by H. Y. Hanna
Carefully, Leah crawled on her stomach away from the dog enclosure, until she was a good distance away. Then, giving it a wide berth, she circled around it, to the back. There was another building there, with bright lights showing through the gap in the windows, where the blinds didn’t quite meet. Leah moved stealthily towards the nearest window. She paused to listen for sounds from inside the building, but could hear nothing.
The windows had thick glass, she realised—unlike most of the dwellings in the retreat. In fact, now that she was closer, she could see that although the outside of this building had been left to look like a traditional kampong house, it was modernised and reinforced. The windows were sealed and the door looked solid, unlike most of the huts which were loosely built, with many gaps for ventilation.
What was inside that they had to keep it sealed up?
Leah stretched on tiptoe and peered in through the window, lining her eyes up with the gap in the blinds. For a moment, the brightness in the room blinded her and it took her a second to work out what she was seeing. Her mouth opened slightly in surprise. It was as if she was looking into a treatment room at a modern hospital, with its white clinical walls, bright fluorescent lights, and gleaming glass and metal fixtures.
There was a group of people on the right side of the room, in pale green scrubs, masked like surgeons. They seemed to be standing around a bed and, as they moved, Leah caught a glimpse of a woman lying on the bed, covered in a green sheets, with an oxygen mask strapped to her face. Her chest was rising and falling peacefully although her eyes seemed to be slightly open, staring blankly at the ceiling. A thin tube ran from her arm to an intravenous drip, whilst a finger probe connected her to a monitor which showed a pulse wave and large red numbers.
The gowned figures moved purposefully around the prone woman and Leah saw one of them adjust a microscope next to the bed. A movement on the opposite side of the room made Leah jerk her head around. She realised that the other side of the room was set up like a laboratory. Another gowned, masked figure was standing at one of the counters, placing some glass vials into a large insulated container. Clouds of white vapour rose from the opened container as the person used thick gloves to carefully lower the glass vials inside.
What the hell was going on here?
Leah shifted her position, trying to get a better look. But as she stretched up even higher, she heard a sudden volley of barking behind her again. Shit. She dropped down and hunched in the undergrowth. She didn’t think the dogs were barking at her—she was too far away from their enclosure now, perhaps something else had disturbed them—but the noise could bring someone out to investigate or at least to admonish them again and she didn’t want to be found peering in through the window.
No sooner had she had the thought than she heard the sound of a door opening and voices. But not from the hut that she was next to. They came from another dwelling that Leah hadn’t even noticed, a few metres away, deeper into the undergrowth. She craned her neck to see. It was heavily screened by trees and bushes, but it looked like a smaller version of the dormitory. A woman was standing in the doorway and Leah could just make out a frown on her face. The woman called out something sharply to the dogs; then, as the barking continued, she came down the steps and started walking towards the enclosure.
She would pass right by Leah. Frantically, Leah looked around for somewhere to hide. There were some denser bushes a few feet away from her, but to reach there, she would have to dart across the open space right in front of the woman’s path. The movement was bound to be seen. Leah hesitated. It was too risky. But where else could she hide? She turned back towards the hut she was next to and saw the only other solution. Underneath, in the space between the stilts. Leah balked a bit, thinking of spiders and other bugs, but she could hear the woman approaching. There was no time to think of something else.
Leah ducked and crawled into the space underneath the hut, grimacing as she felt cobwebs brush against her face. There was enough space that she could crouch fairly upright. At least she didn’t have to go down on her belly. A few seconds later, the woman walked past. Leah could see her feet and ankles clearly. They went towards the enclosure and she heard the woman talking to the dogs. The barking stopped. Then a few minutes later, the feet reappeared and retraced their steps back to the other hut.
When Leah heard the thud of the other door closing, she carefully crawled out from the space between the stilts. Brushing herself off, she tried not to think about any spiders which might be in her hair or crawling into the collar of her sarong kebaya. Instead, she made her way quickly to the other hut. Hugging the shadows, she crept around the side of the building until she found a window and once more peered in through a gap in the blinds.
