Executive Protection
Executive Protection
Chapter 1
(Based on an all too brief torture scene in "The Hitman's Bodyguard," where Ryan Reynolds is captured by Belorussian mercenaries and interrogated. The movie scene was mildly brutal, but played for laughs....I wanted it to go further! I recast the villain as Aaron-Taylor Johnson.))
Amsterdam
4pm
The last thing Michael Bryce remembered was the roar of a car engine and something hitting his motorcycle from behind, then everything had gone black.
When he woke, he quickly regretted regaining consciousness. He hurt everywhere. His back felt severely bruised and his head was pounding. Minutes ticked by as his senses slowly came back, and he was able to take stock of his situation. He was lying reclined on a dentist-style chair, the dimly lit room was swelteringly hot, and his arms and legs were duct taped so that he couldn't move.
His expensive Armani suit was crumpled in a corner, leaving his wearing nothing except his tightly cut boxer-briefs. Bryce sighed. Fucking wonderful.... His day had gone from terrible to...probably much, much worse.
Any further analysis was interrupted when the door opened and two men walked inside. Both were tall, powerfully built, and sported close-cropped dirty blond hair. The taller one Bryce recognized from the car chase. One of Dukovich's mercenaries. He was carrying a metal bucket.
In the seconds before the door closed again, Bryce heard loud music, and two distinct voices, both male. One was moaning in apparent ecstasy and the other screaming in pain. Where the fu-?
The taller man placed the bucket on a small table to Bryce's right, and nodded to his companion. "Goran."
The other man, Goran, stepped up to Bryce, blue-gray eyes raking over his mostly bare flesh with an intensity that made Bryce's skin crawl. He forced a nonchalant expression onto his face. "Hey, fellas. Glad you weren't hurt in that car crash. We should exchange insurance information-"
"This is a hostel," Goran said with a thick Belorussian accent "Men come here to explore their darkest, most twisted fantasies. Which means that no one will come when they hear you scream."
"Thanks for the tip, but I didn't need the full tour," Michael said quickly, heart racing. This was bad. "I have an appointment, actually, so if maybe you could get me my clothes...."
Goran turned away, pulling a wheeled cart over beside the chair. On top was a large black box with nobs and thick cables attached. The mercenary turned several of the knobs, and the box began to hum ominously. Michael pulled at the duct tape futilely.
"Hey, hey, hey, wait. Wait. You should know I'm a Triple A-rated Executive Protection Agent working for Interpol." Bryce faltered slightly. Even he would not have been impressed by that statement if someone had said it to him. "Well, more of a subcontractor, I guess, but still, you don't want to-"
"I will ask only one question," Goran said quietly. "Where is Kincaid?"
Bryce's heart was thudding in his chest. Kincaid. His charge. His responsibility. The thorn in his side. The pain in his ass! The one man who could put Dukovich behind bars for the rest of time.
Not to mention the bastard who'd single-handed ruined Bryce's life two years earlier. How the hell did I get roped into this?
"I don't know where he is," Bryce stated as firmly as he could. It was true. The last he'd seen the psycho assassin, he'd been speeding away from his pursuers on a stolen speedboat. He could be in France already for all Bryce knew.
Goran's face didn't change, he simply shrugged and nodded to the other man. The taller mercenary picked up the bucket and turned it over, dumping ice cold water over Bryce's torso, and sloshing more over his tied arms and legs until Bryce was dripping wet. Goran picked up a pair of jumper cables that were plugged into the black box. He touched the ends, causing sparks to fly and filling the air with ozone.
"Whoa!" Bryce spoke quickly. "Listen! If I knew where that son of a bitch was I'd tell you! He's been nothing but a-AAAAAHHHH-AHHHHHHH! AAAGGGHHHHH!"
Bryce screamed as Goran touched the thick metal alligator clips to his unprotected nipples. Every muscles in his torso clenched as the current lanced across his body. He felt the sting of electricity along the whole length of his soaking wet body, from his neck to his calves.
He gasped for breath as his muscles slowly relaxed, but didn't have time to say anything before Goran touched the clips to the lowest rung of his abs, on either side of his navel.
