by Tony Lavely
“Better safe…” deVeel muttered. The others nodded their agreement.
The moon had disappeared. Unfortunately, it was near full; the clouds racing across the sky made it difficult to predict what the light would be at any given moment. They left the trattoria and boarded the vehicles. Everyone settled themselves while Miguel used his phone to relay the plan to his compatriots.
DeVeel’s watch beeped; Jamse gave a little nod and the two cars drove through the small gate marking the entrance to the enclave. Susan followed close behind deVeel. Inside the gate, they drove along streets lined with olive trees which obscured the view behind them. With Miguel’s directions, deVeel followed the winding road over the top of the small hill, down and then up the side of the next. This was a gently sloping rise, which nonetheless came to the highest promontory in the area. Jamse wasn’t surprised that Werner had chosen this villa for his retreat.
At Miguel’s nod, deVeel pulled into a driveway, almost a kilometer past Werner’s villa.
“And here we wait. Your guys won’t get too anxious, will they?”
Miguel gave a quick nod of confidence, and deVeel continued, “And what about Werner?”
“On the street, I believe that is his car approaching.”
The group fell silent as a large car did indeed pass and proceed to the drive Miguel had indicated. They followed its progress intermittently through the trees, lights appearing and disappearing as the car approached the villa.
One of Miguel’s men reported that a tall man left the car to enter the building. Soon after, Miguel used his phone, and deVeel guided the car back to the road, then slowly toward the villa.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Luxury
THE CAR STOPPED AND THEIR abductors rousted the girls to hustle them aboard a small jet plane. The hatch slammed shut and Beckie heard the engines start.
“Beckie, if I felt good enough, I’d be scared, I think.”
“I know. Wha’dya remember?”
“Nothing. The door opened and these guys came in, and here we are.”
“Yeah. Well, I guess this is what we came for.”
“Jeeze, I certainly hope so! I couldn’t stand it if someone else grabbed us.”
“Really! After all this,” Beckie agreed. Her other thoughts were cut off by the takeoff.
After the plane eased into level flight, an attractive, blonde woman entered from the forward cabin. She considered both girls, cowering under their blankets.
“Well, we’ll soon be there, ladies. I wouldn’t have thought you were to his taste, but one never knows.”
“Huh? And who the fuck are you, anyway?” Beckie responded, in shock as much as anything.
The woman stepped up to slap Beckie, hard. “We like our girls not to use that word. Verstände?” Beckie nodded slowly. “You will do well to remember it. Both of you.
“You look older than I expected, hence my surprise. You may call me Cäcilie, should the need arise.” Her attitude intimated that she felt that unlikely.
“Uh-huh.”
“I do hope you will be better spoken than that,” Cäcilie continued.
“Well, if you treated us better, we might,” Beckie retorted, still rubbing her cheek.
“Get up; I must check you over.”
The girls stood, allowing the woman to examine them. After a hurried but pretty through appraisal, she left with a wave of dismissal; the girls dropped wearily back to their seats.
Tired as she was, Beckie couldn’t sleep. She saw Melissa staring at her. “What’s gonna happen?”
“I sure don’t know, Lis.”
There was a long moment of silence as the plane jounced in a bit of rough air. “Shit. We did put a lot of faith in him.” At Beckie’s look, she said, “Mr. Jamse.”
“Yeah. Now it’s up to him.” Another moment of silence passed, then Beckie turned, whispering in Melissa’s ear, “Probably we shouldn’t talk about him, or stuff like that. They might be, you know, listening, somehow.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Silence filled the cabin.
The plane landed smoothly, hardly signaling the descent to worry Beckie until she felt the tarmac under the wheels. Once it taxied to the parking area, the woman reappeared.
“Come along, ladies.”
“I feel like I’ve done all this before,” Beckie said under her breath.
Melissa responded with a tight smile, and a firm grip on her hand.
They held the blankets tightly as the woman led them through a light drizzle to a limousine parked near the aircraft. She opened the door and ushered them into the curtained interior, then left to speak with the uniformed officer approaching. A few words and the officer waved her back to the car, and allowed the driver to proceed toward the gate. Swiftly the driver left the confines of the airfield, following the paved roads through… between the curtains and the dark of night, Beckie couldn’t see what they traveled through. Leaving the airport, a large green sign had flashed overhead, but in the splash of the streetlights, she only saw a partial word: AUTO. “Big help that is,” she muttered too softly for even Melissa to hear.
In the back, Beckie looked about, but the curtains blocked the view of any towns through which the car passed and the woman’s presence kept the girls from attempting to open them.
“Not that it’d do any good,” Melissa muttered, nodding toward their guard.
“Really. Do you even know where we are?”
“No idea. I didn’t see anything when we landed.”
“And I couldn’t see anything coming out of the airport, either.” Beckie paused a second. “I’m really getting a complex about being thrown into cars and taken for a ride on an airplane.”
“I can believe it. But remember you said…” Melissa nodded, just enough for Beckie to notice, toward the woman in the jump seat.
“Right.” Beckie sat up and addressed the woman. “Can you tell us what’s going on? Why you’ve brought us here? And where are we, anyway?”
