Captive

by Catherine Oxenberg

  “Yes, Mom,” she admitted hesitantly. “I’ve been branded. But why is that a problem? It was a good experience for me!”

  My heart broke. I gripped the wheel tighter and forced my eyes to stay on the road.

  “Darling,” I said as calmly as I could, “if you can convince me how being branded can be a good experience, please, go ahead. I’m all ears.”

  India fell silent. She seemed confused again as she struggled to find an answer. Finally, she looked over at me with childlike sincerity through her weary eyes: “It’s a good thing because . . . it’s character building.”

  I wanted to scream. It was like someone had tampered with my child’s brain or replaced her with an imposter. Her words and phrasing sounded preprogrammed, drilled into her head.

  I answered slowly, reasonably.

  “But India. The fact that you think mutilating your body permanently is character building is proof that you’re brainwashed.”

  Again she looked bewildered and shook her head.

  “India, do you even know what you have been branded with?”

  “Yes, it’s some Latin symbol.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you mutilated your body, and you don’t even know with what? They are the initials of Allison Mack and Keith Raniere! Angel, you’re being manipulated by a psychopath.”

  “Mom, I’m not.”

  At the doctor’s, I waited in a small examination room while my daughter underwent tests—a physical exam, bloodwork, and an ultrasound to address her amenorrhea.

  I sat in that little room, crushed. Something occurred to me in that minute, as the doctor closed the door—something horrible that would fuel my fight to get India out of that cult no matter how difficult it would be or how long it would take.

  What if that day in Albany, four years earlier, when I’d turned down Keith’s request to do that roundtable together . . . what if that was the day, the moment, that the psychopath decided he was going to destroy my daughter and me? What if my refusing and humiliating him made him vow to steal her away and burn his initials onto her flawless body and mark her forever?

  In other words, What if this was my fault?

  I nearly fainted at the thought.

  —

  DRIVING AWAY FROM the doctor’s, India was angry and dismissive. The doctor had done an ultrasound and told her that her uterine lining was as thin as a perimenopausal woman’s and her ability to have children might be affected. After India had shared about her starvation diet, the doctor told her she needed serious psychiatric help.

  India asked me to drop her off at a corner by her father’s so she could get him to drive her to the airport that night for her flight to Albany.

  I wanted to say something to scare her to her wits, to wake her up, to keep her from leaving the car, from getting on the plane.

  “Darling, the authorities are going to move in to stop this organization any day now. What Keith and the others are doing is illegal. Please leave before it is too late!”

  I didn’t know this as a fact, but I said it anyway, hoping to get through to her. Mark had indeed contacted the FBI and begun a dialogue with them.

  It didn’t work, though. Nothing worked. The spell she was under was unbreakable. How could I rescue my daughter from hell if she didn’t want to be rescued?

  I’d lost her. I fucked up the intervention, and now I’d lost her. And I felt like I was losing my mind.

  When India jumped out of my car that afternoon, it would be the last time I would see her lovely face for another nine months. What I suspected and worried would happen did happen: my haphazard intervention ripped open the gap between us even further. Now it was as wide as the Grand Canyon, and she and I were standing on opposite sides.

  But in that devastating moment, there were two other truths I immediately knew as well.

  First, I was going to do whatever it took to save my daughter from the clutches of this vicious cult and get her back.

  Second, I was going to take down the cult.

  I was not going to rest until I brought India home and put Keith Raniere behind bars.

  10

  * * *

  EXPIANS AND EXODUS

  Maybe India didn’t want to be rescued from hell, but that didn’t mean I’d stop trying.

  When Hades, the god of the underworld, abducted the innocent Persephone and took her to hell, Persephone’s mother, the Greek goddess Demeter, searched high and low for her. The mother’s grief and despair were so profound that perpetual summer halted, winter was born, and all living things on earth began to die. But no matter what, Demeter refused to give up.

