kinds of sounds.
The man was gone. He had left me here, broken, pain searing through every part of me.
He hadn't raped me, only beaten me and left me here, restrained and bleeding. I assumed the honor of everything else would be left for Aston.
We traveled together, dressed in shorts and t-shirts, wearing sandals and carrying backpacks, the nine of us - Blaze, Axe, Squid, myself and five of Benicio's men. At a casual glance, we'd look like any other tourists in Bangkok, which is exactly how we were trying to look. Except that anyone who looked closer, who gave us more than a cursory glance, would realize immediately that we were no tourists. Backpackers didn't look like we did. Benicio's men screamed ex-military, their hair closely buzzed, emanating an air of authority. And the four of us, well, we didn't exactly look like hippies either.
A small, dark colored van waited for us, and I got inside, grateful for the air conditioning in the oppressive heat. I watched as Eddie spoke to the driver outside, his voice low, and I saw the driver nod. Eddie walked around the van, sliding into the seat next to me, responding to my questioning look. "Someone I trust, our contact here," he said. "He's going to take us to get supplies."
"You trust the supplier," I said.
He nodded. "Benicio says we're good, then it means we're good."
I stared out the window as we meandered through the streets, at the tuk-tuk drivers whipping by carrying passengers, and the vendors selling food from carts on the side of the road. We drove down one small road, then another and another, meandering through the crowds of people shopping, the people unaware of who we were or what we were about to do.
In a back alley, we pulled underneath an overhang, and the driver ushered us out, not speaking. The air smelled of piss and fried food. We walked behind him as he led us up the stairs over one of the shops and texted someone on his phone. The door opened and we were beckoned inside by a fat Thai man.
"Sawadee," he said, his tone anything but welcoming, and brought us down the hallway to a locked room, one filled with weapons.
From behind me, Axe spoke. "Jackpot, motherfuckers."
I was brought back to the room, left unrestrained, and tucked into the bed, where one of the young girls cleaned my wounds.
"How old are you?" I asked in English.
She shook her head, and I wondered if she understood me. I searched my brain for the Thai I had learned when I was here, but failed. I had pushed it away in my head so many times the words were just beyond my grasp. I repeated myself again. "How old are you?"
She shook her head, wiping at my face with a cool cloth. "Sssh," she spoke in English. "You must rest now."
Her eyes were filled with fear, even as her voice was soothing. I laid my head back on the pillow, let her clean me up. She was brainwashed into compliance, and I knew it was futile to try to get information from her. Aston probably had the room wired anyway.
I remembered those days, here in this place, as if it was yesterday, not years ago. My skin crawled with the memory of Aston's touch, back then when I was a child, and I forced the memory away. I would stay together, whatever torture followed.
I would not break. Aston would not break me.
When she was finished, she poured tea in a cup beside the table. "Drink this," she said. "You must rest now."
I reached for the warm cup, watching the door shut gently behind her as she exited. Steam rose from the surface of the liquid, sending the smell of jasmine into my nostrils. The scent triggered a visceral reaction, acid in my throat. Memories of being here as a child.
I looked around the room, wondering where the camera was. Aston wouldn't leave me in here without one. He would want to watch me. I belonged to him now. That was clear. He liked having playthings, and would be interested to see how I reacted to my capture.
I held the cup up, in a mock "cheers" and turned as I sat on the bed, modeling for the camera, wherever it was. Being a good girl and being obedient, I drank the tea. It was drugged, of that I was certain. But it hurt where the man had hit me, hurt where Aston had hit me, and I just felt like not caring. I didn't want to fight it. I didn't want to fight anything. I was just exhausted. I laid my head back on the pillow and drifted to sleep.
I didn't know how long after that I woke. Hours? It could have been minutes, or days. My sense of time was already distorted here, a product of jet lag, drugs, and the crash after an adrenaline spike.
I woke to Aston’s touch.
"Meia, Meia, Meia," he said. "You look a fright."
A fright. Like I was wearing a Halloween costume or something, I thought, detached, almost. Like this was all one big joke. Maybe I was starting to lose my mind.
"Where's Ben?" I asked.
Aston tsk-tsked me. "You haven't been a good girl, Meia," he said. "No Ben."
"I'll be a good girl," I said.
I felt him touch my face, his thumb on my bruised and battered lip, pulling my jaw open. A shock of pain sliced through me. "Yes, you will be," he said. "Because if you're not very, very good, I'll bring Ben in here and let you watch while one of the teachers trains him."
Coldness descended on my body, like ice water filling my veins. I could be good, I thought. I could do what he wanted, submit my broken and destroyed body to whatever he wanted me to do. But I felt my resolve stiffen, my mental clarity begin to return. I had not forgotten my goal.
