Bad Deal

 

 

  

The tragedy happened without any witnesses but me.

 

The boys in blue came and did their job, which obviously included questioning me, and after two days they were convinced that the car had lost its breaks and didn’t managed to make that curve. Fortunately the five Asian tourists didn’t suffered much since their death was nearly instantaneous. Unfortunately the doctor at the morgue was in my pocket, so to speak, and if she wanted to have her daughter back she would say anything I wanted.

 

There were no Asian tourist in that car, in fact no one was alive inside it when the car fell and crashed and exploded. I am many things, but not a murderer. We have death penalty in this state, and if I am ever arrested by the cops, I prefer to face a life sentence than a death one.

 

The ‘dead men’ were now illegal aliens in the USA, five between millions, and were trying to make a living with the money I paid them, somewhere in the Atlantic coast. As for mommy and co-ed daughter I was going to deal with them now.

 

She was actually a beauty in her mid 40’s. Sure the fact that she was bound in her underwear, had an almost generous pair of breasts and was obviously scared was very enticing for me. I am a bit, and just a bit, sadistic and I really enjoy this moments.

 

When they realize that they would better called the cops than trust in my word, that I am a liar and they're doomed. They're wrong of course for I am a woman with a serious honor word (even a twisted one) and do exactly what I say I will. But if they knew that they would not plead or try to, they will not fear and I would not have my moments.

 

Her daughter, who seemed to be a younger version of her bound in a naughty underwear in one of the three other chairs of the room, was crying although I had assured to her that I would not kill, torture, rape or sell her or her mommy. Figures. Anyway the drug was ready.

 

I am a botanist by fate, since my father, two grandfathers and three great grandfathers were famous botanists as is my brother. But I ended up having a different occupation. I own a funeral house. And it was in my lab in the basement of the building where I perform my legal job that we were right now. Me and them and my two faithful henchgirls.

 

The drug was one of my best creations. The extracts of two very rare flowers mixed with some mundane chemicals and I had the POWER!

 

Mommy was first. I slowly walked until I was behind her, made sure that pretty daughter was watching it very well then I pounced. The drug soaked hankie was over mommy's gagged lips and nose in a second. There were many reasons of why I had choose the twins as my assistants, one of them was their proficiency in knots.

 

Even knowing that she didn't had a chance mommy did try to escape from the chair, from myself and from the drug. She trashed so violently that if the chair wasn't bolted to the ground she could have tipped over and perhaps knocked me off of her and even free herself.

 

That's one of the best things of my drug, it has a slow effect, so I get to fight trashing bound girls or women every time I use it. It's such a delicious sensation! Anyway mommy was fighting a hopeless fight and soon hyperventilated, and entered slumberland.

 

I decided a different approach for the co-ed. She had trashed for herself so the twins had had the excuse to hold her, and terrorize her a little more. These girl had a mean bone on them. But that was part of the show. I dismissed them, sat on the girl's lap and while I held her face up with my left hand, dried her tears with another hankie in my right.

 

Then I reassured her that everything would be alright, that she would woke up the next morning safely at home and would be back to her lover's arms in no time.

 

And when she was calm and relaxed... I pounced.

 

She didn't fought as much as I had anticipated. It seemed that she just wanted to get over with everything, that she had believed in me. I hate when it happens!

 

Anyway, about two minutes later mommy was ready. I told her that she would remember everything of the past three days, except the part of her daughter's kidnapping and everything that she had done for her safe return. That was the tricky part, I had to create a fake memory for them both. I decided to accept Betty's (one of my twin henchgirls) idea.

 

The daughter had decided to make her a surprise and went home unexpectedly (true) but instead of being kidnapped as soon as she arrived there, she never arrived (so mommy didn't have any reasons to be afraid). After two days vanished she appeared suddenly stringently bound and gagged in her own bed. But mommy hadn't had the chance to call her friends for she had been attacked and conked out. As for the girl's fake memories I made sure that she wouldn't remember anything but being kept drugged in a basement somewhere.

 

The cops would realize that 'The Knocker' (guess who?) had stroked again.

 

I made them both repeat their new memories three times before being sure that they were stuck in their brains. Then I soaked a cloth in good ol' fashioned chloroform and put them under.

 

Betty and Suzy took them home in mommy's car. It was now over 3 AM so I was sure that they would not have any problems, but made them check their guns before leaving. They would spend about an hour staging mommy's bedroom to look like another job of 'The Knocker', take nearly two hundreds of photos for my collection and leave them safe, bound and sleeping.

 

For me there was a good sleep ahead, thanks to the chloro-mask I was strapping to my face, because legally export five American beauties to their new lives would take a lot of paperwork, patience and brains & muscles. I inhaled deeply and relaxed.

 

 

When I awoke I was feeling very refreshed, but there was still something bothering about this job. I was feeling uneasy again. I have never done anything on that level, was it out of my league? I kidnapped and sold girls for many clients around the country. I had a perfect cover-up, who would believe that there was a living breathing (and drugged and bound and gagged) girl manacled to the coffin where 'old Auntie Jane' or 'Grandpa Sam' were supposed to be?

 

I wasn't greedy, so I did it only once or twice a month for the past six years.

 

I had trouble sleeping last year when a cheerleader I had sent to a guy in Texas managed to escape and brought him into justice, but the guy suffered a stroke before being able to tell anything and, as I had ordered him to do, he had already destroyed all paper trail connecting us.

She didn't remembered a thing because I kept her drugged all the time after me and Betty grabbed her from her mother's house. Then came this order.

 

Five specific girls, all at once and I had two months to deliver them. I would not even bother to answer the e-mail had it not a catch. I would get paid 10 million dollars for the job (who's not greedy again?). I called some people and after a while I had info about my new client.

 

General Tang of the Chinese Army. Powerful guy, but in big trouble. He was old, had some mysterious disease and there were some people wanting to arrest him for corruption to promote themselves. And corruption is a capital crime in China.

 

Why would a guy like this order someone from across the Pacific to deliver him five specific American girls? He paid me one million dollars so I could do the research I needed, stage any farce necessary to deliver five special coffins to him and would even provide me the 'soon to be deceased' that would supposedly be inside the coffins.

 

So far everything was happening as expected. There were funeral ceremonies being conducted in Chinatown for the guys and a private cargo would deliver the 'remains' back to China in three days. So me and my gals had three to capture them. And General Tang had stated that he would not take kindly any draw back or whatever from me now.

 

I had to do it, liking it or not. I went to check on Betty and Suzy. I called them twins because they were very look-alike, but in fact they were not blood related.

 

Otherwise I would have problems with what I saw when I entered their room.

 

 

 

 

 

Suzy was feeling weird, a bit sick and nauseated. She had not being the one receiving the chloroform soaked cloth, Betty has, then why she was feeling like that?

 

Oh no! The boss had woke up! MMMMPPPPHHH!!!! Yep, she has. Suzy took a quick check up of her current predicament. She was bound to a chair, probably one of the heavy and bolted ones in the basement. She was ballgagged and blindfolded. And she was nude.

 

‘Finally, one of you awoke.’

 

The boss lifted the blindfold. She could see Betty tied in the same conditions in the chair in front of her. The boss was still behind her (never a good sign) and undoing the straps of the gag. She gave her a cup of water and waited while Suzy licked her lips once more.

 

‘Care to explain what I saw in your room?’

 

‘Well boss, we did as you told. We delivered mommy and daughter to their home. Bound them side by side in momma's big bed, took the pictures and made it look like 'The Knocker' did it...’

 

‘And?’

 

‘Well we were returning home, but still were in that neighborhood, when we saw that girl sleeping in someone's front lawn. She seemed to have simply passed out from all the booze she had drunk. But other than that she was fine. Regular breathing in spite of the smell, regular pulse and all that. And, well, you saw her...’

 

‘Of course I saw her! What in the world you both had in your minds to do that? You brought her here! You brought an unexpected girl right HERE!’

 

‘B-but b-boss, she was already passed out! And we put the hood on her! She could not see nor hear anything! And, well, after we brought her here it was fun to put her under and tie her, put her under again and retie her, put her under again and retie her again; she has such a limp and athletic body! And well, you know how Betty is... she got all horny and asked me to chloro her too... and I must have tried some in me.’

 

‘So you girls like to be put under... Like I didn't knew it!’

 

And the Boss placed a chloroform soaked cloth over her nose. Under any other circumstance that would have been a pleasant experience for Suzy. But she knew that when she awoke she would not like her predicament. So she fought back. It was useless, for the boss was even better than her or Betty with ropes and knots. But she tried it anyway. But the Boss had leverage, a good position and a firm grip. And, what the hell, it was chloroform... she would not like it when she woke up, but she was already starting to enjoy her situation. The firm grip of the ropes, and of the boss hand holding the cloth in place, and the chloroform itself. She gave in.

 

The boss placed a chloro mask over her face and did the same with Betty. Suspended upside down in the well in the last sublevel of the building? Or delivered to Mistress Delores, after the current contract had been fulfilled of course, for a day of punishment?

 

She was considering which one of these options for her henchgirls near future she would execute when she took another look at her unexpected guest.

 

Still sleeping with the angels, thanks to the injection the Boss had provided as soon as she saw that she was almost managing to shake the hood off of her own head, the idiots had not buckled it right, but obviously she had moved a little since the last time the Boss had seen her.

 

She was wearing the hood properly now, so the only feature of her face that was visible was her nose. Under it she was efficiently gagged, blinded and deafened. Plus she was wearing a straight-jacket and had her calves bound to her thighs. And was in the padded cell.

 

The Boss hadn't taken any chance with this one.

 

But what would she do with her now? She was a beauty, those breasts were real, she had a real beautiful face and she was a virgin. But the boss had not the habit to put adds like 'Blonde, 38D, Virgin, 20 years old' in her clients e-mail boxes. They send her their orders. That's how it worked. Probably she would deliver her, fully clothed, to one of the parks around town. She would awoke with her body full of rope marks and no useful memory of the past two three days. Yes that was the best thing to do. But only after she delivered the five girls to General Tang.

 

Which is why she had just decided that she would take Betty and Suzy to sublevel 3 and bind them upside down, gagged but not blindfolded, inside the well and at about 50 feet down from its mouth for, let's see, one or two hours?

 

 

 

Detective Kate O'Bannon wasn't feeling well. The Knocker had stroke again, and for the fifth time he had attacked one of the family. Doctor Helen Taylor, 47 years old, and her daughter Hayley, 19 years old. She had sworn that she would take down the bastard three years ago, when her partner found her bound and gagged in her underwear, and with that chloro-mask strapped to her face, locked in her own closet. That turned just another case for her into something really personal. But so far he had attacked seventeen other women, and with Kate, the Taylors and the previous ones the count was up to 28 women! And no clues.

 

No clues whatsoever.

 

She turned the key and entered her home.

 

‘Max? Max? Where are you? Mommy's home.’

 

Where was that cat? She found him in the kitchen, eating his dinner. But who had put it there for him?!!! That question, and the realization behind it, came too late for Kate.

 

Two women grabbed her from behind and wrestled her to the floor. One was sitting in her back and trapping her left arm behind her with it, while the other was doing her best to hold a chloroform soaked cloth to her face. And was being successful in it.

 

Kate was already starting to feel more relaxed, she had to fight back but wasn't managing to find enough willpower and strength for it. She was relaxing more and more by the second. She shouldn't have tried to scream for help when she was thrown on the floor, that lungful was costing her too much now. Too much. As soon as the mid-thirties detective went under Betty started to bind her legs while Suzy, for insurance purpose only (they always got a little overzealous after the 'well punishment'), kept the cloth in place. Meanwhile, Maximillian was eating his dinner, not being bothered at all with what was happening with his owner.

