Crimson Flare: Blackmail
by marat
Chapter Eleven
Fareed Gouyannou walked slowly
across the foyer from the ballroom toward the library. From behind him on the
right, the grand staircase, circled down to the marble floor facing the open
door. When he had heard the flurry of gunshots coming from inside the house, he
realised that Crimson Flare must have returned, and that his bodyguards were
now in the process of recapturing her.
He changed his mind about that when
he got into the foyer. A dozen of his Praetorian Guard lay scattered across the
floor and stairs—either dead or unconscious!
He slowed his pace as he crossed the great hall, listening to the
ongoing struggle, signaled by the sound of bodies crashing against the walls of
the library.
The heroine had not yet been
defeated.
The two gunmen who had been watching
and waiting with him in the ballroom had disappeared into the library; the door
stood ajar and the sounds of struggle still spilled from within.
Gouyannou decided to wait for the
struggle to be ended.
*
* *
Police Commissioner Jeri Warren sat
in her car, watching. It had been several minutes since the last three figures
had run from the McLeod-Slaughter mansion. The last she saw of them was in her
rearview mirror; their pace had slowed, she saw, but they did not reverse their
direction. They had put some distance between themselves and what had
frightened them—but they didn’t yet feel completely safe. In a few minutes they
had disappeared from the street.
She knew that the gunfire would
eventually bring her police to the scene. This was an exclusive neighbourhood,
filled with the crème de la crème of
Mitropoulos society. Those people did not take kindly to shooting.
At most, Gouyannou had only a few
minutes before the first police arrived. As Police Commissioner, she could
delay that imperative, but not prevent it. Even the most corrupt cops on the
force, who would not be likely to be responding to a call in this area (they
liked to be assigned where the bribes were much more reliable), would quickly
enter a house with an open front door where there had been a ‘shots fired’
distress call.
Besides, how would Mitropoulos’
Police Commissioner explain the fact that she was here at the time of the
incident?
She turned the ignition and slowly,
calmly, drove from the scene. No sense drawing attention to herself.
* * *
Vlad Blandescu squeezed, his arms drawing
ever tighter around the petite form of Crimson Flare. He grunted his
satisfaction knowing that the heroine had indeed been surprised by his attack. He
twisted his body right and left, swinging the girl so that her head crashed
once, twice, against the walls of the alcove.
Crimson Flare groaned. Her ribs
ached as the Rumanian crime lord applied more and more pressure to her chest.
Fingers of panic slipped into her mind as the recognition of Blandescu’s sheer
physical strength crept over her. She tried to reach him, but her gloved hands
simply flailed as she sought to strike at her assailant behind her. She grabbed
at his head, but he kept dodging her grasp. And his short-cropped hair also
didn’t offer any sort of grip.
She desperately tried to fill her
lungs, but Blandescu kept up his pressure. She
couldn’t breathe! Deprived of breath, her lungs ached! She tried to push
his arms, and then tried to grab them. But the ache in her lungs sent her head
spinning. Her vision became unfocused.
Pressed hard against Blandescu’s
naked body, the champion heard him grunt as he strained to keep her under control.
She could smell his expensive cologne as he clutched her close to him. Its
sweetness only dizzied her even more. Again and again her head smashed against
the bookshelves in the niche, as the muscular crime lord sought to inflict more
pain on the girl he knew still to be dangerous. Crimson Flare’s strength might
eventually free her, but would he have so weakened the heroine that her
recapture was inevitable?
As the blows to her head multiplied,
the champion’s struggles grew weaker and more desperate. Each time her head
smashed against one of the walls, she slumped in his arms, only to revive and
resume her struggles. Blandescu smiled, knowing his victory was only moments
away.
The Rumanian imagined Gouyannou’s
reward, and he imagined how his status would rise within the underworld empire.
Would he rise far enough to overthrow that fat pretender? In the old days, in
Bucharest, that fat man wouldn’t have lasted a week!
