Read Online Revolution No. 9 by Neil McMahon - Free Book Online

analysis of their personal habits and daily routines. Emlinger looked like a generic corporate executive, with gold-rimmed glasses and perfect teeth, brimming with confidence in his own net worth. Mrs. Emlinger was a Stepford-type trophy wife, almost twenty years younger than her husband, and very good-looking.
    â€œShe’s got a thing about jade jewelry, antique Chinese stuff,” Taxman said, tapping her photo with his finger. “He bought her a collection of it for a wedding present—used to belong to the Princess of Monaco, or some such shit. If that ends up in a Dumpster, they’re gonna read the mail.”
    He stepped to a dinner plate where several lines of white powdered meth were laid out. The tiny crystals glittered like broken glass.
    Freeboot took a closer look at the computer photo of Mrs. Emlinger. She was a green-eyed blonde. No doubt jade looked good on her.
    â€œI like the way you think, young man,” Freeboot said. “You got a future with this company.”
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    â€œI’m going to name you Circe, baby,” Freeboot told the girl who had been in the sauna with him earlier. They werenaked, lying face to face, in the afterglow of energetic sex. “You know who she was?”
    She shook her head shyly. Her eyes were big liquid pools of adoration, pupils dilated from the finger hash that came from picking sinsemilla buds.
    â€œA witch. She turned dudes into animals. And you turn me into a wild beast. A swine .”
    He lunged face first into her breasts, growling and nuzzling her with his bristly beard. She squirmed, cooing with delight like a child.
    They were in the structure that Freeboot had named the Garden. From the outside, it was a log building, like all the others here—a crude bathhouse, with a big stone basin for the hot springs that flowed from the ground at a perfect 112 degrees. But inside, he had transformed it, stocking it with things that he hadn’t even known existed until he was able to buy them. Then he learned about them fast.
    The rough log walls were hung with old tapestries from Europe. Thick Persian rugs carpeted the plank floor. A two-thousand-year-old Greek statuette sat on top of a Chippendale console. The central piece was the Louis XV king-sized bed that Freeboot and Circe were lying on. Part of a wall had to be chainsawed out to get that in. The moisture and warmth from the hot springs maintained a jungle of exotic potted plants. There was every kind of liquor and every kind of dope. Freeboot wanted the feeling in here to be overpowering— lush . But above all, the Garden was for sex. The brides were a reward for the maquis who performed their missions well, and a tormenting lure to recruits.
    It was Freeboot’s own version of the garden of delights of the Old Man of the Mountain, chief of the original assassins. That old dude was slick. He had drugged young men with hashish and brought them into a place that had every delight they could imagine—women, wine, more drugs. He promised them that if they died for him, this would be their heaven for eternity.
    The world had changed since those days. Not many people were going to settle for pie-in-the-sky anymore. But the basics still worked. Freeboot, and Shrinkwrap with her psychological savvy, carefully handpicked the young people they drew in. All of them were aimless and hungry. The men wanted power; the women, love; and they all wanted to feel superior. It was perfect raw material for shaping into devotion, and the two of them knew just how to do it—break down the personality, then rebuild it with increasing status and privileges as they got more bonded, until finally they believed that they were godlike—while totally obedient to Freeboot. During the process, Taxman trained the men up into skilled assassins. The women didn’t need much physical training. Most of what was required of them came naturally.
    â€œNow, we’re going to do with our souls what