Authors: Keith Hoare
Karen did as she was told. Her time in the Lebanon had taught her not to panic, but assess the situation, all the time watching carefully for even the slightest error on his part. But with this man there was none as yet. Once she was ready he turned her round to face the wall. Checked her pockets and pulled her mobile telephone out, putting it in her bag, then ran his hands over her body as a final check. Satisfied she carried nothing that she could use as a weapon he took hold of her hand and urged her out of the cubicle along the passage and through the main entrance. A car was waiting outside and he pushed her into the back, slipping in beside her. The car roared off.
“Where are we going, and who are you?” she demanded.
He grinned now, satisfied she wasn’t a threat. “You and I have an acquaintance, who would dearly like to have come himself, but someone put a bullet into his knee and he lost a leg. So he sent me to get you.”
Her features hardened. “Not Saeed? You’re not from him are you?”
“Got it in one, kid, now shut up and just enjoy your last ride.”
Karen was happy not to continue with the conversation, she was already deciding on her exit. With her jeans on and trying tops, he’d only checked the pockets, more interested in running his hand over her breasts and bottom. She didn’t bother about him doing that, so long as he didn’t move down to her ankles. Because in a holder, strapped round her right ankle, was Chapman’s knife. A knife he’d given her in the Lebanon and she’d worn ever since, he had told her that one day it might save her life. Never was he so close to the truth as now, that’s if she could get at it. He’d also spent time showing her how to use it, how to hold a knife and how to stop any person from taking it from her. She looked at the driver, he was concentrating on the heavy traffic, the man at her side still held the gun, but it was on his lap facing away from her. Karen decided she should try for the knife.
“Can I tighten my shoe laces?” she asked.
“If you want, then no more talk and keep still,” he replied.
She leaned forward and tightened her left shoe lace, retying the bow. The man watched with little interest. Then she moved to her right foot, again she refastened her lace, but as she pulled up she grasped the handle of her knife. Fitted in an upside-down sheath, drawing it out was easy. Sitting up again with the knife in her right hand Karen was gaining in confidence. Casually looking at him she decided if she followed Chapman’s instructions on how to disable someone quickly she’d have to go in with the knife under the rib cage, in an upwards penetration to puncture the heart. But the man was wearing a heavy coat and she doubted if she was in the correct position to thrust the knife hard enough to penetrate the coat and do the damage she wanted. The next option was to go for the throat. That would be messy, his hands would be free and he held a gun that could easily be turned and injure her. Still considering both options, and now out on the motorway, an opportunity came her way. The driver had called back to the man at her side for help. He had a map on the passenger seat and was asking if it was exit nineteen or twenty? The man slipped the gun in his pocket furthest away from Karen and leaned forward to take the map.
This was her opportunity.
As he went forward she grabbed his hair with her left hand, yanked his head back and tried to draw the ultra sharp knife across his throat. However, the man was a great deal stronger than she imagined and soon they were wrestling in the back, she still trying to use the knife, he realising what she had in her hand and forcing her arm away from him. During the struggle the knife caught the driver in the back of his head. He screamed in pain as he pushed his head down away from the knife. But with the car travelling close to eighty miles an hour, the second’s loss in concentration sent it out of control. The driver panicked making the problem even worse. They hit the outside barrier, bouncing back into the centre lane, the rear end clipped by an overtaking lorry sending them into a spin, the tyres screaming. The next moment the car crashed through a wooden fence then down an embankment. The driver was suddenly engulfed in air bags. The man Karen was struggling with, was thrown sideways and hit his head on the door pillar, passing out instantly. Karen followed the same direction, but she was cushioned in doing the same by the bulk of the inert body of the man, as the car careered down, coming to a jarring halt at the bottom of the banking. The engine raced on for a moment before the fuel cut-out operated. A device designed to stop fuel pumping out in the event of a crash, and shut the engine down. Karen lay still for a moment, not sure if she was injured. Everything had happened so fast she was completely disorientated. She sat up, looked at the man by her side. His head seemed to be in an odd position and he wasn’t moving, the driver was beginning to moan. Cars were stopping at the side of the motorway, people running down to help. Karen slipped the knife back into its holder and tried to open the door, but it was jammed. In the meantime drivers and passengers who’d stopped to help managed to wrench the door open before pulling Karen out. They attempted to open the driver’s door but that too was so badly damaged it wouldn’t move. Now there were flashing blue lights up on the top, police were running down moving the helpers away worried that fuel spilled around might ignite. One was calling into his radio for an emergency service team who’d arrived by then, to bring cutting equipment.
