“If any of you touch that food before we tell you to, we’ll send someone to your house to kill whoever is there.”
One of the women ignored her. She was a brunette with stunning looks and large green eyes. As she chewed her first bite, she talked back to Karen.
“Send whoever you want. I live alone and my parents died when I was fifteen. Why the hell did you have to starve us anyway?”
Karen was red with anger. She was moving toward the woman with the intention of striking her across the face when she remembered that she shouldn’t damage the merchandise. An idea came to her. When she looked around, she saw that the guards had followed the instructions she had given them before leaving the house.
The TV from one of the spare bedrooms had been brought into the basement along with a DVD player. The DVD inside the machine was homemade and only contained about a minute of video. As Karen walked over to start the machine, she told the women to help themselves to the food.
“And while you’re eating, we’ll have a little entertainment for you. It’s a video showing what happens to those who disobey us.”
As soon as she had told the women that they could eat they rushed forward to join the first woman. They were all famished and feeling dehydrated. Ali pretended to be as needy for the food and water as the rest of them, but as the video began to play, she froze with a sandwich halfway to her mouth. She had recognized Nancie Ventura’s voice before turning around to look at the screen. And that’s when she saw an unscarred image of Vicky Denton. Vicky’s mouth was covered by the large hand of the guard holding her, but her terrified eyes were impossible to miss. When Nancie held up a knife, Ali knew what was to come.
The video was unnerving to say the least. Its only virtue was that it was brief. It ended with the sound of Nancie’s delighted laughter over the carnage she had inflicted on Vicky’s face. Ali had been angry at Vicky for drugging her and stealing Nancie away. She understood now why she had done it. If she were in Vicky’s place, there would be no way in hell that she would ever risk letting Nancie slip from her grasp once she’d had her hands on her. Having witnessed what had been done to Vicky made Ali furious.
The first woman to attack the food threw up what little of it she had managed to swallow. Two more women did the same, while others, Ali included, dropped the sandwiches that they’d been holding. The one Emily had called Cara was crying. She was not alone in shedding tears.
“You!” Karen said. When Ali looked at her, she saw that Karen was pointing in her direction. Ali stared back at her but didn’t speak.
“The rest of these bitches look scared as shit, but you look like you want to kick somebody’s ass.”
It was true. And Karen’s fat ass would be as good as anyone else’s in her sick family, but not yet. Not when there were four guards around and the bidders weren’t on the scene. Ali made her bottom lip quiver and lowered her gaze.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Just don’t hurt me.”
Emily laughed. “You’re damn right you’ll do what we want. You all will, or we’ll carve your faces up like that bitch in the video. Now eat something, then we’ll show you where the shower is, and you can start taking turns getting clean. You have to look good for the customers.”
Everyone ate. Despite their hunger and thirst, their actions were mechanical as they placed food in their mouths. The gruesome video was still fresh in their minds and it felt weird to eat with Karen, Emily, and the four guards staring at them.
After eating, they were handed different colored nighties to wear. They were so sheer that they would leave nothing to the imagination.
Karen began walking toward the rear of the basement. “There’s a shower back here by the home gym. Be quick about getting clean so the next girl can use it. After you put on the nightgowns walk back to where the food is. But don’t eat any more of it or you might spill something on yourselves.”
Ali was the sixth one in the shower. She bathed quickly, dried off, then slipped into the red nightie she’d been given. Emily told her that she was going to be called Red Number Two, because one of the other girls also had a red nightie.
Ali stood by the table with the others who had already bathed while waiting for everyone else to finish with the shower. The four guards ogled them and made snide comments to each other. Ali had no doubt that they would be willing to rape them if it were allowed. She remembered Inga’s story and what she’d said about the guards being part of a practice auction. That meant it was likely that they would be given permission to touch them, to touch her, to determine if they would behave when it came time for the bidders to do the same. Ali dreaded that moment and pushed it from her mind. She had a job to do. Somehow, she had to kill the power to the house and grounds. She already knew where the electrical panel was located. On her way to the shower, she had passed a gray door with the word ELECTRICAL stenciled on it in black letters.
Knowing where the electrical panel was and being able to hit the main switch to kill the juice were two different things. There were four guards and two evil women who stood in her way.
Everyone looked up at the basement ceiling as the sound of a helicopter came from overhead. The bidders were arriving. Once they were all inside and the auction was near, Tanner and Taran would make their assault on the house. Ali looked back toward the area where the electrical panel was and wondered how she would ever get to it without being stopped.
16
Attack!
Tanner and Taran watched the helicopter pass overhead as they eased closer to the house by walking across fields that had been harrowed by a tractor in preparation for the planting that was to follow over the coming weeks. The metal bird had been a surprise. Like Ali, they had assumed that the bidders would be driven in.
Taran pointed at the lowering craft and whispered. “It looks like a Sikorsky.”
“I think you’re right. Are you a pilot?”
