Explanations

The members of the board of the Burglar Association were reunited. After a short two week period of euphoria amidst their members, the Burglar Association was experimenting the worst week of its history. Over a hundred of its affiliates had been arrested, nearly twenty safe houses had been busted and the Association’s assets had been cut in nearly 25%.

All thanks to the disastrous plans of one of its founding members, the legendary Member 001. The renowned burglar, industrial spy, kidnapper, blackmailer and slaver was facing the possibility of a death warrant issued by the board. It was truth that the police had to use their illegal and unofficial squad known as the Hellhounds to obtain all the information that they were using against the BA, but that didn’t changed the fact that they had never faced such a grim hour, and that they needed someone to blame.

And they had choose Member 001.

She arrived punctually to the meeting with a small entourage of two young and pretty assistants, and was elegantly dressed in a black evening gown that enhanced her aristocratic demeanor, she kissed all members of the board on the cheek as if they were just friends gathering together for a formal reunion and sat on the chair in front of them as if it was a throne, and not the Accused’s Last Seat as it was called by some, with a blue leather briefcase on her lap. The confidant, dark redhaired and late forties (yet still in the apex of her physical abilities) woman was the embodiment of the blasé attitude

She heard patiently all the accusations, only opening her mouth to beg that the accuser, member 009, and his two assistants, members 556 and 558, lowered their voices as they had no need to yell at her. She didn’t denied any accusation at all, admitting with a straight face that her scheme of replacing secretaries, executives and others from the insurance companies and many Executive branches in order to achieve all the data and ways to rob the city clean was way too big to work. Nor she denied that she planned that the BA would face a dreadful time when (and not if) the Hellhounds were deployed and used.

With a livid face the chairman of the board, member 008, demanded explanations from her.

Many stories are now told about what she told them, how she told them that and what happened in that reunion. This is my version of the facts:

‘Ladies, gentlemen, friends... Since I was arrested years ago there was this Sword of Damocles over our heads, preventing us from using full power in order to achieve our goals if necessary, cornering and threatening us all; the Hellhounds. THEY were the responsible for my fall and condemnation, THEY and not the regular police force.

I could have escaped five or six years ago from jail, but I feared for the ones that they had used in order to capture me. Or should I say kidnapped? You, especially you, members of the board know the story very well. I have no children, no family... but a sister. Seven years ago my sister and my niece disappeared. I sent two of my assistants to their city to check and that’s what I received in the fourth e-mail they send me...’

She took a series of photos from inside the briefcase and handed it to an assistant who in turn gave it to the board’s assistant. All members of the board checked the photos.

The first one was of someone who simply had to be a relative of Member 001, same blue eyes, same nose and same natural defiant attitude, some identified her as Jordan, the only sister of Member 001. She was dressed in a lacy white set of bra and panties and was bound to a wooden chair. She was cleave gagged and glared at the camera. The second photo showed her bonds a little better and they could see that while her forearms had been lashed together behind the chair’s back they were also connected to her bound ankles by a rope that ran under the chair, besides being bound together her legs had also been bound to the chair’s seat and her torso to her back. The third photo showed a young woman, twenty years at most, who had a close resemblance to the first woman. She also was cleave gagged with the same thick blue scarf or towel used on her mother and shared the same bonds in another chair. She was also clad in her lingerie (flimsy bright red one) and her eyes were filled with her flowing tears. The last two photos showed two young women bound on a mattress on the floor, both were naked and severely hogtied, with their fingers nearly touching their heels. One was a buxom blonde with long hair held by a ponytail and the other a petite Chinese or Japanese woman, the background of the photos suggested that they weren’t being held in the same place or where Member 001’s relatives were.

‘My two assistants disappeared a few hours after they send me the pictures. I received this e-mail the next day with the photos of my assistants and... well, all the e-mails my assistant  is giving to you are very self explanatory, isn’t? And after reading it I believe you will understand how I could fall on such a clumsy trap like I, supposedly, did.’

The e-mails basically told her to allow herself to be caught by the police while trying to rob an art gallery, the first day after her conviction her sister and niece would be released (as they were) but her assistants would be detained for a string of burglaries that, according to Member 001, the Hellhounds enacted just to sent them to jail.

‘My sister doesn’t speak to me anymore, my assistants were released last year on parole and I... I plotted this revenge...’

‘So you do admit that you put the whole Burglar Association in jeopardy only to fulfill your personal agenda against the Hellhounds? It is what you are saying?’

