Chapter 3

It was still raining the following morning--a relentless downpour that fell from a gray sky ragged with low clouds scudding in from the west, drumming on the roofs, bouncing high off the sidewalk, gurgling furiously in the gutters and lying in huge pools across the concrete surface of the autobahn. Susan and Stefan stood at the exit from a Tankstelle service area, their sodden garments whipped around their limbs by the wind, their eyes screwed up against the assault of the driving rain.

They had thumbed a ride east to the Frankfurt-Cologne turnpike, thinking that, despite the extra mileage, they would arrive in Bonn more quickly this way than by the traffic-choked Koblenz-Bad Godesberg road on the left bank of the Rhine. Now they were waiting for a ride on the second leg of their journey, hunched against the cold and the wet. Stefan had already declined offers from an Opel Rekord and a Mercedes sedan, saying rather primly that he didn't like the look of the drivers.

Susan was beyond caring. Her teeth were chattering--not so much because of the climate as at the terrifying thought of what might await her at home! It was bad enough having been away all night. But to have been away with no reasonable explanation... her mind quailed at the thought of what her father might say! For she couldn't possibly explain why she had gone; nor could she reveal where she had been. Saying she had been with Stefan would only add fuel to the fires of his rage. There was no friend who could alibi her, and she would be forced either to invent some implausible story about wanting to see the Fasching... or refuse to give an explanation at all. Her heart sank at the thought of the reception either would receive!

By now Colonel Templar would probably have alerted the police. There might even be a check when they took the slip-road leading to Bonn and Konigswinter. What could she possibly say? She had been worrying about it ever since she woke up in the strange hotel room with the blond boy still collapsed across her.

They had got up quickly, snatched a cup of coffee, and set off as fast as they could. And the problem had seemed to get worse and worse with every minute! A biscuit-colored Volkswagen mini-bus approached slowly along the road leading from the gas station to the autobahn, with fans of water spraying out on either side of its wheels. He ran into the roadway and signaled. The mini-bus braked, hesitated, and finally pulled up a few yards beyond them. He ran up to the driver's window, talking and gesticulating, and then turned to beckon to the soaked girl.

"It's all right," he called. "They'll take us!"

There were plastic covered benches running the length of the vehicle's tonneau. Two youths in black jackets sat at the back, staring glumly out at the rainswept landscape, the tops of the tree-covered hills lost in scurrying clouds. A third boy was driving, and there was a slim, blonde girl with a slender body and a wide-lipped, rather cruel mouth curled up on the passenger seat beside him. Susan and Stefan sat gratefully opposite the two boys and Stefan began desultorily to exchange platitudes about the awfulness of the weather. Paying little attention because she was too occupied with her own thoughts, the girl stared at them idly, thinking to herself that there was something familiar about them, something that she couldn't quite place. It was only when she looked to the front and happened to see the driver turn his head, noticing with a sudden pang of unaccountable alarm the unlit cigarette jutting from his mouth, that she finally realized.

"W-w-w-why," she stammered, breaking into Stefan's conversation, "you're the three boys who... the three boys we saw in Siegsdorff last night!"

The bulkier of the two youths grinned. "Why so we are!" he said in English, winking at Stefan. "Whaddaya know!"

For some reason Susan felt obscurely uneasy. She looked out the rain-streaked window at the Rhenish countryside speeding past. The dreary urban landscape of concrete factories, pylons, refineries and doll's house developments stretched away towards the river and the wilderness of diplomatic blocks between Bad Godesberg and Bonn on the far side. Somewhere over there her father would be sitting at his desk, staring grimly out at the rain as he barked orders and questions into his phone. Most of them would be about her!

She would be glad just the same when they reached the turn- off. It wouldn't be long now. The Volkswagen was hitting 120 kilometres per hour as they swished past the huge green and white sign announcing: Bad Godesberg, Bonn--1000 m. The approach indicators--three chevrons, two, one--swept up and fell behind, and the cloverleaf slip-road appeared, curling off to the right among the featureless, rain-flattened grasses. Without slackening speed, the mini-bus roared past and sped on up the autobahn towards the north.