As these fantasies filled his head, they
were suddenly interrupted by a sharp, hot pain that shot upward from his groin
through Blandescu’s entire body. His arms relaxed, freeing Crimson Flare, and
he dropped—hard—to his knees. His body slowly, involuntarily, curled into a
fetal ball. The room had flashed yellow and red before his eyes. A brief, weak,
high-pitched moan escaped his lips. He did not give in to unconsciousness… but
with every fibre of his being, he wished he had.
* * *
Weakness had draped over the
helpless girl as she was whipsawed in Blandescu’s grip, and she had seen that
her attempts to grab her attacker had failed. She did not even have the leverage
to push his arms from her. In that
moment, her mind flashed back to some of Stacy’s most sage advice, such as had
frequently caused the friends much hilarity during their evenings together.
With all her strength, the Darling of Mitropoulos had sent her heel back and
up, up between Blandescu’s spread legs, up as far and as hard as she could
muster.
He screeched and she was free.
As Blandescu dropped to the floor
behind her, the disoriented Champion of Women slipped to one knee. She tried to
simply breathe. But each breath was painful. Each time she filled her lungs,
her ribs ached. But she knew that, unlike her combat with Ape Greystook, where
she had suffered a broken rib, this was nowhere near so serious. If she just
had a few moments, her remarkable body would heal itself.
She turned to look at Blandescu.
Naked on the floor, his body was only making small moves as he writhed and
whimpered. He was curled into a ball, his hands covering, and trying to
comfort, his groin. He seemed oblivious to the masked Champion who slowly
turned away from him.
As she stared at the floor,
breathing deeper and deeper, the beautiful Avenger was shocked by a tiny, vague
brush against her torso. Her body snapped to attention and she looked around
the darkened area for the next threat.
‘Crimson… Crim-son Fl—!’ Behind her
a weak voice was struggling to speak.
It was Maria.
The policewoman’s brown eyes were
only open as slits, but to the heroine this evidence of her friend’s revival
was a sign that Maria had emerged from the battering, mind and body, that she
had suffered. While keeping an eye out for further attack, Mitropoulos’
dazzling Defender turned to face this woman who had so quickly become a friend.
‘Don’t say anything, Maria,’ she whispered.
But the girl tried to talk. ‘’Y-you…
came… came back… for….’
Crimson Flare smiled. ‘Did you think
I wouldn’t?’
A small sound near the door cut this
conversation short. Crimson Flare immediately stood, and quickly picked up the
skulking forms of Gouyannou’s two bodyguards. Even though the walls of the
library were shrouded by shadow, the light illuminating the centre table and
that entering through the open door were more than sufficient to outline the
slowly moving figures.
They were circling the room in
opposite directions, seeking to arrive at the alcove from opposite sides.
They had divided their forces.
You don’t have to be a Napoleon to
know how to deal with that.
The first police sirens could be
heard as the heroine circled swiftly to the left and crashed into the body of
the nearer gunman. He doubled over as her fist crashed into his abdomen, and
then, in almost the same movement, she grabbed him by the throat. Wood
splinters from the bookshelf scattered as she lifted him from the floor and
smashed him against the wall. Then she dropped him to the floor.
The sirens were closer as the
Defender of Mitropoulos raced to the opposite side of the room to fall upon the
second bodyguard. Again, her gloved fist flashed out, connecting a powerful
blow first to the gunman’s throat, followed by one to his temple.
The fight in the library was over.
Evidence of the flashing police
lights was just now visible in the darkness near the mansion. The Champion of
Women turned toward the alcove where Maria’s naked, abused body lay. As she
crossed the floor, Vlad Blandescu opened his watering eyes. The pain he felt
was present in his voice. ‘This… isn’t… over!’
Ignoring him, the heroine entered
the niche and easily lifted her friend in her arms. Then she ran to the door.
She almost literally ran into Fareed
Gouyannou.
The fat ganglord’s eyes flew wide
open. ‘Wha—what? Crimson—Crimson Flare! How—how did
you--?’
Her eyes alit with fury at this man
whose ambitions had created all of the events of these past several days. ‘You’re
coming with me!’ Mitropoulos’ dazzling Defender said simply. A powerful side
kick drew a cry of pain from Gouyannou, as Crimson Flare drove him before her, back
toward the ballroom and the French doors that led to the rear of the mansion.
