The Babylon rite

31

Thornhill Crescent, Islington, London

Adam sensed the danger immediately. He leapt from his stool and ran to the door; just as the dark, leather-coated man kicked it with a boot-heel.

Adam’s fist connected with a chin, satisfyingly; the man reeled back; Adam punched again — but this time his fist missed, and instead the hard butt of a pistol cracked Adam’s head, sending him spinning. And then, with great speed, the intruder twirled the gun and pressed it hard into Adam’s stomach. Ready to shoot. Adam froze.

‘Good move, mate, very sensible. Back off.’ The man spoke, in an American accent. He eyed Nina in the semi-dark. ‘Same goes for you. Back the fuck off, bitch.’ His gaze switched between them. ‘So we’re all here. Very good. Both of the girls, both of the McLintocks. And you, the brawling Aussie. Adam Blackwood, right? My name’s Ritter. Not that it’s going to help you now, mate. Get over there, join the girls. And put all your fucking cellphones on the counter. Right now. Or,’ he angled the muzzle of the gun at Hannah, ‘I will put my gun in her cunt. And shoot.’

The phones clattered on to the counter.

Ritter briskly filled a sink with water, and chucked the phones in the liquid. Then he commanded, ‘Upstairs. Let’s have ourselves a little downtime. A meeting. So we can share. Condemned Fuckers Anonymous. Hi, I’m Adam and I’m about to die. Hello, Adam. Hello, Tony.’

His pistol pursued them up the stairs into a green painted sitting room. Leather couches, some not-too-abstract art.

‘Typical. No proper fucking chairs. The fucking English bourgeoisie.’ Ritter sighed.

Adam watched, waiting for a moment to fight, it could be the last chance. Ritter’s thirty-something face was darkish. And he was big. A fleck of foam silvered at the corner of his mouth as if he had the lips of a rambling coke addict. But he did not seem high; eager, alert and bright-eyed, but not high. He seemed wary, wised up, lean, ruthless.

Ritter produced three sets of handcuffs from a pocket of his capacious leather coat. Hannah, Adam and Nina backed into the corner. Adam edged further, as discreetly as he could, to the window.

‘Don’t scream out of the window. Or I will hurt your friends. Very, very badly.’

Hannah was close to crying, her face a crumpling mask of failing courage. Folding on itself, into tears. Nina was impressively blank. Adam admired her display of courage, even as he realized what appalling danger they were in: this man wouldn’t have let his name slip unless he aimed to kill them all, tonight. Indeed, Ritter was taunting them: evidently enjoying the horror.

Ritter spat: ‘Right. All of you, sit there. In front of the radiator. Now. In a nice row like dogs at a show.’

They did as they were told. Adam squirmed, and furiously calculated the chances. A desperate rugby tackle might just unbalance the man. Ritter was big, at least six foot, but not as big as Adam. He looked fit, but not real Aussie Rules fit, like Adam. It could be done. Adam could take him, if only he could get near. One more time. He’d got that first punch in, he could do it again. Better this time.

But Ritter was blithe and clever in his long leather coat, he kept his distance, and his gun cocked, and his eyes on his captives, as he went from window to window, locking them and closing the curtains.

Ritter kicked out the landline phone sockets and stamped on them, trashing the phonelines. With the mobiles drowned, they were now entirely incommunicado.

Now he turned to them. ‘I need to keep you safe. And quiet. So we can talk.’ He tossed the handcuffs in Adam’s direction. ‘Put these on the girls. Chain them to the heater. Now.’

Adam did as he was instructed. The radiator was uncomfortably hot: he was already sweating. His moist hands slipped as he snapped the cuffs first over Nina, on one side, and then over Hannah, on the other side. Perhaps he would get a chance — one last opportunity to tackle this guy — before he himself was secured.

He got no chance. Ritter came over fast and locked Adam, likewise, to the firm ironwork of the radiator pipes. Now they were all shackled. Ritter extracted a cylindrical black silencer from an inside pocket and screwed it on to the muzzle of his pistol. ‘The Tundra Gemtech Suppressor,’ he said, almost murmuring. ‘As they say, it does not render the shooter inaudible, so much as invisible.’ A flash of a grin. ‘Reckon we’re ready.’

Traffic passed outside, oblivious to the hideous drama herein.

