Escape from Bondage Read Online Free PDF Page A

roof and through
the doors, all since smashed or fallen in by now. A few frames held
remnant panes of dirty glass.
    Holding hands, they walked out onto
the factory floor, pale sunlight slanting down in bright beams
through the skylights, falling among the tall I-beam roof supports,
and throwing the metal trusses and their geometric patterns into
sharp detail.
    He stopped and pulled her around. They
hugged, not saying anything, and with Heather unable to look into
his face.
    They wandered further, into a smaller,
one-floor set of former offices. Along one wall was a blackboard.
There were still two battered metal desks in there, with drawers
missing. Those and their contents had been scattered about the room
along with other incomprehensible junk. Letting go of Heather,
Braden wandered absently around the room, stooping low and coming
up with a teacher’s pointer of all things. He strutted around with
it under his arm like Patton and she laughed in spite of their
present serious mood and the horrible dilemma he had presented her
with.
    It wasn’t unbearably cold. Sheltered
by the wind, the place was a kind of portal into the mind of a
child or a world that existed only in the imagination. Kids must
play here all the time, she realized.
    Looking around, Braden’s eyes lit up.
There was a piece of chalk.
    “ So. General Patton,
sir.”
    He turned and tilted his
head.
    “ Huh?”
    “ Ah. What’s the plan,
sir?” She stood at attention, with her arms at her sides and her
chin up. “Your all-encompassing plan for world—no, you’re too
clever for that. No, it must be your plan for all-encompassing
sexual domination.”
    He grinned tightly. He nodded, looking
at Heather anew. She would surprise him yet.
    “ Very good then.” Braden
handed her the stick and she tucked it under her arm with a salute.
“General Montgomery. Listen carefully, please, and then I shall
strive to answer any questions.”
    He picked up the small piece of chalk
lying in the blackboard’s aluminum trough and began to go over the
points, one by one. He drew lines like a football play, all arrows
and x’s and dotted lines. He put in a couple of streets, marking
his own house with his name. He drew a little house on the board
with a squirrely arrow pointing towards it. That represented her
place.
    “ Your best bet is to go
back tonight. That way, you can say you got up early, and went out
to have a look at the town. You did some shopping. You bought plain
old black socks and baggy, sensible underwear. You had lunch and
supper already and you just want to go to bed—”
    “ Hmn.” Braden had hit the
nail on the head.
    The odds of anyone discovering her
absence were very small last night, and fairly slim this morning,
but grew worse with every passing hour.
    “ Go on.”
    “ We can have sex before
then. Good sex. Great sex. Right after dinner. Then I drive you to
the vicinity. I know just where to park. You go in the side door,
after dark, using the key provided by Intel. Then I climb up and
bring you your bag. Or, I could just tie a rope on it and throw up
a grappling hook. It’s just spare underwear and socks anyway.
Pajamas and stuff.”
    “ True.” So, he had thought
it all through, then.
    “ That’s how you’ll be
going in tomorrow night, anyhow. That was my original
plan.”
    The only problem was that second day.
Surely she would be missed by then. She would love to pull it off,
though.
    “ What else?” She was
gratified by his easy capitulation, but didn’t really trust him
either.
    A thought struck her. Birds chirped in
the underbrush and sparrows flitted around the roof beams. Time was
on his side. It hit her like that. She was right in town
now.
    “ And then, first thing
Monday morning, you set up an appointment with your Mother
Superior.”
    “ What? Oh, Braden!” Her
mood was suddenly spoiled, but there was more.
    “ Seriously. You’re asking
me to carry on an affair with a nun. Sooner or later it must
backfire, and