"AAAAHHHHHHHH! AGGHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHH!"
Bryce was barely aware that the pain had stopped when he heard Goran's voice again. "Where is Kincaid?"
"I'm telling you...I'm fucking telling you...I don't know!" Bryce panted out.
Goran didn't reply, he moved down and opened the alligator clips as wide as they would go. Reaching down, he place them along the peaks of Bryce's large quadriceps and released them, letting the sharp metal teeth clamp on and bite into the bulging muscles.
"AHHHH! AGGGGHHHHHHHH!" Bryce howled as the current ripped through his legs, clenching every muscle in his well-developed thighs until they were rigid. "AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! ARRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!"
Goran removed the clamps. Bryce's ears were ringing, his heart racing, and all he felt was the pulsing, white hot agony thrumming within his helpless body as the last of the current worked its way through his flesh and musculature. "Li-listen! I don't...please...I don't know...." Goran was moving in again. "Stop!"
The other merc smirked at him from the other side of the chair. "Once Goran starts, he doesn't stop."
Goran didn't say a word. He brandished a gleaming, razor-sharp combat knife from his belt, and slid it with great skill beneath the hem of Bryce's soaked underwear. Bryce didn't even feel the blade touch his skin as it easily sliced through the white fabric. Within seconds, the briefs had fallen away, leaving Bryce completely naked.
Bryce shook his head silently at Goran's questioning look. There was nothing to say. He truly had no idea to where Kincaid had escaped. Goran opened the clips again and this time closed them on Bryce's plump, above-average sized testicles.
"AGGHHHHHHHHHH-AHHHH-AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Bryce shrieked as the electricity lanced through his nuts. His back arched as sheer agony gripped him, and he writhed in the chair as his muscles twisted and contorted, the water conducting the current beyond his nutsack to every corner of his body.
Goran turned one of the knobs, and the hum of the machine grew louder. The energy searing through his balls intensified, causing Bryce's body to go rigid, arched off the chair in mindless, unbearable anguish.
"AGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH! ARRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
An eternity of hellish suffering seemed to pass before the current stopped once more. Bryce wanted to lie, to tell them someplace to go look for their target, anything to make them stop, but his tormented mind was blank. He couldn't string even a simple sentence together, let alone a convincing lie.
"Where is Kincaid?" Goran asked again, calmly.
Bryce couldn't respond. It was all he could do to suck air into his lungs. Goran placed one of the clamps on Bryce's left testicle, letting the bite of the metal teeth and the pressure of the clip sink in before moving the second cable into position. He clamped it around the head of Bryce's large, flaccid penis. The circuit completed instantly, and Bryce's vision went white.
He heard shrieks of unspeakable agony echoing off the walls of the dank room, wondering who the poor bastard was that was being tortured out of his mind. He was vaguely aware that his body was flopping spasmodically in the chair, muscles totally out of control as electricity flowed out from his sizzling genitals and coursed along the surface of his water and sweat-drenched skin, twisting his muscles and straining his bones to their breaking points.
Hours, days-weeks maybe-seemed to go by before the pain stopped. Was it simply pain? No, he was in Hell. Bryce was sure of it. His vision was blurred, either with tears or blood from ruptured vessels he wasn't sure. But, he saw Goran place the cables back on the cart, and return with a leather pouch, which he plopped down on Bryce's abs and slowly opened.
The other merc grabbed a lever on the side of the chair, and started to crank it. Michael's legs slowly spread further apart as the chair legs separated. When he was close to spread eagle, Goran moved between Bryce's thighs and plucked a wickedly long, stainless steel needle from the pouch. He slid one finger along the metal shaft almost lovingly, then positioned it along the soft flesh of Bryce's inner left thigh.
"Where is Kincaid?"
It was then that Bryce realized the terrible truth. Even if he somehow magically divined an answer for them, he wasn't leaving this room. If the reports of Dukovich's brutality in Belarus were even partially true, and these were the men who carried it our, then Bryce was doomed. He shook his head, unable to bring himself to try and reason with them.
Goran slid the long needle into the meat of Michael's thigh.
TBC