______________________________________________________________________

'Not a good likeness, but the best that we could do in a hurry,' FBI Special Agent Amanda Thornton said dismissively. 'We didn't want to ask Mia Lampton's family for a photograph in case we panicked them, and she appears to have no lover who could provide one. So we had to make do with her MIT graduate library-card photo.' Amanda looked once again at the grimy enlargement. It showed a striking woman with shoulder-length brown hair and a broad smile. It could easily have been the woman she met at the quay. But, Amanda had to admit that it could be one of any number of similar women.'

'Ummph,' Wiseman made his contempt as obvious as he dared.

'Well, this is the moment of truth,' Amanda said, as the picture began to resolve on the computer screen in front of her. She too was beginning to wonder why the FBI hadn't got an up-to-date photograph to her sooner. Assistant Director Ian Prothero had explained that he thought that the whole meeting was to routine for anything else to be needed. Now that sounded rather hollow.

As soon the picture downloaded, Amanda saw a pretty face, with brown hair, worn in a shoulder-length bob, pale blue eyes, and a straight, slightly turned-up nose. Her lips and perfect teeth formed a natural smile. Amanda knew that Dr. Lampton was twenty-six, but her face would have passed for twenty-one.

'That's not the woman I met at the quay and then saw kidnapped,' she said immediately. 'Evidently, I am not the only one who mistook her identity. Which leaves us with one puzzling question. Where is Dr. Mia Lampton now?'

______________________________________________________________________

She could have used her cell 'phone to send the data on the disk to Maxwell Patton, but that would have meant that the call could have been traced. So, instead, she went into the hotel where the FBI woman was staying and made for her room. Getting in was no problem. And soon she was sending the contents of the disk across the nation's fibre-optic cables. Now, when the FBI traced the call, they would find that one of their own appeared to have the disk. That should provoke a few questions.

The car was where she left it. She tossed her laptop on to the front passenger seat and then slid behind the wheel. Before she could even fire up the engine a quiet tone came from her cell-'phone.

'I thought we agreed that you wouldn't contact me on this line until after you had the merchandise, sir,' she started as soon as he heard his voice. Despite the formality of words, her lack of respect was obvious from the tone.'

'That, Ms. Kilmour,' Patton said tartly, 'was before I found out that the contents of the disk were completely useless. Now, you have twenty-four hours to find out exactly why and make amend. Or you're going to be looking for another job.'

Shit, Jacqueline Kilmour said to herself, as the cellphone line went dead. That was all she needed. She scratched twenty-thousand dollar bonus from her bank balance and added concrete boots to her wardrobe. Then, she started up the car and accelerated sharply out of the town.

As soon as she had put five miles between her and the town centre, she found a side road and turned off. A quarter of a mile further and she turned into a small lane. A hundred yards later, she pulled off into a secluded spot.

The trunk of the car was fairly large. The zip-up cloth bag lay by the side of the spare wheel. Unlike the spare wheel, which lay perfectly still, the cloth bag was moving about.

Kilmour reached in and worked the heavy-duty zip fastener down. As she peeled back the edges of the material a shapely pair of sheer nylon-clad thighs came into view. Only a narrow black leather strap pulled excessively tight, approximately mid-way between skirt hem and knee, marred the flawless line of leg.

'Mmmmm, mmmmnnnn, mmmnnnpphhh.' The noise from inside the bag seemed intent on drawing attention to itself

Kilmour opened the bag further until the figure of a hog-tied young woman became visible. Her crumpled paisley-patterned shirt was no longer tucked in at the waist, and the hem of her above-the-knee skirt was rucked up around her bottom. Kilmour reached in and stroked the shoulder-length light-brown hair away from the face it currently concealed. The woman's mouth was stretched around a gigantic knot in the centre of a length of white sheet. The sheet ends were pulled around her head cutting into the sides of her mouth on the way and knotted at the rear. A wide band of cloth held pads against her eyes.

'Mmmmm, mmmmnnnn, mmphhhggg,' the tied-up woman moaned again. Kilmour stood back and inspected the rope that fastened her strapped wrists to her strapped ankles as her fingers fluttered uselessly in mid air. Smiling, she reached in again and worked at the fastening at the rear of the bound woman's head. She prised the large knot from between the woman's teeth and waited while the woman expelled an even larger wad of cloth from deep inside her mouth.