‘Yes... and no. My goals, and let me put it clear ladies and gentlemen, were two: destroy all those who used such means to put me in jail and start it over... Let me tell you all loud and clear the one thing that you are thinking right now; only a few members of the board of the Burglar Association knew that I had a sister. And told it to the Hellhounds in order to get me. A snitch! Among the leadership of our Association...’

That caused a little commotion, some board members stood up already shouting angry remarks at her while the others tried to calm them down, but Member 001’s eyes were all the time locked in only one member of the board, her accuser, member 009.

Everybody in the poorly lit room knew that they had a story of mutual hate and despise between those two, there were rumors and tales with backstabbing, cheating and even stealing the other’s lot as being the lesser tactics that they used against each other...

But cheer doublecrossing? Leading to the crisis of years ago?

‘You better have proofs of that or I will personally pull the trigger!’

‘Very well... if it’s proofs that you want... and proofs are that you, my friends’ – she turned to the other members of the board – ‘deserve to have, then I’ll have two question for you. Allow me to tell you in advance that I already know the answers of them, and that I brought with me proofs of their veracity. So you better not lie... First question: How many women are now being held as my... ‘guests-by-force’ in my current personal residence?’

Member 009 looked at the other members of the board in disbelief? There was something catchy in the question, that’s for sure, but what exactly? He decided to tell what he knew, that 21 women were being held in a manor not fifteen miles away from where they were.

‘Very well... the answer is... absolutely correct! But before I made my second question, I’d like to show you, members of the board, how he managed to have the answer for that question. If you please, member 009, could you authorize my assistants to enter this room?’

After the authorization the door was opened and three women were brought into the room by two Amazonian-like assistants of the accused. While their captors wore skintight black leather garments the young girls were nearly naked, two of them were protected by very exquisite silk lacy set of bra and panties and the last one wore nothing but a thong bikini bottom. The topless brunette and the petite Hawaiian women were unknown to everybody. But the long legged, dark haired and just a little chubby woman at their left was no other than the youngest daughter of Member 009, Jessica!

There was a commotion when member 009 tried to order that his daughter was freed, but the chairman was adamant in not allowing it to happen; according to the rules of the BA if the testimony of an unwilling witness in a trial was crucial to the proper solving of the question in judgement, then the parts interested had full authorization to obtain the witness cooperation by any means necessary. After some angry remarks, member 009 was forced to sit back in his chair by the other members of the board.

All three women seemed just uneasy of being forced to face the board as semi-naked prisoners, and besides the marks that the ropes that hobbled them and held their arms bound behind their backs would leave behind there wasn’t any bruise or scar, their faces showed no signs of them having cried one single tear at all and, when their captors touched them for any reason, they showed no fear or disgust towards the two tall black women.

Member 001 handed her assistant a DVD and three cellphones, as the DVD player was turned on she told that the cellphones belonged to the girls and that they were accessory proofs of what she was going to show.

The large screen at the right of the board’s table was ready and Member 001 started to explain what was happening on the screen.

First they saw the brunette tying up a policewoman on the back of a building, then she chloroformed the gal, undid her bonds, took off all her clothes and put them on and rebound the blonde tying her hands to a pipe on the wall behind her. Next she was seen with three other women taking care of three conservatively dressed women, from the logo on the wall in the background the scene was identified as the invasion of a law firm three weeks before, all women were first tape gagged and then forced to strip and then bound to chairs. Next a line of four tape bound and gagged nude women were forced to march down a corridor by the brunette and another woman until they reached a door, the women were forced to enter the room behind it and, after a few minutes (there was a timer at the bottom right of the screen of this scene), the brunette and the woman reemerged from the room and looked back for a brief moment to admire their handiwork (not seen by the camera), waved the captives goodbye and closed the door. All the images came from security cameras.

‘As you all can see, Raphaella here had my complete confidence. So did Halley...’

The images now showed the Hawaiian girl at work, she seemed to be a caretaker from what the board could see. She was seen feeding girls that she had just bound to chairs, talking amicably with one stringently blond who was sitting next to her on a sofa when suddenly she jumped on the girl, handgagged her and produced a gun from somewhere as she told the now frightened captive to shut up. Next the screen showed her helping the field agents to handle their latest catches as they arrived in the hideout, she was seen with two other women at the side of a van when the side door was opened and three gagged faces appeared and they climbed in, then one by one (always escorted by one of the women that had jumped inside the van) the six captives were brought out of the van, led to the processing room, processed (they were forced to strip if they weren’t already nude, then the gag was removed and they had to answer some question like if they had any allergy to a type of food or drug, then regagged and assigned to a caretaker) and placed in their new home for a while. The next image showed Halley entering a room in what seemed a very uncommon hour, there were six doublebeds in the room with eleven nude women on them.

