Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

‘Lie down,’ she told him.

He did as she said, propping himself up on the pillows.

‘I’m going to give you a little show,’ she said.

‘Sounds swell,’ said the General. ‘I like to take in a show.’

‘You’ll love this one,’ she said, and she started to remove her clothes. Her jacket first, which she dropped on to the floor next to the General’s kimono. Then her blouse, which she removed to reveal her black bra. She slipped off her shoes. One of them she kicked across the floor. The other, the shoe with the razor blade, she kept upright and accessible. She wormed her way out of her skirt so that now she was standing there in her underwear. The General’s appreciation was evident on his face and elsewhere. Bethany gave him a girlish twirl, mussing her hair as she did so, and he said: ‘Bravo! Hottest ticket in town!’

‘I thought you’d enjoy it,’ she said. She touched the tip of her tongue to her front teeth and made a coquettish look skywards as though a naughty idea had just come to her. ‘Let’s play a game,’ she said.

Danny felt his blood burning. He had no way of contacting Bethany and he didn’t know the General’s room number. He was momentarily frozen, paralysed by his lack of options. What the hell was happening? How could he stop Bethany in time?

He looked across the room. The General’s guy was still slouched in his chair, glass of mineral water in hand. He would know where the General was. Suddenly Danny had options. Could he be persuaded to give up the General’s room number? No chance. Just asking the question would surround Danny with a cadre of suspicious American soldiers. Could he be coerced, physically? Perhaps. But that would mean getting him on his own and, if he was well trained, the process could take some time. Danny didn’t have time. So he needed another idea.

He stood up and hurried towards the far exit and out of the bar.

The belts from the two kimonos were soft and satiny to the touch. But they were strong, too. Bethany could tell as she pulled one of them taut before wrapping it along one arm. She draped the other over her left shoulder so that it covered her bra strap. Then she walked towards the bed, where the General was breathing heavily. He reminded Bethany of a hungry dog waiting for his dinner. And just as a hungry dog will perform any trick for food, she knew that the General was now lost to the moment. The job was as good as done.

‘Give me your hand, baby,’ she said.

The General did as he was told. His palm was warm and a little sweaty. He was entirely compliant as she tied one end of the loose kimono cord to his wrist and the other to the corresponding bedpost. She put her face close to his, as if to kiss him, but drew away at the last moment, teasing him. She sashayed round to the other side of the bed, slowly unwrapping the other kimono cord from around her arm. She didn’t even have to ask him for his other hand. He offered it to her and was silent and meek as she tied it to the opposite bedpost. She stepped back to look at him. His Viagra had done its work and it occurred to her that under other circumstances her best option would be to present this as a sex game gone wrong. But she didn’t have the time for anything sophisticated. She wanted the job done, and to be out of here. So the razor was her friend.

The General’s legs were still free, but without the use of his arms he was effectively out of action. She couldn’t drop her pretence just yet; she didn’t want his suspicions to be raised and for him to start struggling and making noise. So she continued to sashay as she turned her back on him and walked over to where his clothes were neatly folded, and picked up his pair of pale blue briefs. She turned and held them up, winking at him suggestively. His brow wrinkled, half confused, half amused, as if to say, ‘what are you going to do with those?’

She walked back towards him.

Danny found the fire alarm call point in an instant. It was situated at the bottom of the stairwell, just to the right of the elevator. A glass panel framed in red, the instruction to break the glass in case of emergency written in both English and Arabic. He checked his surroundings. Nobody was watching, so he smashed his elbow into the panel.

The response was immediate: a deafeningly loud alarm, high pitched and quickly alternating between two notes. Danny hurriedly climbed the stairs to the first floor. A military man would know never to use the lift if there was a fire, and so he figured that the General’s guy would be there any minute, either to head straight to a room on the first floor or to continue up the stairs.

It took about twenty seconds. Guests were already hurrying from their bedrooms, pushing past Danny as he loitered on the half-landing, trying to zone out the ringing sound of the fire alarm. The General’s guy pushed against the tide, taking two steps at a time. He paid no attention to Danny as he passed. He was looking up, not back, so he didn’t see Danny follow him.

Bethany stood by the side of the bed and leaned over. She squeezed the General’s nose between her thumb and forefinger, and she knew that, at last, he was beginning to realise that something was not right. His body tensed up and, looking down, she could see that his excitement was waning. She held his underwear close to his mouth. He would open it eventually, either to breathe or to shout out. When he did that, she would stuff the briefs inside and silence him.

But the General was a smart guy. He knew what would happen when he opened his mouth. So for now, he kept it clenched. He started to kick violently and to strain against the kimono cords, but Bethany had tied perfect double constrictor knots. She noticed how his hands reddened as the blood supply to them became restricted. A minute passed. His face was becoming red too. His eyes bulged. She kept the pressure on his nose, keeping the nostrils shut. And then it happened. He needed to breathe. He parted his lips but kept his teeth clenched as he tried to inhale. That was all she needed. She stuffed the underpants hard inside his mouth, crumpling them into a ball, forcing them between his teeth and pushing them to the back of the throat. He tried to bite her fingers, but the pressure of the material against the back of his mouth made him gag and open his mouth even wider, so she was able to force all the material inside before withdrawing her hand.

He was kicking in a frenzy now, arching his body up as he writhed and struggled against the cords. The mattress shifted underneath him, but Bethany wasn’t worried. He wasn’t going anywhere. She hurried back round to where her clothes were piled on the floor. It would be better to put them on before she did it. Then she could get out of there the moment his throat was cut and she had confirmed that he was dead. She felt awkward as she dressed, and she realised she was nervous. She breathed deeply and slowed herself down. Buttoned up her blouse and smoothed her skirt. Then she bent over, folded back the inner sole of her shoe and withdrew the razor blade. She realised that the General had been making a regular, metronomic squeal which she had barely noticed as she prepared herself. It grew more frenzied as she held the razor up to the light, establishing that both sides were sharp. A numbness came over her. It was a familiar sensation. Her body and mind protecting itself from what was to come. She’d been holding up the razor for longer than she intended. She lowered it, focused on the squealing man on the bed, and approached him.

The blare of the fire alarm made her whole body jolt. The numbness instantly dissolved. She spun round, half expecting somebody to burst into the room. But there was nobody. Just her and the General. He had stopped squealing and writhing. He was staring round the room, as if the fire alarm was a physical presence he was trying to catch sight of, as if it was somebody arriving to rescue him from the horror. But then he seemed to realise that the opposite might be true. That the alarm might speed things up. His writhing became more extreme. His squeals more desperate.