Chapter 11

It was Saturday evening, the sun was already setting and Petros was about to close up his flower shop, when he heard the phone ringing.

Letting out a deep sigh he figured he'd better pick it up, the financial crisis had hit Greece very hard last year and his business was going really slow. He even stayed open for two more hours, hoping to get extra costumers this way, but unfortunately it only seemed to cost him extra electricity. The way it was looking right now he'd be bankrupt within two months, unless something changed fast.

Hoping that it wasn't one of his creditors, he picked up the phone and said, "Kalivas' Flower Art, Petros Kalivas speaking."

Learning that it wasn't a creditor, but instead a costumer, Petros cheered up immediately. When hearing that he was talking to a businessman who had a nasty situation on his hand, he was grinning even more.

Apparently the businessman had taken his wife on a business trip to his country and had promised to take her out to dinner and then the opera. Instead of taking her to the opera, however, his client had insisted on meeting with him this evening to talk over the last details of a million Euro deal.

The businessman had to chose between two evils and missing out on the million Euro contract simply wasn't an option, he wanted Petros to bring him a big bouquet of red roses, hoping it'd make up for his absence at the opera. The only downside of this all was that he'd need these flowers delivered within the hour, at his hotel room. To make it up for his troubles he offered him hundred Euros. The other flower shops he had already tried were closed and he was desperate to come up with anything.

"No worries mister, for a hundred Euros I'll even take your wife to the opera for you and show her around the city!" Petros said delightedly.

He merely said it in a jest and didn't figure the businessman would actually accept his offer. However, instead the businessman surprised him by offering five hundred Euros in total, if he kept his wife entertained for the rest of the night. Naturally Petros accepted immediately.

These days he was lucky if he made that much money in a week and that was without all the costs he'd still have to withdraw from that sum of money. Making so much money in a single evening easily made up for his losses of the past two weeks. Even if the man's wife was hideous it'd be worth it. However, chances were that if this man made million Euro deals he'd also have something the Americans call a trophy wife, a wife whose only job was to look pretty and escort her husband to his business meetings.

He promised he'd get him the flowers within the hour and that he'd be presentable to escort the good man's wife to the opera. After the businessman thanked him three times already for his efforts, Petros reminded him that he couldn't get any flowers done, until he got off the phone.

Taking the hint the businessman hung up, he'd take his wife out to dinner and then spring the surprise on her afterward, hoping that she wouldn't kill him.

Somewhere else in the city the Lieutenant hung up the phone.

"Did he take the bait?" one of his men asked.

"Yes, he seemed quite eager to accept. As he should anyway, according to Erik's data Petros is desperate for money. Like many other companies in this country he's heading off towards bankruptcy and it's unlikely that his situation will change any time soon. People simply don't spend money on flowers, if they barely have enough left to buy food," the Lieutenant explained.

"I see ... It sounds like we have the perfect cover up for our trap then."

"Indeed we do ... Now all we have to do is wait for an hour, invite him in the hotel room, inject him with the anesthetic, wait till he's sound asleep and then take him with us to Germany. If all goes well then we won't even have to use the stun gun on him."

An hour later there was an impatient knock on his door. Dressed up in a business suit the Lieutenant went to answer it. Two of his men were hiding in the bathroom, waiting for his signal.

He opened the door and welcomed Petros inside, "You, my man, are a true God's gift! I wouldn't know what to do if you didn't come to my rescue. Please, come in and have a drink. My wife is still in the bathroom, fixing her hair and make up for the opera."

"Ah ... You haven't told her the news yet?"

The Lieutenant, staying in character, assumed a sour look on his face, "No, I figured it'd be better if I waited until you were here. Chances are that she won't make a scene then, she hates doing that when there are others present."

Switching subjects he continued, "Ah, these are the flowers?"

"Yes sir, a lovely bouquet for a lovely lady," Petros said proudly, for a rush job he had pulled off the impossible and truly made a beautiful bouquet.