“Are you all right, love?” a policeman asked.
“Just a little shaken, I’ll be okay. May I have my handbag from the car please?”
The policeman went over to the car, talked to a fireman who handed him her bag and he brought it back. “Would you like to sit in our car until the ambulance arrives? They will take you to the hospital with the other occupants just to check you over?”
She smiled. “I’d like that, thank you.”
Once inside the car she pulled out the card Sir Peter had given her. Then using the mobile from her bag she dialled his number.
“Hi it’s Karen,” she began when he answered. “I need your help.”
Sir Peter listened to what had happened. “Are you injured?” he asked with concern.
“No, just a little shaken, otherwise I’m fine. But I’m going to have trouble explaining why I was in the car with a man carrying a gun and I’ve a knife if they search me. That’s illegal as you know. You have to get me out of here.”
“No problem, Karen. I’ll call control and have a car sent for you. In the meantime say you feel unwell, you’re confused and have a headache or something. But don’t let them interview you.”
“Okay; and thank you.”
A police car arrived in less than ten minutes and after they spoke to the officer in charge Karen climbed in the back and she was whisked away. Twenty minutes later Sir Peter joined her in an interview room at the police station. She was sitting quietly holding a paper cup containing coffee.
“You certainly get yourself into some scrapes, Karen,” he said taking a seat opposite her. “But everything’s sorted. In actual fact you were never there and will not show up in any police report.”
“That’s what my life’s all about these days, Peter. I’m never going to get any peace am I?”
“If you want the truth, Karen, we’d heard that this Saeed has offered a reward for you, dead or alive. But ten times the payment if you’re delivered alive. He’s a bitter man and determined to make you pay for what you did. However, it’s made more complicated by a man called Sirec who has made it known you are under his protection, which has deterred a great many from trying for Saeed’s reward. Although there will always be some who will try, like you’ve just experienced. We of course know of this Sirec and his dealings in the illegal armaments trade but again no one we know has met him or knows what he looks like. On a good note we’ve found your mother, she’s going home after we assured her you were fine and we’d bring you home later.”
She said nothing for a time. How she’d hoped it was all over but it would seem these people, once they got their hands on you, were determined not to let go. Changing the subject she looked up at him. “What about the men who took me in the car, what will you do with them?”
“One is dead; his neck broken when he hit the door pillar. The other has crushed legs besides internal damage. You can’t attempt a kidnap in this country without going down for a long time so he will remain in custody. It will be expected that you give evidence. It will be in a closed court where, you will be known as Miss X and give evidence on camera. If the press got wind of just what has happened to you they would have a field day, and the other girls would be at even greater risk.”
She shrugged. “You know Saeed’s mother said I brought death to their land. It seems death is not confined to over there; it’s following me. So to try and sort out my life, I’ve made a decision. I’ll go back to the Lebanon with your team. But for me to do this, I need to feel safe in myself. I’ve been there and know what to expect so there are conditions.”
“And what are those, Karen?”
“I want to be armed with weapons of my choice, a map and GPS with a planned emergency route out of the country if I get split up from the group. I also want to be allowed to sort Saeed once and for all, if I can that is. I don’t intend to go through life with him chasing me all over the world.”
“You’re saying in a roundabout way you want to kill him?”
Karen looked him in the eyes. “Peter, it’s either him or me. I prefer it to be him, after all the man’s not stopped taking girls. He’s learnt nothing; even in his hospital bed he’s directing his operation. I wouldn’t be surprised it’s his mother sorting the girls out for him, because I don’t think he’s the type to rely on strangers looking after his payments for the girls he sells.”
