Sea Monster's Revenge Page 30

  Back in the security center near midnight she told the four women there that she'd sleep on the cot in the adjoining supply room.

  "Wake me at 3:00 if there are no new developments. Don't worry about keeping your voices low. Normal conversation won't bother me."

  With that she lay down and put herself to sleep.

  A few minutes before 3:00 Sylvia woke without prompting, got up, joined the four women sitting around the console, two of them keeping a watch on the video camera screens.

  "Anything interesting?" she said.

  One of the watchers turned to look at her. The other kept her eyes on the screens.

  "Just a fox. Look at this."

  She turned back to the console and clicked a couple of icons on a large computer screen in the center of the several smaller screens. The screen showed a section of the fence around the compound.

  Two of the guard dogs rushed into view and began barking, silently since the audio was turned down or off. Moments later one of the guard dog handlers, Evelyn, clad in camouflage uniform and boots and with a submachine gun slung over a shoulder, walked quickly up the animals and spoke to them. The dogs turned to look at her as if to protest, then followed her out of sight, annoyance evident in their posture.

  "Keep looking. This is what excited the dogs."

  The image zoomed in on the fence. On the other side of the chain-link web could be seen a fox. It looked as if it were laughing at the dogs. Perhaps it was.

  Sylvia/Maria laughed.

  "Maybe I'll meet it. I'm going to do another perimeter inspection. I expect to be gone a couple of hours, but don't get alarmed if I stay longer."

  She stayed in her Maria persona until she had vanished into the forest, then assumed her warform.

  As she prowled she thought of how the two dog handlers had adapted to their ordeal and its aftermath. The comatose dog handler had been brought to the big house, interrogated, made comatose again and stashed with the other captives. Then Evelyn and Elisa had taken up residence in his home, taking turns sleeping in his bed and caring for the dogs. They had also continued the dog patrols, sometimes accompanying the dogs dressed for combat and carrying weapons.

  Only when they had established this routine did they confront Sylvia and announce what they were doing in a tone that forbade the monster to forbid them.

  Sylvia had not. She was secretly delighted that the two women had bounced back so well from their kidnapping and torture. She did make sure the women knew how to handle their weapons and how not to shoot their own side if they had to shoot the weapons. She worried a bit that they would still misuse the subguns, since she had only allowed the women carrying weapons to dry-fire them. Still, she had set the guns to three-shot bursts and warned the women how the weapons would recoil and ride up when fired.

  Evelyn and Elisa had also announced that when they went home they were taking the dogs with them. They were planning to use the money taken from the slavers to go into business together, breeding and showing and placing dogs.

  Elisa had said that her kidnapping and torture was the best thing which had ever happened to her because her rescue would let her make a better life for herself and Evelyn, with whom a sisterly bond had quickly formed over their mutual love for dogs. Sylvia kept to herself her amazement at the woman's happiness. She had simply nodded solemnly. Becoming a sort-of superhuman certainly had not made her super-wise about human behavior!

  For the following hour the monster walked the perimeter of the compound from the lake all around back to the lake, first close in and second further out.

  There was no one gathering anywhere for an assault on the compound during this best time for an attack, deep within the night.

  Sylvia called the security room on her cell phone and told the people on duty she'd stay out till sunrise. Then she leaped to a low-hanging branch on a tree she had noticed earlier, and from there to a branch mid-way to the top. It was well-shaped for the kind of sleeping she had done years ago in several jungles and forests while searching for an "Infant Alzheimer's" cure. Comfortable, even more in warform than she had been in human form, she slept till dawn.

  Back in the security room, assured the compound was secure, she took a nap on a cot in an adjoining room. Then as the compound began to wake and prepare for the day she had a huge breakfast. Made by Felix Lebeau, who proved how good a cook he was.

  A shower and a change of clothes to another tee-shirt and stretchy shorts and she was ready to begin interrogating the last five prisoners.

  Chapter 36 - Last Interrogation

  It was late morning when Sylvia went through the by-now well-choreographed routine of plunging the room into darkness, changing to her warform, relighting the room, telling a man's body to slowly come out of his coma, and taking up a stance at the feet of the man. He was the boss of the sex slaver gang.

  The four men before him had turned out to be the head enforcer, the head "trainer" of women, a business manager, and an accountant. They had yielded up much detail about the business of kidnapping, "training" women to be prostitutes, and selling them to the highest of several bidders. The monster several times had to cool her rage with the esoteric powers of her shapechanger body to keep from tearing them into bloody hamburger.

  The stout man on the floor was a distinguished-looking fifty-something man with grey at his temples, somewhat overweight.

  He sighed, opened his eyes, and stared at the matte-black warform in horror. Like a few men, and unlike most men, he did not scrabble away in futile retreat.

  "Miguel de Castro y Bianco," the monster's voice hissed and hummed. "You have created an organization of considerable sophistication."

  He stared at her, his fear well-hidden. She guessed he'd had plenty of practice in his life of crime.

  He looked around at the room. It was empty except for the two of them. It reeked of urine and feces, some of it as old as two weeks and some as new as a day. The newest was evident in stains all about the room, voided by unconscious male bodies.

