The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Dreaming.

I was sitting on a common chair. This was a dream in very slow motion. My angel wasn’t there. I felt an ominous presence instead. A shadow among the shadows.

Some objects from the shadows were flying towards me. At first I thought they must be birds. Sharp looking beaks seemed to be the only things in motion, coming at me. I watched them numbly, unable to react. Time moved slowly as they glided towards me while I was unable to turn away or dodge them. It was just a dream, I told myself. Just a dream.

But I wasn’t waking up.

The maître d’ was dressed in black slacks, a white shirt with a red bow tie. We were a bit late, but Janet talked to him. No one was waiting for seating so it wasn’t going to be an issue with the reservation, I was sure. He nodded and pulled a pair of menus from the sleeve they were kept in by his podium.

“Follow me,” the man said.

I stepped aside so Janet could go first. My eyes raked over her back, down to her delightfully bobbing bottom. A mild arousal warmed me as I realized there was no line from any panties. The fact her boots did not allow viewing of her ankles didn’t give me problems. The image of her original choice of footwear still graced my thoughts. I knew she had a glorious pair of well turned ankles.

The maître d’ held a chair for Janet and I took a seat myself. Admittedly my paranoia was still floating in the back of my thoughts, I had chosen from the three remaining seats the one that placed my back to the wall.

Though I felt sure I’d dealt with the threats already, I did another quick scan of the area to see if I picked up any further mentally manipulated pawns.

“Your waiter tonight will be Marcus,” the maître d’ said, “Do you know what you’d like to drink? I can get that order in for you right away.”

Janet looked quickly at the menu and ordered a glass of the house wine. I asked for a soda. It wouldn’t do tonight for me to be blurry minded.

“What, not even a beer?,” Janet asked.

“Not tonight. I want to pay attention to you without imbibing.”

She smiled at that, looking down for a moment to conceal a pink hue that had crept into her cheeks.

Dammit, she thought. She’d seen the girl bring Madison in. The men out front should have taken him down and signaled her. She checked her radio and it was on. The little Bluetooth earpiece hadn’t made a sound, but changing the squelch setting gave her the usual level of static noise, so she returned it to the original setting.

Watching the couple being led by the maître d’ to a table, they passed to a spot in the room where she’d have to expose herself briefly to get a shot. Once he was down that would be fine, she could influence the witnesses to forget everything, even enlist a couple sturdy men to carry him out. She needed a clear shot though. Without the dart gun being visible she stepped around the corner, making herself visible to the entire room.

There they were. The Madison guy had his back to the wall. Janet was in the way but that could be corrected with another step forward. She brought the pistol out, aimed, and fired. She clearly saw it struck his upper left arm.

Ben was trying to make small talk with Janet, somewhat focused on trying to keep his eyes on her’s. Not a simple task since the black dress she wore made her breasts stand out, nipples pretty much in evidence without even careful examination. It was decidedly apparent she wanted him to be aroused tonight. It appeared to be working too.

With a jolt he realized there was a sharp pain in his arm. Time did that sudden slow motion expansion as he looked down at his arm. It registered on him that Janet’s eyes popped open wide then immediately closed. He knew she was in the process of fainting. There was some kind of tube thing stuck in his arm. He looked up to see what was going on only to hear a couple voices in the room shout. He didn’t know what they were shouting, but his surprise was fading at the sound of a series of loud percussive noises.

No longer conscious he fell to the floor.

Margaret felt a brief moment of satisfaction but kept her guard up in case he was quick enough to reac telepathically before being asleep. It didn’t occur to her anything else could happen.

Kevin Toomey and his girlfriend had come at almost the same time Detective Shaw and his wife showed up. Spotting each other, they’d requested a table together so they could socialize. Introductions had been made, drinks ordered, light comments made about the course of normal business in their precinct.

Both Toomey and Shaw saw the woman step around the corner, thinking nothing of it at first. Then she raised her arm to point at a man near the wall.

It wasn’t simultaneous but both of them shouted “GUN!” It took precious seconds to draw their weapons from the holsters at their side. By then they’d seen her pull the trigger and seeing shots had been fired, they both emptied their weapons at the woman, who went down quickly.

They had the good fortune no one was in the line of fire though. At least a couple rounds clearly had gone wide. It didn’t matter. In their assessment the shooter was down.

“Call 9-1-1!,” shouted Toomey to no one in particular, pulling out his badge to put it on display for all to see. Shaw had rushed over to the man shot by the woman. At first he thought both of the couple by the wall had been shot, but the woman appeared to be fine. Turning the man to see if there were any wounds, he spotted the tranquilizer dart. It appeared the needle had broken off in the man’s arm when he fell to the ground.

