Rating
CHAPTER ONE
SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE
“La vengeance se mange tres-bien froide”
From Matilde (1841) by Joseph Marie Eugene Sue, French novelist.
“Your enemy is sleeping and his woman is free”
From Famous Blue Raincoat (1970) on the album Songs of Love and Hate by Leonard Cohen, Canadian singer-songwriter.
The Chameleon watched dispassionately.
The gang rape was being carried out to a soundtrack of piped organ music with the same meticulous precision as the military manoeuvres of the previous 72 hours. A tang of incense pervaded the white-walled room adding an aromatic twist to the woman’s pitiful wailing and the relentless male grunts.
It had all been worked out in advance. This woman should - at this exact moment - have been basking in happiness as ‘The Mother of the Bride’, proudly watching her elder daughter walk up the aisle.
Instead, she was now being held down, mounted and ruthlessly fucked by a succession of masked and uniformed men, each enjoying his allocated five minutes.
Cold hearted ? Sure, ladies and gentlemen. After all, this is an ode to Love and Hate. And especially Hate.
So where do I begin ? When do I begin ? In one sense it all began so many years ago. Three decades, in fact.
Plenty of time to chill a splendid buffet that is best eaten cold.
But in another sense it really all went off just three days ago. The stretch limousine carrying the happy bridal party to the wedding rehearsal left the gates of the imposing Cumber estate at 14.40 hrs precisely on its way to the church. As usual, the limo chauffeur was armed, and the Mercedes saloon following carried a pair of uniformed heavies. All was going like clockwork.
But the chauffeur and bodyguards proved no match for the crack team of mercenaries that carried out the raid. Five people - the groom, the bride and her mother, brother and sister - were extracted and kidnapped at exactly 14.47, in less than sixty seconds, with a minimum of fuss and bloodshed. Only the father of the bride was missing from the party.
And, of course, that was the Chameleon’s intention.
After that it was a simple question of making enough changes to cover their tracks. The five unconscious victims were transported north and east, then south and west, over 7,000 miles in total.
They zigzagged back and forth, shuttled in a miscellany of SUVs and trucks, then helicopters, a cargo jet, via motor launch and powerboats, eventually overland in ancient lorries. The final part of their journey through mountain passes was completed strapped over the backs of a train of camels.
Each time, the method of transport was ‘cleansed’ afterwards, and - in the case of the motor vehicles and powerboats - completely destroyed by fire. So, by the time their long, crisscross journey was finished, they were on a different continent, in a strange and exotic country, in an untraceable location.
Even with satellite surveillance, finding a needle in a haystack would have been a thousand times easier than tracing either the victims or their kidnappers.
The Chameleon smiled thinly and lit a Marlboro, amused by the woman’s begging. The geographical trip had taken 45 hours, but her journey from arrogant 45 year old billionaire bitch to pleading, sobbing cunt had been a short one indeed.
It was the way she obviously thought she still had something to bargain with that caused his smile. As if, having failed to order them about like her domestic servants, she could negotiate her way out instead. Maybe she thought they took credit cards ? Or she could send round her chauffeur with a wad of cash later ?
But now, Leatherback was already the seventh man demonstrating to her that everything she had to offer them could be ripped from her for free. The mercenary’s muscled buttocks hammered up and down in fierce, deep, impatient strokes as he prepared to fill her with his venom.
The familiar organ music being piped over the sound system on continuous loop started up again. The joyous ‘Bridal Chorus’ from Wagner’s Opera Lohengrin is the standard march played at the entrance of the bride at most weddings in America and the Western World.
Now it was being used as a melodic accompaniment to Susan Cumber’s terrible ordeal. Here comes the bride’s mother, perhaps ?
On second thoughts, probably not.
Susan Cumber was undoubtedly still a gorgeous woman. One of those Prom Queens who had been born beautiful, married young and the years since had been kind to her. She had popped out three kids in quick succession, got her figure back, exercised, ate well, rarely drank alcohol, and lived right. She hadn’t even had to resort to surgery yet. No nips, tucks nor even botox. Her 45 year old skin was smooth, her butt was firm, and her boobs were natural Ds that still looked sensational even without a bra.
