Kate to the Rescue!
"They're right over here, Agent Farrant." The gravelly voice of Charlie Maroni was the first thing Maxine Morton heard as she awoke. Her head was pounding damnably. "Maroni, you bastard!" she shrieked. "MMMmmm, uuhhh uugghhmmnn!" was all that came out. Unable to stand, Morton felt the bite of Maroni's police handcuffs on her wrists which were fastened behind her back. Another pair had her ankles secured to a hook near the roof of the van, and she lay with her legs in the air, her shoulders painfully supporting her weight. Maroni had stuffed her mouth with rags, and used some kind of belt to fasten them tightly between her teeth. The fact that he had left her clothes was small consolation, since he would surely have them off as soon as he had finished with the policewoman and coed he had obviously had his eye on. Now, as Maxine's head cleared, it sank in that she had heard Maroni speaking to some other person. A rescuer?
Light flooded into the van as the back door opened. Squinting against the sunlight, Maxine could see that a young woman with long blond hair was peering inside. Maxine tried desperately to twist her body into a position to see where Maroni was. Her eyes widened as she saw his grinning face over the blonde's shoulder, raising his gun to smash her into unconsciousness, as he had Maxine.
"And I'm telling you, your boss says I go with you, so I go with you!" The two security guards looked at the blonde who stood before them, hands on hips. Deputy Mayor Pammy Lloyd had shared a huddled conference with their boss, Jennifer Bruce, while the man and woman had packaged the unconscious Alexandra and Cynthia for shipping. The young politician had expressed a fascination with the process of binding and gagging the captives, and now, it appeared that part of her price for aiding Jennifer Bruce in her plans was to be allowed to accompany these two security experts on one of their kidnap assignments. It was bad enough when Bruce herself came along: her tendency to taunt and gloat over her captives was somewhat annoying to a pair of trained professionals. Lloyd's interference, however, was potentially dangerous: when on a kidnap assignment, there isn't time to stop and answer novice questions or conduct interviews with the victims. Still, Jen Bruce paid the bills, and as long as she said Lloyd was coming, she was coming.
This assignment promised to be pretty simple, anyway. Not wanting loose ends left lying around, Bruce had assigned them to rendezvous with Maxine Morton, and pick up the two women she had captured: Bobby Newell, whose late father had been one of Alexandra's sources, and who had found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time; and Denise Fulwood, the policewoman who had been kidnapped and her place taken by Simone's agent, Blair Brogan. Both women were to be exported as slaves, as it was too dangerous to allow them to be found anywhere in the U.S. Morton and the crooked cop were supposed to have them ready for pickup.
As Charlie Maroni raised his gun to strike, mouth watering at the prospect of adding this looker to his "collection", the blonde caught a glimpse of Maxine's face, eyes wild, and her CIA-trained reflexes flew into action. She dropped to the ground, and spun round, her golden hair flying in the sunlight. Maxine saw the barest movement of her left arm, and Maroni had stopped, the hilt of a tiny dagger protruding from his throat. The blonde watched Maroni's form crash to the ground. She delivered a sharp kick to his ribs; satisfied that he was dead, she turned from the corpse, and clambered up into the van.
"Well, ladies, looks like I got here in the nick of time, as they say. I'll get you out of here as quickly as I can." She first examined the cuffs binding Maxine; she then moved on to examine the bindings on the other women. To Maxine's alarm, the blond agent then set about freeing the coed and the policewoman first. Any chance she had of escaping would vanish the instant the other two women were ungagged, and could tell of her part in their abduction! Frenziedly, Maxine began to writhe and flop in her bindings. To her relief, the blonde turned to look at her.
"Forgive me," came her cool and confident voice, "you must be terribly uncomfortable that way. Here. Let me see if I can get your cuffs off." Kate then reached to her belt, and produced a tiny set of lockpicks. With an apologetic smile at Bobby and Denise, she set about picking the locks on Maxine's handcuffs.
