Escape Crew from Dominatrix Island

I said nothing, and just held out my hand to take her flashlight. As I shown the bright beam down into the tunnel entrance and started making my way in, Anastasia called me back.

"You must take jerries down for mission," and she pointed to two old jerry cans that had been discretely hidden beside one of the battery racks.

The containers were full of some kind of liquid, heavy, and carrying both while still holding the flashlight was awkward as I walked stooped over in the low tunnel, which led downward at a slight angle. I could feel heat coming up the passage, and the further down I went the warmer it got. It seemed that I had walked forever when the tunnel opened up into a dark chamber. There was an old clunky switch on the wall.

When I turned on the lights I saw that the large low cavern was filled with what looked like metal fifty five gallon drums with fins on them to draw off the heat. There was a tangle of cables suspended from the ceiling and some lying on the floor, all connected to those devices.

Other cable tunnels came into the chamber, but the switch had also turned on some dim lighting in a larger tunnel that I could see had only a few wires on the wall, and continued downward. I even detected a draft of cool moist air coming up the passage, so it had to be the right one.

The second passage only went a short distance before opening up into some kind of underground boathouse. Outside the tunnel was a concrete dock along one wall, and the rest of the chamber was flooded.

An old boat was by the dock on some kind of hoist to lift it out of the water. A light had been rigged over the boat and a man was crouched inside. There was the clinking of wrenches as if he was working on the engine, and I heard him whistling. Was it a song by the Beatles? The man stood up to reach over into a tool box that was sitting on the dock and he spotted me.

"Hello, mate," she called out in a cheerful voice. "Must be part of the crew. I see you brought me some fuel."

The man only wore a dirty pair of ragged shorts. His dark hair and beard were a tangled mess, and his body was tall and lean. His hands and arms were filthy with grease from working on the engine.

"McGonnigle?" I asked as I walked out onto the dock. "Is that you?"

"That's right!" he exclaimed. "Say, I recognize your voice. You're the chap I spoke with a while back. Told you how to escape to the lighthouse, right?"

"Yeah," I said, setting the jerry cans down with a heavy clunk. "The tide came up really fast when I was maybe halfway there. I barely made it. You said you were too weak to come with me but you look fine. Anastasia had you set me up to see if I would escape."

"Well, you don't look any worse for wear to me," he said with a laugh. "I mean if you're really cross and want to go a few rounds I suppose we could duke it out, but you had to like the adventure of it." He gave me a wild but friendly grin. "I made that trip myself some time ago. Bivouacked out in the rough by that lighthouse for a few days before those lassies came out and brought me back. Still got the scars on me bum from the welcome home they gave me if you want to have a look-see," and to my surprise he turned around as if ready to drop his shorts.

I just laughed. This was no time to fight, and I told him that I was supposed to get some sort of mission briefing down here.

"Take a look at this old commie speedboat. She's a real beauty," McGonnigle said with a gleam in his eye. "Anastasia tells me she'll hit ninety kilometers an hour flat out. It's been laid up in mothballs down here, who knows how long. Don't think most of them birds even know this place exists," he said, glancing around the flooded cavern.

I wasn't impressed with the boat. It looked ancient and was covered with grime from having been abandoned here for a long time. McGonnigle had some hatches in the floor open to expose the engine, which he had partially dismantled.

He showed me where to pour diesel fuel from the jerry cans into the tank, even though from the looks of the engine I didn't think it would be running anytime soon. I was clumsy and spilled some fuel on my clothes until I got the hang of it.

"So as soon as you get the boat running we head out of here?" I asked.

"There's a bit more to it. We're supposed to be hauling out some sort of payload," he said in a low voice. "See those cargo hatches on the forward deck? You'll give me a hand some other night removing them."

The front half of the boat appeared to be all cargo area. McGonnigle wasn't sure what the mysterious payload was, but it was evidently too large to fit under those covers.

"Only other detail I got is that I'll be at the helm. An open boat like this old girl isn't really built for a long passage, so my guess is we're supposed to meet up with a ship, or maybe head to some other island close by," McGonnigle said. It seemed that Anastasia was keeping him on a need to know basis.