 

 

 

Jill Sheridan was reading the morning papers. It seemed that that weirdo that knocked out women was doing it again, but he had made something different this time, he had kidnapped his victim.  Poor girl thought Jill as she saw her picture in the paper. 'Kate O'Bannon... detective of the R&H division... previous victim... (?) swore to catch The Knocker...'. Beautiful gal, must have been a real heartbreaker ten years back... Jill owned a model agency and instinctively appraised the missing woman, ten to fifteen years back she would have been a good lingerie or swimsuit model, so where was she back then that Jill hadn't saw her?

 

Jill's agency wasn't one of the big ones, but she could pay the bills without enslaving her girls... much. Talking about business... she had a business meeting scheduled for 10 AM that morning, so she should better hurry up and get ready, and take a shower. She entered her room already undoing the straps of her bra when she saw the woman.

 

‘Who are youuummmppphhh!!!!!’

 

There was another woman who grabbed her from behind, one arm around the waist and the hand of the other her surprise attacker was shoving a cloth over her face. It smelled weird, and was causing her head to spin. The other woman, all dressed in black, was holding Jill's arms at her side. Jill wasn't a sluggish woman, but these two were amazons! And her eyelids had never been that heavy... She wanted to fight, but the more she wanted the less she did it.

 

She remembered the scent, chloroform, so... that's... how it... felt...

 

Betty hold the cloth in place for another minute after the ex-model fainted in her arms. The better for them that she was clad only in a lacy red pair of panties, in less than three minutes she was ready for transportation. The fact that Jill lived in a very secluded part of the town's outskirts had made her the natural first achieved. No one saw the two young women carry the rolled up tapestry and place it in their van. And if by choice anyone was passing by the road at that time they would not find it that weird, since the van had an ad at its side that reads: 'Clean and Cleaner. We make your carpets, tapestry and rugs look brand new!'

 

 

 

Suzy was the one to chloroform their next target, a young tennis player called Jessica Rogers.

 

Jessica was not a big star, nor would be one day. But between the amateurs and semi-pros, she was one of the best. Her father had decided that she would too be a tennis player after he saw the Williams sister on TV. Jessie would have preferred to being studying to be a nurse by now, but he demanded that she did those daily trainings before and after her job at the mall. When she arrived, late again, to her job that morning she found something odd. The mall hadn't any tapestry shop, and that van was parked right besides her usual parking lot. And the owner of the van was smoking a cigarette while standing on Jessie's lot!

 

‘Excuse me??!!!’

 

‘Ops, sorry, my boss is talking with someone inside about a job in one of the offices, and she's taking too long and... excuse me please.’

 

Jessie parked her car and decided to be polite, but she would not engage in a conversation. She simply couldn’t. She was very late!

 

‘Wait! You work at Star Media Shop? Of course you do, er... Jessica isn't?’

 

What does that woman wanted with her? And now that she had read her badge she was standing in front of her, obviously not pretending to let her go until she had said or asked whatever she wanted. Jessie felt trapped between her car and the woman's van and with her blocking her front. She considered walk backwards for a moment, but decided against it and realized that, as long as she was not annoying, she would listen to the woman's questions.

 

‘Well, Jessica, it looks like the job it is in your shop, or related to and... I don't like to be kept in the dark and no one told anything about a job in the mall so, you know anything about it?’

 

‘No. No one told anything about a new tapestry in the shop. We don't have any in it anyway, except in the office of course, but...’

 

‘No wait! There's my partner and she'll gave us the answers we need...’

 

We? Who's we? Jessie turned around to ask the newcomer what was this story about a tapestry job in her shop... and found herself looking at a gun pointed to her face. At the same time the smoker grabbed her from behind and Jessica found herself breathing through a smelly cloth.

 

‘Keep breathing. That's it. Do not fight back. We will not hurt you, so don't fight back.’

 

As if she would fight back! With a gun in her face and a strong woman keeping her still, and without any momentum or leverage, Jessie would never fight back! She kept breathing, not taking lungfuls but trying to at least breathe regularly. All the while, the woman holding her still kept reassuring her that she would not be hurt and motivating her to breathe through the cloth.

 

In a minute the African-American sportswoman was limp in Suzy's arms, who carried her to the inside of the vehicle while Betty removed the adds from the van's sides. Jessica was hogtied next to Jill and has a similar chloro-mask strapped to her face. Suzy took the wheel and looked at her lover with some with some anger.

 

‘Before you say anything let me say you this, the Boss was fooled.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘The plans of the offices of this place are wrong. The security office was not where we supposed it was, but beside that I had not too much trouble.’

 

‘'Had not too much trouble'?’

 

‘Well, I had to use all the bombs. And there were two gals that barged to the office unexpectedly. I had time to put the mask before they saw me, but one of them was already dialing 911.’

 

‘And now they are...?’

 

‘Sleeping the sleep of the right and just bound and gagged snoopy girls, I didn’t had time enough to strip them but things might be a little overcrowded in that closet right now...’

 

‘The Boss will not like it; it has to be a smooth operation.’

 

‘Look we couldn't grab her at her home, not with all her family living with her, we couldn't grab her at the club and it was suppose a simple 'trust the gas bomb in the security office' thing, like when we grabbed those twins remember? The Boss was fooled, I got the wrong information and I had to improvise. Anyway, we're still on schedule. There are two more to grab after lunch and the last is due to tomorrow, right? Right?’

 

‘Ok, ok, but you tell the Boss about this.’

 

They returned to the funeral house, unload their cargo and prepared a lunch for themselves. They scanned through the channels, but while there was a mention to the mall incident, the disappearance of Jill had not been noted yet. The cops seemed to have bought the cover story that they had staged. An unknown number of thieves had stole an undisclosed yet amount of money from the mall's office safe. Jessica seemed to have been taken by them probably because she had seen them and could recognize them in a line-up.

 

So far so good though Suzy. But where's the boss?

 

 

 

The Boss was in Chinatown, officially visiting an old friend, but actually receiving very bad news from her best informant. It seemed that the political adversaries of General Tang had found out that he was buying five American girls from someone in San Francisco.

 

The identity of the girls was not known by them, but they had sent two or three agents to find out everything they could about the matter.

 

The Boss paid for the information and promised a substantial bonus if her informant had all the data about the agent until dinner. The old men licked his lips anticipating the sensation of holding so much money in his hands, but he licked his lips every time he thought about money and had never been wrong about what his reliable sources told him. He was already talking with someone in Beijing when the Boss bid his wife good bye and called her girls.

 

The schedule for the evening was maintained but they would probably have to grab the last girl that night instead of the next morning.

 

 

 

Charles 'Chuck' Bayley had been a cop for over half his life. For the past ten years he was in the Personal Crimes Division. For the past five he had a partner called Katherine 'Kate' O’Bannon. For the past four years and a half he was deeply in love with that crazy, reckless and stubborn Irish beauty. For the past twenty four hours he had not rested for a second, since that weirdo that had attacked her three years ago had decided to kidnap her.

 

Every informant, every guy he knew that didn't want to go back in jail and everyone that owed him something was looking for clues. When he heard about the DVD he crossed town not caring about how many laws he broke doing it. The image of her face was well focused.

 

She was breathing, she was alive!

 

The camera moved back to grant a good look of her whole half-naked body. She was wearing very sexy underwear, lacy bra and panties both in black and, if it wasn't for the manacles and cables strapped to her, he would have felt that he was seeing a private video. It seemed a dentist chair. The IV was suspended at her left and... did the bastard nail polished her? Yes he did, she never used black. That's when Charles had a very big surprise.

 

‘The good detective is safe, and thus she'll stay if you proof yourself worthy detective Bayley.’

 

A woman! The Knocker was a woman!!???

 

‘Don't even bother to record this voice. I paid a junkie to recite the whole alphabet for me and I am altering her voice. If you're good enough to find us detective Bayley, you'll have to find another way to link this whole situation to me. For I dare you!’

 

What?

 

‘I dare you detective Charles Bayley and all of the San Francisco Police Department to find me. Find me and you'll find her! And her!’

 

The camera switched to a young blonde woman, clad in a lame excuse of a yellow bikini, who laid bound on her side in a loose hogtie and with a chloro-mask strapped to her face atop a nondescript table covered with a white blanket. Two of the guys gasped at the size of her breasts -when the camera zoomed them- and another gasp was heard when the chloro-mask was removed and a red ballgag appeared under it. Then the camera returned to Kate, who was starting to wake up. And promptly put under with the help of a cloth soaked in something. The hand that appeared was wearing a black leather glove, and wasn't very clear anyway since the focus of the image was the feeble attempt to Kate fight back her attack.

 

‘A fighter, that's what drove me to her. The blonde was an unexpected bonus. She is the main goal. Remember that detective Bayley, I might let the blonde go. But she'll be mine forever unless you find us! So find us! I dare you!’

 

The cloth was removed and Kate's peaceful expression was the last thing that appeared on the screen. Bayley was silent for a second, then sprung into action.

 

‘So, who's the blonde?’

 

‘We don't know it Chuck, yet, but we called Juvenile and Family, they're doing a search of their own and will call us as soon as they find anything. Now Chuck...’

 

‘I'm fine lieutenant. I am fine. But this guy or gal is in trouble. Big time. You can bet on it! Now where the DVD was found?’

 

‘He, or she, attacked a secretary of a veterinarian while her boss was lunching, he came back to find her bound and gagged on the floor and an envelope labeled 'To the cops' in his desk. There are no cameras at the building where it happened...’

 

Chuck made another questions then left to check on the crime scene for himself. If it wasn't for the fact that he was also preoccupied with Kate's health and near future, the middle aged man would find the situation amusing. Only Kate hadn't realized yet what Chuck felt for her. But he decided to give him some back up and support, for Chuck was a bit too engrossed (even in such circumstances) for his likes. Anyway, the Knocker, whoever he or she was, was in big trouble.

 

And because he or she had wanted it! That's when it struck the lieutenant.

 

Because he or she wanted it...

 

 

 

You know when you are sure, but I do mean SURE, that you screw up big time although there's nothing pointing out it for you or anybody else?

 

That was how I was feeling that moment. The first time I grabbed and sold a girl had been fun (she was the tyrannical bitch that made my life through high school as miserable as possible). The second time it had been even more fun, abracadabra! and the magician (a pompous and arrogant misogynist) almost went to jail for suspicion in the disappearance of his sultry assistant.

 

That's when I realized that I liked it. I am not a bad person, I just kidnap and sell girls. I know it's illegal, and that's part of the thrill and the fun. And now both were missing.

 

Why did I have to accept that order? Why those specific five girls had to be the ones that that accursed General Tang wanted for himself? What did I got myself into? Those were some of the thoughts that went through my mind as I checked the girls.

 

The place where's located my legal business used to be an hospital years ago, but why it had three sublevels with so many rooms and a well in the lowest one is still beyond my mind. Then the hospital closed, most of its buildings were imploded and I opened a funeral house in the only one that was left, and had a pleasant surprise while exploring the basement. It cost me and the girls weeks of labor to clean up all the room and check what of all the paraphernalia could be used for my purposes, I intended to open a place for S&M reunions, and what couldn't.

 

The chairs were one of the things I salvaged. There were about a dozen of them on this room, all of dentist kind. I had set the temperature to pleasant 72 F since my 'guests' never were allowed to wear more than their underwear while in my power.