  He sat up, legs crossed, making no attempt to hide his paunch and crotch.

  The statue-still monster spoke with a musing voice at odds with its dire appearance, detailing some of the clever uses of mind-control on the women imprisoned here for over a dozen years. Starving them, forcing them to live in a room with their excretions, beating them with padded sticks which left only faint bruises or none, giving them brief respites from their hideous captivity to shower and eat, then returning them to the horror made even more intense by the respite. And of course raping them.

  The warform bent forward to gaze more closely at the gang-boss's neck and the heavy cross suspended there.

  "You seem to be a believer. Didn't you ever wonder how God viewed your activities?"

  Her clawed hand whipped out too fast to see, jerked the cross off his neck, and flung it clattering away across the bare floor.

  She said, "I am a servant of God through his servant Satan. He has sent me to undo your evil. You were lucky I had worse evils before yours to take care of. But your luck has run out."

  "I have done nothing wrong. I am a Godly man."

  "Enslaving women is not Godly."

  "That is what women were put here for. To serve."

  "Women have souls. Slavery is evil."

  "Women are animals! They have no souls!"

  The massive matte-black monster gazed at the man. All the obvious and the subtle signs agreed. He believed what he said. She could not break his arguments with counter-arguments.

  "It wastes my time talking to you. Time to go to Hell."

  She took a seemingly ponderous step forward and reached down a clawed hand.

  "Wait! Wait! I have information for you."

  She stopped. "The others have told me all I want to know. About your bank accounts. Your businesses. Your customers."

  "Police! There are police who persuaded me to do this. It is their sin, not mine."

  "Then tell my servants so."

 
She took another step forward. He scrambled to his hands and knees and away from her. She bent and grabbed an ankle. Through it she sent to his nerves commands that would make him feel he had been momentarily bathed in fire before passing out.

  Lunch was terrific, its theme fish. Delicate seasonings delighted Sylvia's human palate, the vegetables were steamed but still crisp and the several sauces intriguing, the dinner rolls browned and basted with butter. The mansion boasted a modest wine cellar of a few but excellent vintages. "Maria" had a triple helping of every thing but this excited no amazement. All the women knew she was not human.

  Afterward all the women not on duty elsewhere gathered in the ballroom/auditorium. Those on duty in the security room listened in.

  Sylvia stood up from the round-table gathering.

  "We're done questioning the men. We might need to revisit some matters but we must now think of other issues.

  "One of them is what to do with the prisoners. Most of them deserve death. How to kill them we must decide. WHO will kill them we must also decide."

  She looked around the room. Some of them looked grim but ready to carry out, or see carried out, the executions. Some looked sick. Only a very few seemed stolidly uncaring.

  "You should think well about this, not decide based on your first impulse. We will come back to the issue another time.

  "But now for a happier matter. Moira has good news for us. Moira."

  The woman who stood up as Sylvia sat down had up-tilted eyes which gave her something of an elfin look. This was accentuated by her slenderness. She had been a third-year college student studying finance. Also important was that she came from a multi-generational business family and had expected to start or manage a business firm. She had been the most actively involved interrogating the men who knew most about the slavers' wealth, where it came from, and where it went to.

  Moira was dressed in a green, grey, and brown camouflage uniform which had been cut to her size, though not well. She had a pistol in a holster on her belt. The wildly varying looks of the women's first day of liberation were being replaced with this martial display. Sylvia thought it gave them a feeling of security, to think of themselves as dangerous and disciplined. There may also have been something of the fashion-fad process which sometimes inexplicably swept women into some wild temporary extravagance.

  "Moira Montgomery, for those of you who don't know me. I'm from Sussex in England."

  She gave a few sentences of summary of her background.

  "We've come up with a cover story for how each of us got our share of the gang's money. We were here to see the Iguazú Falls and met this rich old woman who took a liking to us. We also suspect that her health was failing and she wanted to get rid of some of her money so those who would inherit it could not get it. Some kind of family feud. But that's just a guess.

  "She had her attorneys set up a trust fund of a quarter of a million dollars for each of us. Each year you will get $50,000 dollars. You'll have to pay taxes on it, so that will satisfy your country's tax authorities. The fund itself pays taxes on interest earned, not on the full amount. This protects your investment."

  She went on to a few details: authority to take out another $50,000 each year in a lump sum, with the understanding that they would then have to pay taxes on that. And some other details. She stopped before long and said they could ask her more after the meeting if they wanted to.

  Sylvia stood up and said, "When we get ready to leave this place we'll go spend a day at the Victoria Hotel near the Falls. That's where you'll supposedly meet your benefactress. After a night or two there, paid for out of my share of the gang's money, you'll take a bus to the airport and to where-ever you want to go, to your old home, I suppose, for most of you."

  She sat down and kept in the background for the remaining hour of the meeting. During it a lot of details of the running of the temporary organization, such as laundry duties, were discussed. Jobs were assigned or volunteered for. Then Sylvia stood up again.

  "I'm proud of you all. Let's get to work."