And home.
* * *
The police arrived only moments
after the trio had left the grounds of the McLeod-Slaughter Mansion. The heavy
gates stood open in front of the entrance. The driveway was empty. Behind the
gates and through the entranceway, the lighted foyer was visible from the
street. Inside, there was no movement.
With guns drawn, the first officers
on scene slowly entered the grounds. Inside the front door, they found evidence
of the climactic battle that had taken place. A dozen or more bodies were
strewn across the floor and on the stairs. The bloodied faces told them that
most of these criminals had died in this battle. None of the bodies scattered
about was moving.
‘They haven’t been shot! What
happened to them?’ asked one.
The response was silence. His
partner pointed to a single bullet hole in the wall.
Another patrol car pulled up on the
street outside the gates. Those officers quickly joined their comrades in the
foyer. Each moved to one of the doors off the entrance hall. The closed doors
swung open in unison and the investigators stepped cautiously inside.
‘Clear!’ came the call from one.
Two more similar calls quickly
followed. They waited for the fourth announcement. Instead, there was a brief
delay before that remaining voice called out, ‘Help here! Call EMS!’
The officers moved toward the door
of the library. Still on the lookout for any remaining danger in a mansion that
had been filled with some of Mitropoulos’ most dangerous criminals, one by one,
they entered.
They were not ready for the scene
that greeted them. The room was mostly dark, with a heavy table placed in a
spotlight in the centre of the library. Some light from the hallway spilled in
through the open door. Scattered everywhere were unmoving bodies—unmoving, save
for one!
A nude man rocked his body, curled
in a ball, just outside the circle of light in the centre of the room. The
policeman stooped over him and looked up at his buddies entering. He repeated,
‘Call EMS!’
A young man stepped outside the open
door and made to do his partner’s bidding.
‘DON’T… call EMS, you bloody idiot!’
the croaking voice of the man on the floor said.
The officer looked into the library
from the foyer. ‘Well?’ he asked his partner.
The nude man repeated, ‘Don’t!’ But
he remained lying on the floor.
Still another police car rolled up
in front of the mansion. The officer at the door walked to meet the new
arrivals. He told them that they should call Forensics and the Coroner to try
to figure out what went down here. It seemed that whatever had happened, it was
now over.
Inside the library, two officers now
hovered over Blandescu, offering to help him up. ‘I’ll get up on my own… when
I’m ready!’
Other policemen now fanned out
through the house, seeking any other bodies. It would be hours before they
found Tim Westbrook, his body left in the stairwell leading to the cells in the
basement. The cells would reveal their own surprises in the coming days.
It would be more than twenty-four
hours before the police would realise that Fareed Gouyannou, reputed master of
Mitropoulos’ Underworld and the owner of the McLeod-Slaughter Mansion, was
missing.
*
* *
Crimson Flare arrived back at the
apartment building that served as her headquarters. She was still carrying
Maria, who by this time had sufficiently recovered to realise that her ordeal
was indeed over and held her arms wrapped around the shoulders of her costumed
rescuer. Fareed Gouyannou, on the other hand, was sweating and breathing
heavily after being chased, prodded and kicked across the length of Mitropoulos
by the heroine. As they entered the building, the crime lord collapsed to the
floor. The heroine grabbed him by the collar, lifted him to his feet and flung
him across the room. Across the length of the Great City, the Champion of Women
had kept after him, striking or kicking him, using her great strength and speed
to drive him where she wished him to go. Finally arriving at the unobtrusive
building owned by Stacy’s estate, the criminal chieftain had been driven so far
and was so exhausted, that he had no idea where he was within the city limits
of Mitropoulos.
Gouyannou dropped to his hands and
knees as he realised that he had finally arrived at his destination. He had
been quietly cursing the Champion of Women during their travels across town,
but now the anger boiled to the surface. ‘How dare you treat me like this? ME!!
Do you know who I am? Do you know what I can do to you?’
The words sputtered out between
gasps for breath and coughing spasms. About halfway through, Lynn appeared from
her computer centre and smiled as she listened to the end of the crime lord’s
invective.
