into the room. He smiled broadly as he pulled out his watch. In another minute she would be dead. The double-crosser would be silenced forever. Things will be safe again ... safe for him.

He giggled.

Then he pressed another lever. This would turn off the gas and also open up the exhaust system which will take another ten minutes to clean up the air. He passed the time by idly going thru some technical magazines. After ten minutes he set the magazine aside and made way to the lethal chamber.

A faint aroma of the gas was still in the air. She lay on the table, naked and dead. She was very beautiful, even in death. She had given him pleasure a number of times. One of his favorites she was. But then he had overheard her on the cell. Oh, how angry he had been. But now everything was okay.

A distant clap of thunder brought down more rain. The man now pulled at a third lever which would open a trap door thru which her lifeless body would slide down to the basement and into the tank full of chemicals to dissolve her body. He then donned the rubber gloves and made his way to the basement to carefully dissect the dissolved remains before putting them in the burning chamber.

Yes, everything would now be okay.

The next morning Nikki drove off to her office early. She had a couple of stories to cover which take her across the town and back. Tom had been asleep and she left a note for him.

On her way to office she thought about the call her husband had received the previous night. His operator, Greta, was working in a bordello. "I wonder what could be of interest in a cathouse," thought Nikki. "Maybe some drug dealing racket or something like that," she surmised, "I hope he takes proper care of himself."

It turned out to be a busy day. The schedule was pretty tight and she and Cyndi, her colleague and friend, had to move with a military precision to cover all the angles, analyze the information and then roll out the story.

"Nice work girls," said their editor as he went thru their submission. "A couple of changes are required here and there, but otherwise I think it is ready to be printed." The two exchanged a happy glance. They trooped out of chamber and began furiously working over the corrections pointed out by the editor. Just then her mobile buzzed.

She picked up the mobile. There was an SMS from her husband.

"Will be out of town tonight. Call you back soon."

"Aw, no," she muttered. She hated being alone. But, what with his business being in the setting up phase, it was quite often that he had to go out of town to sort out things. Networking to sort out things was the way he put it.

Nikki stayed back late to finish her story. On the way back she grabbed a pizza and some sandwiches for dinner. She really didn't feel like cooking when alone at home. She watched a re - run of a classic on the cable; spoke to her parents before calling it a day.

The next morning she called up Tom on his mobile. There was no response. It was switched off. That surprised her. Tom was a very methodological person and normally ensured that he was in touch with her whenever he was out of town.

"Maybe the battery has to be charged," she reasoned. Nikki finished her morning coffee and went about preparing for the day. It was a day like any other day in a press, full of breaking news, further updates and then some spadework on old forgotten news lines. It was late in the afternoon when June, her efficient secretary came in with a frown on her face.

"What's up?" asked Nikki, looking up from her computer screen, "Your boyfriend troubling you again with his drinking habit?"

June shook her head. "Nikki a couple of men are out there asking to meet you. They refuse to tell me their names."

Nikki frowned.

"Send them in, let me talk to them."

June nodded and left the room. The door soon opened and two well built men in dark suit made their way in. No introductions were offered to her. Nikki leaned back on her chair and waited for them to speak up. She was not sure, but something about their demeanor bothered her.

"Mrs. Nikki Sinclair?" asked the blond one.

It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yes, that's me," she replied quietly.

"Mrs. Sinclair, this is about your husband Tom, could you tell us when you last saw him?" Nikki sat upright in her chair, her eyes narrowing, a knot forming in the pit of her stomach.

"Yesterday morning," she replied watching their faces carefully.

"And that was the last time the two of you either saw or spoke to each other?"

"What's this all about? And who are you?" she asked, the numbness slowly spreading across her body.

"Just allow us to do the questioning Ma'am," said the other dark haired man. Then it struck her. She now realized what had been disturbing her. They were from the government, to be precise from one of the intelligence services. She remembered doing a story with Cyndi a couple of years ago which involved meeting some people from the investigating agencies. The appearance and manner of talking of the two men in front of her closely resembled that of the people they had then met.

She looked steadily into the eyes of the two men before replying, "My husband sent me a SMS the other evening saying that he would be going out of town. That was the last communication with him. I tried to contact his number this morning, but his mobile was coming shut off. His car was not in the garage, so presumably he was travelling by road"

"Did he say where and whom he was going to meet?" asked the blond.

