Deep Undercover
PART THREE — A DEEPENING CONSPIRACY
I couldn’t help but stare into those empty, vacant eyes.
Madame Franz might have had a successful and legitimate career as a nightclub hypnotist with those amazing, mesmerizing orbs of hers. Life on the stage show circuit isn’t nearly as rewarding as, say, selling out your country while pretending to be a humble spa owner, but it’s also way less illegal, and far less likely to end with you being hypnotized and completely under Megan Caminski’s control. Oh well. I guess we all live with the choices we make, don’t we?
“She’s younger than I thought she’d be,” I said, letting my idle thoughts escape into the open.
“This is L.A., Paul. You know that everyone here is 25, and not a day older.” Megan lowered the crystal pendant and whispered into the mesmerized woman’s left ear.
Madame Franz closed her eyes and shuddered. Her hands rose to her ample chest, but Megan gently pushed them back down. “Not yet, my lovely pet. Not yet. Not before you go deeper for me. Feel your mind sink deeper into trance, feeling so wonderful with every second. Sink deeper and deeper for me, until you’re as deep as you can go. Feeling wonderful, now sink. Sink. Count backwards from fifty, and sink.”
“Fifffffty...” the beautiful dark-haired woman mumbled. “Ffforty niiiinnne...”
“I’m just saying, you hear a name like ‘Madame Franz’... I was expecting a little old German lady. Not... I mean, she’s not even German, is she?”
“For your information,” said Megan, with a hint of annoyance, “she’s from Argentina, and her real name is Marta.” She tossed the woman’s handbag over to me.
California driver’s license. Marta Rodriguez, 38. Lived over on Colorado, just a few blocks away. Organ donor. “Jesus, thirty-eight?” I muttered in disbelief. “If she keeps herself looking this good... I may need to start coming here.”
“It’s a little too late for that.” Megan gave me a quick swat on the arm. “Now can we get back to brainwashing this poor lady? I have a dinner date at Maison.”
“One.” Marta interrupted us. She paused for a moment, then added “I’m very deep, Mistress.”
I tried not to let Megan see my surprise and admiration. She’s an outstanding hypnotist. Better than me, in many ways. It’s why, when I saw her text about Madame Franz being a difficult subject, I drove down to Santa Monica expecting the worst. Instead I found our target sitting stock-still in a leather chair, mind just as open as a blank notebook. I let a smile escape my face, and instantly regretted it.
“I saw that.” Megan was gloating. I knew this would happen. “You know who’s the best hypnotist in this town? Me.”
“You’re almost as good as me,” I countered. “Remember who won our little ‘hynpo-off’ battle last Christmas? Protactin—“
“Don’t you even try to turn me into a chicken, you butt! Have you not noticed what we’re in the middle of here?” She waved her hand in front of Marta’s gorgeously blank face. “Let me show you all of the little magic tricks I’ve taught her. Marta, stand up.”
Marta rose on unsteady legs, and I held her arm as she moved into a standing position. She had a great body. Another job perk—you spend a lot of time around beautiful women in this line of work.
“Now Marta, my pet, you’ll do anything I ask, correct? Because you trust me completely.”
“Yes, Mistress. I trust you completely. I’ll do anything you ask.”
Megan shot me a wink. “When I snap my fingers, you will wake up. You won’t pay any attention to anyone else in this room. You’ll think that you’re alone. You’re going to think that Cassie just came by for a treatment, and gave you some very important information. Annnnnd... go.”
<snap>
Marta brushed past us as if we were just two extra chairs in the room, heading straight for the cluttered desk in the corner. She sat down and picked up the phone, pausing a moment before jabbing at the keypad. I tried to hide my growing erection as I watched her stare at the wall, motionless and blank. Thankfully, Megan was just as spellbound as I was, and I was able to shift in my chair to hide the evidence. No need to give my hypno-rival yet another reason to gloat.
There was a buzz, and Megan smiled as she reached into her purse. She produced a ringing phone and held it aloft like a trophy. Which, in many ways, it was. She tapped the screen and held the phone to her ear. “Yyyello, Siberia Investment Company, this is Megan.”
We both looked over at Marta, who was now hunched over the desk with a perplexed look on her face. “I’m... I’m sorry, I thought that... I was told to call this number...”
“Deep sleep, Marta,” said Megan.
Marta responded instantly, her head dropping forward, phone still clutched in her hand. “Yes Mistress. I am deeply asleep. I have received some very important information.”
“Go ahead. Your mind opens as you speak to me. Tell me what you have learned.”
“Lieutenant Rogers reports that the Seventh Fleet will begin testing the new XR-7 missile defense system next week. The test will occur at longitude 117.19 degrees East, latitude 20.40 degrees South, at 2300 hours on the fifth of May. Test data will be encrypted using Key BC17F.”
Megan looked at me, wide-eyed. “What the hell?”
“Avery’s got at least three Naval officers under his control. I think he’s using girls like Cassie to seduce them and get them into that brainwashing place up in the Hills. Then later they meet up with the same girl at a motel and think it’s part of a torrid love affair, when really they’re there to pass along the secrets they’ve stolen. Then the girls come to Marta here for a treatment and a debriefing they won’t ever remember.”
“You’ve got to get Tara out of there, Paul. What if she gets arrested for espionage?”
I shook my head. “You know Tara. She won’t give up. Anyway, she has a point. Now that we have Madame Franz, we have a link to the pipeline. If Tara can find a way to pin Avery to the information he’s stealing, we’ve got him. And I think I know how to do it.”
“I don’t like this. I don’t even like being a part of this.”
Megan was shaking. Not a lot, but enough to notice. She was scared. It takes a lot to scare that girl, I can tell you that. Just seeing her look that way made me even more determined to pull Tara off of this operation. Now that we had Madame Franz, that was entirely possible. Two weeks, Paul. Give me two weeks. That was five days ago. Nine more days, and I’d have my partner back.
“Mistress?”
“You’ve done very well, Marta.” Megan’s voice was clear and commanding. “Close your eyes, and go deeper for me. Deep into trance. Deep into sleep. Deeper.”
Marta’s eyes slid closed. “Yes, Mistress.”
“When I hang up the phone, you will wake up. You will remember that you have already given this information to Avery and that there is no need to call him again.”
“Yes... I will not call him. No need to.”
“When the phone call ends, you will return to the leather chair in your office and sit in it. When you do so, your trance will deepen tenfold, and you will listen and obey.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
Megan tapped the phone to end the call. Marta slipped past us once again and sank into the chair with a boneless sigh. Her head immediately dropped to her chest.
“There. She’s ready. All I have to do is wipe her memories of the past few hours and we can go on our merry way. Thanks for giving me the chance to work on my hidden, totally-not-ready-for-office-work skill set. You ever been to Maison?”
“Is that the place that has the baguette made out of pure silver?”
“The very one.”
I nodded. “I’ll pass. Look, can I ask you for a favor? This is a little unorthodox, but...”
Megan fixed those pretty blue eyes on me and scrunched them until they looked sufficiently skeptical. “What? Brainwashing isn’t enough for one day?”
It took me a moment to gather up the courage for what to say next. “I’m afraid not, Megan. Wednesdays, willows, and warlocks.”
The light faded from her eyes. “Yes. I am under your control.”
I took another deep breath, and began.