Of course, money helped; cooks, diet counsellors, full time personal trainer, a tennis coach, two masseuses, daily hairdresser, and the best doctors, gynaecologists, dentists, orthodontists, ‘what-have-yous’, all at her beck and call.
It was hard to envisage the groaning, sobbing, writhing woman as the same immaculately poised corporate wife and mother-of-three, whose photograph so often adorned the business press and society magazines.
She was a statuesque, green-eyed, platinum blonde, with perfect cheekbones and teeth that dazzled; a rare blend of Hollywood glamour and Manhattan sophistication. At 5’ 9” tall, she was the ideal height to complement her handsome 6’ 3” husband, her head at his shoulder, whether posing formally for press shots or snapped attending charity balls together. Her beautifully cut and cared for hair was thick and lush. Her figure was just a little curvier than those of her two daughters but it was absolutely in proportion to her fuller breasts and extra height.
The Chameleon stubbed out his cigarette. Leatherback had shot his bolt and was being replaced by Night Snake. There was no rush. As that old Satchmo love song goes, they had all the time in the world.
*** *** ***
Day Four
At the very same moment the Chameleon was extinguishing his Marlboro, at least one continent, six time zones, and several thousand miles away, John Cumber was pacing a room that was packed full of the best. From the President down, everybody had promised him anything, and dropped everything, to help.
It was March 3rd 2007, a Saturday, but they were all there; CIA, FBI, Military brass, others from agencies John hadn’t even known existed, plus his closest hired hands and colleagues. The Cumber Corporation was a multi-billion dollar machine and all of its resources had been utilised or placed on standby to assist.
Today was the fourth day since his wife and children had been taken. The problem was there had been no progress so far. Sure, there were teams of agents combing the kidnap site. Officers were interviewing anybody and everybody, researching, collecting data, trawling every damned domestic and international contact for clues. Any clue. But the result so far was a big fat zero.
He glanced down at his gold Patek Philippe. Right now he should have been walking his darling Lorna up the aisle, in front of five hundred guests, standing proudly alongside his wife Susan throughout the service. His daughter Rachel and his son Ryan should be there smiling either side of them.
John crushed the empty plastic water cup that was in his hand, swearing for the thousandth time that he would find his family and save them.
And get the people responsible.
*** *** ***
20.07 hrs
The Chameleon sat at a bank of screens and surveyed his guests. He was dressed in just a white towel round his waist, his hair wet, his mind cleared by the ice cold needles of the shower he’d just taken.
Each of the five guests had a cell to themselves. The cells were not, of course, the five star accommodation such WASPs were used to. They were underground, humid and dank. There was a lingering odour of sewage. Rats and insects scurried under the steel bars.
Above ground, the house and its surrounding land had long since been converted into a comfortable but inconspicuous home. The thick compound walls that ensured total privacy had been built of mud, baked rock hard by many years of desert sunshine. Decades before, this site had housed a fortified prison used by the famous French Foreign Legion to incarcerate its prisoners, miscreants and deserters.
On an ancient caravan route, it lay on the edge of an oasis, with a stone mountain to the north and an endless sand dune field to the south. But the relatively high water table made primitive agriculture possible; citrus, apricots, almonds and figs were grown in the vicinity.
From the sky, a satellite or drone would merely see palm trees, a walled garden and courtyard, a swimming pool and a modest bungalow. There were even white dishdasha robes drying on a washing line and kids toys lying on the ground. There was no clue as to the evil concealed underground.
Although the bank of screens would suggest the five basement cells they had selected were located next to each other, in fact his men had a choice of over fifty, and had chosen cells spaced well apart. It was important that their captives be unable to communicate with or hear each other, at least during the early stages of their ordeal.
The cell walls and hard floors were constructed of dried mud and stone except for the front bars that were made of columns of steel. Just like those in the cowboy movies he’d watched as a child, the Chameleon thought.
Each cell measured only six feet by six feet square and they were totally devoid of furniture; no bed, chair, even sanitary facilities. The only ‘decorations’ were five iron manacles set in the outline of a starfish into the rear walls. Their positioning alone would have made it obvious they were intended for a captive’s neck, wrists and ankles to be fixed in a stretched, spread-eagle position.