Then he told me to take the empty jerry cans back the way I'd come, and that Anastasia would have more fuel for me to bring down. I told him that I didn't care for walking by those old nuclear reactors.

"I don't know nothing about no nukes. I come in that way," he said, pointing to what looked like a watertight metal door with heavy latches at the other end of the dock. "It's a passage up to the electrical control room."

When I made it back to the battery room, Anastasia wasn't there, but two full jerry cans were waiting by the tunnel entrance, so I left the empties there and hauled the full ones back to the underground dock.

It had been a long night and Anastasia returned me to the pit maybe an hour before dawn. Like the morning after I had partied with Anastasia, the hags woke me up in their usual angry fashion.

The old hag was sniffing the air like last time, and I realized that my clothes still reeked from having spilled some diesel fuel on them last night. They made a useless search of my sleeping cave and then put me to work.

A short time later the metal door opened and the hags came out. They had brought a young guard with them. She had only one stripe on the sleeve of her black leather jacket. The old hag immediately started yelling what I assumed were curses at me.

I figured they would try to get another guard down here to report something suspicious, so when I'd gone to work lubing up the machines I purposely slopped some of the stinky grease and oil onto my clothes to help mask the smell of diesel. The old hag saw what I had done and she was furious.

She tried to drag me over to the doorway where the guard stood uninterested, smoking a cigarette. The young hag came over to help the older one, but by the time they had me up on my feet the guard just gave a dismissive wave and walked off.

A few nights later, Anastasia woke me up and took me to the battery room again. Like the first time, she handed me the heavy old flashlight and had two more jerry cans of diesel fuel to lug down the tunnel. McGonnigle was thrilled to see me again.

"Aye, mate. Good to see you're back. Come take a look," he said, waving me over to the old boat. Under the glare of his work light I saw that the engine was now completely back together.

He went into some long description of all the work he had to do, but I just shook my head and told him I didn't know anything about engines.

"Anastasia helped source me some spares," he said in a low tone. "I think she nicked them from a few other motors here on the island. A piece from here, piece from there," and he started laughing. "Let's give it a bash," he said, slipping behind the wheel.

McGonnigle clicked a few switches. The old diesel engine cranked over painfully slow, and then sputtered to life. He sprang back over to the coughing engine and started fooling with something and it suddenly revved up with a powerful roar.

He looked up at me with a grin and a wild look in his eyes, and said something but I couldn't hear him over his enthusiastic revving of the engine, which was beginning to fill the cavern with an inky black smoke. Then suddenly the engine died. McGonnigle tried to start it again but it only cranked over slowly.

"Still got a few things to get buttoned up you see, but no worries," he said reassuringly. "Anastasia is rebuilding the electrics on the bilge pump. Thing was rubbish, and we're gonna need it. This old girl has plenty of leaks."

After I had carefully poured my fuel cans into the tank, I started to help McGonnigle take the large covers off the cargo area at the front of the boat. The old bolts were corroded and stubborn.

"Anastasia told me that you tried to escape by building a hot air balloon," I said, even though it sounded to me like a crazy story. McGonnigle was all too happy to give me the details.

"Well you see the birds here they take care of things well enough, but some of 'em would rather sit around gabbin' and smoking. They know I got a broad skill set so they sometimes got me doing handyman work," he explained. "Gets me around to different places and they don't always watch me real close. I get to poke about some."

One time when snooping around, he came across a room filled with old military equipment, including several parachutes.

"They was like the kind of chutes used in world war two. The full dome canopy type, and what's that look like, mate?" he asked, but didn't wait for me to answer. "Half a balloon, of course!"

Over time he managed to swipe some parachutes and got a needle and thread from somewhere.

"There is this one big storage room full of old electrical kit. Spools of cable and such, didn't look like anyone had been in there in years, so I set it up as me workshop," McGonnigle explained.

"Now sewing up the balloon by hand took a while, but I've mended sails before so it's just a matter of putting in the time. No need to make a basket to ride in," he explained. "Just strap in with the original parachute harness!"

He made it sound so easy, and had some propane tank strapped in with another harness between his legs so he could reach down to operate the gas valve.

