1. Nocturnal ventures 2

2. Coming-to 3

3. Muscle-T 5

4. Introductions 7

5. Mr Big 9

6. Negotiations 11

7. Persuasion 13

8. Doing the business 14

9. Grilling 16

10. Stewing 17

End 18

Occasional images fromDolph Lundgren in Showdown in Little Tokyo

In tribute to the Nick Carter stories byrendszeretlen

GrillingOn stakeout

Grilling

1. Nocturnal venturesThere was a thick fog around, he couldn’t make things out. Yet he had to get to the bar and meet her in time. Somewhere in the fog a kind of thumping noise like heavy machinery working in some factory down by the wharf. A thumping that somehow got into his head, live in his flesh, made him feel sick. Strange for a factory to be working so late at night. But times were hard, must be on a rush job. He grinned to himself, remembering her from last night, the girl he’d picked up in the bar. She was ace. Tonight was going to be the second time, promise of another hot night. After last night no way was he going to pass up on another chance. Her skin was like dark chocolate. She must have been some kind of track athlete the way her thighs had gripped him. Eagerly he was rushing as best this dense fog allowed, unsure now of the directions in this confusion. He’d picked up in bars many times. Rarely struck so lucky before, though. She was hot as hell.

The sight of her under him drifted at him out of the fog, he had risen to his knees, still within her. Last night in his flea-pit of a room, holding her up with his hands clasped greedily around her firm sweaty arse, a tempting memory that was already working on him as he tried to work out the way to the bar. It was a maze in these back-streets anyway without the fog, derelict factories everywhere, his eyes were streaming with the strain of looking. On her back, she had squeezed seductively tight around him with muscle-hard chocolate thighs as he worked her like a well-oiled piston, - got him right where it was good. Squeezing on him inside too like she wasn’t about to let him escape. Her scalp lolled back against the mattress of that shit-hole of a hotel he’d been using. Her eyes closed, head rolling in pleasure, neck stretched back in moaning passion as his cock played in her, rolled around her, working himself up too.

His head hurt, it hurt really bad. Odd? Why? A voice broke into his reverie. Somewhere on there in the blur. A male voice. Somewhere in the fog. On a cell phone, maybe, Carter used it to re-orientate himself. He wasn’t going to be late, he couldn’t risk being late. A woman like that by herself in a bar in a place like this - it would not be long without someone making a move. He couldn’t afford to be late. She’d gone with him easy enough, she could leave with another, too.

The voice was speaking some foreign language, not one Carter understood. Slowly a shape loomed into sight. A man. Short, muscle-shirt and jeans talking into a phone on a wall. A phone on a wall? Outside in this fog? Carter’s vision swayed, blurring. In a muscle T in freezing fog like this? Suddenly his confusion was interrupted, he felt a surge in his guts, he was going to puke. Clamping his eyes tight, Carter concentrated, forcing the acid bile swirling around in his stomach to stay down. The thought only dimly entered his head. Puke? Why did he need to puke?

The thought was quickly dispelled - by an ice-cold deluge. Carter yelled, surprised, he must have passed out. Passed out? How? Why? Carter crashed to the surface. Carter bawled in shock. Suddenly shivering. Shaking the cold from his head. Shivering from head to foot. Shock detonated with a surprised bawl. An explosion in his head stopped him shaking his head. He froze. Nick Carter froze for a moment. Till the shivers took him over. Till Carter was shuddering from the cold. His whole torso shaking as cold shook him in its grip.

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2. Coming-toHis head hurt like crazy. Paralysing him, he didn’t dare move, the thought of even blinking had him stiff at the thought of the pain in his head getting even worse. Maybe it was because of the cold. The shivers had set in. Icy-cold shivers. Freezing his every movement, freezing his mind. And every moment he felt like he was going to throw up. Carter could do nothing. He lay back, eyes closed tight against the nerve-grating grinding in his head, paralysed by the idea of more pain if he moved. What the ...? What had happened? His torso was shivering, uncontrollably. Why? He was on his back, against something hard, on something very cold. Chilly and cold. Unable to move. Pinned down by the threat of further pain exploding in his head. Pinned down by something tight across his wrists.