Denise Fulwood had nearly given up hope of rescue; now, here it was, and it might slip from her grasp! With Morton free, all three women were still in terrible jeopardy. Denise whinnied desperately through the ballgag. Their rescuer lifted her head, swept a curtain of silky blond hair from her face, and looked Denise over. The bound policewoman could tell that the woman's glance was a cool, professional appraisal: she could see that Denise was in no real danger, and bent her head back to the task of freeing the woman who seemed in the greatest discomfort. Denise moaned and hung her head, as she heard the sound of Morton's cuffs coming free. The first sound was followed by a thump as Morton's legs hit the floor; the second pair then came free, and she heard their rescuer speak to Morton.
"You can undo that gag yourself. Let me attend to the others." And, with that, she turned her back on Maxine Morton.
The questions had seemed endless: Where's the best place to capture them? Will cloth or tape keep them quieter, and who makes those ballgags you use, and where can I get one? What about drugs-which ones work fastest? Pammy Lloyd had prattled on, in a manner of deadly earnest that had nearly driven her reluctant companions crazy. It was with great relief, then, that the man said, "We're here."
In a clearing at the bend of the road ahead, the trio could see the van they had been instructed to rendezvous with. Inside should be the lady cop and Bobbie Newell, bound and gagged; Maxine Morton and the crooked cop Maroni would be babysitting their two prizes.
"Okay," the woman said to Lloyd, "make sure those straps I showed you before are unbuckled and ready to receive our guests." Pammy leaned into the back of the van, and was examining the marvelous in-place binding equipment, when she felt the van screech to a halt, and the man at the wheel shout, "What the hell?"
Freed, Maxine Morton had a decision to make. In moments, the cop and the coed would be free to tell their rescuer of her part in their abduction. Hours of hanging unconscious and bound had left Morton aching and sore, and her glimpse of this golden-haired hellcat in action persuaded her that her chances of taking her on directly, with no weapon, were not good. Morton could see only one way out: without even removing her gag, she quietly slipped out the back door, and made her way to the van's driver's seat.
As Pammy Lloyd pulled herself off the floor, where the sudden stop had thrown her, she looked through the van's windshield. Up ahead, the other van was no longer waiting; instead, its wheels spun in the dirt and it began to careen off down the road, rear door still ajar. "What are they doing?" shouted the man, and gunned the engine of his own van. Lloyd hit the deck again as they took off in pursuit.
Agent Kate Farrant had freed Denise Fulwood's bound hands. She had intended to leave the policewoman to free her legs and remove the ballgag, but Denise's struggles to get some circulation back into her arms caused Kate to pause, and to reach up to unbuckle the gag. She removed it from Denise's mouth, and the policewoman took in an enormous breath of air, and croaked out, "Morton! You've got to stop her!"
"Who's Morton?" replied Kate.
"She helped kidnap us! She's gone to--- aaaahhhh!" Denise got no farther as Morton gunned the vehicle forward, and the two women crashed to the floor. Unlike the vehicle that Jennifer Bruce had custom-crafted for her employees' use, this one had no rear seats or restraints, just bare floor, and as Morton moved into gear, two of the women flew toward the rear door, which still gaped open. Bobbie Newell was still bound to the wall of the van, but the other captive was much less secure.
"Help!" screamed Denise Fulwood. Kate rolled over to see the policewoman clinging for dear life to one of the door handles; her still-bound legs prevented her from obtaining any purchase. Instinctively, Kate flew to the policewoman's side, seizing hold of her. Just then, Morton executed a near-180 degree turn, and both women were flung from the speeding van!
"Who was that?" asked Lloyd as the van sped past the spot where the two women had fallen out. It had happened so fast that there had been no time for the pursuing vehicle to stop or slow down without losing sight of Morton. Instead, the man leaned on the horn, and was gratified to see the van ahead slow to a stop, as Maxine Morton recognized her employer's van in her rear view mirror.
