Chapter 68

It is surprisingly easy to get into the UK unofficially. There are a number of organisations which exist to assist in this endeavour should you so wish.

I did so wish, and I knew how to contact one of those organisations.

I'd leave the night of the show. The press were noticeably absent from the event. The locals, never really appreciating the value of a free press, and remembering the part that Luc Belvior played in the deaths of my girls, now hated reporters. No word had leaked at all about the show.

The villagers started gathering mid morning. Everywhere there was a party atmosphere, people laughing and joking, children running and playing. Here and there lovers loving, and no one objected or pulled away the younger children who were avidly watching the couplings.

Families picnicked together, joining friends or villagers they'd not seen since, oh, maybe as long as a week ago.

Musical instruments were produced and dancing started, this was undertaken with a lot more enthusiasm than skill, but produced even more enjoyment. Two young couples jumped up onto the stage and started to dance, a local dance which would have been banned as obscene anywhere but in France. Their lithe, supple, sensual bodies joining and parting, rhythmic drum beats firing the blood as their hands slid intimately across bodies. One girl ripped open her boys shirt, then caressed his chest. We could see the mounting lust in her eyes, the fire in her veins flushed her skin. The other boy opened his partners blouse, baring her breasts. The beat changed again and the two couples changed partners.

I left the stage area, amused that four people were on stage, moments away from full intercourse, and only a few of the people here were interested in watching.

Behind the dancing couples Gerald, Jamie, Bernie and JJ getting their instruments ready and Sara and Chantille were checking the set up of their microphones and doing sound checks.

They'd all practiced hard during the last few days. We'd hardly seen any of them except at breakfast. And even then they didn't stop to talk. The last couple of days though we could see that they were all very pleased with themselves. Their practicing must be showing results, I thought.

Sitting on the meadow grass I shared a lunch with a village family; baguette, soft cheese and wine. Simple food, so far from what I'd become accustomed to recently. It was surprisingly good.

Wandering about after lunch I stopped occasionally to speak with those I knew, or those who wanted to talk to 'Monsieur le Baron'. I was easy to spot as I always had at least two naked girls with me. So those who wanted to talk came and talked and those who wanted to stare, stared.

Stopping by the stage I noticed that it was now empty. Some of Elastics girls prevented anyone from playing with the instruments laid out ready for the band, but the security was all very low key.

I was talking to Yvon Le Clerk, the mountain of a man who had now taken it upon himself to guard any of my girls who came into the village. I think that this was partly to assuage the guilt he felt over the death of two unaccompanied girls only days after promising the safety of all my girls while in his village. He couldn't have known that Susan was one of our guards and she still died.

Yvon's tiny wife, looking more like a child than the wife who ruled her household with a whim of iron, clung to his arm and refused to speak.

One of the Le Clerk children, presumably a boy but at his age who could tell, tugged on my trouser leg. Despite his mother's protestations that he not bother 'Monsieur Le Baron', the child continued to try to attract my attention. Finishing answering Yvon's question about life in London City, I leant down to the him.

"She's forgotten to get dressed," he said - I think it was a he. "Is she going to get told off by her Mummy?"

I imagine that this was, to a child, quite a reasonable question.

"No," I answered, "I'm looking after her and she is a slave. Slaves don't wear clothes."

"Oh, yeah, Daddy told me." He looked thoughtful for a moment, "I forgot."

Karolina touched my arm, "Master T'rash be ready start."

I smiled to myself. Gerald now owned a slave, Sung Lu, so according to Karolina he was a Master of Slaves and had to be called Master.

"Coming Karolina dearest." I said my goodbyes and left for a roped off area in front of the stage. I hadn't wanted the segregated area but everyone else insisted, including, apparently, the villagers themselves.

Karolina, Julia and I joined the rest of my Ladies, Sasha hurried along a few moments later. We kissed, I enjoyed it so much I kissed her again.

Gerald, Jamie, Bernie, JJ, Chantille and Sara all wore pure white trousers and tunic tops. I could easily see Karen's hand in the design and manufacture of those outfits and I would bet that they'd be as smart and cool after three hours of playing as when they were first put on.

Gerald stepped up to the centre front microphone, "At this point I normally say, 'Hello wherever' but we've been here for a while already, so friends, we are THE SCREAMING MONKEYS!"