Tied down? That sudden realisation was instantly dispelled. Another dowsing with cold water drenched his body. Carter bellowed. Shock. Painful wakefulness. Understanding. All-in-one.Remembering. The blow across the back of his head. Going back to his hotel, after seeing the girl into a taxi. His head full of the prospects, arranged to meet at the bar the next night. Turning back, through the deserted streets, toward his flea-pit hotel, crumpled sheets still warm from their rabid sex. Out of the shadows a sudden movement, one single blow. Lights-out time.

Slaps across his face reinforced the need to get a grip. Sharp stinging slaps across Carter’s cheek. The guy in the muscle shirt might be a short-ass but his palm could pack a slap. Carter registered sounds. A voice. Asking a question. But in a language he did not understand. Probably Korean, yes, the fucker in the muscle-T looked Korean. That would fit after all. He’d been rumbled. Another bucket of cold water stopped his pained ramblings in his head. How many more for fuck’s sake? Shocked by a dowsing with icy water. Still coming-to, Carter could not contain the shock. He yelled. The cold gripped him. He shivered.

He’d been snatched. Somehow they’d rumbled him. Worrying that. He was one of AXE’s best. Yet still these Koreans had caught on, realised someone was keeping a secret eye on them. He’d have to try better next time. If there was a next time.His guard with a predilection for dowsing him with cold water had withdrawn. Letting Carter come to his senses by himself. Vaguely – coming to - Carter was aware of water. Dripping off him in the chill air. Sounds dripping chillingly onto the floor beneath. Probably there were other chilling treats if he did not get his act together fast enough.

They’d rumbled him. Carter quickly tried to take in his surroundings. While he could. As best he could from this angle flat on his back. The room was badly lit. Just a single weak bulb overhead. And it was cold. It was fucking cold. Especially when you’d had buckets of icy water thrown over you. Carter was shivering, he couldn’t help it. The air was cold, he was soaked. And he was naked, he realised. Or nearly so. Just wearing undershorts. Not much different from being bollocks-naked when they were drenched from chilling water. Making him shiver. In a chilly room.

For some reason Carter sensed he was underground. No reason why, it just felt like that. Underground where no one would hear. If he cried out, yelled for help. If there was any point. Carter was in no doubt there wasn’t. An ice-cold logic put it together for him. The people he’d been sent to watch had spotted him. He’d thought he’d been careful. Subtle even in the way he’d kept them under surveillance this past week. But not subtle enough.

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Carter pulled at his arms. Without thinking, trying to wrap his arms around him against the cold. They didn’t move. Suddenly it really clicked, he was bound hand and foot. Bound on something metal. Bound to make sure Nick Carter didn’t miss the party.

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3. Muscle-THis head was thumping. From a blow to the head. The thudding was not some industrial plant working all night on a rush order, after all. It was in Nick Carter’s head. A stabbing pain that got worse if he risked and moved his head. Carter had pulled on an arm. To nurse it to the side of his aching head. It didn’t move. The thump in his head told him he had been warned to stay still. It reacted angrily as his eyes glanced to the side. Loops of thick leather around his wrist bound him in place. The thumping laughed back at him, reminding him to lay still, - when stupidly Carter’s head whipped across to the other side. The other wrist tied the same alongside his head. Despite his head warning him, Carter raised his head to see better. The leather at his wrists was wound around metal bars. Carter was lying on some kind of metal grill, flat on his back. He yanked on the leather restraints. Confirming he was well-and-truly stuck in place. And no one planned for him to go away.

The light from the single bulb was dim. But, through the pain in his head and the gloom, his vision was clearing. Carter could make out his guard. Short, Far East, Korean - made sense in the

circumstances. Leaning against the wall watching. Watching nonchalantly as Carter again instinctively yanked at the restraints. This time pulling harder, making more effort. Ignoring the headache, ignoring his guard. Watching, still unconcerned as Carter’s powerful thighs came into action. Pulling on his feet. Confirming he was well-and-truly pinned down there too. Confirming he was not going far. Not till they’d finished.

