Angela stared at him incredulously. "Tonight?"
"Tonight! Right now! So far, nobody seems to have spotted any abnormalities in the computer programming. If they had, they'd have tried to shut me out by now. I've got no idea how long we've got before someone cries for help." He glanced up at the computer screen; a little flashing bar told him that Magenta was busy following his commands.
"How long before you want to leave?"
On the screen the bar flashed again. Peter shrugged. "If no-one sees this going on, then maybe half an hour, an hour at the most."
A great shame really. His groin still ached from the after-effects of his fantasy. They had very little time left for Angela's education. Beside him the tiny lights on Magenta's display screen began to go out one by one. Peter wheeled himself carefully round to the back of the computer and pulled out the lead that connected it to Magenta.
Angela was obviously muddled, her confusion showing on her face and the intense way she was watching him.
"What the hell are you doing?" she asked again.
Peter grinned. "The people you work for don't know a great deal about Magenta do they? Or was it that they didn't trust you with their secrets?"
Angela grimaced. "They only told me what I needed to know."
On the screen behind him two other questions appeared alongside the flashing bar. Peter watched for a few seconds before typing in his reply, slowly, one considered letter at a time. When the messages were complete he pressed the send key and began to retreat out of Johnson and Fielding's computer system, closing doors and electronic alleyways behind him. Finally, all that appeared on the screen was the Johnson and Fielding corporate logo. His shoulders slumped and he rubbed his hand across his eyes. He was exhausted.
"Is that it?" Angela asked breathlessly.
Peter glanced at the digital clock once again. "Not quite. Maybe you could go and make some more coffee."
Angela moved to pick up the mug he had stood alongside the keyboard. As she stretched Peter grabbed hold of her wrist. "And while you're out there, maybe you'd like to ring your boss and let them know what I've done?"
Angela froze. "Well, what exactly have you done?"
Peter smiled. "If they know that much about Johnson and Fielding's business they'll soon find out."
Angela pulled away, extricating her wrist from Peter's grasp. "What about Emily?" she said without meeting his eyes.
Peter nodded towards the now inert box beside the computer screen. "I'm going to try and exchange Magenta for her," he grinned. "What choice do I have?"
Angela looked puzzled. "But you've just made a copy? Surely they'll know you've double crossed them?"
Peter sat back in the wheelchair. His body felt as if he'd run a marathon. "Let me worry about that," he said slowly. "Now, are we going to have coffee before you drive me to Deuvar?"
Angela nodded reluctantly and Peter wheeled himself across to a book case and pulled out a road atlas.
"Coffee first."
When she had left, Peter carefully re-wrapped Magenta and then tapped in a short message to Johnson's electronic mailing address.
Johnson was about to leave his suite at Deuvar when the phone rang. A disembodied voice gave him the information he had been waiting for.
Peter Howard was breaking into the computer system! He was reproducing Magenta at that very moment!
Johnson sighed. "So predictable. Have you managed to trace his location?"
"It shouldn't take us too much longer to pin point his exact whereabouts."
Johnson smiled, letting his eyes wander over the intoxicating curves of his slave as she waited, with her eyes downcast. "Good," he whispered. "Let me know how the trace goes. Can you tell me where he has stored the copy of Magenta?"
"I'll contact you as soon as we know… wait… there's a message that's just coming in for you, sir… 'on my way.'"
Johnson put the receiver back in its cradle. He had won. He glanced at his watch. It would surely be some time before Peter arrived. He knew that the plane had taken off from their private landing strip and had barely reached the coast before it crashed. He tugged on the slave girl's lead. She looked up at him with her disturbing ginger eyes.
"Maestro," she murmured.
He pulled her closer, relishing the sensation of her breath on his face. She smelt of the byre. He stroked her cheek and let his fingers slide lower to the curve of her breasts. She shivered as he nipped distractedly at the dark peaks.
Time to celebrate.
