by Jack Mars
“Is that your business?” Ed said. “Anonymous rentals?”
Pistol Pete stared at Ed for a long second. “Part of. The rest is just the same as anybody else, but the big companies don’t make it easy, do they? They’ll gladly lose money for years to put a man like me out of business. When I go under, they’ll raise their prices up the very next day.”
“Is that why you didn’t report it?”
Pistol Pete shook his head. “I didn’t put two and two together until late last night. Woke up and knew what happened. I must be psychic. I had no reason to suspect him. The man brought that van in clean.”
“That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it, right?” Ed said.
“I figured the girl ran off with a boyfriend,” Pistol Pete said. He gave Ed another long look. “Maybe some black boy, something along those lines. That kind of thing is frowned upon around these parts, or used to be. Anyway, last I heard, anonymous cash rentals are against the law. Something to do with tax evasion, terrorism, things of that nature. You can see why a man might hesitate to…”
“Can you describe the man who rented the van?” Luke said.
Pistol Pete shrugged again. “Don’t need to. Everybody walks in that door gets videotaped twice, once as they come in, once as they stand at the register. I don’t advertise that fact, but they do.”
Luke looked at Ed. Slowly, they holstered their guns.
“We’re going to need to send that video to Washington,” Luke said. “And we’re also going to impound the vehicle in—”
As he spoke, three cars, all dark late-model sedans, roared into the parking lot. One came in the entryway, and two came in the exit. Instantly, half a dozen men leapt from the cars, guns drawn, and moved toward Ed, Luke, and Pistol Pete.
“Down!” one of the men screamed.
“Get DOWN!”
“FBI!”
Luke did as he was told. Beside him, Ed did the same. It took Pistol Pete a moment longer. He was heavy, and perhaps not accustomed to falling to the ground. So the FBI agents helped him with it. Two men tackled him and pressed him, epic stomach and fleshy face, to the pavement.
Luke lay face down on blacktop. He held his badge in the air behind him.
“FBI!” he shouted.
A hand slapped his badge away, and then two more pulled his wrists behind his back. He went limp. The worst thing you could do was resist. Resistance got people killed. Mistakes were made, and people died. This would all get sorted out eventually.
“I’m Agent Luke Stone,” he said to the man handcuffing him. “FBI Special Response Team. DC office.” He added DC office as if that would clarify things. Most FBI agents had no idea what the SRT even was.
They lifted him to his feet.
“What are you doing here?” one of the men said.
“Working a case, how about you?”
They walked him over to Pistol Pete, who was still on the ground in front of the office. Pete’s nose was bleeding from where it had met the cement. He looked up balefully at Luke. Luke was still handcuffed—the agents didn’t seem to be in a big hurry to believe him.
“If these are the FBI,” Pistol Pete said from the ground, “then who the hell are you?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
12:10 p.m. Central Standard Time (1:10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)
La Sierra de San Simon (St. Simon’s Saw)
Near Honduras
The Caribbean Sea
They brought the girl up to him like room service.
“Yes,” he said. “Beautiful. Do come in.”
He was sitting in a wicker rattan chair in his living room, admiring the painting over the sofa, and the views through the open doorway to the balcony. Elaine had paid just under a hundred thousand dollars for that painting. Only the good Lord knew what the humidity in this place was doing to it. But it didn’t matter.
Darwin King chose to surround himself with beautiful things. If they were destroyed by their proximity to him… well, nothing was meant to last forever.
On a small table next to him was an old-style telephone. Beside that was a glass with vodka, tonic, and ice. Darwin liked to open the bar right after lunch, really any day, but especially when ugliness was bound to arise. A certain person had indicated a desire to speak with him today. Darwin did not like dealing with this person, but he also didn’t see much choice in the matter. A little alcohol would put some pleasant distance between him and the information the person chose to share.
And in the meantime…
The girl came in through the wide double doors from the hallway. Beyond those doors lay the house proper, and everything that took place outside of his private inner sanctum. Dozens of rooms, a giant modern kitchen that could run a large and popular restaurant, dining halls small and large—one for the normal pace of activities and one for when celebrations and gatherings were held, the inground pool and hot tub, a small gym, wraparound porches, fruit trees, and staggering views from just about everywhere.
This house must be a whole new world for the girl.
Ah, but she was still living down in the Tombs, so she couldn’t enjoy her stay here yet. Well, they would see about that.
Two young men entered with her, flanking her. They each carried Uzi submachine guns. They were on loan from the Honduran army, and wore olive green uniforms. Darwin had friends in the Honduran government. Although this island was not part of Honduras, he was their guest, and under their protection. Darwin had many friends who protected him.
The girl and her escorts moved into the apartment. She was wearing a full white robe and hood, just as he preferred them to do when first meeting him. Her eyes were downcast. He was immediately struck by her. Her eyes, her face, her hair. Just gorgeous. He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to own her completely. And that would come in time.