All were asleep and in their nighttime bonds (simple –for Member 001’s standards– hand behind the back and ankles crossed bonds that had their knots glued and lousy cleave gags), she didn’t dared to check on them with fear to activate the pressure sensors placed besides each bed (in order to avoid that the one that managed to overcome the effect of the sedative she was ordered to drink every night and undid her bonds had her escape attempt gone unnoticed) and walked with her back close to the wall (in order to avoid the lens of the supposedly only vigilance camera of the room) until she reached the window. She produced one of the cellphones from a pocket of her pajama and dialed a number.

‘Hello? It’s me. I know it’s not a good hour to call but I have very important news...’

And the board saw and heard Halley talking to an unknown woman, that Member 001 claimed to be Jessica, and giving her information about their boss’s plans. Who explained that she kept a few cameras and mikes in secret spots around her new residence in order to catch moments like that, afterwards she had their cellphones bugged. What followed for the next few minutes was a series of not-so secret calls between Halley or Raphaella and Jessica and meetings between the two spies in what they thought were safe spots of the manor. The dialogues exchanged between the spies and Jessica evolved to a conspiracy that would allow the Hellhounds to seize the entire place in a nearby future. All the time Jessica told the spies that she was working under orders of her father...

Of course, member 009 claimed that the dialogues were frauds and there was no way that he could had gave his daughter such order, he even told his fellow members of the board that Member 001 was desperately trying to turn him into her scapegoat.

But the woman’s calm and cool demeanor contrasted more and more with the growing agitation of the skinny man. She them said that she was going to show the board how the three women had been captured. The DVD has a menu and she selected the scene.

Raphaella was showed playing volleyball in the back of the manor with some of her fellow caretakers and an audience of eighteen or nineteen efficiently bound women lying on beach towel on the grass. It was obvious that the scene of mostly young and beautiful women in skimpy swimsuits jumping and having fun under the forced gaze of other nude and bound women was delightful to some members of the board. Then Member 001 arrived and gave a few orders to the players and, while the audience’s legs were freed and they were removed from the place by most of the caretakers, three players stayed behind.

Raphaella was one of them. At a nod of Member 001 the two women that were flanking her, who happened to be the same ones that were now behind her, jumped on her and after a brief struggle had her reduced to her current state. Frightened to her core the buxom woman was left alone for a moment with Member 001 who told her something. The girl eagerly nodded and accepted meekly the rope tied around her waist as a leash, then she was led away by the older woman with the two black women following her at a short distance.

Halley was in the locker room when the two women showed up, there was another brief fight (the petite tried some kung fu tricks on the taller women, only to be easily subdued, quickly reduced to an impotence state and playfully spanked by them after she was bound) and Member 001 entered the place and talked to her.

Next they were all in an office, with Member 001 sitting on a chair behind a large desk and the two bound and gagged spies standing in front of her flanked by the two amazons.

‘The deal was that they would have to lure Jessica to a trap in an abandoned storage deposit on the waterfront, but as you can see... these two are loyal to their friends...’

The tape gags were removed and each received a glass of water from the woman, then a call was made on the phone at Member 001’s left and she put the phone on the speaker mode. As soon a woman answered both Halley and Raphaella started to scream to ‘Jessica’ that their cover had been blown and that she have to run for cover. Their shouts were not at all obstructed by the women behind them, who seemed to gain an amused look as their captives screamed their hearts out, until they realized that the woman on the phone was laughing, and that she wasn’t Jessica! The look of terror and fear in their faces as they looked at each, at the grinning women behind them and the coy smile on the woman in front of them was priceless. Member 001 waved her hand and the two black women easily forced a foam ball into the girl’s mouth, then they grabbed one roll of elastoplast each and used it to keep the ball inside. As they did so the camera showed a door opening and a third tall, exquisitely and athletically shaped African beauty entered carrying a sexy bundle over her left shoulder and a cellphone on her right hand.

Jessica was carefully deposited on a sofa while Raphaella and Halley were forced to walk back a few feet. Their triplet captors reassured their muteness by clamping their hands over their gags as Member 001 opened her laptop and typed something on it. A man’s voice was heard and, as Member 001 typed on the keyboard, so was Jessica’s! Thanks to that the man really thought that he was talking to the now struggling captive, but Member 001 managed to make the man believe that the sounds he was hearing were from a member of her gang that had been captured by Jessica and properly ‘convinced’ to spill some beans...