Maria did not listen to him after
the first few words. Crimson Flare delicately placed the battered girl on a
sofa that lined the wall of the open space.
‘In a short while, you’ll be going
to the police, Gouyannou,’ Crimson Flare intoned. ‘But until then, you’ll be
questioned here. And you’ll provide enough evidence to send you to prison for
the rest of your life.’
Still on his knees, Gouyannou looked
up at the masked Maiden. Slowly a broad smile crept across his face. ‘You’re
going to torture me? ‘You think I’ll just tell you where to find…?
The heroine cut him off. ‘No one
said anything about torture. You’re going to offer the information that will
send you away willingly.’
She looked across the lobby at Lynn.
‘Right?’
‘Right!’
Lynn crossed the antechamber and
looked deeply into Maria’s face. ‘You need treatment,’ she said quickly and
rushed through one of the doors. She returned shortly carrying a nurse’s tray.
‘Can you walk?’ she asked quietly.
Lynn slowly led Maria through a door
into an apartment that was equipped for medical treatment.
*
* *
It took Lynn twenty minutes to
return. ‘She’s sleeping now. I’ve done the best I could for the worst of her
ordeal. When she wakes, we’ll see what else is needed.’
What went on behind the doors of the
apartments was something Stacy had always been very secretive about, so Karen
had been unable to offer many details about the equipment. This equipment had
been used to support Karen on her return from some disastrous escapades on the
part of Crimson Flare, and the heroine was only aware of the beneficial effects
of Stacy’s—and now Lynn’s—use of the technology. Lynn still did not understand
all of it, but her intelligence was slowly and gradually making her more expert at the miracles Stacy had been able to accomplish.
She understood that the
psychological trauma of rape was something that could never be measured, and
that Maria’s ultimate recovery would depend on the girl’s mind as much as on
overcoming the physical effects of her battery. The equipment Stacy had left
behind would address both issues. Certainly the numerous sexual assaults Karen
had experienced as Crimson Flare had already tested this equipment.
Gouyannou was still on the floor,
but his breathing was now more regular and his body more relaxed. Lynn turned
toward him and asked, ‘Are you ready?’
He looked up at her quizzically. He
didn’t answer, but he watched through narrowed eyes as Lynn stepped toward the
stairs.
‘Move,’ she ordered.
He remained still.
He almost expected it when Crimson
Flare grabbed him by the collar and marched him toward the staircase.
‘You heard her!’ the masked Maiden
whispered harshly.
Lynn smiled at the heroine as she marched
the crime lord past her and up the stairs to the rooms on the second floor.
*
* *
Gouyannou sat facing a blank wall,
painted a blah shade of beige. The
room was closed off from the outside; where there had once been windows, when
Stacy had purchased the building, they had been removed and the spaces sealed.
The interior of the room gave no evidence of their ever having existed. Inside,
the lights blazed brightly. Behind the gangland chieftain was the only entrance
to this chamber, a connecting door to the apartment next door.
The chair was of a heavy metal, bolted
to the floor. And the crime lord was secured to the chair, not unlike Malcolm
MacDowell in A Clockwork Orange. Except that, in this
case, he would not be forced to watch, but rather, his immobility was required
so that Lynn could watch him.
‘If you think I’m going to give you
anything, you’re crazy!’ he shouted to no one in particular. There was no one
else in the room, and there was nothing like the one-way glass that was found
in police interrogation rooms. Nothing but four
bare—beige—walls. He could have been talking to himself.
Except that he was being observed. Stacy had placed four micro-sized camera
lenses—one in each wall—around the room. The lenses were so small that evidence
of their presence could only be detected by close examination of the surface of
the wall; and even then, it would be hard to distinguish a lens unless you knew
what you were looking for.
In her control room, Lynn flicked a
toggle switch. Nothing seemed to happen.
But in fact, in Gouyannou’s room,
subsonic waves began to play around and within the walls. Unheard, but destabilising,
this ‘noise’ was the first step in bringing the gangland chieftain under
control.