"Let me get my wallet, I trust you that you won't run off with my wife, so we might as well settle the financial part already," the Lieutenant said with a grin on his face.

"Thank you sir, that's very kind," Petros replied relieved.

He had been worried that he'd have to wait for the businessman to return from the meeting with his client, after he was already back from the opera. It would have been too awkward to stay with his wife in the hotel and she likely wouldn't accept that anyway. Petros had been afraid that he might end up not getting paid at all. Receiving five one hundred Euro bills from the Lieutenant eased his mind and he visibly relaxed.

"Here, have a drink," the Lieutenant said, pouring him a strong whisky, "Nothing relaxes the mind more than a good old Scotch, don't you say?"

"Yes sir, that's true," Petros replied.

He enjoyed a good whisky, but lately he was fortunate enough if he could just buy milk already. In fact, he had to make do with only drinking water the past two weeks. He had run out of money and could only afford the most essential groceries to stay alive, which meant only a light breakfast and a meager dinner at best, instead of the three satiating meals he was used to.

He gently let the golden liquid slide down his tongue, enjoying how it burned his throat and then how the rich aftertaste hit his tongue. This was definitely the good stuff!

He took the seat offered by the Lieutenant, who stood behind him and poured him another whisky, which he eagerly accepted.

The Lieutenant put his strong hands on Petros' shoulders and then called out, "Cassandra, are you ready my dear?"

Two men walked out of the bathroom, one of them holding a syringe, and Petros was immediately alarmed, this was not a trophy wife!

The Lieutenant, however, forcefully pushed him down in the chair when he tried to stand up and held him there until the two men could drug him.

The alcohol actually sped up the anesthetic's potential and moments later Petros felt the darkness engulfing him...

The last thing he heard was the Lieutenant making a phone call and the words, "Sir, we got him."

Daisy was just closing up her animal clinic in Brighton, a city in the south of the United Kingdom. Her clinic was actually several kilometers north the city, but despite living in the country the ground still belonged to the city, rather than one of the small villages close-by.

It was raining and already dark when she got outside.

Just my luck ... Seems like it's always raining when I have to leave... Daisy thought, while letting out a deep sigh.

It had been a really busy day at the clinic for a Saturday and right now she wanted nothing more then a long relaxing soak in her jacuzzi. The air jets always performed miracles for her body and she was particularly fond of one of them. If she aimed her pussy just right it then would hit her clit and in the past she had enjoyed many pleasurable orgasms already, due to that one air jet.

Since she ran a very successful clinic it was usually busy, but today it had been even more so. One of the local farmers had an outbreak of the bird flue and her expertise was called in, to find the best way to remedy the situation. If it spread any further, then the government would kill and burn all the animals on his farm, which would ruin his company, since the governmental compensation was too little to start over again and make up for his losses.

Daisy had only been partially successful and many birds still had to be destroyed, but at least the company was saved, for the time being.

The farmer would stay in touch with her over the next few days and contact her immediately when he found more infected chickens.

At the age of thirty-one Daisy was still single, but she actually preferred it this way. Her clinic was everything to her and the occasional fling kept her satisfied enough to live her life without a steady relationship.

Most men actually felt intimidated by her length anyway, with 181 centimeters she was a tall woman. She hated it that it would restrict her from wearing heels when she got in a relationship with a guy that was smaller than her.

As she was closing up the clinic she thought she heard something, but disregarded it and figured it was probably just a few rain drops that had gathered up and then fell as one big drop on something.

She got in her four wheel drive Range Rover, the roads in the country were often muddy due to all the rain and several roads weren't even asphalted, making a car like this a necessity. She started the ignition, turned on the lamps and tuned into her favorite radio station. Just when the music came on she drove away.

After several minutes, however, she had to pull her car over since there was a dark van partially blocking the road. In fact, it was actually half parked in a ditch. It looked like it had slipped and the driver lost control of the vehicle. Its lights were dimmed and there was a woman lying outside on the muddy ground.