However, what made that fact even more evident was that each of the guests had already checked in and been fastened into the manacles. Microphones and night-vision CCTV lenses in each cell gave the Chameleon perfect sound and vision, even in the murky greenish light.
The middle screen showed Susan Cumber suspended on her tiptoes. She was naked with a glistening sheen of wetness still oozing between her thighs. The gang rape had been thorough. A dozen copious loads had been injected into her. And what goes up, must come down.
Her magnificent jewellery, including the famous Cumber diamond ring, and several other expensive pieces, had been removed from her neck, ears and fingers. Her breasts, hips and abdomen were marked with red blotches and a couple of darker bruises. Her head sagged down dejectedly, face obscured, her shoulder length platinum tresses mussed and dangling.
The Chameleon shrugged. It was to be expected. After a lifetime of fidelity to one handsome man, you couldn’t expect any woman to be thrilled about racing from male partners numbers 2 thru 13 within one hour. She deserved her little rest.
Displayed on the screens either side of Susan, were her two daughters. In one, Lorna Cumber - who should by rights now be Lorna Collins of course - was fastened in a similar uncomfortable starfish pose, arms and legs outstretched. She was wearing the same white outfit she had been kidnapped in, although it glowed dirty and torn in the green night-vision CCTV light.
It was a wedding dress. Not the real dress, of course. Oh no, it would have been bad luck to be seen in that before the happy day itself ! But the billionaire Cumbers had typically splashed out on three different bespoke, couture dresses for their darling, spoiled 23 year old daughter to choose from. She had decided to wear her second choice to her wedding rehearsal.
Lorna was beautiful, no two ways about it. Looks-wise, she took after her father rather than her mother. She was a pure aristocrat; a doe-eyed brunette, with perfectly plucked eyebrows, long dark eyelashes, high cheekbones and million dollar teeth. She had a slightly olive, suntanned complexion.
Like her mother, she had been relieved of all her jewellery; the pearl necklace from her elegant neck, the diamond earrings, and above all the obscene $500,000 sapphire and diamond engagement ring.
At 5’7”, her body was in perfect Pilates-honed shape for her wedding. Imagine a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, but with bigger boobs. Her torn wedding dress accentuated her trim waist. She had lost her wedding pumps on her journey and was now staring at the floor of her cell, shrieking and blubbering whenever a rat or spider came close to her bare, arched feet.
Meanwhile, in the other monitor, Rachel Cumber was wearing an expensive Sister of the Bride outfit, a beautifully cut, cream pantsuit made especially for her by one of America’s trendiest designers. Unlike Lorna, Rachel was not so much classically beautiful, as just ... well ... downright fuckable.
Even though the minx was two and a half years younger than Lorna, there was a provocative sensuality about Rachel that belied her 21 yrs. At only 5’ 2” she was much shorter than her mother and sister, but she was just as perfectly formed. She was a college gymnast and cheerleader.
Facially, she had inherited her mother’s features, with shoulder-length blonde hair and the same porcelain cheekbones and expensive flawless smile. Her pretty, turned-up button nose was of the my shit doesn’t smell variety. But whereas her mom’s eyes were green, Rachel’s were a startling cobalt blue.
The Chameleon chuckled and decided that, in the unlikely event Hollywood came calling to make a blockbuster of his thriller, the casting brief for Rachel Cumber would be somebody who looked like a young Paris Hilton.
Sure, it was unfortunate that Rachel’s cleavage - a perky B cup at best - was smaller than her mom and sis’s but her model-thin legs and wasp waist made her top half appear reasonably endowed. Give her credit. She had spunk too. Unlike her sister, the bitch was staring out straight at the lens, mouthing 4-letter words in apparent defiance.
The other cells were occupied by the two males. Ryan John Cumber, middle child and only son of John and Susan, and finally Gene Collins III, the unfortunate groom-to-have-been of Lorna Cumber.
The Chameleon perused the boys briefly, spending much less time studying them than the females. Ryan was a younger clone of his father; similar six-foot-plus jock physique, the same handsome features, jutting jaw, close cropped brown hair and intense brown eyes.
Gene was the obvious odd one out of the group. And not just because of his ginger-top. The Cumbers were all hewn from beautiful stock and it was evidently something other than Gene’s looks that had appealed to Lorna. He had a bookish air, with carrot hair, freckled skin and insipid, watery-blue eyes. At 5’7” he was only the same height as his fiancé.