 

Jill and Jessica were sleeping peacefully than to the sedative I gave them at regular times, I had them bound at the ankles and knees before having them both taped to the chairs, and their arms were taped to the armchairs. The intravenous feeding would provide anything they needed and they were wearing geriatric diapers. Just in case they had some tolerance to the sedative and woke up while I wasn't there I had them hooded and ballgagged.

 

As for detective O'Bannon I decided to have a little fun. Besides the straightjacket, the leather blindfold and the tape gag she was a naked struggling woman overly tied to one of the chairs. Every now and then I would grab my bottle of chloroform, soak a hankie or cloth and put her under. Why? Because I could, what else? She fought every time, and when I allowed her to stay awoke for a while she fought her bonds fiercely. Hopelessly and vainly of course, but it was worth the watch. Right now she was sleeping and I decided to keep her that way a little more, since I had some questions to do to my unexpected 'guest'.

 

I gave her a dose the sedative and went to check the mysterious blond. She was still, unmoving and kneeling in the middle of the padded cell. She heard me coming and even blindfolded and deafened, her head followed me while I walked around her before checking her bonds.

 

I undid the knots holding her legs trapped and she stood on her feet with a surprising steadiness, I was expecting cramps and wobbly legs, and didn't reacted when I placed the dog leash around her throat. While I was guiding her to the interrogation room my uneasiness with my current situation was being replaced with curiosity about this girl. Why she was accepting her capture with such cool behavior? Who was she anyway? What would I do with her?

 

Little did I know that I would end up owing her my life a few hours later.

 

 

 

Every time she was ordered to leave a gal bound and gagged behind, even knowing how it was risky, Suzy stayed long enough to watch she coming to realizing how helpless she has been turned to. She knew that this specific secretary was the mistress of her boss, the lawyer who owned the apartment. She was also the bitch who had started that gossip about she and Betty at the gym they used to go, before everybody started to call them freaks.

 

She had waited nearly two years to record this moment, and she knew how Betty would love to see it all tonight, after they grabbed the last girl. The way her breasts moved meant that they were fake, but wasn't it that obvious? Now for a last touch...

 

One hour later she and Betty were laughing while they checked the pictures Suzy had taken.

 

Suzy was telling for the third time how things had gone smoothly and how many cops should have found the bound harridan when they saw Charlene Roberts entering the small one story building in front of them right on schedule. And that cute little dog was with her.

 

Figures, she was going to see her pet doctor. They split, Betty going through the front door while Suzy moved the van to the back of the building.

 

Michelle's Pet Doctor was owned by the sisters Michelle and Deborah Arnold, Michelle being the veterinary in charge and Deborah the secretary and handywoman. They had scheduled the lunch hour to attend some private business, and suddenly Charlie walked through the door asking if she wasn't too late? Deborah had her scheduled for next week, but Charlie claimed that she had received an e-mail anticipating the appointment. They were checking their computer when a mysterious masked woman entered the reception room with a gun in her hand.

 

‘No fuss ladies and everything will be alright!’

 

Another masked woman appeared from the back of the building, gun in one hand and the other holding a bag that was quickly lowered to the floor. The first one, and taller of the two, seemed to be in charge and spoke again, in a more calm and reassuring manner.

 

‘We have no reasons nor orders to hurt any of you. So as long as you cooperate you'll be fine. I want you three lining up with your face against that wall.’

 

All three young women complied.

 

‘Turn around all of you. My partner will bind you one at the time. This is not a big room and I will shoot if any one of you do something really stupid. Someone will die if one of you does something really stupid. And you better pray it's not my little sister!’

 

So they are sisters? Deborah had a remarkable memory, and was trying to get all possible information about them so she could help the cops later. Until then, she'll do as she was told.

 

2 women. The taller was the leader, 5'8", blond (but not a natural one), good physical shape, probably an athlete, left handed and with a tattoo in the shape of a black bird flying in one her right arm. The other was about an inch smaller, also a fake blond, in good shape as well and with no tattoos. Both were looking casual, blues jeans and green oversized T-shirts, whom asserted their sizeable bust. So engrossed in remembering the minimal details was she, that she didn't heard the order to put her hands behind. The sudden grabbing of her wrists startled her.

 

‘Could you please relax. You'll wake up in a hospital bed, probably, but beside the nap, you're not going to suffer anything from us. OK?’

 

‘O-o-o-kay.’

 

Heavens, the chick is scared to death thought Suzy. She placed the hands palm to palm, tied and cinched the wrists and the elbows, then tied the arms to her torso, carefully spun her like she had did with other two and helped her to sit on the floor. Then she bound the ankles, the calves and the thighs, cinching it without cutting the bloodstream, then helped her to maneuver to a kneeling position and linked the ankles to the wrist, leaving her in a tight kneeling hogtie.

 

They traded places because Suzy had lost the 'head or tails' and one by one Betty gagged her captives. The amount of chloroform they had put on the cloth wasn't enough to knock them out, but they would not be able to really object anything that Betty or Suzy would do on them due to the dizziness they were about to feel. Michele was first, then Charlie and, after soaking more chloroform to the cloth, it was time for Deborah.

 

After she went under, Betty and Suzy untied the rope that connected the wrists and ankles and helped the girls to hop to the back of the building. No one saw them helping the girls to get inside the van, place another chloroform soaked cloth over their faces and leave.

 

 

 

Meanwhile the lieutenant was trying to explain his idea to Chuck.

 

‘So you think that this is a ruse?’

 

‘Chuck, I want you to think about it. This does not seem to be The Knocker's work at all. It's not his MO by any chance, it's a deliberate challenge to the whole department from a man (or woman) that did his or her best to avoid our attention for years and it's the best way to have us thinking in one thing, while he or she does another thing.’

 

‘I got your point chief, but...’

 

‘Just look at the video, again.’

 

They had found the DVD in another envelope, lying atop a table next to a bound, gagged and blindfolded red-haired mistress of a famous lawyer, hated by every cop in town, who was now trying to convince his wife to not divorce him.

 

It showed Kate and the blonde, both still dressed as they had been in the previous DVD, lying side by side on a clean white carpet. Both were hogtied with tape binding their wrist and ankles and gagged with the same material. They were on their side, 'facing' each other. The image showed a gloved hand strapping a chloro mask on the blonde and another on Kate. Then a sheet of paper was placed between them, the camera had focused on it and both Chuck and the lieutenant saw ten columns of letters that didn't make any sense.

 

‘If it's a code, IF, it's not something that we can break soon.’

 

‘And while we're looking for her or trying to break it...’

 

‘So you understand my doubts?’

 

‘Yes I do. You're right, it doesn't seem to be his or hers work.’

 

‘We'll still be looking for her, of course, but I am more interested in what could be the real goal of whoever took Kate and the blonde. The president or any big foreign or national dignitary is not in town, nothing out of the ordinary in the trade and bank business. So why would this crazy ****** want all the cops REALLY after him (or her)?’

 

 

 

As my not-so-clever plan to foil the police was being thwarted, I was dealing with a problem far more mysterious and intriguing than I expected. After I bound the blonde to a chair in my 'interrogation chambers' I took the hood off and removed the ballgag, she kept herself silent, I offered water and helped her to drink two cups, and she still kept silent. I sat on her thighs and looked her in the eye and ordered 'speak'.

 

And she asked me 'Are you my new mistress?'.

 

After a while she had spilled everything I wanted to know about her, she seemed a genuine submissive woman who was after someone to give her orders. She couldn't recall her childhood, teenage days or early adult life. She only remembered being a slave for all her life, how long didn't mattered for her. She had had a mistress who had taught her everything worth learning, then mistress died but left her as part of her heritage to a niece.

 

When this niece died she had been left alone for a while, but found a master whose only purpose of keeping her was the one of having a punching bag, not caring for her needs in any way. When she realized that, she had some payback and grabbed all his money she could put her hands onto and went to San Francisco. She wandered for a while as she spent his money the way her two previous mistresses had said she should, and by chance only she had been found by Betty and Suzy when she decided that 'that lawn was good as any other to take a nap'.

 

That reminded me that she, and detective O'Bannon, hadn't ate anything since they were brought in here. She seemed sincere and honest in her answers, a real slave. But I decided not to take any chance. I tied her to a dentist chair the same way I had done the detective, with an excessive amount of rope, gave her a sedative shot and went to prepare my lunch.

 

And theirs of course, I didn't wanted them to starve. If everything the girl had told me were true I might had been dealing with a unexpected goldmine, if I found a way to replicate whatever brainwashing process the blonde had suffered I would be able to sell my girls for a much higher price! As for the detective, I am not a killer nor a torturer.

 

 

 

The last woman on the list didn't lived in San Francisco, nor in the State of California, nor in the USA. Lena Knauer was an account manager at a small European Private bank with very good clients and very big deposits, and starting the next day she would spent the first half of her yearly two weeks of vacation visiting her mother in the private institution were she lived.

 

The plan was simple; sneak into the elder care facility as the visiting time was coming to an end, then sneak into Mrs. Knauer room, grab her daughter and leave.

 

Sure, they would have to deal with the security of the place, but they hoped they could manage. It would be better if they had stayed with plan A, grab her at the parking lot of the mall where the beauty parlor she was scheduled to go tomorrow morning was located, but the Boss wanted her strapped to a chair ASAP. They parked their car two blocks away and walked to the facility.

 

There was a commotion at the entrance and asked a nurse what had caused it. Mrs. Knauer had suffered a stroke minutes before the arrival of her daughter.

 

 

 

Meanwhile three people were watching an anguished Lena Knauer as she waited for news about her mother's conditions. They had followed the ambulance after they had seen Lena jumping in at the facility, when they reached the hospital they already knew which patient they would pretend to be caring for and anxious for news about, while they waited for an opportunity.

 

It appeared about an hour later when a doctor told Lena that her mother was fine, under the circumstances, and that they didn't knew if she had suffered a Grade 1 or a Grade 2 (the light ones), but due to her age some neurological deficit was expected. She thanked him, was allowed to see her mother for a moment and decided that she needed to go to the toilet.

 

She wept and cried for a minute or two and was washing her face when she felt the gun being poked between her shoulder blades. There were only two women with her in the toilet, both Asian (probably Chinese though Lena), one holding a small gun with one hand while clamping the other over Lena's mouth. The other was holding a cell phone, and a photo of Lena's mother as she has just saw her appeared in the screen.

 

‘You come with us. No fuss. No talking. Or your mother dies.’

 

They meant it. She had dealt with people like those two before. NBS as she had nicknamed them, Naturally Born Soulless. She nodded as much as the hand allowed her to.

 

They went straight to car with reflexive windows parked near the hospital. She was ordered to seat between them in the back and was promptly gagged by one while the other handcuffed her hands behind her back. Then she smelled something seconds before a wet cloth was forced over her nose. She tried to fight back, but then was ordered to behave and to take deep breaths. She did so and was asleep before the third member of the group returned to their car.

 

 

 

The disappearance of Lena went unnoticed for half an hour, but then the doctor who had gave her the more-or-less good news realized that she was taking too long to do the phone calls she said she needed to do. A quick search and an orderly remembered to have seen a woman matching Lena's description walking out of the hospital with two Asian girls. The hospital had security cameras and while checking the video footage the way the trio moved attracted the attention of a nurse married with a cop. By the time Betty and Suzy finally reached the hospital the cops were asking questions all around. And one of them showed a picture of Lena and the two oriental girls to Suzy, and they realized what had happened.

