Spies & Ties

Part 1

  If you thought of a female spy from a movie you might think of some beauty in a skin tight spandex catsuit. Using some sort of advanced gadget to climb up a wall past more mundane security. You might think of a woman on her guard in a trench coat and hat with dark glasses hiding her identity. You would probably not envisage someone dressed as an air-conditioning engineer slowly working their way around an office doing the actual servicing. She wore a lose fitting jump suit and carried a bag. She moved past the security checkpoint discarded the jumpsuit, beneath it she wore clothes that made her look indistinguishable from any other office worker.

  Claudia was a professional, she was trained in many different clandestine expertise. She had short black hair that could easily be tucked under a number of different disguises. This time she was breaking into her own governments offices. She was not a turn coat, instead she had a personal matter to deal with. Something that came before her oaths to country. She wanted revenge on a particularly powerful government official. Certain information, well a copy of certain information had fallen into her hands. Revealing the truth behind a particular tragedy. She was by nature sceptical a critical thinker. She wanted to believe it, but she had to be sure that the evidence was not a forgery. It might have been a clever trick, so she had to see it for herself before she would truly believe.

  Behind her there was a cleaner slowly following her path, she wore her hair tied up under a hair wrap. She moved past the same security check point where a guard slowly snoozed away and dreamed of going home for the weekend. The cleaner stepped into a cleaning cupboard and another very smartly dressed office worker stepped out. Susanna had long wavy blond hair, she flicked it out and started to march down the corridor. With a pile of random papers and letters in her hand she looked like she had something important to do and no one was going to interrupt her. She followed the first spy. She was not there in any official capacity. True she wanted to stop her, but she wanted to stop her friend and lover from throwing her life away on a suicide mission.

  Claudia had easily dealt with the lock on the lift and the security device. She had gone down to the basement of the ware house and found the correct archive room. A simple lock on a door a filing cabinet and she was sure that she was searching in the right place. She found the right date and a copy of the orders. Her body seemed to freeze and her hand rose to cover her mouth. You might have expected a river of tears but a few were enough. She had found the evidence that the government official, the governor Soven had been responsible. She pushed her emotion away and examined the papers in closer detail. Yes, her parents had been killed on his orders. Before her mother could surpass his political position and challenge him. She carefully verified it all in minute detail. It was legitimate, now she wanted blood. Not the assassin who had carried out the deed. But the hand behind the curtain, she wanted Soven dead.

  Claudia spun around drawing her pistol, she was expecting a guard, it was not. She didn't fire instead holstered her weapon, her friend Susanna was standing there.

    “Was it true”?

    “Yes” she looked ready to cry. Her friend looked at her,

    “So, it was Soven all those years ago”. She looked at her walking towards her and told her

    “Claudia you plan to kill him now, of course you do. The person you are after is too powerful a member of the inner committee. Even if you do succeed you know they have the retribution protocol. They will kill you my little one. You and the rest of your surviving family as revenge, there is no way out if you do that”. She thought about it if she killed them, then she was also signing her cousins death warrant that made her pause.

    “I could protect them hide them”, Susanna held her head between her hands,

    “You would not be able to hide yourself, meet me hear I have a safe house. Let us discuss this it is a time for reflection not action”.

  They had gone at it for hours looking for some solution. Some way of pinning it on a rival or foreign actor, some way to make it look like an accident. Some way of prying Soven out of his position. It was not looking good, Claudia still wanted revenge bad enough to do it. She would send her cousins a way out and then head off. She was fed up with talking she went to leave. Susanna stood in her way a hand on her shoulder a tear forming in her eye

    “I can’t let you kill yourself”.

    “They were my parents … I have to do it”.

    “For the love we shared, stay and we can find another way together”.

    “I can’t, there is only one way” Susanna refused to back down, they ended up pushing and then shouting against each other. One telling the other to get the hell out of her way, the other telling her to sit the fuck down. Both of them were trained fighters but they were both holding back, they were just two people full off emotion. It was more like two school girls shoving each other in the playground. Neither of them considered that the other would escalate it into something dangerous yet.

  Claudia did not want to hurt the woman standing in her way, she could see the reasons why she stood in her way. Part of her wanted her to stop her to calm her down, but a far larger part of her could only see Soven with a bullet in his head. She waited until her opponent was a little off balance shoving her hard. Then she tried to dive past her and make a run for it, Susanna was a little quicker than her opponent anticipated. Recovering her balance, she tackled her lover as she tried to bolt past her and run off to her certain death. Her lover twisted out of her grip and tried to punch her in the chin. She blocked it with a sweep of her forearm, both of them were now fighting seriously. Fists and feet elbows and knees collided at a frenetic pace. Susanna was trying to beat some sense into her lover, Claudia was trying to land a knockout blow.