Mind you, the Chameleon knew that when this particular groom was standing on top of his wallet, Gene Collins measured a lot taller than a mere five seven. Strange how these rich folks gravitated towards each other. Mergers, not marriages.
He pushed his chair back from the monitors and lit another cigarette. It was now over three days since any of their captives had eaten or drunk anything but water. Soon the fun could begin.
*** *** ***
Saturday
The Eyes watched the Cumber Building from an outside table at the coffee shop across the Street. The police had cordoned off a large area one side of the main tower to contain the throng of media vehicles and riff-raff that always gathered to rubberneck an event like this.
It’s not every day that the wife of a billionaire gets kidnapped, let alone with her three brats and a fiancé. What made it funnier to the owner of the Eyes was that all these people - the police and agents meeting in the building, units around the country, the media hacks and paparazzi nearby, the watching and listening audiences around the world - none of them knew jackshit !
His Eyes squinted up to a large window at the very top of the tower. He framed it within a circle formed by his thumb and index finger. He knew it was the office window of John Cumber. Billionaire. Asshole.
He watched a while through his imaginary scope, aiming carefully at the glass. Then, slowly, he closed the palm of his hand, eradicating the entire Cumber Building from his sight.
Only one fucking person in the whole US of A knew anything !
The Chameleon.
Him.
*** *** ***
06.55 hrs
The Chameleon entered her cell at dawn. The temperature outside was already climbing fast after the chill of another cloudless, starlit night. However, underground, neither the dank air nor the dingy light varied much throughout the 24 hour cycle.
Susan Cumber was barely conscious. The Chameleon wrenched her head up by her hair and the lingering odour in the cell seemed to act like smelling salts, waking her. She opened her glazed, bloodshot eyes and her nostrils flared.
The Chameleon surveyed Susan through the mask’s eyeholes until her face crumpled in shock and fear.
“Time to wake up”. The Chameleon chirped cheerily, like a mom waking her drowsy teenager.
An amazed expression came across Susan’s features, her forehead creasing into a frown.
“Y ... you’re ... a woman ?”
“Yes.” She said curtly. “Good observation.”
“But ... how c ... could you do this ... to another woman ?”
The Chameleon chuckled aloud through the mouth flap of her red and green mask.
What a funny question. She ignored it.
“Are you hungry ?”
“Answer me !” Susan Cumber implored in anger. “How could you ?”
The Chameleon took her time. She stepped back and slapped her rubber-gloved hand across the woman’s face twice, first one way, then a backhander. Not too hard but the blows snapped Susan’s head sideways, making her gasp and shriek, before she tilted her face backwards in the neck iron, cowering from another blow.
“If you speak to me like that again,” she spat, “I assure you that, not only will you regret it, but your two hot little daughters will as well.”
“Rachel !” Susan’s face furrowed as she looked up. “Lorna. And Ryan. What have you done with them all ?”
“Oooh, they’re not far away.”
“Please, tell meeee !” the woman begged, madness in her eyes.
“Later. Now, I asked if you are hungry.”
Susan paused, her brow puckered in confusion. Her head slumped again.
“N ... yes.” She whimpered quietly.
“And thirsty ?”
“Yes.” A whisper.
“Okay.” The Chameleon clicked her fingers for the guards.
After unfastening her, a tattooed male helped Susan off the wall. She crumpled to the floor and lay curled up in the foetal position. Another guard brought food. He placed a steel dog bowl on the floor and lifted her up onto her hands and knees.
“Eat.” The Chameleon ordered.
Susan hesitated, peering up at her from underneath her tangled hair.
“Eat ! If you care about your brats !”
She watched from outside the cell as naked Susan Cumber knelt on all fours and cautiously peered at the swill. It was congealed and grey. The main ingredients were oats and canned milk. Susan didn’t know it yet but in the future the unappetising mush would seem a veritable banquet to her.
But Susan had already realised that the grey surface had been garnished with fresh male ejaculate. It was unavoidable. A creamy puddle and thick white streaks decorated the congealed surface.
“I’m sure that Lorna will eat it if you won’t.”
Susan’s mad green eyes looked up at her like a rabid dog’s.