She looked at the girls for a moment. “You really should know the first, judging from where Jack found you. You don’t mean to say you were dancing nude without knowing you were doing it?” Beckie expected Melissa’s expression to be as confused as hers; the woman continued anyway. “My boss likes girls, and one of the places he finds them is clubs like the one you two were dancing at.” She paused a second. “You were dancing?” At their nods, she went on, “Once he finds a girl, he has her brought here, to his place. In your case, he wants both of you; I guess your act got to him.”
“And what happens now?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“What he wants, and what else he’s doing. But don’t play so naïve that you don’t know why he’s brought you here.” She turned away slightly, sufficient to show her disbelief.
The drive lasted less than forty minutes. Beckie sat in the spacious back seat, quiet, trying not to think what was going to happen once they arrived at ‘his place.’ Especially if Jamse didn’t show up as promised.
She came fully alert as the car turned sharply, then continued along a wide, tree lined drive. She looked through the windshield at the well-lit building becoming visible through the trees. “Well, Lissa, looks like the end of the road up there.”
“Yeah.”
The rain picked up just as the car stopped at the side door. A small group of people were gathered outside, awaiting their arrival. No one spoke as the girls stepped out of the car, clutching their blankets for protection against both the weather and others’ eyes.
A tall man came through the door, holding an umbrella for them before they stood outside the car. By keeping the umbrella moving, he led them to the door, then left them in the care of a small woman who held them still while the man returned to the car to shield their escort.
Beckie stood in the doorway allowing the foreign words to flow by. Without comprehension, she was surprised when the tall man turned to Melissa and her. “Venuto con me per f
avore.” At her look of confusion, he retrenched, then repeated his request in perfect, if accented, English, “Please come with me.” They followed him, up three flights of stairs.
At the top, he opened a door several doors from the stairwell. Beckie led as the girls went slowly into the room.
“You will be safe here,” the man said in his perfect English. “There is the bathroom,” he continued as he pointed through the door that they could see off to the side, “and the beds are here. The closet contains clothes that will fit you. Please relax and rest.” He turned and closed the door. She heard the lock go home.
“Yeah,” Melissa said with the sneer Beckie felt. “Relax and get ready to be raped by whoever it is that’s brought us here.”
Beckie shivered at the thought. “Just let’s go and get a shower, Lissa.” Beckie made a series of gestures, trying to indicate that the room was probably bugged. Finally, Melissa nodded acknowledgement and allowed Beckie to chivvy her along.
Beckie stopped short in the doorway, stunned. Maybe Melissa’s seen something like this. After a glance at her friend, guess not. The room had been done in black marble, shot through with white veins, from floor to ceiling. A matching toilet and bidet were placed off to the side in their own space behind a door. Most of the room was the shower; a sunken tub filled the side opposite the toilet. There was no need to restrict bathing to the tub, however. Gold plated shower nozzles sprang from all the walls, and bars from which water might spray were mounted along the far wall. Beckie ducked to avoid one of three hand-held nozzles hanging from its hose. There were three valves to control the system.
Melissa shook her head as she stepped over and turned one of the valves, just enough to determine the result. Water flowed from the bars, from the wall mounted heads and one of the hand-held sprays. “Whoa,” she whispered.
“Yeah. Turn all this on and no one’ll be able to hear anything.”
“Really,” Melissa agreed.
Beckie stepped out of her panties and turned on one of the controls to observe the effect. When Melissa did the same, a surprise rain from the ceiling soaked their hair while the wall sprays seemed to be intentionally aimed at tender portions of their anatomies. However, the girls controlled the system, sufficient to their needs, and talked while washing.
“We’ve got to keep our underwear close to us,” Beckie reminded Melissa.
“Yeah, but I’d like to get clean ones on, too.”
“Really. Maybe we can wash them.”
“Will that do anything to the, you know?” Melissa looked around again.
“I don’t know. I guess we’d better hope he gets here soon.”
“You think he’s alright?” Melissa finally voiced Beckie’s concern.
“I don’t know. He sure didn’t look very good.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yeah, just as those guys came though the door, I could see him lying in the hall.”
“What happened to him? I didn’t hear anything.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything either.”
“Damn.” Melissa took a deep breath. “I didn’t know he was… You think he was dead?” she finally said, so quietly that had Beckie’s ear not been next to her lips, she never would have heard.
“Hope not.” There was a long silence. “But there’s still deVeel and the others.”
“Yeah.”
Beckie hugged Melissa close for a second, hoping beyond hope that Jamse was okay.
Showers completed, they retrieved their underclothes and returned to the bedchamber. Beckie went to the closet, opened the door and looked through the clothes. Melissa turned to the dressers, opening and closing drawers.
“Well, if we want clean pants, here they are.” She held up a double handful of flimsy, lacy undergarments for Beckie to see.
“I think I’ll keep the ones I’ve got. But look at these.” She held out clothes for Melissa’s inspection. Skirts, shirts, dresses, jumpers, jeans, shorts, nightgowns. They each chose a nightgown and turned to the beds. In a few minutes, lack of knowledge added to the built-up tension had them sleeping fitfully.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Werner arrives
“ARE THEY HERE?” ADOLF WERNER asked.
