Monsters - Chapter 14 – Blonds Have More Fun

Monsters

By Karen Singer

Chapter 14 – Blonds Have More Fun

It was after eight-thirty at night when Carol stood in her hotel room and studied the small hand-held device that one of Susan’s men had delivered to her.  It wasn’t much to look at, other than a small needle that went up or down depending on how close they got to the signal.  Just then, the device wasn’t registering anything at all.  Was it even working?  According to the man who had delivered it, it was already calibrated to search for just the signal they needed.  They just had to get close enough to it to actually find it.  The device seemed simple enough, especially since the only button on it was the on and off switch.

Someone knocked on her door.  She was expecting Brandy, but she carefully looked through the peephole anyway.  The woman with the short blond hair and overly done makeup on the other side of the door didn’t look anything like Brandy.  She opened the door and studied the woman in front of her.  “You look…different.  Nice, but different.”

Brandy studied Carol in the long blonde wig she had loaned her.  “So do you.  Very different!”

“I can’t tell you the last time I wore a dress like this,” Carol replied as she stood back to let Brandy into the room.

“Why?  You look great.”

“I don’t feel great.  I’d rather not go into a fight wearing a dress and heels!”

“Your shoes have barely any heels at all,” Brandy told her.  “Would you rather be wearing the business suit I suggested?”

“Are you kidding?  That skirt was so tight I couldn’t kick if I tried.  At least with this I can move my legs freely.”

“True.  That’s why I chose this dress too.”

“Are you sure this is going to work?”

“Would you rather go in the backdoor like you suggested and hunt all over the place, trying to avoid all their security cameras?”

“Yes!  That’s what I usually do.”

“This will be easier, trust me.  We saw so many people going in and out of that building that this way we’ll just look like a couple of secretaries or something.”

“Or something,” Carol emphasized.  “Do you have Ralphie all set?”

“Yeah.  I figure we’ve got about half an hour before we really need him, but he’s supposed to start in about twenty minutes.”

“Good.  That was a good suggestion to use him.”

“Yeah.  Once in a while he can come in handy.”

“You got everything you need?”

Brandy patted her surprisingly heavy and full purse.  “Right here.  How about you?”

Carol reached into her purse and one by one pulled out her gun, a knife, some rope, her wallet, and a tube of lipstick.  “Ready.  Let’s get on with this before I change my mind.”

“Relax,” Brandy told her.  “You might actually like this.  And if you do, I’ll have Ralphie paint your nails for you.”

Carol shuddered.

Fifteen minutes later, they both walked through the front main entrance of the Jubilee Investment building, hoping for all the world that they both looked like just another couple of secretaries who were stuck working late at night.  They noticed as they went in that they weren’t the only women dressed the way they were.  And that included women still coming in as well as going out.

They headed for the bank of elevators.  They got lucky and didn’t have to share one with anyone else.  “Sixty floors,” Carol noted.  “Where do you want to start?”

“Let’s take it all the way up and watch to see if the needle on that thing tells us anything.”

“Carol pushed the button for the top floor.  As the elevator started going up, she pulled out the handheld signal detector and turned it on.  “Definitely a signal, she noted.  “From our hotel I didn’t get anything.  Signal is going up!  We’re at least going in the right direction.”

“Good!” Brandy replied.

They watched the needle continuing to climb.  “Top floor, I’m betting,” Brandy replied.  But when they passed the fiftieth-eighth floor, the signal started to drop a little.

“Uh-oh.  We passed it,” Carol told her.

“Shit!” Brandy replied.  “But at least we’ve got a general idea.  And going in the front door like this kept us from having to go up that many stairs.”

“No comment!” Carol replied, still not happy about the way she was dressed.

A moment later, the elevator stopped at the top floor and opened.  There was a large plaque in front of them that said Jubilee Investments.

“Try down two floors,” Carols suggested.  I think the signal was strongest there.”

“Going down,” Brandy replied as she pressed the elevator button.

When the doors opened, they got off.  There was another sign for Jubilee Investments on that floor as well.  They looked up and down the long hallway.  In the far distance, they saw two men just going into one of the offices.  “Somebody’s working tonight,” Brandy noted.