The crowd screamed back at him.

JJ started a slow bass rhythm, this was a new song. I wondered if he was going to add it to Friends.

Chantille stepped forward to her microphone and sang, her voice sweet and clear, the voice of an angel.

The song was new. It told of a Goddess who decided to change the fate of a man, one who would help others, one who would be blessed.

Then they did three verses of my song. The bastards had made it into a rock opera! The songs came along building the story up. Sasha's song excited us, June's made us cry, then, whirling and tumbling, Paula's song had us laughing, all interweaving to build the story and excitement higher and higher. The middle verses of Paul's song, really, really did need those five voices, Chantille and Sara were ideal in their roles. Weaving in and out, guiding the story, the voice of the Goddess cried out in joy, then pain as her human went through his trials, changing broken lives, building up the lowest and pulling down the mighty.

Fuck sake, I thought, if he goes any further I'm gonna have to wear my underpants outside my trousers.

The rest of the audience though, loved it, they absolutely adored it. They were standing, applauding, yelling and screaming for more.

Gerald might be the acknowledged genius, but the rest of them weren't too shabby at it either. The Screaming Monkeys truly deserved their place at the top of the music industry's very shaky tree.

As Sara, in the role of Sasha, held her abdomen and looked at her mate the show, the opera, ended. The response, loud as it had been throughout the show, was deafening. I wondered what a full audience in Wembley or the GMEX would sound like if this smallish group of country villagers had this reaction.

Now I had to hurry without seeming to move fast at all. I wandered behind a pile of instrument and speaker cases at the side of the stage, and out of sight of the audience. Elastic and her girls were waiting for me. Sasha hurriedly gave me a kiss and slipped a dress over my head. Paula was already pulling off my jeans and moaning that she didn't have time to do anything else while she was down there.

Looking vaguely female, I sauntered back round the stage and mingled with the crowd as they left the meadow. Few people had driven here, coaches had been laid on for the villages not within walking distance, everyone had walked the final mile or two. So I was able to mingle with the crowd quite easily.

An old landrover was parked where I expected it to be and the keys were in the exhaust pipe. The vehicle itself looked suitably old and hard worn; but when I started the engine it purred into life like a pampered Roll Royce 5.7 litre. I drove slowly down the back road looking like a farmers wife.

After a five hour drive I pulled into a small village perched on the channel coast. A fishing boat was waiting to take me across to England. On the boat I checked and rechecked my equipment. If everything went to plan this would be an exercise in boredom, with no one knowing a thing about my visit until I was safely back in France with my prize. Attacking like this would be dangerous, I would have to be careful and, more importantly, lucky time after time. My enemies would only have to be lucky once.

But I wanted to strike at their very heart, the place that they considered safest of all, I was going to violate the sanctity and security of their home, and do it like a ghost, silent and invisible. Not only was I going to kidnap Rae, I was going to steal their peace of mind. They were going to examine Rae's home looking for clues but they'd know nothing unless I told them.

They would only know for sure what had happened to Rae when they received the vial of blood and the name of her new owner.

The crossing took nearly four hours. Thirty minutes after we docked I was sipping a pint in a dock side pub, and enquiring about a hotel for the night. Day one of my attack on Rae Morrison was over.

Whoever Rae had advising her about security was fairly good. All of the grounds around her very large farm house, not a working farm obviously, had been cleared out to about one hundred and fifty yards. While this would look odd to English eyes, it provided a superb killing field. The house was unapproachable without being seen. Well, that was OK, I didn't intend to approach it yet. I watched and waited.

Rae came and went daily, her routine was ... routine. Her security man should have advised her against that. If I'd just wanted to kill her then, Rae could have been dead a hundred times. However I wasn't going to be as merciful as that. Cher was going to get another toy; cost one penny, Sterling.

This morning I could see unusual activity around the house. An MPV, a Ford Galaxy, pulled up to the side door and suitcases and other luggage was loaded into it. It looked as though she was taking enough for a month, so I estimated a weekend away. I start tonight then.