‘Did you kill my father?’ Nina asked.

Ritter laughed. Tall in his long leather jacket. Looking like a renegade Nazi, a Spanish Nazi with a Texan accent. ‘You still think that shit? Your dad killed himself. He was dying.’ Another laugh. ‘Or do you really think he had found something amazing?’ Ritter stopped closer to Nina. ‘Mmm? Would he do all that and then just top himself? Without even a note to say thanks for the motherfucking haggis?’

He slapped her gently across the face, twice, like a cat cuffing a ball of wool. ‘Tell me, Nina McLintock. I researched you. You’re the fucked-up little sister, right? You tried to kill yourself didn’t you? Last year? So why are you so fucking surprised that your dear old dad had the same gene?’ The gun stroked Nina’s white cheek. Then the muzzle edged to her neck, her pale sweating neck. Pointing down to the incipient curve of her white breasts under her sweat-dampened shirt.

‘I’ve got a knife. Cut you up a bit. Shall we have some fun? Think Adam likes you.’

‘Leave her alone,’ said Adam, involuntarily. ‘I’ll fucking… I’ll fucking…’

Ritter scoffed. ‘What? Pull the radiator outta the wall, Aussie hero? If you raise your voice I will chop off Nina’s ear. And feed it to the roaches under the fridge.’

He stood, looking at Nina, then at Hannah. ‘Need to put the damn heat on. In the meantime I will gag you.’

Three gags were swiftly produced. Ball gags with steel links.

‘Sex toys. From Soho. Amazing what you hoity-toity English like to use in bed.’ The chains were tight around the neck. The fat plastic balls, rammed in their mouths, stifled any words. They could only mumble, softly, desperately. Ritter chuckled. ‘Interesting, though. And relevant, no? Amazing how close sex is to violence. Orgasm to murder. Talking of which…’

Ritter disappeared to the corner of the room and adjusted something on a wall. With a shudder of apprehension Adam realized it was the thermostat. He was turning up the thermostat. They were chained to a large new radiator and he had evidently put the heat on full.

Within moments Adam felt the boiling water percolate into the metal radiator. It was burning the sweat from his shirt, burning his back, burning burning burning. The oversized plastic ball filled his mouth so he could barely swallow.

The gunman returned. ‘Now, to work. I want to know what you know. Before you die. What have you been looking for and what have you found? ’

First he unchained Nina’s gag. She spat out the plastic ball and then spat in his face, ‘Nothing!’

Ritter sleeved the spittle from his cheek.

The radiator was scorching into Adam’s back. His heartbeat was erratic. Could you burn to death from a radiator? He had to Do Something.

Ritter tried again. ‘You’ve been following your stupid fucking dead dad around Britain. Have you found what he found? You may as well tell me because I’m going to cut out your clitoris with a razor if you don’t. And even if I don’t, someone else will. You are very, very… hot properties. Hot hot hot. All three of you. You don’t know how many people want to torture you and kill you. You have no idea. I think I can smell burning.’

He took Nina’s head and pressed it back hard, with a clanging thud, pushing it against the almost red-hot radiator.

‘Is that too fucking hot? Pretty bitch? Is it too hot? Tell me what you found!’

He unchained her gag and she spoke.

‘Nothing. We found nothing. Nothing! We’ve been searching but we found nothing. A few sculptures. Green Men. Nothing else.’

There was an obvious truth in her desperate response. The leather coat creaked as Ritter sighed, dropped Nina’s head, and regagged her, shoving the vile plastic ball in her mouth, chaining it round her neck. Her defiant shouts became moans of pain.

He moved on to Hannah, repeating the process, asking her the same questions. ‘We don’t know anything. We think he may have found some truth about the Templars. The initiation rites.’ Half-crying.

‘The Babylon rite?’

‘What is that? Yes. No. Yes, that. And and and…’

‘And what else?’

‘Nothing! That’s as far as we got.’

Like a disappointed university tutor, Ritter dropped his head and sighed. And then he moved and knelt — and licked Nina’s face. Licked her from chin to eye.

‘Sweet. Very sweet.’

Next to her sister, Hannah gave a muffled scream.

Ritter licked again. ‘Mmm. Cherry Garcia.’