 

They called the Boss who ordered them to return to the funeral house.

 

 

 

Suzy had started to call him 'Mr. Li' because one of the four girls we had sold him was an actress and has a remarkable resemblance with Gong Li.

 

He was supposed to be my best informer about Chinese related matters, but he only managed to tell me about the agents two hours after I learned about Lena's kidnapping. They were three, two women lead by a man. He hadn't much info about the girls, except that they were of the deadly and deadlier kind, but what he told me about the man scared me a lot.

 

He was General Tang's ace in the hole, a highly skilled killer with no regard for anything except his country's safety. Which seemed to be the reason of why they had broke up their relations the last year. He had then been attracted by General Tang's political adversaries, and was resolute in his goal to take down the general. No matter the cost.

 

I asked Mr. Li to find out who was the best ranked representative of the Chinese government here in the US that belonged to the group of adversaries of the old general, get in touch with him and arrange (by any means necessary) a meeting.

 

But I wasn't going to take any chances. I moved all the girls to what we called the Revenge Room and we get it ready to earn it's name in no time. Then I went back the funeral house and sat in my chair in my office, and waited for their call.

 

 

 

Lena awoke to find herself stripped to her bra and panties and bound to a chair in what seemed to be a basement. She was alone. After a moment of panic she forced herself to calm down, her friends called her the Ive Lady for her ability to keep calm even when there were enough reasons to start looking at the windows with a new purpose in mind, so she needed to be true to this nickname now. Her mother was depending on her, now more than ever, so she needed to calm down. Whoever were those women they really knew how to tie up a woman she realized after she tried to freed herself, and only managed to get her wrist bruised, for a couple of minutes.

 

And they were good in gagging women too. Being an adept of the self-bondage, it didn't took too long for Lena realize that she would not free herself on her own.

 

She decided to analyze her situation. Her bank dealt with huge amounts of money coming from a small number of persons. As far as she knew it was all legitimate assets and clean money. If they were going to try to force her to deliver them any code they wanted, they should have not kidnapped her in such a public way. The police should be after her by now, it wasn't everyday that a woman disappeared after hearing good news about her mother's prognosis. Somebody should have seen something, and by now any access she might had to the bank's network was being canceled and denied, so that was not the reason. She started to consider any possible and rational explanation for her current predicament, but since she didn't considered the possibility of women being kidnapped to be sold as a sex slave as more than an urban legend, she was nowhere near the truth when she heard them coming. A door was unlocked behind her and Lena heard the sound of a pair of heels approaching her. Another foul smelled clothe was placed over her nose and Lena complied. She took deep breaths until she passed out.

 

 

 

They sent me an e-mail with pictures of Lena, they stated that if I ever wanted to have Tang's millions I should pay them half a million dollars in cash that same night.

 

So their game was to pretend to want to sell her to me. If I attended the meeting they had scheduled, would I became their prisoner or they would kill me?

 

It didn't mattered. I am a slaver, and I love and am proud of it. It's more than a satisfaction to me to fulfill the orders I receive. And now because of my greed I found myself in the middle of a Chinese power struggle, with my and my girls’ lives standing in the middle of the warpath.

 

NO WAY!!!!

 

I checked the live feed of the Revenge Room, all girls but he blonde slave were sleeping. I had them lined against the wall opposite to the room's door shackled by the arms to it. They were sitting on the floor with their hands above their heads and ballgags fastened to their mouth. I had gave all girls a sedative shot, but the blonde seemed to have some resistance to the drug and was awake and alert, but otherwise completely quiet. For some reason the sight of her helpless form seemed wrong, I could not realize what was wrong, but it gave me a feeling of unease.

 

I decided that Betty would come with me to the meeting, and told the girls that whatever happened, they should play along. We had a very quiet dinner.

 

 

 

The meeting was at a closed motel about half an hour in the road more or less to the northwest of Frisco. Today I still keep about a million dollars in cash in the safe in the second sublevel for emergencies purposes, so it was easy to me to have the money and arrive over an hour early.

 

I called Suzy on the cell phone. She reassured me that everything was alright with her and the girls. But she called me by my name, Elizabeth, which she and Betty never did, it was always 'Boss'. I thanked my overzealousness and grabbed my notebook.

 

I accessed the security system of the funeral house and saw Suzy tied up to my chair at my office and gagged with tape, they had not been economic with the ropes for she was bound the way that some riggers are famous to do, nearly mummified with rope to the chair, but otherwise are usually unpractical in the real world. They were in two, the man was preparing a syringe with something, and the woman was holding Suzy's head still, but turned to the left, the man approached and plunged the needle in Suzy's jugular vein.

 

She collapsed instantaneously. They went on searching the girls, but not in the right place, the man was looking at the greenhouse and the woman was searching the funeral house.

 

I returned to the now sleeping Suzy. I zoomed in her face (there’s about two and a half million dollars in state of art security system in the whole complex). She was breathing. It could have been a sedative. It should be. Otherwise they would see my most horrible side. I looked at Betty as she was already putting her pill in her mouth. I swallowed mine and we left the car.

It was just another one story building with about a dozen rooms. They told us that they would be on room 7, the only one with the lights on and the door ajar. We walked in and saw Lena tied up on the floor of the room, which was completely bare save for the bulb providing the light. She was clad in blue underwear, hogtied with rope and gagged with duct tape. I went straight to her, kneeling on the dirt floor to better check on her and I looked at her throat.

 

There was the sign of an injection. A sudden commotion behind me made me turn around a little too fast, and I almost fell over the unconscious girl.

 

I managed to get place a hand on the floor while discreetly grabbed the sphere. The other woman was holding Betty in a vicious grip by the door, she was twisting Betty’s left arm crudely behind her back while held a syringe already plunged in Betty’s throat.

 

‘Hey, what this all about? I brought the money.’

 

‘Shut up!’

 

I looked at her. In spite of everything, I had to admit that she was a beauty. Moderately sized breasts, her other curves where at the right places and her face (which was emotionless at the moment) wasn’t that bad at all. She was clad all in black leather, from top to bottom, and I could see two holsters at her waist. Then she injected the drug in Betty!

 

She went limp in her arms nearly instantaneously.

 

‘This drug will kill her in six hours if she doesn’t receive the antidote. If you follow my instructions she will receive it, as well as the other girl over there. Do you understand me?’

 

Oh yes, I understood her!

 

‘Now turn your back to me and put your hand on top of your head, cross your finger and don’t move after that. Do it! Now!’

 

I didn’t move.

 

‘Are you listening to me? She will die if you don’t follow my orders!!!’

 

‘You and the others are already out to kill us all: me, Betty, Suzy and the girls, it isn’t? Tell me I'm wrong Shu, or are you Kwai?’

 

Her reaction when she realized that I knew who she really was the expected one, she jumped on me. Now I am skilled in martial arts, I am really good in three different styles, but not enough to fight a black belt with any chances to win, and she had many of them according to Mr. Li.

 

So I broke the sphere when her right fist connected with my jaw.

 

When I was a child and lived in Japan I liked to watch ninja movies. The moment in which they were cornered and broke those spheres and all that mist appeared while they disappeared was one of my favorites, and when I grow up I ended up creating my own version of the mist sphere.

 

Actually it didn’t concealed too much mist in it, but the mist was a fast action sedative that I had developed myself. The pill me and Betty had swallowed let us both immune to it for a couple of hours, and the Chinese girl hadn’t take hers.

 

It had been quite a blow and I almost was KOed by it, but I slowly managed to shake the stars that had fell on earth to dance in front of me. The images regained their focus and I saw the killer girl sprawled on the floor. I checked Betty and went to the car to grab some rope and cuffs, I knew she would be out for the night but I wasn’t taking any chances. Thirty minutes later I was on the road again, Betty and Lena were in the backseat while a taped, tied, shackled and drugged killer was safely locked in the trunk. Then the cell phone I had found with the girl ringed.

 

‘(I hope you have a good excuse for your unexpected lateness my dear...)’

 

‘Speak in English. Your killer is more than just tied up at the moment, and is in my full power and I know who you are Mr. Chen.’

 

‘This is unexpected. But I believe that you know that at least one of your assistant is sleeping a dreamless sleep from which she will not wake up.’

 

‘Both are, you son of a ****, and the Lena girl too.’

 

‘Too bad that you can’t call your local police for help, isn’t? Now, I think we can have an arrangement of sorts that can be satisfactory for us both.’

 

‘I have a lot of friends that know what I really do for a living and don’t care. No matter how many you know I assure that there’s more. Now lift one of your hands.’

 

Obviously intrigued, I saw him lifting his right hand.

 

‘That was the right one. Yes, there are cameras, cameras as in more than one, in this room and in the others of the building. I have a security connection with them right now. If you and the Shu or Kwai girl move out of this specific room you are right now or if you threaten Suzy’s life anymore than you already did, I will call general Tang faster than you can say ‘I’m screwed’ in Cantonese. Do you understand me?’

 

‘Yes I do. I believe you are going to let your friend, the young miss Knauer and my assistant in the house of one of your friends that are both trustworthy and unknown to me, correct?’

 

‘Yes, see you in one hour.’

 

‘Wait a moment, there’s something you don’t know but really should.’

 

He had located one of the cameras and was looking straight at it, he still maintained a cool and calm expression but I could see that he was confidant.

 

‘Spill it out.’

 

‘Do you have any idea why the old General wants them? Specifically them and not any other girls? They are not going, to be his sex slaves or the wives of his sons or nephews. They are..., how’s that expression?’ – I could feel that coming. I could see his smile forming in the corners of his mouth. Yet I wasn’t prepared for what he said.

 

‘Oh yes, they are sacrificial lambs, all five of them. And I am NOT speaking metaphorically.’

 

 

 

‘Look me in the eye and tell me that you didn't knew it.’

 

‘I am afraid I cannot do it.’

 

He had just confessed that he knew that I was working to a madman, who had plans to kill the girls I was being paid to deliver to him, and stood in front of me with the same and usual patient look in his face as if he hadn't said anything that was really important.

 

We were at the office of Mistress Delores place, an S&M club for a very selected and wealthy clientele for two reasons: I needed a place where I knew Betty and Lena would be safe and I also needed a place in which, in case I failed to find an antidote to save their lives, I knew that bitch would pay for it, suffering for the rest of her long and painful life. Delores McCormick, my third best friend in the whole world, had a place that suited both needs. I called her en route back to San Francisco then called 'Mr. Li' to meet me there.

 

Two very burly guys carried Betty and Lena to a private rooms where two naked slaves, and registered nurses, where ordered to tend to their needs. I didn't see what was done with Shu/Kwai, but Del assured me that she was in for a very bad experience. I told her to be careful for she was dealing with a very well trained murderer, but she smiled that cryptic smile of hers and told that it was not the first time something like that happened within her walls.

 

Then 'Mr. Li' arrived and we went straight to her office. I was really upset with this old man, actually I was really upset with this whole story, and with myself. My two best friends were about to die because I saw a hand holding ten million dollars for me, but didn't realized to whom belonged that hand. I felt Del statuesque presence behind me as I was about to slap him silly. She put her hands on my shoulder and spoke firmly to him.

 

‘Tell us what we can heard about this General Wang or whatever without having to torture you.’

 

‘He started to arise to his actual place of power when the Gang of Four was arrested, and soon became a very powerful reference in the Chinese Army. Please, I am not saying that he is a new warlord or something like that. But he is powerful, more powerful than he should be, and old. Ten years ago when he started to show signals of decay in his health, something natural to any man reaching his 60 birthday, he started to search any possible way to keep himself as he was at his forties at least, if not younger. All known treatments in the Chinese medicine were tried and failed. So he went after... unusual ways.’