Kate Farrant rubbed her head as she sat up. She was banged and bruised from her collision with the heavy brush by the roadside, but she knew it could have been much, much worse. Moaning coming from behind her let her know that the young woman she had rescued was still alive, and Kate quickly freed her still-bound legs, determining that, like Kate, the former captive had no broken bones or internal injuries.
"Let me introduce myself, I'm Kate Farrant, CIA." The blonde was as cool as though they had simply finished a brisk walk."
"Policewoman Denise Fulwood." Denise was so tired, she was almost surprised that she could talk."
"Well, Denise, I suppose we'd better start walking. My cell phone is probably on the ground back where I found you, and if it still works, I'll call for help. Meanwhile, tell me how you got into this situation, and who that other poor girl is that's still in the van."
"Well, what's the fun of this? She's ALREADY tied up!" Pammy Lloyd pouted. She sat in the rear cargo area of the van, watching as the female member of the security team began to buckle a weeping Bobbie Newell into her restraints. From her position on the floor of the original kidnap van, her hogtied form had been transferred to this new vehicle of captivity, as Maxine Morton had filled the man and woman in on what had happened. The man had seemed less worried about Fulwood's escape than about the fact that they had acquired a new opponent, in the form of the blonde who had freed Morton. By the time the van had returned to the spot where the women had flown out, they were gone, and Morton had said that it was too dangerous to follow them to the original rendezvous point-the police might be there already. Maroni had obviously known the blonde, but he hadn't told Morton anything, and was certainly not in a position to do so now. Who was she? How much did she know? They had ungagged Bobbie long enough to determine that she didn't know the woman, and the man had re-gagged her.
"Hey, what about me?" whined Lloyd. "Your boss says I get to help; you didn't even give me time to ask her what that gag tasted like."
Morton gave the other two a quizzical look, but the man just rolled his eyes and said "I'll tell you later." At that moment, the cell phone in the van began to ring, and the man went to take the call.
"Well, Maxine," said the woman, "in spite of all this today, I'd say you've done your job for us. We've got Simone, and she will soon take us to the princess. Then, we can dispose of those other meddlers and be on about our business." The women talked for a moment, pointedly ignoring Lloyd, when the man returned, grim-faced.
"Trouble. Simone's escaped, and so has the Anderson woman."
Neither Maxine or the other woman spoke at first. From the rear of the van, Lloyd's voice came, low and quiet.
"Anderson. She's the reporter." There were nods, and Pammy Lloyd stared thoughtfully ahead of her. "Have you noticed anything about her?" Lloyd was now looking at her own reflection in the mirror. "I mean, does she remind you…" her voice trailed off.
The other three exchanged glances. Certainly, Lloyd and Anderson had the same coloring, and were about the same size. They wouldn't have been mistaken for each other, certainly, but it wasn't hard to imagine them as sisters.
"I want her," Lloyd continued, almost dreamily. She then seemed to come to herself, and addressed the kidnap team firmly and forcefully. "She's mine. When we get her, I want to tie her as tightly as I can, all the while having her tell me just how she feels as I render her helpless. Then, as I make the ropes even tighter, I want to hear her beg me to stop, so I can stuff her mouth full and listen to her cries as they are reduced to whimpers. She will be mine to do with as I please." The skeptical looks on the faces of her audience caused her to raise her voice. "I mean it. Unless you want Jennifer Bruce to fire you-or worse-Alexandra Anderson is MINE!"
The man shrugged. The woman stared. Maxine Morton was amused: this ambitious young politician saw some reflection of herself in Anderson, and was engaged in some exploration of her own dark side. Did she really want to be tied and gagged herself, but was afraid to say so? Did Anderson represent some part of her she was trying to suppress? Time enough for questions like that later. What Morton wanted to know now was: how in the HELL did Simone Beauvais and Alexandra Anderson escape?
An excellent question. I have absolutely no idea what the answer is. Still with me? Then let's move on.