Lisette and the Cyber Geeks
by
Brian Sands
Flikken, Anne Ceurvels, Vrowen in Towen (Damsels in Distress)
Chapter Fourteen Nodal Point Number Six
Lisette, barely conscious from the gag and the pain in her arms and wrists, whimpered in frustration. She had no idea which gang member held her by the shoulder. The thick hood completely sealed her vision and hearing from the outside world. The hands of her captor were strong and firm ... and surprisingly gentle. Even so, Lisette almost passed out as she was propped into a sitting position. Who was it preparing to carry her out to the waiting car? Were the hands those of Mrs Gamms? But she was supposedly in the computer room with Madame Vellum. Sigrid? No ... Lisette had experienced those hands. They were not gentle. The horrible librarian? Hardly, she thought. Then who ...?
The hood was pulled from her face, its thick silk clinging to her sweat-streaked forehead and temples. Through watering eyes, she saw Roger Iggotson’s green eyes looking back at her, an expression of concern mixed with admiration on his face.
"We’ll soon have you out of here, my lady. Keep still. Try to be brave while I relieve you from the worst of it."
The man held the pair of pliers that Vellum had used earlier to snip Lisette free from the chair. He now put them to further good effect by severing the wire bands that were cutting into her wrists. Lisette’s hands hung limply at her back with no strength in them. With a small clasp knife, Roger cut the bonds at the young woman’s elbows, so that her arms lay in a more natural position although they were still bound by the ropes that passed around her body. Lisette shivered as circulation gradually returned to her limbs.
Roger’s fingers reached up and, very gently, he pulled the scarf bandaged around Lisette’s mouth, quickly extracted the gag and stuffed it into his pocket. The scarf that had held it in place fell loosely around her neck.
"Don’t try to talk."
Lisette nodded.
Roger came to his feet, lifting Lisette in his arms as he did so, and walked up the steps to the door. Lisette embraced his neck and attempted to make herself as light as possible.
"Good girl," said Roger softly, observing what she was trying to do. "That’s the spirit."
He walked rapidly along the hallway to the main entrance. Why is he doing this so openly, so confidently? Lisette wondered. Oh ... the other two women must still be tying up Chérie into a bundle like they did with me. That will take time, even if Chérie doesn’t struggle, and they’ve only just left me.
Roger pushed the front door open with his foot and stepped out onto the porch and then to the gravel driveway where two cars were parked. One was Lisette’s little Renault, its motor running. Donald Caisson sat behind the wheel. As Roger walked towards it, Lisette heard a low groan and, when she looked for the cause of the sound, she saw the figure of Doc Legato lying on his back in the flowerbed, his knees drawn to his chin and his hands clutched at his nether regions. As they neared the Renault, Lisette saw lying on the other car parked a short distance away the figure of Bombadil Kidd. The man was sprawled across the bonnet like a bloated starfish. He appeared to be unconscious.
At the Renault, Lisette was set on her feet. Roger opened the rear door and lowered her inside. Lisette fell thankfully into the back seat. Her legs were still taped from ankles to thighs and her arms bound behind her, but she managed to make room to allow Roger to follow. As soon as the door closed, the Renault took off up the driveway in a spray of gravel. I’m rescued, thought Lisette in bewilderment. It had all happened so quickly, the shift from pain, silence, darkness and hopelessness to the comfort of being found again. Roger began cutting the remaining ropes from her body.
Lisette worked her jaw and said in a stronger voice that surprised her, "My god, you two men are wonderful!"
"You’re pretty good yourself," replied Roger, grinning. "Isn’t that so, Sir?"
"Yers. She’s one in a million, Roger."
The tape was cut from Lisette’s legs. As she planted her feet on the floor, Roger took her hands and inspected her wrists.
"Look what they did to her, Sir."
"I see," said Donald grimly, glancing in the interior rear vision mirror. "See what you can do for her, old chap."
"Right."
Lisette’s wrists were lacerated and bruised, but there was very little blood. Roger thought a moment, then drew from his pocket the bunched scarves that had been used to gag Lisette. The first was variegated with all the colours of the rainbow. As he shook it out, it was still quite damp with saliva. Holding it by each side, he prepared to tear it in half when Lisette stopped him.
"No! Don’t! They’re two of my best scarves. Use the whole of that scarf on this wrist, and all of the other on this other wrist ... It’s a good idea," she continued as Rover bandaged her left wrist. "They say that saliva has healing properties. Anyway, it’s my own saliva."
