BYLINE FOR PERIL
By Chet
CHAPTER FOUR
Over the thick white cloth that parted her lips and made the simple process of intelligent speech all but impossible, Amanda Walker peered over at Samantha Grayson lying across from her on the floor and whimpered. Her brown eyes, now wide in abject terror, had to communicate every thought, and not one of them the least bit pleasant, that rattled about in her head. She stared at her best friend with her shiny white silk blouse unbuttoned, showing her black bra with the floral print underneath. Like her and Lauren Callahan bound securely with nylon rope, silenced with a strip of white cloth. Amanda gazed at Samantha, stared into those petrified and despairing brown eyes of her friend, and wondered a single stupefied notion.
Samantha, what have you gotten yourself into here!
Samantha moaned back a weak answer, struggling feebly against the yards of rope that bound her tight, dug cruelly into her flesh. She too was gagged, and that prevented all but the most basic form of expression to explain this predicament the trio was in. Her chocolate eyes were full of apprehension and dread for her friends who were now, along with her, prisoners of this horrible ordeal.
You don’t want to know…
“Well, well, what do we have here, Samantha?” Marcus Cowle sneered. “These wouldn’t happen to be your friends?” Samantha groaned in reply. “Ah, they must be your roommates! Coming to see what was…keeping you so long?”
Samantha lowered her head to the floor, now cursing herself for leaving the note on her computer. Dumb, Samantha! Really, really dumb! Because of that Amanda and Lauren were going to join Samantha on her one-way journey into slavery. Or will they…?
“So what am I going to do with the two of you?” Cowle stood over his two new captives, appraising their worth as if he was on the lot a car dealership, wondering which color of BMW to buy. Amanda locked her brown eyes onto him, never for a moment let them leave his form. Lauren’s eyes were shut tight, and she trembled slightly against the ropes that held her. “What am I going to do?” he continued to ponder as Amanda and Lauren knew he held their uncertain fates in his hands, life and death rested upon his decision.
“Not bad, not bad, I think I can profit from this unexpected windfall,” Cowle commented. He knelt down next to Amanda, who tried with futile result to squirm away as he rolled her over onto her back. She had the wholesome face of the girl-next-door, and Cowle knew that went over big with his particular clientele. Those who had money to spend on the girl-next-door and putting her into his private dungeon. “Why don’t we check out what’s under the hood here,” he said, leaning down and unbuttoning Amanda’s blouse.
Amanda squealed in dismay as Cowle undid each button, her eyes growing big first with fright, then in anger, as he pushed the fabric apart to find the rose satin bra concealed underneath. The cool air of the room brushed her now exposed skin and she shuddered. “Ah, Victoria’s Secret, not bad at all here.” Cowle stroked the side of her chest, then cupped one of her breasts lightly. “Just the right size. Nice legs too.” His fingers dragged against the nylon surrounding her calves as Amanda grunted at him wrathfully through her gag. “I do believe Sheik Rahim might be interested in you.”
Amanda glanced over at Samantha as Cowle reached up to run his hand through her long, dark brown hair. Who is Sheik Rahim?
Samantha shook her head. Someone none of us want to meet.
Now it was Lauren’s turn as Cowle stood up and stepped over the prone form of Amanda to crouch down beside the immobilized, both with rope and by fear, Lauren. She made no effort to resist his intentions, only whimpering softly and shaking against her bonds, as he rolled her over onto her back and, as he had done with Amanda, repeated his unfeeling appraisal and unbuttoned her gray silk blouse. He pushed the folds aside to, in this case, catch glimpse of the white lace bra she wore underneath.
“Hmm, not as…impressive as your two friends here,” Cowle commented on Lauren’s attributes, feeling her breasts, eliciting a most pitiful moan from Lauren. “Kind of small here. But the face, and those eyes,” Lauren had opened her eyeslids right then, and the emerald of her eyes glimmered with frozen terror. Her face was both bewitching and melancholy. “My friend Rahim might make a serving girl out of you.”
Amanda moaned again, wriggling closer to Samantha, with her shoulder nudging her friend. What the hell is he talking about, Samantha? Who’s this Rahim? What’s going on here!
Samantha rolled over onto her chest, her breasts pressed against the carpet, looked up at Cowle and let her anger flare at his rough actions towards Amanda and Lauren with an outraged gaze and an angry whimper. Get your hands off of my friends!
