Nightmare Army. Don Pendleton

“And tonight, I’m going in and bringing him back out with me.”

CHAPTER TWO

      Seventy-two hours earlier

      Dennis Kuhn struggled out of unconsciousness to find his head pounding, his dry mouth tasting like sandpaper, and his arms and legs feeling like he was moving them through thick syrup.

      Raising his head from the cot he was laying on, he looked around in confusion. The white walls of the bare, windowless room were completely unfamiliar. Kuhn pushed himself up onto his elbows and paused, fighting a sudden wave of nausea. Don’t throw up, don’t throw up...

      After a minute his queasiness subsided enough for him to carefully sit up and look around. Other than a white table on the other side of the room and a sturdy-looking white door to his right, the room was empty. Blinking in confusion, Kuhn looked down to find himself wearing the same clothes—an indigo Hugo Boss button-down and gray slacks, both wrinkled from being slept in—that he had worn to the office...yesterday? Patting his pockets, he found that his smartphone and wallet were both missing.

      Where the hell am I? Mind whirling, Kuhn pushed himself to his stockinged feet, swayed unsteadily, and glanced over to find his wingtip shoes set neatly at the foot of the bed. He walked to the table, which was stocked with bottles of spring water in an ice bucket and a variety of energy bars. Removing the bottles, he opened one, swished a huge gulp of ice-cold water around in his mouth, then spit it out in the bucket. After draining the rest of the bottle, he found himself ravenously hungry and tore one of the bars open and devoured it. Selecting a second, he was peeling it open when he was interrupted by a click near the door and a familiar voice emanating from a concealed speaker somewhere over there.

      “Greetings, Mr. Kuhn. I am glad to see that you are awake and recovered from your recent journey.”

      Kuhn looked up from his protein bar in surprise. “Mr. Stengrave?” The water he’d just drank seemed to coalesce into a ball of ice in his stomach. He doesn’t know—he can’t know— “What’s going on here? Where am I?”

      “You are a guest at my winter home, Stengrave Castle, on the north end of the Gulf of Bothnia.”

      Kuhn knew the place his boss was talking about: a modern update of a medieval castle, built to Kristian Stengrave’s exacting specifications. He’d even visited the place once before, three years ago, a reward for certain top-level executives for surpassing their lofty sales goals, even during the recession that had been sweeping Europe at the time. But last night, he had been in Stuttgart—more than 1,500 miles away. Not only had he been kidnapped by the very company he worked for, but someone had brought him to this forlorn place near the top of the world—all without anyone being the wiser.

      “Where is my family?”

      “They are safe and sound at your home. They have been told that you were called away to a top-level emergency conference, so suddenly that you didn’t have time to contact them.”

      “Okay... Why am I here?”

      “You have been brought here to discuss a very serious matter—your attempted theft of proprietary research and materials for one of our rivals.”

      Kuhn’s stomach lurched so hard he thought he was going to throw up, but he maintained his poker face while opening another bottle of water. “Sir, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

      But of course he did; in fact, Kuhn was as guilty as hell. He worked as a computer programmer and analyst at one of Stengrave Industries’ facilities in Germany, producing top-of-the-line medical equipment for sale throughout the rest of the world. Hired straight from graduation at the top of his class at Heidelberg University, with a double major in computer science and business, he’d spent the past decade with the company, rising steadily through the ranks.

      And yet it had never seemed to be enough. Although he was paid well, his wife had expensive tastes combined with a desire to keep up with their well-to-do neighbors, and when their children had arrived, the pressure to maintain their lifestyle had only increased.

      So when a rival bio-manufacturing firm had offered him ten years’ salary to deliver test data on one of Stengrave’s most propriety lines of gene research, he had agreed, seeing a way out of his increasingly pressure-filled life. What he hadn’t counted on was how much more pressure he was under now; not only from his wife, but also from both masters, keeping appearances normal at his regular job while satisfying the increasingly strident demands of his new boss.

      “Do not bother protesting your innocence, Mr. Kuhn, it will not help you. All of the evidence has been collected and presented to me, and I have already made my decision.”

      Even though the room was perfectly comfortable, sweat appeared on Kuhn’s brow and the back of his neck. He gulped more water even as his gaze flicked to the door, which he knew was locked. “Okay, then why have you brought me here?”

      “To offer you a chance to reclaim your lost honor.”

      Of all the things his boss might have said, that was the last thing he expected. “Wha—what are you talking about?”

      “Finish eating and we will discuss what will happen next,” Stengrave replied.

      Kuhn tossed the bar on the table—there was no way he could stomach any more. “I’m ready now.”

      “Very good.” The door clicked. Kuhn walked over to it and tried the handle. The door swung open easily under his touch, and he walked into the next room.

      Lights came on as he did, revealing a long hallway lined on both sides with full suits of armor. As the door to the other room closed behind him, Kuhn blinked and stared at the at least two-dozen suits standing silently in the hall, ten on either side, each one on its own small dais; a warrior’s uniform from another time.

      In the middle of the room was a rack of swords, containing various blades from a typical medieval long sword to what looked like a Scottish claymore. Other than the armor and the swords, the room appeared to be empty. There was a door at the end of the room, but it had no knob or handle.

      “Mr. Stengrave?” Kuhn asked. “What is all this?”

      “As I said...” His boss’s voice came from somewhere in the room. “It is a place for you to reclaim your honor.”

      “I—I don’t understand.”

      “Choose your weapon.”

      Kuhn frowned. “What?”

      “Choose your weapon. There are twenty suits of armor in this room. I am in one of them. If you select the correct one and strike me, you will be free to go. If you do not select the correct one, then we will fight to the death.”

      Kuhn’s blood pounded in his ears as he heard the terms of his “exit interview.” He shook his head. “This is insane! You can’t just kidnap me and hold me hostage and set up this ridiculous contest like some James Bond villain!”

      “Yet you are here, and I am here. So it would seem that is exactly what is happening,” Stengrave replied in the same calm, measured voice.

      “I refuse— I refuse to participate in this madness,” Kuhn said. “Have me arrested, tried, thrown in jail, whatever, I’ll deal with it. But this...this is madness.”

      “Perhaps you should have thought of that before you chose to steal from my company—and me.”

      Kuhn squinted as Stengrave spoke, trying to figure out where his voice was coming from. He studied the metal suits of armor closest to him, thinking it would be easy to figure out which one his boss was wearing, but each one looked as if it held a mannequin filling out the clothes underneath the polished steel plates. Even as he did this, a part of his mind screamed that all this had to be in some kind of nightmare, and that if he could just wake up, he’d find himself back at home, in bed next to his sleeping wife, and all of this would simply be