Chapter 84

I think Karolina was angry.

"What think fat pig away get insult me Master!"

No, Karolina was totally PISSED!

Her fingers were flying over the keyboards in front of her. First one and then another. Her face a study of concentration, white-lipped with rage.

"Now pay you men no bank with! Ha! got him person computer. Security is bought from software shop, him stupid fat pig. Now let see what fat pig got here."

I quietly slipped out of their office. Ela and Lynne were looking over Karolina's shoulders, Ela took notes with great interest, Lynne just had a look of awe.

"I don't think you can do that..." started Ela, "oh, you can... !"

I wonder if I'll get a phone call from Nigel about the money that's suddenly appearing in my accounts.

Well, the factor was getting financially screwed, how about I go and really ruin his day?

"Melissa! Menolly!" I yelled "Bring my Barrett, I'm going pig hunting. Get a couple of long rifles and side arms for yourselves too," I added. Both came running to me, their eyes sparkling with delight at the thought of a little action.

Karen was the only one who'd been to the factor's house, so we went to pick her up on our way.

The factor's house was on the other side of Paris from Martinè, equidistant from Orly and Charles De Gaul airports. Handy for international flights and the motorway routes throughout east and west Europe.

I dropped Melissa and Menolly at the rear of the property with instructions to wait for 45 minutes before shooting the shit out of anything that looked like a valid target. I didn't actually specify what a valid target was; I'm sure that they'd figure something out.

I drove back round to the front of the property.

As I wormed my way through the grass to the brow of a small rise overlooking the front and north wing of the house, I saw a ghillie-suited lump ahead of me.

"Master," said Nina, "Mistress Li sent me. But Master, please, please say that you've got a seat in your car to get me back. I really don't want to go on that fucking motorbike again."

I smiled; I think my Katie must have given Nina a lift here.

"Where is Katie?" I asked.

"The way she drives, probably in Russia by now!" Nina looked directly at me, her face pale even with the darkening she'd applied. "You know, she was laughing as we went through Paris!"

Oh no, Trystan would be phoning again, trying to get me to convince Katie that speed limits were meant for her too.

I took some of Nina's camo paint and applied a liberal coating to my face. Then we lay and watched the house for the last five of my 45 minutes delay. The house was less than five hundred feet away. Looking down the barrel of my Barrett, I almost felt as though I could knock on the front door with the fore-sight.

The evening silence was split, no; it was torn asunder, by the sound of two .50 calibre long rifles rapid fire.

Men came rushing out of the front of the house, one in particular being hurried into a limousine. Two other cars joined the limo, one leading the other trailing.

"Lead car, point of lower chevron... 3... 2... 1 ... fire!"

Our two Barretts fired together, the bullets, each designed to smash an articulated lorry's engine block, hit the front of the saloon's engine together. The engine was smashed through the car and its passengers. Shrapnel was ejected out the back and into the middle car. The middle car's driver swerved to avoid the wreckage.

"Boss car, top of front wheel, under arch... 3... 2... 1 ... fire!" Hitting the engine block from the side, the effects of our shots were even more spectacular. Engine parts flew out of the other side of the car and the car body tipped onto its side. Now we could see the rear window, if any one tried to get out of that car, we'd have a clean shot at them.

"Trail car, you left, me right, fire at will."

We both fired at our designated sides. I could see that only one bullet each was needed. At this short range, human bodies were basically see-through for a 0.5 calibre bullet.

Now we heard sporadic pistol fire from the house, I could see the muzzle flashes from the upper windows.

Nina and I picked our windows and fired. Nina missed, possibly getting him with shards of glass. I'd aimed at the row of brick immediately under the window. The huge bullet smashed through the brick, sending brick pellets out with the effect of a shotgun. I saw both men at my window thrown backwards. I didn't see them get up again.

"How did you do that?" demanded Nina.

"Aim for the row of brick under the window. Centre is best, but to the side if there are more people at the side." I answered.

Nina tried my little trick and chuckled. "It's like shooting fish in a barrel." She said with a smile.

Resistance from the house lasted about two minutes on our side. Then we saw two cars burst out of the garage, quickly followed by a motorbike. The cars managed nearly twenty feet before the engines were destroyed by our fire and the occupants killed. Only the two on the motorbike got away.

Then I heard a familiar sound. Katie's motorbike.

There's a song in Les Miserablés, 'I dreamed a dream', in which is the line "And the tigers come at night, with their voices soft as thunder."

I now truly understood the 'voices soft as thunder'. That was what Katie's bike sounded like. And I knew that the escaping motorbike wouldn't get very far.

