11. Remy
Chapter eleven
Remy
We’re gathered in my kitchen again, but this time Elaine is sitting down with the rest of us. She insisted that she could handle whatever comes, but I’m not so sure. I do know I can’t ask her to go back to prepping our dinner when she still looks like she’s going to vomit, which is why we’re all currently waiting on pizza.
I asked Elaine why she never said anything to Claire the whole time she was here, considering she clearly knew from the first moment she saw her that her mother was a missing person. But the more I think about it, the more I understand. How the fuck am I supposed to tell her that her mother may have been sold into sex slavery? There’s too many questions that aren’t answered, too many that can’t be explained away. Even if Lauren was pregnant that night of the party, how would Davos have known? Was it just a coincidence? Or did Claire’s conception happen during her mother’s captivity?
That’s not the kind of news you can drop on someone, I’m guessing. Not when Claire herself is already a victim of a failed system. Not when she’s trying so hard to move on from all of the pain and darkness that doesn’t want to release its grip on her. Telling her that she could be a product of rape would just be sending her back into darkness, a prison in her own mind. I can’t do that to her. I want to keep her as far away from this world as possible.
“This ‘menu’ is the most up-to-date list there is. Clients go in and can either ask for the menu or choose the special of the day. ”
“That’s disgusting.” Dom says coldly, not needing any further explanation on what that means. After I really think about it, neither do I. I wish it had gone unanswered.
“Are we talking about… cannibalism?” Rich looks hesitantly at me, and when I don’t answer, his eyes turn to Michael, seeking clarification.
“Not in this instance.” Michael clears his throat, trying to make room for the emotion there. “In this instance, the special of the day is… well, it’s just a girl… or guy, who’s been chosen to have the most visitors. People who get overwhelmed by decisions can simply take what’s being offered.”
I watch Elaine’s nails digging into her tender skin as she clenches her hands so hard I think she may bust a knuckle. “It’s kind of like a prison in a sense that you can’t bring anything in with you. Personal belongings are checked at the door, and clients are only allowed in with the clothes on their back.”
“So, what’s the a la car-tay menu?” Rook asks, glancing at a paper without any photos on it. No one bothers to tell him he butchered the pronunciation, and I don’t think he’d have heard if they did because his eyes are busy scanning the paper. “Clamps, needles, stapler… what the fuck would you need a stapler for?”
Harley turns her head away, needing a quick escape from the conversation. I’d think she was going to vomit if I didn’t know she had nerves of steel. Kent, on the other hand, is as white as my crisply laundered bedsheets. “The… a la carte menu is designed to enhance the experience for the client. Candles, matches, speakers, knives and guns. They even have animals they offer.”
“Guns?” Dimitri frowns. “They let their clients shoot their prisoners?”
I’m a little stuck on the casual mention of bestiality myself, but I force myself to swallow the bile and focus on Michael, who grips the countertop as he shakes his head .
“No. If they kill them, they have to pay for them. Most people don’t want that, so the weapons are usually used for… compliance.”
“Compliance?” I laugh, though there’s really nothing funny about the situation. “As if they can get away from it.”
“Mmm.” He makes a noncommittal noise, glancing down at the paper before him, and then his eyes meet mine. “I suppose some people prefer to threaten a girl with a gun to stay silent, and others like to staple her mouth shut to ensure it.”
“Or other things.” Rich says, his arms crossed over his stomach as he leans back. He looks like he’s trying to hold himself together, and I don’t know the extent of his background, but I get the sense that he’s getting overwhelmed.
Next to him, Kent dives for the menu, his eyes furiously scanning through the photos. He’s not perusing, not looking for the best offering, not taking his time to think about all the mothers, daughters, sisters, nieces, and friends there. He’s just looking for one person… always looking for her. Nobody speaks as he looks, offering him the silence so he can focus.
When he drops the last page, the look on his face is pure relief followed by sheer agony. A sob breaks out of his chest, but we all have the decency to pretend it didn’t, except for Rich. His friend places a gentle hand on his shoulder as Kent hangs his head in his hands.
We all know he was hoping not to see her on the menu as much as he was hoping to see her there. Because if she was there, he’d be seeing her tomorrow… they’d be reunited finally despite whatever hell she has suffered. The fact that she’s not there means maybe she hasn’t suffered to that extent, but it also means the search goes on. It means she could be dead, or that he could live his entire life without ever knowing what happened to her.
“What’s security like?” I ask, hoping to shift the conversation away from the gory details .
Michael looks grateful for it when he glances up at me. Knowing the details is important because we’re going to storm the gates tomorrow. The devil himself probably doesn’t know the extent of exactly what we’re about to witness, and we need to be prepared to help in whatever way we can. I’m not so disillusioned that I think we can ease their fears simply by showing up with guns and yelling at them to get out. If we had more people on our side, more people who were trained and qualified to help in these situations, maybe the process would be seamless. But I can’t reach out for help to anyone who I haven’t personally vetted. I told Claire that even the organizations that fundraise to prevent such atrocities have blood on their hands, and I wasn’t lying. All it takes is one single person with wavering convictions or need for power, control, money. It’s easy to corrupt people, and far harder to fight it.
“It’s a sixty-acre property with an iron gate at the front. The gate is controlled by a guard in the cam-room.”
“So, he’s our first mark.”
“They.” Michael says. “There’s two of them. And it’s not just a camera room. I guess, it’s more of a control room. If we don’t take them out before they hit their pretty little buttons, they’ll lock the whole place down. Cells can’t be opened manually, so lock down is bad.”
“Can’t we just un-lock it down after we kill those two?” Dom asks.
“Sure… if you know the code. That’s obviously not information my insider was made aware of.”