She had a fairly good idea about in which direction he may have travelled. And that call from Greta. But she decided to keep her mouth shut. "Something is going on and they want to know how much information Tom has been sharing with me," her journalist mind explained to her.

"Look we both have a hectic routine all day and the last thing we want to do is to discuss our work at home when there are many other better topics to talk about, ... or do" she replied with a short deliberate pause before saying the last two words.

The two men continued to stare at her silently. Her heart skipped a beat as the blond put his hand inside his coat. He slowly took out his hand with a slip of paper in it.

"If you happen to hear from him, please call me on this number," he said as he placed the slip of paper on the table.

"Maybe I will give him your number so that he can call you up himself, Mr. er ...."

He ignored her. "No, just let us know the number he calls from. We will get in touch with him." With that the two turned round and left as abruptly as they had come.

Nikki sank back into her chair. "Trouble girl, big trouble brewing," she said to herself. She called up Cyndi and told her all about the visit.

"They gave their number to you but did not want you to give the same to Tom. Instead you are supposed to call them up and let them know the number from which he calls you up. What's that supposed to mean?" said Cyndi thoughtfully, blowing out smoke from her nostrils.

"What this means is that Tom was working on something in which the government agencies were interested in and now he is missing. It's quite possible that he was supposed to be in touch with these guys ... but something has prevented him from doing so," replied Nikki in a low, controlled voice.

"Look, why don't we speak to Brad," said Cyndi. Nikki nodded in agreement. Brad was in the local Police department and he and Cyndi were seeing each other.

Cyndi picked up her mobile and spoke over it for a couple of minutes. "Okay Nikki he says he will see us now. I haven't told him the purpose of our visit, just that a friend of mine needed some counseling."

"That was smart. For all you know, my phone may be tapped and perhaps even yours," replied Nikki.

A fifteen minute drive later saw the two ladies being escorted into the office of Lt Brad Freeman. He was a stocky built man with a handle bar moustache and a friendly smile. Cyndi made the introductions and then Nikki told Brad about the morning visit.

He heard her out, at the same time running some checks on his computer. He leaned back on his chair and said, "You know Nikki, had you come all by yourself, I really wouldn't have shared some of the information with me, not that it is of much use." He stopped for a moment then continued, "We do not have any report on your husband. No abandoned car, no unclaimed body, no accident report. So in short, no news is good news."

"But?" interjected Nikki, leaning forward to her him out clearly.

Brad nodded, "But we have received instructions from higher ups to not to record any missing person complaint in the name of Tom Sinclair."

Nikki's eyes opened wide in amazement.

They talked for some more time but it was apparent that Brad did not have anything more to add. But it was clear that the disappearance of Tom was in the notice of government agencies for reasons best known to them.

That night Nikki could not go to sleep. She kept tossing and turning, looking at her mobile every other minute in the hope that it would ring.

"Tom is missing, some agencies are already aware of it and the local police department has been instructed not to take any written report about it," thought Nikki. "No doubt they are aware of what he is working on, something which is of interest to them," she surmised.

"The Octopussy Necklace, now was that of interest to them? And that girl Greta, working undercover in some cathouse, was she involved also?" wondered Nikki.

The next day she spoke to a couple of reporters who covered cathouses. They promised to get back to her soon.

Nikki could not concentrate upon her work. Her mind kept going back to the visit she had had the other day. She kept glancing at her mobile as though it would suddenly come to live. The safety of her husband was the only thing running in her mind.

She checked her mail in the evening. Her eyes lit up. She opened the mails received from the reporters she had spoken to in the morning and began reading the contents. Then she clicked on the local county map on the internet and zoomed in on the names mentioned in the mail.

Nikki took out some print outs and began writing down some notes.

She heard Cyndi's car in the driveway and got up to open the door. Cyndi had agreed to spend the night at her place. She just couldn't bear to be alone.

She showed her the details she had gathered about the bordellos in a radius of hundred miles north of the highway. There were a dozen or so of them, but there were two of them which could be termed as the classier type. They were well furnished, with a restaurant, bar, and other amenities more suited to a luxury hotel. And the girls were carefully handpicked, groomed in proper manners.

