"He's just coming in now, sir," the young officer at the Duty Desk reported in a low whisper.
"Stall him for two minutes until I get down there. But don't let him know we're on to him." CAPTAIN SIR sighed as he pushed back from the desk and quickly made his way down the hall towards the stairs that led downstairs to the Duty Desk. This was not going to be pleasant, but there was nothing to be gained by prolonging the situation. And on top of that, they didn't want the bastard to figure out that he was being stalled and maybe make a break for it. He was here now, and he was going to stay here, and he was going to get what he deserved.
He knocked on a dark wood door to his left and swung it open without waiting for a reply. A man in a short-sleeved leather uniform shirt trimmed with a gold band on each sleeve sat in a high backed green leather chair in a corner of the room. He was about to get up, but CAPTAIN SIR waved him back into his seat.
"It's going down now," he said to the nervous leathercop. "Just be ready to come down when you hear the bell, but don't show your face until I call your name. Understand?"
The man nodded and took another long pull on his cigar. The Officer's Smoking Room was usually the Captain's private space, reserved for unwinding with his men during off duty hours, but tonight he was using it as a waiting room where STAFF SERGEANT AMBERSON, a Cellblock officer and a serving officer with the metropolitan police, could stay out of sight until he was needed. The Captain stepped back out of the room, closed the door behind him and continued down the hallway.
"Frack," he thought to himself as his vibram-soled WESCOs thudded down the stairs. "This is the worst thing I've had to do since taking office."
There'd been the usual shitty tasks of paperwork and forms that daily clogged his in tray, but by far the worst jobs were the messes involving his men, the leathercops who used the Cellblock, and the clients they used here. There were the usual frictions that occur between aggressive Type A personalities sharing limited space and resources – while the Cellblock occupied a both halves of a converted three-storey duplex, there were still times when leathercops competed for the same inmates, equipment and spaces. Sometimes tempers flared and conflicts needed resolution. Throwing oil on troubled waters and pampering 'roid-inflated egos that occasionally got to thinking they were bigger than the system were the real challenges of his position, and he'd been lucky there'd been nothing more serious than some pissing matches and a couple of short term suspensions in the eight months since he'd been elected Captain.
Tonight was different, though. Tonight he had to take care of a rogue leathercop.
There was nothing about this situation he looked forward to, and he was damn disappointed that it had happened on his watch. It reflected badly on him that one of his men had fouled things up so badly and it was all he could do to hold his rising anger in check as he thought about the mess the bastard had made for them. The potential for catastrophe was very real. If not dealt with quickly and eradicated completely, it might even result in the closure of the Cellblock, and worse, real criminal prosecution for not only the perpetrator now being stalled by SARGE D at the Duty Desk, but maybe even for some of his men. Maybe even himself. Bile rose in his throat as CAPTAIN SIR paused to pull himself together at the bottom of the stairs. He braced himself for the ordeal ahead and pushed open the frosted glass door that lead out into the Duty Desk area.
"Evening, gentlemen," he said in his most neutral voice. The three leathercops positioned around the counter quickly stood at attention, clicked their heels and saluted, as Cellblock ritual mandated they do when the Captain entered a room. CAPTAIN SIR responded with his own hasty salute and rattled off a quick "As you were, men." He surveyed the area and nodded to each of the leathercops in turn.
There was SARGE D, the spunky muscleboi with the shiny shaved sides of a perfect military high and tight visible below his black leather Muir cap who manned the Duty Desk. On the other side of the divide there was THE PROSECUTOR, a particularly brutish bull-massive leathercop CAPTAIN SIR had conscripted to help with the takedown. And there was Jerry, the pretty boy bastard with the thick pouty lips who'd thought he was such hot shit and smarter than the rest of them, who'd betrayed their trust and risked the very existence of the Cellblock. Fraking bastard.