Daisy's specialty might be animals, but she knew a thing or two about healing humans too and thus she got out of her car immediately. She didn't bother dialing 999 first, the British version of 911, since she figured it'd be better to administer first aid before calling an ambulance. At this time of the day it'd take an ambulance at least twenty minutes before they got here anyway and by then it might already be too late for this woman.

"Hello? Are you okay?" Daisy asked, hoping to get a response, which would indicate that she was at least conscious.

The woman seemed to respond to her voice and moved as if she were in a lot of pain.

"Hold on, I might have something for you," Daisy said, quickly turning back to her car to get her Doctor's bag.

"This tranquilizer is meant for horses, but in a small dosage it should numb the pain without having any bad side effects on you," Daisy explained, while she filled a syringe.

She walked up to the woman and inspected her back, but she didn't see any visible wounds there and figured it'd be safe to turn her over, so she could inspect her chest.

However, just as she wanted to perform her examination, the woman pulled out a hidden stun gun and flashed a vicious grin at her. Daisy was startled and took a step back, but it was already too late and the two electrodes sizzled through the air, hitting her in her leg.

Daisy didn't let herself get captured that easily though. As she already felt the energy from the stun gun streaming up her body she fell over, hitting the woman with her syringe in the leg and injected the full dosage.

"You bitch!", The woman yelled, while quickly pulling out the syringe, not realizing it was already too late.

Unfortunately for Daisy though, she still couldn't escape. She had collapsed on the ground and was currently nothing more than a shivering mess, but at least the wet muddy road helped her a little bit, since electricity didn't conduct well through wet sand.

"I'm gonna get you for thi..." the woman said.

Her speech had turned more and more sluggish and she let out a long stretched yawn, before passing out on the ground.

"Heh ... I didn't see that one coming," a man commented, as he climbed out of the dark van.

"Yeah, she surprised me as well with that move, if Anna hadn't fired the stun gun already, she might have actually gotten away," another man replied, while also climbing out of the van and stepped into the rain.

"You take care of Miss Middleton? I'll put Anna in the van. After that we just have to pick up Bart at the clinic and then we can get underway."

"Yeah, sure."

The other man prepared his own syringe with their tranquilizer and quickly injected Daisy with the substance.

She heard the first man remark, "Heh ... It looks like Anna will be out of it for several hours."

Daisy saw how he got a couple cheap feels on the breasts of his colleague. Next she felt herself getting lifted over the shoulders of the other man and he carried her to the van.

Her eyelids were growing too heavy to keep her eyes open. Daisy was fighting hard to stay awake, however, her resistance proved to be futile and the darkness claimed her consciousness bit by bit, until she lost the battle completely and passed out.

Another team in the south of Italy was also preparing themselves. They had to bring in an unemployed Italian, who was currently enjoying the good life with two of his friends, while they hit on some women in a local bar.

"So what's the plan, sir?" one of the men asked.

"Our target, gentlemen, is Leonardo Gambolini, or Leo in short. Erik has recognized him as a submissive male and he'll make an excellent subject in the Doctor's maze. Considering it's only eight pm, we'll have to wait until he goes home and then pick him up from his bed. He'll likely be drunk, so it shouldn't be too hard on us."

"You're right, that sounds easy enough ... Any difficulties we can expect?"

"Aye, since the bastard is unemployed and doesn't have the greatest living conditions, there is a likely chance that we'll trip over some of his trash," The team leader let out a small chuckle at that and his men had to snicker as well.

They couldn't blame Leo for it, since they were slobs too.

Continuing more seriously, he said, "He also lives in a busy neighborhood. It might be hard for us to stay undetected. We'll pose as the local Mafia, that should keep curious people away from us, while giving us an easier time to grab him."

Nodding in agreement the men decided to wait until Leo returned, the bastard wouldn't know what hit him.

Later that evening, but somewhere else in Europe, two people were talking over the concert they had just given to a wild audience.

"Hey Ilse! Great performance tonight!"

