Paris, France
With Jean Barbier steering his black Audi through rush hour traffic, the drive to the country estate promised to take well over an hour. Amanda occupied the back seat. Magalie sat up front beside Jean, scooting over to the far-right edge, against the door, as she worried the black acrylic beads of her necklace like a rosary. Jean kept the heat turned down, and both women were glad they'd worn warm clothing.
Amanda struggled to remain calm as she mulled the latest encrypted communication from Derrick, which arrived moments before she left her apartment. An analyst at Langley had intercepted an email from empereurdestenebres, which translated as 'emperor of darkness,' and which shared an IP address with Jacques Levrier. The message was to charlesd448, a manager at the bordello.
The message described a scene from a movie called White, with which Levrier was apparently obsessed, and which he proposed to re-enact, that evening. Amanda recognized White as the second movie in Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy known as Three Colors, representing the three hues of the French flag, Blue, White, and Red, which stood for the country's ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Charles' original message included a photo of Ciara, whom he called Brigitte, a new 'hostess' at the bordello. In his reply, Levrier noted she closely resembled Julie Delpy, the movie's star. He'd just seen Brigitte, in person and barely clothed -- according to Levrier, she was practically nude -- from a front-row table at a cabaret called Le Buisson Ardent that afternoon. She'd made a strong impression.
She'd be ideal for his much-anticipated, repeatedly postponed re-staging of two of the movie's scenes. In the first, from the beginning of the film, Julie Delpy's character, Dominique, has just divorced her husband, Karol, for his 'inability to consummate our marriage', as she called out in open court. Later, Karol discovers she's taken all his money and property. Destitute and homeless, Karol sleeps across a row of chairs in the Paris hair salon they'd owned together, where she finds him the next morning.
On awakening, Karol professes his love for Dominique, and promises to satisfy her, if only she'd give him another chance. She looks at him with scorn, lifts her skirt, and climbs astride him, skewering herself with Karol's hard cock. But he immediately cums, drawing her scathing derision. Wounded and broken, Karol becomes a beggar. For a while, he still moons for his lost love, but later his pain turns to bitterness, and he vows revenge.
Karol flees to his native Warsaw, where in time he becomes a successful businessman. Still vengeful, he lays a trap for Dominique, naming her in his will and faking his own death. When she arrives in Warsaw to collect, Karol frames her for his murder.
In the film's climactic scene, Karol looks up at Dominique from the courtyard of a prison. From the window of her cell, Dominique pantomimes her love for Karol and offers to remarry. The film ends there, but in Levrier's re-imagined version, Karol bribes his way into Dominique's cell and pretends to accept her offer. Instead, he sodomizes her and leaves her to serve out her sentence.
Levrier closed his message with instructions to book a professional camera operator and prepare the sets for the two scenes. In his reply, Charles advised him that both sets were already finished. He promised to keep the plan confidential.
Now, as the Audi carried her out of the Latin Quarter on Boulevard Raspail, Amanda chewed her lip. She had no means of warning Ciara without using their agency-issued smartwatches, which risked blowing their covers. But she couldn't allow Levrier to ambush Ciara, not when the consequences included forcible anal rape. Ciara hadn't yet recovered from her previous assault.
The last part of their journey traversed country roads, and they didn't pass a single other vehicle. By the instrument panel's glow, Amanda could make out Jean's pasty hand as he played his own depraved, high-stakes version of chess with Magalie, shifting his target from her cleavage to her hem, to her breast, to her thigh, never relenting. Magalie parried every gambit, but each time he simply overpowered her and took what he wanted.
Amanda felt a fresh stab of guilt. An unpleasant memory transported her back to the night before, when she'd abandoned Magalie to face Jean's unwanted advances by herself.
* * *
Amanda listened from outside the doorway of the restaurant's storeroom, leaning forward every now and then to steal a glance inside. Her shift had ended, and she'd already clocked out. In fact, Jean thought she'd already left.
Jean had Magalie cornered. He had to be twice the weight of the young coed. If Amanda were to leave now, the portly restauranteur could take his time, tearing Magalie's clothing from her body piece by piece, exhausting her strength, until she surrendered her nubile innocence to his corrupt whims.
She bit her lip. This was the only opportunity she'd get to gain access to Jean's private office, a tiny cubbyhole situated behind the storeroom, containing an equally small desk with a compact tower PC beneath. If she moved quickly, and quietly, she could finish her work without being discovered. Stepping inside the cubbyhole, she paused to listen.