I smiled to myself, 'go get them, daughter of mine', I thought.

"Would Katie have had time to go back for Marine Jones?" I asked Nina.

"And have a shower and dinner too if she drove as fast as she did getting me here." Nina replied. She sounded a little awestruck over Katie, perhaps a little frightened too.

"Baron, please ask Madame Li not to send me on that motorbike again." Nina was pleading now.

"The Commander says that she's very safe." I tried to reassure her.

"Baron, you know how, when you get really, really good at something, I mean world class at it, when you can put the Olympic champion to shame, when you're that good; then you do things that us ordinary mortals think impossible. And because you're so good, you do them without thinking about how terrified your passenger is going to be." She looked at me a little sheepish, "and Baron, I was very, very scared. She pointed to a small pile down the slope behind us. I recognised feminine underwear, messy and smelly underwear.

"Oh," I said.

"Yeah. Oh." She agreed.

"Let's go and see what we can find in the house." I couldn't think of anything else to say. One of Paula's special girls shitting herself! That was almost unbelievable.

The house was quiet; lights were on in the entrance hall and every room we could see. Those lights had made our attack on this house so easy.

We approached the upturned car carefully, there was someone alive in there as we could hear them moaning. A few swear words floated to our ears as well.

A round into the fuel tank spread petrol all over the bottom of the car, moments later heat from the engine ignited it. We would wait for those in the car to realise that it was on fire and climb out. We'd make our decision about whether to kill them or not on how they came out.

A tubby man was lifted out and he fell onto the grass in front of us. He matched Karen's description of the slave factor. As he crawled away from the car on his hands and knees, I stood in front of him and placed the tip of my Barrett's barrel against his head. It was obviously still hot.

"What?" he looked up at me, his eyes glazed and lifeless, he was probably still in shock from the speed and ferocity of our attack.

"Hi, I'm Baron Glastbrooke, but you can call me Master." I introduced myself.

"What?"

Maybe he was a little too shocked.

Nina shot one of the remaining guards as he climbed out of the burning car. I saw that he was the only one holding a gun.

I turned to one of the guards beside the ex-factor. He too was on all fours. "Tell me now, death or my collar for life." I demanded of him, the tip of my barrel resting against his forehead.

"Fuck yo..."

Do not execute someone with a .50 cal rifle at point blank range. Their whole body explodes, bits of bone, blood, snot and shit, especially shit, fly everywhere.

It certainly caught the attention of the factor and the one remaining guard though.

The last guard threw himself flat to the ground, "I TAKE YOUR COLLAR!" he screamed.

I looked back at the factor.

"You're the Baron." He said, staring at me. "Why did you send a slave to buy from me? Don't you know how you've insulted me?"

He seemed to be getting a little worked up about this, so I stuck the barrel into his open mouth. "Don't you know that I value my slaves higher than the wives and mistresses of any other owner?" I stared at him until he dropped his eyes, "You do not have a choice, I'm taking you as an outdoor slave, whether you submit or not." I smiled down at him. "You will be 10,000."

He looked shocked, recognising the incredibly high number and consequently low status.

"Permanently," I added.

He looked up in shock at his degradation.

I just smiled at him.

By the time I entered the house, it had been secured. Only two of the factor's staff had been taken alive, they too took my collar rather than death.

We found over two hundred slaves of all ages, male and female, though they were predominantly quite young. These slaves were, unlike those in his factory, in quite good condition.

I entered his office to find Karolina already at his computer.

"Me just put backing what I done deleted, Boss." She looked at little sheepish. "This girl did turn computers into paper holder."

"Paperweights." I corrected.

"Sorry Boss?"

"We call them 'paperweights', heavy things that you put on top of a pile of paper to stop it from being blown away."

"Thank Boss. Computer is paperweighted."

Sometimes I think Karolina is just having me on with her poor English. Pity we don't have time for me to investigate. I think we both might enjoy a little ... tickle torment.

"Are there any contracts due to be fulfilled today or tomorrow?" I asked her.

Karolina pulled out a laptop and started it up. Within moments she was rapidly typing.

"Four girl child to brothel in Turkey. They due pick upped in morning, 10 hour."

"OK, get the girls brought up here. I want to see them in 30 minutes."

Umber hurried away. Yes, they were all here. Why did I think that I'd be allowed to do something on my own?

Elastic came in holding a clipboard.

"You too?" I said a little stupidly.

She gave me a 'female' look. "Of course me too. My job is to look after you. The Admiral never said anything about stopping you from doing anything; just that I had to look after you."