As the conversation went on, a plan of attack was developed between ‘Jessica’ and the man with the target being Member 001 supposedly current address (the address ‘Jessica’ gave him was actually about a mile and a half away from the actual one). The man suggested that ‘Jessica’ gagged her captives better and ended the call, and the screen went black.

‘As you will be able to find out with the sound technicians that you have, the man’s voice belongs to Samuel Grayson, an inspector of the Homicide Division of the police and the leader of the Hellhounds. How do I know that? Because I know the identities of most of the members of the Hellhounds! I’ve been knowing it for years! They were very courageous to get me by menacing, real menaces and treats not the ones we regularly use on our work, my school teacher sister and her daughter! And I wanted each and every member of this... gang of cowards to fall from grace! Because kill them would have been too easy! But, how could I do that? As I said before, I could have escaped whenever I wanted. To be really honest, I paid some hospital bills of the mother of the guard that I ‘overpowered’ the night I left that place. She was so thankful of me that she didn’t bothered when I told her that I would need to give her a real black eye in order to cover her back.

And so I escaped, after plotting my revenge against the Hellhounds and the traitor that sold my family to them... And, at the same time, I was planning heist after heist... it’s even kind of funny. Do you remember when, a few weeks before I supposedly didn’t bound that actress properly and she managed to call the police, I told you that I was feeling that I hadn’t had a reason to go on anymore, that I was going to retire? Being jailed made me really good! I now am motivated to stay on the stage for decades to come! I have plans and more plans! But first, I needed to remove the two parties that not only could hinder my expectations. Prove member 009’s treachery and shady liaisons would be easy, but how do you shut down the Hellhounds?’

‘Wait a moment!’ – member 005 was the only common friend of members 009 and 001 and to say that the old bank thief was flabbergasted with Member 001’s attitude was redundant. If what she was telling was true then many of the foiled heist of the past six years could be explained. But to make a move against a such powerful member of the board like 009 was only possible if you were backed up by smoking gun proofs! Proofs that would sentence him and his helpers to death! Then why Jessica’s behavior was so calm, now that she had gotten used with her exposure, and she seemed none the last apprehensive with her near future? The same feeling that the other two captives seemed to share. If they had worked directly or indirectly with the Hellhounds that was betrayal pure and simple. The price of it was death. Even if they confessed (as if it seemed necessary anymore) they wouldn’t be able to avoid their deaths! And yet, they were all too calm for his likes.

‘Before you make your next move or revelation, Samantha – Only a member of the board could call another by his or hers name – I have a question for you. If you manage to prove your accusation completely, that won’t be enough to save yourself. You still plotted against the BA, costing us millions and many of our members’ freedom. How do you plan to avoid the punishment for such deviousness is to be seen. But these three young girls; a field agent, a caretaker and their supposed connection with the Hellhounds, what did you said to them to make them so confident of facing us and our justice? ‘

‘Oh simple, they are part of the plan to bring down the Hellhounds. What I promised to them was that one; no member of the Burglar Association will ever be authorized to go after any of them. Two; they are off-limits to the BA’s activities, only under strict and few circumstances staged burglaries or the likes will be allowed in their houses. Three; we may actually need to protect their lives and, if it really happens, we will be true to that task...’

‘AND WHY WOULD WE DO THAT??!!!’

‘Because WE kidnap, attack, restrain and (let’s admit it) terrorize people in order to achieve our goals. That’s why WE’re criminals. A secret, shady and out-of-control organization inside the police force doing the same in order to get us? And being in the process more ruthless, more terrifying and more dangerous than we can ever be? And where this world is going to if that is (and it is as we all know very well) true...? No my friends, if we go to jail is because they managed to outsmart us, to protect their proofs and witnesses against us. They can’t win this… game (if you prefer) by cheating on us. Can they?’

Then a few members of the board seemed to realize where she was heading her reasoning. Even for her it was too much. Member 001 asked that a member of the board and two of his assistants examined the three captive girls, member 005 and his two burly bodyguards did so while they whispered among themselves… until their conversation was heard through the laptop in one of Member 001’s assistants’ lap! They searched the mikes and even went to the point of removing the girls’ few pieces of clothing, leaving them stark naked in front of the men and women present and still found nothing. Member 005 demanded that a scanner was brought and the girls were searched with four different ones.

And yet, Jessica, Raphaella and Halley were living microphones!

