Chapter 10B

Don't ask me how long it takes to get to the ground from 5000 metres. It's a bloody long time. At least three weeks too long if you ask me. We'd had lots of discussions about the pros and cons of opening the chutes sooner rather than later. Well, the sergeants had the discussion, I just listened. In the end the singles held on longer so that they were lower than the tandems when they chutes were deployed and the tandems deployed their canopies almost as soon as they cleared the plane. The reasoning was that the longer the canopies were open the better the chances that any noise caused by the opening would not be heard from that distance up. It also allowed us to line up on the target better. I didn't argue, I was only a passenger. Strange sensation, hanging from a harness in the middle of nowhere. The stars were out above us and all that we could see below us was the well lit perimeter of the compound below us. Nothing else could be seen. No light from anywhere else.

Our target was the flat roof of a building right in the centre of the compound. Our intel, for what it was worth, told us that this was the main living quarters for "Emperor Marcus" and his cadre of senior staff. It was surrounded by an electrified fence and had dogs roaming the grounds between the fence and the building. Trained Military guard dogs. No other guards were thought necessary. We thought that the dogs would probably hear us coming or landing, but since they were military trained, they were probably trained to attack silently. Besides, if they did cause an alarm, the chances of anyone seeing us were slim.

As it happened, none of the dogs heard us, or if they did they ignored us.

As soon as Penny and I had landed our chute was pulled to the ground by the others and smothered as quickly as possible to prevent any noise of flapping material. The chutes were quickly tied into bundles and discarded. Penny, April and May stayed with me, the others quickly disappeared and did what they were trained to do. We all had secure comms units so I could hear the brief reports from the others as they moved though the building. Ruth and Lesley set up their sniper nests on opposite sides of the building and settled down. Once again we waited.

Our plan was simple. We wanted as many of the occupants of the building alive, but it wasn't necessary. Any sign of resistance would result in death. Their death. We felt that if these men were as bad as we had been told, then the captives deserved to see what happened to them. Primitive psychology, but probably effective.

The sergeants were using knives for the most part and silenced weapons if required. I was amazed just how quickly they went through the building. It only seemed like minutes before each sergeant called in that their sector was clear. Then they gave me the bad news. All of the men had been with at least one woman and several of them had abused children. All were beaten, many had cuts and welts from whips and several of the children need medical attention, like right now!

I nearly went up in flames. Nearly. April and May prevented it by holding me down using a few, well chosen, nerve point and a gag. Yes, my wives gagged me until I regained control of myself. Then I started thinking again. Briefly I wondered at just how well my wives knew me. They had thought to bring along a gag just in case!

"Find out from the women where the doctors or nurses are held." I whispered into the radio. "Then two of you get out, silence the dogs one way or another, and get the medical help back here. The others continue with the plan to take out the watch towers. We'll take the place of the two getting medical help. I heard two of them say that they were going for the medical help and that tower four was our initial target and five and six after that. There were just nine towers and three teams. With darkness at the centre of the compound and all their attention outside the compound, or so we hoped, our approach to the towers should be the easy part.

We timed our approach so that we each started into the watch towers at the same time. We assumed that discipline was tight and that we had to be ultra careful. As it happened only one of the four guards in each tower was awake meaning that subduing the guards was anti-climatic to say the least. We also assumed that the guards were probably not there by choice so we tried not to kill any more than we had to. Only one of all the guards suffered any injury and that was from falling down the stairs. Silly bastard tripped as he tried to run away from us. What a prat!

So there we were, the senior people disabled, all the guards in the towers disabled, two parts of our plan were carried out successfully. Just one part to go. The rest of the men. We didn't think that we would have much problem with the women since they were segregated from the men, kept locked in their barracks. As for the men, well, we locked their barrack doors. Simple as that. Then we waited for daylight.

It wasn't much before daylight that the noise started from the men's barracks. It seems that the relief guards got up as usual and tried to get out to relieve the guards in the watch towers. Imagine their surprise when they found the doors locked. The noise they made woke the other men and soon there were a number of angry and somewhat worried guys trying to get out of the barracks. The windows were conveniently barred, convenient for us, that is, and the only outside doors were locked. I don't think that they even thought about trying to break out through the roof or walls, but we were prepared for that eventuality. The roof was covered by our snipers, the walls by the rest of us.

