by Rob Buckman
"I'll just bet it will!" Mike's hand plunged down the woman's dress between her ample breasts."
"You fucking pervert! Get your hand out of there." She screamed, trying to kick him even with the knife stuck in her guts. Mike did, coming up with a second white plastic card on the end of a long chain around her neck. He might have spotted it earlier but for the fact that the chain was hidden in the rolls of fat.
"Now what do we have here?" He said ripping it free. There was a look of panic on her face as she saw it and Mike knew why.
"Here Pete, try this one." He said throwing it across the room.
"Would you mind telling me what the fuck is going on?" Pete asked as he stepped forward to grab it.
"I've got a feeling this place is Booby trapped. The first card triggers it when passed through the reader."
"How do you know?"
"I don't, but ever since we got here she been trying to get to the phone. I think she was doing it so she could get close enough to run the card she had in her pocket through the machine."
"Shit! And if you're wrong?"
"Then we all go to hell together." His grin wasn't pleasant to see, especially from a foot away. The woman looked into his eyes and saw only death.
"It's the right one." It was as if someone had let the air out of her and she started to sink to the floor. Mike pulled the knife out and wiped it on her dress, resisting the urge to drive it all the way in.
"It's your call Mike. We could wait for the equipment and jackhammer the floor up. Why risk it all now."
"Do it Pete," he said in a tight voice. He couldn't wait, nor could he take the risk of setting the explosives off by accident. With him, it was all or nothing. "Let’s all go to hell together."
Taking a deep breath, Pete slid the card through the reader, half expecting the place to blow up as he did. A grating sound made them all jump and turning around they saw a section of the floor drop, then slide back out of the way, exposing a set of steps. Mike didn't wait. In three strides, he was there, running down the stairway. It went down some twenty feet before leveling off into a passageway, dead ended in a concrete wall about thirty feet farther on. Even before the rest of the team hit the stairs, they all heard the chatter of Mike's weapon going off. The Captain was the next one down, just in time to see a man slip to the floor at the end of the passageway, leaving a bloody streak on the wall behind him. He had never had time to trigger the detonator before half a magazine of 7.62 mm rounds tore him apart. Six steel doors, three on each side, lined the passageway. Each with a card reader bolted to the wall beside it, only needing the key to open them. Pete Rogers pounded down the steps after the Captain, swearing a blue streak.
"Damn it Mike, Let the SF boys do their job will you!" He said eyeing the body on the floor.
"No need now." He snapped back, holding his hand out. Pete slid to a halt, seeing the doors, knowing why Mike held his hand out. Without comment, he passed the card over and unconsciously took a step back.
"Nervous Pete?" Mike asked seeing the move.
"Fuck yes! If this place is Booby trapped, how do we know that's the right key? There could be more of them to open these doors."
"I doubt it. It's easy to keep track of two card keys, with three or four you'd have too much chance of mixing them up and blowing yourself up by mistake."
Mike didn't wait. With a quick downward stroke, he passed the magnetic strip through the reader, hearing the door lock click. With the barrel of his rifle, he pushed it open, expecting the worst. Besides a bed bolted to the floor and a toilet in one corner the room was bear of any decoration or furniture. A young girl, about fifteen or sixteen was chained to the bed but it wasn't Kat.
"Get the Medic down here Pete."
He didn't need to be told. One look told him this girl was in a bad way. Pete stepped back and yelled up the hallway for the medic as Mike moved to the second door. This one offered the same sight except it was a boy this time but no Kat. He moved to the third door in the row and triggered the lock. One look was enough. Even though she lay on her face, he recognized her. Pete came up behind and looked over his shoulder, seeing the same thing he did. Sometime in the last few hours, someone had savagely beaten her. From shoulder to ankle, her back was one mass of angry red whip marks.
"Oh God!" Mike took one stumbling step into the room, card key and rifle dropping from suddenly nerveless hands. Pete bent down and picked them up, backing out of the room. He saw Mike start to go tight, clenching his fists and hunching his shoulders.
