Chapter 9

Maureen is asleep on the settee. There is a loud bang. She wakes. She gets up. She then sees seven tough looking mean men. She gasps and looks terrified.

One of the prisoners starts his speech:

“Pretty lady, we have just broken out of prison ----”

Maureen jumps back onto the sofa and using it as a springboard flies through the air at the surprised men. Her booted feet hit the first two men full in the chest, her hands with fingers elongated touching each other chops at their throats. They crash backwards immediately unconscious bringing down the rest of the line like a falling pack of cards. Maureen is now behind them and she makes short work of using her feet and hands on their heads to render them unconscious, too.

The whole operation took less than ten seconds. Maureen rushes at the handler and the dog Lad. Both of them are also unconscious in seconds. Two of the three camera/sound technicians do a bolt leaving one hapless soul pleading for mercy. Maureen tells him coldly to retrieve the video and audio recording cards and give them to her. He rushes to do it.

“Stop!” commands a voice. It is Simmons. He is frightened and recovering from shock but he is holding a revolver in his shaking hands.

Maureen is cautious. A cornered man is just like any animal. Unpredictable. Her right hand covers the brooch pinned to her blouse.

“Ignore him,” she says to the technician. “Get me the cards.”

“If he moves one step I’m going to put a bullet through your head, whoever you are,” warns Simmons very foolishly.

Simmons never saw it coming. All he knew there was a searing pain in his right eye and he dropped the gun as he screamed sinking to the floor. There was a dagger embedded in his eye that Maureen had thrown from the brooch.

She walked over to Simmons still screaming and writhing on the floor. She kicks away the gun. The technician, now scared witless hands this mad woman the cards. She puts them on the sofa.

“You can go but tell your colleagues not to breathe a word of what happened here to a soul. If you do I will visit all of you. I will be the last thing you will ever see. You can come back in an hour and remove your equipment. No one is dead. They should all start to recover in about 30 minutes. Except Mr. Simmons. He pulled a gun on me and threatened to shoot me with it. No one ever does that without paying a price. He has just lost the sight of one eye. Depending on what he tells me next will decide if he loses the other eye. If I am still displeased and think he is lying he will lose his life. You understand, don’t you, I am not bluffing.”

He nods and flees.

Maureen bends down over Simmons, peering coldly at him.

“Stop the blubbering and turn your head towards me so I can remove the dagger. If you move, even a twitch, as I take it out you will lose more than your eye. It will be your life. I have to be very careful. You understand? Tell me you understand?”

“Yes,” he managed to say.

He kept perfectly still. In a split second she plucked the dagger from his eye. She even wiped it clean on his jacket before putting it back into her brooch.

“Tell me where Grace is.”

“I don’t know,” He told her. “I swear I don’t know.”

“Then tell me everything you do know.”

Between sobs Simmons told his tale. Maureen did not interrupt. She watched his face closely.

“I was watching and waiting for Grace to come out of the Seven 7’s Club. I wasn’t fooled by the car switch. Neither was the Dutchman we know as Isaac The Ike Man. He was waiting and watching, too. He had even got onto the stage at the club and introduced himself to Grace during her introduction. She had called herself Princess Canis. I could tell she was smitten with him. He’s a bad dude. I like to know who everyone is who visits these clubs. In case anyone is connected with the law and if they are on their pay roll. The Ike Man prays on young girls normally. Most you never see again. He trades in young human female flesh. Trafficking. The occasional young beautiful male. They all end up in Saudi Arabia. Ike works for Sheik Saad Janani. The Sheik has diplomatic Immunity. He can’t be touched. He was also at the club with Ike the other night and wants Grace for a Saudi Prince who is looking for an experienced beasty girl to live with him at his palace. He wants to mate her with every animal he can find. Grace will probably enjoy it. She will be treated well. But of course she will be thrown out to the wolves when she ages in another five years. But I had a proposition for The Ike Man, too. When we saw each other following Grace home we met and struck a deal. I could have her first if I reached out to her first. If Ike got to her first she was his. I would have made a lot of money from the bets being made on her at the club and I would have let Ike have a nice percentage. But Ike gave Grace his phone number. She must have called him. My man thought he had the genuine article when he kidnapped you. What a joke. I suppose you fooled him too. That telephone call I had just now was from Ike telling me he has Grace and she will be leaving tonight for Saudi. Whether she has agreed or it is by force I don’t know.”

“You don’t honestly believe Grace would up and leave just like that, do you?” Maureen asked when she saw Simmons had parted with all he knew. “She has a family. Three kids. How does the sheik smuggle these teens out of the country against their will?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met him. Ask Ike.”

“I will, but it will be too late to save Grace.”

“See if she has contacted her sons.”

“Thank you, Simmons, but I had already thought of that. One last thing. How many teens did you put in the path of Ike?”

“Not many. They were just down and outs. Street girls who had just become addicts, no one missed them.”

“You’re an expert on that, are you? Simmons, you’re a slime ball. The world will be a better place without you. Best I put you out of your misery.”

“No. No. I’ve told you everything.” he hesitated. “There is something. The sheik has his own private plane. I overheard Ike saying he would deliver a girl to the airport.”

“Plane and airport.”

“Cessna 680 Sovereign. Painted in green with white Arabic markings. Parked at Swanrey Executive.”

“You’ve just saved at least your left eye. Pray I get to Grace in time. Get one of your friends when he wakes up to take you to a specialist eye hospital. They still may save your right eye sight. And pray we don’t ever meet again. If we do you will be a dead man”

Maureen rushed to her car. She called one of Grace’s sons. He answered almost immediately. She identified herself and named the three sisters and broke the news that their mother had been kidnapped. She asked if she had contacted them. She was told yes and she had sent them a photo of where she was. The Jetsons. She knew exactly where it was. It had become a local landmark. She asked how long ago was the contact made ... Four hours had elapsed. She sped off knowing they would also be going there.

She next reported what had happened to the the three sisters. After a thought she called the number Sid had given her. It took four rings before Sid answered.

“Sid. Maureen. Your new employer. I need your help if you feel up to it.”

“I’m ok. Though I have felt better. In fact I’ve never felt worse. What do you want me to do?”

Maureen briefly told him she had left his previous employer with a serious eye problem but had obtained the information she wanted without going into details. She then told him the real Grace had been kidnapped and was being held in the house known as The Jetsons. She was to be transported to Swanrey Airport by some unidentified means and flown on a private jet to Saudi Arabia. Sid knew where The Jetsons was situated and it was nearby. He was to go there on stake out and report to her what he saw. She would be there about 45 minutes after his arrival.