Toomey was holding his badge up for everyone to see, “Everyone stay calm. Everything is over and under control.”

The sounds of sirens were audible only minutes later.

Their arrival of the ambulances was watched from the rooftop across the way by a rather nondescript man. His lighter jackets had been replaced by a hooded coat. It was too cold to just wander about in a light jacket right now.

In the seconds from hearing the word “GUN!” shouted and turning her head, Margaret tried to reach out to freeze the men who had shouted. She felt the punching at her body and wondered what that was about. The world was tilting. There was a numbness followed by a sharp sense she was badly hurt. She wanted to reach out to control someone but couldn’t remember who she needed to reach for.

At least nine of the shots had struck her. She had a couple minutes to realize she had been shot and there was nothing she could do. She tried but could not form the word ‘help.’

A man stood over her and looked at her. What he noticed was her eyes started to get a milky fog in them. His fingers pulled her eyelids down.

Margaret would never report back to Georgiy or the Wizard. She was gone.

The chime summoned her to the door. Peering through the peephole, she saw two men in police uniforms.

One of them decided to knock insistently and loud. “Police, we need to talk to you. I heard you moving in there.”

Confused, she undid the deadbolt and left the chain on so they couldn’t simply step inside. The chain was little benefit as the man kicked the door hard, breaking the chain’s anchor right out of the door, leaving it swinging side to side. In only moments, she was handcuffed and protesting vigorously. It did no good. They clearly didn’t care and were not listening to her. They walked her out to the elevator.

Coughing sounds woke Janet up. She’d been sitting next to his hospital bed since they released her from the ER. There were concerns she had about someone shooting at Ben. It was good it was only a tranquilizer dart but the medics refused to try smelling salts on him as they had with her.

They’d removed the needle from his arm already. The nurse told her without knowing specifically what drugs were in the dart the doctors didn’t want to give him anything yet. Since he wasn’t in any immediate medical distress they were content to just keep an eye on him.

The coughing was coming from the bed. Ben was trying to sit up and had discovered he wasn’t in his own bed at home. Janet patted his arm.

“Welcome back sleepy head.” She was relieved to see his eyes open.

“Good to be back,” came back at her in groggy tones. He tried touching his left arm gently with his fingers only to wince. He rolled up the sleeve. The angry bruise looked pretty startling.

“I guess I won’t be flapping this wing for a while.”

Janet let a smile show.

“Well if your wing has been clipped you won’t be taking flight any time soon.”

“I guess I’ll have to find a place to nest then.”

She winced. “Bad. Bad.”

“Okay. Where’s the nurse. I want to get out of here. A bad bruise can’t be enough reason to keep me here.”

“They’re testing the drug you were hit with,” Janet replied, “they’ll want to keep you until they’re certain you’re okay.”

He let out a sigh. Closing his eyes he tried to remember what had happened. He knew he’d gotten rid of the four people with the tranquilizer guns he’d found. How had there been a fifth one he missed?

“So, do you know what happened?”

“Not really. I saw a woman with a gun and,” she looked embarrassed, “apparently I fainted.”

Inwardly, he knew exactly why she’d fainted. The controls he’d put in her head had been set to knock her out immediately when the ambush had been sprung. He’d never cleared that away from her when he had assumed the threat was gone. Foolishly assumed, he told himself.

“So did anyone tell you anything?”

“The only thing I know is there were a couple cops having dinner there. They shot her after she had fired her gun.”

“Oh?”

“That’s all I heard.”

Janet took hold of his hand.

“Who would want to kidnap you? It’s the only thing I can think of if all they did was knock you out.”

“Kidnap.” Wheels in his head were spinning. He had anticipated being ambushed by the other telepathic people. The ones that had tried to reprogram Janet. Everything seemed to have gone well.

That he hadn’t spotted the woman with his scans bothered him. He squeezed Janet’s hand, and looked away thoughtfully. Could these people be spooks with the government? No, the government would come to his home with groups of uniformed agents. Why kidnap him though? “I don’t know. It’s not like our clients get mad at us. The other agencies might be as unscrupulous as we are but kidnapping a copy writer? That’s absurd.”

“Someone else, silly. Is there anyone you pissed off lately?”

“Not that I’m aware of. It’s not like there’s a jealous husband out there. I don’t get involved with married women.”

What had happened to the dark haired man who’d been tailing him anyway? Or his larger Russian sounding friend? He knew this ambush was coming but not being able to scan the woman who shot him was hard to accept. Even Celia who he had trouble reading, even she had a presence he could pick up. Unless maybe she was one of the telepaths. Maybe.

“Miss, you’ll have to step into the hall. The detective is here and wants a word with Mr. Madison.” The voice was a sweet contralto from a nurse. Next to her stood Detective Shaw and another man with a light beard.

