Jonathan Taylor - Meyer-Hofmann AG

Lisa decided she only had one option. I have to charm the bastard!

Michael had considered going to the police but decided against it. He felt more and more of Hofmann creeping into his subconscious, and despite having prised a loose filling from a top molar, he was concerned that the pain he was able to inflict on himself was inadequate. He was feeling no remorse at all for his victims, and that worried him. An anger was also boiling in his belly like nothing he had known before. Hofmann is close!

Trying to act logically, he had weighed up all of his possible courses of action.

The chance that I can persuade the police to raid the club are next to none. Getting them to do anything before the morning is unlikely. Lisa will probably be dead by the morning. She needs me now!

He checked the clip of the gun in his hand. He had no idea what type of gun it was, but he knew exactly how to operate it. Releasing the safety, he opened the clip.

Five rounds of ammunition. Use them wisely, Michael.

He had parked the van on an adjacent street and was entering Gallery Street from the Odeonsplatz on foot. Outside the club, he could see one of the first-generation clones guarding the door. It could well be one of the Heinzes . Turning the gun around in his left hand so he was gripping the barrel, he flicked the safety back on and made as if to walk past the clubs’ entrance. The door was on his right, and he nonchalantly walked past, before swinging around and bringing the gun’s handle down on the guard’s head with all the force he could muster. The gun’s grip made contact just behind the guard’s right ear. For a moment, it didn’t seem as if the blow had had any effect. The guard turned towards Michael, looking more startled than hurt. But then he went down to his knees, letting Michael land another identical blow. This time, he felt the man’s skull give way and watched him slump to the floor. Michael thought about moving the body but decided against it.

Should anyone alert the police, that could only be a good thing!

Lisa gave Von Klitzing one of her best smiles.

“Herr Von Klitzing, we were scared. Michael has been so unwell recently, and he thought you had drugged him. We were just trying to get some leverage, to make you stop what you were doing to him and just let us go home.”

“Yes, I am sure. And what leverage have you found?”

She smiled again.

“Not very much, really. Just a little money laundering and a few companies that do not fit in the Meyer-Hofmann portfolio.”

“And what do you know about Heinz Hofmann?”

“Who?” she tried her best, but she knew he didn’t believe her the moment the word left her mouth.

Pain shot up her left leg, and another scream exploded from her chest. Looking down, she could see a scalpel’s blade buried deep into her left thigh. Blood was oozing from its base and running down the side of her calf.

“No, please! He was Michael’s grandfather, and you are trying to bring him back from the dead or something. Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me!”

“Now that’s better. How is Michael keeping control? How is he stopping Hofmann from returning?”

“I don’t know, I promise I don’t know.” The tone of her voice gave it away, but she could not give up that secret. She could not betray her husband, whatever the price.

“Your choice, young lady.”

Von Klitzing reached down under the trolley and lifted the heavy yellow battery charger, letting it drop with a demonstrative clatter, on top of the cart. Unwrapping a long black rubber cable from behind the body of the charger, he walked over to the door and plugged the cable into the wall socket. A small dial on the device instantly sprang into life, making Lisa’s eyes bulge with fear, as she stared from the machine to Von Klitzing and back to the machine. He could see her trying to process what might be about to happen to her, then wishing she hadn’t. Perched back on the rolling stool, Von Klitzing enjoyed her torment for a while, then slid himself back across the room. Reaching under the trolley, he retrieved two thick black rubber gloves. He pulled them on slowly, only inches away from her face, before turning away from her for the last time. Picking up the two large bulldog clips from the side of the machine, he freed their attached cables expertly from the trolley’s bottom shelf with his right foot. Another twist and he was facing her again, the bulldog clips held up for her to see, and a mad grin covering his face. Without any delay, he attached the first of the bulldog clips to her left breast, clamping her soft white skin between the clip’s vicious teeth. Red blood seeping through the crocodile’s cruel smile.

Michael was in the club, the gun hidden in his hand by the dead guard’s jacket. He moved as unobtrusively as he could to the lift. Although it was almost 3:00 am in the morning, there were still ten or twelve people in the bar, with two overworked waiters moving to and fro from their tables. Fortunately, nobody noticed his entrance, and he was in the lift before the lift doors had completely opened. Guessing where they would be holding Lisa, he pressed the button for the second underground level. When the doors reopened, he was standing with the gun raised in front of his chest in a two-handed grip. As he had expected, a lone guard stood at the entrance to the second floor, a guard he dispatched with a single shot to the head. The sound of the gunshot echoed around the lift’s small cabin, yanking him briefly back to grim reality. Another dead man at his feet.

“No time for this, move on, move on!” he told himself.

Leaving the elevator, his ears still ringing with a high-pitched song of complaint, he set off for the interrogation room. He guessed he had a good five hundred metres to his destination and would encounter three corners and countless doors. The rooms off the main corridors were not just storerooms; some provided accommodation for the guards. He knew that before he got to Lisa, things would very likely get very lively. His main problem would be guards exiting rooms from behind him, as he moved down the corridors. If he wasn’t careful, he could easily get flanked and surrounded. Quickly patting down the dead guard, he removed a pistol from his inside jacket pocket, clicked on the safety, and stuck it down the back of his trousers. He had often seen similar scenes in action movies and shook his head to make sure he stayed focused.

The alarm bell started after he took out his third victim. The guard emerged from behind a closed door. He too was dropped with a head shot from point-blank range, but the door slammed shut behind him, and moments after that came the sound of a siren. It bellowed down the narrow hallways, calling the guards out of their sleep and galvanising them into action. There was nothing Michael could do about it, so, pulling the second gun from behind his back, he flipped off the safety and fired three rounds with each gun into the closed door, before kicking it in. The second inhabitant of the room was hit by three of the six bullets, and the wall behind him had been transformed into a mural of red and white. Dispensing with the empty weapon, Michael found two more on his latest victims, and, tucking them both into his belt, he ventured slowly back into the hallway.

“You know, Mrs Jarvis, electricity is one of man’s greatest inventions. But it can be very painful.”

Von Klitzing brushed the second clamp over Lisa’s right nipple, and her whole body convulsed. Straining against the chair’s straps and fighting uselessly against the thick brown leather, her teeth ground themselves to powder as the relentless electricity forced its way through her flesh, contorting her face into a grotesque death mask. Von Klitzing finally pulled the clamp away, only a moment before she was convinced she would die. A mouthful of chipped teeth and excruciating pain racked her head. Perspiration soaked her entire body, and salty sweat ran from her forehead and into her eyes, blurring her vision and combining with tears of pain to create a waterfall of despair over her face.