by Tom Benson
“Fucking bitch!” Drummond screamed, and raised her knife as she ran toward the woman with the Glock. Drummond had abused Annabel’s generosity and dropped in a crumpled heap beside her dead colleague.
Annabel stepped over the two bodies and lifted the decorative cover from the table in the corner of the room. There stood the classic cube safe, with its grey metal front door, complete with two dials and a large handle. She stepped over the corpses and out to the hallway.
“Jake,” she called. “Down here.”
Jake reached the room where he’d seen the older man and the young girl. The man was standing naked and shouting at the girl about having paid his money. In the room opposite, Phil was fighting with a heavily built man while another of the girls escaped.
Jake stepped into the room with the irritated client. The naked punter moved back. Jake used the table lamp to smash the window and threw the man’s clothes out into the night. Jake took the girl by the arm and pointed to the stairs. She was gone. Jake ran downstairs when he heard Annabel calling.
“Quickly, mate,” Annabel said when Jake arrived.
Jake stopped to look at the slaughter on the floor. As a trained first aider, his first instinct was to save lives and help casualties, but these were peculiar circumstances. He wanted to curse, and he wanted to puke.
In the street, a white Ford Transit van pulled up to the front of the block and Rachel climbed out from the driver’s seat. Like Annabel, she was wearing trainers.
“Kirsten,” Rachel said. “I need you to reassure the girls it’s safe to get into the van.”
“Okay,” Kirsten said. Tears poured down her face. She walked across to the back door of the Transit. Soft foam padding was fitted to the interior panels, and thick rubber matting covered the floor.
03:47 - Rachel appeared at the door. “I’ve got fifteen passengers squeezed in, and I’m ready to go.” She glanced at her watch.
Phil appeared behind Rachel in the doorway and nodded. Annabel left with Rachel.
Rachel drove to the end of the street, where Annabel got out of the van, and into her VW Golf. The Transit set off with the Golf following. They were two minutes behind schedule.
Phil and Jake left in Phil’s car, for the next location.
.
04:15 - Rachel turned from the main road, and switched off the vehicle lights. She was on the long tree-lined driveway of The Oaks, a retirement home awaiting a final Health and Safety inspection before it could be rented by the appropriate authority. The keys were being kept for safety by the letting agent, Kavanagh and Cooper of Trongate. It took two minutes to drive down the dark pathway, and a flashlight was flicked on and off near the front door. Rachel stopped and got out of the van.
Annabel came forward and shook hands with the two shadowy female figures standing near the building. It took her two minutes to explain the preparations she’d made inside, and she helped Rachel usher the slave prostitutes inside. Two were male teenagers.
Annabel’s phone buzzed. “Yes,” she said and listened. “I’ll tell Rachel before we set off.”
“Change of plan?” Rachel asked as she opened the driver’s door of the van.
“Yes. Three guys have left the next target building together. Hawk went across and had a word with the girl at the door, and there’s one guy on security and a woman called Laura.”
“What about alarms?”
“Jake is in position, and the alarms should be neutralised by the time we arrive.”
“This is what Hawk called Plan B?”
“Yes. I’ll park at the end of the block, and you take me the last one hundred metres in the Transit because you’ll be parking outside this time on arrival.” Annabel checked her watch. “Hawk will kill the door camera himself as soon as he sees us approach.”
Rachel nodded. They jumped into their vehicles and set off to the next location.
.
04:35 - Jake was outside the third-floor window, and reaching out to the alarm box when a light was switched on inside the room. The girl inside took hold of the flimsy curtain material and paused when she saw Jake leaning on the window ledge with one arm.
Jake brought his right forefinger up to his lips, and his spray can fell to dangle on its rope. The girl closed her eyes, nodded surreptitiously, and drew the curtains.
“Get in here and get your kit off,” a man shouted. “What the fuck are you looking at out there?” The curtains were thrown open. A knocking noise could be heard as the man attempted to open the window.
Jake was braced between the window ledge and the right angle of the wall. His arms and legs were aching. The alarm was agonisingly close, but it may as well have been a mile away. Tears filled Jake’s eyes. Hawk would be counting on success.
From within the room echoed the sound of slapping and a scream. More slaps followed, and more cries. This wasn’t a customer, afraid to damage the merchandise. It was one of the men who worked as security, taking advantage of a fringe benefit.
Jake held the window ledge with one hand and pressed his left toecap into a small crevice in the brickwork. The position caused pain in his leg, and forcing his right foot against the drainpipe was breaking the rules—but he was against the clock.
He maintained the precarious position long enough to squirt the foam, but it missed the yellow casing. Jake stretched, and aimed higher and watched the foam drip inside. He pointed at the side, and the jet went straight underneath the housing, bulging from every crevice. Jake let go of the can, and it fell to hang in the net bag by his side. He clung on, his strength ebbing away.
.
04:45 - Phil sprayed the camera lens above the front door when he saw the white Transit van approach. The young girl on duty at the door stood back, eyes wide.
An attractive woman in a working girl outfit, but wearing training shoes, got out of the van. She was carrying an automatic pistol.