'It's only me, Dr. Lampton,' Jacqueline Kilmour said after a second. 'I do hope you didn't think you were being rescued.'

It was several seconds before Mia Lampton could speak. 'Water ... please...,' she said in a husky voice.

'Later,' Kilmour sneered. 'First, tell me why my employer thinks the disk is useless.'

'I-I-I-I d-d-don't know.'

'Don't know, Dr. Lampton; or won't tell?'

'I don't know.' The voice was still husky; but rather more assertive.

'Well, in that case, Dr. Lampton, if you're not going to tell me what I want to know, I might as well replace that gag. Open up.'

Mia clamped her mouth shut, but Kilmour merely pinched her nose until she was forced to breathe through her mouth. Then, she replaced the sodden wadding, followed by the knot.

'Now, Dr. Lampton,' she said, as she tied the whole thing off, 'there's a place I know nearby. Once we'll there I'm going to ask you the same question and you'd better come up with an answer. In the meantime, just so you understand that I'm not playing games, I think we'll make an alteration to your traveling arrangements.'

She fished another short strap from inside the trunk and wound it around Mia's elbows. When she had pulled it tight and buckled it, Mia's elbows were glued together behind her.

'Comfy?' she asked. Making no attempt to tug down Mia Lampton's skirt, she re-zipped the bag.

______________________________________________________________________

'Book shop, I expect,' Debbie said, as she pulled on her track top. 'Hope the showers are warm.'

'It's even possible the pool's made it,' Amy said encouragingly. 'It won't be hot enough to lounge about in. But if you fancy a couple of lengths before we get down to the serious drinking, it should be all right. ... That's if Becky ever gets back with the beer.'

Debbie looked thoughtful for a while. But she really wanted a swim.

'Tell you what,' Amy said, correctly reading her friend's mind, 'as soon as we've showered, I'll run into town and see if I can locate the missing brunette. I can also make sure she's got enough of the brown liquid stuff.'

The pool area was set slightly lower than the rest of the house, which was built on two sides of a slope. Debbie and Amy made their way through the sitting room and out to a glass-covered area, which looked out at the hills. A side door and a short flight of steps led down to the pool area. Amy shrugged of her top and leant over the side of the pool in her bra top and shorts.

'Um, possible, perhaps,' she ventured after testing the water.

Debbie came over and felt the temperature herself. The water was cold, but a swim would be more than just bearable.

The pool are had a large table along one side, an area with showers and cubicles along another and a large picture window across a third. Amy disappeared into one of the cubicles and switched on the shower. Debbie listened to the running water as she went towards the window and tried to see if there was any snow on the hilltops. A second later, Amy dashed out of the changing room and made for one of the cupboards. She had taken off her bra top and the shorts and now wore just a white sports bra and grey-marl cotton panties. Debbie realized that she had never before seen her in her underwear.

'Sorry,' Amy said, 'forgot a towel.'

Amy grabbed a plush royal-blue-coloured towel from one of the cabinets and darted back to the shower. Debbie made her way slowly to the bag in the corner where she had stowed the suit Amy had chosen for her that morning. She had already decided to wait until Amy had departed to collect Becky before she changed back into it. With any luck, she would be finished, showered and decent by the time they returned with the beer.

Amy appeared less than five minutes later, her raven hair gleaming wet. She wore tight blue jeans, socks and sneakers and a dark-blue sweater. Without drying her hair, she wound her arms into a leather bomber jacket and zipped it up. 'Back soon,' she said in Debbie's general direction. 'Enjoy yourself.'

______________________________________________________________________

The young woman looked like the queen bitch in one of those 1980s, coming-of-age films. If it hadn't been that she was blonde, Molly Ringwold might have played her. She stood perhaps five seven with a turned up nose and icy cold blue eyes. Her blonde locks were cut into a pixie style. She came into the study and stared at Becky as if she were a stain needing to be cleaned from the carpet.

'So this is where the cow got to,' she said with a sneer. She walked around Becky, inspecting the way she was tied to the chair. 'Um, a bit overdressed ... but we'll put that right in a moment.' She paused to look at Morgan. 'Daddy's guests are with him in the rear annex,' she continued after a second. 'So let's get her up into the attic. We can do a proper rope job on her there.'

______________________________________________________________________

Chapter Five

Back to Chapter Three

Back to Friends Page