The Tiger's Mail Order Mate (Paranormal Shifter Romance) (10 page)

“You see, we were smart.  The chair is bolted to the floor, so you can’t use it as a weapon.  We have nothing in here for you to use.  The projector is above us in a sealed booth, and the screen is just a large white sheet.  You couldn’t  do anything if you wanted to.” Bankes said. 

“So, you know you can’t drug me into complacency so you’re going to go all Clockwork Orange on me?” Sonja quipped.

“To put it mildly, yes.  We can prevent you from falling asleep rather easily.  You might be able to flush out our psychotropic drugs before they can have any reprogramming benefit, but, we can infuse an IV line with ephedrine and adrenaline to keep you from dozing off.   You’ll be shown a movie until you break then we can reprogram you.”

Sonja snorted.  “What about Russell?” 

“We are repairing his implant.  We plan on using that to reprogram him.  It’s much simpler that way.  We could put one in you but your mutate body would reject it. So, we’re stuck doing it the old way, well the old-old way.”

She felt a prick on the back of her hand and looked down.  She saw a man place an IV line into her vein and start up the saline solution. “So what are we going to do about the bathroom?” she inquired.

“That will be the least of your concern,” Bankes said as he turned to leave.  “Don’t leave her unattended. Two men on her at all times.” 

She saw something move towards her eyes and pry them open.  “Wow, Clockwork Orange all the way, huh?”

The guard tried not to chuckle.  “Yeah, well, at least we have the eye drops. Fight and we won’t put them in, pretty simple.”

“Heh, sounds like a laugh.” Sonja said.  She sat there and wormed her foot out of her sandal and felt around the base of the chair with her toes.  She noticed that one of the bolts was loose and began to work it open with her toes.  One bolt out of four, it seemed as if the chair was hastily bolted down.  This could work in her favor.

The screen ahead flickered to life.  One of the guards next to her slapped on a noise-cancelling Bluetooth headset.  A low-pitched drone filled her ears.  Great, she thought, binaural audio waves.  A few drops were placed in her pried open eyes as she was forced to stare at the white screen as a hypnotic pattern was projected onto it.   She used the mental conditioning she learned at the Ballet School to tune out the binaural waves and focus her thoughts inward as she fished for the second bolt with her toes.

She found the second bolt and began to undo it.  Her guard put two more drops in her eyes as the film rolled on.   Her toes turned the loose bolt silently as the noise droned on in her headset.  While her toes were working at undoing the bolts, she wiggled her eyelids to work the speculums out without damaging her eyes.  The two guards standing next to her were oblivious to her machinations.  They were busy talking to each other about the football game from the previous night. 

Sonja turned the second bolt free and silently placed it on the ground next to the chair.  She scrunched her forehead muscles one more time and painfully forced the metal forceps out from her eyelids and on to her lap.  She then dislocated her thumbs and pulled her hands out from the straps that held her arms to the chair. 

As the guard reached down to put more drops in her eyes, she grabbed his arm and snapped it, breaking it at the elbow.  The man collapsed to his knees and was quickly dispatched with a heel powerfully applied to the temple as Sonja surged up from the chair.   The first guard was twitching on the floor before the second one could even react.

She turned around and swiftly removed the MP-5 the other guard was carrying and aimed it at his head.  The man put his hands up in surrender.   Everything happened so quickly he had no time to react otherwise. 

Sonja ripped off the headphones and threw them to the ground as the unconscious guard gurgled and choked in his death throes.

She stared into the man’s blue eyes that were peeking from behind thick black rimmed glasses.  His square jaw that was lined with blonde stubble was clenched in fear.  “Lll...Look,” he stammered.  “I have a kid, he’s autistic, and I’m just here because...”

Sonja didn’t care.  She unloaded a short burst from the MP-5 into the man’s face and he fell, twitching, to the ground.  She needed to find Russell and fast. 

She opened the door that Colonel Bankes exited from and jogged down the dark hallway.  She heard Bankes’ muffled voice from behind one of the closed steel doors.  She slowly turned the handle so as not to alert the people inside.  They were all facing away from the door, even the armed guards.  Russell was restrained to a standing frame. 

His head nodded groggily as he hung cuffed and shackled to the frame, dressed only in his boxer briefs. 

“Wait for him to come out of it.” Bankes instructed the man in the white lab coat.  “He needs to be fully awake, and tuned in to the woman’s thoughts before we start to reprogram him.”

“How about one more shot of epinephrine?” the ginger haired scientist asked while he pushed his glasses up his wide nose.

“No, the dose you gave him is fine.” Bankes replied.  “He’s starting to come out of it now.”

Russell’s amber eyes fixed intently on Sonja as she hid in the shadows.  He tried to hide the feral grin of satisfaction that crept across his face, but couldn’t, so he directed it at his nemesis.

“You seem happy to be here, Russell.” Bankes began.  “Glad to see it.”

“Oh I’m not happy to be here at all.  I’m actually pretty pissed; you must have me hopped up on extra dope to keep me from changing.”

“Nah.  Just your restraining collar and the frame.  You know that.  It’s not like you haven’t been here before.”

“Well I haven’t been
here.” 
Russell said, it, implying he hadn’t been to this particular black site before.

