by A P Bateman
Caroline was an experienced agent with MI5. She had served in the army’s 14 Intelligence Company, and she had been deployed to Afghanistan. She had seen many terrible things, witnessed the death of comrades, seen the destruction war had caused the beleaguered Afghan people. She had even been present when her former fiancé had been killed, along with many other security personnel, by a suicide bomber. But nothing had prepared her for the inhumanity, the sheer callousness of what she had seen today. Young women treated like farm animals. Herded, sorted and farmed out to where they were needed most. The sex-trade was abominable, but the baby farming was on another level. Life created as a commodity. The bodies of unwilling women used and abused as part of the process. And what of the women when they were of no further use? She thought of The Town, a thriller she had once read on holiday. A disused mine outside a remote, and controlled mountain town in Oregon, the sale of body parts from missing people. The waifs and strays, the lost and unmissed. She shuddered at the thought of the clinical barbarity. She imagined a process down the line. Maximum yield from a person, dehumanised and turned into nothing more than a product.
She rolled onto her side, and for the second time in as many minutes, started to cry again. Not entirely for what would become of her, but for those young women and the babies that were being created down in that building of depravity. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, sniffed and curled into a ball. She felt like she had when she was a teenager and had unexpectantly lost her pony to colic. Vulnerable, as if there would never be any fun or love in the world again. Like she was not only mourning the loss of her beloved pet, her friend, but the loss of all the wonderful years she had had to date. It had severed a link to her childhood. And today, down in that place, a link had been severed between her and all the good in the world. She would never look at life the same way again. Like a dark, low cloud that enveloped everything around her, pushing heavily downwards until there was no place else to go and she was swallowed in despair.
A footstep on the landing made her freeze. She listened for another step, realised she had stopped breathing. She heard another step, then another. They were different to before, quieter, but in that certain way that told her the person was trying to be quiet. She wiped her eyes again, swung her legs over the side of the bed. She still had fight left in her. She thought of Alex, what he would be feeling after so long not knowing of her fate. She wanted to see him again, wanted to finish their plans of buying a new house together - a fresh start. Wanted to finally see the man wearing a suit for their wedding day. She fished out the wingnut from her bra, placed it between her knuckles, realising the dark cloud had gone. She had reached a point Alex had once described to her. Rock bottom. At rock bottom, live or die was not even a choice.
But fight was.
Fight decided over live or die. Doing nothing didn’t give you that choice. There was no gain from doing nothing. And the wonderful thing, in that fleeting moment, was that fear was nowhere in the equation.
Fight was all there was.
The deadbolt slid back, the key turned in the lock. Caroline reached the dressing table, pulled the leg she had undone away. The dresser simply rested back against the wall. Caroline felt the heft of it, positioned the bolt so she could swing it into whoever was going to come through the door. She let it rest on the floor, out of view behind her leg. Waited.
The door eased inwards. There was no light on the landing. She could see a figure, not The Beast, slightly built.
“It’s me… Michael,” he said. “Come with me, I am getting you out…”
Caroline gripped the table leg. She hesitated, her mind spinning, her adrenalin subsiding. “Really?” she asked.
Michael stepped inside, eased the door closed behind him. “We don’t have long,” he said, and threw a pair of shoes on the bed. Caroline could just about see enough through the gloom to make out a pair of ankle boots with a small heel. “They should fit,” he added.
Caroline put down the table leg. She picked up the boots, slipped one on. A little on the big side, but they would do just fine. She slipped the other one on, pulled up the zip.
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s wrong,” he said, his accent thick and the whisper made it even more difficult to hear him clearly. “I needed job, money. The job was okay at first…” He shrugged. She couldn’t see his face, but hoped he had shame written on it. “Just girls for sex,” he said. “Not great, but not my problem. It goes on. But the babies…” he paused. “And they make us do things…” he hesitated. “To the women. You know, I am young man. Should be dream come true… but…”
“You raped them?” Caroline asked, trying her best to keep the shock out of her voice.
“Yes, I suppose. The other men here do, too. But it does not feel like rape… the women, they do not struggle any more… but it is wrong, and I want to leave this place now… there are more women coming next week. I do not want to do it all again…”
Caroline grimaced as she nodded. The man was her lifeline. She needed him, but she would not protect him if she got clear of this hell-on-earth. She looked at him closely, saw through the gloom that his eyes were dark and swollen.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“It is nothing.”
“Well, it certainly looks like something.”
“Jurgen,” he said quietly. “He found out that Helena was not looking for him. Taught me a lesson…” he trailed off.
“She wasn’t looking for him?” Caroline could tell that the instruction mentioned Helena’s name, but she figured he had been needed elsewhere. Jurgen clearly outranked Michael, and she thought it strange that the young man had called him so forcefully. “Why did you do that?”
“I saw him taking you back. You were unconscious, it was obvious what he was going to do…”
“But why?” she pressed.
“It’s wrong. All of this is so very wrong.”
“Well, thank you,” she said sincerely. “So, what is your plan?”