Gouyannou may not have heard the
rumbling, but his mind certainly seemed aware of it. In a short time, the
‘noise’ would become a background against which Lynn’s carefully orchestrated
steps would take control of their prisoner.
Karen entered Lynn’s control room,
drying her hair with a towel. She was no longer costumed and masked and she had
just refreshed herself with a leisurely shower. ‘Have you started?’ she asked.
‘Just
now.’
She sat next to Lynn in front of the
bank of monitors.
Gouyannou reacted to the
destabilisation he felt around him, slowly, in a way that had become familiar
to Lynn. First, he shook his head, as if trying to clear it. Eventually he began to pull at his restraints.
He looked around the room with increasing desperation, as if something he
merely felt was attacking him.
At this point, Lynn introduced a
small circle of light—with shifting colours—directly in front of their captive.
It swung slowly, back and forth, across the wall in front of Gouyannou. The
subsonic waves immediately ceased and the women saw his large frame visibly
sink and relax. Soft, barely audible, music entered the room, adding to the
relaxed atmosphere.
Karen and Lynn smiled as they
noticed that Gouyannou began to rock back and forth. The light show on the wall
stopped, but the crime lord was still, only barely perceptibly, rocking.
Lynn stood. ‘Time
to go to work.’
*
* *
Thanks to a mild sedative introduced
during the time of high anxiety, as he was secured to the chair, the crime lord
was now in a sort of hypnotic spell. Lynn would never use that term—nor would
Stacy—but the result was the same. Gouyannou would answer the questions that would
bring his criminal enterprise to an end.
It would be a simple matter for
Crimson Flare, or Karen, for that matter, to gather up the evidence that
Gouyannou would reveal. Then he would be given a suggestion to take an envelope containing information or directions where to
locate evidence to the police and turn himself in.
Lynn had only recently mastered this
technique based upon the technology that was available in the building. If it
worked with Gouyannou, then it could be used in the future against many others.
*
* *
It had been a hectic several days.
Lynn and Karen sat in their apartment on the top floor of their command centre,
the blinds pulled open to reveal the broad skyline of Mitropoulos in front of a
streaked red sky.
Karen smiled and said, ‘Red sky at
night, Sailor’s delight.’
The women had sat quietly for only a
moment, when Maria appeared from the hallway to their left. She was wearing a
translucent robe that fell to her mid-thighs. She had been sleeping the day
through, and had risen with most of the memories of her recent experiences
wiped away. As Karen had explained to Lynn, she could not have the entire
encounter wiped from her mind, lest she fail to understand the dangers that
were present working in her job in a big city. Stacy had explained this to
Karen, knowing of the great dangers that faced Crimson Flare each time she went
out into the city. Karen passed it along to her assistant.
Maria walked into the sitting room
and smiled when she saw her friends. She knew that now she had been accepted
into their company. She also knew that Crimson Flare had rescued her from a
serious situation in which she had been sexually assaulted. She knew that Lynn
Simms had aided her in her recovery.
‘You’re not watching TV, relishing
the continuing celebration of Crimson Flare’s latest exploits?’ she asked.
‘That news cycle passed its peak a
couple of days ago,’ Karen said gently, almost resignedly. But there are a lot
of things about this latest exploit I’d rather forget.’
‘I didn’t mean—’ Maria quickly
added, embarrassed.
‘I know,’ Karen replied. ‘We—know.
‘I was talking about what Crimson
Flare had gone through. I don’t want to
minimize your trauma, Maria—I know exactly what you’ve gone through—and what
you’re going through now—but I’m thinking of how Crimson Flare had been on the
verge of becoming a criminal, working for that—that—dick!’
Lynn stared at Karen. ‘Fie for shame! How could such a filthy word come out of
such a pretty mouth?’
‘It’s a good word to describe him,’
Maria added softly.
‘The evidence he provided will make
it tough for his lawyers to help him much. Since he was the one who provided
that material and no one knows about our little intervention, there’s no danger
of Entrapment charges against the police. Even if he pleads guilty, he’s
probably going to spend most of the rest of his life in prison,’ Lynn
explained. ‘There’s a certain beauty in Stacy’s equipment.’