‘I paid a sizeable sum of money to a group of Americans arrange me these little beauties. The latest state-of-the-art nano-spy-technology. For more or less two years I’ll be able to hear anything that they say or hear, and there’s no way that they can cheat on us because… well, besides that we will be watching their movements in order to protect their lives against the Hellhounds and their supporters, that were not going to go after any of their relatives and that they’ll be paid, with my money my friends, for their testimony against the Hellhounds; these scenes that we just saw were recorded four days ago. They spent four unpleasant days under my wrath… and none of them wants to have a day more of it, do you girls? Jessica? Raphaella? Halley? I thought so…’

I was one of the bodyguards that had examined the girls, and yes I grabbed the chance to feel them, and I was still very close to them when they shook their heads perhaps a bit too enthusiastically for my likes. Now that they were naked and under a better light I could see ropemarks, cropmarks and other things all over their bodies, they had been disguised with some make-up but now they were starting to appear clearly.

But their collective shake of the head still bugged me…

Then Member 001 started to explain how the nanos worked, how they were undetectable and other things that I can’t remember now. I was looking at Jessica and she was looking at me, her eyes seemed uncertain for a moment and she lowered her gaze to the floor. That moment I realized that at least that part of Member 001’s explanation had been staged. I was about to say something when I was poked in the ribs by one of her assistants.

‘Stop leering at them!’ she said.

I saw that my partner and the other low ranked members of the BA present were censoring me openly or reservedly, my boss (member 005) mouthed me to shut up and I promised that I would tell him what I just had found out.

After a few more detailing and technicalities Member 001 announced that she was going to prove, beyond any doubt, not only member 009’s many betrayals but also start to bring down the Hellhounds with the same movement. But first she’ll do her second question to the growing desperate member 009. It was her moment and she was having the fullest of it!

‘So, you claim that all the proofs I presented so far are forgeries, that I tortured and threatened your daughters and her two friends, and don’t you dare to deny that they aren’t friends… , in order to have them say anything I want them to as soon as their gags are removed, right? Then, mem-ber 0-0-9… do you have or not made any contact with Samuel Grayson in the past week? Remember that I have proofs to sustain my claims…’

As she said that the same assistant that had accused me of leering at Jessica was exchanging the DVD on the DVD player. I took a good look at her, a little tall, great legs and bottom, round breasts and a sardonic smile. Again she pocked my ribs with her elbow, but while she pretended to do it seriously her eyes were telling me otherwise…

‘I don’t care what kind of proofs you may have forged and fabricated! I didn’t did so!’

Her answer was to press the ‘Play’ button on the remote control.

Images of member 009 talking to cellphones on various occasions appeared on the screen. Some of them had audio and showed the conversations that he and a man called Sam or Sammy exchanged. It was obvious that ‘Sam’ was a cop, that he was receiving information about Member 001’s plans through member 009, that he was letting Member 001 turn the whole town upside down in order to receive carte blanche from the mayor (a long time political adversary) to get back at her, that he had let the mayor’s niece be kidnapped and that they were planning to capture her. Member 009 had to be contained by the board’s bodyguards (excluding his owns who were detained at gun point by me and the twins that worked for member 003), as he kept shouting that it was all a forgery.

Member 001 produced five cellphones from her briefcase that were kept inside plastic bags. The images on the screen mow showed member 009 throwing the cellphones away, those who weren’t destroyed in the process or ended up inside the river were then collected and bagged by her girls. She identified one by one and asked for the last one.

At that moment he went livid, his face was almost white for a second. And he tried to run away. Of course he didn’t managed to make more than two steps and was held by the bulky main bodyguard of member 008. His bodyguards were quickly searched and revealed which were, among the dozen found with them, the phones that he had used the past week.

Member 001’s assistants talked with the board’s assistant in charge of the communications of the BA and with his and his assistants help they made a connection with a live feed.

Of a robbery in motion.

A large one. Weird, I didn’t had… eavesdropped on my boss many conversation that day or the previous ones that anything that big was going to happen. The members of the board looked at each other and some shook their heads while others manifested their ignorance about the heist in motion. One thing that we weren’t understanding was why there were only women, mostly beautiful ones, as the victims of the robbery.

Or was it a robbery after all? It was happening in a large estate, aristocratic and very old yet well preserved, with two or three stories and many large rooms and bedrooms. The flipping images showed what might be the feed from security cameras of the place. A group of mostly men and a few women was raiding the place, storming through the rooms and overpowering and terrorizing the many women present at the place. No men; only women were being bound, gagged and roughly treated by the masked invaders.

Since it was Saturday evening, and a very hot one at that, many women wore bikinis or one piece swimsuits and the others had Bermuda shorts or other kind of shorts and T-shirts that were roughly removed from them as they were restrained.

