The Hunted Assassin (34 page)

Madame Elina smiled nervously before she lunged toward the control panel on the side wall. Her fingers were millimeters away from the security call button when Camille stopped her.

Jaxon stood by, motionless. “Why must you make this difficult? We know they’re here, so why don’t you save us both a lot of heartache and just tell us where they are?”

Madame struggled with Camille but was incapable of escape. Camille gripped both of Madame’s arms and twisted them behind her back, driving them up into her shoulder blades, perilously close to snapping.

“Ah! You don’t have to be so rough,” Madame Elina cried. “Suppose you’re right and Guzman is my main benefactor. Why should I believe you that he’s dead?”

“You can believe me or not, lady. I just want the girls, then we’ll be on our way.”

“Well, you’re too late. There’re no girls here. Just leave now and I … promise that I won’t tell Pablo about this incident.”

“You want me to kill her, boss?” Camille asked.

What’s with this boss thing?
Jaxon wondered. Oliver certainly had started something.

“No, we might need her. Hold onto her while Oliver and I go look for them. If we’re not back in ten minutes, you’re more than welcome to take care of Madame Elina in any way you see fit.”

“I swear!” Madame Elina said. “They’re gone. The girls aren’t here.”

Jaxon and Oliver stepped past the women and into the cordoned off pathways of pleasure. “Which way were you guys when Francisco … left the room?” Jaxon asked.

“This way, boss,” Oliver said, leading the way to Gigi’s room.

Down the hall and to the right, Oliver stopped in front of the third door. “We were in here,” Oliver said, motioning toward the door.

“And did Clay say anything else? Which way he went when he left the room?”

“Sorry, boss,” Oliver said.

“Looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard way. We’re going to have to start knocking on doors—”

Before the words were out of Jaxon’s mouth, Oliver walked up to the next door in the hallway and burst in.

“Sure, let’s just throw discreetness right out the door,” Jaxon said, catching up to Oliver.

Walking into the room, they found an aging man tied to the bedposts with a velvet rope. He only wore a pair of silk boxers. The prostitute in the room was wearing a satin-stitched horse head with leather straps around her neck. She completed the ensemble with a horse tail protruding out from between her butt cheeks.

Normally, Jaxon didn’t react so adversely to the perversion of others. But he felt a little flush in the face at the sight. “Sorry, wrong room,” he said before pulling a reluctant Oliver back out into the hallway.

“From now on, let’s just crack the door open and peek in. If they’re having sex, we move on. The room that Francisco described earlier was at the end of the hallway somewhere, isn’t that right?” Jaxon asked.

“Yeah, something like that.”

They continued down the corridor, popping their heads through doors randomly, witnessing various states of sexual promiscuity along the way.

Finally, at the end of the hallway, they came to a door that was different than the rest. “This has got to be it,” Jaxon said, opening the door and walking in.

The room was pitch black, and both he and Oliver fumbled for a light switch. Finally, Jaxon found it and flipped it on. There were more than two dozen cages lining the side walls, stacked two high. Unfortunately, they were all empty.

“Sonofabitch!” Jaxon exclaimed. “She was telling the truth.”

Before returning to the front, Jaxon and Oliver exhausted their search in the room, looking for a possible secondary exit. Coming up blank, they began to retrace their steps to the lobby.

As they walked down the corridor in silence, Oliver began to slow his pace. “I got an idea, boss.”

Jaxon stopped and turned to face his companion. “Go ahead.”

“I think we should stop and talk to Gigi. I think she was into me enough that I might be able to get some information out of her. Maybe, just maybe, she knows something about those girls.”

Jaxon considered Oliver’s suggestion before nodding his head. “It’s worth a shot, Miles.”

They retraced their steps a few doors before Oliver knocked and walked in.

Gigi was kneeling at the foot of the bed, stark naked and wearing a strap on dildo. Her pleasure companion was not a male, as expected, but a female, which was a rarity in itself. Both Oliver and Jaxon flushed red at the embarrassment of the situation.

“Ryan, what are you doing here?” Gigi said as she climbed off of her feminine patron.

“Sorry to just burst in like this, Gigi, but it’s important,” Oliver said, averting his eyes away from the naked girls.

Jaxon pulled out the last of his paper credits and handed them to Gigi’s client. “Hey, sorry about this. Here’s enough to buy you two more sessions later, but we need to talk to Gigi now.”

Awkwardly, the woman dressed and bolted from the room.

“What’s all this about?” Gigi asked.

“We’re looking for some girls,” Jaxon said.

“Well, you just found two and scared one away,” Gigi said angrily.

“No, I mean we’re looking for the young girls that were in the cages down the hall. We’re here to save them,” Oliver said. “When my friend and I were in here recently, he left the room and found them. Now we’re here to set them free.”

“Good luck with that,” she said. “Madame Elina will never let that happen.”

“That’s not going to be a problem,” Jaxon said. “We have somebody on that situation. Now if you please, can you help us?”

“I’m not sure what I can do.”

“For starters, you can tell us where they take the girls. We found the room and the cages were all empty,” Jaxon said.

“That’s because they’ve already been taken upstairs for conditioning.”

Jaxon felt a pit build in his stomach. He didn’t like this sound of that.
Were they too late?

“What do you mean?” Oliver asked.

“It’s something they started about a year ago. Any new girls coming in go through a conditioning process where they erase memories of their past. They still know
who
they are, but they don’t know who they
were
. It makes them more agreeable to our profession. If the girls don’t know any better, they’re less resistant to the demands of the clients. Hence, makes much more money for Madame Elina.”

“And Pablo Guzman, no doubt,” Jaxon said.

“You know about Pablo?” she asked.