Michael shrugged. “Everyone should be either asleep or relaxing. The girls have been fed,” he paused, and Caroline grimaced at the thought. It made the women sound like animals. He continued, “A few men are drinking, they will pass-out later.”
“How do we get clear of this place?”
“I have left a car at the village,” he said. “It’s a pile of junk, but it starts. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” she queried, the worry clearly detectable in her tone.
He shrugged. “It will be okay. But we can’t start car here, too much noise. Helena has fast car, a big Audi. Jurgen also has a fast car, an expensive SUV.”
Caroline figured that he would. The man would barely fit inside anything else. She picked up the table leg. “Okay,” she said decisively. “Let’s go.”
49
Cape Town, South Africa
“Admit it. You’re warming to me.”
“I can tolerate you.”
“Brilliant,” Rashid said. “From loathing to tolerating in three days.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Marnie said, sipping from her chilled glass of Pinot Grigio. “It won’t get any higher than tolerating.”
Rashid smiled. “Shame. I was hoping for day six,” he said. “Mind you, personally I wouldn’t choose to have dinner with anybody I merely tolerated.”
“I hate eating alone,” she said. “In restaurants, at least.”
“I don’t eat out much.”
“I can tell.”
“Really?”
“For a moment, I was sure you would drink the finger bowl.”
“Shit, was that what it was?” he chided. “I just didn’t want to fill up before my steak.”
She smiled. Moved over as the waiter swept in and cleared her plate. He stepped around the table, took Rashid’s plate of empty prawn shells, reached for the finger bowl. Rashid looked up at the waiter.
“Send the chef out please.”
“Sir?”
&n
bsp; Rashid glanced at Marnie, who looked pensive. He looked back at the waiter. “That soup was bloody tasteless,” he paused. “I couldn’t eat any of it.”
The waiter hesitated, then smiled. Rashid thought the man had heard it all before. He bustled away and Marnie visibly relaxed.
“Idiot,” she said, but there was humour in her eyes.
“Undoubtedly.”
“Well, that’s agreed,” she said. “We both think you’re an idiot.”
“See, you’re lightening up,” he said. “No need to thank me for getting you out of the office and away to South Africa. Sweden next.”
“Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.”
“No, I’m questioning your logic, not thanking you.”
“You don’t like to travel?”
“It’s nothing to do with traveling. It’s my fiancé.”
“He doesn’t like you to travel?”
“Will you forget about the travel!” she snapped tersely. She looked up as the waiter appeared with her snapper. She remained silent, an awkwardness to it that was not helped by the waiter, who now seemed to take his time delivering Rashid’s seared Springbok steak.
“Will there be anything else?” the waiter asked, apparently relishing the awkwardness, maybe because it redressed Rashid’s joke earlier, but more likely it was because it was what waiters seemed to do.
“Ketchup, please,” said Rashid.
“Sir?”
“Yes, you heard. Tomato ketchup. And don’t stick it in a poncey dish you’d bring mustard out in. It’s ketchup, you need about five times as much as mustard.” He watched the waiter leave, then smiled at Marnie across the table. “That’ll teach him.”
“For a moment I thought you were really going to smother that seared steak and yam and spinach fondant with tomato sauce,” she smiled. “Oh, wait. You’re going to, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
She smiled. “What on earth is a Springbok, anyway?”
“A gazelle,” he said. “Like their national animal.”
“Nice,” she replied sardonically. “Oh look,” she said. “Your tomato ketchup is here. And he doesn’t look to be happy about it.”
“He isn’t paying the bill,” Rashid said.
“Nor are you. It’s on expenses.”
“Will there be a hearing? Misuse of government funds? Moral turpitude regarding an inappropriate condiment?” he smiled, and she laughed; both ignoring the waiter as he placed the sizeable pot on the table and left.
“You sound like you know hearings. Been in trouble before, then?”
“Trouble could be my middle name,” Rashid paused. “Except it’s Mohammed.”
She smiled. “So, you’re not the first-born son, then?”
“No.”
“And is he as big a pain in the arse as you?”
“Wouldn’t know.”
“Not close?”
“No. He died.”
She looked shocked, held her fingers to her lips. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Rashid paused. “He died before I was born. An Indian raid in Pakistan. Sikhs verses Muslims, that sort of shit. They raided one day. Sliced and bludgeoned their way through our village. My parents fled, my mother got pregnant with me on the journey over. I was born here.”
Marnie said nothing. There wasn’t much she could say, and Rashid seemed to understand. She took a mouthful of her fish while Rashid smeared tomato ketchup onto a piece of his steak. They chewed in silence, Rashid sipped a mouthful of beer.
“So, what’s with Neil?” she asked. “The whole Botha thing has sent him into himself.”
“You noticed?”
“Difficult not to,” she said, sipping some more wine. “You were the hero, by all accounts.”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “If it wasn’t for Neil’s quick thinking with that planter, I wouldn’t have got into the house so quickly, Botha would have probably fired again. I doubt he would have missed Ryan a third time.”