The Captain's anger rose in him at the very sight of the Judas leathercop, but Jerry could still bolt if they didn't do this right, so he held his ire in check, but promised himself he'd make the bastard pay for what he'd done, oh yes, he was going to pay with interest before the night was over. His smart ass pretty boy days ended now. We'll see who's the smartest man in the room tonight.
"You got that paperwork for me?" he asked, returning to the unpleasant task at hand and holding out his palm for the printout he knew SARGE D had prepared for this occasion. SARGE D handed over the two page printout. "Thank you," the Captain said, pretending to read over the first sheet, then flipping over to the second page. A puzzled look crossed his face, and he looked up at Jerry.
"There's something about this printout I don't understand," CAPTAIN SIR put to Jerry, "Can you explain it to me?" Jerry reached across the counter for the form, but the Captain ignored the outstretched hand and casually walked through the swinging half door that separated one side of the Duty Desk from the public side to stand next to Jerry.
SARGE D moved discretely to the filing cabinet near the Duty Desk gate in anticipation of the coming takedown. From this position his hand was close to the buzzer that activated a bell up in the Officer's Smoking Room, and he could also quickly move to the PROSECUTOR's side to help take Jerry down.
"Now please, Duty Officer," CAPTAIN SIR said, and almost immediately a muffled bell sounded somewhere in the building. He handed the two-document to Jerry as though the bell meant nothing and passively watched Jerry's face for any sign that he understood what was happening.
The first page was a series of dense numbered paragraphs covering sections of the Cellblock's Code of Conduct manual, and Jerry skimmed it quickly, a look of confusion on his face, a look that quickly changed to shock when he turned to the second page and saw what was printed there: a facsimile copy of the blackmail note he'd written to S SGT AMBERSON of the metropolitan police, a real police officer who played their way, who enjoyed the sights and sounds and power of leather and all the Cellblock trappings, who had trusted the men of the Cellblock with his secret and his career and who now found himself threatened by it.
"DO IT!" the Captain shouted before Jerry had a chance to do more than look up in shock from the incriminating document. The PROSECUTOR shot into action, grabbing Jerry in a chokehold while forcing his head forward from behind. A couple of quick punches to the face slowed down and confused the captive, but didn't stop him from resisting. CAPTAIN SIR grabbed Jerry's hands and SARGE D jumped into the fray as well. Jerry struggled fiercely against his captors, but three against one were not very good odds.
"Sergeant, will you step in here please?" CAPTAIN SIR called loudly over his shoulder in the direction of the frosted glass door, and Jerry's intended blackmail victim stepped into the room.
Jerry swore loudly in fear when he saw S SGT AMBERSON coming towards his, and struggled even harder to get away, to no avail at all.
S SGT AMBERSON removed his gun from his holster and smashed Jerry across the face with the full force of his anger. A splash of blood from Jerry's smashed nose sprayed across the room and spattered the clean white wall. CAPTAIN SIR held out a restraining hand to prevent a second strike – for now. This was only the beginning of their vic's punishment, and the Captain wanted to make sure Jerry didn't pass out before he experienced everything he had coming to him. But that didn't mean he wasn't happy to see the traitor hurt. Far from it: it was all he could do not to hit the bleeding man himself.
"The one thing you NEVER do is betray an Elite!" CAPTAIN SIR shouted into Jerry's rapidly-bruising face. "They're the top of the heap here, and nobody. NOBODY messes with them! You knew that from day one, and you agreed to this when you signed on to the organization. Frack this one up and we frack you up. It's as simple as that. AND YOU'VE FRACKED THIS ONE UP BIG TIME, BRO!"