"Oh." I'd always suspected this but to have it confirmed was a little shocking.

"I've found some toys that I want to ship over to the UK as soon as I can. I think that the Admiral will be interested in them."

"Would I be interested in having first pick?" I asked.

"We've already done that; Melissa and Menolly have been through the stock quite thoroughly." She smiled, probably at the memory of my girl's excitement in sorting out the new 'toys'."

"What have you found?"

Elastic showed me the list; I was quite surprised at some of the things on there. I also ringed a few things that Melissa and Menolly had missed. I marked off, at most, half of the stock of each thing I was interested in. And I moved some of the stuff that the girls wanted back into Aggie's pile. By the time we'd finished divvying up the stock, there were four girl children waiting for me.

One glance told me that I'd never agree to let them go to a brothel. They were far too young. They looked at me wide-eyed and, quite surprisingly, trusting.

"They go to the Factory tonight. Keep them under guard and make sure that no one has a change to steal them." I looked round, "Nina, please go with these children and keep them safe. I want them in the factory's school tomorrow."

"Yes Master." Nina replied. "Master, Em is here..."

"Yes, let her look at the girls before they leave. BUT, they're to be out of here in an hour."

"Yes Master." Nina answered with a smile. She took the children away.

"Any other sales that I should know about?" I asked Karolina.

"Not sale for next fortnight weeks. Twenty new slave is arrive Wednesday. Already paid for."

Well, I'd have a day and a half before they arrived. Hopefully we'd have time to sort out some of the people already here.

Sorting out the Factor's slave pens was easier than sorting out the factory, but only by a little. All of the slaves were in good condition, physically and mentally. The Factor had kept detailed records of each slave, including all disciplinary actions. I couldn't see any 'problem' people. I supposed that any such slaves were dealt with quickly, and fatally, very early on.

Looking through the records I saw that at least four of the older female slaves had been trained as nursery nurses. This made me remember my crèche. I'd been remiss in that I hadn't done anything about this since I left England. Maybe now was the time to restart that project.

"Ela!" I called

"Boss?" she answered, a little distracted by the task she was currently working on.

"Please search out all of the nurses in this batch." I asked.

The printer whirred into life and a page was ejected.

"There are quite a few of them Boss, 27 in all." said Ela, "looks like a lot of owners like slaves who can look after them."

"Actually I doubt that most owners would trust their well being, or even lives, to one of their slaves." I told her. "These were probably going to look after the owner's other slaves. Get them up here please Ela."

Ela picked up her mobile phone and made a quick call.

I continued checking through the Factor's records while we waited.

In the minutes before the nurses were led into the room there was a rush of activity. Most of my girls came and arrayed themselves around me. Melissa and Menolly took up their positions either side of me.

The nurses were then led in to be greeted with an impressive array of a Master, Freewomen and slaves. They all entered and then knelt in a semicircle in front of me.

"I've had you brought here because you are all nurses. I need people who can look after babies, perhaps a lot of babies, and the mothers."

I saw a couple of them nodding.

"The crèche hasn't been set up yet, you will be the ones selecting the site, organising any building works, and then setting up the residences." Now some started looking worried, one though looked interested. I pointed at her, "You will lead this team." She went white with fright.

"B ... but Master, I've never done anything like this before."

"Neither have I. So you learn what to do, then if I need to know anything about starting up and running a very large crèche, I'll know who to come to, won't I?" I smiled at her.

She knelt there mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. She said the only words that she really could in the situation. "Yes Master."

"Do you know all of these women?" I asked her.

She looked around, "No Master, only two of them."

I turned to Jo, "Jo, dearest girl. You will be in charge of this project, get all of these women quartered together so they can get to know each other. I'll send you a document outlining what I want this crèche to be able to do and where it might be located. We'll talk this over later. At the moment though, I want you to get a feel for these women and the task itself."

Jo smiled at me, "It is this girl's pleasure, my Master."

I turned back to the nurses, "This girl is Jo. She is one of my personal slaves. She will be your Mistress. Any order from her is an order from my own lips, do you all understand?"

"Yes Master, we understand and will obey your slave." They all spoke together, clearly and concisely.

"Before you go though, are any of you trained trauma or A&E nurses?" I asked.

Three put their hands up.

"You three will each choose another volunteer; the six of you will go to a factory that I own. The A&E nurses will teach the volunteers. Two of you will go on to the crèche; the other four will remain working in the factory's hospital. My personal slave there is called Karen. She will be your Mistress. Is that clear?"