“No, I can’t say you’ve been to this particular area of the globe, son.” Bankes deftly avoided the attempt to fish out the secret location of this building.  “Now, your pretty little plaything will be pretty zonked out by now, so I think it’s time to start with your end.”

“Good luck with that.” Russell said with a grin that showed his pointy canine teeth.  His face was growing more feral and his hair was growing longer.  “Because,” he snapped one arm restraint with super human strength. “This is the wrong,” Russell snapped the other restraint just as easily, “setting!” He broke the two ankle restraints simultaneously and landed in a crouch on the cement floor. 

He reached up and ripped the restraining collar off his muscular neck and turned his head around to stretch the muscles.  The surrounding scientists hurriedly scrambled out of the room, knowing what was going to happen next. 

Russell knew that it was the right setting, but since Sonja wasn’t incapacitated, he was able to break free of the restraints, and he didn’t need Bankes to know that just yet.  He reached deep down into his psyche and tapped his rage.  He felt his animal self call out and meet the anger head on and the transformation began.

He felt his bones move and change shape underneath his skin, his hair lengthen and his bodyweight double.  His human mind went into a type of sleep as his tiger form took hold. 

He stood there in all his feline majesty.  His orange and black striped fur shone in the bare incandescent lighting.  His amber eyes focused on Colonel Bankes and narrowed dangerously as he padded closer to his intended prey.

Sonja heard his voice clear as a bell in her head.  “You can come out now.  He won’t make a move with me on him.”

She moved out of the darkness and towards the waiting Russell.  Bankes’ eyes widened as he saw the lithe red headed Russian step towards the hulking tiger. 

“You really thought that shoddy bolt job would keep me contained?” Sonja asked.  “And you claimed to have read my dossier.  The Ballet School taught me many things that my dossier didn’t even graze.”

Russell growled deep in his throat as he stalked closer to his former mentor.  “Tell him, that we will let him live if he tells us where we are and gives us the jet to get off of here.”

“Why would you want to keep him alive?” Sonja thought.  “He’ll just come after us again.”

“He might, but he also might not know exactly what’s going on and what’s at stake.”

“You have too much faith in this man.  He knows exactly what is going on. His name is on the documents I left in the hostel.”

“They are no longer at the hostel...” Russell said as he nosed Bankes.  “He found them and put them in his pocket after he dragged us away.”

“Hand them over before I get Russell to chew your balls off.” Sonja said as she held out her hand.

“Hand what over?” Bankes said as he nervously eyed Russell.

The giant tiger pounced on the muscular man and pinned him down.  Russell allowed a gob of drool to drip down one fang and onto the panicked man’s forehead as he stared him in his ice blue eyes.

“Ok, once again, hand the SD cards over.” Sonja barked.

“You know this will completely ruin me.  My career will be over, my wife and kids will be destitute.”

“You don’t have a wife and kids, ” Sonja replied.  “That shit won’t fly with me and you know it.”

“Yes, that’s true isn’t it?  Did you kill your guards?  You must have if you’re standing here.” .

“Maybe I did.  None of your concern.  Just two less mercs for you to pay.” Sonja said bleakly.

“Yeah, one was an okay guy, but the man with glasses; he was such a shit pump.  I guess this was his first ever tour and all he ever did was whine about how he missed his video games and shit, sometimes he even pretended to be sick to get out of missions, I guess.”  Bankes was clearly nervous and was attempting to direct the conversation away from the SD cards.

“Back to the topic.” Sonja said as Russell dug his front claws into Bankes’ torso, causing him to wince. 

“The SD cards.”

“You know, this thing is so much bigger than me.  I’m just a bit player, and it doesn’t matter if I live or die, they’ll still come after you, and the ones after me won’t be as kind as I am.  I was at least going to allow you to live, well, as different people but you’d still be breathing at least.”

“Your kindness warms my heart, I assure you.” Sonja quipped blandly.  “Give us the cards, give us a plane and tell us where we are so we can get out of here.  That’s all.”

“We’re on Midway Atoll; you’ll want to fly over India and the Middle East to get to Germany.” Bankes said.  He was a man who had no longer anything to lose.  “Just so you know, Israel has no stake in this. You might be able to find an ally there.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Sonja enquired.

“Well for one, I’m about to become cat chow.  For two, I was acting on orders and if the Nuremberg Trials have taught me anything, following orders blindly results in some pretty nasty things when the ones giving them are corrupt.  You’ll want to refuel in Manila, Beijing and Sri-Lanka on your way to Israel.  None of those countries will bother you nor ask any questions if you have the right amount of money.”

“Even China?” Sonja asked.

“Especially China.  Look, I’m a dead man either way.  Either Russell here gets his revenge on me, or I wind up with a third eye socket from an Illuminati merc, the result is the same.”

“You want us to go to Israel with dirt on the Illuminati?” Sonja scoffed.

“This whole thing is actually a power play from an Illuminati splinter group.  They worked hard to keep all of this under wraps so they could grab power once the European consortium has bankrupted itself.  Once the USA and Russia branches consolidate their power, there will be a move towards a one-world  government and any resistance will be met with hordes of super soldiers.” Bankes explained as he nervously stared at Russell.

“Wait, I thought the Illuminati weren’t into overt military operations, that they preferred to operate in more subtle ways?”

“They got sick of being clandestine.  They see all the conflict in the world and want to capitalize it.  Profit off it.”