She nodded. She had been terrified, cowered in the car when she heard the gunshots. She had admitted it earlier, without shame. She was an analyst. She hadn’t signed up for field work. The most strenuous thing she did was Zumba on a Tuesday and Thursday. She had settled into her duties within MI5, and that had been part of her problem with Rashid’s suggestion she accompany them. She liked to be settled. Or at least, she thought she did. As she sipped her wine, ate her exotic fish and noodles and caught glimpses of Table Mountain in the setting sun from the restaurant window, she had her doubts. She watched Rashid across the table from her. He was ruggedly handsome. Medium height and physically fit. His eyes were almost black, his dark hair sat untended by recent cuts or product, sort of falling in an untidy mop that had once been shorn close at the sides and back. A military cut, long since grown out. His skin was a strong milk coffee colour but weathered from a life in the elements. She knew he was with the Army, guessed at the SAS because of his secondment with MI5. She knew those men were tough and silent types. She couldn’t help but to contrast the man with her fiancé – a city trader who lived in either pin-stripe suits with his old school tie or five-hundred-pound pairs of jeans dubiously paired with rugby shirts and blazers. A man she would not have normally been attracted to, but for the ticking body clock and too much champagne at a mutual friend’s wedding. Andrew was a generous man, but he should have been, he earned a fortune in the city. Enough to retire at the age of thirty-six if he wanted to. But to him, the status and rush that his work gave him meant that the money was less important than the thrill of earning it. She imagined the soldier opposite her would have little in either wealth or assets and could care less about the fact.
“How long have you been with the SAS?” she asked.
“Who said I was?”
“Obvious, really.”
“I can’t talk about that.”
She smiled. “There’s enough people who are. You know, SAS programmes on the television…”
“Ex-Royal Marine’s turned tattoo models, putting civilian triathletes through five days of hell?” Rashid interrupted and laughed. “All tight-fitting shirts and Lycra? No, they’re not what the SAS are about.”
“So, you won’t tell me?”
Rashid smiled, drank down the last of his beer and placed the glass carefully back down on the table. “Well, I could tell you, but…”
“You’d have to kill me?” she laughed. “That is a really old one. Tom Cruise said it in Top Gun, I believe.”
“No,” Rashid reached across the table and gently stroked the back of her hand. “No, I was going to say… I could tell you, but then I’d have to sleep with you…”
50
It was completely dark when Caroline tentatively followed Michael outside into the courtyard. There were a few noises, but those were behind them now, the sound of men drinking and playing cards. The night was clear, cloudless. The stars were out in all their heavenly glory, accentuated by the lack of light pollution. Caroline was reminded of how remote Eastern Europe could be.
“Where are we?” she asked, the thought coming to her now that Michael was on her side.
“Georgia,” he said quietly.
She nodded. She had thought Eastern Europe or possibly the Ukraine. She hadn’t been a million miles away. “So, what is that way?” she asked, pointing in the direction of the mountain range. There was nothing to see, simply the world disappearing into darkness.
“The Caucasus Mountains,” Michael whispered. “Very big mountains. Only a few roads through and very dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Bad roads, bandits, bears, wolves,” he paused. “You name it.”
Caroline knew that the mountains lay to the north. Which meant the Black Sea was to the east. She visualised the location on a map. She had no idea of distances or scale, but she felt relieved to be able to put a marker on her location. It gave her a new-found confidence, put some reality into her world of disbelief,
fear and uncertainty. Just the knowledge that she knew her location gave her a flush of confidence.
She followed Michael through the courtyard but hesitated as he bypassed the barn and made his way between two derelict-looking buildings. “Wait!” she whispered, but it wasn’t loud enough to grab his attention. “Michael, wait!” she called, as quietly as she could, but as loud as she dared.
Michael stopped in his tracks, turned back and said, “What?”
“The women,” Caroline said quietly. “What about all of the women?”
“We have to go!” he snapped.
“But we can’t,” she protested. “I can’t…”
“There is no room!” He shook his head. “I have a small car… there are thirty women here… we can’t!”
“No, he can’t!” Jurgen said, a matter of feet away from Caroline. He flicked on a torch, catching their faces in surprise. “Predatel’skiy ublyudok!” he shouted, then as if for Caroline’s benefit repeated it in English, “Treacherous bastard!” His voice filled the courtyard as he stepped forward, his massive frame bearing down on them.
Caroline lashed out with the table leg. She didn’t have time to check if the bolt was going to hit first, but it didn’t matter anyway because The Beast batted it away with his forearm, almost taking Caroline with it. She was quick to react, using her training, she went with the force, used it, spun around completely and kept the table leg moving around three-hundred and sixty degrees, striking him on the right hip. He let out a grunt, swung a punch which scythed through the air narrowly missing Caroline’s jaw. She had been lucky. The blow could have killed her. She pulled the table leg clear, pushed it head on into the man’s groin. He wheezed and fell backwards, sprawling into the wall of the building. She was readying another swing, when Michael caught hold of her and dragged her backwards.