"Oh fuck!" With a quick hard shove, he pushed Mike into the room and slammed the door shut. Just in time. Two hundred pounds of insane man meat hit the door with a clang, vibrating it on its hinges.
"What the hell!" The Captain asked, coming down the hallway with the medic. "What did you do that for?" He asked suspiciously, seeing Pete Rogers’s last move. Pete winced as the door clanged against his back, hoping Mike didn't hurt himself.
"Because if I didn't we have a blood bath on our hands,” he said with a sigh.
"His girlfriend in there?"
"Yes, and I wish the hell, she wasn't. One look and he snapped."
"Dead or alive?"
"I didn't wait to find out, all I saw was that she was in a bad way and Mike about to explode.
"My boys would have stopped him!"
"Like hell! I've seen him in action,” he snapped. "You might have stopped him eventually. But not before he'd killed or sliced up God know how many of these people. Plus you as well if you got in his way."
"So what do we do now?"
"Simple." Pete held up the card key. "We clear up the rest of this mess and let him cool off."
"And if she's dead?" Pete shrugged.
"Would you tell me what this place is? It's not just a whorehouse is it?"
"No, it's not. It's a training school."
"A what?"
"A training school for whores."
"You've got to be shitting me."
"I wish I were."
"I don't get it!"
"That's because you lived a sheltered life in the military. Far from the scum that walk around free in this great democratic nation you defend so well." It was part sarcasm, part humor and all truth.
"You mean they bring girls here and train them to be whores?"
"Not exactly. They kidnap young girls and boys by the look of it and bring them here. They don't rape them or anything. They work on the reward and punishment system. First, they beat them until they do as they’re told. That's the first part, which, depending on the person, can take from one day to as long as a month. After that, they start getting a reward, drugs usually, each time they perform. If it's not done right they get beaten again." Pete could see the look of horror on the captain’s face and sympathized with him. It's not hard to come face to face with reality.
"It takes about three weeks to a month. By that time, they are trained and addicted, ready to do anything they are ordered to do. After that they are sent or sold to whorehouses all over the world." The Green Beret Captain looked down the line of cells, seeing twenty in all and wondered how many kids had passed through this place.
Mike pounded away at the door for five minutes before he ran out of steam and the red mist of fury slowly cleared. His fists were raw and bleeding, shoulders aching from crashing into the door but at last, he turned and looked at Kat again. It wasn't as bad as the first time but it still felt as if he was being stabbed in the heart. For ten years he'd felt nothing for any one, living his life as a loner and now his whole life was centered on one person, Kat Ballard. She had without notice become the center of his universe and his reason for living. The one event he thought would never happen had, and seeing her like this unmanned him. Slowly, his unwilling feet carried him across the room to the bed, scalding tears running down his face. With shaking hands, he brushed the hair away from her face, finding her eyes closed. Breathing hard he tried to control the shaking of his hands as he pulled out the bowie knife and car
efully cut the leather ankle and wrist cuffs holding her down. He didn't dare try to cut off the black leather collar Roland Hawkins had locked round her throat. Taking his jacket off, he covered her, gently lifting her head and cradling it in his lap. He sat there for a while just stroking her hair, rocking back and forth. At last, Kat opened her eyes and, turning her head, looked up at him.
"Mike?" She asked groggily.
"I'm here Kat."
"What took you so long?" She said sleepily. Whatever drugs they'd given her hadn't worn off completely.
"Tried to get here as fast as I could,” he whispered.
"Did you kill that dick-less wonder yet?"
"No, not yet, but I will as soon as I find him."
"Good." She said with a slight smile.
"Blood thirsty little devil aren't you."
"Who me?! No. I'm just pissed off."
"Rest easy my love. He'll die, all in good time."
"I hope you make it slow and painful."
"I will."
"Take me home, Mike."
"I will as soon as Pete unlocks the door." He didn't know if she heard him or not as she'd drifted off to sleep again.