Roger began binding up her right wrist with the other scarf, a pink one that was smaller, more a neckerchief in size than a large square like the first. It was flimsy, and a small amount of blood soaked into it immediately. That wrist was the one most damaged by the wire bonds.
"I’m afraid we’re ruining two of your best scarves, then," said Roger apologetically.
"It’s nothing that a good soaking in a soft washing liquid won’t repair. And anyway, I can dye them a different colour, experiment, if they’re really badly stained. I’m good at Thai dying ... Why have we stopped?"
As she was speaking, while Roger bandaged her wrists, Donald came to the crest of the hill and pulled off along the narrow track they had used earlier. The car became stationary with its motor idling.
"We have a small difficulty," said Donald. "There are three cars, mine, yours and Roger’s. And we can only take two."
"Nonsense! What’s wrong with me driving my own car home?" Lisette argued. She began untying and rearranging the third scarf that hung about her neck.
"But, dear lady, you’ve been through a rough experience," said Roger.
"I took my chances like everyone else," said Lisette a trifle haughtily as she fluffed up the scarf at her throat, "And I refuse to be mollycoddled. Don, I’ll agree to be cuddled, later on. But while we’re on the case, we’re a team, aren’t we?"
"No truer words were ever spoken," agreed Roger. "Sir, you can’t gainsay the lady."
"No. It appears that I can’t," answered Donald Caisson with a small sigh.
"And another thing," said Lisette as she scrambled into the front seat next to Donald, "I’m all for going back and rescuing Chérie. We can’t leave her there!"
"You’re right, Lisa, if you feel well enough ..."
"Sir, that may be difficult ... look!"
They were parked in the section of the track that overlooked the farmhouse. The lights in the windows winked out as they watched, but the front area remained lit with the ghostly glow of the porch lamp combined with the headlights of the criminal’s car. Dawn was several hours away, and the area outside the lighted space lay in solid darkness. As they watched, two figures emerged from the front door carrying a large bundle between them. They crossed to the car and the lid of the boot opened. The figures were lost to sight for about twenty seconds until they stepped back as the boot closed. It was difficult to recognise them from that distance and in the poor visibility, but Lisette was almost certain that the larger of the two persons was Sigrid. The other she guessed was the Wimple woman.
Lisette Ruisseau, Donald Caisson and Roger Iggotson said nothing. It was all too obvious that Chérie was the bundle stowed away in the boot by Sigrid and Dorothea Wimple, who were completing their orders to "secure" Chérie.
The two women stood by the side of the car, evidently waiting. Almost immediately the porch light went out and three more figures descended from the house and walked to the car. They stood in a close knot at the driver’s door. Only their vague shapes could be see against the glow of the headlights. Now Vellum, Gamms and Moons, thought Lisette. Where are the men?
From the far side of the house the glow of headlights from another car suddenly sprang to life. They strengthened as the vehicle emerged from what appeared to be a narrow path. Walking backwards ahead of it, directing the driver by waving his arms about, was the unmistakable figure of Bombadil Kidd. He was swaying a little and his gestures could do nothing to assist the driver, who was probably Doc Legato.
"You must have hit him very hard, Roger," chuckled Donald Caisson.
"Indeed, Sir. It was appropriate at the time," replied Roger drily. "I daresay the driver of that car is also in some discomfort."
"Yers. But we can’t do anything to help Chérie Chalmers immediately."
"If I might suggest, Sir, while you take this young woman home to her apartment and tend to her wounds, I shall follow the miscreants."
"Excellent idea, Roger ... Lisette?"
"It sounds best," said Lisette. "I don’t suppose we can stop them as they go pass?"
"That’s a possibility ..."
"It may have been Sir, but, see, they’re turning the other way!"
"Travelling further into the country. Yers."
"I’d better hop to it Sir, although on this open road it won’t be easy to lose them."
Without another word, Roger slipped from the car and disappeared. Several seconds later, the dark shape of his vehicle emerged from the trees onto the track and turned in the direction of the main road. It’s light came on as it entered the road, then it was gone.
"He’s quick, and very efficient," said Lisette. "I think his nick-name as a prowler, a rôdeur, is well earned."
"He has mysterious ways, to the uninitiated ... Lisette, do you think you can manage driving on your own while I follow behind?"
"Of course. Now that I have my dear little car, I feel a lot better. I can even feel my wrists healing."
"All right, but drive carefully."