Which was why muscle-T wasn’t bothered, Carter was not going anywhere. Muscle-shirt

stood there watching wordless, unconcerned by Carter’s strugglings to break free. Like he knew something better than Carter. Like he’d tied the leather himself and he was no fool when it came to knots. Watching indifferent and letting Nick Carter work out his situation for himself, arms folded across his chest. Sizeable arms, Carter noticed. Enormous on a man as short as him. Just like the breadth across his chest too, the guy was no 7-stone weakling. Leaning back against the wall, one leg cocked, one foot flat against the wall. Nonchalance itself. Like some street-wise kid. But one who lived every minute for the gym.

Anxiety began to grow in Nick Carter’s guts. Not knowing who these guys were. Suspecting he had been rumbled, they were Koreans after all. Not understanding how they’d got onto him. It didn’t help thinking straight that he was freezing his balls off. The last thing Carter remembered was turning back from the cab. Carter had squeezed on her ass as his date bent into the taxi. He’d winked at her as she grinned at him from the back seat. The wink saying, Tomorrow then, as agreed. Inside his shorts his cock had given her a quick goodbye wave, remembering the good times. Then he’d turned away, turned down the murky side-street, back to his flea-pit hotel. The lights had gone out with an explosion in his head. Something he hadn’t been reckoning on after the kind of night he’d had.

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Grilling

Nick Carter was freezing. He had been wearing that duvet jacket against the cold. Not needed it when the pair of them had been making out, she was damned hot. But he’d been practically living in the thing since starting this look-out. Freezing his arse off in that run-down warehouse opposite the stakeout. Living on hot coffee from a thermos, just to keep his hands warm. February was not the best time to be out in the cold.

Nor to be stripped to your shorts and dowsed in cold water in some icy underground cellar. Carter pulled again on the restraints, as much to get some movement, to get his muscles working and make some heat. His headache objected. And it didn’t do much good either, no give, nothing moved. Nick Carter was pinned down and frozen to the bones.

Muscle-T didn’t flinch. His eyes didn’t either. Leaning relaxed against the wall, seemingly impervious to the cold. Gaze full on Carter. Shivering in soaked shorts. Drenched, lying on a metal grill. And going nowhere far. Muscle-T didn’t feel the cold obviously. His bare arms were folded across his chest. A T-shirt, Carter noticed, that seemed one size too small, stretch fabric that clung to his torso. Carter guessed this fucker would go out in the streets looking like that, going out in the cold. To impress. Just to be noticed for what he looked like, just to show off what he had. And the way the white T clung to his stomach there was plenty to show.

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Grilling

4. IntroductionsNick raised his throbbing head. Got his shivering under control. Managed to blurt out.“What the fuck’s going on?” Muscle-T ignored him. Still watching closely, still nonchalantly leaning against the wall. Some kid on the ghetto street. Did he even speak English? The guy was just leaning against the wall, diverted himself into watching himself as he popped his bicep across his chest. “What do you want?”Carter got the same response. Like he’d not even spoken. The guard had taken to looking down at his chest, popping the concrete slabs under the stretched fabric. The sucker certainly loved the look of himself.To Carter, the answer was obvious anyway but he was going to play the part.

“You can’t do this”.Carter was pretending he was just some innocent bystander who’d got kidnapped for no reason.Muscle-shirt looked up back. Frowned annoyed that Carter was disturbing his narcissistic play. Carter opened his mouth, playing the frightened scared, he started another whine. But Muscle-T stopped Carter, he proved he was human. He spoke.“Shut your fucking mouth”.So much for introductions. Yeah, he did speak English.