  The two of them ended up wrestling on the floor. Susanna tried to choke her opponent into unconsciousness. They ended up rolling with Claudia eventually pinning Susanna down on the floor. Swiftly she pulled out a small hypodermic needle, she had a non-lethal way of dealing with opponents. Now she was going to jab her and end the fight saying,

    “Don't worry my love you will just be asleep for a couple of hours”. Susanna with a surprising burst of speed and agility twisted at the last moment. She redirected the attack jabbing the syringe into Claudia's side. The empty syringe clattered to the ground and Claudia felt herself falling into Susanna's arms. She tried to think of a suitable insult, but her world went blank before she could move her lips.

  Claudia woke up she shook her head embarrassed. It must have been two hours later. It was a standard anaesthetic you could get in any hospital. She used it all the time, it was embarrassing to fall foul of her own trick. She quickly surveyed her situation, she was on a mattress in just her black underwear her wrists and ankles were held with zip ties. She pulled on them They were rather tight, her arms were tied behind her back. Her feet were held together, looking round her clothing was laid out on a chair next to her. The room was in a deep-cover safe house, there were some other bits of furniture in the room a rug a few pictures, there was a window. She could see the tools of her trade neatly arranged, her service pistol in the holster with the spare clip and silencer. Her ankle holster with the tiny back up gun next to it. Her knife a set of lock-picks and her syringe kit as well as her various id's and passes all neatly arranged.

  She was going to hop over and get her knife get dressed and get out. Looking round the room the lock was heavy duty as was the door. Before she could start working out how to pick the lock there was a heavy click and the door swung open. Claudia was on her guard as Susanna came in with a tray it had two coffee's and a sandwich sitting on it.

    “My love let me go, this is not what I want. Let me get my revenge”. Susanna shook her head placing the tray down,

    “I hoped that a few hours’ sleep might have made you more reasonable, but I guess that is not to be”.

    “Come on let me out” She looked her over and told her friend.

    “Claudia I am not letting you go yet. You have to calm down will you be reasonable”?

  She pulled on her bound hands finding the zip ties to be rather more solid than she anticipated.

    “Susanna now that I have a chance to reconsider perhaps my course of action is rash. Please let me go, the two of us could just lie together for a little bit. Maybe you don’t need to remove the restraints and we can have a bit of fun like old times”. Claudia was trying to convince her captor to let her go she raised an eyebrow. But she was not buying it, not letting her prisoner go. Claudia sighed and slumped her shoulders Susanna was definitely not letting her go. Claudia opened her mouth as her captor put the coffee to her lips, it was just the way she liked it. Susanna leaned in and kissed her prisoner, Claudia was hand fed her food and drink. Her arms were still firmly bound behind her back with the thick plastic zip ties.

  Susanna looked her prisoner in the eyes,

    “Now there is a bathroom to the side, if I free your feet you go there you do your business. You come back out I tie you back up without any fuss and we can be nice and civil. If you try something stupid my dear I stop playing around and you are treated as a proper prisoner no mercy no clothes no consideration just harsh restraints”. Claudia nodded

    “I swear to you that I will behave”. Susanna nodded and picked up the knife cutting the zip tie freeing her feet, so she could use the en-suit toilet herself. In the toilet Claudia turned around and set the tap running. She gritted her teeth and twisted round so that her hands were in front of her. She twisted in a painful manner putting pressure on her wrists snapping the cuffs freeing her hands. She managed to stifle the cry of pain. Looking round the room there was nothing that she could use as a weapon. She considered her lovers words for a moment, but she didn't plan to behave. It would be simple, take her captor by surprise and give her a jab with the needle. She kicked the door open and dived out. Going to her case for her syringe kit to knock Susanna out, the same way she had been knocked out.

  Claudia sprinted desperately across the room unimpeded by the restraints in just her underwear. She seemed to have caught Susanna of guard. She felt a thrill when she picked the case up only to find that the kit was empty. Her knife was missing and she was sure that her guns were probably empty. She had to conclude that Susanna was indeed expecting it and quite ready for her as she jabbed her again with the syringe, this time in the bottom. Claudia could feel herself blacking out, with the certain knowledge that things would be far far worse for her when she came to. Susanna looked down at her,

    “I am disappointed, you brought this on yourself”.

  Claudia woke up her head hurt, she might have been given a much stronger dose. Looking about Susanna had been very busy. The room was completely clear of anything but the mattress, there were no pictures or anything else. It was as if she had removed any possible item that her prisoner could use. The window had been boarded over a big bit of plywood and several heavy planks nailed into the frame. With some embarrassment the spy realised that she was now completely naked. She tried to complain but she couldn't say a lot. There was a large balled up rag in her mouth with a couple of strips of duct tape over it to keep it in place. Susanna had really made sure that she had little chance to get away. Claudia's arms were fixed behind her back. There was a zip tie around her wrists and above and below her elbows forcing them to meet. Her ankles and knees were fastened together with more zip ties, testing her bonds it was quite secure. Susana seemed to be quite intent on keeping her a prisoner. She was a little infuriated to say the least, but it was not a challenge she couldn't overcome given a bit of time.

