by Smith, Skye
* * * * *
The commando captain explained the plan. The southern wind meant that the front entrance was upwind of the dogs. The girl would be lowered from the front wall into the grounds to attract the dogs while the commando units would enter in force over the back wall.
The commando captain introduced her to a small man with a laser-sighted machine pistol. He was to be her body guard. Maya greeted the Gurkha warrior in his own tongue, the few words she had learned from the guide in Dharamsala.
The man smiled at her words and introduced himself as Corporal Nawang Gurkha, at her service. He then crouched down on the road, picked up some mud and smeared it over his cheeks and fatigues. When the detective gave him a questioning eye he replied, "Cow dung. I will also be upwind from the dogs."
The captain's final instructions to Nawang were not barked as an order but whispered as a request. "The girl must not be hurt." He then marched off to give the command that would send two dozen commandos into the school compound.
Nawang was shorter than her, but he must have had muscles of steel because he used a rope sling to pull her up, over, and down the wall. Once on the ground she walked slowly across the damp grass towards the looming spooky-looking school building. She kept thinking that it would make a great set for a vampire movie.
There were some low growls and she knew that the dogs had picked up her scent and were signaling to each other. She fought the terror she felt and raised her aura, and her lily scent, and tried to capture the gentleness of the mushroom feeling. Open and defenseless to attack, though knowing she must be so she waited and allowed her aura to grow. Only someone completely non-threatening would cause the dogs to sneak close enough to feel her aura.
When she caught sight of the first two dogs, she wished she had peed before climbing the wall. These were not half-sized Indian farm dogs. These were heavy and stocky Rottweillers. She felt like running away screaming, but that would be disastrous. Her only chance was to trust in her aura.
She kneeled in the grass so that her face was the same height as the dogs. They stopped growling, confident, assured, and they closed in on her. There were four of them now. She smiled and ignored them. The slavers had made a huge mistake choosing muscular killer dogs to watch the grounds. Even a Chihuahua would have been more use to them on this night.
A small dog, afraid of everything would have barked bloody murder at her presence. These confident dogs had no reason to raise an alarm. She closed her eyes so that the very sight of them with their spiked collars would not frighten her into betraying her fear. First there was a cold nose at her feet, and then under her arm. Their breath was hot and smelled of raw meat. She thought of the feeling of mushrooms and pretended that butterflies were landing on her.
She felt a heavy body leaning on her left leg and opened her left eye. A hugely powerful dog was lay full length against her, and the look it was giving to the other dogs was as if it was daring the others to be so brave.
She hovered her hand over the dog's neck and chest and allowed her aura to explore the beast. The dog actually purred like a kitten. Not to be outdone, another dog lay on his haunches on her other side, and a smaller, younger dog licked at her chin. She ignored the meat breath and pushed at his muzzle like they were puppies playing together.
All four of them were resting against her when the first shots came from the house. There was a burp of automatic weapon fire punctuated by very loud individual shots. Different weapons. The dogs shot to attention, but she held the biggest of them around his neck and whispered calming sounds into his ear.
The other dogs looked at the big one, but when he didn't move, they sat still, but alert. The young one growled and pointed his head towards a large tree halfway to the house. A man was running towards them. All the dogs now growled but she calmed them and they stayed still.
The running man was not a commando. Worse, she recognized him from the Russian's Mercedes at Anjuna Beach. He was one of the men who had drugged Marique and abducted them. So, some had survived the warehouse fire in Goa. She froze and tried to hide behind the biggest of the dogs.
She was too late in hiding, and his light reflected off her face where she sat with the dogs. He recognized her. "You, I know you from Goa, from the fire. So you have brought the police to us. Bitch!" he raised a pistol and aimed it at her eyes. Her immediate reaction was to protect her face. She let go of the dog and raised her hands to cover her face.
The dogs saw her raise her hands and assumed it was a signal. All four leaped into action. They were trained as a pack, and with terror she watched the dogs attack the man in as pack. They attacked as if they were wolves pulling down dinner. He was pushed to the ground screaming, and then there was no screaming.
There was a series of popping noise from behind her, like the sound of a child’s toy, or like playing cards pegged to the spokes of a bicycle. In front of her eyes the dogs were torn to pieces by waves of bullets. She screamed and kept screaming until a hand clamped over her mouth and the Nawang's voice came through her shock and panic. "Be still, woman. They are all dead. Calm yourself. It is over."
She swallowed her screams and calmed herself and Nawang released his hold. "You killed the dogs that saved me. Why did you do that?" she asked, staring at him, demanding an answer.
"They were in a blood lust. They were a danger to you, to everyone," he said with cold logic. He shrugged his shoulders and replaced the long bullet clip in his machine pistol. "My orders were explicit." He looked around, wary, searching the shadows, then listening. There came a series of sharp whistles.
He flicked the safety on and stood up and pulled her to her feet. "That was the all clear. Come, let us go and report this body." Despite the all clear, he routed them along a narrow trail through some bushes. Others like the dead man, could have escaped the trap.