When the front door opened, Annabel raced past Phil and slammed the butt of her weapon into the face of the madam who’d opened the door. The woman sprawled on the floor and Phil sprinted past her and up the stairs. If the woman was checking out the defective camera lens, it meant the security guy was upstairs somewhere. Jake would also be upstairs - hanging outside a window. Phil took the stairs three at a time, pistol ready.
“Where are the passports?” Annabel barked.
Laura Trewayne got up from the floor. “Fuck you—” The outburst cost her three teeth and her left cheekbone. She braved it out at first but whimpered due to the intense pain.
“You have one more fucking chance.” Annabel placed the end of the barrel against Trewayne’s forehead. The woman moved back into the front room, sobbing as she went, blood oozing from her mouth and cheek.
Trewayne got on her hands and knees. She crawled toward a decorative fireplace and used both hands to pull the wooden structure away from the wall. The woman sat on the floor and turned to Annabel.
“Open it,” Annabel said. “Now!”
On the third floor, the brutal security man had dropped his trousers to his ankles, satisfied he’d beaten the young girl into submission. She lay sobbing on the bed in front of him, face down, welts over her body and blood oozing from her wounds. It wasn’t her first time, and the next stage of this man’s pleasure was well known.
The door was kicked open and bounced off the wall before it hung to one side, dangling on a hinge. The security man turned and pulled his trousers up before facing a new, more worthy opponent.
Phil stood in the doorway with a large fire extinguisher in his hands. He rammed the bulky device into the big man’s gut, and head, before using it to smash the window frame and glass. While the thug was drowsy from the first blows, Phil reached out to help the grateful and exhausted Jake through the broken glass.
“Get her out.” Phil stepped closer to the bruised, defiant guard.
Jake assisted the girl to her feet and left.
“Come on.” The security man brought his hands up into the guarded stance of a boxer as
he faced Phil.
Phil kicked him in the groin. “You watch too many movies,” When the thug lurched forward, Phil gripped him by the ear and smashed a clenched fist into his face three times. He broke the man’s nose, loosened several teeth, and fractured his jaw.
The thug lifted one hand to clear the blood from his eyes in time to see his opponent advance on him. Before he could react, the security man was propelled through the broken third-floor window into the darkness beyond. The backyard was concrete paving.
Phil heard a loud bang from downstairs. It wasn’t Annabel’s gun, because, like him, she had a suppressor fitted. “Alpha!” he called.
“I’m fine!” she called. “Empty the place.” She didn’t sound fine, but her order suggested she had the safe contents.
Phil rushed up to the fourth floor and worked from room to room getting the remaining girls out, and on their way downstairs. He checked every room until he reached the ground floor and found Annabel.
She was standing with her pistol raised in her right hand. Jake had applied a wad of material to a wound in her left arm, and he was securing it to stop the bleeding.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Phil said, stepping forward to look out of the front door.
“I should have bloody seen it,” Annabel said. “She had a gun in the bottom of the safe and got off a lucky shot from under her arm.”
“Well,” Phil said, looking at the hole in the woman’s head. “It wasn’t lucky for her.” He lifted the padded envelope full of passports. Jake helped Annabel out to the van. At the van, Phil took her car keys.
Rachel had the Transit engine running. She shouted to Annabel. “Are you okay?”
“Change of role for you Rachel,” Phil said. “You take over Alpha’s escort duties for this run.” He handed her Annabel’s car keys. “You know what to do.”
“Yeah.” Rachel got out of the van.
Phil said, “You go solo in the Golf. I’ll drive the Transit with Alpha in the middle seat, and Jake, I want you to stay in the left seat to take care of Alpha.”
“Got it,” Jake said, still supporting Annabel.
05:00 - As Phil, Annabel and Jake got themselves arranged in the Transit, Rachel had already covered fifty metres running. She had the Golf out at the junction waiting when the van passed. All the neighbours in the area would have heard the gunshot, and somebody would call the police.
The two-vehicle convoy had travelled two miles when a police Volvo travelling in the opposite direction slowed down. The police driver spun the car around using the full width of the road and went in pursuit of the white van.
Rachel had seen the manoeuvre in her mirror. She slowed the Golf, which held the police back and allowed the van to get further ahead.
The Volvo’s blue flashing lights and sirens came on. Rachel braked and slowed down. The Volvo passed the Golf and went after the Transit, sirens blaring. Rachel dropped to third gear for maximum power, flashed her lights at the Volvo, and overtook the police car and the van. She was travelling much faster than the speed limit and on the wrong side of the road.
As she roared away in the light early morning traffic, Rachel checked her rear-view mirror. The Volvo passed the van when the police became more interested in the VW. Rachel rechecked her mirror. The Transit turned off into a side street. Phil was employing his alternative escape route, using back roads to reach the safe house.
In Rachel’s hands, the Golf GTi was like a thoroughbred racehorse and responded well to every change of gear and every flick of the wheel. Rachel changed direction but remembered the pursuit driver in the Volvo would be no slouch in a car chase—as she had found out many times before. More importantly, the passenger would have radioed the index number and vehicle description around the area.