“Yes. But I have never flown a helicopter of that size.”
“I have, but only recently. And that was a large one we saw. I’d guess that it could transport over ten people.”
“It might have to come and go again,” Taran said. “Between the bidders and their bodyguards, they would not have enough space on board for one trip.”
“Good point. I’ll text Maxwell and let him and Bo know about it. Although, by now, they should be in the area.”
Maxwell and Bo were nearby. They had seen the helicopter but were unaware that it had landed at the house until they received Tanner’s text.
“So much for our plan to take down a tree to block the road,” Bo said.
“Yes. But we have to do something. You’ve got a broken leg and me a broken arm, but I hate sitting here and feeling useless.”
“We’ll still be able to jam the cell phone signals so that no one can call out.”
Maxwell groaned. “It’s not enough, not when the others are risking themselves, especially Ali.”
Bo grabbed a case off the floor of the van. “Do you think Tanner will mind if I use this?”
“A sniper rifle? Do you know how to shoot for distance?”
Bo laughed. “I’m sure I’m not in Tanner or Taran’s league, but if we risk getting closer, I can help out with this.”
“How close?”
“Close enough to be shot at ourselves.”
“I’m willing to risk it.”
The helicopter passed overhead again as it went to pick up the rest of the bidders and their bodyguards.
“When that helicopter returns, Tanner and Taran will begin their assault on the house. We’ll need to move in closer as soon as the shooting starts.”
Bo attached the upper half of the Barrett M82A1 onto its lower half. “I’ll be ready.”
All of the women had showered and dressed in the nightgowns by the time the helicopter returned with the remaining bidders and their accompanying bodyguards.
The women were lined up, then Karen and Emily walked together in front of the
m while looking them over. When Karen spotted a healing burn mark on the arm of one of the women, she pointed at it.
“How did you get that?”
“It happened the other day while I was barbecuing.”
“You clumsy bitch. A mark like that could bring in a lower bid.”
The woman gave Karen an incredulous look. Why would she ever give a damn about how much money they made for selling her into slavery?
“Emily, do you have any makeup that might cover that?”
“Not here.”
“Then never mind. Maybe no one will notice.”
“Or care,” Emily said, while laughing. “The bidders will be more interested in other parts of them besides their arms.”
A door opened above them and determined footfalls could be heard on the stairs. Arthur had come down to inspect the girls.
Karen frowned at him. “What are you doing here? Emily and I have things under control.”
“I’m just making certain. Nancie knows what she’s doing, but you two are new at this and we usually separate them into smaller groups. Has anyone given you trouble?”
“A little mouthing off. After they watched that video of that ginger chick getting her face carved up, they realized that they better not say shit to us.”
Arthur stared at each of the women while nodding in approval. When he was done, he turned to head back upstairs to see to the bidders, but then he paused and turned back around.
When he began pointing at them while counting, Ali knew that he had realized there were too many of them there.
“Thirteen? When I spoke to Regina a few days ago, she said that there were twelve girls to be taken. How did we wind up with one extra?”
“That’s easy. Regina got the count wrong,” Karen said.
“That’s not like her,” Arthur said. “Your sister was always very precise about things.”
Karen counted and arrived at the same number. “Yeah, thirteen, but so what? It just means that we’ll make more money.”
“Maybe Uncle Arthur is thinking about keeping one for himself,” Emily said.
Arthur hadn’t heard her. He was staring at the women. When his eyes met Ali’s, she looked away submissively as the others had. Finally, Arthur shrugged.
“They’re all acceptable and I’m sure they’ll all sell. Be ready to bring them up when I call you. We need to get things underway soon and get this auction behind us. Once that’s done, we can figure out who’s to blame for our troubles.”
A radio squawked on one of the guards. The man answered it and spoke in Spanish. His brow furrowed in concern and he spoke to Arthur in English.
“My commander says that he’s lost touch with the perimeter guards.”
Arthur cursed. “It’s probably nothing, but you men come with me, all but one of you. If there is trouble, you need to deal with it before the bidders find out.”
The man who had answered the radio told one of the other guards to stay behind. Then Arthur gave instructions to Karen and Emily.
“Keep an eye on these girls and make sure they stay in line.”
“That’s what we’ve been doing, Arthur. But thanks for stating the obvious,” Karen said.
Ali was glad to hear that they had lost contact with the perimeter guards. It meant that Tanner and Taran had already begun their assault on the house. Now it was her turn to make their job easier. With only one guard left to stop her, Ali felt good about her odds at succeeding. But it wasn’t going to happen unless she took action and put herself at risk. When she was sure that Arthur and the guards had made their exit from the basement, Ali stepped forward and spoke to Karen.
“Give me something to wear besides this damn negligee. It’s cold down here in this basement.”
Karen tilted her head back. “Excuse me. Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
Ali looked her up and down. “I’m looking at a sick bitch who betrays her own kind. How would you like to be kidnapped and sold? Oh, but that would never happen, right? You’re too fat to qualify.”