"Hey!" Susan exclaimed. "Just a minute--Stefan..."

Nobody paid her any attention. The two youths sat staring out the back window. Stefan had moved up to the front and was leaning forward looking through the windshield between the girl and the driver. There wasn't another turn-off until they got to Cologne! By the time she got back to Bonn it would be after lunch, and things would be worse than ever!

"Stefan!" she called again, more urgently this time. "They missed the turning! We've gone past it!"

He didn't reply. His blond head remained obstinately staring ahead through the windshield at the twin gray ribbons of wet asphalt unrolling towards them. By now thoroughly alarmed, the worried teenager shifted up to the front of the minibus and took the boy's arm.

"Stefan!" she said for the third time. "Don't you understand? We've gone passed the turn-off for Bonn!"

"That's all right," he said without turning his head. "We're not going to Bonn!"

"N-n-not going to Bonn?" Susan faltered. "Where are we going then?"

He turned and looked at her. "Hamburg," he said briefly.

"Hamburg!" Susan squeaked in a voice shrill with foreboding. "B-b-but that's hundreds of miles away! What do you mean, Hamburg? What's going on, for God's sakes?"

The blonde girl in the passenger seat swung around and spoke for the first time.

"Look sweetie," she said, "you might as well get use to the idea: You've been snatched!"

"S-s-snatched?" Susan quavered. "But I..."

"Kidnapped, abducted, held to ransom, removed without your parents' consent," the blonde explained sardonically. "And very expertly too, if you don't mind my saying so."

"But I don't understand!" the frightened girl burst out. "Stefan! Do something, for goodness sakes!"

The blond boy didn't reply. He was staring fixedly through the windshield again, apparently absorbed in a long line of trucks and trailers whose giant wheels were spewing out a thick spray of rain and mud and diesel fumes as the Volkswagen roared past them.

"Save your breath," the girl in the front seat advised. "Don't you understand, you little fool, he's one of us!"

"One of... ?" Susan's voice trailed away into silence. She was thunderstruck.

"Of course, he's one of us!" the blonde continued inexorably. "Why d'you think he's been hanging around you all this time, for God's sake? D'you imagine he just happened to be sitting in that beer-garden in Siegsdorff when you chose to walk by? Don't make me laugh! We'd been following you ever since you left school yesterday!"

The dumbfounded teenager sank back on to a seat with her mind in a whirl. "You... you mean... everything... everything he said... and did... it was all some kind of a set-up?" she queried with a sob in her voice.

"What do you think?" the blonde answered contemptuously.

"But..."

"Look baby, be your age! Do you really think a good-looking kid like him is going to get hot pants all of a sudden for a sixteen year old American brat. You've been on a string for weeks. We thought we'd lost you when your old man cut up rough and refused to let you see him. But we kept tabs on you and then when another deal misfired we came back, and you played right into our hands! You quit school early, went home and came running out into the rain as if the end of the world had come! We followed you to the hospital and then back to Siegsdorff--and we'd just time to plant Stefan before you walked right into the trap!"

Susan was speechless. She didn't understand all this talk of being "on a string" and "deals" and "planting" but one thing was agonizingly clear: Stefan, her adored Stefan, had been deceiving her all the time! It was all a part of some obscure plot; he hadn't meant a single one of all those things he had said! And last night--she felt a hot flush of shame flooding her petite young body as she remembered--last night hadn't meant a thing to him either. It was all part of the plan, a means to make sure she would agree to hitch on the autobahn today!

No wonder he had refused the offers of lifts from the two other cars! He'd been waiting for the mini-bus and nothing else! No wonder he'd known she had thumbed a ride to the hospital: He'd been following her there himself! No wonder she had run into him in the beer garden: He was waiting there just for her! He must have been in that car that passed her just before she got to the village. And finally, no wonder the three youths had so providentially appeared to rescue her from the two hussars and the pirate. They were part of the gang, and it would have upset their plans if she had been spirited away by anyone else! Their role had been simply to eliminate the interlopers and hand her back to Stefan, so that he could get on with the big seduction scene... Feeling more cheated and disillusioned and heartbroken than she ever had before in her whole life, she bit her lip hard to check the tears that threatened to overflow her eyes.