The journey back to the city was uneventful. Lisette drove cautiously, more tired than she cared to admit. But the familiarity of being in her own car was a big comfort. The villains had even topped it up with fuel, so there was no reason to stop anywhere on the way home. As she pulled into her parking bay in the tenants’ area below her apartment, Donald’s car slid in almost beside hers in one of the visitors’ sections. The sight of him standing nearby as she alighted from her car, the faint bulge showing under his garish jacket now that she knew where to look, gave Lisette added reassurance. She linked her arm in his as they mounted the steps to the lift, and stayed that way, leaning on him, as they rode up to her floor.
Donald Caisson preceded Lisette into her apartment, his right hand under his jacket. The flat was as they had left it, everything in its place.
"Don, I- I think I’ll have a shower and freshen up, get into something more comfortable, as they say."
"Good idea, kid. I’ll set things up in here if I may?"
He indicated Lisette’s office with the computer.
"Of course. Then you have to tell me all about how you and Roger rescued me."
*
When Lisette emerged from her bedroom twenty minutes later she was fresh and pretty in a blue silk dressing gown. Her honey-auburn hair in a halo around her shoulders changed colour as the morning sun pouring in at the window caught it in her passage. Donald Caisson, now in shirtsleeves, stood by the computer transfixed by her beauty. Dark patches under Lisette’s eyes and translucent tape bandaging one of her wrists were almost the sole testimony of the ordeal she had gone through a few hours ago. She walked up to Donald, flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him slowly and thoughtfully, experimenting with her lips and teeth against his lips, gradually becoming more insistent, and more aroused as she felt Donald Caisson respond.
"The- the disc ..." Donald began in a half hearted whisper.
"That will wait, Darling." Lisette looked gravely into Donald Caisson’s eyes. "C’mere, Don."
She took him by the shirt front and almost dragged him from the office, across the living room to her bedroom. Once inside, she pushed the door shut, turned, and began feverishly to unbutton his shirt. Without stopping, she unbuckled the belt of his trousers. She looked down, then raised her face to Don’s, a pretty flush suffusing her cheeks and neck.
"The rest too. I want to see every bit of you ... As for me ..."
Lisette flung her head back, exposing her creamy throat, and with a single movement pulled apart the knot of her sash. The dressing gown slid from her shoulders and down her body in undulating folds of rich silk, where it pooled on the floor around her feet. She wore nothing beneath it. Donald Caisson, experienced as he was, caught his breath at the sight of Lisette’s perfect upright breasts, adorned with nipples erect with desire contrasted against a moat of dark areolae. Her flat abdomen surmounted a triangle of fine silky hair that hid the treasure within.
Lisette raised her hands in mock surrender, then put her arms behind her back and looked up defiantly at Don as though he was her captor. The continuing flush in her face, and her pupils dilated with love, would have showed an observer of this precious moment that real-life capture and kidnap was in their minds a lover’s game only.
"Take me, Don," Lisette commanded huskily, "Take me and ravish me. Bind me if you have to, only make sure it’s good and tight, so I can’t get away!"
Donald Caisson shook his head slowly and seriously. As naked as Lisette, he stepped forward and took her in his arms. His fingers entwined in her hair and gently rubbed the base of her scalp.
"Not this time, Darling. I’ll bind you another time. That’s a promise."
"And you’re so good at it," Lisette murmured, scarcely able to speak as the pleasure from Don’s fingers rippled through her body. "I want to be your captive. I don’t want to be able to get away."
"I know."
"Not for any other man."
"I know."
"Good, then why don’t you ... mmmmph?"
Lisette’s voice was cut off as Donald Caisson placed a hand firmly over her mouth and steered her towards the bed. Lisette had thoughtfully left the top sheet of fine linen and the coverlet turned back. They tumbled upon it, Lisette pinned beneath Don’s muscular thighs. Not to be outdone, Lisette circled Don’s waist with her legs and pushed her now moist triangle against the man’s erect sex. As the treasure was penetrated, man and woman shuddered in unison, engulfed by waves of pleasure.
The morning sun crawled across the sky, while on the small blue and white planet below two of its myriad inhabitants shared a conjunction as old as time.