 

‘And he decided to use black magic?’

 

‘Actually it is more outrageous than that. He is a powerful old man, with some very large deposits in Swiss bank accounts, and according to some sources, this is what that charlatan is really after. A good friend of mine swears that the man doesn't believes that the treatment will work, most likely the General will die of it. But by then he expects to have been granted by Tang with the access to the accounts.’

 

This was getting better and better by the minute... I felt a gentle pressure from Del's hand and looked up. She mouthed to me 'I talk' and I complied.

 

‘And this treatment?’

 

‘According to the imposter, if he takes a bath in the blood of five 'special' women 'appointed' by the stars he’ll have his health back, and probably his youth as well...’

 

‘But that's not even original! There was a Polonese noblewoman that believed the very same thing and killed hundreds of girls because of that!’

 

‘We know that. The imposter, who's European, knows that. But the general Tang doesn't believe in anyone that tells him this particular information. Not even his son.’

 

'Mr Li' told us more about general Tang and the imposter but I had really heard enough. I grabbed all guns that I could carry and told Del to not come after me. She complied, after she told to three of her most skilled in the art of killing clients what she would do or give to them if they helped me. I had been gone for ten minutes when they departed.

 

 

 

Even with my clock telling me that I had less than four hours to save Suzy's life, about a half an hour more to save Betty's and an unknown time less to save Lena's, I drove carefully.

 

The last thing I wanted was to attract the cops since I was in a car with seven unregistered guns. I knew I had to take them by surprise so I decided to use the Back Door.

 

There are four entrances to the sublevels, one in the greenhouse, two at the funeral house and the Back Door. I don't know what was the original purpose of this short tunnel who connected the second sublevel to a hidden entrance about 200 ft behind the greenhouse, but according to Suzy's best guest it was probably made to take in (and out) patients to the psychiatric ward, back in the days when there was a huge hospital where now I supposedly earned my bread, patients that the press and the public should not know about.

 

I parked, checked the guns and realized that I hadn't checked the images of my two unwanted guests for a while. I was both surprised and despised when I did it.

 

The unknown blonde was binding and gagging a prostrate Shu or Kwai in the Revenge Room.

 

It has its name due to a little story; As I said before I enjoy doing what I do, but that does not mean that I am heartless. Years ago I got this pretty co-ed ready for transportation, bought by you'll-soon-find-out-who who came in person to collect 'the remains of his old buddy Joe'.

 

But he was more than ecstatic, and he told what was going on. The girl wasn't going to a sex slave, she was in fact the only daughter of the man whose testimony had sent his only son to death corridor. He was laughing when he told me what he would do to the girl, before she died at the same moment than his son. I got mad and tried to break the deal, he showed me a gun and soon Suzy and I found ourselves tied back to back and with our own panties trapped by tape inside our mouths. But then Betty arrived and tased the bastard.

 

Fortunately I already knew some of my secret potions and I managed to erase the most unnecessary (for me) memories of his mind and added some to the girl's own, then we placed a drugged helpless girl in the trunk of his car parked on our parking lot, made him drink a whole bottle of brandy and waited. Then Suzy, going home after a normal day's work heard some weird noises coming from a car parked next to hers, then heard the girl's cries for help (the gag has been purposely tied very sloppily) and called the cops.

 

Now you know who he was, don't you? Anyway, after this case I decided that I have a special panic room built for me in the second sublevel. For the money I paid the guy who did it he 'forgot' to do a lot of things, so officially it didn't even existed in any public or private record.

 

The idea was simple, it looked like a spacious but empty room but once activated you couldn't get inside without wearing somewhere in your clothes a special micro-device that emitted a specific message in a particular frequency. Or you'll be walking into a trap.

As had done the Chinese girl. I did a quick check on the footage of my security cameras. She and Chen had found the entrance to the sublevel in my office, they had disregarded completely my menace, and decided to split to search the place and she found the Revenge Room. She called him, but decided to get inside without waiting for his arrival.

 

I said that the room is huge, and I do mean HUGE, huge enough so if you wanna shoot someone who's lying on the wall opposite to the entrance, like helpless girls, and you're not carrying a rifle, you have to walk inside to get a good shot.

 

She did so and five steps after that two sheets of bulletproof glass, one in front of her and the other behind, fell from the ceiling. She was smart enough not to shoot, but then her instant cell was flooded with a knock-out mist and she soon was unconscious. I had it build in the chance that, if I ever dealt with someone that I had reasons to believe that was as crazy as that psycho father, and unfortunately proved myself right, any girls that would be in my power would not suffer for my errors. If they were not removed from the room in ten hours after the trap was activated, Del would receive a previously recorded message and would rescue them, and dealt with them the best way she decided to. The name Revenge came from the fact that there were two canisters of gas linked to the trap, and if or Betty or Suzy or all of us did not survive our meeting with the person or persons trapped, but managed to activate the proper signal of the micro-device before..., we would not be the only ones to die that day.

 

Chen's reaction was to shoot the glass, and run for cover when the bullets ricocheted. He was back at my office and making phone calls, probably reinforcements.

 

I knew I had to run, but I decided to find out how the blonde had managed to get free before. She had looked everything that happened to her pretense killer, and when the girl fell on the floor she snapped her chains open??!!! Actually she had snapped a link, but a heavyweight champion would not be able to do that. OK, probably HE would, but not a girl. But she had done that.

 

There were enough material in the boxes at her left to restrain twenty people, she choose what she was going to use and walked to the unmoving girl. By doing that she stepped through a sensor that activated the fans that cleared the air in the cell where Shu/Kwai was and the bulletproof glass was soon lifted. She was calmly doing a very fetishistic job on her prisoner. I entered the tunnel starting to really get worried about that girl.

 

 

 

‘He's demanding that we send him some people to help him kill the girls.’

 

‘The fool! The arrogant fool! Those were not his orders!’

 

‘I agree. But you know how he feels from taking orders from you...’

 

‘Because I am a woman?’

 

‘Exactly.’

 

‘Very well, tell him that right now we cannot send anyone, but in an hour a group of six agents will arrive to help him. Don't send anyone of course, but get my car and some men ready. I am going to visit this... this... what she is again?’

 

‘The word is 'dominatrix'. And her name is Delores McCormick.’

 

‘You're sure that that's where the Knauer girl is?’

 

‘Absolutely. And before you ask, here it is.’

 

 

 

I had to give credit to that blonde, she had put the unconscious girl in something that was at the same time a hogtie and a frogtie, had found the chloroform bottle that I kept in one of the boxes and tied a folded (and heavily soaked) cloth on her prisoner's face.

 

Since I knew that the mist was more than enough to make the girl sleep until the afternoon of the following day, I took it off. The girl managed to make soft moans so I decided to ballgag her before leaving. There was no signal in the tunnel or in the sublevels so I was technically blind to what was happening above me, and where was the blonde? Ever so careful I managed to get to the greenhouse entrance, opened and crept out to the surface. I checked the notebook.

 

Chen was standing right behind Suzy with his back to a wall. He had not bothered to untie her and I saw that he was sweating, trying to keep calm and holding a gun dangerously close to Suzy's head. And I saw the blonde coming to the greenhouse.

 

I decided to be ready for her, I had brought the chloroform bottle with me just in case and there was enough tape, packing tape and duct tape around me to mummify her completely three times at least. She was going to enter by the back, the only place in the whole building that hasn't a wall mostly made of glass, so I positioned myself behind the now unlocked door.

 

She opened the door violently with a kick, and it slammed on me harshly, making me stunned enough to let the soaked cloth drop on the floor. She grabbed one of my wrists and pulled me as if I was weightless. I didn't flied because she kept a firm hold, but I landed on my butt.

 

‘Mistress?!!!! Oh, MISTRESS!’

 

And then she was besides me apologizing quite effusively for her error. She told me that the place had been invaded, that she had dealt with one of the invaders after my clever security system had knocked her out and that she had believed that I was another invader before I had a chance to told her to shut up. She instantaneously complied, took three steps backwards and knelt on the floor on the Korean style. Head bowed and all. Who was this girl?

 

‘You didn't called the police?’

 

‘No, mistress.’

 

And you were trying to protect my house, and all my current possessions, including those captive girls, from these... 'invaders'?’

 

‘Yes. There is only another invader besides the girl I bound, but he has another of your girls as his prisoner and he seems...’

 

‘Why didn't you escape?’

 

‘Because you ARE my mistress…, aren't you?’

 

Now what do you say when a naked blonde with all those curves ask you that while bending a little in your direction? I saw that she was still with the manacles in her wrists, and she had thrown me that easily and had not sweated or had lost her breath by doing so, and saw the complete subservience in her eyes. So that's why I said those words.

 

‘Silly girl, of course that I am your mistress! I should punish you right now for having doubts it, but I, and I alone, have to deal with this robber or whatever. I'll punish you later. Now stand up, put your hands behind your back palm to palm and don't move!’

 

She was an unexpected and extremely valuable asset. But I didn't knew who she was, how she could be that strong or anything else about her. So I couldn't really trust her. She allowed me to use a good amount of tape so her arms were melted together as well as her legs, I maneuvered her to the floor and grabbed the soaked cloth that was nearby. She didn't fought back and even took deep breaths. After she was out I taped the cloth over her face, grabbed my gun and left.

 

 

 

I am not the only one with hidden security video cameras in my workplace. Del has hers too. At that same time she had finished to deal with one very important (she didn't told yet who he or she was but it must have been someone big enough for her be forced to leave Betty and Lena) and very demanding, but now very satiated, client and decided to take a look at the girls in the screen monitors in the security room. The door was ajar.

 

The two operators had been tied up to their chairs, tape gagged and knocked out cold with cloths that laid on the floor by now. She pushed the swivel chairs being careful enough to don't harm the bound and sleepy half naked girls and checked the cameras. They were still working, but not her security staff. They were or bound and gagged and drugged, or being reduced to this condition at that moment or weren't in their usual places. She tried to contact them by radio but didn't received any message. She checked the room where Betty and Lena were.

 

The guards and the nurses were already bound and gagged kneeling on the floor, the guards were already out cold and the girls were being chloroed at that very moment. They were fighting, which somehow pleased Delores, but when man with twice your weight in muscles wants you to breath on a cloth, you'll end up breathing eventually. But what scared Delores the most was that 'Mr. Li' was injecting something in Lena, then it was time for Betty.

 

‘Ah..., Mistress Deloriz I presume.’

 

Delores turned around. There were three people at the door.

 

All three were dressed in black, and all were Chinese. Two were men and were holding guns in theirs right hands, the last one was a middle aged woman who was obviously in charge.

 

‘I assure you, Mistress Deloriz, that no one of your clients knows that we are here, so after we leave your reputation of a safe place for wild fantasies will be untouched.’

 

That calmed down Delores. So she, her staff and her clients would not suffer any real harm, but what about the dying girls? The woman answered the unspoken question.

 

‘I hope you understand that we could not accept interferences from your staff, and I hope if you understand that any record of our presence here will either be erased or taken with us.’

 

‘I do. Have it your way if you want to do it now, but... what about...’

 

‘Those two girls?’- And she pointed to the big screen, where Mr Li was checking Betty vital signals – ‘Believe it or not Mistress Deloriz...’

 

‘Delores please, my name is Delores.’