This room was not too brightly lit—in fact, the only lighting seemed to come from soft lamps next to each bed. It was a sort of dormitory although a much nicer version than the main one Leah slept in. There were only five beds in here and they looked to be made up with plump pillows and soft sheets. One of the beds was empty, but the other four had young women lazing on them, wearing nothing but hospital gowns. They were not connected to drips or monitors, though, and mostly just seemed to be relaxing.
The woman that Leah had seen come out to admonish the dogs was moving between the beds, offering a tray of juice. The girls all reached out to take the drinks, but there was something odd about their movements. Slow and mechanical, they seemed to be almost in a daze. Leah watched as the last girl finished the juice and lay back against the pillows, the light from the lamp illuminating her features and gleaming on her long, black hair.
Leah caught her breath.
It was Angela.
CHAPTER 20
Toran eased back the throttle on the speedboat and coasted around the side of the island. He couldn’t make out any signs of the retreat, but just because he couldn’t see Sanctum Bona Dea, didn’t mean that they couldn’t see him. From the satellite imagery, he was fairly confident that the abandoned jetty was a safe distance from the retreat buildings, but he was taking no chances.
He had come out mid-afternoon and purposefully spent a lot of time plying up and down the waters around Pulau Ubin and the smaller retreat island, doing a series of showy spins and turns and generally acting like a typical rich tourist playing around on a fast boat. He knew that there was little chance of him approaching the retreat island unnoticed so the best he could do was desensitise them to his presence. Hopefully by now, they would have simply written him off as another arrogant nuisance and, if they did see him approach the abandoned jetty, would put it down to idle curiosity.
Toran let the boat drift close to the sagging structure and killed the engine, throwing a bowline around one of the rotting stumps on the jetty to secure the boat in place. Then he set up a few fishing rods he had brought, made a great show of opening a can of beer from a cooler, and sat back to wait for Leah. His casual stance, with his feet propped up against the gunwale and his broad shoulders relaxed against the transom, belied the tension in his gut. His eyes scanned the mangroves constantly.
Would she come?
Twenty minutes later, just as he was beginning to wonder if he should try circling the island in the boat again, Toran saw something through the mangrove trees. The sun was already low on the horizon and it was hard to be sure in the fading light, but he thought he saw something. A flash of pale purple. Conscious of eyes that might be watching, Toran stood up slowly and stretched, then fished the cooler out of the bottom of the boat, grabbed a blanket, and hopped lightly onto the jetty. The wood creaked beneath his weight and he wondered for a moment if it would hold, but it seemed that the structure was still solid enough.
Moving with casual ease, Toran walked down the jetty which led into the mangroves. He stepped off the rickety structure at last onto solid land. Mangrove roots swarmed all around him and water lapped at the edges, but the earth here seemed relatively dry. He could see that it was the start of a path which led from the mangr
ove forest deeper into the undergrowth. He was about to head down the path when a rustle brought him sharply around.
Leah.
The tension drained from his body. Until that moment, he hadn’t been able to quell the fear that he would never see her again. She was making her way towards him, coming through the mangroves at the water’s edge, splashing and stumbling her way across the roots. She was wearing some kind of traditional sarong outfit that was wet and plastered to her body and her hair was caught up in a bun, with damp tendrils framing her face. She was frowning, concentrating on where she was going, but when she looked up and saw him, her eyes lit up. Toran felt something tighten inside him as he saw her smile. No other woman ever affected him like Leah. He dropped the cooler and blanket and stepped forwards, pulling her into his arms as she reached him.
“Toran…”
For a moment, all Toran could do was hold her and reassure himself that she was all right. He breathed in the faint apple scent of her hair, treasuring the feel of her soft body against his, the weight of her arms around his neck.