Carter was going to ignore his advice, he’d opened him up. Progress. Still playing the innocent, he made himself sound scared.“Who are you? You want money?”A moment’s silence. An irritated steely look. No body-popping. Then a reaction.“Shut your fucking mouth”.Not a man of many words then. Carter yanked on the wrists a few times. Like this innocent was desperate to get away. Then like the man who had just frightened himself into realising the brutal truth he turned back. Sounding shit-scared.“Use my cell. Phone my family. They’ll pay”.

Muscle-T sighed. A big sigh that lifted his rock-solid shoulders above a hard-packed chest. Carter got the feeling this was a man who liked to be flattered that people listened to him, took him seriously. Or if they didn’t he would make them. His arms dropped by his side. With a movement that spoke of regret. Regret this fucker could not do as he was told, shut up. Having to move himself to get himself understood. He pushed himself into standing with the foot resting against the wall. Then, like he didn’t want to do this, he moved across the floor. Moved with the grace of a dancer. Moved with the power of a long-term bodybuilder. Grace of the dancer, power of the muscle-boy, all-in-one. Standing alongside Carter, next to his grill. Another big sigh stretched the material across the chest almost to ripping point. His traps dropped after the sigh, relaxed, - and huge for his size. The solid overhang of his chest was tipped with nipples hard with the cold, pressing out to escape confinement.

“You deaf or what?” An aggressive snarl. Pissed off Nick Carter had stopped him from admiring himself.Carter saw the move coming. He was grabbed by the hair, tugged hard back. With one hand. The

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Grilling

other arm disappeared in a blur. A flash of muscle. The blur of a fist. Straight into Carter’s guts. Carter flexed in time. But the force of that kind of punch into his abs shook his whole body. A sharp jab that hammered at Carter’s gym-honed solar plexus. The power jarred his backbone hard into the metal bars underneath.A vice clamped itself around Carter’s jaw. Muscle-T’s hand squeezing tight around the jawline. Turning Carter to look up into a steely glare. Turned by a grip powered by a forearm that had spent an eternity working out.“SHUT – YOUR – FUCK – ING – MOUTH!”A man who liked to be taken seriously. The threat was snarled, spoken slow. Did he know any more English? The pain on his jaw made Carter miss the warning signs. The blast-bomb exploded in his guts. Another power-punch thrown down at his bare belly-button. This time unsuspecting, unprepared. Every bit of wind exited in a whoosh out of his mouth. Coloured by a bawl of shock.

The guy liked to be listened to. Muscle-shirt returned to his post, back leaning into the wall, leg cocked back. Unconcerned, satisfied he’d made his point. Watching Carter heaving for breath, winded. Hearing him rasp as he fought for air. Nonchalant. Doing his job, guarding, watching. Back to body-popping. Admiring himself, admiring his body that demanded attention.Carter didn’t feel so cold any more. He was warming up.

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Grilling

5. Mr Big“What the hell is going on?”The stranger looked back, unsmiling. Boss-man. Mr Big.“I ask the questions”, he answered. Curt. “Like hell you do”, Carter snapped back. Playing the angry innocent for now.The look back was full on him. But the emotions behind the eyes were distant. Like he didn’t matter. Meat on the slab.“We’ll see about that”.

Carter yanked on his wrists to show what he wanted.“Get me outta these”, he ordered.The metal grill had been raised, Carter rested now at 45 degrees. Carter had tested every restraint before he’d heard their steps coming down the bare stairs. Bound with leather at the wrists, alongside his head, ankles similarly, caught tight in leather biting into his legs. Inclined at this angle by Smiley Muscle-T when first the footsteps were heard. Like this was some practised routine to raise the grill when the boss-man. Anxiety levels increased at the sound of footsteps echoing down the bare stairs. This thing he was lying on was not some coincidence, it could be tipped up, lain flat. For some purpose. Carter suspected he might not like to know what it was. But he was going to find out.But at least things were going off, Carter might find out what was up. More info meant he might worm his way out of this. Carter turned to see the group as their feet clattered into the coldness of the room. Out of the icy gloom, Mr Big and another three goons. Yeah, Koreans, made sense. He was freezing, trying hard to stop himself from shivering. Not wanting to look like they’d got him terrified. They hadn’t. But they’d certainly got him worried. He’d been right. Koreans. Though he didn’t recognise any of the men from his stakeout. New faces. Hit men? Professionals. Brought in specially to deal with him? Through his breath pluming in the cold air, Carter stared back. A mixture of curiosity and justified nervousness. Putting on a brave front. Making out he was angry. This was not Nick’s first time in a situation like this. But it never got easy.