"I had taken the burner from an old propane heater looked like no one had been using for a while, had that rigged overhead," he explained. It seems that he would sew the balloon for a while, and then work on the harness burner rig, which he had hung from a beam in the old storage room as what he called a mock-up.

"Then one day I slip into that room to do a bit of sewing, turn on the lights and there is Anastasia," he said. "She's just lounging back in that parachute harness like it's a hammock, and clanking one of her high heels on the propane cylinder all for the drama."

"Man, you were screwed," I said, shaking my head, feeling bad he had gotten so far along in his plan.

"Bloody well right, mate, I was screwed. I expected her to call in a gaggle of her femme fatale droogies to give me a good thrashin', then lock me up in the dungeon and I'd never see the light of day again. Didn't happen that way though. She's the chief electrician here, and that room I'd been using is where she keeps her spares," he explained. "Told me she came across my project weeks ago, knew it had to be my handiwork 'cause the design was so brilliant," he said with a mischievous grin. "Anastasia said she wouldn't turn me in, but from then on, don't remember the foreign term she used, but basically I was going to be her bitch."

McGonnigle's work routine hadn't changed much after that, but on occasion she sent him on so-called missions. For example sending him down a drainage tunnel to make contact with me and suggest how I could escape.

Not long ago she had brought him down to this underground dock to look over the boat. Basically told him if he got it running she would let him escape, but he didn't have much time.

"Goes without saying she confiscated me balloon," McGonnigle said with disgust. "She wouldn't have torn apart such a masterpiece and I know it's hidden someplace. I'm still poking around when I get the chance. Like to know where it is as a backup plan in case this here mission goes tits-up."

Suddenly there was a loud clunking sound near one end of the dock, and the heavy door squeaked open. It was Anastasia, her grey sweatshirt somewhat dirty, and she was carrying something under one arm. She walked over to the boat and briefly looked into the open cargo hold. We had just removed the second cover.

"Mission is coming along well, commander," McGonnigle said with a grin, snapping to attention and giving a sloppy salute. She did not look amused.

"I have bilge pump, Mr. McGonnigle. It works but you said something of backup plan where engine can also pump out water. You will make that happen," she ordered. "Redundant for mission success."

"With them hatch covers off I'm a little concerned about takin' waves over the bow," McGonnigle told her with a rare serious tone, but Anastasia didn't seem to care.

She ordered him to start the engine. He had to fool with it for what seemed like a long time before it would fire up, but when it did, it roared to life. Then as it started to fill the cavern with oily black smoke, the engine died and wouldn't start again.

"Soviet patrol vessel," she said. "PG-117, very fast for her time and few exist today. It will be shame to see this one go." She caressed the dirty hull of the boat with a strange show of affection.

Then she told me to go back up the tunnel and meet her at the battery room because it was late and she had to take me back to my station. Perhaps McGonnigle's cocky attitude was wearing off on me, but I said she could just come with me up the tunnel, if the radiation shielding on the nukes was any good.

"I would gladly do so, Mr. Van," she said with a cold stare. "However, I must secure hatchway from other side." Anastasia pointed to the door where she had entered the cavern. "Mr. McGonnigle has been known to wander off." She gave him a look of disapproval and started to head for the door.

"Who, me?" McGonnigle squealed, grinned, but then picked up a wrench and knelt down to work on the engine.

The next morning the hags were sniffing around me again. It had to be the stinky exhaust from the boat engine, and I was a bit more dirty than usual from having removed the old grimy hatch covers.

I wasn't too concerned. If they called in some low ranking guard they would probably get the brush-off again. Really I just wanted to wind up whatever machines they needed to use and go back to sleep.

The late nights and perhaps my excessive use of those drugged countermeasure cookie things seemed to be taking a toll on my body. Not to mention I was masturbating three to four times a day at least. That lubricant I'd been given was truly life changing. I'd been so thrilled when the young blonde had tossed down another packet of the stuff yesterday.

Later that morning the metal door opened. Both hags came out, jabbering on in their language and trying to wave someone to come out into the pit. I was a little startled when two guards dressed in black leather came out the door.

