The Baroness - The Ecstasy Connection by Paul Kenyon - Chapter 01

1974 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Lady Spies

The Baroness packs in her sleek, voluptuous body the lethal power of a tigress. To the world, she's known as Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini, model, millionairess, and international playgirl. But to a crack team of super-spies, she's "the chief"—the deadliest of them all. She knows how to make it hot for a man—in bed or in action!

Chapter 1

"A drink of water would have saved his life," the medical examiner said. "Why didn't he take it?"

The lieutenant gave a fishy stare at the untouched glass on the table beside the corpse. There was at least a week's supply of food and drink on it—sandwiches, party snacks, a festive basket of fruit and cheeses, expensive wines, a pitcher of water.

None of it had been touched.

"It beats me," the lieutenant said, scratching his head.

"It's like he didn't notice be was starving to death."

The dead man was shrunken, dried-out looking. He was sprawled in an overstuffed chair in the middle of an Aubusson carpet, naked under an expensive dressing gown, the uneaten feast laid out beside him. An unpleasant smell came from the body.

He looked happy.

The teeth were bared in what looked like an ecstatic grin. The eyes, though a little dull with the dust that had settled on them in the last thirty-six hours, were open in a frank stare. The body wasn't contorted. There were no marks on it.

"Poison?" the lieutenant suggested.

The M.E. snorted. "Not a chance."

"Drugs?"

"Even heroin addicts eat. And if he was on an LSD trip, he would have nibbled on some of that food."

"Suicide?"

"Not on your life. There have been cases of people who deliberately starved themselves to death." He gestured at the table of food. "But this fellow planned to eat."

"Natural causes, then?" the lieutenant asked hopefully.

"If you can call it natural to sit down in a chair and starve to death with a smile on your face."

"Jeez, I hope you're right, Doc! Reginald T. Perry was a very important man. Rich family. Playboy.

There'll be hell to pay if there's any hint of foul play."

"Write it off," the M.E. said, packing his little black bag. "We'll do an autopsy, but I'll tell you right now it won't show anything except starvation and dehydration."

A final flurry of flashbulbs went off as the police photographer, a bored, rumpled young man with a big jaw, took the last pictures. He unscrewed the flash attachment and with a yawn began to put the camera away.

One of the detectives came over, his brow furrowed. "Lieutenant?"

“You got something?"

"I don't know. Just this." He handed over a scrap of paper. "Found it over by the baseboard."

The lieutenant unfolded it, handed it over to the M.E.

"What do you make of it?"

It was about four inches square, crumpled as if it had been wrapped around something the size of a lozenge.

It looked like a page from a notepad.

A crest in the comer showed the letters P.S. printed in gilt script, very expensive.

The M.E. handed it back. "There's no P.S. for Mr. Reginald T. Perry. He's all through. Finished."

The lieutenant stuffed the paper in his pocket. He belched, patted his paunch. "Why do I get these problems?

It's giving me indigestion."

The M.E. rummaged in his bag, came up with a tablet.

"Try it, you'll like it," he said sourly.

"Thanks, Doc." He gestured toward the corpse and the undisturbed orgy of food next to it. "That's the bastard that should have had indigestion," he said.

The M.E. gave a short laugh. "Forget it, Lieutenant.

The man didn't eat, that's all. He must have had something more important on his mind."

A hush fell over the opening night audience.

A thousand people held their breath and waited for the legendary Cynthia Rawlings to walk out on stage.

Theatrical history was going to be made this night, and they knew it.

The curtain had gone up a moment before on the empty set, a fantastically convincing drawing room opening on a formal garden, by the highly acclaimed set designer Oliver Curry. The play was the sixth by Julian Breck, whose first five had been an unbroken string of smash hits. The director was the brilliant young Mike Dime.

Cynthia walked on from stage left, and there was an involuntary gasp of appreciation from a thousand throats. She was stunning, a tall, commanding figure with her chin held high, the famous form clad in an evening gown by the incomparable Edith Foote. She turned at stage center and faced the audience. Her hands fumbled at her gown. And the gown fell away. Cynthia faced a thousand people, stark naked.