"Thanks Doug, you weren't too shabby yourself with the bass guitar just there. What you say about gettin' a shot? It's only midnight."

"Nah, afraid I'll have to pass up on that tonight. I can't afford to be wasted for the rest of the weekend. I got us an appointment with the bank on Monday morning at 9:30 sharp and still need to do some number crunchin' for them tomorrow. If we can get that loan I'm after, then we can hire ourselves some time in a studio. With that silver voice of yours it shouldn't be too hard to make a record selling plate. We're goin' professional, ya know?"

"Pro eh?" Ilse was giving it some thought, so far their band, Deyjandi Rós, or Dying Rose in English, only did small performances, maybe up to two hundred men at most. She was doubtful about a full-time career with the band. Sure they had a fun time so far and she wouldn't mind ditching her badly paying job at the restaurant, but going professional was a big step!

"Aye, I'm tellin' ya we can pull it off. You might wanna lay off the drugs though."

Before Ilse could start her rant, Doug already raised his hands in the air in the surrender, "Aye I know I ain't your friggin' parents that you're always yellin' 'bout, but I saw what that stuff did to ya a few weeks ago. We can't afford to lose that voice of yours, not if we wanna go pro."

Still miffed Ilse replied, "Well ... I'll think about it. Maybe you're right ... But I need something to get in the higher stratospheres, you know?"

"What? Timon's luvin' ain't good nuff for ya anymore? You're always welcome in my bed honey, ya know that right?"

"Eh ... Yeah, thank you for the offer, but I'm gonna have to decline ... Not until you lose a couple pounds anyway. There are enough groupies around that'll do you though," Ilse replied with a wink.

"Yeah sure, but that ain't the same and ya know it babe. Well anyway, the offer is there..." Doug replied, still hopeful to get into Ilse's panties.

Ilse laughed delightfully with her soprano voice and gave him a soft slap against his shoulder, "I know, I know ... Maybe in a few months..." with a whispering voice she continued, "I heard Patricia say you got a wonderful tongue that you don't mind usin' on a pussy ... Maybe someday I'll let you find out just how high my voice goes..."

She gave him a playful kiss on his cheek and walked away, softly swaying her sexy ass from side to side.

When Ilse looked over her shoulder she could see Doug staring at her butt with his mouth hanging open.

Did she really just say that!? Here I am trying to make a pass at her for months and now she just told me I can eat her out sometime!?

Ilse saw how Doug was unconsciously adjusting his cock, his pants had suddenly become a little bit too tight. She gave him a wink and then got into her rusty car. After two false attempts she finally got it started and drove away, leaving a still staring Doug behind.

Hehe, that was fun. I should tease him some more next time... Ilse thought, chuckling softly.

Doug shook his head, trying to clear away the fantasies that had started running wild through his mind and got in his own car. Tonight's concert had been a big success and they should have a little extra money now to buy some new equipment.

Next to playing the bass guitar in their band, Doug also took care of all the financial matters and made sure they had at least a couple bookings every month. Coming Monday would be a big day. If he could pull it off to convince the bank's account managers, then he should have a loan that would easily cover a full day of recording time in a studio and enough spare funds to get their first album produced.

God ... I really hope she stays off the drugs ... She's such a beautiful woman and it sucks to see her waste her life like that ... She might be just 170 centimeters tall, but with some of her tight shirts she makes those C cup puppies of her easily look like a royal D cup! That girl can show some cleavage ... Shit, sometimes I wish I were part of the audience instead of playing on stage, so I could just look at her from the first row, while having a good time. Timon is one lucky son of a bitch, to be bangin' her...

Unknown to him this was likely the last he'd ever see of her, since Ilse was being shadowed by a white van.

Tonight all four teams were active with picking up new subjects for the maze. Lieutenant Johnson was leading the team in Greece and had already successfully picked up some florist. They also had a team deployed in Italy, who would pick up some unemployed macho in a few hours. Another team was in the United Kingdom and had already picked up their target too. The Colonel's team would handle the pick up in Iceland, their target was the singer of a local goth band.