Cowle pointed a finger at Samantha. “You are in no position to protest what I do, my dear Samantha.” He turned his attention back to her friends, cowering in their bondage beside Samantha. “I believe that Sheik Rahim will be interested in the two of you, but that does depend totally on him.” He pulled the wireless phone from his pocket, flipped it open and dialed in a number. “If he doesn’t wish to purchase you as additional merchandise, well, I’ll just have to find some other way to deal with you…”
Amanda swung her head around to Samantha, of what Cowle spoke was confusing. Sheik Rahim? Purchase? Merchandise? What is going on? What’s going to happen to us?
Samantha couldn’t reply, the gag prevented that. But even if she could speak, how could she tell them they were about to be sold to an Arab sheik and spirited out of the country to a fate that might as well be worse than death?
“Ah, Sheik Rahim, Marcus Cowle here,” he said when the phone on the other end was answered. “I have a proposition for you.” A pause. “Well, it seems that the roommates of your latest acquisition decided they were going to find out where she was.” He peered down at Amanda and Lauren, with a malicious joy he smiled at them. “And indeed they did.”
“Oh no, don’t worry, I have the two of them here, all tied up real tight, nice and quiet,” Cowle commented, going on. “I was wondering…if you would be interested…in buying the pair at the regular price. $100,000 for the two of them, they are both beautiful. Sort of a two for one sale.”
Lauren looked over at Samantha, who could see Lauren visibly swallow as the terrible realization of what Cowle was proposing swept over her. Is he doing to us what I think he’s going to do with us?
Samantha nodded, her eyes watering at the prospect of her friends joining her as slaves. Of the three of them abused and eventually murdered in a far-off land; a fate their friends and families would never know. He is.
Amanda moaned, the moment of comprehension hitting her like a runaway freight train. He’s selling us to this Rahim guy!
“Oh, I see, you only have room for five…passengers on the jet,” At that moment Cowle’s expression deflated and Samantha’s stomach trembled uneasily, now fearing of an outcome far worse for her two friends. “Well, they are quite beautiful, even at the price.” A pause. “You couldn’t have one or two of your bodyguards stay behind, fly on a commercial flight, to make room for these two? I’d really like to get them off of my hands…”
Cowle waited as Rahim said something from the other end, then started waving his hand in the air, as if placating the unseen speaker, as he replied. “No, no, I understand. I just thought that you might want to pick up a few more…items on your trip here and since I had the two…” Rahim must have said something to cut Cowle off.
“No, I understand,” Cowle said after a minute, and now Samantha knew that Rahim had vetoed the possible purchase of Amanda and Lauren. She glanced over at her friends. So what does that mean for them? Samantha shuddered, it could only mean one thing. And Samantha had sealed their fate. God, what have I done now?
What Cowle said next amounted to a death sentence for Amanda and Lauren.
“Don’t worry, Sheik Rahim, I’ll take care of them,” Cowle noted coldly, staring down at the bound and gagged Amanda and Lauren who were no longer assets, but liabilities to him and his operation. “They will be dealt with…accordingly.”
Cowle turned off the phone. “Sheik Rahim didn’t go for the offer?” Sterner asked from where he leaned against the wall.
“No, Sheik Rahim did not go for the offer,” Cowle replied testily. He crouched down between Amanda and Lauren. “Well, that was a person I do a good bit of business with on the phone,” he started to explain. “He is going to be purchasing your unlucky friend here later tonight,” he pointed at Samantha, who groaned behind her gag, “and take her off to a land far away and do some particularly nasty things to.”
Amanda and Lauren traded horrified expression, then turned their attention back to Cowle. “I was going to sell the two of you along with Samantha to the good sheik,” Cowle sighed as if genuinely disappointed, “but he only has room for five additional passengers and Samantha is number five.”
Amanda said a “mmmmmph?” through her gag. What it meant was: what are you going to do with us now?
“Well, what it means for you two is that now you’re a…problem for me,” Cowle stated. “You see, once I make my delivery with Sheik Rahim at O’Hare, I and my associate here, Mister Sterner,” he motioned to the muscle-bound goon in the black leather duster, “will be closing up shop here in Chicago and moving on to a new…market.” A city where more young women would end up abducted and shipped off as slaves overseas.
Lauren whimpered, the tears starting. I think I know what this means…
“Now don’t get me wrong, I’d like to take the two of you along to where I’m going. I do have clients other than Sheik Rahim through The Network and I’m certain that you’ll fetch a prime price,” Cowle apologized. “But it would be too much trouble, and too much of a chance of you escaping, to take you with us to our next stop.”