All women were left either topless or stark naked by their attackers. One buxom blonde had tried to hide inside a closet in a room and was being forced face down on the carpet as she was bound by two women, another brunette was hogtied on a working top in the kitchen, a naked blonde was being tied to a tree by a woman in the garden, three women were being bound to lounge chairs by the swimming pool, inside the bathroom a woman was crudely handled by her attacker who yanked the towel she had wrapped around her body before he proceeded to tie her up… the images went on and on… I started to count the women and calculated that they were in 23 and their attackers were no less than 15.

Then the attackers started to gather the women in the terrace, in pairs or alone they were forced to march to there and then to sit on the floor with shoves of the men, their legs and ankles were then taped up and one man was in charge to make sure that they couldn’t freed another girl by taping their fingers together. The now virtually naked (some were in fact) women wept or cried openly, a few stared at their attackers and were slapped and suffered other indignities from the attackers. Who little by little seemed to grow uneasy.

They were clearly expecting to find more women, and some of those should have been captives of their captives! The audio wasn’t as good as the video but it was clearly that they were none other than the Hellhounds! And that those lousy maggots thought that they were invading Member 001’s main hideout, where she was supposed to be living in with her closest assistants, friends and a small number of captives! They interrogated their captives using harsh and foul terms with them and, when one of them suggested that they used ‘persuasion’ to make their captives more cooperative, Member 001 made her famous call.

She asked (more like ordered but it was said as a beg) that member 009 was gagged and, picking the one that his bodyguards had told that it was the one that he had used that day, found the number on the speed dial. On the screen one of the men heard his ring tone and answered the call, it was Sam Grayson. His subordinates pointed guns at the captives.

‘Good evening Mr. Grayson… I believe you made a mistake, didn’t you?’

She had put the phone on the speaker mode and I swear the guy said some words that I never ever had heard before she interrupted him.

‘First of all, aren’t you hearing something that you weren’t supposed to…?’

On the screen the Hellhounds suddenly looked at each as something (that we later learned that were car engines) were heard by them, four men run into the house and returned shortly afterwards informing him that the vans were gone and that someone had pierced all the tires of the captives’ cars who were now flat.

‘The two women you left to guard your vehicles are now my new forced guests, don’t worry I am not mean as you and your men so they’ll be fine… I swear it!’ and she turned off the phone but kept it in her hand.

A new round of obscenities followed that and, as she had predicted, Sam ordered that the women were guarded by four Hellhounds and went inside the house being followed by all the others. They went to the dining room and as his men asked and demanded answers from him he dialed a number on his phone. It wasn’t a surprise to anyone anymore as the phone on her hand started to ring, she smiled and held it above her head so everybody could see it.

Before she answered she nodded to her assistants who grabbed their cellphones.

‘Sorry… but I think that the show you were planning to happen today, ‘The Fall and death of Member 001 at the Hands of her Comrades’, was replaced by ‘I Am Having a Good Time As the Hellhounds Are SOOOOOO Exposed’… starring the lowest members of our local police force, Sam Grayson and his Hellhounds!’

‘Ha! Do you think you scare me bitch? So what if this is not your base? We know that is somewhere around here! We’ll go to every house if necessary but we will find you! That’s for sure! We will find where you have been living since you escaped! We might not find you, but we will find your lovers, ops! I meant assistants!’

‘I don’t think you’re going to do anything for at least a couple of hours, Sammy Boy…’

Puzzled by her last phrase Sam looked at his subordinates, many were no longer standing but had taken seats on the table or were leaning against the walls, and they all seemed tired. He seemed tired all of a sudden… He understood what was happening at the same time that I did, the air conditioning! It was pumping some sedative in the room!

The screen shifted to outside where the men were as interested in ‘appraising’ their captives as to keep guard. Then one put his right hand on his neck, then another, when the third man repeated the movement the first two were already falling on the floor. The fourth avoided the first two darts, but when he tried to grab one of the captives to use her as a shield he placed his right hand on his bottom, and fell over the now struggling oriental girl. Back to the dining room even Sam suffered the effects of the powerful anaesthetic, and all the Hellhounds were sleeping either at the table or around it or on the floor.

Six masked women appeared on the screen, two came from the front of the manor and four from the back. Like the Hellhounds their identities were completely protected my masks or hoods, gloves and commando like garments, only that theirs was of a lighter color than the ones used by the slumbered rogue police officers.

Two removed the slumbered man from atop the oriental girl and the other two checked the women, while inside the two newly arrived women checked all the Hellhounds, removing their masks, gloves and weapons and guarding them inside the bags they carried, they had to pick new bags three times each. The captive women hadn’t their bindings undone, just the tape that held the fingers of a few of them was removed.