"But why?" she burst out suddenly, struck by a sudden thought. "Why, why, why? What good's it going to do you, after all? Okay, so you tricked me into this truck. Maybe you can take me to Hamburg, if that's where you're going. Maybe the police won't catch up with you when my father finds out I'm missing. But it won't do you much good, I promise you. He's not rich: All he has is his pay. You won't get much ransom out of me."

The girl laughed. "You're not being held to ransom, sweetie," she said.

"Then why..."

"We've got plans for you," the girl said curtly.

And she turned around to the front again and refused to say anymore. Susan looked desperately over her shoulder and saw to her horror that the windows of the Volkswagen had been covered while her back was turned, with Venetian blinds. The youths must have lowered them while she was talking to the blonde in front. They were sitting now, one on either side of her, quite close, staring at her in a speculative way that she found more alarming than anything she had experienced yet. Now she would be unable to fling herself at the glass as they passed slow-moving traffic and mime frantically her appeal for help.

If they were really going all the way to Hamburg, they would have to stop for gasoline--at least twice--probably. Perhaps she could scream for help then. Although, judging from the ruthlessness with which they had dispatched the revelers in Siegsdorff last night, they were quite capable of forcibly silencing her or even binding and gagging her. Her only hope--and one that she had mercifully remained silent about when talking to the girl--was the fact that they did not know she had been in Siegsdorff without her parents' knowledge or consent. They would think, therefore, that she would only be missed when she failed to return last night or this morning, whereas, the alarm would have been given late yesterday afternoon.

If they were trading on this in the hope that they would be well clear of the area before Colonel Templar took any steps to inform the police, there was a chance--a slim one, but it was there--that they could be caught unexpectedly in a road block somewhere along the autobahn. And then suddenly, with a sickening pang of dismay, the frightened girl saw in her mind, as clearly as if she had been looking at a photograph, the breakfast room at home. With her school books on the table. In her distress at the scene she had witnessed from the balcony, she had run straight out of the house without giving them another thought. As soon as her mother saw them there she would know that Susan had come home early for some reason... and she would guess at once that she must have seen or heard something of the debauch with the Burgomaster and the unknown man in her bedroom. Knowing, or believing that she knew, that Susan's absence was because of this, she would do everything in her power to reassure Colonel Templar that there was nothing suspicious about it. She might even say that she had allowed Susan to go and stay with friends for the night.

Her father might not even miss her until this evening when she failed to arrive from school again. And even if her mother had confided in him the fact that she had run away, she would have taken care to disguise or gloss over the real reason, so that in any case he would imagine it was simply some school girl excess rather than a case of foul play. So the police might not be looking for her at all!

Feeling more frightened and more alone than she ever had in her life, the voluptuous young brunette shrank back against the cushions as she cast frenziedly about her for some ray of hope, some idea, however farfetched, that might offer a way out of her predicament.

"Hey, Lisa!" the bulky youth sitting opposite her called out suddenly to the blonde in the front seat. "Don't you think maybe it's time our friend here started her training sessions?"

The blonde turned around, her wide lips curving into a sadistic smile and her eyes glinting.

"Klaus," she said, "you're right! Stefan--take over the wheel at the next pull-out... and you, Heinz, go and help Klaus and Kurt in the back."

Susan's lips were trembling. What could they mean? She watched in dread as Stefan rose and stood swaying slightly, crouched between the front seats while the boy with the unlit cigarette steered the mini-bus at full speed into a wooded parking area at the side of the turnpike. They passed a line of heavy trucks, slackened speed, and then, as Heinz took his foot from the throttle pedal, changed places adroitly before the Volkswagen had rolled to a standstill. Seconds later they were speeding down the curving slip road to rejoin the autobahn. As Lisa turned around to kneel on the passenger seat with her arms crossed on the back, Heinz moved into the rear of the vehicle and stood, his head bent forward by the roof, towering above the fearful girl.