 

‘I beg your pardon. As I was saying, Mistress Delores, Chen is working on his own. Our plan was different, but he truly believes that if Tang hears about the unexpected and precocious death of his 'personal mage’s major ingredients for the rejuvenescent potion..., the foolish old man will die in anguish and disgust. And that's what he's after. Tang's death.’

 

‘And he won't take orders from a woman, specially orders that may delay his goals, right?’

 

As Delores and the mysterious woman were making acquaintances of each other, something really unexpected was happening at the greenhouse. The blonde girl was freeing herself.

 

 

 

I am not a trained sneaker, I don't have PhD in invisible infiltration, and I’m not even am a reservist. I hired Suzy and Betty do to such things. So what was the point in foolishly try to surprise Chen if I never was really trained for that? Because I didn't had any other choice.

 

But Chen was a trained man.

 

Even doing my best to enter the funeral house silently by the back, creep through the refrigerated room and enter the management section of the building, and I did managed to do that very silently, I was greeted with a 'Come inside miss Maeda' while I was getting close to the opened door of my office that was so unexpected that, I have to confess, my first movement was to get up, stand and start to say a little loud 'But how do you...'

 

‘I said come inside miss Maeda.’

 

He was pointing his gun to her head, he was not smiling nor sneering and was standing right behind her with the other arm holding her nearly mummified body (and the chair she was bound to) next to him, I feared that he would choke or, accidentally, strangle her for the arm was passing under Suzy's chin and keep it upper than I thought it would be possible.

 

‘Is my daughter dead?’

 

‘Who?’

 

‘Shu, the woman who is now laying in the same room of the girls you kidnapped. Is she dead?’

 

‘No, she's alive. Bound, gagged and drugged, and alive.’

 

He relaxed, and pointed the gun at me.

 

 

 

‘I had three daughters. None was of my blood lineage, true, but they were my daughters. One of them was Tang's secretary, and she found about Percy's plan to inherit the bank accounts of the general, and send me an e-mail before going to confront that English bastard.’

 

While he was cinching the last knots he suddenly decided to explain me why he was going to kill me and all the others. He had gagged me with two handkerchiefs when I tried to rationalize with him, so all I could do was listen to his ranting.

 

‘Her body was found two days later. Nor Tang nor the Englishman denied to me that they had saw her that day, and the man I loved more than my father's didn't believed in what I said about the powers of the imposter or his potion! He believed him and not me! ME, who would obey any whim of his as if it was a divine order! And, according to a guard that suffered an 'unfortunate accident' shortly after talking to me, they were the last ones to talk with Fei that day!’

 

He pulled me up by my armpits and dragged me to the door.

 

I could only think in how I had screwed up things, how I was a lame excuse as a prowler and many other self-pitious and desperate things… Then, as I was being shoved through the door by him, she grabbed me by the ropes in my chest (that were helping to trap my wrists between my shoulder blades) and pulled me. I fell on the floor while my head hit the wall violently.

I barely managed to see my 'slave' fighting Chen before the lights went out.

 

 

 

For a moment the sound of her mistress head hitting the wall distracted her, and Chen used this moment to send his left elbow to her chin. As she was falling backward she grabbed both his sleeves and planted both her feet in his stomach, pulled the best she could and when she hit the floor she used the momentum to send him flying in a very short flight that ended with him colliding upside down with one of the men that Del had sent to help the Boss.

 

She jumped on them both, knocking out cold the man with her right foot (and nearly breaking his jaw) while the left pinched Chen's left hand painfully to the floor. Then one of the other two men remaining standing on his own feet grabbed her from behind and tried to press a cloth to her face. She judoed him and sent him falling on top of both fallen men the next second.

 

‘Wait, we're on your side!’

 

That calmed her. He was telling the true, but she needed to confirm it.

 

‘Please, sir, repeat.’

 

‘We're on your side! Mistress Delores sent us to help a friend of hers that was being menaced by a Chinese guy. It's him, isn't? We’re on your side, I swear!’

 

 

 

Twenty minutes later the Boss woke up when the only man of the three sent by Delores that had a sadistic streak threw water to her face. The first thing she saw was Chen tied up and gagged sitting on the floor afar from her left and being watched by two men dressed in black leather, then she heard a moan from her right. Her blonde slave, funny to think of her as that she thought, was severely hogtied on the floor and yet was looking very happy under the gag, then she looked up and saw the man who had woke her up, and he had a bad bruise on the chin and a black left eye. And was looking to the captive blonde.

 

‘Who are you guys?’

 

They repeated their story, but the Boss didn't believed in them when they said that the girl was beating them up when but surrendered when one of them claimed that they had came to help her mistress. Her reaction was to put the blonde on a kneeling position and remove the gag.

 

‘Didn't I chloroformed you less than an hour ago?’

 

‘You tried mistress. But I have a very great pair of lungs. I held my breath and puffed and whiffed a little on the cloth, the rest was pure interpretation. Then I waited for you to leave, grabbed a garden scissor that was nearby and freed myself. Then I came to help you.’

 

There was a moment of odd silence between them.

 

‘But... why?’

 

‘Because you are my mistress. And since you didn't specified any new list of obligations, I am following the ones of my two previous mistresses. And do my best for the health of my mistress is one of my obligations. Even if my mistress doesn’t want to help her in that matter…

 

She talked like a robot, but her flesh was soft, warm and definitely human. Then the cell phone of one of the men ringed. It was Delores, she was arriving and has good news.

 

 

 

‘Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU!!!!! Thank you... ehrmmm...’

 

‘You may call me Mrs Fei.’

 

Dawn was breaking and they were all safe. Chen hasn't brought any antidote with him, but Mrs Fei did. All the girls were back to the dentist chairs, and Lena was being carried by one of Fei's men to be strapped to her own. Betty and Suzy slept peacefully in their own bed.

 

According to Mrs Fei none of the girls that had been poisoned would suffer anything because of the time they had spent with that thing in their blood, but would sleep for a whole day at least and Delores (a former doctor) confirmed that to the Boss the best way she could. Then the Boss, Delores and Mrs. Fei were left alone in the room with the recovering girls by all the men.

 

The men brought with Mrs Fei and those sent by Delores eyed each other, but there was no harsh comment or any instigation between the two groups. Chen and his two daughters were locked in one of the padded cell with detective O'Bannon, all sported straightjackets, ankle cuffs, leather blindfolds and ballgags, but only Chen was awake. This time the boss hadn't took any chance with her 'slave', and injected a nearly lethal dose of sedative on the girl after having her neatly tied in a ball tie (she had been expelled by Delores of the room where the girls were being revived and had to do something to spend the time), and seemed to be in dreamland now.

 

The boss didn't like to know that the police had not been fooled by her 'chase your tail' strategy involving Kate, but then, after all her worries about her girls (all of them)'s health had been erased, she started to think more clearly. And found a solution that was profitable for all parts involved in the story, except Chen, his daughters and the general.

 

Chen was brought to their presences still straightjacketed but kept a pose like he was in charge of everything. The Boss spoke to him.

 

‘How much do you hate the General, and love your daughters?’

 

‘I will not answer this or any other question.’

 

‘Because if you do hate the General, and love your daughters, and wants to see him falling from grace, being deserted by each and anyone he ever helped or bribed, dying alone and despised by all Chinese; and do love your daughters too; you are going to be very very famous...’

 

And Chen listened to the Boss, and agreed to follow their plan.

 

 

 

Chuck had been forced by the Boss to go home the last night, he thought he wasn't going to get any sleep, but was being awakened by the phone.

 

He managed to grab it on the third try.

 

‘Hello?’

 

‘Good morning detective Charles Bayley.’

 

It was her! The very same voice! He was alert and ready the next moment.

 

‘I believe you were not fooled by their strategy, but please say so and confirm it to me or I will be very disappointed with your brain capacity.’

 

‘What are you talking about?’

 

He had grabbed his cell phone and was sending a text message to the lieutenant as he spoke. The woman was silent for a moment, as she was thinking and reasoning before saying anything.

 

‘I did not grabbed your partner, detective. I had her once, why would I want to have her a second time with all those beautiful girls and women around me? What I did was grab this... this... gizmo that produces such an horrible voice every time I write a word on its screen, from them. Them, detective, are the ones behind the kidnapping of miss O'Bannon and five other attractive girls. That tennis player, that vet and her client, that German beauty and that ex-model. If you don't know what I am talking about, come to apartment 2B. I'm in your building detective.’

 

2B... 2B... There were two girls, secretaries if he was not mistaken, leaving in that apartment. Chuck run through the stairs and invaded the place gun in hand, but she was gone, leaving a pile of paper in the table in the kitchen. He heard noises coming from the bedroom, and found the two residents of the place lying bound on a forced hug on the bed. One of the girls was awakening, but was still a little groggy. The other was still under whatever she had used this time. He called his lieutenant and told him where he was, but left a now struggling bound, gagged and blindfolded girl untouched and went to check the files he had found.

 

 

 

‘Jill Sheridan, 36 years old, ex-model and owner of a model agency. We believe that she was the first to be kidnapped, in her own home. No witnesses. Jessica Rogers, 21, saleswoman and semi-pro tennis player, taken away after what we are now considering that was a fake robbery at the offices of a mall. No useful witnesses, all records of the cameras taken by the perpetrators. Charlene Rogers, 26 years old, housewife, and Michelle Arnold, 30, kidnapped from the vet's office of the second. One witness, Deborah Arnold, 26, Michelle's sister, claims that two women took them. Lena Knauer, 29 years old, account manager of the XXXXX Bank, works in Geneva, was in town to visit her mother, who suffered a stroke. She was taken from the San Francisco General Hospital by these two women which, as you can see, entered there with this man’ – he looked back at his audience, the lieutenant wasn't liking it. Hell, the Chief of Police and everybody else who had heard the news weren't liking it.

 

‘So you mean that these women were kidnapped by unknown persons, for unknown purposes and in order to avoid any chance to we realize it they kidnapped Kate? And this according to someone who seems to be the real Knocker?’

 

‘With the files I found about those five women there was this letter.’

 

The screen showed a printed page.

 

‘The technicians says that the letter was printed in the apartment's owners own print. Probably right after the girls were knocked out by, according to their words, 'a blue mist'. Traces of an yet unknown substance were found all over the bedroom, which the tech says that support their story. As for the letter... it seems real.’

 

‘Are you sure it is from him? Or her? It was the Knocker that wrote this letter?’

 

‘The letter mentions things that we didn't told to the press, like a list of the bra sizes used by the women he knocked out since the first to the last one and other things... related to the case. Whether is a she or a he, the Knocker wrote it.’

 

‘But this... yada yada about a Chinese general buying all five?’

 

‘I checked with ICE, and there is an English guy called Percival Lebonvan in the country. Actually he is in Los Angeles, registered at an expensive hotel there with a staff of half a dozen Chinese guys. He's been living in Beijing for the past seven years, arrived yesterday and has a flight back to China scheduled for tomorrow morning, but the private jet is here and not in LA. And according to the letter, which describes him precisely, he's the one who's going to buy the girls. For this General Tang or whatever...’

 

‘Anything about Kate?’

 

‘No sir, besides the denial that he or she was behind her abduction, there's nothing else.’

 

The lieutenant sat in his chair thinking about the whole situation. He knew that women were sold as mere objects to brothels and other buyers all around the world, including in the US. He knew that it was something that probably happened in his town.

 

But see their faces and know their names only made it worst.

 

‘The FBI is demanding that we hand the case over to them. The Chief is using every ounce of influence he has with the mayor and the governor to keep it with us. Let's make it worthy.’