Rachel floored the accelerator and without the need of mirrors, was conscious of the braking distance the pursuing driver would maintain. She saw where the road narrowed ahead and took a deep breath. In rapid sequence, she hammered the brake pedal to the floor, pulled up hard on the handbrake, and spun the steering wheel with the heel of one hand.
The police driver had rightly expected to see the Golf accelerating away, but he wouldn’t have expected a handbrake turn. When the brake lights blazed on the red Golf, the pursuit driver hit his brakes. The GTi had spun and was approaching him head-on—at speed. The police officer held his nerve for several seconds but veered off to avoid a collision.
Apart from the engine, Rachel’s mind was racing as she planned a route to a particular street. She took a series of turns and was glad she’d spent time riding the area on her bike. She was comfortable with her options.
The Volvo was nowhere to be seen when Rachel saw her objective. On the left-hand side was her decoy—a Volkswagen and Audi showroom with a large forecourt. She swerved into a side street opposite the forecourt. The car dealership was full of cars of varying vintage. Rachel cut the engine and lights, got out, and plucked off the magnetic number plates.
She ran across the road and stuck the plates on a red VW Golf which was parked at the front of the forecourt. When the police car passed, even if the scanning equipment weren’t operational, the officers would be checking all red VW Golf models. The index number would be spotted. Rachel waited in the side street until she saw flashing blue lights.
The nearby house and shop windows lit up with the reflection of blue lights when two police cars swooped on the place. As the uniformed officers ran through the parked cars, Rachel eased out of the far end of the side street and joined the early morning traffic.
05:30 - Rachel called Jake’s number. “Jake, tell Hawk I’m back at base as planned and ready for the next phase.” She listened as the message was relayed, and closed her phone.
Rachel made herself a coffee, and as she sat alone in the tranquillity of the lockup, she thought back to the activities of the past few hours. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
12. Taking Care
.
Monday 15th July
All the captives were shepherded into The Oaks retirement home by Phil and organised by the two secretive women whom Annabel had previously arranged. Jake sterilised and dressed Annabel’s wounded arm. At Phil’s request, he carried a small but impressive first aid kit which included antibiotics. While Jake was finishing off his medical aid, Phil approached.
“Is she going to live?” Phil winked at Jake and placed a hand on Annabel’s good arm.
Jake smiled but continued as Phil addressed Annabel.
“You said those two people you’ve involved were from one of our British agencies. I heard an East European accent.”
“It’s Katya,” Annabel said. “Two years ago, she was the same as one of these new victims. In her case, when she escaped, her captors used her passport to locate, and murder her parents.”
“It could have left her mentally unstable.”
“It took months of counselling before she could function. The first time she was allowed to leave the rehabilitation unit alone, she disappeared for a weekend. She found and killed two of the men who’d kept her in slavery.”
Phil nodded and handed Annabel a bottle of water.
She took a swallow and continued. “Katya’s case was given special consideration, and we recruited her. She proved efficient in a variety of areas because she’d been in training with the Croatian Police before her kidnap.”
“I take it the other woman is regular Foreign and Commonwealth Office?”
“Yes. Michelle is home-grown and capable of tackling a multitude of tasks, including linguistics. She has a lot of experience with trauma victims too.”
Kirsten was one of two in the first group who spoke fluent English and volunteered to stay awake to help settle her fellow captives. When the second human cargo arrived at the building, Kirsten welcomed them at the door to put them at ease. She remained in her working-girl outfit.
Among the second batch of captives, was Petra. She and Kirsten had been friends before they became sex slaves. Th
ey cried openly with relief as they embraced. The two girls were led to a small room, where they spent a few minutes chatting with Phil and Annabel. Petra agreed to limit what she’d tell the authorities, and she’d brief the others to do likewise.
It was agreed Kirsten would be taken on to another location alone to be informally interviewed by Phil and Annabel. She had useful information, but they couldn’t afford to have her taken into official custody. She insisted she would go with them if it were with both. She would have time to rest first.
At 06:04 Rachel raised the curtain door, following a call from Jake. The Transit arrived at the lockup. By 06:07 the van was reversed inside and the door closed.
Jake and Rachel removed the magnetic number plates from the van. Phil said he and Annabel would deal with the final aspects of the job after de-brief.
Phil stood with his back to the team organising himself a drink. He made a call to an old friend which nobody else could hear. The others had coffee and were waiting patiently. A pause in the proceedings and a casual chat were no bad thing. It would help to ease the post-mission tension.
“How is the arm?” Rachel asked in a hushed tone.
“I’ve been through worse,” Annabel said. “Our duty medic has done a fine job.”
Jake grinned but said nothing.
Phil turned. “The final phase of this first mission is to get the Transit back to the place I bought it, but I’ll have Alpha to help me if her arm is okay—”
“I’ll be fine if I take it slow for a while,” Annabel said.
Rachel and Jake nodded. Both sat cupping their drinks in their hands.
“Thank you all for your efforts this morning,” Phil said. “Each of you performed well, and the outing was a success.” He gulped coffee before continuing. “We’ll look at the mission stage by stage, to consider areas where we could improve. I’ll ask and take questions at the end.”