It was him or me. One of us was going to die.
Manny and Squid walked through the hotel room door. Eddie looked up from the table, where he sat with Axe, looking at the blueprints for the finishing school. "How's it look?" he asked.
Squid sat down, out of place with Manny in their tourist ensembles, compared to the rest of us, clad in all black. He and Manny had just returned from casing the finishing school for the past couple hours, trying to get a handle on security.
Blaze and I hung back on the sidelines during this part of things, watched while the others strategized a plan of attack. Axe had experience with this kind of thing, as an ex-Marine scout sniper and reconnaissance platoon member. He understood the planning involved in a raid, and I could tell he thought Benicio's men, all former special forces from a few different countries, were capable.
Squid was one of the guys from the MC. I didn't know him all that well, but Blaze vouched for him, said he was with one of the Navy's Special Boat Units or some shit. Whatever that meant. I hoped to hell it meant he knew what the fuck he was doing.
Squid cleared his throat. "The place is surrounded by basic concrete walls, nothing special, eight foot it looks like. Easy to scale, but be advised there is the standard glass painted into the top. You guys going directly over the walls will want reinforced gloves.”
Benicio's man, Javi, pointed toward the corner of the room, and Squid nodded, then continued. “Only looks like four guards, and they like to take long breaks. They don’t look to be highly motivated or very well trained. Probably paid in peanuts, but it's still a bad idea to take them lightly. The North and Western walls are lined with trees that overhang the walls, easy ways to drop in for those hitting the rear. They also provide good coverage from the adjacent buildings if anyone should happen to snoop. There’s only basic video surveillance- CCTV cameras that are stationary and focused on points of entry into the compound" He leaned over the table, pointing to several places on the blueprints. "Security cameras I could see here, here, here, and here."
Eddie looked up at Manny. "We need to take those out first."
"Go in after nightfall, disable the power."
"They'll have a generator," Squid said. "It's Thailand."
"Yes," Eddie said. "In the back somewhere. Whoever goes through the back takes it out, one of the first things."
He paused, and I waited. Then he finally spoke. "Okay, just like we've discussed before. Let's make sure we're straight. Axe, you're going to be the one most exposed. Your position on the roof of the adjacent building will potentially leave you exposed to the windows of the high rise hotel
here." He pointed to the map.
"No problem, man," Axe said. "I'll be under a tarp that looks like just another roll of asphalt. I won't be visible unless someone steps on me."
"Good," Eddie said. "Send a confirmation key on the radio when you're in position and have a clear view of the layout. We want to hit the power at exactly 0300 hours while everyone is asleep. Manny, you and Diego will kill the generator first, then the power. Squid, you get the grapple on the second floor balcony and wait for Manny and Diego to catch up with you. You guys have the second floor to clear. Photo-lume the door as soon as it's cleared. Wait for us to sweep the first floor and meet up with you before we head up to the third floor. Axe, you've got the best view of what we assume are Aston's quarters. Once we kill background lighting, see if you spot any signatures on the infra-red scope."
"Roger," Axe said. Manny, Diego, and Squid nodded their agreement.
"Javi, I hope your blades are sharp," Eddie said. "Yours is the diciest. You're heading down the road from here, where the street lights are nonexistent. Once you turn the corner, you stick the guard and hit the latch to open the front gate."
"Si," Javi said.
"Hammer and Blaze, you're with me. Once Javi turns the corner, we're moving across the street from the alley here." He pointed to a spot on the map. "We go through the front door and clear it, then meet up with the second team to hit the third floor."
Eddie paused and looked up at everyone. "Questions or concerns, gentlemen," he said. "Speak now or forever hold your peace. We hit it at 0300. We need to be out by 0320, considering potential police response."
"There's a lot of kids inside," Diego said. "This Aston guy might use someone as a hostage."
"Need to make sure it's not Meia or her kid," Axe said.
"She's talked about Aston," Manny said. "You got any idea whether he'd be keeping her close to him?"
I shook my head. "He didn't exactly keep her on a leash back in Vegas," I said. "Not at his house, and from what I saw when I followed her, his guys tailed her pretty randomly."
Blaze shot me a look. I knew what he was thinking when he heard me say I'd followed her- that I was a fucking psycho or something. "On the other hand,” I said. “He's fucking obsessed with her, and probably pissed as shit she got one over on him and got together with me. He's probably keeping her close."
"Preference is, we bring Aston back alive," Eddie said.
"So we just need to take out the guards; extract Meia and her kid from a psychopathic human trafficker; avoid the attention of the Thai police; rescue thirty or so kids from their lives of slavery; and make sure a trafficking rescue organization gets to the kids before anyone else does. That about sums it up, right?" Axe grinned broadly.