 

The orders were clear. The moment Percival Lebonvan arrived town he would be the most efficiently and discreetly man followed by SFPD in history.

 

Meanwhile, Chuck and all his friends and informants were going to find out where he was going to be while in town and with whom before he entered the city limits.

 

 

 

It was just another ordinary day at work. Besides Betty and Suzy there is a crew of six people that works with me, and obviously doesn't know about my other occupation since they are part of my cover up strategy. I don't run a big business, and when I have a major contract, like sending five corpses to China at the expenses of a kind and rich businessman, I tend to refuse other jobs.

 

The families in the business for generations call me 'stupid amateur' for that, but I manage to live with it. The last scheduled service before the arrival of the coffins from Chinatown went smoothly, so I locked myself in my office and did a quick check on the girls.

 

All were sleeping graciously, even my blonde slave, and if my plan worked perfectly, they all (except my blonde slave of course) would wake up in an hospital bed in the next day.

 

The next day..., it was too risky. Too risky. I could end up arrested. Or dead. That Chinese lady could be fooling me. And I could still be being driven by my greed, for I wanted the rest of the money more than ever. Even if the plan bore the proper fruits, I would not be able to accept any order for at least a year. I would have to lay low for months.

 

And would not be able to have fun the way I'm used to. How could I spend an entire year, or even a single month, without doing what I cherished, cared and loved the most?

 

Because that was what I needed to do if I ever wanted to have my fun back.

 

So time to part two of the Chuck Strategy.

 

 

 

There was a woman on his cell phone screen. Young, beautiful and naked lying on a bed.

 

‘Beautiful isn't she?’

 

‘Look you *******ing bastard.’

 

‘That's no way to treat a lady properly detective. Especially when said lady is going to help you and all others boys in blue against her better judgment.’

 

He calmed himself. So the Knocker was really a woman? Did it matter now? He had to find out who was the girl and where she and the Knocker were. He tried to find if he could attack the attention of the other cops at the Starbuck's.

 

‘Don't bother to call your partners or signal to them. And pay attention please. Yes I can see you.’

 

‘The girl...?’

 

‘She is alive, still a little wet since I grabbed her when she was toweling herself after a good shower, and she'll have no memories from myself I assure you, now listen up.’

 

And the Knocker told him everything about what was happening, what would happen from now and how. The girl was found unarmed and still sleeping by two officers about twenty minutes later. By then the lieutenant had already ordered a complete profile of Elizabeth Maeda, owner of the Manor of Peaceful Pass, a funeral house on the outskirts of the town.

 

 

 

Betty and Suzy awoke almost at the same time, I told them the plan and they agreed to be put under again and everything else. I personally did it myself, from the syringe to their tie ups. I did a good job and knew that I would fool them when the video was ready.

Then I passed the mike to Chen and had the camera running.

 

 

 

The Manor of Peaceful Pass was a little isolated from its neighbors, so there was not many good spots for a stake out. The owner of Carson & Carson (and a bitter rival of Elizabeth Maeda) gladly allowed the SFPD to use his roof to watch the place, but still there was a good half mile between both buildings. Chuck Bayley was there since the beginning.

 

He was watching Elizabeth's profile for the umpteenth time when the dinner (pizza and soft drinks) was brought by a rookie. 'Elizabeth Connors Maeda. Born in 02/15/** in Tokyo, living in the US since her 12, after her parents divorced...' he checked the pictures again, a petite woman with long black jet hair and an obvious taste for leather, since she seemed to be wearing it almost all the time when she was not at her work. Beautiful woman, but with a disturbing smile.

 

Then the truck appeared. From a coffin maker company, the one from which she usually bought the ones she used. It seemed an odd hour to make a delivery, so Chuck had it checked.

 

 

 

 

The stage was ready for the show, but it was no longer in their hands the time for it to happen.

 

The entrances to the sublevels had been sealed shut and barricaded from the inside except the Back Door. Shu and Kwai were now sleeping in the cages that a fellow dominatrix friend of Delores had provided for them, in an unknown place to anyone in the building so even if Chen manage (something that was really unlikely to happen) to overpower them all, they still would have some leverage to deal with him. The Boss was already bound and gagged in her own bed, with two unconscious Betty and Suzy flanking her. Mrs Fei cinched the last knot tying her feet to the bed frame and raised her left hand. A goon placed a cloth already soaked with chloroform in it and she got closer to her 'prisoner'. If the cops reacted the way they expected, she would wake up still helpless and with rope marks all over her body. If not, she would awake in an hospital bed, possibly still under suspicion but with a very good possibility to clear her name in no time.

 

She took long and deep breaths and went under before Mrs. Fei realized it. The oriental woman considered the situation for a moment. There was a stake out of the local police force with this building as its target happening at this very moment, but if she decided to kill all the young and helpless and bound and gagged and drugged women that were right now under her power, only the corpses would be discovered the next morning. Having all these helpless occidental ladies under her power was such an exquisite and enjoyable sensation!

 

She'll have to do it more times..., but now there was that cancer called Tang to be dealt with.

 

 

 

 

No one answered the phone calls so two cars were sent to see what was happening at the Northwood Woodworks facility. They found the whole night crew bound, gagged and unconscious locked in the security office. All men and women had been drugged with an heavy sedative according with the paramedics that arrived at the scene. By then, the truck seen at the Manor had disappeared in the San Francisco's downtown traffic. When it was found less than an hour later there were no useful evidences for the forensic.

 

Chuck wanted to invade the Manor right away but the lieutenant persuaded him to await Percival's arrival to town the next morning. They wanted to take down the whole gang, so they would need evidences that could be used in court against everybody. If they raided the place right now they might (and just might) be able to rescue all the girls, including Kate, and capture all the criminals. But the Big Ones, the ones that were behind the whole operation, would escape.

 

And according to some sources, the General Tang was someone big in China. So the only way to take him down was to force the Chinese government to do it, by the political pressure created when a fail safe and bulletproof case against him was in all the papers of the country. So they would be ready to launch their strike the next morning, but only the next morning.

 

Chuck only agreed when the lieutenant made sure to him that, above everything else, the safety of all the women that were believed to be imprisoned on the Manor was the top priority of the whole operation, and he knew that the lieutenant was a man of his word.

 

 

 

Percival arrived early in town, and was greeted with a bad surprise.

 

The lady wasn't waiting for him at the hangar. Not only that, but the coffins with the girls were not there too. Traffic? No, she was way too recommended to be delayed for such a predictable thing. He received an e-mail on his cell phone. It was hers. As was her face on the picture attached to it. Her face, ballgagged, and his, grinning.

 

Chen!

 

 

 

It wasn't a surprise for me that when my employees appeared for work the next morning, I didn't knew anyone of them. They arrived in their cars, were a little look-alike with the real ones and had documents (such as credit cards and driver's licenses) with them that helped them be identified as the real ones. But they were cops. All three of them. The plan was working!

 

I woke up with my shoulders and upper body being shaken by Betty, and she dared to call me heavy sleeper. Suzy had my bath ready by then and they carried my now handcuffed and ballgagged person while pondering out loud how terrible was to be at my mercy. That was one of the very few opportunities that they had to have me in their power, and they enjoyed it the fullest... Then after the bath and the breakfast it was time to be back on business.

 

Which meant having me bound to my own chair at my office with Suzy bound to another chair at my side and wait for my 'employees' to arrive. Each one that arrived was welcomed by Betty and then seized by two of 'Chen's thugs', searched for hidden weapons and then chloroed.

 

I have to give to the cops, they had managed to find out the order in which they arrived everyday, so their doubles followed it. The real Norma was a little more overweight than the one that appeared in her place by 7:00 AM, Marissa's impersonator was the one closest to the real one, for a moment she fooled even me. Then it was time for Paul and Jack. As expected, Chen followed the plan to the letter and had only one of them chloroed, then he showed the other the photos of the real Norma, Marissa and the others.

 

 

 

‘They know about us. They knew we were coming.’

 

A collective 'WHAT???' followed detective Ben Case when he returned to the mission's HQ. The SFTU (SWAT) leader was the first to recover and demand a green light for his men, detective Bayley and him started to pick each other until the lieutenant ordered to both shut up.

 

Then detective Case continued his report.

 

 

 

It was so much fun!!! The fact that the girl was helping her by pretending to fight, to try to resist her attacks only increased her delicious sensation of victory. And 'Fei' realized that she was really starting to enjoy putting the blonde beauty under over and over.

 

Weird. In all her 47 years of life she had never been attracted to other women.

 

But she could keep it up for the whole day! It was a little risky and she knew it. But she was one of the hundreds of members of the Party who wanted to see Tang going down, and she had dreamed so many times with the scene that was about to unfold...

 

She and her most faithful man were in a chamber in the sublevel, the only one with access to the security cameras of the house above. The jap-american woman hadn't had the time to turn on all the screen monitors when she invaded the place trying to save her friend’s lives, but she now had had time to show Fei and her assistant how to put them to work. The unknown blonde girl had been left with them as a proof of trust between both parts. Not a hostage. It seemed that all that the woman wanted was to have someone, other than her friend Delores, to tend to the girl's need while the whole action happened above their heads. Sex was forbidden (much to her assistant chagrin), but games were allowed. And when Fei asked what 'games' meant the girl answered with so many activities! Since she HAD felt something while putting the girl's owner to sleep, Fei ordered her to pretend that she wanted to escape from her clutches every time she awoke.

 

And so far, including the current time, she had felt that delicious thrill six times.

 

The nude girl helped by really thrashing and fighting her bonds. Fei had to thank all her training and controlled diet, for it was a true fight for freedom every time. It didn't mattered how she was tied up when she awoke and how Fei held her while holding the cloth over her face, she was a wildcat, a little hurricane and seemed to be able to tore the ropes apart every time (and in the fourth time she had done it), but as considerable as was her lung capacity, the blonde always ended up falling asleep in her arms. Since she now was getting able to determinate how much time the girl had of fight left, Fei believed that she had at least another full minute of fun until the next time. She had put the now struggling girl in a kneeling hogtie, with her hands touching her feet and her whole body bent in an arc. And the girl still fought like in the other times, taped mouth and all. That's when her assistant called her. The detectives had received the DVD.

Fei realized that while her prisoner stamina seemed endless, hers wasn't.

 

So she decided to give her assistant some fun. And ordered him to untie the girl while she was out, await for her to wake up and then tie her up and put her under. It was the first time that Fei saw her assistant smile in the five years he worked for her.

 

 

 

The image showed a car on a road, the car was driving too fast and didn't managed to do the curve, after the first car flied off the road another car appeared. A woman dressed in leather jumped out of it and run to the border of the road. Then she searched in her purse for a cell phone. She seemed to be wearing leather from head to toe. Then her face, while speaking to the phone, turned to the camera. It was Elizabeth Maeda.

 

'What a great coincidence, isn't Miss Maeda? The only witness of the accident is the one that was hired to send the corpses back to China. But it isn't a coincidence for you anymore. Is it?' The image changed. Two women appeared on the screen. They were bound in their underwear to two chairs, placed back to back. Both were young and attractive. And seemed to be sleeping.

 

'These two friends of yours are also about to suffer a very unfortunate accident, of the killing kind, if you don't behave. Don't go to the police. Don't tell anyone about these two. And they will live.' The voice was from a man, and didn't have any accent or other peculiarity for them, which meant that either he was a local guy or could pass for one.

 

Then detective Case repeated again his report.