“You mean, knew? Guzman’s dead. I’m sure word will get around eventually, but until then, I want to know where these girls are. I want to set them free before it’s too late.”

“It might already be too late,” Gigi said. “They took them up to the treatment lab late last night.”

“Can you tell us where it’s at?” Oliver asked.

“I’ll do one better. Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll take you there personally. If what you say is true, I’m done here.”

61

Five minutes later, Jaxon led Oliver and Gigi back toward the foyer. As they rounded the corner into the final corridor, they came to an open door. Cautiously, Jaxon slowed his pace as they approached, not remembering if it was open on their way in. As they stopped in front of the door, the three of them stood, staring into the room in disbelief. It was Camille and the Madame in a questionable situation.

“What’s … going on in there?” Jaxon asked with a grimace.

Camille craned her neck and peered out the door at the three of them gawking. “Oh, hi honey. Just taking care of Madame Elina.”

Madame Elina was naked and strapped spread-eagle to some exotic sexual platform device, exposing what God had given her for all to see. To finish her off, she had a ball gag in her mouth.

“When you guys didn’t come back, I didn’t have the heart to kill her, so I … tied her up.”

Jaxon, Oliver, and Gigi all cringed as they stared in awe.

“What?” Camille asked innocently. “We couldn’t very well have her triggering some kind of alarm, now could we?”

“Tie her up, I get. But like that?” Jaxon said.

“Hey, don’t question. She obviously has no consideration for any of the girls she has working for her. Might as well let her have a little bit of her own medicine, don’t you think?”

“You’re a cruel, cruel woman. And for that, I love you,” Jaxon said.

“And I love you, honey,” Camille said, leaning in and kissing him on the neck.

“I kinda hate to break up this lovefest, but we have some girls to save,” Oliver said.

Camille slapped Madame Elina’s bare ass. “Okay, let’s go. Who’s your friend? Miles, is this your doing?”

“Camille, Gigi. Gigi, Camille. She’s going to take us up to where the girls are being held,” Oliver said.

“Okay, that’s fine and all, but I’ll have to catch up with you. I have some other things to take care of first, right boss?” Camille said.

Jaxon nodded.

Gigi gave directions for Camille to find them as soon as she completed her part of the mission and then she disappeared. Gigi led Jaxon and Oliver through a series of dark corridors before coming to a discreet flight of stairs leading up to a single door on a narrow platform.

62

At the top of the stairs, Gigi stepped to the side of the landing and allowed Jaxon and Oliver to enter first. They opened the door and silently stepped through, taking in the horrific surroundings. There were several dozen hospital beds scattered throughout the room, most of them with girls strapped to the bed frames. The girls ranged in age from preteen to what appeared to be middle age. At the center of the room, there were two men in lab coats administering something to one of the girls. Their backs were toward them so their element of surprise was intact.

Jaxon held a finger up to his lips and looked at Gigi.

She nodded.

Silently, Jaxon and Oliver approached the technicians. As they got closer, it became clear that they were adhering electrode patches to the girl’s forehead and temples. The wires led to an archaic machine on a trolley that had a very large rotator dial and what appeared to be an amp or voltage meter.

Just as they reached the men, one of them stood and approached the trolley, ready to twist the dial.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jaxon said as he placed the barrel of his pistol to the side of the doctor’s head. The other doctor sprang from his chair and lunged toward the side wall, where a panic alarm button waited. Oliver chased after him, tackling the doctor to the ground.

“Who are you?” the first doctor asked.

Jaxon sighed. Then he raised the butt of his gun high above the doctor’s head and dropped it down with great force, knocking the doctor unconscious. Oliver, watching from the far side of the room, mimicked Jaxon’s actions.

“Gigi, start untying all the girls,” Jaxon said as he began to remove the wires from the girl nearest him.

Oliver started to help but then turned his efforts to tying up the doctors in case they woke up before their escape.

“Miles, when you’re finished with them, find the girls some clothes. They can’t very well go out into the station naked,” Jaxon said.

“There should be some in the operating room next door,” Gigi said. “I don’t know if there’s enough to go around, but anytime I’ve been in here for … a procedure, I’ve seen them in a side cabinet.”

“Procedure?” Jaxon asked.

“Don’t ask. Let’s just say Madame Elina doesn’t want a bunch of babies running around the space station.”

The ever-present pit in Jaxon’s stomach grew even more. The atrocities of what was happening on the space stations, all at the hands of Pablo Guzman, made him sick. He couldn’t believe how much of his own life was wasted with regret for taking El Tonto’s life and maiming Pablo. Now, seeing what kind of psycho he was, he felt a certain satisfaction about how Pablo’s life ended.

As the three of them continued untying and redressing the girls, some of them coherent, some not, Camille walked in and froze.

“My God. It’s all true,” she said in disbelief.

“Yes, but with your help, we can get out of here even sooner. Let’s get them all ready to go so we can move. They’re weak, but they all appear able to walk.”

Camille rushed in and helped dress the remaining half dozen girls as Gigi and Oliver began gathering up the girls that were ready and leading them toward the door. They waited in line, patiently, as Jaxon and Camille corralled the remaining few girls.

“Okay. Is everyone set?” Jaxon asked.

“On your mark, boss,” Camille and Oliver said in near unison.

“I wish everybody would stop calling me boss,” Jaxon exclaimed.

“Whatever you say, boss,” they said again.

Jaxon shook his head and opened the door. He pulled his gun out and checked to see if they had company. They were alone.

Oliver and Gigi took the lead, guiding the girls down the stairs, two by two. Camille and Jaxon brought up the rear, making sure all the girls exited safely. Halfway down the stairway, the station’s security alarm began to blare.