A string of medvac choppers roared out of the darkness to lift off the injured and bring in the backup teams. In the distance, headlights could be seen coming their way as the local police rushed to get into the act. Pete Rogers and the team demo man walked up to Mike as the chopper carrying the kids lifted off.
"You were right about the booby traps. The whole place was rigged to go. Had we used the wrong card, four canisters of white phosphorous would have exploded in each cell. Five seconds later, the ranch would have blow up, dropping the whole place into the cells. There wouldn't have been much left to find."
"Much left! Hell. I doubt if you have come up with more than a bucket of goo." The demo man said.
"Very nasty stuff, white phosphorous. It would have destroyed everything. No evidence, no bodies, no court case."
"You find anything worthwhile?" Mike asked.
"Some, plus a few solid leads on other training schools but without that woman's testimony, it's going to be hard to put together."
"What's the maximum she can get right now?"
"That depends on what else we find. It could run as low as ten years to a maximum of fifty."
"Give me one minute with her." Mike said.
"You think I'm crazy enough to let you near her?"
"It's all right Pete. I promise I won’t lay a finger on her,” Pete didn't look convinced. "Trust me on this one Pete."
Mike walked into the room, finding the fat lady sitting on the couch. A large bandage wrapped around her middle. She was swearing and cursing at every one in range, promising everything from killing their children to castration. The moment she saw him, she shut up and cringed, fearing the worst. He slowly sat down at the other end of the couch, as far away from her as he could get, both for his sanity and her safety. He still couldn't get the picture of Kat's back out of his mind and knew that if he got too close to her he'd rip her heart out.
"Listened to me you fat bag of garbage and listen carefully because I am only going to say this once." His tone was anything but gentle, leaving no doubt in her mind as to his intent. "From this moment on you will keep that sewer you call a mouth shut. You will be polite and only talk when asked a question. You will answer all questions the police or FBI ask you truthfully and hold nothing back." His voice was so low no one in the room except the woman heard him.
"Why...why should I do that?" She stammered.
"Because if you weasel out of this, claim the fifth, sixth or seventh amendment and walk, I will hunt you down and do exactly what I told you I'd do earlier."
"You wouldn't dare!"
"Lady, I work for the CIA and I can do anything I want and there’s nothing and no one in this world who can touch me."
"The man I work for can."
"The man you work for is dead. I'll kill him and his associates very soon."
"I don't believe you."
"Your choice. I'd do such a good job on you, that I doubt they will be able to find enough to bury." That shook her.
"You're bluffing!"
"After what I saw you'd done to my... wife." He said at last. "There is nothing in the world I want more than to get my hands on you. You and everyone else connected to this operation. So please, please, go on thinking I'm bluffing and talk your way out of it. The moment you walk out of that court room, I will be hunting you and there is no place on earth you can hide that I won’t find you. Not Russia, not China, not the North fucking Pole." He got up and started to walk away. Then turned back.
"By the way." He asked. "How long did they tell you that you had before this place blew up?" She looked at him with surprise and suspicion.
"About ten minutes, why?"
"Just so you know, the demolition man just got through dismantling the system. Five seconds after you triggered it, this house, and everything within a radius of a hundred yards would have been blown to bits." He saw her face go sheet white. With that, he turned and walked away. Exiting the house, Mike found Kat on a stretcher wrapped in a blanket, her breathing shallow, and skin deathly white. One look was sufficient for him to want to go back into the house and carve up the fat woman.
“I’ve given her a shot of Naloxone, sir, but she needs to get to a hospital as soon as possible. A medivac chopper is on the way.”
“Good.” He growled.
“I’ll take care of her, Mike. You go do what you have to do to end this.” Pete gripped his shoulder, understanding how he felt. Mike just nodded. “There’s a chopper coming to take you back to Las Vegas.