“Let’s see if anyone else is here,” Carol said as she turned in the opposite direction.  She studied the meter in her hand as they passed office after office, all of them with their lights off.  “We’re getting further away,” Carol finally told Brandy.  “Whether the signal is coming from this floor or not, it’s in the other direction.”  They turned around.  “Getting stronger again.”

They followed the growing strength of the signal past more closed offices until they got to the very last one where they had seen the two men going in.  The only office they saw with the lights still on.

“Why are they working here and nobody else seems to be around?” Brandy asked.

“Dedication?”

“I doubt it.”

Carol put the scanner away in her purse and pulled her gun out instead.  “Open wide,” she said.

Brandy pulled her own gun and pushed the door open.  Carol led the way in.  They found themselves in an office with four different desks scattered around the room.  But there was nobody there.  Instead of people, they saw electronic equipment scattered on the desks and on shelves everywhere.

“I thought this was where they went,” Brandy said.

“I thought so too.  Look, another door.”

“That’s got to be it,” Brandy replied as she headed for it.

Carol held her gun at the ready while Brandy opened the heavy steel door.  The minute it opened they heard noise, a constant background hum that was surprisingly loud.  Inside, they saw racks of electronic equipment that seemed to go from floor to ceiling.  What they didn’t see, was the men. 

Instead of entering, Carol showed Brandy that she was purposely putting her gun away in her purse.  “Let’s see how far these wigs get us,” Carol suggested.

Brandy put her gun away and the two of them entered the room stuffed with electronics.  “Hello?” Brandy called.  She got no answer over the noise that seemed to be coming from all the electronics in the room.  “Hello?” she called louder.

“What?” A voice yelled back.  A moment later, a man appeared from around the end of one of the equipment racks.  “Can I help you?” he asked.  Before Brandy could reply, a second man appeared, then a third poked his head around the corner too. 

By the look of them, Brandy had no doubt that the three men were there only to work on the equipment.  She needed an excuse for them to be there.  “Um…we’re looking for Mike Cunningham?” she asked more than said.

The man who had spoken replied.  “Sorry, I never heard of him.”

“Oh,” Brandy replied, acting disappointed.

“Wait!” another man said.  “It’s not Michael Cunningham.  It’s Michelle.  Marketing Strategies is on the next floor down.  But I would think she’s gone home by now.”

Brandy was just surprised that the one name she had pulled out of the hat had worked.  “Oh, sorry.  I read her name wrong.  We had an appointment with her for earlier, but our car broke down.  We thought we’d come and see if she was still here.”

“Next floor down,” the man replied.  “Turn to the left.  But I doubt she’s still there.  I went through that area earlier and all the lights were off.”

“What is this place?” Carol asked.

“I.T.”

“I…T?” Carol asked.

“Yeah.  You know.  We handle all the computer stuff for the company.”

“Oh.  You’ve sure got a lot of equipment,” Carol noted as she looked around.  “Why is it so noisy in here?  Cold too.”

“Fans and special air conditioning to keep the equipment cool.”

“What’s all this equipment for?  Why not just plug a computer in and that’s it?”

“The man laughed.  “It doesn’t work like that.  We’ve got lots of network devices that let all those company computers talk to each other.”

“Oh,” Carol replied as if she were the dumb blonde she thought she looked like.

“How about those computers talking to computers that aren’t in the company?” Brandy asked.

“Sure.  We do a lot of that too.  All that has to be configured.”

“How about…” Brandy started as she opened her purse.  She pulled out her gun and held it on the three men.  She watched as all three slowly put their arms up in the air.  “How about computers that are sending a signal from some bugs that were planted in my hotel room earlier today?”

“Uh…we wouldn’t know anything at all about that,” one of them replied.

“Any chance he’s lying?” Brandy asked Carol.  “What does your little device tell you?”

Carol pulled out the little meter.  It’s red hot!” she replied.  She started walking around the racks of equipment.  She slowly traced the signal around the racks until she got to one device where the needle pegged.  “It’s here!” she called out to Carol.  “Got it!”  She went around to see Brandy still holding the gun on the three men.