He waved the gunmen back to the doorway, and then through it. They were a necessary evil, and they made quite a first impression, but personally, he didn’t like to look at them. Their presence ruined the aesthetics of the girl. They were not tall, for one thing. Honduran people, God love ’em, were short.
Darwin King was tall. He preferred tall people. These Hondurans were squat, and if he dared say so, they were not handsome. If he could have his own private army of towering, handsome Germans and Dutchmen, now wouldn’t that be something?
The girl was standing there, in the middle of the room.
“21?” he said. “21, come here.”
The girl in the robe walked timidly toward him. She did not look at him. She did not look side to side. She didn’t look anywhere but at her own bare feet.
“Come on,” Darwin said. “Don’t be afraid. It’s me, Darwin. That’s my name. You’re going to come to know me very well. I’m going to be your friend.”
She stood in front of him. She was guarded and wary. She would not meet his eyes.
“Did they tell you about me?” he said.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Very good. What did they tell you?”
“They said you own this place.”
Darwin nodded. “Yes. I do. And I own everything in it. And everyone here works for me. Do you like it here?”
She stared at the stone floor. Tears began to flow. They streamed down her face and dropped onto her robe. It was very sad. Darwin frowned.
“No,” she said in a small voice. “I want to go home. Can I please go home?”
Darwin shook his head, and now he was sad, too. “I’m afraid not. You see, this is your home now. Your parents didn’t want you anymore, and they gave you to me. Sold you, actually. They gave me what I consider a good price. A fair price, let’s say.”
The girl looked up and stared at him with round, red eyes. The tears streamed down as if someone had turned a faucet on low.
Darwin nodded. “It happens this way sometimes. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It just means that they didn’t want you, and I did. I knew you, and was watching you the whole time. Be
cause I love you.”
She seemed to have gotten stuck on one particular word. They always did.
“Sold me…”
“Yes. It’s true. They sold you and I bought you. I own you now.”
The girl just stared and stared.
“How is your stay so far?” Darwin said. He felt that he put just the right note of concern in his voice.
The girl shook her head. She wept softly, her body shaking. Such pain! Such sadness! She had no idea what delight it gave him.
“It’s horrible,” she said. Her mouth turned down and trembled, like a clown’s grimace. Her voice was high-pitched, almost a squeak. “I don’t understand what’s happening here. No one will call me by my name. My name is Charlotte, but no one calls me that.”
He watched her.
“It’s okay,” he said. He spoke softly, like a loving father. “Your name isn’t Charlotte.”
“It is! It’s Charlotte.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. That’s false. They lied to you. That name was never you. It belongs to someone who died. You have a number, not a name. Your number is 21. I need you to understand that. People here want the best for you, and they will never call you by a name that isn’t yours.”
It was an old CIA mind control trick. Darwin had learned it from an aging master, a friend, now deceased, who had been involved in MK-ULTRA back in the Wild West days of the 1950s and 1960s. People had names, and over time they associated traits with those names. Life experiences, memories, loved ones, habits, boundaries. Over time, those traits became cemented in place. Say the name, and all these associations arise. People, quite literally, become their names.
I am Charlotte. Charlotte does these things, but doesn’t do these other things. Charlotte loves her mom. Charlotte has dreams. Charlotte has preferences. Young Charlotte has beliefs, maybe even the beginning of a belief system.
But strip the name away. Once the name is gone, you control what comes next. Replace it with a number. A number has no associations. It’s completely neutral. Robots have numbers. Robots do what they’re programmed to do. Do this long enough (but not even that long), and the original personality begins to fade. After a while, the associations are gone, and so is the person.
Replace those associations with new ones, the ones you want the person to have. Number 21 is a slave. Number 21 does what master tells her to do. Number 21 loves her master, and wants to please him. Number 21 has no other purpose.
Darwin was an avid student of many topics, including human psychology. He had used this technique again and again. It was fascinating to him how well it worked.
“They keep me in a dark room,” the girl said now.
See? She had already hit a brick wall with the name, so now she moved on. Look how quickly it happened! Textbook. That was a good sign.
“The window is blacked out. There’s no light. I have to knock when I want to use the bathroom. Then these men come with guns and walk me to the bathroom. I’m so afraid, the way they look at me. I’ve seen some other girls, but they aren’t friendly. They don’t even speak to me. The woman, Elaine, hits me with a stick for no reason.”
Darwin ignored her new complaints. It was important not to validate complaints, or even acknowledge them. She had no right to complain. She had no right to her own being. Anyway, what the girl thought of as unpleasant was actually for her own good. It was the start of her training.
That was life in the Tombs. The Tombs were on the first floor, in a part of the house shaded by dense overhanging trees. It was down near the laundry room. That area hadn’t been renovated, by design. The windows in the rooms were blacked out. The one bathroom was a disgrace. The girls down there had no freedom of movement. It softened them up quickly, living in the Tombs.
Instead of fielding complaints, Darwin got right to the most important question.
“Have the men touched you at all?”