They had been shadowing her for several days now, waiting for the go ahead signal from the Doctor. Since Ilse tended to sleep around it wasn't sure where she'd end up at after tonight's concert, so the Colonel had her followed with a white van. He actually preferred the black versions since they looked more intimidating, but in this case a white one would blend in better with the rest of the city traffic.

"It looks like Miss Svavarsson is going to her own house tonight..." one of his men commented.

"Good, that should make it relatively easy..."

"I don't know, sir ... The parking lot at her apartment building is well lit and it's mostly students living there, I doubt most went to bed already on a Saturday evening. We're gonna draw a lot of attention to ourselves, if we're not careful."

"Hmm ... You got a point there. Anybody got any suggestions?"

"Wasn't she telling her friend just there about how she wanted to get high tonight? How about we pretend to be fans of her and offer her a joint on the parking lot?" another of his men suggested.

The Colonel looked him over and replied with a gruff voice, "I don't know if you've looked at yourself in the mirror lately, but there is no way in hell any of us is ever gonna pass for a Goth. We don't got any tattoos or piercings and our clothing definitely doesn't fit in, she'll know right away that something is amiss."

"Eh ... I hadn't considered that," the man said, feeling pretty stupid now and keeping silent.

Though Ilse might not have been the brightest student in high school, the twenty-three year old red head wasn't stupid either. She could have easily gone to a college or a university, if she had applied herself more to her studies. Instead she had preferred to skip classes with her friends, get her brains fucked out, smoke joints and experiment with other drugs.

"Well, we better think of something fast," The Colonel said.

"I got an idea Colonel," Their driver said, who sped up the van.

"Brace for impact!" He yelled a few seconds later, hitting the brakes with full force and bringing the van to a screeching halt.

However, just as he had calculated, he hit the bumper of Ilse's car before coming to a complete stop. The hit wasn't terribly hard, but hard enough to push her car a few meters forward.

"You might wanna prepare that syringe Colonel," The driver commented.

"Ugh ... You could have given us a heads up..." The Colonel replied, while he rubbed his head.

He had bumped it pretty roughly against the side of the van when they came to a sudden halt.

"Sorry sir, it was the spur of the moment, I just couldn't pass up on this opportunity."

"It's alright, let's get outside and get her. Ivan, prepare the syringe. She looks pretty pissed, pretend to be shocked and act as if you're honestly guilty about hitting her car," The Colonel ordered.

After that he opened the sliding door of the van and got out.

"Just what the hell do you think you were doing? Are you fuckheads out of your mind or something?" Ilse yelled at them in Icelandic.

"I'm sorry, Miss. I am afraid do not understand your beautiful language, but I'm sure we can settle this matter if you'd just come with me," The Colonel offered with an apologetic voice and a sincere look on his face, "Are you okay? Do you want us to call an ambulance?" He continued.

Ugh ... Just my luck ... Frigging foreigners. At least they look like they're well in the money, maybe I can scam them out of a couple thousand more Krona than my car is worth ... I can actually buy a new one then, Ilse considered, after quickly assessing the situation.

"No I don't need a frigging ambulance," Ilse continued to yell in English.

Though they sang most their songs in Icelandic, Doug had thought it'd be wise that they also practiced in English, in case they ever broke through internationally and got the chance to go professional. At first Ilse had resented it. She didn't want to have anything to do with foreigners, but when she had learned of the success that the Finnish band Nightwish had, and how much money they annually made, she had quickly become a lot more interested in becoming better at the language.

That had been several years ago and these days she was quite proficient at it.

"Look, if you just give me 100 thousand Krona then I'll consider the matter closed."

"Hmm ... I'm afraid we're a bit low on Iceland Krona right now Miss, but we still have eight hundred Euro left from our business trip that we can offer you. I'd appreciate it if we can keep the police out of this. We can't afford the delay since we were trying to catch our plane, when we crashed into your car."

Eight hundred Euros!? Are those guys nuts? That's like 126 thousand Krona!