Janet nodded and reluctantly released Ben’s hand. She left the room and he noticed she still had on that tight little black dress that had so distracted his thoughts. She had definitely not left his side once she woke up.

“Hello Mr. Madison, I’m Detective Shaw and this is my partner, Detective Cain. I was there last night so I can’t work this but I wanted to introduce you.”

“Hi. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to help you much.” Ben took the opportunity to scan Shaw’s mind for the incident, reliving up to the moment they were sure the woman was dead. The detective was still in the process of tracking down her identity. “Why can’t you be on this case?”

“Administrative duty until the shooting is investigated.” Shaw stepped back and stood by the door.

“What can you remember?,” Detective Cain asked.

“I had just ordered my drink, we were starting to talk and there was a sudden pain in my left arm.”

“Had you seen the woman that shot you before?”

“I still haven’t seen her. Not even a picture of her.”

Cain showed him a photo. Margaret’s face was cold, eyes closed, pale, not even color in her lips. He tried to think over the last couple weeks if anyone who looked like her was around where he worked or where he lived.

“I’m drawing a complete blank Detective.”

He paused then told them what he’d told Janet, that he could not think of anyone who was angry enough at him to shoot him, even if it was only with a tranquilizer.

“Thinking about it, the tranquilizer makes no sense. How would she have gotten me out of the restaurant?” He already knew how she’d get him out. There was no question she was a telepath herself now that he thought about it. She’d have simply enlisted a few by-standers and take him out the front door. Telling the police was not an option though.

“I don’t know,” responded Cain, his partner at the door nodding as well. Neither of them were going to tell him she’d had a radio indicating accomplices somewhere nearby. Ben picked it up in their surface thoughts though. Mind reading was being somewhat convenient. “We’ll figure it out. In time.”

“I’m glad Detective Shaw and the other officer were there last night.”

“Just one of those coincidences, even cops have to eat sometime. My wife likes me taking her on dates,” Shaw commented.

Ben suppressed a smile, knowing full well the idea for both Shaw and Toomey to be there was his backup plan. He didn’t think he’d need them after… well. He was glad he was one step ahead of the other side this time. “Them” as it were.

She had a hood over her head. The cops couldn’t have been real cops. Real cops didn’t put a hood over your head. Real cops didn’t tie you to a chair and leave. They must have stolen the police car.

There was no struggle in her after being tied down. They hadn’t bothered to gag her, so she concluded screaming now was pointless.

There were footsteps. She tried to make out if there was more than one person coming towards her.

“Who’s there? Let me go!”

“There you are. Good.” The voice had a hint of an accent. She couldn’t quite figure it out from so little though.

“Don’t do this! Let me go!”

“What the hell?” Something in her head was telling her she had to call Ben immediately. Or at least text him. Her hands couldn’t move much. She was certain they’d not brought her cell phone with her anyway. The need to escape had become stronger.

“Hello? Hello?,” she said when he’d gone silent.

The footsteps strolled away with muttering curses she was sure were Russian.

Sunday evening Ben found himself again outside Janet’s door. With Janet this time, as she was unlocking it.

“Are you sure you won’t come in?” She wanted to just throw herself at him but other concerns were pushing the most direct approach aside.

“Oh, it was a very interesting date, that’s for sure. I’ll take a rain-check on coming in tonight. After yesterday, I’m not sure I’ll make it in to work in the morning either.”

“That’s all right. I’ll cover for you.”

“Thanks, I will try to make it up to you.”

She threw her arms around his neck. She pulled him down a bit while she rose up on her toes, planting an intense kiss on his lips. Plunging her tongue past his lips she drew out the intensity of the kiss. He did nothing to stop it. They necked for several minutes before she came up for breath, eyes smoldering as she looked at him.

“Yum,” he said. “I still need to go home.”

“Damn. I tried.”

“And a good effort it was too. I need to get some rest though. It could be there’s still remnants of the tranquilizer in the system, ya know?”

“Yes, I understand. Call me.”

“I will certainly do that. It’s not like I can avoid you at work either.”

He turned, heading for the elevator. She stood watching him the entire way. Once the doors closed she finally went into her apartment, not a little sad she’d failed to get him inside with her.

He’d called several times. Georgiy was concerned something had gone wrong. A few phone calls later he knew the awful truth. Margaret was dead. Madison was still out there.

Time for there to be a plan B, he thought bitterly.

The woman would be bait. It was time to solve this with a permanent resolution. There was no longer any question the man could be turned to join their group. They were far past that possibility.

He needed a sniper. Or more than one. He also had to get the green light from the Wizard.

“This is Georgiy. Put me through to him.”