“You don’t know that you’ve got a device listening to six different audio bugs that were planted in my room?  And that device is right here?”  She noticed how uncomfortable all the men looked.

“Are there any more of you that work in your little department?” Carol asked.

“Just one other guy,” one of the men replied.  “Where’s he?” Carol asked.

“Home.  He’s the head of the department.”

“I see.  So he left you to do all the work.”

“Well, we know what we’re doing for the equipment swap.”

“So tell me about that receiver,” Carol said.

“Which one?” one of the men replied.

“Which one?”

“Yeah.”

“Shut up!” one of the men said quickly.

“Don’t you dare shut up,” Brandy told him as she turned her gun on the one who had told him not to talk.

“Uh…I don’t know,” the first man replied.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Carol said frustratedly.  “May I?”

“Be my guest.”

Carol moved forward closer to the men.  She spun quickly and kicked one of them in the stomach.  The next she grabbed his head and flipped him over her to land on his back, and the third one she simply swept his legs out from under him.  “Ret dear,” Carol said.  “Do you have that length of rope I gave you?”

“Of course.”

“Will you cut me three pieces for their hands?”

Brandy smiled.  “Coming right up.”

A minute later, all three men had their hands tied behind their backs while they laid on their stomachs on the cold tile floor.  “Now,” Carol said.  “We need to have a little chat about all the electronics in here.  There’s a box over there that my meter tells me is talking to the bugs in my friend’s hotel room.  Tell me about it.”

None of the men said a word.

“Anybody?” Carol prompted.  When nobody answered, she asked, “Which one of you is in charge here?”  She saw the men turn their heads to look at each other, but nobody still said a word.  “There’s nobody in charge?” Carol asked.

“He’s home!” one of them replied.

“He speaks!” Carol declared.  “So none of you are actually in charge?”

“No.  We just work together,” the same man replied.

Brandy took a try.  “So do any of you know about the box that’s listening to my hotel room?”

None of the men said a word.

“I find that hard to believe,” Carol said to Brandy.  “Only four guys in the department and none of them know anything?”

“I find it hard to believe too,” Brandy replied, the irritation clearly in her voice.

“Ret dear,” Carol said, “Will you please cut off about two more feet of that rope please?”

“Sure,” Brandy replied.

Brandy cut the short piece of rope and handed it over.  Carol tied the ends together forming a loop.  Then she went over to the one guy who had done most of the talking so far.  She sat down on his back and put the loop over his head and pulled it tight around his neck.  She started pulling back hard on the rope, strangling him with it.  She kept pulling while she started twisting the rope, making it tighter and tighter around his neck.  With his hands bound behind his back, the man started to struggle as hard as he could.

“I kill people for a living,” Carol told him.  “So if you don’t answer my questions, you know I’ll have no problem killing you.  Now, if you want to see your wife and six little kiddies again, start telling me about the box that’s listening to my friend’s hotel room.”  The man she was strangling was struggling to breathe and was unable to speak.  His face had turned dark red.  Carol finally let up on the pressure.  “Tell me about that box!” she demanded as the guy gasped for air.

“Which one?” the man gasped.

“The one that connected to my friend’s hotel room.”

“Which one?” he gasped again.

“You mean there’s more than one?”

“Yes,” he gasped.

Carol took a moment to look up at Brandy before she looked back at the man.  “Tell me about them.  How many of those boxes are there?”

“Lots,” he said.

“Show me!”  She twisted the rope a little tighter around his neck then pulled him to his feet.  With his hands tied behind his back, the rope around his neck gave her total control over him.  He led the way between two of the racks of equipment.  “There,” he gasped.

“Where?  Which one.”

“Those three rows.”

“Three rows?”  Carol looked and noticed that there were identical devices mounted from floor to ceiling in three of the racks.  One of them in the middle had been the one her meter had registered the strongest with.  “How many bugs are you listening to?’

“Right now?  About a hundred and fifty.”