  Hades never factored in the power of a mother’s love. Well, neither did Keith Raniere.

  I dropped off India at the corner and quickly drove off to my own secret sisterhood gathering. After the flurry of warning emails and texts I’d sent out that morning, Bonnie messaged me about meeting at a nearby café for an important, impromptu get-together. Our purpose: to prevent the next group of girls from being branded in Albany.

  We rounded up Katie and two other Expian friends of ours: Sasha, who quit a year before me after a showdown with Gold Sash, and Heather, a recent defector who’d been Allison Mack’s assistant. Heather is the person who had reached out to Bonnie and told her about DOS after she’d seen the starvation diet taped to Allison’s fridge and caught sight of collateral and information on the Vow on Allison’s computer. Bonnie hadn’t mentioned her name as her source in our first face-to-face meeting in order to protect her identity.

  What I didn’t know until I arrived at the rendezvous was who else would be there, and that I’d essentially be leaving one intervention to participate in another.

  Thirty minutes later, I was sitting across the table from two young women—Yasmine and Ava—who, until very recently, had been my daughter’s “slaves.” And for the umpteenth time during this strange and difficult journey, I felt like I was living in The Twilight Zone, with the chill factor escalating.

  Yasmine was a striking, young Native American woman with an outspoken, ballsy, take-no-prisoners personality and the look of a rocker chick in her black leather jacket—not quite the type I’d expect to be taken captive by a cult at all. But I would soon find out that anyone was susceptible to the coercion of a cult, and the victims didn’t fit the clichéd image of a gullible, naïve, pliable, weak-willed person—a common misperception. In fact, cults often “intentionally recruit ‘valuable’ people,” says mental health counselor Steven Hassan, who has written several books on mind control. “They go after those who are intelligent, caring, and motivated. They want members who will work hard with little or no sleep.”

  “We were both told that DOS was a female empowerment group,” Yasmine said. “It was pitched to us as an opportunity to be part of a women-only secret society, where we would receive free mentorship from a high-powered sisterhood [and it was free! An anomaly for anything Nxivm]. They said we’d be like ninja warrior women, but they wouldn’t tell us any more about it until we gave them damaging collateral first—in order to protect the secrecy of the group.”

  It was yet another program pitched that would “change your life.” How much life changing can one person endure?

  Sitting next to Yasmine was Ava, whom I recognized as one of the pretty, slim guests at India’s birthday party and one of the girls I’d texted that morning. She was a lovely blonde actress who’d recently moved from LA to Albany, at Keith’s urging.

  Yasmine, too, had left her career as a model-actress in LA and moved to Albany, she told us, after she’d taken one of those infamous walks with Keith and shared her dream of starting up an ethical T-shirt company.

  “I already have equipment for that all set up,” he told her as they strolled in the wee hours (Doesn’t Keith ever sleep? I wondered), “and I’ve got the money for it. Let’s do it together!” He touched her hands and talked to her a certain way, doing that deep-staring thing into the eyes that he does. (Does he hypnotize the
m? I asked myself.)

  With one walk, he seemed to be able to steal away young girls’ dreams.

  India had career dreams of her own, too, when we started at ESP—it was the reason we had gone in the first place. She was going to have her own talk show or her own bakery company, and then suddenly she was running Keith’s Rainbow school.

  Bonnie had also put her acting career on hold and moved from Hollywood to Albany. Even Pam, the heiress they put on ice, had aspirations until Keith convinced her she should be an Olympic runner, a friend of Pam’s told me later. An Olympic runner? Pam had no running talent whatsoever, said the friend—she could barely jog a mile.

  But he’d say and do anything to unplug you from the life you had and reattach you where it served his own needs, shaming you into thinking your own desires were superficial and that his mission was higher, more meaningful. Keith sucked the dreams out of people like a vampire. Everyone who walked in with one was talked out of it and rerouted to feed the bloodthirsty Vanguard machine.