It was obvious to Johnson that Peter Howard had made a copy of Magenta to increase his bargaining power. Magenta was a devious and tricky little device. When a copy was made, the original computer key, the old Magenta, became obsolete, only the new Magenta could open up Johnson and Fielding's complex computer system.
Johnson had a sneaking admiration for his adversary. No doubt Peter would come to Deuvar and negotiate safe passage for himself and Emily Lawrence, in return for which he would reveal the whereabouts of the new copy of Magenta.
Peter would have copied the new Magenta and sent it down the phone lines into the vast world-wide computer network, hiding its complex codes in some obscure distant electronic backwater. It was a strategy Johnson would have used himself if the situations had been reversed.
The girl rubbed herself against him, tempting him away from his thoughts, trying to make him forget the daily beating which he gave her to remind them both who was in control. She opened her mouth, running that tempting cat pink tongue around her lips. Her face held an erotic invitation. He ran a hand down over her shoulders. Beneath his finger tips her muscles rippled like a race horse in prime condition.
"Get the whip," he said flatly.
She shivered out from under his touch. Johnson smiled as he let go of the leash.
Later, when the situation with Peter Howard was resolved, he would ensure she received the full benefit of his attention, but now there was only time to release the growing tension he felt in his belly. He loved the chase. He wanted nothing more now than to confront Peter Howard and come away the victor.
The girl was back, cradling the riding crop like an ancient relic. He flexed it thoughtfully between his fingers and drew back the head. He saw her stiffen in expectation and smiled.
"Bend over the table." His voice brooked no contradiction. It was a token beating, barely raising weals on her exotic hide, but it would be enough to raise her expectations of what would follow later. He could see her sex, open, expectant – he sometimes wondered, in the moments like these, when she laid her needs so bare, where the Prince had got her from, this intriguing barely domesticated slave of his.
She looked back over her shoulder. Her undisguised passion made him shiver. A familiar not unpleasant ache was growing in his groin with every passing second. How very tempting it would be to forget serious matters that drew him away from her and lay on the whip with genuine fervour, bring a wild glittering flash to her strange eyes.
Did she ever pine for whatever distant place had been her home? She didn't move as he struck. Her sex, like an open ripe flower, wafted its compelling perfume towards him, making his mouth water.
"Get up," he said thickly. A few more seconds and he would be powerless to resist the compelling voice of his own desire.
But Peter was coming. He was too restless for this. It was time to go down…
At the top of the stairs his eyes focused on the social gathering, but his mind was elsewhere. The mansion was the culmination of a life-long dream, a place where his business contacts could discreetly indulge their passions with a stunning selection of the world's most beautiful – and most submissive – girls. Those who were less than beautiful were masked. Johnson had often noticed on his travels that the less attractive girls were those most eager to please.
Deuvar's chef was French, they held a wine cellar second to none. The fixtures and fittings had been chosen from auctions all over the world from the house of the gracious rich. Johnson's attention was drawn once again to the scene below. In the main hall some of Deuvar's resident girls were naked, or dressed in harnesses or other more exotic costumes.
The air was filled with the soft hum of conversation. The bar was filling up, dinner was still being served. Johnson smiled; this was his secret domain. It seemed rather fitting that he should resolve his problems with Peter Howard at Deuvar. He had first met him here, in the bar, when Peter had been a guest of another client.
"You must know Peter," the influential contact who had introduced them had said. "Computer genius."
Their mutual interests had sparked a conversation that had ended with Johnson offering Peter a contract to create a foolproof computer security system. They'd cemented their deal the Deuvar way, sharing a submissive blonde beauty in the sauna, Peter buried to the hilt in the girl's quim while Johnson had let her suck him dry. Her narrow sun-tanned back had been laced with the weals of the whipping Peter had inflicted on her.
Johnson shivered, remembering the pleasure, and imagined Peter heading through the night towards him with details of the whereabouts of the new Magenta and wondered for an instant how it would be resolved. His fury at Peter's betrayal was tempered with a healthy respect for his skill and his cunning; both were qualities he admired.
