‘Would you like me to tell you the pin as well, Colonel? Or maybe I should just tell you that I have Mr Deiss, Caleb Johnston and Marie Nel in my fucking pocket.’
The colonel’s face paled with fear, and his mouth dropped open with disbelief. Ms Hutton simply smiled – a most subtle smile, one that barely registered on her angular face – but in that microscopic twist of the corners of her mouth, there simmered the malice of every demon in hell.
‘A brute like you could easily kill me,’ she said softly, ‘should it come to physical conflict. But, you see, we’re not living in the stone age anymore, you fucking Neanderthal. We’re living in my world. You need to understand, and I mean understand with crystal fucking clarity, that I can annihilate everything about your entire existence, Rudd. I can make every penny you think you own disappear with one click of my fingers. Everything you’ve worked for these last few decades of your life – and your redneck ranch that you’ve been working so hard on for your imminent retirement – I can make all of it simply go away. You see, Colonel Rudd, I control numbers and figures. And our whole fucking existence – yours, mine, and that of every other human being on this planet – consists of endless files of numbers and figures; nothing else. That body you’re in, that brain that does the thinking for it – they’re absolutely inconsequential. Numbers are more important than anything fucking else in this world. Anything. Numbers and records on computer databases are God incarnate. And my superiors and I own them. I can do whatever I want to them. I have that power, the kind of power a brutish oaf like you can only dream of. Your life, your savings, your retirement fund, your insurance, your money, your records, everything you are consists of numbers and words in data files. And I have access to every single last digit and letter of it. And if anything happens to me – anything whatsoever, you ugly, shit-reeking caveman – your entire existence will be flushed down the fucking toilet. Forever. Do you understand me?’
‘Fuck you. Fuck you!’ Rudd hissed through clenched teeth, as every inch of his body trembled with sheer and unadulterated rage in his chair.
Ms Hutton’s eyes were ablaze with raw malice.
‘You’re my bitch, Colonel Rudd,’ she said coldly. ‘I want you to know that. In fact, I want you to say it. Come on, big man. Say it. Say, “Ms Hutton, I’m your bitch”. Say it.’
‘Fuck you!’
The words were vocalised vibrations of an ancient darkness, passed down through innumerable vessels of DNA over tens of thousands of years, now crystallised in their primeval intensity in this moment, this slice of time in which the balance of power teetered on a scalpel-edge.
‘I’ll make everything about you cease to exist, Colonel. I’ll take your whole life away with one tap on my keyboard. You won’t physically die, but you’ll wish you were dead, you’ll ache and hurt to the depths of your ugly soul for death, you’ll fucking crave it like a heroin junkie sick for a fix. You’ll be nothing more than a penniless street bum in two seconds. Now say the fucking words. Say, “I’m your bitch, Ms Hutton”. Fucking say it, you primitive piece of shit.’
Rudd’s fists were balled tight, clenched with the bitter rage of absolute frustration and helplessness, and his huge jaw jutted out, quivering with impotent fury as the veins in his neck and forehead pulsed like writhing, heat-agitated worms beneath his skin. But he could not speak, he could not respond; he knew that he was defeated, and that there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it.
‘I’m … your … RRRAAGGHHH!’
Colonel Rudd screamed out a hoarse, sonorous howl that was the aural embodiment of the raw wrath and caustic hatred boiling and frothing in every molecule of his body. He jumped up and slammed a fury-charged fist onto the table, knocking everything off it and almost snapping it in half. Ms Hutton remained completely impassive and cold.
‘Say it. Say it Rudd, say it,’ she repeated flatly.
‘I’m, I’m … I’m your bitch, you fucking shit-eating carpet-munching cunt-licker! Fuck you! FUCK YOU! Fuck you an’ your whole fucking family an’ everything about you!’
Ms Hutton grinned abruptly with smug satisfaction and then leaned back in her chair, as coolly and calmly as if she were relaxing next to a pool at a five-star Seychelles resort.
‘Relax, Colonel, relax,’ she purred, basking unashamedly in her triumph. ‘I just wanted to make sure you properly understood the power dynamic in this little relationship of ours. Listen, I’m a fair woman and I believe in giving credit where credit is due; do the job we’ve commissioned you to do and do it well, and you have my personal guarantee that you’ll be rewarded very handsomely. I’ll personally provide you with a very generous bonus. All I want you to understand, though, is that you never, ever fuck with me. Ever.’
‘Give me some more details about the mission, goddammit,’ Rudd growled through tight-clenched teeth, his face a tempestuous, wrath-soaked mess of stormy crimson.
‘Of course; more details are certainly what you’re going to need. I promise you, this mission is going to be unlike anything you’ve ever experienced in your military career. I’m telling you that much; it will be completely unlike anything you’ve ever remotely considered in the realm of possibilities.’
‘In the last four decades I’ve fought on every continent, against every type a’ enemy you can imagine, Hutton. I don’t think there’s nothin’ new ‘bout what we’re gon’ be doing in th’ jungle here.’
Ms Hutton smiled cryptically.
‘Oh, I beg to differ. Let me ask you this, Colonel Rudd: Do you believe in werewolves?’
‘What the fuck kinda question is that? Is that a joke? Are you out a’ your fuckin’ mind?’
‘Do you or do you not?’
‘Are you serious? Do I look like I’m some fuckin’