"You marvelous, marvelous people!" she said.

Cynthia kicked the evening gown from underfoot and began stroking her breasts. "There's nothing in the world that compares with an audience," she said. "I've loved it for twenty years, darlings. The applause, the admiration, the eyes on you. It's exactly like being screwed by a thousand people at once."

She thrust her middle finger deep into her vagina and began moving it in and out. The audience was turning into a noisy mob, their eyes glued, fascinated, to the incredible scene on stage.

"Screw me, darlings, screw me!" Cynthia said in that famous throaty voice. "All of you!" She fell to her knees and flung her arms wide.

Mike Dime was trying to climb over the orchestra pit.

The writer Julian Breck was with him. "Cynthia!" he pleaded.

There was a rush toward the stage by some twenty or thirty men who were taking her at her word. But Mike Dime and Julian Breck got there first. They dragged Cynthia toward stage left. "For God's sake, bring that curtain down!" the director shouted. A stagehand rushed forward to help them. The curtain came down just as the first panting male theatergoer succeeded in hooking a leg over the rail of the orchestra pit.

Cynthia turned a flushed, ecstatic face toward the playwright and the director. "Oh, darlings," she cried, "I'm so happy!" She thrust something into Mike Dime's hand.

The two of them, with the help of the stagehand, were dragging her toward her dressing room when she began having a string of orgasms.

"Jesus!" the stagehand said.

The orgasms went on and on, great shuddering moans coming from deep in Cynthia's throat. Her body trembled convulsively.

"Get a doctor," the playwright whispered.

"There's a thousand of them," she husked, "a thousand all at once, just one great big stiff prick." She writhed, out of control, a shiny wetness soaking the insides of her thighs. She gave a violent convulsion, and there was the unmistakable sound of a bone snapping.

"Oh, God, it's too good, it's too good!" she moaned.

There was a final heave and she slumped to the stage floor.

The stagehand looked at the other two men, wide-eyed.

"I think she's dead," he said.

Mike Dime stared, appalled, at the dead actress. He felt something in his hand. It was the thing Cynthia had given him.

It was a crumpled wad of paper, about four inches square. In the comer was a gold-engraved crest that read: P.S.

"Are you happy?" the doctor asked.

The man lying on the surgical cot was naked. He looked Chinese, his body little more than skin and bones, as if he had gone hungry a very long time. But there was a look of incomparable bliss on his face. He gurgled and cooed contentedly like a small baby.

There was a stainless steel utility cart next to the cot.

On it was a jumble of bread-boarded electrical equipment, including what might have been a transformer with a rheostat control. Two hairlike platinum wires trailed from the device, disappearing into the shaven skull of the Chinese.

"He can't hear me," the doctor said to the bare wall.

"He's just past threshold. I'm trying to get a reading."

The doctor cocked his head as though he were listening.

He said, "Very well, then."

He reached out and turned the rheostat down a notch.

A needle quivered.

A look of unutterable sadness came over the face of the Chinese. A tear trickled down his cheek.

"You must answer when I speak to you, Chu Ying,"

the doctor said gently. "Otherwise, I will turn off the machine. Were you happy?"

"Hsi yueh te," the naked man whispered, his eyes pleading.

"How happy?" the doctor persisted. "Happier than yesterday?"

"Shih, shih," he said. "Tso jih . .. "

"Very good," the doctor said. "Now I am going to turn the current up, but you must listen and answer. Is that clear?"

The Chinese nodded eagerly. The doctor turned the dial, and a look of unearthly content came over the other man's face.

The doctor cocked his head. "Is that wise?" he said.

He listened, then shrugged. "Very well, then." He tuned the rheostat up a notch.

The eyes of the Chinese glistened with joy. Drool ran down his chin. His penis began to grow bigger. In a moment it was standing straight up.

The doctor tilted his head again. "More? But the man's past threshold."

A look of fear crossed the doctor's face. "Of course, of course," he said hastily. He moved the dial again.

Instantly the Chinese attained orgasm. The man's entire body began trembling, the surgical cot vibrating under the assault. The cords of his neck were taut with tension. His face was ecstatic, as if he were enjoying a mystical vision.

