'Your FBI friends are coming back up.'
'They were quick,' Dale replied distractedly, 'maybe they forgot something!'
He smiled and went back to completing his notes.
The front door to the apartment had been left unlatched and after a sharp creak as it swung open there came the familiar heavy foot steps of Stanley followed by the sharp heels of Jolene, marching over the kitchen floor tiles.
Dale glanced up first and just stopped. In the door frame was a tall heavy-set man with closely cropped hair just like Sergeant Stanley's, however, despite the resemblance it clearly was not the Marine who had accompanied Jolene that now blocked the entrance to the kitchen. The man looked impassive and very definitely, threatening.
'Who are you?' Gertrude blurted out, sounding somewhat alarmed.
The man said nothing he just calmly advanced into the room, the open space at the door taken by an attractive black woman with shaven bleached blonde hair.
Dale understood that something was wrong, it was clear that Gertrude was now very anxious and her question had made it obvious that the two unexpected visitors were not just friends who had decided to pop in for an impromptu visit. He stood up quickly and made to move forwards, but as he did so the big man suddenly thrust out his hands, the open palms aimed at Dale's head and groin.
Dale reacted quickly, jabbing an arm up to cover his face against the attack, however, it became apparent that the big man's initial move had been a feint purely to trigger Dale's instinctive reaction to take a defensive pose.
Quickly scrambling up onto the seat cushions, Gertrude heaved against the backrest, her movement making the whole sofa rock backward. She started to shout agitatedly as in a split second the intruder advanced, grabbing Dale's blocking arm and using it to spin him about as he side stepped swiftly behind the smaller man.
In the process, the big man locked the inner crook of his free elbow around his captive's windpipe, released the twisted defensive arm to flail ineffectively in the air as he brought his newly available forearm into place to create a vice-like choke-hold about Dale's neck, one arm gripping the other and pulling tight to squeeze with lethal force.
The sudden smash of a boot into the back of one of Dale's knees made him buckle and he felt himself being lumbered with the weight of his attacker, driving him down to his knees and allowing his assailant to increase the leverage for his hold.
Terrified and panicking, Gertrude had pulled her gaze away from the awful scene of violence that was taking place right before her in her own living room to meet the baleful stare of the now ominously sinister black woman who had followed the big man into the room. Her eyes bore right through Gertrude and it took a second for her to realise that the female intruder not only had a hair colour that contrasted starkly with her dark skin, but that she had the most extraordinarily vivid ice blue eyes that gave a coldly penetrating quality to her stare.
Gertrude looked back to Dale, to the big man with his arms locked about his neck, an expression of concentrated intent cast upon his face. The struggle continued and Dale's face was ironically turning a livid shade of red even though the blood supply to his head was actually being cut off and his brain deprived of oxygen by the the human tourniquet applied to his throat.
The combatants had already been locked together in their latent wrestling for around thirty seconds, more than enough time for Dale's squirming efforts to free himself to reduce to a series of pathetic slaps at the fleshy neck brace, weakly scrabbling at the carotid choke hold applied to his neck.
Dale was effectively sliding into a hypoxic condition in his brain, the compression of his carotid arteries inducing unconsciousness without the necessity to block his airway. A well-applied choke hold was capable of subduing a victim within seconds, however, if incorrectly administered it could quickly lead to a stroke, irreversible brain damage and ultimately, death.
After a further short interval of diminishing endeavours, the smaller man slumped and the bigger man expertly recognised the sudden relaxation, releasing the hold enough to bestow only unconsciousness upon his victim rather than anything approaching fatality. The brutal intruder glanced behind and then stepped back, dragging and somewhat gently laying out Dale's inert torso to rest upon the cushions of the sofa, lifting the deadened legs and swinging them about to jut over the arm rest, deliberately ensuring that they remained elevated slightly higher than the head.
Gertrude was stunned by her own reaction. Had the admittedly violent scene been intensely emotional, full of chaotic rage, she knew that she could have coped with it and would even have intervened. However, the intruders were cold, meticulous, devoid of any demonstrative anger and the effect had been to lock her into a fearful and powerless trance like a rabbit transfixed by the headlights of an oncoming car.
'Gertrude, you must come with us.'
The man had spoken, gently, assuredly, almost protectively.
'Gertrude, now!'
He had barked her first name and it made her snap out of her confusion. The man took her wrist but he did not forcefully pull her from the sofa, he simply applied firm pressure. The black woman came closer, placing what looked like a pen between her teeth that she had previously held hidden behind her back. She moved toward Gertrude and grabbed one of her wrists, twisting it outward to bare the sensitive underside of the forearm.
As she held the arm tightly, Akosua took the pen from her mouth and pressed it against the flesh, carefully aligning it with one of the thin blue antecubital vein lines beneath the white skin. She quickly clicked the button on the top of the pen but instead of a ball-point popping out to press down into the flesh, a needle flashed out and started injecting something directly into Gertrude's venal system.
The result was instantaneous, the sharp pain making Gertrude react with a burst of energy.
'What is that?' she screamed. 'What are you doing to me?'
Akosua smiled reassuringly as she held the needle in place for a while, Rey gripping Gertrude tightly to contain her initial struggling.
'Don't worry; I know what I'm doing. This is a benzodiazepine derivative, it will act as a sedative and an amnesiac but it will wear off in three to four hours. You'll be alright, we want you to be calm; we're not here to hurt you. You're quite safe with us.'
Although having been injected for only a few seconds, Gertrude could already feel the first signs of the drug coursing through her body. Akosua examined her intently, detecting the tell-tale eye movements and reactions that indicated that the sedative was having the desired effect.