“He’s in with a new client,” said the voice. Client. Euphemism for another one of his feeding sessions thought Georgiy.

“I don’t care if he’s got a client with him right now. He will want to talk to me.”

A couple minutes passed. The phone made a clicking sound.

“This better be important,” Georgiy’s master sounded very angry.

“Margaret failed. She walked in front of a couple cops’ bullets. She’s dead.”

“WHAT?!” The tenor of the other voice changed from anger to shock.

“I know she was key to all the plans,” he tried to sound supplicant to the Wizard. “I would like permission to just kill this Madison fellow. He’s cost us two valuable assets already.”

“You can do this without getting close to him? You don’t have that skill at masking yourself Margaret had.”

“I have his woman. She lived with him so he must think her important. I had her picked up last night for an insurance policy in case he somehow escaped Margaret’s plan. I didn’t realize his escape would result in Margaret dying.”

“Good thinking Georgiy,” there was a tired tone in his voice now. There was a long pause. Georgiy waited, “Do it. Make doubly sure he’s dead too. Use any resources you need to.”

The phone clicked. Georgiy hung up.

He hadn’t mentioned the woman couldn’t be controlled or read. Something about her mind just kept snapping her back to how she started and the thoughts he could pick up were too shallow to be useful. If the Wizard knew, they might have a different problem to worry about. Heaven help them if they ran into groups of uncontrollables.

Mostly it implied Madison had done something to protect her though. How he could do that without being close by made Georgiy think this wouldn’t come down to a sniper shot. He might have to crush him mentally to resolve the threat.

Deciding not to take a cab he strolled up to Twenty-Third Street and found the station. Ben walked down the steps to the subway. Sliding his card he walked through the turnstile and scanned the area for any surprises.

Having spotted none, he was glad to get on the Number One train uptown. The rattle of the tracks and tones of the doors opening or closing put his world back to a more normal state.

Somehow he had attracted the attention of a group of hostile telepaths. Having realized that, he had to figure out a means of taking the fight to them to at a minimum; get them to stand down, to leave him alone. That didn’t seem likely because he was sure they would believe he had actively killed their woman agent.

He didn’t know much about them. At this point he’d only encountered three of them, one of which now was enjoying the hospitality of the city morgue. How many could they have?

At each stop he did another of his quick scans. There were about a half dozen people he spotted this way who had somehow been tampered with. None of them had more than a little touch though, nothing that could be considered a threat to anyone.

It gave him time to think. The city was pretty large. How could he scan for the minds of his adversaries in any kind of reasonable sweep? It would take months.

By the time he got off at 110th Street, he was no closer to an idea of how to take this fight to “Them.” He really felt there had to be a way to find them without working quite so hard. Motives. What was their intent? Other than capturing him that is. There was no apparent reason to try to capture him unless they seriously saw him as a threat to them. How was he a threat? He’d kept a pretty low profile when it came to using the telepathy to ease his life. Well. After he’d had his wild adventure screwing any pretty woman he saw that drew his attention. Or the chess matches in Washington Square Park. Something drew their attention to him specifically. Maybe they’d come across someone he’d controlled and decided he was…. What? No idea. He decided the only thing he could do was assume they had scanned someone he’d used the talent on and that’s how they tracked him down.

Reaching his apartment building, he opened the front door and entered. His head still trying to wrap around how he could find the others.

He never noticed the man with the hooded coat who followed him from the subway.

Celia was studying. Not deeply engaged, but still, looking at the pages in the textbook as if the words would magically imprint themselves into her mind. The subject wasn’t that hard actually, but her thoughts kept wandering to other things. She popped on her computer every now and then, just trying to keep herself distracted. She wanted the other thoughts to percolate under the surface so she could feel she was being normal.

The chime at the door rang.

The only people she knew who would come here without calling first were Ben and Ginny. So she let out a sigh and went to the door. Looking through the peephole confirmed it was Ben.

With the usual clatter of metal moving she unlocked the deadbolt and opened her door. Looking at him she was a bit shocked. There was an angry red and blue bruise on the side of his forehead. His expression was… hard, perhaps a bit angry.

“Have you seen Ginny?,” he asked. He did not try to enter, just stood there with that awkwardly irritated expression.

“Not since yesterday afternoon. Come on in, what’s going on?”

Looking back at the elevator, he followed her into the apartment. She led him to her living room which, sadly, was in dire need of a pass at cleaning. She cleared some books off a chair for him. He settled in and looked at her.

“I got home a little while ago and found the deadbolt had been left unlocked. The chain broken off. And Ginny was missing.”

“I don’t know about the locks but could she have gone out?”

He pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

“She wouldn’t go anywhere without this in case I wanted to reach her. Also,” he looked over to where Celia’s purse was sitting, “her purse is still upstairs.”

“Oh my. Have you called the police?” Her hand went to her mouth as though to cover against a nervous scream. She didn’t though.

“There are complications with me doing that.”

“Does it have anything to do with the cop car outside our building last night?”

“The cops came by? Oh, maybe it was after...”

He took a bit of time to explain to her the events of the prior evening. He only left out any reference to telepathy or the four men positioned outside the place to ambush him. Then he told her there had been people he’d noticed following him.

“I don’t want to sound like a crazy paranoid,” he rolled his eyes, pretty much at himself, “but there has to be some reason for the woman to shoot me with the tranquilizer gun.”

“Other than calling the police, I don’t know what you can do.”

Oh boy, he thought, but this was going to be interesting to explain to the Detective. While out with a date and being attacked by a strange woman, his live in girlfriend had been kidnapped. He shook his head. He stood up and walked to the window for a moment. There wasn’t really another option, he decided.

Digging out his own phone, he turned it on. Then he dug the card from Detective Cain out of his pocket. With a grimace he looked at her. It wasn’t a call he wanted to make.

“Yeah, this is going to be a lot of fun.”

After a few rings, someone answered the phone.

“Detective Cain?” he listened, “can you have him call me…” “Ben Madison, he has my number.” “okay, 212-555-1212” “Fine. Yes. Yes. Tell him someone broke into my apartment and my girlfriend is missing.” “I’ll call the local precinct too.”

He turned back to Celia. She saw he was a bit stiffer, tense perhaps, than other times she’d talked to him.

“I’m sorry. I just thought maybe she’d come down to visit you. She’s a gentle soul who would, as I think you know.”

“Yes.” She smiled gently thinking about how nice Ginny was to her. “I’m sure it will all work out to be nothing.”

She locked the door again behind him as he left.

She really hoped Ginny was okay. Clearly Ben cared about her even though. It just added more to her mind to percolate about.

Georgiy walked into the police building. He knew where he was going and the people who might have stopped him were already adjusted to think he was an FBI Special Agent. So he strolled right into the office where the captain of the SWAT team was.

The captain looked up at him and smiled.

“What can we do for the FBI today?”

Georgiy thought it entertaining the captain had been adjusted so he would always hear a slight hint of southern accent from him when he spoke. All the better if the real FBI came around looking into his presence here. He put a blank piece of paper in front of the captain. The man looked down at it.

The captain saw a fully authorized form to allow him to loan two of his snipers to the FBI for the purpose of over watch duty on an operation the FBI was running.

“I’ve never heard of Operation Pegasus,” the captain said.

“We’re moving on a couple high level cartel guys that will be in the city for a meet. I wouldn’t ask for this normally. All our qualified men are busy with another operation in New Jersey.”

For some reason this all sounded normal and proper to the captain. He called in his two best snipers and told them they were on loan to the FBI.

As Georgiy left with the two men he fixed the memory of the captain to forget his visit. He did a little more too so the men with him would not be noticed as missing. A little mind twist in their heads and they were completely in his control as well.

For the first time since he’d heard about Margaret he smiled. He was going to get the bastard.

Detective Cain showed up at his door just as the uniformed officers were leaving. He’d given his statement but others from the forensics team were rooting around in his apartment. The questions about dating two women seemed to fly by as unimportant.

Cain nodded to him and walked to the lead of the forensics guys. A short chat went on that Ben couldn’t hear but he could listen in mentally. It seems they found nothing so far but were planning to look a bit longer. One of them seemed to think he staged it. Cain straightened that out explaining his partner’s involvement the night before.

Cain walked over to him.

“You’re not going to be able to stay tonight, you know.”

“I was starting to get that impression.”

“Do you have a friend you can stay with?”

“I’ll have to think about that. I’m not sure I want to impose on a friend when someone might be after me for some reason. Mysterious as that reason may be.”

Cain chuckled.

“Saying she was kidnapped, shouldn’t I be waiting for a phone call or something?”

“We’ll forward your phone to your cell. Don’t worry about that. We’ve already contacted the feds and they’re going to send an agent as soon as possible.”

“If you say so,” Ben stood up and started towards the door. “Please let me know when you find something.”

“Oh, you betcha.” Cain looked at Ben with an attempt at being reassuring.

“Can I grab some clothes?”

The detective just shook his head. It took a conscious effort not to use the mental power to force the issue.

Ben didn’t feel at all reassured.

He didn’t know where to go. If he showed up at Janet’s, he didn’t think he’d get much sleep. He thought about Celia’s place. That seemed reasonable at first but he decided it would be inappropriate to impose himself on her. Especially while his apartment was a crime scene.