  Soon after Yasmine moved to Albany, she joined the sisterhood, with India as her “master.” She endured seven months of disturbing rituals, which included “readiness drills,” where you had to reply to your master’s text within a minute or two or someone else in the group would get punished. These drills could go on all night, leading the women to get seriously sleep-deprived. They also had to give new collateral every month, and keep closely to their starvation diets.

  As Yasmine spoke, I realized that this explained why India had always been glued to her phone during any time we spent together over the past year.

  Yasmine had left DOS and ESP a few days ago after Allison—her “grandmaster”—had given her the assignment to seduce Keith. Allison took the job of pimping for Keith very seriously, and even gave herself appropriate titles for the position—“the Madam,” “Madam Mack,” or “Pimp Mack.”

  “This is a sexual, transactional, spiritual way of growing—not romantic,” Allison explained to Yasmine. “Society doesn’t understand. He’s helping you work on your body issues. There are certain things he can teach you only by being intimate with you. And, Yasmine, it will heal your sexual abuse. It’s a privilege: you’re the chosen one.”

  Allison knew very well that Keith was having sex with dozens of women on rotation, since she was often the one sending the women to him. As Bonnie said, it was one of the ways she earned Keith’s approval. At the same time, I would hear from many slaves that Allison was also very territorial about Keith and felt threatened and jealous of each woman she sent to have sex with him—which resulted in her being very punitive and sadistic as a master.

  Keith had Allison wrapped around his little finger. He’d approve of her, and then he’d shun her—for no reason. It was classic narcissistic behavior—sucker her in and then ignore her; give her love and then take it away.

  One of the slaves told me later that when Keith was shunning Allison, she’d sit in a chair by the front window of her house all day, watching and waiting for Keith to walk by so she could catch a glimpse of him.

  When Allison gave Yasmine the seduce-Keith assignment, she added two instructions:

  “Make sure you let him take photos of you naked afterward, to prove you’ve completed this assignment, and send them to your master,” she told her. And then she added, magnanimously, that she granted Yasmine permission to enjoy it.

  We all retched at that last one. How kind of her to give this beautiful woman permission to enjoy sex with a disgusting old lecher.

  As uncomfortable as it was for all of us, especially me, to hear this, it was even more trying for Yasmine to reveal it. She’d never admitted any of this to anyone, let alone to the mother of a girl who had enlisted her as a slave. She and I were beyond uneasy.

  “I asked India if she was okay with this assignment,” Yasmine continued, “and she said, ‘Look, I freaked out when I got it, too. I thought, Wow, is that what this is all about? But I ended up finding it an important life lesson.’ ”

  I shook my head, struggling to imagine these words coming out of India’s mouth. Could this girl have misunderstood India? Could she have misheard her? Could Yasmine’s memory be faulty? Had India lied to me when she said she hadn’t had sex with Keith?

  I also wondered why these girls were able to wake up from Keith’s spell, yet India was not. That’s when I realized she’d been subjected to far more indoctrination than they had. These were fresh recruits from within the year, whereas my daughter had been under the cult’s mind control for six years now! I learned later from a defector that India had been mind fucked and EM-ed more and worse than most of the others.

  Keith was getting greedy and sloppy as his pathology advanced, I guessed. He was bringing girls into DOS before they were fully indoctrinated, so they were waking up faster. His carelessness and lust could lead to his undoing, I predicted.

  Yasmine continued:

  “I was afraid to say no because she had my collateral, but I told her I felt uncomfortable about the assignment. Allison told me I was freaking out because of my ‘intimacy issues.’

  “That’s when I thought, This is bullshit! This is not what I signed up for! Plus, I was broke because I was still waiting for Keith to start the T-shirt business with me. I decided to bail. I mean, I love your daughter, Catherine, but . . . I’m just not into this stuff. It’s too weird.”

  Again I shook my head. The India I knew wasn’t into this stuff, either. What have they done to her?

