Megan
Her body was folded in half, her knees tied to her shoulders, her ankles tied to the ceiling. Her wrists were still trapped beneath her, pushed up between her shoulder blades and tied to her neck. Back on the ground and legs in the air, she had never felt more vulnerable. The Russian could do anything to her and there was not a damn thing she could do about it. At least not right away.
The only good thing was she was alone now. Time to think. Time to prepare for the next session. Would the Russian come back to continue the bad cop act? Or would Alan come back to play good cop?
They had abused her physically and sexually. They had withdrawn their junks at the last second and unloaded outside her vagina. Did they not want to have the ultimate union with an infidel? Did it meant she would not be at risk of pregnancy? It was a ridiculous thought. Worrying about pregnancy when that was the least of her problems.
Focus, she yelled aloud. Focus, focus, focus. She hollered as loudly as she could. Her energy spent yelling, she was panting in her half upside down position. If anyone was standing outside the door, they would have heard her. She waited for a response. None. Nobody was near enough. No guard posted outside. Or perhaps he was asleep. Perhaps he was told to ignore her.
She stayed silent for an entire minute. No sound of life at all. No engine sounds. She could feel swaying sensations. Tell tale signs of being in the open ocean. She was in a boat in the middle of the South China Sea.
They obviously wanted her alive. Or she would be dead by now. They wanted her because she had held back information. She had not told them everything she knew, so they thought. She actually knew nothing about why the laptop was so important. They had assumed that American intelligence would not send her to kill somebody for a laptop unless they knew it was really important. They did not know she did not work for a government agency. They did not know that she did not know. And she knew that they did not know that she did not know. It was mighty confusing. But this critical nugget of fact could save her life, she kept reminding herself.
Ten minutes of consciousness. No matter how hard she tried, that was all she could managed. The lack of sleep and blood loss had taken its toll. The sexual violations did not help. Her sugar level was low. They had let her drink but did not give her food for almost two days. She was feeling drowsy again.
The colors faded in black and white as she felt something throbbing behind her back, the mild pain emanating midpoint between her shoulder blades. She adjusted her body slightly, as much as she could, before she was swallowed up in darkness. It was as if a laptop unplugged from the power source had been running on batteries for too long.
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Paula
She had dark brown hair that was straight until her shoulders, then curly from her shoulders to her waist. A quarter of her disheveled hair was in front. The rest was behind her shoulders. Her wrists were shackled behind her back by standard police department handcuffs. Her elbows were brought together by her own bikini top.
She was on her knees.
A kick landed on her lower left rib. "Ready to talk?" The Russian drew out the words slowly, as if she did not understand English well.
It was in her interest to pretend. He had no idea she attended an American-run private high school in Hong Kong. In reality, her command of the English language was ten times better than the Russian.
"Talk what? I no not understand." She stayed in character.
The Russian backhanded her across the breasts. They swayed from side to side. His eyes looked down on her as he gathered a bunch of her hair and forced her head to look up.
"Open your mouth."
She obeyed.
He balled his other hand into a fist and forced it into her mouth, holding firm her head with the other hand wrapped around her hair. Her head was tilted up as he continued shoving his fist down, slowly, an inch at a time, until her gag instinct kicked in and she choked.
He removed his fist. "Who sent you to spy on us?"
Paula Jiang blamed herself for getting caught. The night before, she had checked into a luxury hotel in Hong Kong. Her instructions were simply to hang out in the hotel swimming pool night and day. Two Arabic looking men waded into the pool around noon the next day. She was reclining on her back, a modified iPhone in hand, snapping pictures of the two men and transmitting it to the Chinese Intelligence. There were dozens of guests relaxing around the pool and she felt safe.
She returned to her room, filled up the bathtub with an inch of water, and tossed the phone in. A hissing sound and a couple of beeps accompanied the death of the phone. She did not know who the two men were, what they were doing in Hong Kong, and why she needed to snap scores of pictures. All she knew was to do so and fly back to Beijing soonest. Chinese intelligence operated on a strict need-to-know basis.
Her mission done, she checked out.
"Would you like a taxi to the airport?" The bell boy asked in the sing-song version of Cantonese common in Hong Kong.
"Yes, please. I would like a taxi." She imitated the local Hong Kong accent.
He made a phone call and asked for a taxi to Hong Kong International Airport in Lantau Island.
A bunch of taxis were at the side of the hotel entrance fifty feet away. But none except one pulled forward. It was driven by a cheerful man with his head wrapped in a turban. Indian taxi drivers were a common sight in Hong Kong and Paula did not give a second thought to it.
"Where to Miss?" The turbaned man asked cheerfully, his smile broader than any taxi driver she had encountered in Hong Kong. She missed the first sign.
"Airport." She had no luggage.
"No problem." He said as he closed the door behind her.
She thought the bell boy had already told the taxi driver she was going to the airport. At the time, she thought he was probably too busy smiling to remember what came over the radio. She missed the second sign.