After standing in front of the building a few minutes, he noted how quiet the city could get at five in the morning. Walking downtown, he tried to remember where a nearby hotel might be. Which avenue would a decent hotel be likely to be found, Columbus, Amsterdam, Broadway? There was an Astor on the park, but he didn’t feel comfortable with the idea.

Soon he decided it was best to walk down Broadway to see if he spotted anything. At 103rd Street he saw a Starbucks. Someplace was bound to be open, even at this hour. Looking at the sign it appeared they would be open at five-thirty. A cup o’ would be welcome at the moment. Then he noticed a hotel just past it. The sign out front said “Marrakech” with a logo that looked like a stylized lion on it.

He skipped looking for coffee and went to the hotel.

It only took a few minutes to explain he needed a room, prove his identity, supply a credit card… wouldn’t this have been simpler if he just altered the desk clerk’s mind a bit? He thought about it briefly and remembered he was trying hard to keep the telepathy to a very low profile. It was unlikely anyone would think he was here. He’d call and let the detective know where he was when he woke up.

The room was small, but tidy. The pay refrigerator hummed softly enough it wouldn’t be a bother. Street noise was worse by far. He just collapsed into the queen size bed. Shortly, he was asleep.

The sun was starting to come up. Another glorious Monday started in the city, and he was not present for it.

Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City. It has the same boundaries as King’s County, at the south-western most corner of Long Island. To the north, Queens, Further to the south-west, Staten Island separated by the Verrazono Narrows. Home to Coney Island, the New York City Aquarium, and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. The South Brooklyn Marine Terminal sprawling along the Bay Ridge Channel. The terminal has many piers, warehouses, rail yard space, and as yet only plans in the political process to develop the area again.

Georgiy felt one of the large empty piers, occupied solely by a handful of parked trailers and trucks, would be ideal for getting Madison out in the open. There were times he’d used abandoned warehouses for meetings out there before, but it also held wonderful open space in a couple places. Cover wasn’t as important as open fields of fire. He gave the snipers the location to identify their best line of sight opportunities.

Leaving them planning, he needed to arrange a suitable means of setting up the meeting between himself and the Madison guy. He sent his assistant to pick up some pre-paid cell phones. It meant getting one at each of several stores around the city so they would be difficult to track down their source.

Admittedly, the Saturday evening mess had him feeling as paranoid as he’d ever been. This time he wanted there to be no surprises. He pulled out a pad of paper and started to try brainstorming scenarios. The idea was getting Madison to exchange himself for the skirt. She was only good to Georgiy as bait, but as bait she had to be alive and visible for this oddball to expose himself.

He was going to program the girl to act for him. Somehow though the effort to control her simply wasn’t working. She couldn’t be immune to telepathy, since she was with Madison. Still, Georgiy was unable to actually imprint any changes into her mind. So even bound and gagged she could be a wild card in this mess.

Detective Cain pressed the button to sound the chime at Celia’s door. According to canvassing notes from the uniformed officers, she’d been seen about seven in the evening going out, coming back about twenty minutes later. He checked the time and rang the chime again. There was no answer. She was probably out.

More importantly, he had someone getting warrants for video of the street out in front of the building. There were three cameras that had angles on the front door here. At least, that he could find. The ‘camera’ in the lobby was a dummy to scare thieves, not unusual but not the least bit helpful. One of the cameras did sweeps back and forth, but the other two were for businesses across the street.

The broken safety chain was enough to indicate the woman was hustled out of the building against her own will. He had little doubt about that. The statement given by Celia was she’d been talking to the missing woman up to around quarter to five. So the time it happened was after about five in the afternoon Saturday until sometime late in the day Sunday when the boyfriend came back. That meant there would be a lot of video to go through.

The statement also said there was a patrol car parked in front of the building around seven. His next stop would have to be the Twenty-Sixth precinct house to see if he could find out if the officers in the car had seen anything.

He sighed, flipped his notebook closed and headed for the elevator.

It was past noon when he woke up. Ben groggily looked at the clock and saw it read one-fifteen. He stumbled his way into the bathroom. Looking in the mirror he saw himself looking a bit beat up. The black and blue bruise on the side of his forehead looked like a flaring bluish black color. Touching it proved it was more painful than it was when he fell asleep.

‘How do you bruise your head falling out of a chair?’ he thought. Didn’t really matter much he supposed. Wishing it away wouldn’t work.

The hotel provided a couple little bars of soap and complimentary shampoo in little bottles. In a typically male manner he sniffed at his armpits, deciding, yeah, it was bad enough he needed a shower. What would he do for clothing though?