Emily stifled a laugh, while Karen’s face turned scarlet. She advanced on Ali, but then she paused and spoke to the guard.
“Let me have that baton on your belt.”
The man slipped the baton out of the leather loop that held it and passed it to Karen. Karen gave her wrist a hard flick and the baton extended to its full length of over two feet long. At the tip of it was a solid metal ball.
“Now I want you to grab this bitch and hold her for me. I’m gonna fuck her up good.”
“You can’t, Karen,” Emily said. “If she’s marked up and bloody, we’ll never sell her.”
“Arthur said we had one more than we should, right? So, I’ll just be fixing that problem.”
The guard headed toward Ali as Karen practiced swinging the baton.
The perimeter guards were down. Tanner had come across one about a thousand feet from the rear of the house. Instead of taking the risk of using the sound suppressed rifle, Tanner moved ahead of the man’s projected path and waited for him behind a tree. As the guard passed his position, he eased out of his hiding place and crept up behind him. He jerked the guard’s head back by grabbing his hair. At the same moment, he slid a blade across his throat.
Tanner moved away from him moments later, leaving him to bleed out beside a tree. Moving on, he saw a second guard walking in his direction. The man was a glowing white figure thanks to the night vision goggles he wore.
A second figure appeared as if rising up from the ground the man had just walked near. It was Taran. He used his own knife on the guard and dispatched him with an efficiency of movement that was so smooth it was balletic. Taran had been trained by a true ninja, someone who was a master of the surprise attack. Taran had gained the nickname, the Shadow, Tanner thought it was fitting.
As Tanner came even with him, Taran reported that he had killed two guards. They were headed closer to the house when a radio squawked behind them. Someone was trying to make contact with the guards in Spanish.
“When no one answers, they’ll know that there’s trouble. We just lost the element of surprise,” Tanner said.
Taran smiled. “Ali may get it back for us.”
Ali pretended to cower as the guard approached. In reality, she was turning her body sideways in preparation of launching a kick. As the guard reached out a hand to take her by the arm, she slammed a foot into his throat. The man made a choking sound and staggered back a step. Ali grabbed the arm that was still outstretched with both of her hands and flipped him over her hip.
The guard’s head struck the floor hard, and he lay there stunned. Before he could react, Ali stamped a foot down on his throat with as much force as she could. It crushed the guard’s windpipe and left him struggling for breath. It was a death blow. Ali had never killed before but was not holding back. There was too much at stake and she couldn’t risk the guard recovering from a beating and preventing her from doing her job. She might feel guilt later for ending a life; however, she doubted it. The man was helping those who were running a sex slave ring. Death was no less than he deserved.
Karen had watched Ali’s attack of the guard with disbelieving eyes. By the time she recovered from her amazement at what was happening, Ali had claimed the guard’s gun and was pointing it at her.
“Drop that baton.”
Karen shook her head. “We have other guards. There’s a shitload of them. You won’t escape no matter what you do.”
“One thing I’ll do is to shoot you in the face if you don’t drop that baton—do it now.”
Karen hesitated, looked at the gun, then released the baton. As that was happening, Emily took off for the stairs.
Ali pointed at Emily. “Someone stop her!”
Four of the other women went after Emily. She was three steps from reaching the basement door when they caught her and dragged her back down along the stone steps. It left Emily bleeding from several scrapes.
“I think he’s dead,�
� said one of the other women. She had been watching the guard struggle to take a breath through his damaged throat. His lungs had run out of air and he lay still.
“Now you’re all really in trouble,” Emily said. “I’m going to tell my uncle to cut up all of your faces.”
“Shut up, bitch!” Those words came from one of the women Emily had set up, Cara. Cara had accompanied the words with a kick to Emily’s head.
Someone else sent a kick into Emily’s midsection, then a fist hit her in the face. When two other women moved in on Karen and began pulling her hair and scratching her face, Ali moved away and headed toward the door marked ELECTRICAL.
The sounds coming from behind her were animalistic as the abducted women took out their rage on Emily and Karen.
Ali ripped open the door of the shallow closet that housed the electrical panel. After locating the switch marked MAIN, she flipped it to the off position and the basement was plunged into darkness.
She had done it. She had cut the power to the house and the exterior lights as she told Tanner she would do. With the cutting-edge night vision equipment Tanner and Taran wore, they would now have an advantage.
Ali’s delight at having accomplished her goal lasted only six seconds. That was how long it took for the propane generator on the property to kick in and restore power.
17
Freedom!
Tanner and Taran had moved closer to the house. Six guards had been sent out to determine what had happened to the three perimeter guards and to eliminate any threats. Tanner had been taking a bead on one of the men who was standing on the porch when the exterior lights went out. The lack of light not only indicated that Ali had fulfilled her mission; it also signified that she was all right.
Sins of the Father and Mother (A Tanner Novel Book 42) Page 14