From the look on Ilse's face the Colonel could see that she really wanted the money. Still, she made a good show out of looking undignified.

"Fine, just give me the money and I'll be on my way again," She replied with an angry tone.

"Sure, right this way Miss," The Colonel said, while he turned around and walked back to the van.

This is almost going too easy... The Colonel thought, while lightly shaking his head.

The Colonel casually walked to the van, Ilse following him closely.

Ilse saw him slightly shake his head though and thought, ... !? What the hell ... I don't trust this guy's body language ... He's up to something...

She suddenly became aware of two eager man sitting in the van and a driver that looked somewhat impatient. However, when he noticed that she was looking at him he smiled friendly at her. At that moment she knew for sure that something was wrong...

"Just a sec, let me get me my handbag, so I can write your phone number down in my agenda. Just in case the repair bill turns out to be more than I estimated," Ilse suddenly said.

"Oh, that won't be necessary, Miss. I'd just like to take care of this as fast as possible, so we can get on our way again."

"I insist," Ilse replied firmly, not taking no for an answer.

The Colonel shrugged and Ilse walked casually back to her car and got in.

"Psst, Colonel," One of his men started with a whispering voice, "She doesn't even own a handbag!"

"Crap! She's setting us up! Tony, start the car!" The Colonel ordered, while he jumped back in the van.

He barely got in when he heard the screeching tires of a car leaving the area at high speed. Turning around he saw how Ilse drove away from them as fast as possible.

"Damn it!" The Colonel cursed loudly, closing the sliding door behind him.

"Hang on, this is gonna be a rough ride!" Tony yelled to the men in the back.

"Fucking great! Just what we need ... We're not supposed to draw any attention to ourselves. That bitch is completely blowing our cover," The Colonel hissed, with a seething voice.

Meantime Ilse thought her situation over, while pushing the gas paddle as deep as her car allowed, Shit ... I don't know what those men were planning, but it couldn't have been anything good...

Looking in the rearview mirror she saw the white van was chasing her and gaining in on her quickly. Ilse wasn't new to losing chasers though, her occasional run-ins with the police had given her some practice already. Unfortunately, the police usually still managed to arrest her later on and then the bastards would give her a heavy fine for speeding and resisting arrest too. Still, it beat doing hard time for having drugs on her.

"Damn ... She's good," Tony muttered under his breath, he was impressed with her driving skills, especially considering her car was almost an antique, which gave her a serious disadvantage.

The Colonel, however, had overheard him, saying, "I don't care how good she is, catch up to her and then I'll put a bullet in her tire. We better finish this as quickly as possible."

"Yes sir," Tony replied, with a businesslike voice.

The van was a lot faster than Ilse's car, but Ilse made up for it with a shorter turning circle. This forced Tony to hit the breaks, least they'd end up on the other lane and crash into oncoming traffic.

Ilse pulled another trick, when she saw that she had momentarily lost her tail she quickly parked her car in the parking lot of a house and turned her engine and lights off. Next she grabbed some belongings and the knife that she kept in the glove box. She had some nasty incidents in the past, but since it was hard to get a gun on Iceland a knife would have to do.

Keeping her head low she quickly ducked out of the car, shut the door and ran to the backyard of the house, making sure she stayed out of direct sight from the street.

Tony was surprised when he didn't see Ilse's car on the road any more and commented, "There is no way she was so quick that we lost track of her completely..."

"She must have parked the car somewhere and continued on foot," The Colonel concluded for him.

He ordered each of his men to look in a certain direction for her car and, unfortunately for Ilse, they quickly located it.

"There it is," One of them commented, pointing to the left side of the street.

Tony quickly pulled over and the other three team members got out, looking for Ilse.

Ilse, meanwhile, had taken to running her ass off, wanting to get as far away from those men as possible. They were definitely after her and she didn't like it one bit.

Her high heel boots had prevented her from running fast and she had taken them off as quickly as she could, preferring to run barefooted so she could at least make some speed.