"You got anything better to do on a Friday night?" Blaze asked.
"Fuck, no," Axe answered. "Let's do this shit."
I didn't know what time it was, but it was dark. The tiny slivers of light that had pushed their way through the metal shutters that covered the windows were gone now. Aston was gone as well, after he had groped me, violated me with his fingers, and threatened more, until a phone call interrupted him and he left.
He promised he would return.
This time, I would be ready.
He probably had someone watching a camera feed in my room, I knew that. So I needed to perform.
I gave a convincing performance of being ill, I thought, wiping sweat from my forehead, and moaning while clutching my stomach. The ceramic bowl was still on the end table, and I bent over it while I pretended to dry heave. I laid back on the bed for a while, before getting up to walk across the floor with the bowl, where I sat, my back against the wall, close to the door, my head in my hands.
The ceramic bowl was the only weapon I had in this room. I would wait and swing at him when he opened the door. It was the only thing I could think to do.
A suicide mission is what it is, I thought. But I forced the concern out of my head. I needed to fight. I would fight. If I didn't, I would be dead anyway. And so would Ben. At least this way I had a chance. Even if it was remote.
I moved along behind Eddie and Blaze. The alley across the front of the compound was only about forty feet away, and from our positions in the shadows we could see the outlines of the guards, their lit cigarettes clear as day in the darkness.
"Go," Eddie whispered, the command communicated through our earpieces.
On cue, Javi appeared around the corner. Before the guard was even aware of Javi's presence, Javi had inserted one of his knives into the guard's eye socket and was drawing the other across his throat. Then he disappeared from sight.
Eddie whispered to us. "On me, let's move."
A few seconds later, we were at the gate. Javi reappeared, the gate to the compound now retracted just enough to walk through. He wordlessly closed it, stepping behind me. We paused when Axe's voice came through our ear buds.
"Eddie," Axe said. "Guard walking toward the front door."
Eddie clicked the radio, and Javi once again moved on Eddie's signal. As the guard stepped out onto the landing, Javi dispatched him with brutal efficiency.
"Front clear," Eddie whispered. "Heading in."
"Last man on hook," Squid said over the radio. I remembered what Eddie had said earlier; that would mean they were all on the second floor now. I looked down at my watch - 0304. We were moving fast.
These guys were definitely good.
Two guys down and at least two more to go.
But how the hell were we going to find Meia and Ben in all of this?
In the darkness, I waited. I crouched, perfectly still, every one of my muscles tensed up, coiled to spring. I imagined myself as a tiger, waiting for its prey. Hungry.
The only thing that would satisfy me, the only water to quench my longing now, was vengeance. I had to kill him, the man responsible for my sister’s death. The man who had kidnapped my son, who intended to sell away his childhood like mine had been sold. The man who thought he owned me. The man who believed he had bought my loyalty, who thought he had bought my soul.
It was my destiny.
He might possess my body, but he would never own me.
He could never possess my heart.
That honor belonged to another man. A man I left behind when I was ripped from the life I’d carefully constructed, the life I had built, brick by brick, from nothing. A man who would not recognize me now, who would not know the monster I had become.
A man I’d never see again.
A man I could never forget.
We crept up the stairs to the second floor and met up with the second team. With a wave of his hand, Eddie sent the second team in motion, up the wide stairs to the third floor.
Axe's voice came across the radio, over our earpieces. "Guys, we have movement on the third floor. I can't make out numbers, but you're going to have company."
We resumed movement up the stairs, reaching the landing. The second team stacked up on the left side of the door, and Eddie stacked us up on the right side. Javi reached out and tested the door handle. It depressed completely, unlocked, and he kept it open, ready for Eddie's signal.
We streamed through the doorway in silence, and found the two remaining guards walking towards us. I didn't see what happened, from my position, but I heard muffled noise and a couple of thuds as bodies fell to the floor.
Eddie paused, dividing the teams again. "Diego and Manny cover left; Javi and Squid to the right. Blaze, Hammer and me will head straight."
I heard Axe's voice over the radio again. "Straight ahead, guys, thirty feet. In the bedroom we're assuming is Aston's. Presume this is the target. He has someone with him, small. A kid. Line of sight is clear. Standing by." He was ready to take the shot.
"Standby, Axe," Eddie said. "We don't want to blow his fucking torso clear off." The armor-piercing rounds Axe had selected, in order to get through the shuttered windows of the compound, made Axe's shot a last resort. We wanted Aston alive.
For
the time being.
Eddie gestured, and the team burst forward, entering the room