Both held the rank of only a single stripe, and I recognized one as the blonde with the slim braid who delivered my goodies. We avoided eye contact with each other and I just sat in the sun and pretended not to be interested.

The second guard appeared to listen to the old hag for a bit, but then lit up a cigarette and looked over at the blonde. She in turn just shook her head and motioned for the other guard to leave with her.

For a moment it looked as if the other guard wanted to stick around to hear more of the old hag's story. Then the blonde said something to her that made her laugh, and both guards left. The hags were frustrated as usual.

A few nights later, Anastasia came by my cave to get me, and we stealthily made our way across the grounds to the battery room. After we had entered, Anastasia called out in a soft voice, and another woman stepped out from behind one of the battery racks. It was the young blonde guard who wore her hair in a slim braid.

"Mr. Van, you have seen Nichola before. You are both kolegas on mission. Nichola will be tail gunner on vessel," Anastasia said, momentarily stepping into the shadows and then dragging a heavy looking, long wooden crate out into the middle of the floor.

I had seen several crates like it before on the workboat that had been used to bring me back from the lighthouse. They had been on the open rear deck and at the time I thought they were just footlockers for equipment. Anastasia opened the lid to reveal a large and ancient looking machine gun. I was shocked.

"You mean people are going to be shooting at us?" I asked, and I'll admit that my voice sounded a bit whiny.

"I told you mission could be dangerous. We plan for worst case, Mr. Van. Ensure mission success," Anastasia said coldly.

She then gave some instructions to Nichola, who began pulling some other items out from behind a battery rack.

"This is DShK, comparable to your M2 Browning, Mr. Van, but is superior Russian design. You supposedly know little of weapons. DShK first built before world war two, still in production today and used by many nations," Anastasia explained. "There is nickname for DShK, Mr. Van. We call it dushka. In Russian means, beloved one," she said with an odd tone of affection.

It was then that I remembered when I first came to this island, having fled my employer's yacht on a jet ski after learning that he planned to have me killed, and I was interrogated by Anastasia. She had insisted on me drawing pictures and giving a detailed description of the yacht, and wanted to know of any weapons on board which seemed pointless at the time. Then she told me that she wanted to be able to recognize the yacht, if by chance they circled back to find me. Anastasia said that if they tried to land here they would be turned away, by force if necessary.

At that time her final comment hadn't sunk in with me for some reason, but now it did. The citadel was after all a fort, so it only made sense that the ladies would be armed. It seems that they might not only fire upon an unauthorized boat trying to land here, but also one leaving without permission.

My job was to assist Nichola in mounting the big heavy gun on a tripod that she had set up. Nichola didn't speak English, so Anastasia walked us through a choreographed routine of sorts, putting the gun on the tripod and taking it off, over and over. The blonde was a petite young lady and it was obviously a strain for her to help lift the machine gun, but she was determined.

There were several metal containers filled with long belts of bullets. My job was also to kneel beside her and hand one end of a belt to Nichola, who went through the process of loading it into the gun.

Maybe it was a side effect of the countermeasure Anastasia had given me that night, but looking up at this small woman dressed in black leather and watching her load the big gun was exciting. At the same time I was really nervous, having it loaded with live bullets down here in the confined battery room. Anastasia drilled us on the loading and unloading until she thought we had it down smoothly.

"Dushka is part of payload," Anastasia explained. "Your vessel will make rendezvous. You will deliver dushka as well as unused ammunition."

We packed everything up and it seemed that Nichola was ready to leave. I asked Anastasia why Nichola wanted to escape, because I assumed that all of the women were here by choice.

"That is no concern of yours, Mr. Van," Anastasia brushed me off.

"Well, could you at least thank her for bringing me stuff. The countermeasures, food, and especially the lubricant," I suddenly felt a little creepy mentioning the lube, but I had appreciated it so much.

Anastasia spoke to her briefly. Nichola nodded her head, then smiled and gave a short laugh when I assume Anastasia mentioned the lubricant lotion. To my surprise, Nichola extended one hand, and gave me a firm handshake. She said something to me in her language, I assumed it was something like, no problem. Anastasia didn't bother to translate, and Nichola slipped out the door into the night.