"Take your clothes off," he said quietly.

"W-w-what did you say?" Susan gasped.

"You heard me. Take them off."

"I'll do no such thing!" the captive brunette flared with a pathetic attempt at defiance. "Why, I never heard... I've never..."

She broke off with a cry of pain as Heinz brought up his hand and slapped her viciously across the face. Instinctively she raised her arms to ward off the blow, but Kurt and Klaus moved up quickly behind her and pinioned them to her sides. Heinz shifted his unlit cigarette to the other side of his mouth and began methodically to slap her again, using both hands to assault each side of her face alternately... short, hard, cruel blows that rocked her head on her shoulders, brought tears spurting from her eyes, and made her ears ring intolerably. Once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times he brought his open palm cracking across her tender flesh.

Susan screamed, writhing and jerking in her captors' arms as she sought vainly to escape the punishing slaps. By the time he stopped, to stand swaying slightly with the motion of the vehicle, surveying her through slitted eyes, she was sobbing uncontrollably. She raised frantic eyes--and for an instant her gaze locked in the driving mirror with the troubled glance of Stefan. But before any communication could pass between them he had shifted his angle of vision nervously back to the road, staring through the streaming glass swept by the wiper blades at the monotonous gray landscape rushing towards them. Below the mirror Lisa's blonde head was poised expectantly, her parted lips glistening and her eyes brittle bright with anticipation.

"Go on, Heinz," she said. "Give her a couple more--just to make the point!"

"No!" Susan screamed. "Please Please... ! Nooooo!"

But the remorseless hand exploded twice more savagely against each smarting cheek.

"All right," Heinz panted when he had finished. "Now--are you going to take your clothes off, or do we have to tear them off?"

"Please!" the terrified teenager sobbed. "Please..."

She lifted her imploring, tear-stained face towards him, the cheeks striped crimson with the marks of his fingers. He raised his hand again.

"All right!" Susan screamed, cowering back against the two who were holding her arms. "All right! Anything... I'll do anything. But don't hit me again!"

With trembling hands, as Kurt and Klaus relaxed their grasp on her arms, she unzipped her parka and hauled the black cashmere jersey over her dark head. Klaus drew in his breath with a hiss as the tender flesh of her full, high-set young breasts, snugly encased in their simple white nylon brassiere, came into view. Under the watchful eyes of the three young men and the blonde in the front seat, the shivering girl bent down and took off her sneakers and jeans, a hot flush of embarrassment turning the marks on her face an even deeper red.

Now she stood before them, her head hanging with shame, naked except for the brassiere and a flimsy white triangle of nylon panties at her loins.

"Take those off too," Heinz ordered.

"B-b-but..." Susan faltered piteously, "but I'll be cold!"

For the first time she saw him smile.

"Not with what you'll be doing!" he said grimly. "Take them off!"

Whimpering softly, she reached behind her to unfasten the clasp of her brassiere. A moment later her tautly budding breasts with their sensitive uptilted nipples sprang free, and she slid the flimsy garment down her arms to the floor. As she bent once more to strip the panties from the smoothly rounded taper of her legs, Lisa scrambled over the seat and joined them in the back.

"All right," she said crisply. "Kurt, spread the rug. You others, look after the girl."

"W-w-what are you going to do?" Susan quavered fearfully.

"I told you we had plans for you," Lisa said with a malicious smile. "But I don't think you'll have enough experience to carry them out... yet. So, like I said, we're going to give you a little training session. Right now!"

As Kurt spread a tartan steamer rug on the floor between the seats, Susan burst into tears and hid her face in her hands. Pitiful incoherent pleadings forced their muffled way through her clenched fingers as her naked shoulders quivered and her chest heaved with racking sobs.

"Don't... please... ! Let me go... ! Please don't do it."