It was after dawn that saw the first women tentatively venture out of the barracks in which they had been sleeping. We had unlocked the doors earlier and just waited. We saw many faces looking out of the windows and it was quite some time before the first brave soul carefully opened the doors and peered out. We made no threatening moves, just waited. Eventually three of the women slowly walked out of the doors, trying to look around in every direction at once. As we still didn't make any moves they started towards the closest of us, not coincidentally myself, Penny, April and May.

One of the three suddenly decided that being a timid mouse just wasn't going to do any good and started walking towards us with purpose. The other two looked startled for a moment and then followed.

"What's going on?" The "leader" of the women stopped in front of us and asked in a strong, no nonsense voice.

"And a very Good Morning to you. My name is James, this is April and May and the lady with all the radios is Penny. I'd introduce the rest but they're spread around the place keeping an eye on things."

"Charmed, I'm sure," she said sarcastically "but you didn't answer the question."

"and until I know who I'm talking to, I'm not going to. A little courtesy does go a long way."

"Courtesy!" she spat "What good is courtesy?"

"Okay, we'll do it your way." I pulled out my hand gun and pointed it at her nose. I heard April and May do the same to the other two. "Who the fuck are you, you stupid bitch? Answer the question or I'll blow your head off." I tried to give her my best glare at the same time and was pleased to notice the scared look on her face. There was silence for a heartbeat or two, then I holstered my handgun and dropped the glaring look. Again I heard April and May do the same.

"Frankly I prefer the polite way of doing things, but I'll leave the choice to you. Now, Who are you?"

"Er, I'm Mabel, this is Lou and that is Sally Ann."

"Please to meet you. Now as to your earlier question, we heard that you needed a little assistance with a megalomaniac problem and thought we'd come and give you a hand." I do like a little bit of British Understatement. Not very nice of me I suppose, but great fun. "Now that we have the problem under control, we thought that you might like to help us sort out what happens now."

"Under control?"

"Yes, we broke into the head-quarters building last night and secured it. Basically, we tied up the nasties and freed the women and children we found there. Two of our number woke the medics and took them over there to treat the injured children." The look on my face must had gone bad at that point as all three women took a hurried step backwards. April stepped up to my left side, took my hand and put my arm around her shoulders and cuddled into my side. I felt greatly reassured and marvelled at the depth of the love I felt for my wives. All of them, despite not having seem many of them for quite some while. I resolved at that moment to ensure that when this was over we would be together all the time and not apart again. Even if it meant leaving the Island community, I wasn't going to be separated from my wives again. I didn't think that they would give me any problems about that decision.

The three women looked at me strangely for a moment.

"Okay. So what do you want us to do?"

"It's not for me to say. What do you want to do? We've heard some pretty unbelievable stories from our guests and we're not entirely sure that we should believe them. Despite that we came to help because we were being attacked and we don't like that too much."

"Guests? What guests?"

"Alex and his wives and Sally."

At this one of the other women, Sally Ann I think it was, broke in.

"Sally? Sally's alive?"

"She is. Uncomfortable, but alive and very worried about her daughters." Sally Ann took off towards the women's barracks at a dead run. I looked at April who was still snuggled under my arm. She just shrugged her shoulders and hugged me again.

Sally Ann returned very quickly with two small girls and understanding dawned. These must be Sally's daughters.

"Tell them." gasped Sally Ann out of breath from running. "Tell them what you told us." The two girls tried to hide behind Sally Ann who, in turn tried to push them forward. I let go of April and crouched down.

"Sally is your Mom, right?" Shyly both the girls nodded. "Well, she's staying at our house. She hurt herself falling down so she's having to stay in bed right now, but she's very worried about you two."

"Mom's hurt?" said the taller of the two girls.

"Yes, she hurt herself when her airplane fell down, but nothing is broken, she's just bruised a bit."

"Can we see her?" this from the other girl.

"Sure you can. when we get everything here sorted out, I'll take you to see her myself."

"Can't we go now?"

"Not yet, sweetheart, we have to do something about the bad men first."

"Okay. You won't forget?"

"No, I won't forget." Children, what wonderful people they are. The level of trust they have is just incredible. I stood up and looked at Mabel.

"This, this... " I looked around at the compound at a loss at what to call it. "This, place has to be disbanded. You, your families and friends need to get yourself organised and start looking after yourselves. You need to start growing and preserving food. All the things you should have been doing for the last two years in order to survive. Firstly, you need to decide what to do about your aggressors. We've captured them, now it's up to you to decide what to do about them. The thirteen of us will be the court, each of the men in this group that remain alive will be tried. Those that survive that will be let free."