Then one of the masked women grabbed a phone and dialed a number, a ringtone was heard right beside me and Maya (the assistant that had called me a leer and had just agreed to go to a fancy restaurant with me that night) handed Member 001 a phone. It was in the speaker mode at the terrace and all captive women could hear what she had to say…

‘Good evening ladies. My name doesn’t matter, I am known as one of the most dangerous women of this country and I go by the nickname of Member 001. I wish I could say that it is nice to meet you all, but it isn’t, right? You have just experimented part of what these… beings had in store for me and my gals. Years ago they were the ones that forced me to allow myself to be captured by the police by using a similar tactic, they were the ones that allowed me (or so they thought) to implement my plans to this town that became oh-so fruitful the past week, and they are all policemen and women. Yes my ladies, you passed nearly two hours straight being harshly treated and menaced by the police! I managed to make them believe that this was the house where I am living as of today, and you can see what they did with that information! Hey… quiet them down please!’

Unlike their predecessors, the new handlers of the captive women didn’t needed more than one of them to hit a nearby table with all her strength on her open palm, and thus creating a very potent sound, to get their attention. All the women placed their right index finger over where their lips might be placed (all that the captives would tell about them was their height and even that was an estimate), and the captives complied.

‘We’re not after your jewelry, at least for today. And we’re not after any of you. I’ve sent a selected footage of the cameras I installed in your not-so-humble house, Mrs. Hayes, to some newspapers and TV channels, they might be arriving in about thirty minutes by my calculations. Girls, loosen the ropes of some of them to get them a chance to not be surprised as they are. Mrs. Hayes, thanks to me your computer has been recording the feed of the cameras my girls put in your house. With it and the sleeping worms in your dinning room you have all the proofs to put these… beings behind bars for a long time, good bye.’

The women were fuming as the agents of Member 001 left the place, but not before one of them placed a pile of garments, the clothes that the women were using at the time of the start  of their ordeal, on the floor next to the door to the interior of the manor.

As their boss had requested some of the girls had now better chances to free themselves and were doing a mighty effort to achieve it! They were cheered on by the ones nearby that still were as tightly bound as they were before, and when their hands came free they choose immediately a girl nearby to freed. But the image faded to black at that moment.

On the news that night I heard that while not all were freed when the media, closely followed by the police, attempted to storm the place and both were rebuked by a stern and firm Katherine Hayes (the mid forties widow of the famous industrialist and well known philanthropist), those who were already helped them to hide on the rooms of the second floor of the manor. The place soon became a complete confusion when Mrs. Hayes confirmed that the persons that had assaulted her and her guests were cops…

But the consequences were just starting to be unfolded or created. Back at the board room there was a very astonishing scene happening in front of us all. Member 001 wasn’t happy or exulting, she seemed sad for a moment.

She nodded to her assistant and a new image appeared in the screen. Inside a fleeing van four women took the military outfits they were using while two naked, blindfolded and gagged women writhed on the van’s floor. Then the image switched to a team of the BA (possibly under Member 001’s orders) assaulting a home. Only a late thirties woman was in the place at the moment and was now being tied by two men to a chair, she seemed very furious and from the look in her bulged face they had packed her mouth to the fullest.

The other three members of the team searched the office where the action was happening, one had opened a computer and the other searched for a safe or something like that. They found false books containing pen drives and mobile hard drives whose contents were quickly copied, bundle of notes inside a Cuban cigars case, but no safe.

‘The lady is Angela Grayson, Sam’s wife, and we are obtaining what I believe is the just the beginning of the private files of the Hellhounds. With the majority of its members behind bars, at least for a while, for the assault of the private and secret party of Mrs. Hayes, I believe that we will be able to have all data available about them, what they know about us, how they fund their operations and so on until the end of the week. By that time, the three bound ladies behind me will search the police with more information about them. By that time the person assigned to prosecute them will be willing to offer Protection to them in exchange of their testimonies. Just the revelation to the public that they allowed me do what I ‘wanted’ in order to receive authorization from the mayor to be back on business, at least officially, will be enough to convict them. But I want them convicted for everything that they did, including my sister and my niece’s ordeals.’

‘And what about out members that are in prison because of your plans, the loss of assets that we suffered due to them? What are you going to do about it?’

‘Ladies. Gentlemen. I am the kind of person that the mere presence in a town is enough to make the insurance companies to raise their policies! Everybody was expecting that I came with some big scheme the moment I stepped out of prison! Including you! And you! And all of you! And him and them! I planned a scheme that could give, to the members of the BA that were not overly reckless and greedy, more money in a month that he or she had achieved in the past year. Go and check if the ones that are behind bars are not the most audacious of our association? And even those will be helped by my actions, not to mention those who were arrested first by the Hellhounds and then by the police!’