“You’re playing a very dangerous game, Karen.”
She gave a weak smile. “Not that dangerous, I’ve been in worse scrapes.”
“Okay, Karen, we go to London. I’ll put your request to the team and get their opinions. If it’s agreed you go in armed, with your own mandate
- providing we have secured the location and collected the other girls, you can do as you like. I agree with you, this man will not give up on you. It is I’m afraid you or him.”
For three days, Angela went through the same routine. She was bored, scared and lonely. But above all she was constantly sleepy, hardly able to keep her eyes open. In the afternoon of the third day when the continued preparation to her body had finished and Angela had dressed in the usual knickers and shirt, Saeed’s mother didn’t leave the room but sat down on the easy chair.
“You are now ready to be sold. You have experience in pleasing a man?”
“What sort of experience?”
“You know how to make love, keep a man happy?”
“Of course I don’t.”
The woman smirked. “Then you are a virgin yes?”
Angela nodded.
“That is good, very good. You will fetch very nice price. My son will be pleased. Within the hour you will, along with the other girls who came with you, be paraded in front of men wishing to buy themselves a young girl. However, we have only four buyers so you will be competing against the other four girls.”
“If there’s only four what happens to the girl no one wants?” Angela asked, with apprehension.
“The girl who’s not bought by a private buyer we sell cheaply to a brothel. It is something you don’t want to contemplate. You see our selected brothels for shall we say unwanted girls, or girls who still believe they are above all the others and scowl or reject the man offered to her, are not very nice places to be sent. There, both boys and girls are worked for twelve hours a day, with one or two clients an hour, it takes its toll, they usually only last a year. Then they either fall ill, catch diseases you wouldn’t believe, or just die.”
Angela was becoming scared. She had little self-confidence in playing up to a man as it was. In her mind the other girls were far more attractive than her, probably with more life experience as well. Apart from this she wasn’t feeling well, her reactions were slow, she’d a blinding headache and had begun to have pains in her stomach.
“You’re very quiet, child, why is that?”
“I don’t feel well, I’ve a headache and a pain in my stomach and you’re telling me I’ve to compete with far more attractive girls, play up to a man who’s only interested in fucking me every day when I can hardly stand up? What do you want me to say? Thank you for giving me the opportunity to avoid the brothel, when you know full well that’s where I’ll end up, none of the men will want me?”
She shrugged indifferently. “That’s your problem, not mine. Now there are nice clothes in the bag I’ve left on the table. Dress, comb your hair and be ready when I return.”
After she and the other lady left Angela took out the clothes. The knickers were tiny and see-through. The top just long enough to reach her waist and the hipster skirt very short. Finally the shoes were heeled, adding nearly two inches to her height. In some way they could be what she’d wear for a party, perhaps not the knickers though, and certainly not see-through ones. Sitting at the side of the bed now dressed and ready she suddenly felt sick and ran over to the chemical toilet, retching for a good time before she tidied herself up and went back to sitting on the edge of the bed.
An hour later she was being taken past the shower room and down the stairs into what looked like an old barn. Already the other girls were stood spaced out across the barn with one of their wrists attached to old metal rings in the walls, by handcuffs. All of them looked under strain, not daring to talk to each other after being warned to keep quiet by a woman who constantly walked round carrying the electric stick. Angela was taken to the far side of the barn and like the others one of her hands was attached with handcuffs to an iron ring set in the wall.
One was taken out of the room, returning in about ten minutes and followed by another. As the second girl returned Saeed’s mother pointed to Angela. “That one’s next,” she said to the woman who was watching the girls.
The woman went over to Angela and unfastened her hand from the ring and then re-fastened Angela’s hands together behind her back with the hand-cuffs. Saeed’s mother had followed the woman and she grasped one of Angela’s arms tightly. They left the barn and walked across a small courtyard into what looked like the main farmhouse. She stopped Angela before they entered the room where the buyers were waiting. “Smile, be pleasant and do what I tell you without objection. Remember there are only four buyers so one of you won’t receive an offer. Believe me you don’t want to be the one who doesn’t sell.”