They saw no one else until they saw two commandos guarding the front door. Nawang whistled to warn them of their approach, and then told them about the dogs and the corpse, and they immediately called inside for a patrol to sweep the front grounds.
Inside the old brick building there was a stench of toilets and disinfectant. The building must have been abandoned for years before the slavers started to use it, and anything of value had been ripped out and carried away including any metal from electricity or plumbing.
The command post had been set up in a great room just off the front door. A dozen men were lying face down on the floor while they were bound with zip ties and searched. There were two bodies in the corner covered in filthy tarps.
The captain flicked his eyes up from his cell phone and saw the girl, and got a nod from the scout who was with her. Good. One less thing to worry about. He went back to arranging for his choppers to deliver a medical unit and a portable electrical plant and lights. His voice snapped out commands at the phone, and everyone else kept quiet while he did so.
The Sikh detective saw the girl and hurried over to her. Nawang moved his weapon slightly so that it covered the man and gave him a look that said 'stay back'. "Not until I make my report," he told the detective. "She is still under my protection."
The detective was about to argue, when a commando came down the staircase two steps at a time and called out. "The count is twenty-nine girls, eleven boys. They were fed yesterday, but they are filthy. They smell. All of them could do with a bath and medical checkup." He suddenly shut up at the stare from his officers. That was not the way to make a report.
Before anyone could stop her, Maya pushed her way past the commando and rushed up the stairs. Nawang dogged her steps, but did not yell for her to stop. The detective would have also followed except he was called back by his partner.
All of the prisoners had been searched and at the head of each was a small pile of everything that was found on them. It was the detective's job to examine the belongings, especially any papers. He grimaced. He much preferred the company of the girl to his partner.
* * * * *
It was four h
ours before the choppers arrived with the medical team. By that time her clothes were filthy and she smelled as badly as any of the children. First with Nawang translating, and then with two of the older boys, she did a triage on the health of all the children. She had those that were sick all put in one area and arranged in order of those that needed to see a doctor first.
The scout stayed with her at all times except for five minutes when he went to arrange for all the big water bottles to be brought up to the children's area, and for all the slop buckets to be carried downstairs and emptied. For the rest of the time he helped one of the older boys make a list of all the children.
Always he kept one eye cocked for where Maya was and what she was doing. He assumed she was some kind of nurse by how gentle she was with the children. He had seen how she had won the confidence of the guard dogs, now he saw the same thing with these poor souls.
She herself gave the medical team the tour of the children, and then she slipped away downstairs, with her shadow on her heels. Downstairs she walked along the line of prisoners and hovered her hands over each. Of the dozen, her aura identified eight psychos. She wanted to point them out to the detectives, but they were nowhere around.
Nawang went off to find them, but he came back to tell her that both detectives had just left with his captain and over half the unit. They had gone to raid the closest border patrol office, and afterwards the closest police station.
"Then quickly. Take me to the border station. I must catch them up."
"I will need permission from the doctor upstairs. As the senior officer remaining, he is in charge."
"You may need his permission, but I don't." She ducked by him and started to run towards the front door where the vehicles had been parked. She spotted the detective's car. They hadn't taken it. There was a group of men standing around an army truck. They seemed to be in charge of vehicles, so she ran over to them.
"My things are in the detective's car," she pointed. "Do you have the keys?"
A surly-looking corporal stared her up and down and smiled lewdly. He said something to his mates that must have been beyond just ribald. Their laughter stopped when they heard a loud hiss from the Gurkha scout who came up behind her. "Give her the keys," he ordered.
These men had just finished cleaning up the mess this Gurkha had left over by the front wall. He was well known as a dangerous man, and they also knew that he had been ordered to protect this woman. It was enough. The corporal became polite, and offered her some keys.
"Thanks," she said flashing them all a wide smile and then skipping quickly to the car. Instead of getting her things from the trunk, she opened the driver's door, slung herself into the seat and started the engine.
"Wait," said Nawang while stopping her from closing the door. "I cannot let you go. Not alone."
"You have two seconds to get in the other side before I leave," she told him with a smirk. She waited just long enough for him to sit and pull his wicked weapon inside the car, and then she popped the clutch and sprayed gravel towards the leering corporal.
The guard was just starting to close the gate that had been opened to let the convoy of trucks leave. Nawang waved at him and yelled and the last gate was kept open until the sedan was through. The guard pointed in the direction that the trucks had gone and Maya swerved out onto the dark and empty highway and accelerated to catch them up.
In another half hour the first twilight of the day would grow into first light, and an hour after that, sunrise. At this time of day there were no people on the road, but there were animals and so Nawang kept a close watch on both shoulders ready to yell out a warning to Maya. He had never been driven by a woman before. He was nervous about her level of skill.
