Cadet 3 (11 page)

Jodie had recovered enough to sit upright on
the ground. She had obviously been following the conversation.
“That’s the true meaning of bullshit,” she said. “And the first
time I’ve ever heard anybody claim that duty and treason were one
and the same. But putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it a
supermodel, Admiral. How does it feel, Captain Hall, to find out
what kind of crowd you’re working for?”

Admiral Carroll rushed over to Jodie. “How
does
this
feel, cunt?” he asked, as he drew back his foot
and kicked her hard on her lower ribcage.

Jodie gave a great cry, and fell over on her
side.

Captain Hall’s hand fell to his sidearm. He
stepped between the writhing Jodie and her assailant.
“Respectfully, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to stay away from
my prisoners from now on, Admiral Carroll, sir,” he said, his jaw
muscles twitching.

Admiral Hall jumped up from behind the desk,
and went to put a restraining hand on his son’s arm. “Of course he
will,” he said. “Admiral Carroll is just so worried about the
country that he got a little carried away. Isn’t that right,
Admiral?” The expression on his face suggested that his subordinate
would be unwise to disagree.

“Ah, yes, of course, my apologies, Captain
Hall,” Carroll said quickly. “I just got a little… er… excited, as
your father said. I didn’t intend to interfere with your
prisoners.”

“Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to
take a break yourself, take some time to think things over, to
remember exactly who you are and where your loyalties lie,” Admiral
Hall suggested. “We need some time alone with General Lawrence, to
see if we can’t reach some kind of accommodation with her that will
serve the best interests of the country.”

Captain Hall did not appear to like this idea
very much. “Sir, my duty requires…”

“If you’re worried about your prisoners, you
have my word that they will be treated with the respect they
deserve,” the Admiral cut in smoothly. “Now go get a cup of coffee.
I’ll call you in an hour or so, when our discussion here is over.
That’s an order, Captain.”

Captain Hall looked at the three prisoners,
and then turned to face his father again. He saluted, said, “Yes,
sir,” and made a parade-ground about-face, then left the room. As
soon as the door closed behind him, Murchison and Carroll let out
withheld breaths.

Chapter Eight: “What’s long and round and
soft…”

“Jesus, for a second there, I thought he was
going to shoot me!” Rear Admiral Carroll said.

“Are you a hundred percent certain he is
reliable, Clarence?” Murchinson asked. “Did you see the expression
on his face when you told him the stork doesn’t bring the babies?
He’s not exactly politically sophisticated, is he? And if he
decides to go off the reservation…”

“You have nothing to worry about, Alfred,”
Hall assured him. “He is a very idealistic lad, a little
unrealistic at times, but absolutely loyal to me. Forget about him,
and let’s give Cafferson’s whores a going-away fuck, before we get
them out of our hair for good.”

“I thought you told Sonny-boy you weren’t
going to hurt us,” Robin said. “He might be a trifle peeved if he
comes back to find us all dead.”

Hall snorted. “I said you would be treated as
you deserved,” he said, “and you will, I promise. Don’t you worry
your tiny little brain about my son. He’s a big boy; he’ll get over
it. Besides, you three whores are about to have troubles of your
own.”

The three men approached the prisoners and
pulled them up by their hair. The orange plastic ponchos that had
constituted their only garments were ripped from their bodies,
leaving them with no more covering than a layer of dirt.

The room was equipped for what was
euphemistically called “enhanced interrogations”, previously known
as torture, which had been permitted under the Murchinson regime
but outlawed by Cafferson. Evidently, the men behind the creation
of the secret Naval Internal Security unit had not felt constrained
by the new rules. Their captors therefore had a wealth of devices
available to use on their captives.

Robin and Merry were placed side-by-side in
identical positions by General Murchison and Admiral Carroll. They
were made to stand with their legs spread wide apart on stands six
inches above the floor. Their wrists were left cuffed together and
their elbows were forced painfully together with wires. Nooses at
the ends of ropes that wound through overhead pulleys were fitted
closely under the chins of the sisters.