“God, I’ve missed you.” He captured her lips in a long, hard kiss that left them both breathless. He stared into her dark blue eyes, noting the shadows underneath. She looked tired and strained—and yet so heartbreakingly beautiful. “What’s been going on, Leah? I haven’t heard from you since that ridiculous message about yoga.”
“They took my phone away from me,” said Leah, slowly easing herself away from him. “I couldn’t get any messages to you. I wasn’t even sure I could make it out today. Members can’t leave the retreat by themselves without a good reason and there’s barbed wire around the compound. The only way I could get past the fence was by going around it, down at the waterfront—which meant wading through the mangroves. Ugh.” She shuddered. “I fell in up to my chest twice in places where the water was a lot deeper than I thought and once I nearly grabbed a snake when I thought it was a tree branch.”
“What—?”
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” said Leah. “But listen, Toran, I haven’t got much time—I have to get back before they miss me—but I’m worried about what’s going on at Sanctum Bona Dea. There’s something really off. It’s not just the cult thing—although I think you may be right about that. But I think there’s something even more sinister going on.”
Toran listened grimly as she described a hidden dormitory with strangely passive women and a micro hospital set-up with masked figures in scrubs performing a procedure.
“And there was someone on the other side of the room transferring glass vials into an insulated container. It looked like dry ice, from all the white smoke that was coming out of the container, so I’m guessing that they were freezing the stuff in the tubes.” Leah looked at him curiously. “You don’t seem that surprised by all this?”
“I had some suspicions,” Toran admitted. “Hearing what you just described confirms them. Did you see the women on the beds in the other hut being injected with anything? Especially on their abdomen?”
“No,” said Leah, frowning. “Although they looked drugged up to me. They were moving a bit weird.”
“Midazolam,” muttered Toran, thinking to himself. “Probably to keep them docile and cooperative, and their memories hazy afterwards… But that would normally be into a vein in the arm. The needle marks on the abdomen must be the hormone injections…”
“Toran, what are you talking about?” Leah looked at him in bewilderment. “Do you know what they’re doing to those women?”
Toran gave a sharp nod. “I don’t know for sure, but I can make a pretty good guess. I’ve been doing some investigating of my own. Talking to the parents of the girl whose body was found, and also to another girl who used to be at the retreat and escaped.” Quickly, he recounted what Marlene had told him.
“Yes,” said Leah eagerly. “Fay—one of the girls in the retreat—talked about Ovum Messis too. She said it’s some kind of sacred rite that certain members are chosen to perform for the goddess. They get rewarded with special privileges when they do, like nicer food. Everyone seems to be desperate to be chosen. But I couldn’t really figure out what Ovum Messis involved—I thought it was just some more stupid pagan mumbo-jumbo that Sanctum Bona Dea made up. ”
Toran shook his head. “It might be—but I think it might also be a front for something a lot darker. I kept thinking about those words. Ovum Messis. And Donum Vitae. ‘Ovum’ means ‘egg’ and ‘messis’ means ‘harvest’ in Latin. And ‘donum vitae’ translates as the ‘gift of life’.”
Leah’s eyes rounded as she caught on to what he was saying. “You mean, those girls…”
“I think they’re victims of an illegal trade in human donor eggs,” said Toran grimly. “They are having their eggs harvested from them—whether willingly or not—and then sold on the black market.” He ran a distracted hand through his hair. “I did some further research after I got home from that interview. The market for human ova is enormous, and demand only keeps increasing with women putting off having children until they’re older and many gay couples now wanting a child. It’s a multi-million dollar industry. Eggs from well-educated, attractive young women of certain ethnicities can fetch huge prices.”
“That must be why they were asking all those weird questions in the application form and the interview!” cried Leah. “I thought it was really strange—like what my degree was and if my eye colour was natural and even things like if my period was regular. Plus they took a blood sample and all sorts of measurements.”
“Those things give an indicator of your fertility,” said Toran. “They must use the so-called ‘exclusive’ interview process to screen potential recruits to the retreat—they only take those who may be able to provide eggs that would fetch a good price on the black market. All human eggs aren’t equal, sadly. Eggs from a blonde, blue-eyed, Ivy League college graduate in the States, for example, could be worth fifty thousand dollars or more per cycle.”