He went to the side of the bed and read the little placard about the hotel services. Sure they had dry cleaning. Could he get them to run his clothes through the wash? What hope was there if he didn’t ask them, he thought. So he picked up the phone and dialed their service number.

“Yes, hello. This is Ben Madison in room,” he tried to remember, the number having somehow not stuck well in his mind. He saw it on the phone though. “1008. I wanted to know if I could get someone to get my clothes washed and back to me in a couple hours.”

“Sir, we do dry cleaning, we aren’t a laundry service.”

“Okay, thank you anyway.”

Everything had become a road block for him now. He needed a shower and fresh clothing. His apartment was barred from him for a while so collecting a change there was not going to work. Abandoning the shower for now, he put his shoes on again and headed out. When he got to the street he called the detective to tell him where he was staying. Cain wasn’t in when he called so he left a message with the hotel and room number. He also requested to know when he could go back to his apartment. The officer that had answered the detective’s number had no idea.

It took most of the afternoon to collect a week’s worth of clothing changes. Mostly shirts, but the usual underwear and socks as well, along with one set of jeans so he wouldn’t make a mess of his slacks.

His phone didn’t ring once in the entire time. Expecting to be called with some kind of demand by the kidnappers, he worried. He’d been told the first twenty-four hours were critical during a kidnapping. He forgot where he’d heard that from.

Finally he got in his shower and change of clothing. He’d purchased the articles of toiletry he’d need for his stint in the hotel, so he’d managed to get his shave in, and brush the foul taste of the last three days out of his mouth. Feeling better after that, he sat on the edge of the bed.

The phone rang. Not the hotel phone, his cell. He tried not to jump but it was startling.

“Hello Mister Madison,” cane a dark voice with a hint of accent to it. “I’m sure by now you have been expecting this call.”

“Who is this?”

“We, or should I say I have your girlfriend. You’re going to follow my instructions precisely or we will just dump her body in a place no one will find her.”

“You have Ginny? Let me talk to her. If you’ve hurt ...”

“You will do as you are told Mister Madison. If you don’t want her hurt that is,” the voice interrupted. “Tomorrow morning you will be in Grand Central at Eleven in the morning. You will get another call then with more instructions.”

“Wait, where in the station?”

“By the information kiosk. Now we’ve talked long enough.” There was a hangup click. He didn’t know if that had come through his landline or if they’d gotten hold of his cell number. The cops should have been tracing it if the call came through the apartment phone number.

There was a knock at the door. The only people who knew were he was were the police, so he thought little of it. He did put the chain up and planted a foot at the point it would be open to, thinking of the door to his apartment.

“Madison?” The voice was that of detective Cain. He had someone with him Ben hadn’t seen before.

“Yeah, give me a second to take the chain off.”

He undid the chain and opened up to the detective.

“Have you found anything helpful? Was the call a few minutes ago traceable?” He hadn’t exactly rattled that off but he did speak before either of the other two men could say a thing.

“Easy, easy. I didn’t even know about the call. Give me a minute on that,” with that he pulled out his own cell phone and made a call.

“I’m special agent Spencer,” the man in the suit said. “I’m working with the Detective, from the FBI.”

“Good. Are there any breaks, any new information I can know?”

“I’m kind of curious Ben. I may call you Ben, if you don’t mind?”

“It’s all right, and your first name?” If they were going to act familiar, he was going to do so as well. There was no reason for him to allow his own interests to be diminished.

“Oh, I’m Victor but my friends call me Vick,” replied Spencer.

“Okay Victor, what’s your question?” Ben was sure the FBI man did not miss he wasn’t recognizing him as a friend.

“You were out on a date Saturday night, but you have a live in girlfriend already. How does that work?”

Ben smiled, he’d already had this kind of question when he gave his statement to the uniformed officers.

“I was out with my boss Janet, who knows Ginny lives with me. Ginny knows I go out with other women sometimes. It’s between us.”

“How close are you and Janet?”

“It’s open to development at this point. She seems very interested in me.”

“So could she have something to do with the kidnapping?”

No, he thought, she had something to do with the ambush, not the kidnapping. He couldn’t tell the LEOs that though. “Uh, the detective did fill you in on how we were attacked Saturday night, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Yes he did.” The special agent did not change expression at all. “You were the one attacked though, not her.”

“And I’m sure Detective Shaw can confirm she fainted dead away at the sight of the gun. Granted, it wasn’t anything more than a tranquilizer gun, but she was clearly surprised.”

“Do you have any idea when...”

“The call came in through the landline. It traced back to a cell tower in Queens. And the phone was clearly a burner phone. It was pre-paid in cash.” Spencer did look a little annoyed by Cain’s interruption.

“As I was saying,” agent Spencer continued, “when do you think your girlfriend was taken?”