*
Lisette awoke to found herself in a tangle of arms and legs with Donald Caisson, who was dozing contentedly beside her. She prepared to embrace him, but nothing happened. As she became more awake, she found that her hands were above her and that her wrists were tied together to part of the cast iron frame of the bed. One of Don’s arms was linked between her two restrained limbs. His other arm rested across her so that the forearm supported her breasts. With a small move, Donald’s fingers had easy access to the nipple of her right breast. She wondered whether sleeping on the left side of the bed, from the sleeper’s point of view, was an accident or whether Don preferred that side.
She stirred, stretching her fingers, trying to figure out how she was tied. It was the silken sash of her dressing gown, bound lightly enough to allow the cloth to slide smoothly around her wrists. It felt good. One end of the sash where it lay across the inner dimple of her elbow was tickling her arm. One of her legs was thrown over Don’s thigh and her sex pressed lightly against his. Her small movements were already causing it to come alive. Lisette felt a pang of frustrated desire. She could not reach the man’s treasure, and tease it, with her hands tied. She stirred again and gently poked Donald Caisson in the calf of his leg with her heel. Don’s eyes opened and met her own.
"That’s a mean trick, Donald Caisson," whispered Lisette wickedly, her eyes bright, her face glowing. "I ... can’t ... reach ... down ... there." With each word, she rubbed her pussy against the man for emphasis. "Don’t you know it’s leap year? A girl has plenty of prerogative, except that with her hands tied she can’t employ it."
"I’m learning the nature of your prerogatives every day, kid," replied Don in a voice thick with desire, "Such as, you like to be tied up. You can’t complain, considering you asked me to do it."
"M- My prerogative allows me to complain whenever I wish, Darling," said Lisette in a fair imitation of hauteur. She looked up. "And it’s such a simple knot too!"
Don’s fingers were now resting lightly against her wrists, within easy reach of the half bow that had been tied there.
"Would you like me to untie it?"
"No ... No, keep me like this for awhile ... But you’re going to have to do something about ... this!" Lisette pushed her hips harder against his. She felt Don’s sex beginning to rise, generating a pleasurable glow that started to spread through her own.
"If you can get to it without moving away, you’ll find a couple of scarves in that bedside dresser," she said.
Don’s arm reached out, the top drawer opened, and his hand came back with a fistful of silks. He held them up in front of Lisette’s eyes.
"What do you propose I do with these?" he asked in simulated innocence.
"Ohh Don. Stop teasing me and get on with it. Please, Darling?"
"Get on with what?"
"Oh! Men!" cried Lisette in equally simulated exasperation. "Blindfold me ... But don’t move away! Use that flimsy one. Folded into a few layers, it will stop me from seeing what you have planned for me."
"Do I have plans for you?"
"Merciful heavens! Blindfold me! Please ... Ohhh ... that feels nice, the silk against my face ... Use the heavier silk to stop my mouth ... ummmmph."
"Like this?"
‘Mmm hmmm."
With her hands tied, unable to see, unable to give any clear instructions through the thick silk that was bound over her mouth, Lisette gave herself up in total surrender to Donald Caisson’s hands. She abandoned all control, offered her body’s flower for the man to enter whenever and however he liked. Donald Caisson led her through, almost teasing but never withdrawing and never interrupting the exquisitely slow and increasingly intense flowering towards conflagration. When the orgasm came, Lisette’s body was penetrated by waves of pleasure that never seemed to end. She almost passed out and, when more of her wits returned, she found that the gag had been pulled down from her face and Don was tenderly but very thoroughly kissing her lips. As the after-play progressed, her hands were released, she was able to put her arms around Don, and she slipped into a heavy, beatific sleep.
*
Lisette woke to a feeling of absence. Donald Caisson was no longer lying beside her. She pushed herself up on her pillow, took the matching one that Don had used, plumped it up and placed it with the first to support her back. She ran fingers through her tousled hair and tried to take stock. She was feeling very relaxed, a trifle blue, which she put down straight away to post coital triste, which was therefore something that could be handled, and she was a little sore. She looked at the bedside clock. It was midday. Well I needed this morning’s sleep, she thought. What sleep I had, that is. But where was Don?
In an almost magical response to her thought, Donald Caisson appeared at the bedroom door with a breakfast tray in his hands. He was wearing Lisette’s blue silk dressing gown. The sash that had been used to tie her down earlier was now around his waist. He sat in bed beside her and they ate the omelette and drank the fruit juice and coffee in companionable silence.
When they were finished and the food tray put to one side, Lisette curled up in Don’s arms and said, "You haven’t told me how you and Roger got into the house and rescued me."