'Gertrude? Can you hear me Gertrude?'
She clicked her fingers and Gertrude finally looked up, already displaying a diminished level of responsiveness which would allow them to control her.
'Is she alright?' Rey asked.
Akosua nodded, peering into Gertrude's eyes and checking her pulse, noting that it had elevated slightly.
'Yeah, she's fine, we can take her out now, she won't cause any trouble.'
Together, they bundled through the kitchen and out to the landing, hurrying down to the main apartment door in a fixed chain, Rey gently reassuring Gertrude and urging her on, as if aiding in her evacuation from a fire.
Gertrude hypnotically complied, the physical grips to her wrists were one thing but she felt confused by the assurances and authoritative tone of the voice being used, not quite knowing whether she was being rescued or restrained. She stumbled along, held up by the big man and the black woman who had injected her. What had she said?
Bendopine
?
Benzidane
? Something - She just could not focus and simply complied with the two strangers carrying her along.
The oddly interlinked trio had reached the kerb and started to cross, both Rey and Akosua bunching up tightly against Gertrude as they veered toward their car parked on the opposite side of the road. Just as they reached the halfway point, a fumbling crash followed by a loud grunt sounded from behind them, drawing the immediate attention of the two human props who were both surprised to see Dale staggering up to his feet, hanging onto the door into which he had slammed as he stumbled down the last few steps of the apartment block.
'I'll take him,' said Akosua, her tone calm and professional but with an ominous hint of finality about it.
Without breaking step, Rey pincered Gertrude in a grip about her shoulders and continued marching her to the car. His charge woozily glanced back and saw Dale emerge from the apartment, dazed but clearly intent on heading toward the black woman who was now standing in the middle of the road.
Dale coughed as he came closer, he took a deep breath to ready himself, bunching his hands into fists as he came into range and immediately shooting out a punch aimed at Akosua's face. She simply dodged the badly timed flail and rammed a flat palm straight into Dale's nose in response.
Already shaken with the affects of oxygen deprivation and with his eyes now watering from the stunning jab to his nose, Dale staggered back a couple of steps, his hands instinctively flying to cover his face. He shook his head and noted a trickle of blood running freely from his nostrils and splashing into his cupped palms. He looked at the black woman, cool and insolent, who simply raised her eyebrows in a jeering assessment of his actions.
Dale lurched forward and made to grab her, latching on and writhing with her as she twisted about until he found himself holding her tightly from behind, one arm coiled about her waist and the other locked about her upper chest.
In an instant, his supposed captive grabbed the arm wrapped about her waist and pulled it in even tighter, then, she simply relaxed her legs to place her whole weight in the support of Dale's trapped grip.
The effect was immediate; he felt himself pulled forward and down and suddenly became aware of an intensely painful sensation erupting from his forearm. It took him a moment to realise that the woman had managed to bend her head down and was now clamping her teeth into a fold of skin that had gathered has she had viciously bitten into his wrist.
Dale tried to pull his arm away but the self induced tearing motion had made the pain even worse, the slicing incisors cutting down into his flesh without remorse. Without warning, an explosive flash of pain burst from his temple as Akosua released her grip on his arm around her waist and rammed her elbow back at his head.
The connection with his skull had produced a perfectly blinding collision and as Akosua released Dale's wrist from the grip of her jaws, he stumbled back, his head screaming for momentary relief from the pains now shooting down the side of his face and across his forehead.
The cumulative effect of Dale's previous strangulation and his current futile exertions, the eye watering jab to his nose and the mind numbing elbow slam into his temple, all of this created a fug of incoherency that caused him to involuntarily bend over to catch his breath, his arms supporting his upper torso against his thighs, his mind devoid of any awareness of immediate danger, preoccupied with the dizzying pain in his head and the burning sensation throbbing in his wrist and up his forearm.
He did not notice the outer edge of a carefully aimed and tensed foot about to smash into the back of one of his knees and upon impact he simply dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, somehow managing to collapse down on all fours rather than sprawling flat onto the road although he was still gasping for breath and desperate to stay in control of his own body.
Dale inhaled two laboured breaths before he noticed that his opponent had walked around him and was standing before him, just off to one side. He watched in dazed awe as the woman shifted her weight to one slightly bent leg, curved her hips up to one side and cocked her free leg out sideways. The fast-twitch contraction in the woman's thigh muscles snapped out her shin with the speed of a striking praying mantis, the whiplash of the arcing foot delivering a knock-out blow to his jaw. Dale fell, completely unconscious.
Jolene had arrived at the
Gevonden & Geleverd
antiquarian bookshop with Stanley and Oliver but had not managed to get an answer from within the store, she had been banging on the front door for a good five minutes, peering inside with her nose pressed to the glass and her hands cupped around her eyes to allow her to see into the dark interior. It was still relatively early and the opening hours indicated that the door was only ten minutes overdue in being unlocked, although she had managed to get further information from her CIA field support team which had indicated that the owner, Johann Janssens, actually lived above his business premises.
Jolene turned to Oliver.
'Stay here and watch the front.'
Turning to Stanley she jerked her head to indicate that they should move off, 'Come with me, let's have a look at the rear entrance.'
After ducking through an electronic parking gate that controlled access to a large rear courtyard area in the centre of the block of shops and apartments, Jolene and Stanley quickly identified and approached the back of the bookshop. Jolene nodded to the door.
'Open it'.
The door was relatively sturdy and it took two thundering kicks from Stanley aimed just below the lock to burst the entrance open, the door bouncing off the wall of the corridor that it led to as it swung violently on its hinges and finally reverberated to a standstill.