Below him the guests where oblivious to his state of mind. Leonora, champagne glass in hand, was exchanging pleasantries with one of the guests, when, as if sensing Johnson on the landing, she looked up and made her way towards him.
"Your – er – your guest hasn't arrived yet," she said quietly, surveying the hallway. "I hope you meal was to your liking."
Johnson nodded. "Wonderful as always. I thought I might socialise a little."
Leonora nodded. Johnson noticed that she still retained the air of respectful deference that had first encouraged him to appoint her head of Deuvar. He had found her in a back street in a North African port, tied across a filthy bed, gagged and subdued, eyes blackened from the beating her slave master had inflicted to break her spirit. Her tiny pert breasts had been marred by livid bite marks. Her owner, a belligerent ageing Turk with foul breath and a great pot belly was preparing to have her cut; slice away her pleasure bud and lips of her quim so that she would appeal to Eastern tastes – a final cruelty to break a girl who was obviously too spirited for the local market. The Turk seemed to think it was the only answer, the only way to make her saleable and controllable.
It had been her spirit that had endeared Leonora to Johnson. The Turk had assured him she was unbreakable and had insisted on bringing out the rest of his slave stock for Johnson's perusal. This, he had assured Johnson, was the way that women should behave. Real women, women who understood what was expected of them. In the cramped confines of the Turk's house Johnson had inspected a string of broken women, including one mental defective who it was obvious had been trained from childhood onward to see her whole life only in terms of the pleasure her body could give to the Turk and his customers. The Turk was proud of her, rubbing her heavy pendulous breasts like another man might pet a dog. She had responded by rubbing her thick odorous sex against him, whining pitifully while her mouth worked at the bulge beneath the Turk's great belly.
All the time the Turk paraded his mongrel bitches, Johnson had surreptitiously watched the girl on the bed, so unhappy, but resolutely awaiting her fate. She was quite obviously far above the Turks's normal standard of girls, though he was reluctant to explain how he had come by her.
When, finally, the Turk had exhausted his supply of slaves, Johnson had turned his attentions again to the Eurasian girl on the bed. He had explored her gently, touching the delicate almost hairless lips of her sex, opening her thighs, exploring the tight confines of her backside with an oiled finger tip whilst across the room her master had stood by, eyes on his girl, mouth slack.
When Johnson had her untied she had scurried across to him like a saviour, pressing her bruised lips to his fingers. Her Turkish master had been stunned and only too eager to close a sale.
Johnson had bought her the same way he had many of the other girls; a willing commodity only too eager to escape from a closed oppressive culture to the heady opportunities of Deuvar. A great shame he couldn't have been more discerning with his male employees.
Now Leonora indicated the guest lounge. "We have a floor show this evening, or music in the ballroom. Would you like me to arrange a table?"
Johnson shook his head, thinking about the way Leonora seemed now; a queen, in command, an employee with unshakeable loyalty. "I don't think so. Has the video tape arrived of Emily Lawrence yet?"
"I'm afraid not." Leonora paused, looking slightly ill at ease. She glanced over her shoulder. "Would you like me have one of the girls bring you some champagne? I don't wish to appear rude, but I do have another matter to attend to."
Johnson lifted an eyebrow in rebuke. "What other matter is so important that you have to run away from me, Leonora?"
The Eurasian woman bit her lip. "It is Kai, one of our most trusted girls. She was involved in Emily's escape attempt."
Curiosity awakened, Johnson encouraged her to continue. "Intentionally?"
Leonora shook her head. "No. Carelessness, but really she should have known better. She's earned a position of trust here and I think, perhaps, let it go to her head."
Johnson smiled. "I see." He considered the possibilities for an instant. "A disciplinary matter then?"
Leonora, immediately following his train of thought, nodded. "Perhaps you might like to ensure the punishment is correctly administered?" She indicated the corridor that led to her offices. "I really would like to get this over as soon as possible."