"You didn’t give me a chance to tell you," replied Donald squeezing her shoulders in a hug. "Like now, for instance. You know that’s very distracting."
Lisette’s hand had slipped under the covers.
"Mm hmm, so can you tell me now?"
Don firmly retrieved Lisette’s hand. They tussled gently as he gathered her other hand, which had also begun a capillary-like creep downwards, and brought her wrists together in front of her. Lisette looked down at the sash around Don’s waist, then raised her eyes to his.
"No!" said Don firmly.
"You don’t know what I was going to say," said Lisette, her wide eyes inviting Donald Caisson to tie her up again as she spoke.
"Oh yes I do ... And, if I give in, we’ll be here all afternoon."
"Is that so bad? You found some wonderfully sensitive parts of my body I didn’t know I had. Little nodes of pleasure here and there ... hmmm ... " Lisette went into deep lateral thought.
Don replied on the former wavelength. "No. In normal circumstances it’s very desirable. But there’s a lot to do."
"There was something ... I can’t remember ... All right, talk away." Lisette gave up and snuggled almost contentedly against Donald Caisson.
"You can probably guess what happened after the gang left you in the cellar. I was evicted immediately as a not very worthy underling who had somewhat redeemed himself by bringing you in. I had orders to go to another place and make a pick-up and a delivery."
"No word was said about framing you?"
"No. That’s a mystery. If it wasn’t Vellum’s little crowd who could it have been?"
"The Revenue mole, the mysterious burglar?"
"Possibly one of them, unless it’s the same person. Anyway, I drove off, hid the car on the hill, and walked back to the house. In the meantime, Roger in his inimitable fashion slipped into the place and was already in the computer room downloading their company files."
"It’s a company?"
"Very much so. Your Revenue outfit may have something on them. Caramels S’allier, or Associated Fudge Inc. they call themselves. They’re a trans-Atlantic group based in Montreal ... I found the spot where Roger made his entrance and joined him just as he was finishing. We heard the sound of a car so we made it posthaste out of there. It was the little spiv, Doc Legato. I knew he’d blow my cover, so to gain a little time I interrupted him when he stepped out of the car and ..."
"Damaged the family jewels, again?"
"Yers ... Right ... At that moment Doctor Kidd came to the door, obviously to let the other doc in, and Roger disposed of him."
"He did a good job."
"Roger is trained in savate, among other things."
"Savate? Oh, you mean the French martial art?"
"Yers. Roger overheard them talking about you and Chérie earlier, before I arrived, and he wanted to get at least one of you out of there. We saw your little car of course, and the Kidd fellow had the key in his pocket. So I waited while Roger found you. I didn’t go in myself because Roger is the expert at penetrating houses ..."
"You’re expert at penetrating ... mmmmm."
"Yers. And that’s all there is to it ... Now, there are a number of things we have to do. Roger phoned in, a short while ago ... Lisa, can I take my hand off your mouth?"
"Mmm hm."
"Games later, dear ... Lisa ... will you go through the data for us that Roger downloaded from Vellum’s computer? You’re good at that sort of thing."
"I’m happy to. But I want to be in on rescuing Chérie as well. Don’t you two men go off and do it all by yourselves!"
"We won’t. You’ll be able to help us."
"As a decoy again?"
"I don’t think they’ll fall for that trick a second time. But it’s just possible that they’ll try to snatch you themselves. They only have half the problem contained with Chérie as their prisoner. They’ll want to get to you before you can tell the authorities. And that could be tonight. Even so, they can’t be certain how much is now known by Inland Revenue."
"It’s the weekend. Everything’s closed down till Monday. Even if I sent an email to the department no-one will read it until then."
"Right. So they might still think it’s worth the risk of abducting you again. So this is what I’m asking you please to do. First, check out the company’s files. They’re all on a zip disc in your office here. Secondly, I want to meet you tonight for dinner early, say seven o’clock. Thirdly, you spend the night here. If you receive a phone call, or if someone comes to the door, you are to fall into the trap and allow yourself to be captured. Roger and I will be watching and we’ll trail you. It’s another big risk. Are you willing?"
"Of course, Darling. I’ve been a decoy once. I can be one again. Only, Don my love, do be close at hand won’t you?"
"You have nothing to fear on that score. Except ... we’re not sure where the gang members will be, whether they’ll stay together now that they’re in danger, or whether they’ll disperse."
"Surely dispersing would be their best option?"
"Yers. But there’s some sort of job they’re halfway through, and they have Chérie to guard."