The doctor turned the rheostat up another notch.

A spasm-like twitching of the man's penis showed that he was continuing to have one orgasm after another.

His face resembled a grinning skull. It no longer looked human.

He was happy. Happier than a human being was supposed to be.

The doctor turned the dial once more.

The man's body writhed against the straps that were holding him down. There was the sound of bones snapping, but he continued to convulse. A wild, animal-like laughter burst from his lips.

"Overload," the doctor murmured, looking at the needle. The Chinese slumped, his broken limbs at a crazy angle. The penis drooped and lay flaccid against his thigh.

The doctor thumbed an eyelid, put a stethoscope to the bony chest, then looked up and spoke to the wall.

"He's dead, Mr. Sim," he said.

The colonel waved the .45 at the two technicians, his gestures frantic. "Get that door open, mister, on the double!"

"Yessir," said the closer of the two techs, a blond boy in a corporal's uniform. He fumbled at the big metal wheel that dogged the hatch. "It's just that these security arrangements were designed to protect the men inside against interference. They weren't meant to be opened in a hurry."

"Pardon me, sir," said the colonel's aide, a broad-shouldered master sergeant with blue whiskers showing under his olive skin. "You aren't going to shoot Perkins, are you?"

The colonel gave him a sarcastic stare. "Damn right I am, if I have to. Or would you rather have some Commie nut press the button and start World War Three?"

"But Perkins is all right, sir," the sergeant persisted.

"Maybe he's just sick. Besides, he can't do any harm unless Rutlege turns his key too, at the same time."

"When you're sitting on top of a rocket with a nuclear warhead, you can't afford to take any chances," the colonel said. He gestured at the complex of rock tunnels they were standing in, at the armored elevator that had carried them a tenth of a mile below ground. "One fluke, one glitch in a circuit, and we go up in a fireball. And half of Nebraska with us. Or we take out Vladivostok and the Russians push their buttons!"

"Got it, sir," the blond technician said. The tumblers clicked and the foot-thick steel door swung open.

They rushed into the missile firing control room, a cool green chamber that was bright with fluorescent lights. Through the bulletproof glass you could see the two consoles, spaced thirty feet apart and separated by a transparent wall that was intended to stop a missile officer on duty—if he happened to crack up or if he were an enemy agent—from threatening the other missile officer with a smuggled weapon.

Behind the glass in one half of the divided room, Rutlege gestured wildly, his lips moving. They couldn't hear what he was trying to say.

The colonel pointed his .45 at the lock and pulled the trigger. The explosion was deafening in the confined space.

The lock flew apart and the two technicians put their shoulders to the inner door. It gave with a squeal of metal.

Perkins was sitting in front of his ·console, a dreamy expression on his face. One finger was poised over the big red button, just a few inches away. He wasn't moving.

He looked like a statue.

"Perkins, what the hell do you think you're doing?" the colonel roared.

Perkins didn't move. The colonel strode over and slapped him in the face.

Perkins fell over sideways. He hit the floor and stayed there, the outstretched finger still pointing straight up in the air. The smile stayed on his face.

"Perkins!" the colonel shouted.

"He looks catatonic, sir," the sergeant said.

The colonel stuck the .45 in his belt and knelt beside the beatifically grinning Perkins. He began rummaging through the missile officer's pockets.

"Sir," said the sergeant apprehensively. "Don't you think you'd better wait till the CIC boys get here?"

"Shut up, Sergeant," the colonel said. "Ah, what's this?"

He came up with a crumpled piece of paper. It was about the size of a page from a prescription pad. He unfolded it.

The paper was creamy, expensive. In one corner an emblem in ornate gold script read: P.S.

"P.S.!" the colonel growled. "What the hell is this?"

He was still trying to figure it out when they carried Perkins away on a stretcher, dead, the smile still on his face and the cold finger pointing straight upward.

The President's man was late; as usual.

There was nothing the other members of the Special Group could do except wait for him. They sat around the massive oak conference table in the maximum-security room at Fort Meade and smoked, drank coffee, made small talk.