He stood there. Like some male model. In an off-white suit, fashionably creased. Hands casually thrown into his pockets. The man that Nick Carter was convinced was going to torture him out of his mind. Looking incongruously innocent, enviously good-looking. For all Carter’s bravado and show of anger, he was staring into eyes of grey steel. Unusual he realised in someone from the Far East.

“Satisfied?”The enigmatic question hung in the air. Carter frowned, wondering what the question meant.Mr Big explained.“Got it into your head yet that those ties are not going to release themselves?”Regrettable Nick had. But no way was he going to let on. But he resisted another futile attempt to prove them right, that would look like weakness. He just stared back. Stared back into eyes as responsive as a girder of steel. And just as hard.

“You have two jobs to do”, Mr Big said. “Answer my questions. And to cooperate”.Nick started to snap back.“Go f …..”But Mr Big cut him short.

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“Anything less - and you’ll incur my wrath”.Wrath! What a word to use. In response, Carter snorted at such a quaint phrase. Then chillingly realising there had been nothing “quaint” otherwise in this encounter. Just unerringly on-target.

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6. Negotiations

“This is nonsense. You hi-jack an innocent man. Tie him up. Well the hell you think you’re playing at?”Nick Carter decided to lay it on thick. Not going to sound intimidated.Mr Big just stood there, hands in pocket, like he thought he was entitled to everything. He ignored Nick Carter’s bravado.“Let’s start with a name. I’ll make things easy for you”.He exuded that kind of self-belief that allowed him to ask whatever he wanted. As if he even had details of Carter’s last fuck. But then they probably did know that already. Whatever, Carter was going to make the fucker work for it.“You’ve got my clothes. You’ve gone through my wallet. You know as much as I know”.Carter laid as much mocking disdain into his reply as he could.“Now undo me..Let me go free. I’ll tell my lawyer not to get in touch. That good enough?”

The steely eyes stared back unresponsive. Carter felt obliged to return like-for-like. Time ticked on. Eternally. The pair of them locked in conflict, neither going to give way.Mr Big broke first. Eventually. But not from a position of weakness.“In case you’re wondering …”.Carter knew the pause was for dramatic effect. Go on, try me, brother, he snorted back in his head.Mr Big did.“We found the transponder”.SHIT! thought Carter.“In the duvet jacket”.Who in hell went about with a transponder sewn in their jacket, Carter thought? Except men like him. How’d they manage that? Detect the latest secret technology? Fuckin’ Koreans, probably invented the thing.He caught the smirk on Mr Big’s face. Like he’d read Carter’s thoughts. Like he’d read that Carter had just realised they were technologically just as smart. And what they could mean for him tied up like this. Mr Big looked like he’d just read that Nick Carter knew he was in deep shit. Smug-looking bastard.“Whoever is monitoring you, he thinks you are fucking the head off some other one-night-stand in your hotel room right now”.Probably, Carter thought, nothing new there, they’d be thinking. Then, he thought, chance ’d be a fine thing.

“So what say you stop messing me about?”Nick Carter was sure Mr Big had little to go on. But he himself was not someone to be pissed around with either.“What say you stop messing me around, motha? And undo these straps?” No harm in keep playing the angry innocent.

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Mr Big looked back into Carter’s eyes. Steely. Grey. Giving nothing. It didn’t help Carter that the guy was so good-looking, - and well turned-out. While Nick Carter was reduced to shivering in sodden shorts. Like he’d pissed himself.“That your answer?”, Mr Big asked.“There any other?” Carter mocked back.

