Chapter 1 #2
Without another word, Sloan walked over to a guard and did something to him that made him talk — the guard’s voice clearly in pain while he told them the password for the system and then how to shut the collars down.
At the time, I had no idea what Sloan did to make a hardened operative spill so fast. Later, I found out the two went through SEAL training together and that he was, in Sloan’s words, a pansy ass who successfully pretended to be a badass until he went through SERE.
Also, Sloan had known about an old injury, and exactly where to press his fingers to make the bastard hurt.
Having Sloan on our side meant our guys disabled the collars, unlocked them, and had the prisoners headed upstairs less than ten minutes after arriving at the Lucite hallway.
During all of this, I caught a glimpse of Mason Barnes in the background, talking to Bravo Five, his eyes clearer than in any photo I’d seen of him, but before I could think on it too hard, I was back with Charlie Team.
I quickly grabbed Gears’ wrist and gave it two squeezes — the sign to let him know his brother was alive.
Completely against protocol, but our foursome had agreed that if any of us saw him, we’d let Gears know right away.
The rest of the op, I mostly identified guests I thought might be more or less difficult for our people to deal with, though it turned out I only recognized maybe a third of them.
Later, I would find out that, during the day, guests could pay to go to the Lucite rooms and fuck the fighters. Each hole had a different price, and it was up to them whether the fighters were restrained or loose.
And, it turned out, one of the guests liked a specific fighter enough to pay a great deal to sleep with him during fight weekends.
Seemed like a pretty big risk, to me, but I guess he figured the guards would make sure he woke up alive and in one piece.
As for the asshole with his pants down, he’d awakened in the middle of the night and decided to go downstairs and fuck a fighter — and one could apparently pay to do exactly that at any time of the day.
Even right as the prisoner came out of a fight, when he or she was still amped up from it.
I had a list of nearly three hundred who’d gone missing, and we only brought thirty-one fighters up from that Lucite hellhole, but once we started talking to the fighters, we learned there were four fights to the death every weekend, plus others sometimes died during or after a fight.
Also, if someone tried to escape and the shock collar went off, even if they survived it, they were never the same again.
We also learned there were four fighters who’d either recently been killed or were somewhere else on the premises, in a clinic of sorts.
“Sometimes,” a big guy named Junior said, “when one of us is knocked out, they disappear and never come back. Sometimes, they’re back in a few days, and they talk about a hospital-type area. ”
Bravo Team decided this meant it was time to infiltrate the new building, the one we hadn’t been able to find anything about.
No one had come out of it, and they had to know shit was going on outside.
But the seven heat signatures inside — four lying down and three standing — were staying put.
Had they hoped we wouldn’t notice the building off to the side, away from everything?
As we assumed, it was a medical building, and the last four fighters were in there.
Our men easily took down the three armed medical people with despite the fact there was automatic gunfire, but I’d have to consider that later, because I was back to identifying fighters.
None were hurt terribly bad and all could walk, but I guess the assholes running the place had realized a little care for concussions meant a valuable asset would live to fight another weekend.
As soon as all fighters were handed over to the medical team, Bravo One announced the fighter extraction was complete, and then we had all three teams dealing with guests.
At some point, I stopped being a human with emotions and became a machine with a job to do.
It was the only way to do the job, so when McGyver said, “Movement, east quadrant of the guest side,” I focused on the area and directed my people to the uber-rich portion of the property.
These people had paid 250K for a package that included personal access, which I now understood meant they got to fuck the fighters.
Also, massage therapists, which we’d figured from the start were sex workers.
Their cabins were also super-luxury versions of the others.
A man came out onto his cabin porch in pajama pants and bare feet, and I instantly recognized him — a hedge fund guy who competes in mixed martial arts on the weekends.
“That’s Victor Preston,” I said. “Skilled pro-fighter. Mixed martial arts. Hedge fund guy who’s on the board at one of the Manhattan museums as well as a nearby hospital. Careful with him. He’s a snake.”
“Copy,” Ember said, and I swear she sounded a little gleeful.