Sexpionage 6 – A Suffusion of Yellow

A Suffusion of Yellow – Sexpionage 6

An example of life at the Villa Grimaldi – Pinochet’s torture HQ …

The widespread use of sexual violence against detainees, blindfolded at all times, prompted its macabre name of Venda Sexy (Sexy Blindfold), allegedly coined by perpetrators. Women were particularly targeted for sexual abuse suffering rape, forced pregnancies, abortions and sexual slur. A German Shepherd dog called Volodia was trained to rape inmates, and female and male prisoners were subjected to beatings, hangings, electric shocks, Russian roulette, asphyxia and deprivation of sleep, among many other torture methods. Prisoners called the secret detention centre La Discothèque due to Pinochet’s agents blasting out loud music at all times.

Diseñada como Villa Grimaldi somewhere in Santiago, Republic of Chile

“My name is Yulia Jelic, and I am a dancer.”

“Liar.” The voice cut through Yulia’s protestations with the violence of a whip lash. “Tell me the truth! Tell me why you are here in Santiago!”

Yulia licked her parched lips and swallowed before answering, hoping the small delay would give her time to keep her voice even.

“I’ve already told you this” – she craned her head in the direction she believed the voice was coming from – “I am Yulia Jelic …”

She heard footsteps and sensed the man come closer. When he spoke, his mouth was close to her ear. The sensation of his breath on her neck made her hair stand on end and her skin crawl.

“You are a liar,” he said, his voice lower and harsher. “We’ve been watching you Miss Jelic. You are working for those Russian bastards. You are a member of the SVR. Admit the truth.”

A hand slammed onto the table Yulia was seated at. She jumped in alarm, but her wrists were securely cuffed behind her and the chair was pushed close, giving her little room to manoeuvre.

“You will admit it … sooner or later …” Another thump on the table. From the change in tone, it sounded like a fist now rather than an open-palmed slap. Yulia wondered how soon it would be before the next thing to be on the receiving end of that hand would be Yulia herself. She’d already been slapped harshly when she had fought against the two men who had dragged her from her bed.

They’d cuffed her and put a heavy cloth bag put over her head then carried her kicking and screaming from the building. She had been thrown into the back of a car and driven for what felt like miles to wherever, and then dragged into the room she was in now. whereupon the bag had been removed and Yulia had been ordered to stand under blindingly fierce lighting while she was bellowed at repeatedly.

After an hour or more, her legs threatened to give way. When she had then been shoved forcefully onto the wooden chair, despite being blindfold, it had almost come as a relief.

“What you say is not true,” she said as firmly as she could manage.

Silence.

Yulia tensed, holding her breath. The next voice to speak was unfamiliar. Also male, but higher than the first and with a much more pronounced Spanish accent to his English. Yulia imagined him to be younger than his colleague.

“Your whole plan has been discovered. Even now your associates are admitting the truth under interrogation. Tell the truth and your life might be spared.”

“There is no network,” Yulia insisted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m just a dancer.”

“You are a liar and a whore, Chica. Your network was betrayed. Perhaps you were the one responsible for the betrayal?” The second voice was quieter now, but more menacing for it. Yulia almost denied she would ever do such a thing, but caught herself. Protesting she was not a traitor would be tantamount to admitting there was someone and something to betray.

Another chill raced up her back. That had been close, but she was becoming too disoriented to think straight. She shivered, partially from fear but also because wherever she had been taken was more than a little chilly, and she was still dressed in nothing but a short cotton nightgown. She flattened her bare foot against the floorboard, grounding herself with the sensation of the wood knots against her toes. She had been hauled from her bed without any idea of what time it was, but her sleep had felt so unusually deep, she wondered if she had been drugged.

Yulia tried to remember everything her training had covered about arrest and interrogation. Admit nothing. Deny all knowledge.

“Tell us what you know of A Suffusion of Yellow,” the first voice commanded.

“Is that a nightclub?” Yulia asked. “Not one I’ve ever danced at.” Her reward for the deliberately insolent answer was a ringing slap across her cheek and she gasped with shock and pain. Despite her determination not to show emotion before her interrogators, she felt tears swimming in her eyes. She was grateful they were quickly soaked up by the rag of a blindfold she wore before they could make their way down her cheeks.

“You have never heard of a Suffusion of Yellow? Tell me the names of your contacts. Who is the courier? Who handles you in Santiago? Which SVR Comrades are you working with?”

“I’m telling you everything I can,” Yulia said, her voice trembling. She doubted that slight tremor would be enough to soften her captors’ hearts, but she would try anything. “I am just a dancer. I grew up in Zhodzina in Belarus, it is near to Minsk. I came to the USA to live and work and then moved down to Chile because I heard the clubs needed more girls. I don’t know of any Suffusion of Yellow. I don’t know any comrades or couriers, I don’t even know what they are. You have to believe me!”

The cover story was easy to remember, she had used it several times before.

“A cheap little slut like you hardly seems the type to consider a better life in the USA, never mind here in Santiago … not unless you were sent for a purpose.”

Yulia gave a small groan, an idea coming to her. “Please, I may be with-child. Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt my child.” If her hands were free, she would have cradled them over her belly for emphasis, but the cuffs ground into her wrists whenever she tried adjusting the position of her arms. She began to sob loudly in great, dry heaves, conjuring everything from her past that had ever caused her sadness; the death of her father, her disastrous love affairs, her first pet dog from when she was a child. She forced tears to her eyes, this time hoping they would fall down her cheeks, where they might be seen as evidence that she was telling the truth. Finally, she let her outburst subside to the occasional sniffle. The men had been silent while she sobbed, but without her sight, she could not guess what affect her performance was having on them.

“You think you are pregnant huh? So, you are a fond of men, are you, Chica?” She felt breath on her face as a hand gripped her knee, fingers pointing towards her inner thigh. Yulia bit back a cry of revulsion as the warmth of the man’s hand spread through the thin cotton nightdress.

“Would you like to get to know me a little better and then I could really put a seed in your whore’s belly? I wonder what I could make you tell me if I was inside you.” Yulia bit the inside of her lip and remained still. Don’t let them think rape was the key to loosening her tongue. For the first time, her fear was replaced with contempt; they would try to use sex as a weapon, of course they would. The hand moved beneath the hem onto the flesh of her thigh, squeezing lightly, then abruptly lifted.

There was silence again, before the second voice spoke once more.

“Do you drink, Miss Jelic?” Yulia licked her dry lips, relieved that they had decided, for the moment at least, and despite quickly seeing through her ‘pregnancy façade’ that an assault was not the best course of action.

“Occasionally,” she admitted. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?” Yulia added wishing she had a large tumbler of whisky to hand. There was the scrape of a match and then the smell of tobacco. One of the men – she couldn’t tell which – took an audible drag on what she could smell was a cigar and blew smoke in her face.

The fumes were overpowering, and she retched. Then she felt a bright spot of heat grow close to her cheek, dancing over her skin. Panic flared brighter than the tip of the cigar and coursed through her veins.

“How much do you think it would hurt if I ground this into your eye? Unless you tell me what we need to know, that’s what I will do.”

Yulia pulled her head as far back as she could, straining against the back of the chair. “What do you know about a Suffusion of Yellow? This is your final chance before I pass you to my colleagues so they can loosen your tongue. They will not be as tolerant as we have been.”

The SVR Agent grew cold. The rumoured methods of interrogation used by the Suffusion of Yellow terrorist network were supposed to be taken from the text books of Pinochet’s regime forty years earlier.

Through her panic and coldness, the stiff joints and pain, Yulia slumped in her seat.