Behind the wheel, Stefan, cursed suddenly shifted down, braked, and then swerved around a slow-moving car pulling out in front of him as he overtook a heavy truck. With her eyes hidden by her hands, Susan was unprepared for the maneuver. She was thrown off balance, and fell to the floor. At once the three youths leaped on her and threw her on her back across the rug. Kneeling behind her, Kurt seized her wrists and stretched her arms above her head while Klaus and Heinz, grasping an ankle each, hauled her legs brutally apart. The petite brunette teenager lay naked and defenseless before her captors, spread- eagled and open, as cruelly stretched as a victim on a medieval torture rack!

Shuddering with terror, she gazed wild-eyed from face to pitiless face as they stared lasciviously at the quivering white mounds of her breasts, the softly trembling bulge of her young belly, and the dark triangle of soft pussy hair nestling up between her lewdly splayed legs. Dear God! There was nothing she could do against four of them! Shut away in the speeding mini-bus as it roared northwards along the interminable autobahn, she was utterly alone and at their mercy! The only victory she could win was a mental one: They could conquer her body, as she knew now they must, but it would be an empty triumph if her spirit remained unbeaten.

Stretched helpless on the throbbing floor of the Volkswagen, she lay listening to the whine of the flat four-cylinder motor, the rumble of wheels beneath her, and the swish of tires on the wet road as she closed her eyes and prayed for strength. Abruptly she opened them again as an alien touch on her flesh drew an involuntary gasp from her trembling lips. Lisa was kneeling between her spread thighs pawing obscenely at the soft flesh of her belly with slender, red-nailed hands.

"Ve-ery nice!" the sadistic German girl said tauntingly. Her hand moved lewdly upwards, caressing the fullness of one firm breast. "Now you just lie back, sweetie, and take your choice: You can co-operate, and we'll all have fun; or you can try and fight it, and just the four of us will have the fun. It's up to you!"

Susan felt her skin crawl with horror at the blonde's lustfully depraved touch as she strove desperately to find words that might in some way appeal to whatever sense of honor or decency these people might have buried within them. They were going to violate the virginal innocence of her young body--that was clear whatever incomprehensible gibberish they spoke about "plans" and "training". But now there was this additional nightmare too: It seemed the girl as well was going to take part! She had heard her schoolmates talking and giggling about lesbians, of course, but she knew nothing about them really. The very thought of another woman touching her secret parts filled her with revulsion. She froze in terror as the red-nailed hands raked teasingly down the trembling contours of her body, to linger caressingly among the sparse hairs silkily mantling her pubic mound.

"Before you fuck her," the blonde crooned, raising her head to stare at each of the youths in turn, "I think I ought to open up the road a little, don't you? It's going to be a hard drive otherwise, if she's really a virgin!"

"Go ahead, Lisa," Kurt said from behind Susan's head. "You're the boss!"

Between the open edges of her black leather jacket, the German girl's breasts were heaving with excitement. For a moment she feasted her eyes on the vision of the helpless little brunette's shuddering hair-covered loins, and then her head sank slowly towards Susan's nakedly exposed vaginal slit. As the realization of what Lisa was about to do hit her, a despairing groan forced its way past the defenseless teenager's lips. She would have nothing left! They were going to plunder her of every vestige of decency!

A convulsive spasm jerked her thigh and belly muscles as she felt the cool moistness of the blonde's lips pressing into the sensitive flesh of her abdomen. She tried to cringe away from the girl's touch, but the sudden wet contact sent an inexplicable unwanted chill racing the length of her spine. She felt the heated lips trace tantalizingly downwards to the furrow at the top of her thighs as Lisa's thumbs spread the soft dark pussy hair hiding her most secret flesh. A moment later, the German girl's tongue had laced snake-like into the tight cringing slit of Susan's vagina, sending a shudder rippling through the teenager's loins at the electrifying contact of moistly heated tongue against her clitoris. Susan felt the wiry, long-nailed fingers dig into her sensitive flesh as Lisa clamped her palms against the soft insides of her thighs, splaying them wider still, and she forced her head up from the floor, her eyes wide with abject horror, to see that her ravisher too had lifted her head and was grinning up at her between Susan's nakedly upstanding breasts.