  Claudia sat up on the mattress and looked about, a quick scan around the room showed her a floor board that was pulling up and more importantly a nail that would be just what she wanted. She rolled off the mattress and crawled across the floor. She got into the right position and moved around until her fingers found the lose nail on the floor board. She twisted her weight about on the floor board until it started to work completely lose. She used that nail to free her wrists and then with a great deal of twisting her elbows. With some relief she pulled off the tape and spat out the gag. Examining it she saw a large silk scarf a pair of tights plus one of her sock. The nail in hand She started to work on freeing her legs.

  Before she could work on freeing her ankles the door slammed open. Susanna had a tray with her, on it was delivery fast food from their favourite restaurant as well as a few other supplies. She took one look at Claudia giving her a disappointed stare. Her prisoner caught in the attempt to get away jumped up as best she could, maintaining her balance. She started to back away at a shuffle, the best she could with her legs still bound together. Susanna dropped her shopping and slowly started to advance on her prisoner telling her,

    “Claudia I need to keep you tied up nice and tight for your own good. Or you will do something stupid that will get yourself killed. Obviously I didn't tie you up quite tightly enough just accept your position. I will tie you back down a little more tightly. But if you resist I will be forced to secure you in a very stringent way that you won’t like at all”.

  Claudia tried to make a hop for it keeping her arms raised. Susanna was faster she closed the distance sweeping her legs out from under her. Susanna tripped and pinned her prisoner to the floor sticking a syringe in her bottom. The trained spy felt so unbelievably frustrated if only she had gotten her legs free. She was normally the one who uses the drugs, it was really quite humiliating to be constantly kept in line with her own supplies. Claudia managed to curse rather loudly,

    “Fucking hell” then collapsed limp, blacking out. The next time she woke up things would be a hell of a lot worse. She was not looking forwards to that in any way shape or form. Those were the last thoughts that swirled in her mind before the blackness took her.

  Her head pounded, she had been hit with a lot of sedative. She woke up again her body and mind sluggish she was in darkness. This time it seemed that Susanna had been really busy. Claudia was still naked her arms behind her back. This time her fingers were taped together with lots of electrical tape. Wrapped into one big solid ball that would be a true nightmare to unwrap and escape from. There were zip ties around her wrists multiple sets biting into her flesh. More heavy duty zip ties secured her limbs above and below her elbows they had all been pulled paralyzingly tight. Even more of them had been used digging into her biceps and the mid-point on her fore arms. They were all a lot tighter than before, Susanna was not messing about. Claudia's mouth had all the rags shoved back into it. Plus, some more and what felt like some large round rubber ball in the centre to pack it all in tight. On top of that there was a tight wrap of tape round her jaw rather than a few strips holding it in place.

  There was a piece of tape over her eyes that didn't seem to want to shift, perhaps another wrap. There was a strong hemp rope that was attached from her wrists to her waist and a tight crotch rope tying her tightly that sank between her legs tight enough to be a punishment in itself. Her ankles knees and thighs were wrapped in many zip ties that bit into her flesh holding her tight. The rope from her waist ended tied around her ankles hog tying her feet with very little room to move. There was even a zip tie around her big toes, that seemed ridiculous but it did manage to stop some of her movement a little. She was still not beaten, even with these substantial bonds she was sure that she would find a way out, even if it took her all day.

  She spent an hour wiggling until she could finally get the blindfold off. Claudia was looking around the room to repeat that earlier trick. All the floor boards had been hammered down there were no lose nails that she could see. There were marks on the walls where something was going to be put and the window had been even more thoroughly boarded over. It looked like Susanna was getting really serious. With lots of struggling the desperate prisoner managed to get up against a wall and work the rope against a clip for the radiator, until she has undone the hogtie. She unfolded with relief she was exhausted after the exertion. Then it all seemed to have been bit of a pointless effort. Her captor returned moments after she had finished, because there were still so many layers of bonds to free herself from.

  The door to the room had opened literally ten seconds after she had unfolded and started to take a breather. Susanna had returned, she didn't look happy to see her captives escape attempt. She told her

    “Claudia you’re a very bad girl, I am going to have to put you in purpose made max security restraints. It’s for your own good to keep you from throwing your life away. Really your continued escape attempts have forced my hand, you have brought this on yourself”. She had a hand cart with several boxes on it. She said that,

    “I am a good friend it is my duty to take care of you.” She sat her prisoner down on the mattress that had now been screwed to the floor with nylon straps over the corners and with two across it cutting it into thirds making sure it couldn't be moved about. Looking round Claudia was getting very worried, She could see where some eye-bolts were installed and more were planned all over the room in the walls they looked new, just for her.