“A hundred and fifty listening bugs?” Carol asked, finding it hard to believe.

“No, a hundred and fifty rooms.”

“Oh my God!” Brandy replied.  “So the signals get picked up here.  Then what happens?”

“Everything gets automatically recorded and put on the server for whoever needs to hear them.”

“So nobody’s listening to one of the bugs all the time?”

“Not usually.”

Where are all these files of recordings?” Carol asked.

“On the server.  You’ve got to have special access though.”

“And I’m guessing you have access to them?”

“We all do.  This is I.T.  We have access to everything.”

“Handy,” Carol noted.

“You said everything gets put on a server,” Brandy said.  “What server?”.

The man led them further down the rack.  “Those three boxes there,” he said.

“And how do we see the files stored on them?” Brandy asked him.

“With a computer,” the guy replied.

Carol pulled him by his neck away from the devices.  “Where do we go?”

The man led the way into the outer room.  “Any computer,” he told them.

“Which one is yours?”

The man led the way to one of the desks.  Carol sat him down and removed the rope from his neck.  She untied his hands.  “Show us!”

The man rubbed his neck for a moment before Carol slapped his hands away.  “Show us!”

The man quickly got into his computer and pulled up a folder of recordings.  Carol took one look and swore.  “It looks like there’s thousands of folders in there.”

The guy shrugged.  “They’ve been recording for years.”

“How can we tell which recordings are from my room?” Brandy asked.

“Which hotel?  What room?”

Brandy told him and the man started clicking around.  It took him only seconds to find the folder with all the recordings from her room.

“Is it possible to listen to what’s happening there right now?” Brandy asked.

The man clicked somewhere else and a moment later, the sound of someone singing came from the computer speakers.  Rather terrible singing.

“Ralphie!” Carol said.  “Bingo!  We know we’ve got the right place now.”  She looked over at Brandy.  “He doesn’t sing very, well does he?”

“No.  But I don’t keep him for his singing ability…or lack thereof.”  Brandy pulled out her cellphone and called Ralphie’s phone.  “You can stop singing now Ralphie.  We found it.”

“Oh, thank you Miss Brandy,” Ralphie replied gratefully.  “My throat was beginning to hurt.”

“It sounded like it.  We’ll call and have the bugs removed from the room in a little while.  If we’re not back before they’re done, then go have some fun.  Enjoy yourself.  Just remember your curfew.”

“Thank you, Miss Brandy,” Ralphie replied happily.  I will.”

Brandy hung up the phone and looked down at the guy in the chair.  “How did you get into my room to plant those bugs?”

The man turned his head toward her and looked surprised.  “We own the hotel.  Getting into the room and planting them was easy.”

“How do you know it was so easy?” Carol asked.

“The man remained silent, but he looked more nervous.”

“How do you know?” Carol demanded.

The man still said nothing.  She went behind him and grabbed the rope around his neck and began pulling and twisting it.  The man went wild trying to stop her, but the rope was already around his neck and was twisted tight.  His hands couldn’t stop it from choking him.  “How do you know?” Carol demanded again.  She let up slightly on the rope.  The man gasped in a few deep breaths.  “How do you know?”

“Because…I helped put them there.”

“I was wondering if that might be the case,” Brandy said.  “What shall we do with him now?” She asked Carol.  “I had thought he was a little more innocent than he really is, but I’m betting those two in the other room are just as guilty as he is.”

“Wait a minute,” Carol said.  “Let me make a phone call.  We need to send in the team to remove the bugs anyway.  Can you take him back with the others?”

“You got it,” Brandy replied.

Once Brandy had marched the man back into the server room where nobody could hear her, Carol pulled out her cellphone.  She punched in the phone number and gave whoever answered the code for Wu Enterprises, then she asked to be transferred directly to Susan Wu.  A few moments later, Susan answered.  “Susan,” Carol said.  “We found where the bugs were transmitting to, but I think we found a lot more that you may be interested in.”

 “What did you find?” Susan asked.

“Right now, they’ve got bugs in a hundred and fifty different hotel rooms.  The whole system is automated to record everything.  There’s literally thousands and thousands of recordings in their files.”  Three minutes later, Carol went back into the server room where Brandy waited with the men.