Cowle was silent for a moment, then spoke the inevitable. “And of course, I can’t let you live. Allow you to tell the authorities what you know of my operation.”
Both Amanda and Lauren emitted keening cries through their gags as Samantha arched her head back and screamed in guilty agony as the judgment was rendered. “As they say in the movies, I’ll have to eliminate the two of you. Make you disappear permanently.”
Cowle stood up, watched in a mixture of pleasure and missed opportunity as the three coeds squirmed on the carpet and struggled against the web of bondage that held them like flies in the sticky strands of the spider’s web. “So it looks like I’ll have a few loose ends to ‘tie up’ here.”
“Good one, boss,” Sterner complimented Cowle on the pun, yet never cracking a smile.
Cowle turned to Sterner. “Keep an eye on them while I get the equipment to deal with our two meddling guests.” Sterner nodded pitilessly. “I should be back in a few hours to take care of them and transport Samantha to the hanger.” Cowle shook his head. “A shame I have to do this,” he said to Amanda and Lauren, “you’d both bring a good price on the market. But business is business.” With that Cowle left the studio, leaving the three friends under the baleful gaze of the burly thug, Sterner.
A few hours, that was all the time Amanda and Lauren had to live and Samantha had until she was handed over to a vicious sheik. Samantha glanced worriedly over at Lauren, he body was shaking against the ropes, her eyes tightly closed as she wailed softly through the gag thinking of her life as it was about to be snuffed out before it had really started. The heartrending sight caused Samantha to experience fresh waves of blame for what would soon befall her best friends. It’s all your fault, Samantha! They’re going to die because of you!
Amanda wiggled across the floor, nudging Samantha gently with her shoulder. Samantha looked at Amanda with forlorn sympathy in her eyes. I’m sorry I got you into this, she tried to tell Amanda.
It’s all right, we’ll get out of this, Amanda tried to console Samantha. We found you…somebody else has to find us! She swiveled and tugged her wrists against the ropes that held them painfully behind her back, trying to free herself. It was of no use, the gesture futile, the bondage inescapable.
Deep in her soul, where guilt tore it to shreds, Samantha knew her friend’s hope was nothing but a wishful dream. There was no hope for rescue; no one would find them here. Samantha Grayson was being sold into slavery. And she had signed the death warrant for Amanda and Lauren…
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Tyler McManaway looked up from his book and over at the clock on his desk, back down at his book on computer applications, then a minute later back up at the clock. His gaze fixed on the hands of the clock, then he turned his attention to the phone nearby. He looked at that for a minute as if he were willing it to ring.
Lying on his bed Albert “Fiji” Fatuamala took note of his roommates actions, lowered his philosophy text. “You worried?”
Tyler leaned back in his chair, now staring at the clock again. It was almost eleven o’clock. Time did not lie. “Samantha should have been back from dinner by now. Was going to call me from her suite when she got in.” She was now way overdue for their date.
“Maybe they’re still at the restaurant,” Fiji added helpfully.
“Maybe,” Tyler said, reaching for the phone. For some reason he couldn’t explain, Tyler didn’t quite believe that possible explanation. If Samantha was going to be late, she would have called Tyler to tell him so. He dialed in the number for Samantha’s suite over in Lakeside Hall.
The phone rang once…twice…three times…four…
Tyler hung up, turned to Fiji. Their other roommate, Zach Miller, the starting goalie on the varsity hockey team, was over at the library pulling an all-nighter studying for a European History midterm. “No answer.”
“They’re probably still at the restaurant,” Fiji tried to soothe his unease, but Tyler bent over in his chair and picked up the phone book from the floor. “Do you know where they were going?”
“Yeah, Toscano, that Italian place over on Denmill,” Tyler replied, flipping through the book until he found the number. He picked up the phone again and dialed the number, this time he got an answer. “Yeah, hello, I’m calling to see if my girlfriend and her two friends are still there?” Tyler paused. “Grayson, Samantha Grayson, that’s the name of my girlfriend. But the reservations were under the name of her roommate, Lauren Callahan.”
Tyler waited, then he heard something he didn’t want to hear. “They never showed up? Are you sure! Yeah, thanks.” Tyler hung up the phone, rubbed his face. Looked at the clock again. Something is not right here…something is not right.
Fiji rose from his bed. “They aren’t there?”
“No. They never got there.” Tyler rose from his desk, grabbed his varsity jacket from out of the closet and tossed it over the sport coat and tie he had on in anticipation of his date with Samantha. “And the reservations were for four hours ago, at seven. And they’re not at their suite.”