“I’m suspicious of how your insider got all the stuff he did get.” I say, studying him for any hint of the answer.
“She.” Michael grins. “My insider is a she. My informant is a he. They’ve… formed a little bit of a bond. She gave him everything he needed to give to me.”
“That’s brave.” Harley says flatly. I’d think she was being sarcastic, but when I meet her eyes, they’re trained on the book of photos Kent dropped as if she’s itching to go through them .
“It is.” Michael agrees. “And I don’t even know how she got all of her information, but suffice to say, she’s been there a long time.”
“Okay,” Kent says, focused again on the task at hand, “We take out the guards in the comms room. What about the perimeter? Surely that’s not all they’ve got.”
“It’s definitely not.” Michael’s laugh is rye. “There’s four guards in the actual building. They switch off between comms room and cell patrol. Then you’ve got an additional four on the perimeter… one to guard each direction’s approach. They make a circuit though their territory every four hours, going counterclockwise with each circuit starting at the top of the next hour. They alternate breaks the same way, which means that each territory is left completely vulnerable twice a day.”
“So, eight people we have to kill?” Rook hesitates.
“Ten, actually. In addition to the eight guards, there are two ‘masters’. These are the guys who oversee the house—the ones that keep everyone in line, pull the strings, deal with the finances. They’re basically the ones running the whole operation, and they’re either going to run like the fucking cowards they are, or they’re going to go to any lengths to try and stop us from dismantling their empire.”
“Either way, they need eliminated.” I say.
No one disagrees.
I turn to Rich and Kent, waiting for whatever plan they’re working through. I had my own plan with the Zurich property, and it didn’t go accordingly. This time, I’ve given control to the only other person who may hate this entire operation as much as me.
“You know the insider’s name?” Kent asks, glancing at Michael.
“No names.” He sighs. “But I know her number. 4152.”
“So, if we can get someone on the inside… or multiple someone’s on the inside… we can use their own weapons against them. ”
“Their own weapons?” Harley asks. “I think the worst weapons they have there are their dicks, and I really hope you don’t mean that.”
“No.” Kent shakes his head, brandishing the piece of paper Rook dropped earlier. “The a la carte menu.”
“You want to use the knives and guns they use on the captives to take over the comms room?” Dimitri sounds aghast, speaking for the first time in what feels like hours.
“If we can’t get our own weapons into the prison to start, then we have to use what’s inside.” Rich reasons, crossing his thick arms over his chest. “It’s not a matter of what we want to do. I want to bomb the fuckers like rats, but obviously we can’t do that until the captives are safe.”
Kent finds my eyes and nods his agreement.
The thought of sending him into the snake pit to choose a woman and a weapon they think he’ll use against her makes me feel some way I can’t even describe, but it’s not a bad idea. “You think that could really work?”
“You’re going to take down a brothel with a fucking staple gun?” Dom huffs, clearly not as confident as I am that this could work.
“It's probably the only way it works.” Kent reasons. “Send in two at the start and choose a weapon. The guns may not even be loaded… they could be for show. In that case, the knife would be a better option. They probably don’t give you the item to walk around with, so the window of opportunity will be narrow. Do they take you to their cell or…?”
“Rooms can be rented by the hour, in addition to the… rest of it.”
Kent nods. “Rent a room, then. They’ll have to deliver the weapon and the girl. That gives you an opening to study the place along the way, and when we take out the guards, you can leave them in the room. Be sure to choose restraints from the a la carte menu, so you can restrain them if you need to. Take out the guards, dress in their clothes, and tell the girls you’re taking them back to their cells. That’s two guards down on the inside, leaving the cells unguarded from the outside. We’ll do this right before trade-off. The comms room guards will open the door to come out. We wait for them to get completely out of the room. They won’t be expecting anyone else, so they won’t be looking for our faces. Hopefully by the time they realize, we’re driving the blade across their throats. Drag them into the room, make sure they’re dead, and open the gates while North patrol isn’t on his circuit. It will take some time for the security to assemble, and when they do, they’ll be calling everyone and anyone they can think of for backup. We don’t know what that will look like, but at this point, the Masters will probably figure it out, if they haven’t already.”
“From there, it’s just a good old-fashioned raid.” Rich says. “Kill all the fuckers and save as many of the captives as you can.”
“Can your pilot land in the middle of the field?”
“He can,” I nod, confident that Simon can land the plane anywhere. “But how many people are in there?”
“Something like sixty.” Michael chews on his lip, knowing exactly what I’m getting at. There’s only so much space on the jet. It barely holds all of us, let alone a bunch of traumatized and brutalized captives.
“Fuck.” I growl, slamming my fist into the table and watching the papers leap. Next to me, Harley doesn’t so much as blink.
“So, we re-adjust the plan,” Kent says easily. “You know anyone else with a private jet?”
That makes me laugh, and Dimitri joins in. “Plenty of people.” Dimitri answers for me. “None of which are on our side.”
“What about a chopper?” Rook shrugs. “I know a guy.”
“A chopper would fit even less people than the jet.” Dom rolls his eyes.
“Not a military one.” Rook snaps back.
“Unless Kent or Rich can commandeer a military helicopter overnight, I’m pretty sure that’s not an option. ”
“Not likely,” Kent laughs. “Given that the army and I didn’t part under the best of terms.”
Rich just shakes his head, confirming what I figured. How the hell would we get our hands on military property when we’re a rogue team, none of us with active military connections in any country?
When Elaine speaks, I nearly jump. I’ve been so deep into trying to figure out how to evacuate sixty refugees to a safe place that I pretty much forgot she was still in the room. But she hasn’t left—not physically or mentally.
“Actually, I think I know a guy.”