The Captain shook his head in disgust. The 'Block had three categories of members. The primary dynamic of the organization were a small group of LEATHERMEN and LEATHERCOPS who took one side of the POWER/CONTROL CONTINUUM, and the much larger group of SUBS and BOIS who they forced to take the other side. Into this mix were thrown a third category: active members of any police force or law enforcement agency who wanted a chance to explore some of their … 'other' interests that technically fell outside the acceptable limits of the law. These were the ELITES (also called LEOS – for Law Enforcement Officers), and they warranted special consideration and respect from all other 'Block members – leathercops and bois alike. Physically their rank was marked by a gold braid lanyard worn over their jackets or shirts, or by an armband with a gold stripe. But none of the regular masters and inmates needed to see the gold lanyard or armband to know they were dealing with the real thing. There were only ever a few of them in the 'Block at any one time, but when they were here, the place practically sizzled with their energy. Elites were for the most part major cocky bastards who strutted their state-sanctioned superiority in the Cellblock's halls and play spaces in and out of gear. They were top dogs here and they knew it.
Almost two weeks ago S SGT AMBERSON had called CAPTAIN SIR to request a private meeting to 'discuss an urgent private matter that affects us both' he'd said over the phone. A morning meeting the following day revealed an ugly truth: someone in the organization was trying to shakedown the policeman and threatening to release video of him doing extremely compromising things with a taser and a nightstick to a captive and contorted victim. S SGT AMBERSON'd brought along two blurry black and white screenshots that had been included with the blackmail note, and the cop and the Captain had examined them closely to glean what information they could from the images.
S SGT AMBERSON recognized the boi in the images as the play partner he'd selected ten days earlier, he was sure of that because of some of the equipment being used on the body strapped to the bondage board, and because of the setting – it was clearly the Captain's recently-opened private dungeon behind the public one in the basement level of the Cellblock. This play space was supposed to be off limits to members unless access was approved and arranged by the Captain, but clearly someone had managed to get into the space, and worse, plant a spy camera there.
CAPTAIN SIR and S SGT AMBERSON took the photos with them into the private playroom and tried to match up the camera angels with a possible camera location. It only took minutes to locate the little bastard carefully duct taped on top of a wooden support beam.
Now that they'd found the device, the next step would be to identify the perpetrator. They'd laid a trap of their own, positioning two motion sensitive cameras elsewhere in the room focused on the no longer secret location of the spy camera used to take the incriminating video file used to blackmail S SGT AMBERSON.
The Captain then sent out a notice to all members that the private playroom would be undergoing a few changes the following week and advised anyone planning to use the public playroom during this period that they might want to arrange dungeon time around the construction work that might interrupt their dungeon activities. This should bring out the Judas, they thought, because he'd want to remove the incriminating recording device before it was discovered during the rennos.
Sure enough, the ruse worked. Within 48 hours an alarm notified the captain that the motion-sensitive cameras had been triggered. A quick review of the camera tapes revealed the perpetrator, and that's what led to this evening's takedown.
SARGE D returned to his Duty Desk station while the PROSECUTOR and S SGT AMBERSON duck-walked the struggling Judas downstairs and into the private space Jerry'd broken into just a few days before. CAPTAIN SIR followed close behind. They crossed into the Captain's private space and CAPTAIN SIR turned to seal off the room from the rest of the 'Block. What was about to happen here was going to happen totally in private. Not even SARGE D could see inside this room on any of his Duty Desk monitors upstairs.
The heavy panel rumbled along its metal track and stopped with an ominous thunk as it slid home. The Captain then pulled down on the rocking steel arm bolted to the centre of the panel. This caused six three-inch bolts to shoot out from the top and bottom of the door into matching slots in the ceiling and floor, locking the watertight panel into position. He then spun the metal wheel above the rocking arm, locking the arm into the down position, and then threaded a heavy metal chain through the metal bar and through the spokes on the wheel so that neither could budge, then locked the two chain ends together with a brass padlock that could only be unlocked by a key he wore on a key ring hanging from his Sam Browne.
The three men and their Judas were sealed in together until the complicated locking process was reversed, Locked away from prying eyes and cameras, no one would ever know what happened in here. If there was no proof that anything happened here, then technically NOTHING happened here.
Jerry looked around him as best he could through his battered and puffy eyes at the angry men who surrounded him. This was a bad place to be. A VERY bad place to be.
CELLBLOCK DUTY DESK
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