Admiral Hall seemed to bear a particular
animus for Jodie, and he had a different fate planned for her. She
was bent backwards around a metal drum, with her hands secured far
above her head and her legs splayed wide apart. The drum was on an
axle, and it could be rotated backwards until the occupant’s head
was submerged in a tank of water. There was also a small control
panel that could be used to dispense electric shocks in any
strength desired, and a selection of electrodes and clamps to
administer them to various parts of the subject’s body.

While they were being tied up, Jodie tried to
keep their spirits up by telling jokes. “Hey Robin, I have a
riddle. What’s long and round and soft and filled with seamen?”

“If you had said ‘long and round and
hard
’, I would have guessed a submarine,” Robin answered.
“But I don’t know this one.”

“Easy,” Jodie said. “It’s an Admiral’s
cock.”

Murchinson’s face worked as if he was trying
to suppress a laugh. Carroll reddened, and Hall continued to
tighten the cable stretching Jodie around the cylinder without any
visible reaction.

“Here’s one for you, Jodie,
awk
…”
Merry began, then momentarily stopped as when Admiral Carroll
pulled on the rope around her neck, forcing her up on her toes to
escape strangulation. She continued haltingly in a hoarse, choked
voice. “How do… sailors get… their clothes… washed?”

Jodie’s body was stretched to its limit
around the metal drum, and the strain on her joints, particularly
her shoulders and elbows, was becoming close to unbearable. Still,
she managed to grit out an answer. “That’s a trick… trick question.
Ahh
! Everybody knows sailors… don’t
wash
.”

At this, General Murchinson gave a snort of
laughter. “Good one,” he commented.

“Here’s one for you,” snarled Admiral Hall
leaning down to bring his face an inch away from Jodie’s. “How long
does it take for a smart-mouth cunt to grow gills?” He pushed the
lever on the side of the drum, causing it to rotate backward and
plunge Jodie’s head into the tank of water. “Give up?” he asked.
“The answer is ‘too long’.”

He picked up a thin, whippy metal rod, and
began to flay Jodie with it, raising a network of overlapping
narrow red welts on the pale flesh. She twisted on the drum to the
very limited extent permitted by the tight bonds on her body, while
bubbles indicating her suffering disturbed surface of the
water.

Admiral Carroll inspected the bodies of the
naked Bransom sisters and was not happy with what he saw. “Look at
them. Those bitches are filthy,” he said. “They have to be cleaned
up before we touch them.”

“You’re right, Carroll,” said General
Murchinson. “There’s a hose over there in that sink. You can wash
them down with that.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Robin suggested.
“Let us down and we’ll take showers, and then we can put on make-up
and heels for you.”

“Waste of time, Sis,” Merry said. “He
probably hasn’t had a hard-on for
years
.”

The Rear Admiral ignored the taunt. He picked
up the hose, opened up the faucet in the utility sink and returned
to the Bransom sisters, with the hose unreeling behind him.

He pointed the nozzle at Robin and played a
jet of icy water over her naked body. She had been preparing
herself for this, but was still unable to keep herself from
squirming at the shock of the water soaking her naked flesh. She
was barely able to keep her feet from slipping off the platforms on
which she stood, and hanging herself.

After he had carefully washed down Robin,
front and back, the Admiral gave Merry the same treatment. The
younger Bransom was not quite as lucky as her sister. When the
stream of water hit her, her left foot slid from the block. An
instant later, she was doing a frantic dance in the air, dangling
by her neck six inches above the floor.

“What the fuck are you doing?” General
Murchinson exclaimed. He leaped forward to grab Merry around the
waist and hold her up until she regained her footing. “I haven’t
even had a chance to fuck her yet!” He looked down at himself. His
jacket and pants were sopping. “And now look at my uniform. I’ll
have to take it off and hope it dries out before I appear in
public.” He began to undress, folding his wet clothing over the
back of a chair.

While the sisters were being prepared to meet
Admiral Carroll’s exacting standards of cleanliness, Admiral Hall
brought Jodie, sputtering, coughing and shaking her head, up out of
the tank. He watched the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she
pumped air into her starved lungs.