His orders were that no one touched the goods. Of course no one ever would, unless he said so. The thought of disobeying Darwin’s orders… Ha! A breath of air, almost like a laugh, escaped him at the thought of it. He lent the girls to some of his important visitors, at times, but the help? It would never happen. If he heard of such a thing, everyone involved would die.
“No,” she said. “None of them have touched me.”
Darwin nodded. “That’s good. Unfortunately, we are in a high-security situation, and we need the gunmen here to keep us all safe. But you say your stay hasn’t been that great so far?”
“It’s been awful. I want to go home.”
“Well, you might as well get over the idea of going anywhere else. You’re already home.”
She closed her eyes and began to weep again. She was silent, her body shaking.
“I want you to be happy here, 21. Let me ask you a question. Do you want to get out of your dark room and move to a better one? Maybe even one up here on this floor, with an ocean view? Plenty of sunlight, fresh air. Look around. It’s lovely up here. It’s perfect.”
She opened her eyes. She gave him a sideways look. She didn’t trust him, of course. But he was dangling something desirable in front of her, and she was already learning how to navigate her new world. He liked fast learners.
“Look around,” he said again.
She glanced around the room. Her movements were furtive, like a mouse would make. In her emotional state, she probably couldn’t soak in the extent of the opulence, the totality of it. But she could compare it to the room she stayed in now.
“Is it better?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Do you want to live up here?”
She hesitated.
“What do I have to do?”
He shrugged. “Simple enough. You take a vow to me. You become my consort, my servant, and in a sense, you become my slave.”
He raised a hand. “Don’t get stuck on that word. It doesn’t mean what you might think. It’s a good thing. The girls here, all of them are my slaves. And they enjoy it. You’ll see. It comes with benefits. The first of which is you live in paradise. After a little while, when we build trust with each other, you become free to roam the grounds. The pool, the gym, the library, everything is open to you. It is unbelievable here, and I want you to enjoy it all. But the choice is up to you. No one has to become my slave.”
“And if I don’t?”
Darwin shrugged. He sighed. “Well, if you don’t want to, then you can go back to your room. But I can’t guarantee your protection down there. Some of these guards…”
He shook his head. “You know, these men are Hondurans, and there has been a lot of unrest in Honduras. A long civil war, rebels, drug cartels, massacres, you name it. It’s turned some of these men we hire into savages. Nothing can be done about that, I’m afraid. It’s just all the murder and death. People lose their sense of humanity. They’re liable to do anything. They see a pretty young girl, living in the dark, all alone, unprotected…”
He shook his head again. He watched the calculations going on behind the girl’s eyes. He had presented her with a new problem. Not only was it dark and dreary in the Tombs, it was also dangerous. It was a basic math problem, very simple, and he didn’t have to wait long for the answer.
“I want to stay up here,” she said.
He paused. “Okay. Good. For now, you’re going to stay where you are downstairs. You have to earn your way up here. But in the days ahead, you’ll get the chance to do just that. Just focus on it. Focus on the opportunities that come your way.”
Her disappointment was written all over her face. Disappointment was a mild word for it. It was heartbreak. It was despair. It was terror. All of those words and more, wrapped into one. Already, she would do almost anything not to go back to the darkness. But she had to wait.
“Can you do that for me? Can you focus on the opportunities that come your way, and grab them when you get the chance?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I demand complete obe
dience,” he said. “That’s what will get you out of your dark room. Can you give me that gift? The gift of obedience? Doing what I say, when I say it, without question?”
“Yes,” she said, barely more than a whisper.
“That makes me very happy.”
Darwin felt his grin go nearly ear to ear. The promise of complete obedience—it was music, sweet music. Of course, it was a hard promise to keep, but he would help her. He would light the stones along her path.
“21, I want to tell you something. Right now, this moment, is the most beautiful you’ve ever been. And the longer you stay with me, and the better you obey me, the more beautiful you’ll become.”
He paused, just for a moment. “Do you believe me?”
He gazed into her doe eyes.
“Yes,” she said.
“Then do something for me, 21.”
She nodded, but said nothing.
“Remove your robe.”
She froze for a long moment. Darwin didn’t touch the moment, or try to control it. He let it unfold by itself. After a while, she undid the belt of the robe, but didn’t open the robe itself.
Darwin gestured with his hands. “Just open it, and let it fall to the floor. Remember the promise you made. Total obedience, without question.”
She did as she was told. The robe dropped. Underneath it, she wore a small blue bikini that Elaine must have provided to her. It fit her small body perfectly. The sight took his breath away.
“Turn around,” he said. “All the way around, so I can see all of you.”
She did.
“My God, 21. What an angel you are. Only God could have made you.”
Someone cleared his throat. Darwin looked up and a man was standing there at the doorway. The effect of 21, the dream of her, was suddenly shattered. The man was one of Darwin’s private bodyguards, not one of the Hondurans. He was a big man, an American, wearing dress slacks and a sports jacket despite the heat. The jacket was to conceal his gun, of course. He looked a little sheepish for a hired killer.