“If I had to guess?”

“Please, I’d like to hear your thoughts.”

“I’m guessing it was Saturday evening while I was at the hospital after that woman shot me with the sleeping beauty potion.”

Spencer pinched his nose and sighed at the description of the tranquilizer.

Detective Cain chuckled a little at it and said, “We’re pretty sure now that it was between seven and seven thirty. There’s a woman in your building that saw a patrol car in front of your building at seven-ish.”

“Why would that narrow the time down to a half hour?”

“Because according to the precinct there were no patrol cars in that area around that time. I checked the precinct to the south too, none from there either. If there were no cops there...” Cain spread his hands a moment as though this explained everything.

“Makes sense,” Ben sat on the edge of the bed. “What can I do to be helpful?”

What he really meant was, why are you here? This was all stuff they could have talked about on the phone. Did they still think he had something to do with Ginny’s kidnapping? He decided to check their minds. A scan of Cain showed he was certain Ben had nothing to do with it, but the FBI dude was wondering if he was getting rid of the woman so this other love interest could develop. Ben unconsciously shook his head.

Spencer seized on that reflexive motion, “is there something you’re not telling us? Now would be a good time to tell us if there is.”

Ben gave him a glare. “If I knew anything you don’t know, I’d tell you in a heartbeat. I want Ginny back. In one piece. Without being hurt. I’m perfectly content to trade myself for her if that’s what they want.”

“Why would they want you?”

“I have no idea. I’m just a copy writer for god’s sake!”

“Oh? Is that really the case?,” agent Spencer went on, “I’ve looked into your financials. You’ve been very successful with investments recently.”

Ben was … surprised. He hadn’t thought they’d be doing that. How could he sidestep this question? He thought, wait, there’s no reason to sidestep or anything.

“Wait, what? Went through my financials?” He looked at Spencer sharply. “Then you know every bit of that was directly from investing and re-investing. Nothing unusual about that. I’ve just been more successful at it recently than other people. And before you ask… I don’t know any brokers or people who work for any of the companies I’ve bought or sold stock for.”

“Son, look at it this way. Someone sees you’ve come into a fair bit of change. I’m not sure how you turned seventy-one thousand dollars into a million and a quarter, but let’s say someone notices. You’ve plenty for a ransom.”

Bristling at the special agent use of the word ‘son,’ Ben responded, “Then they’d ask me to get together cash, prepared to turn it over as a ransom, right? Instead I was told to be by the info booth in Grand Central.”

“He’s got you there, Vick.” Cain was almost chuckling at this point.

“And don’t call me ‘son.’ That money is the result of very careful effort to invest, not some awkward conspiracy.” He hammered home that a trace of the money would all show it was technically legal. They wouldn’t know about the minds he’d read to get inside information from.

“Dammit.” Spencer paced over to the window. Detective Cain turned to Ben.

“We’ll want to put a wire on you. They aren’t really the same thing you see on TV anymore but we’ll want to keep up with you.”

Ben nodded. It made sense. It made sense to agree. It was not going to work out well if he encountered telepathic members of the ‘Them’ group that he knew were behind this.

The ropes hurt. The hood was annoying. She needed to pee. Her head had lolled over at one point when she dozed a bit. She had done bondage with Ben but it never lasted this long. Nor was it seated in a stiff wooden chair. Her butt hurt. The fingers on her left hand were tingling. She wanted to go home, desperately.

She thought of him only as Sir, but she wished he’d hurry up and get her out of here. A new sensation crept into her slowly, hunger. Her mouth was dry as blazes too. She needed something to drink. She didn’t have a clue how long she’d been tied up either. She needed her Sir. He would not let her be damaged.

The officer downtown analyzing the video camera feeds blinked. He backed it up and looked again. Then he zoomed in as much as he could without utterly pixelating the image. Those guys looked awfully familiar. Dammit. Cross checking proved him right.

While the phone was ringing on the other end he started to bundle up the critical images for an email to the detectives.

“Hello, this is Detective Cain.”

“Detective, I have some results with the video for you.”

“Let me guess, you have the time and some images of the kidnappers?”

“You’re not going to like this.”

“Why is that?”

“They’re… well, they’re out of the Twenty-Sixth.”

“Seriously? Really? They’re...”

“Yes sir. The girl is in cuffs and they’re putting her in an official patrol car.”

“Dammit, I checked the records in the Twenty-Sixth this morning.” There was a pause.”

“Tell no one for now. See if you can get a systems audit started on their computers. Find out who has access to the logs for the patrol cars.”

“Yes sir.”

The phone went silent. The detective had hung up. This really belonged to Internal Affairs now. He would do as the detective ordered though. Who knew who else could be involved.