She was right. Even with the UK not having a principle of the Law like the American ‘fruit of the poisoned tree’, illegal arrests and searches did exist here. It would be a job to our law team, but by exposing all (or at least mostly) of the crimes of the Hellhounds their task of getting our imprisoned comrades out of jail would be made easier.

And Member 001 agreed to pay all their bills and give the families of our comrades a suitable compensation. She also agreed to pay the Burglar Association for its lost assets, she even agreed with the fine demanded by the board (twice the value of all the lost assets) as long as the BA agreed to follow her plan, granting total immunity to the three girls as long as they told to the police, the press and a judge what the board ordered them to.

The only problem was that the girl’s demanded that their families also became free of any form of retaliation, which would leave member 009’s betrayal completely unpunished. That question tore the board in half. They decided to have their deliberations in private and everybody was politely expelled from the room.

I saw Jessica, Raphaella and Halley being escorted upstairs by the Amazonian triplets, which meant that their status had switched from ‘prisoner’ to ‘escorted guest’(captive). The now former member 009 of the board of the Burglar Association was taken downstairs, to his awaiting cell. I didn’t saw Member 001 anywhere, so I decided to go get some fresh air and have a smoke. I knew that those three girls were in cohorts with Member 001, but how could I, a mere goon, take down that woman and expose her?

And I must have jumped as I felt her fingers taping my right shoulder.

‘I was informed that you might have taken some interesting conclusions of the events that happened so far… Care to follow me? Please?’

I had at least forty pounds of muscles over that woman, I towered her, and yet she was the biggest one between us two. I followed her until she approached her car. Maya was there holding an open laptop in her hands. Member 001 typed a password and the face of my boss, member 005, appeared on the screen. And he wasn’t really pleased with me.

I tried to resonate with him, and told my suspicions. And that’s when I started my rise to my current status in our organization, when he congratulated me for having seen through the board’s deceit. Now I had two options, keep my mouth shut and receive a better training in order to deserve to have such a brain; or be killed in a few moments.

He explained that the BA had been sabotaged by member 009 for years, with the members of the Hellhounds granting their promotions with his help. When the board realized that, if ever the Hellhounds were deployed again by the police, their menace would have grown up tenfold, they started to develop a plan. They got in touch with Member 001, who was still in prison at the time, and she improved their plan with her information about them.

The recently imploded plan of Member 001 was actually a strategy that some members of the board, my boss included, had developed the year before and that they had not used due to the fear of forcing the mayor to authorize the return of the Hellhounds.

But Member 001 realized that it was the perfect cover up for her plan against them. She predicted that they would made 009 insert two or three spies of his in her crew that would feed them with enough data to arrest her in the very first week after her escape, but that they wouldn’t do that in order to use her (Member 001) to force the mayor to bring them back to action. And if she got the proofs of that she would destroy them!

Member 001 knew all the time that that plan would sent her to near bankruptcy, but she told me that now she’ll have to ‘climb up the mountain again’ and she was looking forward for it! She really looked as if she was feeling like in her teenage years again! And we all know that she did manage to get her fortune back after a decade (when she became a legend even bigger than she was before...) and how...

Then I asked about the house full of women that they had just attacked. My boss told me that, while not being exactly a lesbian, Katherine Hayes liked to be surrounded by younger and very scantily dressed women just like Member 001. At any time at least a dozen of them could be seen hanging around her ‘secret nest’, a manor that almost no one knew that she owned it, in very little attire, and some even liked to play bondage games with their host. The perfect address (for many reasons) to lure the Hellhounds to a trap.

As for member 009, he would not be killed for his actions, but he also wouldn’t have one moment of freedom anymore. He had become the first lifetime prisoner of the BA. In exchange of her father’s life, and her own, Jessica had agreed to became an active part in the plan of the fall of the Hellhounds. Her two real lifelong friends Raphaella and Halley wanted to become Member 001’s apprentices and that’s what they’ll became as soon as they returned from the ‘Good’ side of the Law, dragging their friend Jessica (who would become a permanent ‘guest’ of Member 001) along with them by force if necessary.

Then Member 001 remade the question; now that I knew the whole truth I was committed for life with the board, either I kept my mouth shut and I would be rewarded for that or I would die right there. I looked at Member 001 and then to her two beautiful assistants... I traded my silence for a week in Greece with Maya and her fellow assistant Louise.

It was worth it.