The director of CIA fidgeted. "Why don't we start without him?" he said. "At least take care of some of the minor business."

The general who currently headed the National Security Agency gave his rival a cold stare. "There is no minor business, Dick," he said. "Everything we do is important."

The others nodded agreement. The Special Group made its decisions without the knowledge of the National Security Council or the United States Intelligence Board.

Army, Navy, and Air Force; Intelligence were excluded.

And the FBI director was definitely not welcome at Fort Meade.

The door opened. Five pairs of eyes swiveled toward it. The Deputy Secretary of Defense stubbed out his cigarette and tried to look alert. The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency hastily took a swallow of coffee and put down the Limoges china cup.

"Good morning, gentlemen," the President's man said.

He nodded curtly to the armed sentry outside, and the door was shut and locked behind him.

He took his place at the head of the table, looking owlish and unruffled, and set a thick file folder in front of him. He began without preamble, looking directly at the DIA director.

"The incident at the underground Titan silo," he said in his slight German accent. "The President is quite disturbed about it. We are at a delicate stage in our negotiations with the Russians. If they were to hear that we came close to vaporizing Vladivostock, it would make things difficult, to say the least." He peered over the tops of his glasses.

"There was absolutely no danger, Henry," the deputy secretary said quickly. "One finger on one button can't fire a missile."

"Ah, but you can't guarantee that there might not sometime be two fingers on two buttons, can you? You don't know what caused the incident."

The DIA head nodded agreement. "The missile officer—Perkins—had just passed an in-depth psych test. They have to take them once a month, you know. And it wasn't drugs. At .least the autopsy revealed no trace of any known drug in his system."

"So you are without clues?"

The CIA director spoke up. "Just that scrap of paper with the letters P.S. "

"I believe we might have a lead," NSA said. CIA and DIA gave him a dirty look.

"Yes, Sam?" the President's man said. "Go ahead."

"We fed all the data into our IBM 7090 computer.

You know, we monitor all transmissions in the U.S. and overseas. The 7090 has the capacity to compare and winnow them all—millions of them."

"It ought to," CIA said sourly. "It cost the taxpayers three billion dollars."

The President's man silenced him with a glance.

"Go on, Sam," he said softly.

"It came up with two more mysterious deaths. One was from. a police teletype we tapped. Rich man named Reginald T. Perry starved to death. They found the letters P.S. on a piece of paper near him."

"And ... ?"

"Remember the Cynthia Rawlings scandal a couple of weeks ago? Actress who broke up an opening night by coming on stage naked? Our computer tagged a tape of an overseas telephone call made by her director, Mike Dime. He hadn't mentioned it to the police, but the Rawlings woman had one of those pieces of paper."

"Any other correlations?"

"Perry had a closet full of suits made in Hong Kong.

Cynthia Rawlings had recently been in Hong Kong."

The eyes of the President's man narrowed. "The Red Chinese? Could they be involved? There's nothing they'd like more than to see us and the Russians slinging nuclear bombs at one another."

"But Perkins was never in Hong Kong," CIA pointed out maliciously.

The President's man ignored him. "Any other correlations, Sam?"

"Just one." NSA frowned.

"Yes?"

NSA looked embarrassed. "Perkins died with a hard-on. So did Perry. And the actress died while having multiple orgasms."

"So what do you make of it?" the President's man asked.

"Put us on it, Henry," CIA pleaded. "We'll trace all the leads, get our Hong Kong office on it... "

"We can't take a chance on any leaks," the President's man said gently. "This is too delicate. And, Sam, I don't want your regular people to know about this either."

"You want me to call Key?" asked NSA.

"That's correct. Even I don't know who Key is. That should keep it confidential."

"Well, I know who Key is," NSA said, "but only Key knows who Coin is. Except that Coin gets results."

"It's settled, then?" The President's man looked around the table. It was supposed to be a vote, but nobody in the Special Group ever voted against the express decisions of the man who represented the President.

They all nodded, even CIA.

"Fine," the President's man said to NSA. He began to pack up his papers.

"Go on, Sam. Turn the Key."

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