‘It’s a shame there was no evidence
of his role in murders,’ Karen mused.
‘The only ones who could provide
that evidence are not here,’ Lynn replied.
There was a long moment’s silence.
Karen sipped her tea.
‘That smells delightful,’ Maria
said, recognising the aroma of the Lapsang Souchong. ‘Is there some left?’
‘Of
course.’ Lynn got up and walked slowly
toward the kitchen. Her athlete’s body moved gracefully, even in bulky grey
sweatpants and oversized t-shirt.
Maria stared at Karen.
‘What?’ the lithe brunette smiled.
‘I was just thinking, it’s strange how things work out.’
Maria sat next to Karen on the sofa.
‘You’d be surprised who Crimson
Flare deals with on the police force,’ Lynn said, re-entering the room and
handing Maria her tea.
‘The ranks are often the best
sources of information,’ she went on, returning to her chair. ‘More often than
not, they’re very grateful for her help.
Maria thought of her partner and the
male officers he knew, who resented Crimson Flare; who were made furious that a
Woman should be so successful. Did
Karen and Lynn know this? Should she tell them?
‘There’s something I need to tell
you,’ she began, ‘about… well, about what’s happening on the force.’
Her two friends turned in their
seats.
‘In such a strongly… male…
environment… when….’ Maria couldn’t figure how to go on.
Karen was very serious as she continued
for her friend, ‘…when a Woman dares to fill the role traditionally played by
Men…. Is that what you’re getting at?’
Maria was silent for a moment. ‘Do
you understand how serious their resentment is?’
Lynn replied, ‘Yes. We think we do.’
Maria wanted to protect her
department. ‘I don’t think it’s universal, nor that it
goes very high up. It seems to be among many of the rank and file men…’ she
spoke quickly, ‘in… the department.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Karen said.
Lynn agreed. ‘Everything we’ve seen
tells us that it was isolated to a small group of disaffected policemen, Maria.
It’s unfortunate that your old partner, Tim, was one of them.’
Maria took a sip of her tea. She sat
back against the cushions in the sofa and curled her legs up under her. ‘You’re
right,’ she said, looking at the skyline, ‘it is very pretty tonight.’ She
reached her foot out and brushed against Karen’s thigh.
Karen smiled at her. The petite
brunette reached out and stroked her friend’s calf.
‘Do you two want me to get the video
camera again?’ Lynn asked.
Maria shifted to the cushion next to
Karen and leaned her head on her shoulder. Karen looped her left arm around her
new ally’s shoulders. ‘Maybe,’ they said in unison. Each took a sip of tea.
Karen glanced over at her blonde friend and smiled.
Lynn returned the smile. Then she
rose and moved toward the closet.
*
* *
Police Commissioner Jeri Warren sat
alone in her office, staring out at the same skyline enveloped by the same red-tinted
dusk. With Fareed Gouyannou in jail awaiting trial, her last powerful ally
among the city’s underworld was gone. Even the small cabal of officers who
might have rid her of Crimson Flare had been shattered.
She felt alone.
She swallowed the scotch in the
glass that sat in front of her, knowing that she could no longer resist the
public praise that would be surrounding Crimson Flare. The superheroine’s
renown would be irresistible following her latest victory. And after Gouyannou
had promised her—promised her!—the
end of that superslut’s interference!
The praise should be hers! She was
the Woman who had risen through the department, who had overcome all the scoffs
and doubts that had followed her! She had risen to
Captain—the first female Captain in department history—and now to Commissioner!
She should be the Woman reaping the honours!
She poured herself another drink. Here’s to dreams and dreams destroyed,
she thought.
The phone rang.
No one knew she was here. From
outside her office looked empty. Who--?
‘Hello. Commissioner Warren,’ she
spoke into the receiver.
‘Commissioner Warren, you and I
haven’t met, but we have a great many interests in common.’ The voice on the
other end spoke quietly, confidently, and slowly, as if selecting words in an
unfamiliar language. The accent sounded vaguely eastern European.
The End
Comments, questions, suggestions welcome:
contact the author at marat1793@comcast.net