  Chapter 37 - Tidying

  The former prisoners were delighted at Sylvia's suggestion that the male prisoners be put to work cleaning the basement. Soon the plan was put into effect. Four of the men's legs were hobbled with plastic wrap ties and the men sent back into the basement with cleaning equipment. Two of them had thrown up, making more of a mess to clean up. Periodically they were allowed to come back upstairs to be replaced by another four.

  Sylvia made sure that the first crews included the top bosses of the gang, the ones who had been questioned this morning.

  When the cleaning was done the men were fed. With military surplus rations bought online that afternoon by the cook along with a week's supply of fresh vegetables and meat and fish and condiments.

  The same truck which brought the food also brought a bunch of blowup beds with attached blowup pillows. They were placed in the basement. Sylvia escorted all the men downstairs a few at time and put them down and into a coma. She had to fight a few of them, but they were as ineffectual as babies to her Maria persona.

  When the last of them was put to sleep Sylvia stood looking down at the twelve men. She might never let them wake. They might go directly to death if she and the women agreed on that.

  Sunday saw much done, most of it routine. This included destroying the DVDs showing Sylvia in her warform. And turning the comatose men to their opposite sides. It did not include waking and feeding them or giving them a chance to use the bathroom. A few had voided their bowels and bladders and were cursorily cleaned up. Neither Sylvia or anyone else cared about the health of the men beyond very basic hygiene and health measures.

  The three most emotionally damaged women began some therapy with Sylvia and one of the rescued women who had been a student assistant to a group of therapists. She was weak on theory and practice but had a warm sympathetic manner.

  Sylvia's extranatural power helped to begin their recovery, but they would have to continue therapy for some time to come. At least they would have the financial resources to do so.

  That night there was a mild celebration which included a major feast put together by the chef, his son, and their helper. After cooking breakfast tomorrow the cooks would all go home, freed and a good bit wealthier than they had begun two years ago when enslaved.

  Chapter 38 - Leavetaking

  Monday a van came to pick up the three culinary experts. The father said tearful Goodbyes to Maria, mixed with a little fear that a disaster would happen at the last minute. None did.

  There was much activity that morning. Then at noon a bus came and took all but two of the freed women away. A separate van came and took away the two dog women and the six dogs to be transported directly to the women's home. The two had been allotted an extra sum to pay for the best animal transportation and temporary kennel services.

  Sylvia commandeered the least ostentatious of the vehicles in the compound garage and followed the majority of the women to luxurious Victoria Hotel at the Iguazú Falls. Behind them she left all the buildings locked and the security alarms on.

  At the Falls the party checked in to the hotel, Sylvia in her Maria persona but with her identification and credit card as Dr. Sylvia Connelly. Then they had a late lunch. Some women napped afterward, some retired to the poolside, and some went on a guided tour of the Falls. The tour included Sylvia. Standing amidst the thunder and spray of a forward observation deck built out over one of the cataracts she thrilled to the spectacle. She had to resist an urge to assume her fresh-water form and dive in.

  There was much hilarity that night during and after the dinner. Some women got very drunk. At the hotel club that night a few even flirted with men, though none went off with any to the men's rooms.

  Sylvia/Maria kept a discreet watch over everyone, ready to help if anyone needed it.

  Tuesday morning perhaps a third had hangovers, some bad. Sylvia let them suffer a bit, then gave their bodies a cure. Then it was time
for everyone to shop, joining the very few who had already done a bit on Monday afternoon.

  Sylvia shook her head privately at some of the purchases. But the hotel people would remember the women during their stay, which was part of creating the fiction that they had met the eccentric benefactress the day before who had given them their trust funds.

  The celebrations and buying spree also went a long way to helping the women recover from their ordeal, an effect that only Sylvia had intended.

  Mid-morning Sylvia drove back to the mansion, entered it and turned off all the alarms. She checked on the men. Several were close to death after more than a day of neglect. She boosted their health a bit but did nothing beside turning them to their opposite side and ensuring they were well covered.

  She took a tour of the entire compound, considering what she was planning to do next, trying to find problems with her plan. The huge empty place was very strange after being so filled with people during her time there.

  In the business area she spent several hours on one of the computers, compiling and checking data, then printing out two copies of a report. It had a lot of details, including the contacts the gang had with corrupt police and with the gang's slave buyers.

  She reviewed what Moira, with a couple of computer-savvy helpers, had done to cover the tracks of the bank transfers to newly opened accounts in the women's names, and to the general fund for women who had already been sold. She could only hope Moira had been as expert as she thought she was.

  Finally she emailed an encrypted copy of the report to an anonymous email account, copied the report onto a data stick, and tucked it into the pocket of her shorts. She added the printed copies of the report to a briefcase.

  It was early afternoon now and she was quite hungry. There was nothing in the refrigerators or freezers. Felix had thriftily taken every scrap of food with him, even condiments.

  She called a cab, locked and alarmed the main building, and waited outside the gate for the cab.

  She directed it to Puerto Bossetti. At the motel where Luz and Genie stayed she changed to her Candy persona and checked with the desk clerk to be sure they still roomed there. She left a message on the motel's phone message system, then walked to the beach and had three separate large meals at various outdoor cafés.