She guessed what he was thinking. "Don't worry. I've been driving farm trucks since I was twelve. I've had my license since I was sixteen. I'm American, remember?" She pointed ahead. They could see the taillights of the convoy and were closing fast. She took her foot off the gas and coasted down from seventy miles per hour, to forty, matching the speed of the trucks.
Just before they reached the border, the trucks pulled over into a residential compound where most of the customs and immigration men probably lived. The border crossing didn't open until sunrise, so the commandos were in place guarding every door in the compound before the border men realized what was happening.
All the border officers were rounded up and taken to the mess. There the detectives asked them to surrender their cell phones. They already had the cell phones of the slavers, and now with the help of some of the commandos, they were searching each of the sets of phones to see who had been in phone contact to whom. Maya interrupted them.
"My friends are in the first town on the Nepal side in a hotel. I want to go to them," she said to the Sikh detective.
For some reason that he could not explain, like a voice was telling him to, he actually agreed to her request even though deep down he knew he should not let her leave the country. His partner murmured angrily and shrugged in frustration. "The first bus will leave as soon as we open the border crossing."
"And," she decided to push her luck, "I want the 'detain' order lifted for me and my friends so that we can re-enter India without fear."
The Sikh looked at this partner. His partner nodded. Might as well nod. He knew his partner would agree anyway. "Okay. But that will take a few days."
He turned to three men with Customs badges and told them that they could go and open the border but he would keep their phones for now as evidence of their innocence. Really it was so that they could not gossip with the local police about what had just gone down. They shrugged and stood up, warily looking at the scarred face of the captain of the commando unit for confirmation.
The commando captain gave them the nod and they eagerly left the room. He walked over to his Gurkha scout and said in a low voice, "Last week you put in for leave to attend a wedding in Nepal. I grant it. Go with the American woman and deliver her to her friends, and then continue on to your wedding. Be back in two weeks. Is their village within cell phone range?"
"Just inside range. I will leave my phone on," he smirked. He had been trying unsuccessfully to get permission for even four days leave to go to a family wedding. Now he had two weeks. He handed his machine pistol to his captain and then he walked over to the girl and asked her how much luggage she had.
Accompanied by Nawang, she turned to go to the car for her luggage, and the detective rushed ahead with them. "You were not at the school. You know nothing of this commando operation," the tall detective told her in a stern voice. "If ever it becomes known that you were present, you will be brought back to India to spend a month filling out forms. Do you understand?"
She stood on her tip toes and kissed the tall Sikh on his cheek, and said "thank you", and then busied herself with collecting all her things from the car and pushing them into her suitcase pack.
Nawang took the pack from her and swung it over a shoulder and walked towards the line of traffic that was now snaked along the road waiting for the border to open. She and he walked past a seemingly endless line of stubby gasoline trucks and stopped at the bus at the front of the line. It was jam packed. There were even twenty men riding on the roof with the luggage.
One of the gas trucks they had passed beeped at them and the driver waved them towards him. "Kathmandu?" he asked. "You can ride with me for a hundred rupees each."
"We have to drop the girl at a hotel in the first town," Nawang replied. "Okay?"
"Sure. No charge for the pretty ones." The driver eyed Nawang warily. "Going home?"
"Two weeks' leave," he replied. "That’s why I'm not armed." Not armed to a Gurkha meant that he carried only his wicked-looking bush knife. "Pull out of the line and drive through the border. They will wave us through."
The driver did as he was told and his truck grumbled and lurched out of the line. He was amazed that they were actually waved through both by the customs man and by the heavily armed commando
standing beside him.
On the Nepali side of the border, the customs man looked long and hard at Maya's American passport. "There is no Nepali visa," he explained in broken English.
"I thought I didn't need one," she said, suddenly worried that she would be sent back to India.
"If you arrive at an airport, then it can be issued as you arrive. This is not an airport."
Nawang discussed it with the Customs man in Nepali for about two minutes, then the Gurkha told her to give him two hundred rupees.
She handed the bills to the customs man, and he ran off towards the border office with the money and her passport. "What's happening?" she asked.
"He is giving you a temporary visa, which you will have to renew in two weeks at any Immigration office."
"So what was the money for?"
"To pay for a photocopy of the visa stamp in your passport."
"But why do I need a photocopy? I have the passport."
"As an excuse to pay him money, silly one. He is selling it to you. Buying overpriced photocopies are the standard method of paying bribes in Nepal. You know, wink, wink, say no more."
"Ahhh," she nodded her understanding. She had just bribed the customs man to cross the border. A photocopy. How civilized. How almost legal. "So without the bribe I would never have gotten through?"
"You would have gotten through, but he would have made you wait until noon," he replied. He looked at the grin on the driver's lips and spoke to him, then laughed. "Our driver knew we would cause much confusion and bribery, and they would forget to search the truck. He is a happy man not to have to pay the bribes on the electronics he is smuggling in."
The border town, if that is what you would call the jumble of huts and houses and market stalls just after the border, was not the town that Marique was staying in. She was relieved. This first town had a wild and frantic spirit and was filled with men with greed streaked across their faces.