Ritter moved along, to Adam. He had produced a knife from somewhere. He angled it towards Adam’s groin, as he unloosed the gag with his other hand. Grotesquely nauseated, Adam spat out the plastic.

‘Tell me, you Aussie cocksucker. What were you after? You’re a journalist, aren’t you? You must have been following a story.’

Adam shook his head. ‘There is no story. I think he committed suicide. Maybe he found something about the Templars but we’ve got nowhere.’

For once Ritter’s mildly handsome, faintly unshaven face flashed a look of disappointed belief. Angry acceptance. ‘You know what, I believe you.’ He stared at Adam, then at the girls, and smiled. ‘But the night is young, and you are still alive, so I think it’s time for fun. I think I’ll leave the pretty one for pudding. A nice sugary dessert. Yes. You first, plain Jane. Gotta eat your greens.’

With the gun at Hannah’s head, he unchained her from the radiator, cuffed her hands behind her back, and lifted her to her unsteady feet.

‘Let’s leave these people to cook. Leave them on the backburner.’

He dragged her through the door to the bedroom. Adam strained to see, and watched as Hannah was pushed on to the bed. Then Adam could see very little but, grotesquely, he could hear. Struggling. Writhing. Bed slats. He stretched as far as he could against the chains and glimpsed bare legs, Hannah’s bare feet. Desperately fending him off. Ritter kept his boots on. All he could see was his boots. Ritter was on top of her.

Nina sobbed. Ritter was evidently raping her sister.

‘Quit your sobbing, bitch.’

The sound of a hard slap echoed. Then Hannah’s muffled sobs. Then there was just silence apart from the rhythmic creaking of the bed. He was raping her again. All Adam could see were bare ankles, kicking, listlessly, at Ritter’s leather boots. Then the kicking stopped. Hannah’s feet were stroking the boots.

Stroking?

‘Rapingggg her.’ Nina somehow choked the words around her gag. ‘ Hhheehmm.’

Adam’s anger and confusion boiled with the blood in his back. It was self-evidently true: Ritter was raping her. Now he heard a stifled scream. Then a coarse laugh; and the muzzled groan of someone, doing something. Was he cutting her as well?

The bed slats creaked obscenely, again and again and again. Through the crack in the door Adam saw that Ritter apparently had her upside-down. Taking her from behind. The radiator burned. The creaking went on and on and on and still the rapist blurted his disgusting hoarse grunts. Hannah moaned as if she was dying.

The moans were followed by ardent breathing, and then whispered noises and sighing; and then quietness. Liquid noises. Gurgling. Then again nothing.

Gurgling?

Adam yearned and burned against the scorching radiator. Hannah’s legs were no longer visible. What had Ritter done to her? Killed her? Suddenly he was sure Ritter had killed her. Raped her, then killed her.

Nina was crying again; Adam felt like crying himself. But he didn’t. He found he was just waiting for the next scene in this grotesque yet inexorable melodrama. When Ritter would come out and unchain Nina, and take her into the bedroom. And do the same to her: rape her and kill her so Adam could hear. So he could imagine.

A brutal noise shattered his terminal reverie.

The door had crashed open. The noise was… downstairs.

Brutal shouts and noises.

Two seconds later police in blue steel helmets and flak jackets were swarming into the sitting room. Half a dozen of them, staring at Nina and Adam. Adam struggled in his shackles and motioned at the door — the bedroom — but even as he did so Ritter emerged, half naked, gun in hand. A dazzling and deafening helicopter light pierced the window shutters; and then the room filled with gas, or smoke — a smoke grenade — then there was a massive crash of glass; Adam strained to see — it was Ritter — he had run into the bedroom and hurled himself, bodily, through the window, which was just visible. The window was shattered; he’d jumped from the first floor.

The police ran into the bedroom. Adam heard shouts outside, and more gunshots: they must be pursuing Ritter, through the back gardens. Two other cops snapped the shackles that chained Nina and Adam to the burning radiator, then the metal links of their vile gags.

Nina hurled the plastic from her mouth, shoved herself to her feet and ran to the bedroom door.

But a large policeman stopped her. Stout and strong in his blue flak jacket.

‘But it’s my sister. My sister!’

The cop held her by her trembling shoulders. ‘You don’t want to see what’s in there.’