“Yes”.Mr Big was a man of not many words.He nodded. Sagely. Knowingly.Carter bawled.

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7. PersuasionAnything Nick Carter didn’t appreciate, it was being wired to the mains. Suddenly a jolt of excruciating pain rammed at his body. Like being mowed down by a fully-loaded truck. The bawl of shock scorched like a flame thrower out of his guts. A thunder-flash seared incandescent in his chest. The inside of his throat felt clawed raw by eagle’s talons.“Only a few seconds. That time”.

A sudden shot of unbelievable pain. Pure electric. Nick Carter had yelled. He’d kept on yelling after they’d switched him off. His explosive yell tore across Mr. Suit’s warning words.“Fucking bastard!” he screamed.

Nick Carter’s head was pressed back against the grid. Metal digging hard into his skull as he heaved in air. His back had arced up to a shuddering extreme. Not seeking to run away. In an inescapable grip that threw him up into a back-breaking arch, contorted by a force that kept him up in the air, shaking. Shaken. Rattled violently by powerful jolts of electricity. Shaken like some wild-man. Shaken in a mind-blowing frenzy of pain.Collapsed, thrown back down when the juice switched him off. Back flat on the grid, Carter’s upper torso shuddered wildly in brutal uncontrollable shakes. Thrown up, splattered back down, pumped full of juice, noisily gasping for air. Painfully while the last vestiges of electricity shook themselves out of his torso. He’d been soaked. Water had lain pearled on his chest, collecting in his abs. The metal grid underneath was damp too. And the fuckers had loaded him with current. Eyes wide-open, unseeing, his head against the grill shuddered wildly. Not recovering, not managing to get back his wind. Barely surviving. Shaking his head, eyes now closed, screwed tight closed, skull pressed back into the hardness of the grill.

Mr Big was a patient man, he waited. Till there was some signs of life. Seeing his prisoner yanking again, like some trapped animal intent on escape, pulling for life on the restraints. “Well?” Mr Big interrupted the futile attempts.

Where the hell had that come from? This fucking grill wired to the mains. No warning. Nick had thought he was just in for some beating. Squirt in the muscle-T beating the truth out of him. But they had this grid wired up. And Nick dripping with water. His shorts drenched. Hurting, hurting everywhere, drained suddenly of strength. He heard himself yelling, nothing he could do about it. His torso alive with liquid fire. In the circumstances, Nick’s words were mild.

“FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING BASTARD!”On the brink of a deep pit. Blackness looming.

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8. Doing the business

The sledgehammer took him in the abs. The 50-pounder landed straight in the belly-button. Shock cut pain across his wrists as his chest jack-knifed up in the air. Nick Carter hadn’t taken any notice of the Korean squirt-with-muscle by his side. Concentrating on the star of the show. Nick’s bawl bounced off the ceiling, it hung above him in the air mocking his impudence. With a shocked cry Nick Carter’s head cracked back against the hard metal grid. His guts bawled for air. Hit by some medieval battering ram in the belly. He thought his guts were going to erupt.Muscle-T looked at Mr. Suit. His elbow poised above his guts for another blow. Bicep striated with murderous intent. Ready to teach this dickhead the lesson he deserved. Bulging shoulder muscle-hard with eagerness to suck up to the boss.

But Mr. Suit shook his head.

Normally Carter would have gone with the flow, he’d trained for this. He’d been here plenty of times before. Normally he’d have relaxed totally, yoga-training disengaged the mind. Let himself absorb all that pain, let himself cry out, scream. Take it, writhe, shake. That was only his body, not his being, disengaged like that he could be nigh-invincible. But they kept catching him off guard, - despite his experience, - and all that training. Everything hurt, his guts, the way his lungs had been emptied of air, it felt like his throat had been scraped raw by burning acid. His head was swimming with pain. His guts could take a lot. But the savage squirt of a fucker must have mastered some vicious pain-technique. Nick had not been looking for a body-builder’s fist hammering at his spine. Probably didn’t help that it came straight after being lit up like Christmas lights.