"What to you mean 'survive the court'"

I looked at her long and hard. "I mean that if they are found guilty they will be executed."

"Oh."

"So, start organising the women. Find out who needs medical attention and send them to the infirmary."

"We no longer have one."

"Then make one. For heaven's sake, woman, get your brain in gear. Are you capable of doing what is necessary or not?"

She took a deep breath and looked at me. "I am." She turned to Sally Ann. "Take the children back to their aunt. Get the breakfast crew started and have Irma and Freddie find out who needs help." She turned back to me. "Where are Donna and Cammie?"

"Your doctors?"

"Yes."

"In the HQ building. Where do you want them to set up an infirmary?"

"I wouldn't know what they need. Can you ask them?"

"Sure." I nodded to Penny who had been keeping everyone up to date with what was going on.

"Lou, Free the women in the detention block and see who needs help there. Send any that are hurt to the infirmary, wherever that gets set up."

Penny chose that moment to speak up. "They say in Block 'B', wherever that is."

"Good. Sent them to Block 'B' for help. The rest probably need showers and clean clothes so get the hot water started."

"Lizbeth?" she turned and shouted towards the women who were slowly making their way out of the building.

"Yes?"

"Organise a crew to get any supplies from the HQ, then inventory what we have and note what we need."

"What about the Emperor and the others?"

"They've been deposed. They won't cause you any trouble. There are others dressed like these. They're the good guys. If you need help ask them."

"Okay." She turned and started to organise a group of women who then started off towards the HQ building.

Mabel turned back to me. "So, what about these trials?"

"I'd suggest that one of us be the judge since it's fairly obvious that none of you could possibly be unbiased. That said, we're probably also biased but not to the extent that you are. I'd suggest that you select three of us to serve as a tribunal, the rest will guard and deal with the prisoners. We'll make it fairly informal and I want to start at the bottom. That is, with people that have been forced to do things but have tried their best to resist or be kind towards you women. I know that there will be some, Alex back at the manor is one, for example."

"You're right, there are those that fit that category."

"So, we start at the bottom and then work up to the top. I want the 'Emperor' to be last. By the way, the executions will not be pretty and out of sight but everyone will be expected to watch except the children. The children will not be allowed to see the executions but they will be encouraged to be at the trials."

Mabel raised her eyebrows in question.

"Not all monsters live under the bed and are easily dealt with. They need to see that something is being done just as much as you."

She nodded.

"Also, the sooner we get started, the better. If possible we start the trials this morning. I don't want to waste resources on people that are not going to be with us for very long."

"I'll arrange it."

"Good. I'm going to help my team."

After a tentative start, the women got organised and a hearty breakfast was prepared. They all ate well except for a few women that were locked up. Apparently the barbarism was not confined to the men. Once the feeding had been completed, Mabel and her women organised the gathering. She stood on a table and waited until there was quiet.

"We have been liberated as you know. Now comes the time to deal with those that have oppressed us. These people" she pointed to me and those of the team that were not guarding the prisoners "want to get home so we need to make this easy. They've offered to form the tribunal if we select the members. I propose James," She pointed at me "April and May." Again she pointed.

Somebody yelled "Seconded!"

"Any other proposals?" She waited for a moment. There was a muttering amongst the women for a few moments but no-one spoke up.

"Okay, any objections?" This time there was silence. She turned to me. "Okay, you're up." and she stepped off the table.

I looked at my team. "Okay, show time." and, followed by April and May I went to the table and climbed up.

"Listen up people, this is not going to be a showy, complicated or stultifying legal trial like you used to know. Each prisoner will be brought before the tribunal one by one. I will then ask for someone to speak for them and against them. We want to hear what they have done and what they have not done. They will also get a chance to speak. When the do I do not want heckling or shouting from you. Listen to what they say. If you do not listen to them, then I will not listen to you. Once all have had a chance to speak the tribunal will decide what happens. If the prisoner is to be executed you will watch while it is done, especially those that have spoken against the prisoner. Make no mistake. If you speak out against someone then you will watch them die, so be careful who you accuse."

I looked over the assembled women. "Do you understand?" There was a muttering and I could hear a few yeses. "Not good enough. I need to hear that you understand. If I am not persuaded then I am going to ask you each one at a time. Now. Do you understand?"