"You're going back tomorrow night," said Jean, his rough baritone carrying clearly through the wall. "Or else I'll tell your parents about your new source of income. How their precious, innocent daughter shamelessly sold her ripe body for a few wads of dirty cash."
Amanda removed the thumb drive concealed in the placket of her dress, inserted it into the PC, and clicked the mouse to install its contents.
"Please don't tell them," said Magalie, her voice suffused with desperation. "They'd never forgive me."
The hard drive buzzed as the rootkit embedded itself within the PC's operating system, concealing the attached backdoor. Later, Derrick would remotely download the hard drive's contents, including the last week's worth of video from the security cameras. Going forward, the new video would stream to his server real-time. Jean's precise role in the bordello operation remained unknown, and any recorded transgressions would provide leverage if he attempted to disrupt Amanda's plan.
"No! Stop it!" cried Magalie. Cans fell from the shelves and clunked to the floor.
Amanda winced, and glanced at the PC, willing it to finish copying. Its hard drive was still spinning.
"Don't make me hurt you," said Jean.
Amanda heard fabric ripping. Then the hard drive stilled, and she removed the thumb drive. As she crept toward the back door, she reminded herself to review the footage from the storeroom camera and make some notes in her report. It wouldn't be pleasant.
As she quietly pushed through the door, she heard Jean grunting rhythmically.
* * *
Now, as the Audi sped toward its destination, Magalie once again found the fortitude to resist him. Even as he pushed her hands aside and located the swell of her breast, so ample and alluring beneath her black and white checked cotton blouse, even as he wrapped his meaty paw around it and took her full measure, she still battered his forearm and tried to evade his grasp.
Somehow, her spirit remained unbroken. Magalie hadn't given up. What a brave young woman, Amanda thought.
They turned into a driveway and immediately encountered a rolling gate, which Jean opened with a remote. As they passed through, Amanda made note of the bumper in the outbound lane, which would open the gate automatically for departing vehicles. This, and the absence of an inward-facing camera, demonstrated surprising flaws in the otherwise highly secure perimeter.
Jean continued up the long access road to the manor, finally stopping beneath a large, enclosed port-cochere. Amanda and Magalie climbed out, and Jean continued to the parking area. Amanda held down the two buttons on her smartwatch that activated the video camera, then followed Magalie inside.
To their left, a tall, thin man with slicked-back hair stood behind a counter, speaking to an employee. "Everyone has arrived, Marius. Go patrol the grounds. Take Zeus and Apollo."
This must be the same Marius that Ciara mentioned in her report, thought Amanda.
Charles spotted them. "Hello, Magalie."
Without responding, Magalie turned her face away, carefully blotting her eyes with a tissue.
"And who is this?"
Amanda stepped closer and met his eye, holding her head high. "I'm Camille Fleury."
He gave her an oily smile. "I'm Charles. Director of client services." He drew out the words of his title, chuckling with the false expectation Amanda would find the double entendre as amusing as he did, then turned. "Damian, we're doing introductions in the great hall in ten minutes. Please escort the hostesses there now."
Damian was tall and extremely fit, and Amanda was certain he was another of Ciara's teammates from the cabaret. Ciara had stated the entire team was employed here.
As Damian led the way, Amanda took Magalie by the wrist, pulling her along as she strategically blocked her friend's view of a large round table. In its center rested a stack of photos of a beautiful young woman, heavily made up, her dark hair reaching just to her pale shoulders. Her large eyes were tinged red from crying, and her full lips were set into a pout. Amanda thought her bare breasts rivaled those of a top pinup model.
Beneath the photo, in bold type, appeared the name, Magalie. Nearby sat a large placard reading, 'Take one' and 'If you'd like an autographed picture with your favorite hostess, please see Charles.'
As they entered the great hall, Amanda saw Ciara at the far end of the line. Severine stood beside her, followed by three women she didn't recognize. To their right were Ariane and Kayla. Magalie took the spot next to Kayla, and Amanda squeezed into the last space, just inside the door. Magalie stepped backward and lowered her head, seeking concealment behind Kayla's shoulder.
Charles appeared, followed by a rail-thin, white-haired man wearing a dress shirt and a blue paisley ascot beneath his blazer. He carried a brass-handled walking stick, although he didn't use it. They headed for the center of the row, where Charles took an unfamiliar brunette by the arm and pulled her forward.
Amanda saw she was of medium height, with porcelain skin, and she seemed unnaturally calm, despite the stressful situation and the nervous fidgeting of the other women. Her elegant burgundy sheath dress flaunted her perfect figure. She regarded the white-haired man with an air of cool detachment, as though she expected him to earn her attention.