“Warning! I do mean business”.Mr. Big’s words just penetrated Nick’s brain. As if he needed telling, though. He knew well enough he was in deep shit! How was he gonna convince the Suit he’d got the wrong man? Mr Big looked completely unmoved.“Now, what do I need to convince you more?”Great minds think alike!

Nick Carter was aware of the squirt with muscles looming on the other side, just waiting for the nod. But, despite his looming menace, Nick had eyes for only one, only guy counted here. The livid cells in Carter’s brain were making a mental note, though, of every wallop dished out by the Muscle-T. Promising himself he’d return the compliment. For now, though, Nick Carter eyed his major assailant, aching like hell to bury his fist into that super-handsome face. This was the fucker he had to deal with. This was the one who had to know he’d get nothing out of Nick Carter like this. The Suit would have to come up with something else. It really irritated that he was so calm, it got right up Nick’s nose that the self-assured motha oozed so much charm and good looks. So incongruous.

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Face cold, empty. Yet superbly turned-out, straight off the catwalk. Just doing a job. Torturing for information.But that face kept swimming. As Nick blinked tears of pain out of his eye. Feeling as he began to recover a bit his bare chest rising and falling, in deep heavy breaths. They’d loaded him with a shitload of juice. The sledgehammer into his spine had been just the icing on the cake. The Suit did not need to convince. Nick Carter knew he was up shit-creek, - and Mr Big wasn’t handing out the paddles.

So far no one had said what they wanted. But it didn’t take a genius to work that out.

“So how say we lose some of that lip?” Mr Big continued. “Better to loosen your tongue”.“Lip” had always been one of Nick Carter’s strengths. Got him out of lots of tight corners. Got him into trouble too. Nick suspected this situation was one of those.“You will tell me what I want. Sooner or later”.The sucker was so supremely confident of himself - it got right up Nick Carter’s nose. He wished he’d picked up a few choice words in Korean. The sucker would have got what-for. Straight into that smug male-model face. The prick’s self-assurance really irritated. Making Carter think to himself, Over my dead body. What were his options, then? Spin them a yarn? By the way they’d got to his transponder, Carter reckoned they knew more than they were letting on. Testing him in fact. Or tell them the truth? Something for Carter that went against the grain. And when he had betrayed all he believed in, ... what chance of coming outta this in one piece? So tough this thing out, then? By the look of emptiness in those steel-grey eyes, Nick Carter guessed when he turned down that corridor there’d be only one door marked Way Out. What the hell, it had to come to that point some time!

The Suit had already made the point. In the best possible way. Charging-up every cell in Nick Carter’s gym-honed perfect frame. Loading it with sizzling agony. Message clear? Mr Big was not a man of many words. Or much patience.

He didn’t play around either.“Long enough,” he decided.The words just registered. A split second before Nick Carter screamed. Screamed to fucking hell. Repeatedly.

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9. Grilling

There was nothing in Carter’s world but this blistering pain. He heard himself, he heard the screams. This was not going with the flow. This was being taken. Pain raging through his body.On. Off. On.. Off. Carter had been knocked over by a truck. Dragged underneath half a mile. Nick Carter had no idea who the bastard was on the switch. But soon he was cursing the fucker to hell. On fire. The fucker on the switch turned him on. Turned him off. Like being kicked by a horse in his back. Shot off the frame like a bullet out of a gun. Shot rigid up off the grid. Twisted into an sizzling arc, pinned down at ankles and wrists. Held up juddering in a back-breaking arch. Held in a spasming bow, shaken like a rattle. Screaming at the pain. Rattling in short violent shakes.

Then switched off. Smacking down on the grid. Back thudding hard into metal bars. Pain rattling through every joint. Like thwacked hard by a baseball bat the length of his spine. Head cracking backwards, pain exploding in his head. The reverberations of electrified pain still rattling through every cell. Eyes screwed tight, a yell of shock bursting icy into the air. Turned on, turned off. Thrown up in the air, slammed back down again. Again. Again and again. And again. Even switched off, Nick Carter’s supremely fit body failed to catch-up. He couldn’t breathe fast enough. His heart could not catch-up with the missing beat. Frightening, this was fucking scary.