CHAPTER THIRTY:
Three weeks later Mike flew Kat back to 'Peregrine Creek' in her Twin Otter. Outwardly, she looked as good as ever, but he knew that the internal scars would take time to heal. This time his landing was much better, only bouncing twice. He rolled the Otter to the tie down area and helped Kat out, not because she needed it but because he wanted to. He wanted to feel her in his arms and so she did him. It felt right, as if someone had molded them to fit together. As she slid to the ground inside the circle of his arms, she kissed him, leaving nothing to the imagination.
"Will you two stop kissing long enough to get married at least?" Charley asked as he walked up, laughter in his voice.
"I doubt it." Ruth commented. "You might as well go and get the minister and have him perform the ceremony in the bedroom,” was Ruth's comment.
"Ruth!" Both men said at the same time. Kat and Ruth just looked at other, winked and smiled. Mike went over and hugged Ruth, feeling her warmth.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"As good as new but this lunk head won’t let me do anything,” she said, thumping Charley on the arm.
"Ouch!" Charley cried in mock pain, rubbing the damaged area, grinning from ear to ear, "by the way, I drove your new Range Rover here. Some guy dropped it off at my place, said you'd ordered it."
"I didn't, but I can bet I know who did."
"Rich friends," Charley observed with a smile.
Together they walked across the tarmac to the parking lot and drove to Charley's place, dropping them off before heading up the mountain. Having only walked it before, the drive was a new experience to Kat, and gave her a new perspective on the phrase 'cross country driving'. At last, Mike wheeled into the clearing in front of the garage come stable, again helping her out. Arm in arm they walked up the stairs, entering the house.
"Mike! There's someone here!" she said in alarm almost immediately.
"I sure hope so, and I hope he's got coffee on." As he spoke someone came out of the kitchen, gun in hand. It was Bonner. Kat froze, expecting the worst.
"Took you long enough to get here,” he said. "I was expecting you last week."
"Got held up by some paper work."
"Thought it was that,” he said tucking the gun away.
"You got the coffee on?" Mike asked walking
past him into the kitchen.
"Yup, and some fresh made donuts,” he answered, turning to follow. Kat stood there with her mouth open, unable to believe what she was seeing and hearing.
"Would you like a cup Kat?" Mike called. She finally got her voice back, and stormed into the kitchen, came to a stop in front of the two men, feet apart, hands on hips, ready to do battle.
"Now just a God damn minute! What the hell is going on here?" She demanded, both men stood there grinning like idiots.
"You didn't tell her did you?" Bonner said.
"Never had a chance and when I did, I just sort of forgot."
"Boy, are you in for it." Bonner said, wincing.
"I think you're right."
"Michael Alexander Grainger. Will you stop grinning like the village idiot and tell me what he is doing here?!"
"Who? Bonner?"
"Yes Bonner! Who did you think I mean, the milkman?"
"He's my new business partner."
"Your WHAT! Two weeks ago, this man was trying to kill you!"
"So! That doesn't make him all bad, beside that, I was trying to kill him."
"I... I... you... you." Words failed her.
"Excitable isn't she."
"You could say that."
"Will you two stop talking about me as if I wasn't here?" She shouted, "and please tell me, in words of one syllable or less, because I know that you two imbeciles are incapable of anything more, WHAT is going on!" She hissed the last sentence rather than spoke it. For a moment Mike thought about going over and putting his arms around her, then thought better of it. In her present mood, he'd probably get a knee in the crotch for his troubles.
"I'm sorry Kat. It's my fault. I should have told you. Bonner and I had a little talk a few weeks back," Mike said, scratching the back of his neck, a look of consternation on his face. "By that time he'd become sick of the whole rotten deal. In fact he was the one who saved my hide." It wasn't strictly the truth, but to try and tell her why both of them felt the way they did probably wouldn't make sense to her.
Thinking back, he knew that it started when Bonner had come down to the cellar with the meal and later when he'd wiped the tears out of his eyes so the rest of the assholes wouldn't see them. Landing on the grass outside the house after Bonner had pulled him out of the line of fire was when they finally got a chance to talk. Bonner had already called it quits and only wanted to get as far away from the mess as possible.