“Find out anything?” Brandy asked.

Carol noted that the men weren’t going anywhere and motioned with her head for Brandy to follow her out of the room.  Once they were alone, she said, “Susan is sending in a team to look at everything, but they want the men out of here, so they don’t know they were here.  Any ideas on what we can do with them?”

“I wanted to do some kind of retribution directly against Allingham.  Or if he wasn’t here, I was hoping to find someone actually listening.  But since they planted the bugs themselves, I have no problem taking my frustrations out on them.  I just really wanted to do something to Allingham himself.”

“We could just kill them and be done with it,” Carol suggested.

“Yeah, but…”  She thought for a minute.  “Let’s take them to Allingham’s office.  We’ll see what we find there.  That will get them away from here too like you need.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Carol replied.  “Cut two more pieces of rope for their necks.  It will make controlling the three of them easier.  Cut them longer though.”

Carol and Brandy went back to the men who were now thrashing around a bit trying to untie themselves.  “Stop that!” Brandy said as she went over to one of them and gave him a small kick to his face.  She pulled out her rope and some knife and quickly cut the pieces that Carol wanted.  A few minutes later, all three men were trussed up with rope twisted around their necks making it difficult for them to breathe.  The rope was pulled down behind them and attached to their hands, pulling up on their arms and down against their necks.  All three men had very red faces by the time Carol and Brandy pulled them to their feet and marched them out of the room, Carol holding the ropes of two men while Brandy had the third.

They took them to the elevator where Brandy punched in the top floor.  When the elevator opened, they shoved all three men out.  “Where’s Allingham’s office?” Brandy asked.

“Fifty-second floor,” one of them gasped out.

“Fifty-second?” Brandy asked, not believing it.

“This is Jubilee Investments up here,” the man replied.  “Allingham is downstairs.”

They shoved the men back into the elevator and took it down to the required floor.  Once out of the elevator, they made the men lead the way to the darkened business office.  When they got there, they found that Allingham’s outer office was big and opulent.  They led the men onto Allingham’s inner office which was even more opulent than the outer one.

Brandy looked around.  “Perfect!” she declared as she looked at his elegant large desk.  “I was hoping for this.  Lay your two on the floor,” she told Carol while she marched the one that she was controlling right up to Allingham’s big wooden desk.  With her arm, she swiped everything on the desk off onto the floor. 

She shoved the man making him bend over the middle of the desk.  “Stay!” she commanded.  She pulled his pants all the way down to his ankles.  Then she went around to the other side of the desk where she pulled him up and over it so that the top half of his body was hanging off the other side.  From her purse she pulled the hammer and nails she had bought for the job in Dallas a few days ago.  “Remember this?” she asked Carol as she held up the hammer.  “I saw it in my suitcase and thought it might come in handy.”  She reached under the man and grabbed his penis and pulled it firmly back between his legs.  She took one of the nails and the hammer and pounded the large nail through his penis into the wooden desk.  The man screamed like crazy.  “Next!” Brandy said as she turned back to Carol.

Carol was grinning from ear to ear.  She grabbed one of the men from the floor. 

“Bring him around this way,” Brandy told her.  “We’ll position those two in the other direction on each side of him.”

The man Carol was working with did everything he could to get away, he screamed he kicked, but none of it did him any good.  A few minutes later, he was laying across the desk in the opposite direction to the first man with his body and head hanging down toward the floor, while Brandy nailed his penis to the big wooden desk.  It took even less time for them to put the third one on the other side of the first man.  All three of them trapped right where they were, by the big nails going through their cocks.

“I need some paper to leave Allingham a note,” Brandy said.  She found the paper and a marker in Allingham’s secretary’s desk.  When Carol and Brandy left the room, the note was taped to the back of the man in the middle.  The note simply warned Allingham that if either of them found any more bugs in their rooms, Allingham not only would be next, but he would wind up dead.”

That night, Carol and Brandy’s lovemaking held more excitement for both of them than ever before.