“The two Jack picked up last night are upstairs,” Cäcilie said. “Monitor says they are asleep. And I understand that Jean-Luc brought the one Jack found last week.”
“Have any been prepared?”
“Not yet. We were unsure as to your arrival time until an hour ago and they were tired. I judged that rest would be better.”
“Very well.” He paused, thinking. “I would like the pair of girls to be prepared. They already have a buyer. Have Wilem photo them as soon as they are ready, then bring them along to me.”
Cäcilie nodded and left to alert the staff.
Light flooded Beckie and Melissa’s room; Beckie only had time to roll over before she felt a hand on her shoulder, urging her to rise.
“Come. We go.”
“Huh?”
“Wa?”
“We must go,” the woman repeated. Through sleep-clouded eyes, Beckie saw three women in the room. One took her arm as the second clutched Melissa. Unlike the first two, the third woman wore a flight jacket with buckles and zippers. It was she who had been speaking, directing the activities. No matter what I thought, Beckie mused sleepily, I’d never have expected a coat like that!
While she didn’t feel much like acquiescing, Beckie’s cheek reminded her of Cäcilie’s temper. She hoped that discretion might be more intelligent than fighting. A gesture kept Melissa subdued.
The girls were shepherded out into the hall, down one flight of stairs and along to another doorway. Opening it, the woman ushered them in. Beckie recognized a larger version of the bathroom in their room above, except that the marble in this room was an emerald green with black and white veining. Three tables had been added at the side; their heads to the wall. The toilet and bidet were tucked into an alcove with a privacy door. The far end was again a shower room, and the sunken tub, even larger than the one upstairs, was adjacent to the tables.
The women led the girls to the tables and made it clear that they should remove not only the nightgowns but their underwear as well. Beckie did so and watched Melissa as she sat on the closest table. Melissa returned her stare as the women rubbed lotion over their backs.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Inside the Mansion
IN THE CORNER OF THE backseat, Mike listened to Miguel speaking into the radio as deVeel drove toward the driveway’s entrance.
“Stiamo avvicinando alla fine della strada,” he said. “Dicami quando siete pronto.” While Miguel waited for a response, Freddie, squeezed in next to Mike, translated: “Coming up to the end of the road; holler when you’re ready.” Miguel’s “Okay! Vada!” overlapped his final words.
DeVeel accelerated into the narrow road to the villa, glancing once in the mirror to insure that Susan was close behind. In tandem, the vehicles proceeded along the drive. Mike suspected he was alone in admiring the well-kept grounds; everyone else kept looking for Miguel’s men. As the car passed the half-way point, Mike saw lights appearing in front of the villa, bright, sharply focused.
“Well, I’d take that to mean they’re there,” deVeel said to no one in particular. “Were they supposed to show that much?” Mike watched him glancing at the lights as he guided the car. The car rounded the small copse of trees marking the entry to the parking area, but deVeel was unable to avoid the armed man running across the mouth of the drive. The impact rolled the man over the hood of the car. “Oops.” Mike looked out the back window to see the man lying unmoving, just out of Susan’s path as she followed deVeel into the large area covered with crushed stone.
Miguel responded to an unspoken question, “He was not one of ours.”
“Good. Secure him, then follow us.” Miguel nodded and left the car. The others hastened to the side door of the villa where Susan and her crew jo
ined them.
Standing in the light rain, Jamse issued instructions. “Allow Miguel’s men to engage the guards, or anyone we discover other than the girls. Once we enter, Miguel’s men will cover the ground floor; they have red armbands, luminescent in the viewers.”
Jamse gave a quick look around. “Follow me, up the stairs. We will work from the top down. Ms Jinet, please stay quick to hand; we may require your feminine delicacy once the girls have been found.” Mike almost laughed as he watched Susan toss a Škorpion machine pistol lightly from one hand to the other; she had an immense grin. “That was not exactly the meaning I intended. I would ask all of you to refrain from gunplay.”
“I understand,” Susan replied, little of the gaiety missing from her voice. “I was only making light before the dark takes over completely. Sorry.” She didn’t sound at all repentant.
“I also understand, Susan.” Jamse smiled. “Miguel’s men have kept the enemy away; let us not forfeit the advantage.”
DeVeel opened the door. Jamse touched Miguel as he rejoined the group, indicating that he should join the men covering the ground floor.
The hallway was empty, but noises from the front of the building indicated that the residents might soon be seeking either a path out of harm’s way, or a way to outflank the attackers. Jamse rushed to the staircase, taking the steps two at a time while making no noise that Mike could hear.
Mike was surprised and pleased that since leaving the airport, Jamse had taken no further notice of him. If he had, Mike expected he’d have been left sitting in the car until the action was complete. He had no idea what he could do to assist, beyond feeling certain that Bruce Willis’ movies undoubtedly portrayed this life as more successful than he should expect. He stayed close to deVeel, keeping out of the way of the rest of the team. DeVeel stopped at the first landing; Mike flinched when Susan patted his cheek as she went by, but he returned a full smile. DeVeel cast about, as if trying to find some familiar, but now missing, place or thing.