More like a luxury resort than a bordello. One was called the "Blue Lotus" and the other was the "Greenwood Country Club".

She then took a deep breath and continued, "Cyndi, I'm going in."

For a moment Cyndi looked at her uncertainly, and then she put her drink down and looked at her sharply, "You mean you plan to join a bordello to search out Tom?"

"Do you know what you are talking about girl?"

"Secondly, what makes you think that Tom can be found there?"

"Yes Cyndi, you are quite correct in saying that I really do not know where my Tom is. But my guess is that the bordello in which Greta was working as an undercover agent holds the key to his disappearance."

"C'mon Nikki, this is not your regular nine to five routine out there. These places are known to be rough, especially for women, even if they are of a classier type," she replied with a tone of annoyance.

"Well I'm certainly not going to sit about with my hands on my lap. The police are not doing anything about it, and then these other government agencies are showing interest in him but refuse to tell me anything. God forbid, if anything untoward were to happen to my Tom, then who suffers? Just little ole' me. They will send somebody else to finish off whatever Tom is doing," she said, breathing fast, her face flushed.

"He means a lot to me. He ... he is all I have and God knows I do not wish for anything else," she said vehemently.

"You are talking thru your head," retorted Cyndi lightening up a cigarette. "And, for sake of conversation which particular bordello are you going to join? Remember there are two of them. Or do you plan to do overtime," she commented sarcastically.

"The Blue Lotus has opened up recently. So my guess is that it's the Greenwood Country Club," replied Nikki, ignoring the sarcasm in her friend's voice.

"Nikki the men visiting these places are looking for just one thing ... fresh meat. They will pounce upon you like a pack of hungry animals the moment they set their eyes on you. They will ravage your body," continued Cyndi in a quieter tone, realizing that her friend was serious.

"My body, it means nothing to me without him," sobbed Nikki, tears running down her cheeks. She then turned to her friend and said, "Cyndi you will have to help me in getting inside that Club. Use your connections; you have been in this office far longer than I have."

Cyndi sipped her drink. "Let's talk about it in the morning shall we?"

Next day at the office was a very hectic one for Nikki. She put in an application for leave. Her immediate superior was not happy about her taking off so suddenly. He reluctantly agreed to give her permission with an assurance that she would make proper arrangement with her staff to ensure that work did not suffer. By late afternoon she had more or less managed to have her pending work properly distributed amongst her staff. Cyndi entered her cabin, carrying a small box.

"You still firm on your idea?" she asked.

Nikki nodded her head.

"Okay, I have spoken to a guy who owes me a favor. The lady who runs the show is a woman going by the name Eva. She is quite a disciplinarian as per him. Well, to cut the story short, he sold her a tale about a girl he knows who is hard up and would it be possible if she could take her on. She has said that she would confirm after meeting the girl in person."

"When do I get to meet her?"

"You fix the date and I will tell him," she replied.

"Earlier the better. Make it tomorrow," Nikki replied.

Cyndi paused then said, "You really don't have to do this. Let the law agencies do their work," said Cyndi with a concerned on her face.

Nikki remained silent.

"Okay Nikki, have it your way," said Cyndi with a sigh. Then she opened the box and pushed it across to her. "Now that you have decided what you want to do, here are some things I want you to take along."

Nikki listened to her friend carefully as she took out each item from the box. She then packed a few dresses in her bag. Not many, just a few, after all she was supposed to be down and out on her luck. Some fancy bra and panty followed suit followed by her toiletries, all freshly purchased.

Nikki sat in the living room all night long. She couldn't go to sleep. The drinks didn't help either. She must have dozed off some time in the night as she was awakened by the sound of the alarm.

She quickly freshened up and checked herself out in the mirror. She had decided upon a simple low cut dress, which showed a hint of her cleavage and at the same accentuated her curves. She then finished with a simple coat to cover up her flashy dress.

The cab pulled up outside. Nikki picked up her husband's photo and kissed it. Then she took her bag and stepped out. As she drove of in the cab for the station, she turned around to get a final glimpse of her home.

Then she turned back once gain and began thinking of the journey ahead.

To Be Continued ...

Alex

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