“Where are you going?” Fiji said, throwing on his jacket, suddenly concerned for Lauren. “Because I’m coming with you.”
“The only place I think Samantha might be.” The offices of The Daily Husky…
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In Huron Hall, Lisa Mahone too waited for the phone to ring. Each minute that passed without contact from Samantha Grayson seemed to confirm her darkest fears about Cowle Photography and what might have happened to her roommate Kristen Lawrence.
Samantha should have called me by now, Lisa thought frantically as she paced back and forth in her dorm room like a caged lion, her eyes never leaving the phone that refused to ring. She would’ve let me know what she found out. Would’ve let me know what she found out about Kristen!
Then the idea blossomed in her conscience, and she grew horrified by the implication. What if this Cowle found out why Samantha was there! What if…he’s done to Samantha what he did to…Kristen? Whatever that might have been, and Lisa didn’t wish to dwell on all the terrible possibilities. She shut her eyes and groaned, felt violently ill. She might have placed Samantha in the same danger as Kristen.
Lisa shook herself out of her despair. I have to do something, I just can’t wait here! She raced over to her closet and pulled out a jacket, then darted from her room and ran down the hall. She had to get over to the offices of The Daily Husky and tell them that one of their reporters might be in deadly danger.
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“I’m back,” Marcus Cowle announced, entering the back room at Cowle Photography where Samantha, Amanda and Lauren remained helplessly bound and gagged as they had been when Cowle had left them several hours earlier. In his left hand he carried a nondescript black satchel.
Sterner peered at his watch. “About time, we’ve got to get little miss reporter out to the hanger at O’Hare for the pick-up.”
“We have until two to get her out there,” Cowle said. “And I’m sure Sheik Rahim will not depart the country without his last piece of merchandise.” He grinned at Samantha, who turned her head away and moaned, knowing what he meant.
“So how do we get rid of those two?” Sterner said, jerking his thumb at Amanda and Lauren, who resumed their fight against the ropes that were wound tight about their bodies, murmuring into the thick cloth gags that silenced their protests.
“Well, we not only have to get rid of them, but of all of this as well,” Cowle told him, motioning at the interior of the studio. “Help me get them a little more secured here. We don’t want them to get loose.”
Cowle grabbed a length of rope and knelt down beside Amanda while Sterner took two similarly long pieces of rope and crouched next to Lauren. Cowle rolled Amanda onto her stomach, looping the end of the rope through the binding around her ankles. As he did that Sterner took his first length, tied one end to the chest ropes that pressed against Lauren’s spine, and began to thread the rope around and under her thighs, pulling her legs up towards her breasts. Lauren whimpered in pain and in fear as both emotions waged a cruel competition for control of her ravaged soul.
“Here we go,” Cowle called out, taking his rope, pulling and tugging Amanda’s ankles right up to her wrists. Amanda screamed in agony as her knees were bent and the key rope wound around and through the ropes tied about her wrists. It was a hogtie, it was taut, it was painful and impossible to escape.
Sterner took the second rope, tied one end around Lauren’s bound ankles, then connected and tightened the other end through the bondage around her wrists. This was a ball-tie, constricting and agonizing, and just like the hogtie, inescapable.
Cowle stood up, admired his handiwork. “Well, now isn’t this a pretty little picture. In fact…” He walked over to the table, grabbed his camera, and shot off several pictures of the bound and gagged duo. “Something to remember you by. I always liked my damsels in distress.”
Then Cowle snapped his fingers. “That’s what I’m forgetting! The distress for our damsels! The peril that, unfortunately, you won’t be spared from!” Cowle stepped over to the satchel, opened it and pulled out something from inside. Samantha’s eyes widened in shock at what was revealed. Oh God, not that! He can’t do that to Amanda and Lauren!
It was a bundle of four sticks of dynamite held together with bands of black electrical tape, with a digital clock and batteries attached to the lethal package. Samantha wailed at the revelation; Amanda and Lauren staring in total horror at the dynamite. It was a horrible way to die, to be blown to bits and burned to a crisp in the ensuring conflagration, and Amanda and Lauren were sentenced to die in exactly that way.
Samantha stared at the ceiling, tried to hold back the tears of self-blame. This is all your fault, they’re going to die because of you! But Samantha knew there might be one way to prevent what seemed so inevitable, the deaths of Amanda Walker and Lauren Callahan, from occurring…