  Up until the day before, Ava had been Yasmine’s slave—Yasmine had recruited her. But on a hike together that morning, Yasmine told Ava that she’d arranged with India that India would inherit her as her slave because Yasmine wasn’t going back to Albany. She intended to “quietly get out and save myself” when my text popped up on Ava’s phone as they were walking, and they read it together.

  “It was too much of a coincidence,” said Yasmine, “and I thought if Catherine could drop a bombshell like that, so could I—so should I. I told her, ‘I want you to know what this is really about. This is about recruiting sex partners for Keith. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I felt I owed it to you as a friend.’ ”

  Sitting next to Yasmine, Ava looked fragile and panic-stricken.

  Keith had promised he’d start a new business with her, too. His “mentoring” so far had consisted of a lot of walks and crude sexual jokes that seemed aimed to groom her, she now sees. But so far, no business venture had panned out. Her next step, she was told, was to take part in the secret ceremony the following week.

  She was scheduled to leave on the red-eye to Albany that night with India, and now she was quaking at the thought.

  I checked the time on my phone: three o’clock. Time was ticking away on two critical matters: first, we had to prevent India, Ava, and that other slave who’d been at the birthday party, Emma, from getting on that flight.

  Second, we had to try to stop the branding from happening.

  I picked up the pace. Ava was already scared to death, but I was going to scare her more—whatever it took to stop this insanity. Saving a few girls from that barbaric ritual was a start.

  “Are you aware, Ava, that if you go back there, you will be held down naked and burned, and even if you yell for it to stop, no one is going to listen?”

  Ava looked like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights.

  “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to be branded,” she said, “but I’m terrified of what will happen if I don’t. What if they punish India? I don’t want to hurt or disappoint her!”

  Punishment could be starvation, cold showers, running ten miles at three in the morning, getting whacked with a paddle, or being locked in a cage, I would find out later from other slaves.

  “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get out of it! What if they release my collateral? I’d be mortified! It would destroy my career!”

  “So what?” I said to Ava. “You have to risk it. Listen to me! Staying for that re
ason is not worth it. You’ll be giving away your entire self and your life!” I wanted to shake her. In a very real way, I was talking to India in that moment.

  “Are you aware that Keith is the leader of DOS?” I asked.

  They both shook their heads.

  This information was only known by the top tier of DOS, because Keith was their master. Between seven and twelve DOS slaves directly reported to Keith, including Allison and Lauren.

  “We were never told he was a part of it,” Yasmine continued. “We don’t even know who the other members of DOS are. You don’t find that out until after you’re branded and have that bond with your sister slaves.”

  Sister slaves. This is a nightmare. Just then, we were interrupted by a text from India. After Ava got my note that morning, she forwarded it to India in confusion and panic. I’m sure by now it had reached the cult’s upper hierarchy, including Vanguard himself.

  India: Please stop, you are scaring my friends.

  Me: They don’t want to come back with you, but they’re afraid to tell you. Is that the kind of leadership you want to represent? One where people are afraid to tell you the truth and where you lie to them? Did you tell them the truth about DOS?

  India: Mom, no one is being forced to do anything against their will.

  But Ava was sitting in front of us, petrified and afraid to go back. The group looked at Ava, waiting to see what she’d do, hoping and willing her to do the right thing. Ava wasn’t bold and ballsy like Yasmine, but I think the collective power of the women gathered around her that afternoon gave her the strength to find her voice. She was surrounded by women in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties—a multigenerational, communal force of female energy supporting her and encouraging her to speak up.

  This was the true kind of sisterhood.

  Ava took a deep breath, took out her iPhone, and began typing.

  “I canceled my airline ticket,” she said to us, a few minutes later, “and India’s as well. We were on the same reservation because she asked me to book her ticket. Thank you, all of you, for keeping me from getting on that plane. Now I’ll text India to tell her I’m not going with her.”