 

‘The man in charge seems to be the same one that kidnapped the Knauer girl. There are four guys with him. The Maeda girl and those two that appear at the end of the DVD are there too, but they are prisoners. Or really look like ones.’

 

‘Any hint about the other women.’

 

‘He claims that they are there too. But he stated that we will do as he says or he'll blow the whole place up, with all his hostages inside. And he showed me two detonators and about a pound of C4 that he claims that are a small fraction of all he have.’

Even the Chief of Police personal secretary went silent. And the FBI observer stopped to talk to the phone for a moment, and reported the news to his superior.

Ignoring them both the lieutenant asked detective Case.

 

‘And you're sure that he wants to talk to me?’

 

‘And Chuck, he called you both by your names.’

 

 

 

‘You want to make a deal??!!!’

 

‘Exactly.’

 

To say that he was flabbergasted was an understatement. They had followed the instructions and came without weapons, mikes or cameras. They were searched when they entered the place and found the officers they had sent ahead bound and gagged and unconscious in a backroom.

 

Then they entered the office of the place and there she was, Kate.

 

They had dressed her with a pink negligée that barely covered her beautiful and firm body. She was unconscious, and Chuck wondered for how long she had been under the effects of those chemicals. At her side was the Maeda woman, dressed in a formal attire and awake. The other two girls at her left were also unconscious and as barely dressed as Kate. One was wearing only a pair of blue panties and the other a red lacy corset and a pair of red bikini cut panties. All four women were bound on the floor, hogtied with the same tape that had been used to gag them all.

Elizabeth Maeda looked even smaller than she really was with all those leggy women at her side. But why she looked the more dangerous of them all by far?

 

The man, who identified himself as Chen, was the only one who wasn't masked. All five were dressed in black jumpsuits, but Chuck could bet that his men had other clothes underneath it. They were armed with submachine guns and pistols and the leader held a small box with a white button on it. They sat at the chairs in the office and started a conversation.

 

‘Gentlemen, are you patriots?’- Both men lasted a little to answer the question. Of course they were, but what was the point?- ‘I am a patriot myself, as my men all are. You know, this whole situation could end up in a Hollywood movie. With the roles reversed of course. Instead of me being Chinese and you being Americans, I will be the American and you the Chinese.’

 

‘A Hollywood movie?’

 

‘Yes, a young man is trained by this military legend. He does any mission this legend gives him, sometimes he fails, sometimes not. As he grows in power and respect he realizes that the legend means more to him than his own father. Then he receives this order. Five men, five heroes that went to this country whom the country he had done so much to protect and never stepped out of the shadows in all those years..., well let's just say that they are rivals. And this men have enough information with them that might make things easier for his country to deal with the other one. Yes, espionage. But they have to disappear now, for the local authorities are hot on their trail. They have to 'die'. And their 'corpses' sent back to your homeland. You do some research and find this small funeral house that seems to be the non-official agency of dispatching such cargo to out of the town they are. So you do a good check up on the firm and its owner...’

 

And all three men looked at the still defiant bound woman on the floor.

 

‘...and find nothing useful. She's LESBIAN and lives with TWO girls, and the TRIO seems to enjoy BONDAGE games. Not good enough, since everybody in town knows that. You try to implicate her in the 'accidental' death, but it's not enough. So you kidnap the two girls of her life and threaten to kill them and she complies, for she believes that you are just a drug dealer. You even go to the lengths of kidnapping a local female police officer to make her fellow police officers to run in circles as you do your job, and you capture her so called 'archenemy', a crazy girl who seems to enjoy to put women to sleep over and over again.’

 

‘And how did you found out who was the Knocker?’

 

‘I don't follow your rules lieutenant, simple like that. And I did the little trick of having a couple of women, mother and daughter with the daughter being forced to sign the documents I wanted the way I wanted if she ever wanted to see her daughter back, 'attacked' by the Knocker, and of course the real one didn't liked it at all. She is a feisty woman, and I thank her for that. If she wasn't, I wouldn't have found out the truth about this whole business.’

 

Then Chen went silent for a moment.

 

‘Let's get back to the movie, I like American movies you know? He finds out that the legend is using him, and his patriotism, to smuggle something to this country. And in this case we're talking about women but I think that Hollywood might change a little in this point. Anyway, here he is now. Knowing now that little things that he had seen and heard over the years now came to a meaning, and the legend is a corrupt ************. And he is in a foreign land, with a so-to-speak cargo that is hotter than anything else he had in his possession, and realizing that he is not working for his country. But for a stinky piece of ****. And that he cannot trust in anyone at the local representation of his country for they seem to be as corrupt as his mentor. They might not be, but he is not going to take any chances. What a great movie this might end becoming! What would the hero do now? What do think that he should do gentlemen?’

 

‘And you choose to make a deal with the local authorities?’

 

‘On my terms, of course.’

 

 

 

The car with the four masked goons left the building about twenty minutes later. He was followed, but somehow they managed to leave him in a parking building and disappear unnoticed. Chen allowed the lieutenant leave the Manor with Betty, Suzy and Kate in his car.

 

Chuck was left behind with the other police officers, but he was awake, and has company. A TV from the internal security system of the Manor that showed what was happening at the office.

 

They had seen the five missing women, all alive and apparently sedated lying in coffins in the deposit area of the building. But it was not a regular coffin. Not only it had a bad mean looking device attached at its side, along with some plastic explosive. It also has manacles in it, holding the girls trapped inside by their ankles, waist and wrists (right at the side of the waist ankle, keeping the arms at their sides). All had a white strip of tape over their mouths and, inside the casket lid there was a strapped mini tank of oxygen and a mask.

 

The lieutenant had checked every girls pulse with a hand in their throats, it seemed weak to him but later a doctor would tell him that he should keep with being a cop. One girl, Lena Knauer, seemed to be awakening, but the policemen couldn't do a thing when a goon soaked a cloth with chloroform or whatever and held it over the girls face until she fainted again.

 

Now it was time of the show. Chen had agreed to be the star witness against Percival, but he had to imply him in the crime beyond any doubt first. And Percy was arriving at the Manor.

 

As soon as he entered his chauffeur and a bodyguard were arrested, and the police closed in the building, and entered by the back door. The real plan was to take the girls out of the caskets before they arrested everybody. But then Chen ended it all by shooting Percival point blank in the face and surrendering to the barging officers.

 

The explosive on the casket was fake, so it wasn't difficult for the police to take the girls out of it and send them all to a hospital, including Elizabeth Maeda. Miss Fei remained in the sublevel for two very agreeable days and leaving a bound to a dentist chair and drugged blonde girl that she was tempted to keep for herself. When she appeared at the General-Consulate of China she was pleased to see that only she could pacify the place. So she followed the plan.

 

 

 

EPILOGUE

One Year and a Half Later

 

Every relationship has its bad moments, and that business with the late and unlamented General Tang was the worst that I ever had in the business (and undeniable fun) of selling girls.

 

Oh yes he died, haven't you read the news?

 

As expected, every major newspaper and TV channel received a tip about what was going on at the Manor that morning. Some cops and two feds took a little time to buy the story Chen was telling them, before he went mute. He would say anything they wanted about the case of General Tang wanting American girls to be sacrificed for the return of his youth (as crazy as it seemed to be), but he would not say a thing about anything else. He ended up convicted for life for the murder of Percival Lebonvant, an English astrologist with a very shady past, and the kidnappings of ten women, although one didn't appeared in the courts for obvious reasons. According to his lawyer, he is in peace, knowing that I will keep my share of the deal.

 

General Tang's participation in the whole business was thoroughly denied by the Chinese government, although they did admit that Percy was the private astrologist and consultant of General Tang after a while, after all the General was an old man, easy prey to a crook like the Englishman. Tang was forced to resign shortly after, and found himself without any ally or influence that mattered anymore. And died two months later.

 

All the girls returned to their regular lives, although they were now a little more famous than some would like. Lena's mother died one month after the whole business and she returned to Switzerland, Jessica is still an amateur tennis player and now is studying to become a nurse, Charlene and Michelle hadn't any major change with their routines. And Jill, well Jill would capitalize her own death. Her agency hadn't reached the pinnacle of the agencies in town, but it's just a matter of time. Kate O'Bannon became Kate Bayley almost a year after that night.

 

Suzy christened my slave as Gwendoline, or simply Gwen, for obvious reasons.

 

Think in a woman that is the exact match to Eric Stanton's work on John Willie's character and you'll have a good idea of her appearance. She still remains a mystery to all of us. Her absurd pulmonary capacity, her reflexes, strength and speed when she fights, her fighting skills by the way, and her amnesia, everything remains unexplained.

 

Until we at least start to find out anything about her, she's a fun girl to play with, and her abnormal lungs make far more enjoyable to put her under than any other girl in the world.

 

Speaking in putting girls under...

 

Shu and Kwai spent this eighteen months somewhere. Delores didn't told me, she still mad at me because I decided not to sell Gwen to her for any price in the world, where she kept them. She only told me to beware, for she and the others (whoever they are) tried to break their spirits, and failed. I had them overly bound, straight jacketed and cuffed at my feet. They're watching the video I let Chen made that night. It's in English and, basically, he is telling them to move on.

 

He knows that they are about to be sold to someone in China, and what will happen to them depends on how they will be treated by their 'owner'. If he or them are good people and treat them well, they will be free to do as they wish, including settling down and have a normal life (under the circumstances). But if they are sent to a brothel or anything like that... Raise Hell were his words. But anyway thing turned out, they should not come after me or Delores.

 

Even gagged and bound they way they were they nodded and bowed to him. And it was a more than a year record! Then they turned their attention to me. I took the gag off and gave them some water. And then we talked for a while.

 

 

 

‘...But are you sure of that?’

 

‘How can I be sure of anything about that? I never met them in my whole life! But Mrs... Li, let's call her that, claims that her two nephew are good men. Went to college, has nice jobs with nicer paychecks, are good looking and everything else. And as many men in China these days, are having trouble to find a girlfriend, much less a fiancée. And they know about the... unusual circumstance in which you will meet, and not liking it very much from what I heard.’

 

They stayed silence for a while. Then one looked at each other and both nodded.

 

‘Very well, we'll follow our father's instructions. If they are nice to us... we'll see. But if they aren't, Mrs. Li will loose some relatives. Understood?’

 

‘Hey, my business is to deliver you to them, what happens next is their trouble.’

 

‘OK. So... what happens now?’

 

 

 

Shu was putting a better fight than her sister, who had complied to my strength way too soon. No she was a fighter, to the end. Had I bound their thighs to their calves and she would have kicked me by now. It was hard to keep a hold on her and I was loving it!

 

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Betty and Suzy grinning. They knew that the girls we had sold in the past two months ended up being a warm-up. I had sold them for two guys in San Diego and one in Colma! I had gone local! No, THIS was where the real fun stood.

 

I knew that the FBI still kept an eye on myself, albeit an almost closed one by now. I knew that some cops still believed that I was more than an innocent pawn in Chen's hand. But I would fool them all, selling girls under their noses and starting with those two.

 

Shu was starting to show the effects of all the chloroform she had inhaled. She was relaxing and her eyes were already closed. She was under now. I had two orders from Europe, two from South America and one from Australia, I was back in business for real, and enjoying it!

 

As I said every relationship has its bad moments, but the retying of the knots (lame pun fully intended), the rediscovery of the great moments, the renewal of the trusts and more than all of them put together, the sensation of power I was feeling right NOW...

 

Oh man, How I LOVE my job!
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