“Now get your head in that bowl and start eating.”
The Chameleon watched Susan’s pink tongue slither out of her mouth to test the swill. She winked at the two guards who were watching too. After all, they had provided the fresh garnish.
“You’ve got two minutes to finish the bowl. Or ...”
The threat produced the desired result. Susan lowered her head and opened her mouth, breaking the surface. She vacuumed up a mouthful of oats and relish and began chewing. She retched, steeled herself, and swallowed mechanically. Then she took another mouthful.
It was a wondrous sight. A woman who ate only the finest fish and superb salads, prepared by her own chefs or at the most expensive restaurants, now down on her hands and knees gulping slop.
A man can break a woman’s body with brute force.
But a female is much more suited to breaking a woman’ spirit.
She relished the frantic gulping and gagging as Susan wolfed the bowl in 1 minute 47 seconds. It was the Chinese leader Mao Zedong who observed that ‘every long journey starts with a first step’.
On the Chameleon’s shelves were many books on behaviour modification; Pavlov and Wolfe, Thorndike and Watson.
And Susan Cumber had just taken the first step on her long journey.
The two masked mercenaries returned to manacle Susan back into the same outstretched, 5-star position in her cell. But as a small mercy they allowed her to rest the soles of her dirty feet properly on the floor.
“Better ?”
The Chameleon smiled behind her mask and casually removed her rubber gloves. She placed her bare hand on Susan’s hip.
Susan winced, helpless to shy away.
The Chameleon slowly traced her fingers up Susan’s flank and over to her superb but bruised breasts, hefting them up and down as if she were judging damaged fruit at a stall. Livid hickeys and scratches adorned the nipples.
“It looks like my boys loved these.”
Next, she walked two fingers down Susan’s ribs and gym-toned abdomen, through her honey coloured pubes and then between her damp thighs. She found her clitoris and stroked it, enjoying Susan’s indignant hiss. She pushed her thumb deep inside and prodded around, before removing it leisurely.
“I’m going to give you an hour or so of thinking time.” She said, sniffing her thumb through the nostrils of her mask, while staring straight into Susan’s eyes.
“And when I come back, I want you to give me an answer to one question. Okay ?”
Susan stared back at her with a sullen look of unrestrained hostility.
“What’s the question ?”
“It’s simple really. You see, my poor boys are all alone here with us. Sadly, we weren’t able to invite their wives and girlfriends along.”
She shrugged, wiping her thumbnail clean on Susan’s hip.
“And to stop their trigger fingers getting itchy, they will need their sexual needs ... er ... catered to. Regularly. But you can be damned sure that I, for one, am not going to put out for them.”
She paused, relishing the horrified expression on Susan Cumber’s face.
“I mean, why the fuck should I ? You’ve already met most of my boys when they raped you. But you see, we can’t keep having all that futile fighting and pitiful wailing again every time one of them needs to drain his poor balls.”
She smiled behind her mask at Susan’s look of dawning realisation.
“So, from this point, two things can happen. Either you can volunteer to be enthusiastic and nice to any of my horny boys whenever he needs some relief. And that will mean putting in some pretty intensive stints on your own, I can assure you. Or ...”
She fished into her pocket.
“.... your two daughters can assist you.”
She held up a pair of headphones, poised over Susan’s ears.
“So, it’s up to you. Mull the decision over for an hour or so.”
She snapped the headphones into place and walked briskly out of the cell before Susan had a chance to reply.
The music Susan would be forced to listen to was apt; Leonard Cohen.
His ‘Songs of Love and Hate’ album.
After breakfast, the Chameleon would next pay a room visit to lovely Lorna Cumber, elder daughter and almost-bride.
Today should have been the first morning of the young socialite’s honeymoon, whisked by private plane from the swanky reception to an exclusive suite in the Caribbean, to start sucking and fucking and making love to her darling carrot-top husband for three memorable weeks.
But instead, today would be her first wakeup call in a rather less salubrious honeymoon suite. I’m afraid Lorna wouldn’t get to enjoy a lot of ‘making love’ in this place.
But she could still get to do plenty of sucking and fucking.
The Chameleon exhaled a little sigh of amusement.
And hey, after all, two out of three ain’t bad !