“Have a nice swim, General?” he asked. “I was
strongly tempted to leave you in there longer. It would give me
great satisfaction to finally repay you for destroying my career.
But we have plenty of time, and there are so many other pleasures
to enjoy before then.”

Jodie finally gathered enough oxygen to have
spare breath for conversation. “This… isn’t about… the country… is
it?” she puffed. “It’s not even… about power. You don’t care… if
the coup is successful, you… don’t even care if you… are executed
after this is over… as long as you get your revenge. That’s why
you’re not worried about how shoddy the whole scheme is.” She
realized as she said this, that Hall’s acts were not those of a
rational man.

Admiral Hall smiled, making his thin face
momentarily resemble that of a crocodile. “Still a clever little
cunt, aren’t you?” he asked. “But it won’t matter to you what
happens one way or the other, because by then you and your friends
will be long past caring.”

General Murchinson and Admiral Carroll had
dried the bodies of their “dates”, and were now enjoying themselves
with them. Murchinson was standing in front of Merry, urging her on
to greater efforts, saying, “Fuck me! Harder, you hot little bitch!
Ride me, slut!...” and so forth. Merry had no choice but to cling
to him with her legs encircling his body, as this was the only way
for her to stave off strangulation.

Carroll was shorter than the General, so he
had pulled up a stool and positioned it between her legs. He sat on
the stool and pulled her down onto him, then holding her buttocks
from below he bounced her vigorously up and down. This caused the
rope around her neck to close her windpipe at the bottom of each
stroke, and partially open it again on the upstroke. Robin was on
the verge of unconsciousness, fighting off the gray mist gathering
around her brain with hasty, inadequate breaths. She was far too
busy concentrating on staying alive to hear Carroll’s stream of
taunts such as, “I’m doing to you what you did to Clarence and me.
How do you like it?” and “Don’t die too soon, now. The fun has just
begun.”

He stood up the moment he finished, shouting,
“Take that, you dirty little bitch!” Robin did not hear him, as she
had passed out. The Rear Admiral placed Robin’s feet back on the
platforms, loosened the rope a few inches, and slapped her face
until her eyes flickered open as consciousness returned.

Merry was in better shape than her sister.
Murchinson returned her to stand on the platforms and patted her
cheek. “That was the best fuck I’ve had in a long time, and you are
the most beautiful girl I think I’ve ever seen. I wish there was
some way to keep you alive, but I can’t think of one. I just want
you to know, when the time comes, I have nothing against you, any
of you, personally. It’s just business.”

“That will be a great comfort when you kill
us, I’m sure,” Merry said faintly.

He laughed, and slapped her bottom. “That’s
the spirit! If Cafferson was here, I’d admit to him that I was all
wrong about his girl soldiers. If the other ones are anything like
you, they’re plenty tough enough. I would tell him that, right to
his face!”

While his colleagues were busy with Robin and
Merry, Admiral Hall had not been idle. Leaving Jodie still spread
out on the drum, he attached a pair of automobile jumper cables to
her breasts. The powerful springs on the clamps made the teeth very
nearly meet in her flesh, and the tips of her breasts rapidly
started to turn red, then purple. The cables were attached to a
control box, and he set the control panel to give the screaming
Jodie shocks at ten second intervals. Then he tipped the cylinder
back, plunging her head into the water again, and started to
viciously pound into her, watching the bubbles and ripples on the
surface of the water made by Jodie as she fought for her life. This
time, he did not relent until the bubbles stopped and her small
white form was still and limp. Then he pulled the handle, bringing
her back to the air, but not necessarily to life. Her eyes were
open and unseeing, her lips blue. At first, it appeared as though
life had fled her body.

“No, no, you’re not getting off that easily,”
he told the unmoving Jodie. He laid his head on her chest, and
detected a faint heartbeat. Then he began to administer mouth to
mouth resuscitation while manually working her chest, and in a few
seconds, she responded, coughing weakly and bringing up water from
her lungs.

Hall batted her head back and forth a few
times with blows of his open hand, until she opened her eyes. “So
you’re back with us. Good. I still haven’t tried out that cute
little ass of yours. I hope it hasn’t been spoiled by too much
whoring for Cafferson,” he said.