Nick Carter was panting, panting hard. The force was throwing his head and shoulders off the grid. Eyes swimming, the world in a blur. That god-damned male model in his linen suit looking over at him. To Nick he was just a blur. But he hated the fucker. Between shocks Nick forced a grin. A sneer of disdain. The prick had got right up his nose.“That the best you can do?”The words were out before he could stop himself. He heard them, he heard himself uttering them. He felt a shiver down his spine at the words he spoke. To cover up, he forced a grin. To shore up his bravado, to strengthen his defiance. Shit, he thought in a flash, here we go again. Knowing it was the worst thing he could have said. But it was out there, it was said.

Just as the pain had shown signs of subsiding, Nick Carter was switched on again. Brought it on himself. Exploding upwards into a convulsed arch. His one shout of “FFUUUCCCKK!” split the cold air. Switched on. Off. On. Off. The first three times in his head Nick could still curse the fucker with his hand on the switch. Cursed in a full-throated bawl. Then his screams caught in his throat. Jolted hard up into the air. Even before he could catch his breath. Arched jarringly up into a painful bow, muscles popping, joints straining. Suddenly slammed back down on the grid. The wind knocked out of him with the jolt of the force. Eye-popping pain busting to get free.Back down on the grid, his bleary eyes briefly landed in hatred on Mr Big. Before he screamed and shot like a broken spring into the air. But after that, after three times being switch on-and-off, jarred up, slammed down, Nick Carter found nothing. Pain had short-circuited his response. He lost track of events, drowning in red-hot seas. Pounding by fiery surf. But he could still scream. Once, in some lucid nano-second, he doubted his sanity. Then he had lost track of that too. Knowing just the force, a mind-crippling force. Just the pain. Just the screaming. Just an endless violence of body-draining pain.

16

Grilling

10. Stewing

His head was slumped to one side. His tongue hanging out. Looking but barely seeing. Involuntary tears of pain flowed freely down his cheeks. The handsome face opposite was talking to him, the mouth moving, the perfect lips creased in a question. Nick Carter was panting heavily, but still struggling for air, his head rocking up and down with the effort. Sweat dribbled off his forehead despite the cold. Hard pounding abs beaded with his pain. The perfectly turned-out sucker in the suit was talking to him. But Nick Carter was hearing nothing. Drowned out by the din of white noise that raged in his head. But deep in primeval guts, somewhere in a gory world of dog-eat-dog a hunter was defying the ultimate threat, a pledge had formed itself. This beast would get nothing. Whatever the cost.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

He had the moron dowsed with icy water. Right now the prick was not capable of listening. The shocks had taken everything out of him. As Mr Big had planned. He listened unmoved to the bellow of shock as awakening pains clutched him again in their grip. He nodded, again the prisoner was saturated with arctic cold. Watched unmoved as the spy came alive, shivering violently with freezing-cold water dripping off his naked torso. More shocks were wrenched out of him by the icy water. Watching as the icy spray

taught the fool he was not lucky enough to be dead, not till he talked. Listening to him fill the cellar with his yell. Listening at the sound of water dribbling ominously chilling onto the cold concrete floor.

Then Mr Big and his henchmen left. Leaving the prisoner with his vigilant guard. Nodding to the foot-soldier in his muscle-T. He didn’t need instructions, he knew what to do. Leaving the fool who’d got sloppy in his surveillance to stew. Leaving him to shiver, letting him fear for a couple of hours. Leaving the lippy jerk to sweat, let him stew. He’d be back, - in a few hours. Then again politely Mr Big would ask him questions. The man would be an absolute moron if he still persisted in his wisecracks. But if the sucker really thought he was that tough, - he now knew what he had coming to him.A couple of hours to sweat it out. Then the asshole would open up. If not, .. well, the sucker knew now what-for. At some time the pips would squeak.

17

Grilling

End

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