The remote control car was quiet, its camo paint job was very effective in the dim starlight. I drove the car along the farmhouses approach road, a task made vastly more difficult due to the effectiveness of its camouflage, only a small ultra-violet LED on the aerial, and my adapted spotter scope, let me see precisely where my little car actually was. A peak on the broadband receiver showed that the buried proximity detector was a little further out than I'd have placed it, but it was there. I pressed the button to drop the small landmine, the cars only other payload.

Slowly, I brought car one back, during the many stops along the way, I made sure that cars two and three were fully charged and that their landmines released easily. I had already checked, but I checked again. I estimated that it would take about six to eight hours to get all of the explosives in place. These were my backups. If I was spotted and needed to escape these small landmines would eliminate some of my pursuers and slow any others. Though I really hoped that I wouldn't need them, I took the time to set them anyway. Then I would start having fun with the remaining security guards.

From my hide, six hundred yards away from the Morrison home, I had a full view of two sides of the house. The two video cameras that Chalkie's people had placed high on power line pylons last week showed me the other two sides.

Typical of most people, Rae had taken her best guards with her, those she left guarding her house were the 'only just adequate' ones. Which to my mind was strange; just suppose some bastard let you leave your nice, safe, guarded, house, then attacked that house and waited for your return. Well, only an absolute bastard would do that wouldn't they.

The second part of my attack used the cars again, I drove them close to the proximity detectors. This time instead of landmines they carried small electro-magnets. These magnets triggered the proximity detectors, and the guards, came running.

I wonder if they thought it strange that the first alarm was triggered by an inner wire. If they did it didn't matter. They came running, weapons in hand, and investigated the alarm, which they quite reasonably put down to a false alarm.

I waited two hours before the next one. This time all three cars were in position, spaced equally around the house. I triggered the magnets for a second and then waited. One guard ran to each alarm spot. They looked around, didn't see my cars and returned to the house.

I continued this during the remainder of the night and all of then next morning. The guards were getting tired of all the 'false alarms' but knew better than not investigate, or turn the security system off. That wouldn't threaten their jobs, it would lose them their lives.

Just after one o'clock I sent the three cars in again, one to each of the three inner detectors. I went through the outer wire.

Protected only by my ghillie suit, I lay in the middle of the well tended grounds and waited. The three guards were very tired now and didn't think to check all of the grounds every time there was an alarm.

Three more goes and I rested against the wall of the house, less than ten yards away from the door that the guards normally used. I waited an extra hour this time. I wanted the guards to be a little more physically rested next time.

Just at sundown I triggered the magnets on my repositioned cars and, as expected, the guards came rushing out of the building. I was standing next to the door and caught it as it swung toward me. Letting the guards get a little further away, I calmly walked round the door and into the house. I had about ten minutes to fix the security system before they'd return.

Oh this was fun.

I slid under the desk and unplugged the keyboard from the Keyboard / Video / Mouse (KVM) switch. I plugged in an extension lead and plugged the keyboard into that. The small pack attached to my extension lead started working almost immediately as Karolina hacked into their systems. All of the lights on my device extinguishing was my signal that everything was fine and I could leave. Total time three minutes; and now time for me to get out of here.

The far door looked like a kitchen door and, when I opened it I found that it was. I was through the kitchen and into a large hall in seconds. Back to the kitchen and the third door I tried was the back stairs. I knew that there would be servant's stairs here, Rae didn't seem to be the sort of person who'd allow staff to use the main stairs and corridors. It suited me down to the ground; well up to the second floor actually.

One of my objectives when entering the house was to leave the guards alive. Then they could give whatever recognition signals their boss required throughout the rest of the weekend and on Rae's return. When Rae came back I was sure that there would be some form of 'safe' signal that had to be given.

I would be using my time a lot more productively.

First though, I repositioned two of my cars and triggered the alarms again. I would keep doing this for the rest of the weekend and into Monday or Tuesday, just so that the security boss felt more convinced that there was a system fault rather than enemy action.

I found Rae's bedroom well within the thirty minutes I'd allowed myself. I checked it out with a fibre optic camera (thanks Ross, ) and it was clear. The door wasn't locked, that was what Rae had guards for, and if a slave got the better of her, unlikely but possible, then she'd want her backup to be able to gain entry without breaking the door down. Twenty minutes later I had all of my bugs and other 'little surprises' planted. Only three bugs for Rae's rooms, but sound and video streamed to the internet destined for one of Karolina's servers.