“Fifty thousand dollars?” Leah stared at him.
Toran nodded. “Especially as there’s a shortage of egg donors in a lot of countries. There’s huge demand for Asian women, for example, because more and more Asian couples in places like the States need fertility treatment and they’re are desperate for a baby that looks like them. But there aren’t usually many Asian donors because it’s culturally much less accepted. Also, most Asian women living there come from higher socio-economic groups and so don’t need to sell their eggs for money.” He looked back through the mangroves in the direction of Sanctum Bona Dea. “I would imagine there is a good gap in the market that could be filled by an enterprising—and unethical—gynaecologist.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Leah with a frown.
“The Matronae’s real name is Tanya Silver,” Toran explained. “She used to be a gynaecologist in the States. She was struck off for malpractice. It looks like she’s using her skills now in a different arena.”
“And fooling vulnerable young women!” said Leah indignantly. “Those girls aren’t donating their eggs willingly, I’m sure! They’re drugged up and pumped full of hormones while they believe they’re serving the goddess Bona Dea in some ridiculous fake rite. They even talk about it being a great honour to be selected,” she said in disgust.
“Cult indoctrination can be a powerful thing,” said Toran. “There are cults where followers have willingly followed their leaders to mass suicide. This is nothing compared to that.”
“We need to get some evidence of this, then we can go to the authorities—get them to shut this place down and put that Matronae woman in jail!” Leah held out her hand to him. “You’ve got your phone, right? Give it to me, then I can get some photographs. My phone’s been confiscated. I can email the pictures straight to you as soon as I get them, then they’ll be safe.”
Toran stiffened. “You’re not going back in there.”
“I have to! Otherwise it will just be our word against hers. I need to get some hard evidence. Ma
ybe if I can even video them doing the procedure—”
Toran shook his head impatiently. Fear for Leah made his voice sharp. “Don’t be stupid! What do you think your chances are of sneaking around undetected again? It’s too dangerous. Two girls have already been killed, Leah—and that’s not even for trying to expose the operation. Tanya Silver is not going to let anybody jeopardise her own personal golden egg. Don’t underestimate her or what she might do.” He grabbed hold of her hand. “Come back with me to Singapore now. We’ll go to the police and tell them the whole story. They’ll investigate her and—”
Leah pulled her hand out of his grasp. “And what if she covers it up? What if she hurts more girls to silence them? Besides, I can’t leave now. Angela is one of those girls.”
Toran paused in the act of arguing. “What?”
“Yes, I found Angela,” Leah said. “She’s one of the girls in the hidden dormitory. She’s probably due to have the procedure any day.”
“Angela has polycystic ovaries,” Toran said urgently. “She can’t undergo the procedure. She’s a huge risk for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome—it could lead to kidney failure, blood clots, rupture of the ovaries… It could kill her.”
Leah stared at him. “Then I have to get her out. We can’t do anything about Sanctum Bona Dea until I have Angela safely out and in hospital. Can you come back? Tomorrow night. Same time, just around sunset. It’s the busiest time in the retreat and the easiest for me to slip away. Can you meet us here tomorrow night?”
Toran shook his head impatiently. “Leah—”
“Please, Toran, you have to trust me! It’ll be fine. Nobody suspects me. I wouldn’t suggest it if I thought it was really dangerous. It’s not like I’m going into a war zone with weapons shooting or something.” Leah gave him an ironic smile. “Whatever they’re doing, they’re still just a bunch of women. It’s only because the other members are so brainwashed that they’re vulnerable. But I’m aware and on my guard so it’s different. And this is the only way to make sure Angela is safe, quickly. It’s only another twenty-four hours. If you went back and got the police now, it’ll probably take you twenty-four hours just to convince them to believe you and get them to organise some kind of raid.”