"Even though she’ll be bound and gagged?"
"I suspect they won’t leave her alone for any long period, not after the different escapes you’ve achieved. If they do disperse, there’ll be at least one or two gang members with the job of holding their prisoner."
"What was the task they set you?"
‘I have to pick up a small black box from a minor underworld pawnbroker and deliver it to an address that is not the place where Roger trailed them to last night."
"Where Chérie is?"
"Yers."
"And where’s that?"
"Out in the country, further than that farmhouse where we rescued you."
"Oh yes, they drove in the opposite direction, I was forgetting. But you can’t do that now that your cover’s been blown by Billy the Kid."
"Yers, but I can pick up the box."
"Another clue?"
"Yers. The difficulty is, we know where Chérie is being held, for the present anyhow. And Roger’s out there keeping an eye on things. But we have no idea of the whereabouts of their central delivery and dispatch point."
"Don ... I’m trying to remember something I overheard when I was in that awful farmhouse ... Central delivery points ... Nodes of pleasure ... I’m being serious this time so don’t gag me ... Let’s see ... Nodal Point ... Nodal Point Number Six. That’s what they said! It’s some kind of special meeting place, and it was something to do with their latest shipment."
"Great!" said Donald caisson ironically. "Except that we have no idea where that is."
*
Donald Caisson left twenty minutes later after washing up the breakfast things. Lisette slept for another hour, then rose at two-thirty, showered, and dressed for dinner. She donned a smart suit that was midway between business and casual, a light blue jacket teamed with skintight slacks, highlighted by a crisp spotlessly white cotton shirt.
For the next hour, she sat at the computer and scrolled through the files that Roger had downloaded, making notes on a sheet of paper by her side. The information was extremely interesting and she thought that she was getting closer to solving the twin mysteries. The criminal cartel’s main functioning point seemed to be the flower farm. It was in all probability "Nodal Point Number Six," though she could not be a hundred percent sure of that. Moreover, she was getting a stronger suspicion of what the company was smuggling. It was puzzling, almost laughable.
Lisette shut down the computer with a sigh and slipped the zip disc and her notes together into an envelope. She a small office safe. It stood unobtrusively in a corner of the room disguised as a bookcase. And she placed trhe small packet there for safekeeping. Then she rose and walked to the kitchen and began to prepare a strong coffee. There were about three hours to go before she was to meet Donald Caisson at the restaurant.
"Oh bother," she exclaimed half aloud.
She needed milk. A modest general store that sold breakfast cereals and milk, along with alcohol - she had bought some good wine there - was in the same block of apartments, its entrance from the main road. Snatching up her purse from the handbag, she walked quickly to the door and flung it open.
Lisette Ruisseau walked straight into the waiting arms of a rotund man dressed in a dark plastic mackintosh. He wore an Inspector Clouseau mask. As he pushed her gently back into the apartment, his bulk making it impossible for Lisette to resist, he spoke, in a rough voice like the last time, but in carefully modulated tones.
"Don’ give me no trouble, girly. I’m not gonna hurt yer, remember the last time?"
"How can I forget," Lisette countered, "It’s not often I’m tied up and left in my own apartment," but becoming increasingly more frequent as time goes by, she added to herself.
"Well now, that’s what I’ll have ta do again. Sorry about this. No calling for help now."
As they were speaking, Lisette was being herded across the living room into her own bedroom. The big man indicated the bed.
"Lie down, on yer face. No, it ain’t what yer thinkin."
I’m glad of that, thought Lisette resignedly as she lay on the coverlet that had only recently witnessed her bondage in love at the hands of Donald Caisson.
The big man’s approach was very different and eminently practical. From his pocket he produced a large roll of black industrial tape and, after warning Lisette to cross her hands behind her, taped her wrists together methodically under about six layers of the stuff. Lisette had been taped up before, by Priscilla Moons at what was probably Nodal Point Number Six, so she already knew how it felt. Her wrists were welded together by the tape and, if no means of cutting it on something could be found, she would remain bound that way until someone rescued her. The man taped her ankles together just as methodically, and completed the job of subduing his victim by sealing her lips shut under a single wide and very sticky piece of the same tape.
"Now, Miss Ruisseau of Inland Revenue," said the man as he stood back and surveyed his prize, "Let’s take up again where we left off the other day. You have a few questions to answer. But, first, I want you to listen to a proposition."
ã Brian Sands 2004
ã Brian Sands 2004