PENALTY MINUTES
By
Norm E.
FOUR Anita Hayes drove her expensive Lincoln Continental down the long gravely XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Gail slipped off her right shoe. The ropes on her ankles were now much XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX “Thank you,’ Susan sighed into the phone in her dorm room. “Well, the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Bonnie was crying hard. The terror combined with the pain of her condition
road. She was slouching low in the driver´s seat, a scarf around her face
complimenting her dark glasses. Anita didn´t want to be seen at the
moment--not until she attended some unfinished business.
She glanced at her watch. Nine thirty in the morning. This wouldn´t take
too long to go through--no more than forty-five minutes or so, she reasoned.
That would leave her with plenty of time to get back to campus and start
her final practice for the big game tomorrow.
It was sad that she´d have to play the game without two of her best
players. But that was their own fault as far as she was concerned. If
Elizabeth and Felicia hadn´t been nosy and kept their minds on the playing
field, they wouldn´t be in the predicament they were in now, as she´d been
told over the phone. No matter. She still had more than enough talent
without them to crush Sherman Oaks off the map. Especially with their star
player unable to attend the game…
Anita pulled into the weed-filled parking lot next to the old warehouse
marked CONSOLIDATED INCORPORATED. A stocky man with a wild shock of hair
met her as she got out. “Anyone follow you, Mrs. Hayes?’ he asked her.
“Not as far as I could see,’ she told him, “Is your boss available right
now? I have something for him.’
“I´ll get him right away,’ the man scurried off. Anita leaned against the
hood of her car as she waited. Even since she´d seen Bonnie Marcliff in
action, she known the girl had to be shut down if her national title streak
was to keep going. And so she´d looked around for someone to handle it for
her, someone whom she could trust not to implicate her. Oscar Reginald had
been that person. He´d shown her some of the examples of his work, which
had impressed Anita greatly. There was no way Bonnie was going to be a
factor in this year´s title game if he´d been able to do some of the things
he´d claimed.
And speaking of Reginald, the man into whom she´d put her trust came
puffing out of the warehouse. “You´re a little early,’ he said as he walked
up to her.
“I like being efficient,’ she told him. She dug into her pocket and pulled
out a check, “Here you go, five hundred thousand dollars as we agreed. Use
it well.’
“Oh you know I will,’ Reginald said, licking his lips at the sight of all
that money in his hands. “One of my men placed the ransom to the national
team for Gail Gilbert about an hour ago. They´ll have to pay 15 million to
get her back.’
“Very nice,’ Anita flashed a wry smile. She had no strong feelings for
Gail, who´d beaten her out for a spot on the national team ten years ago and
left her watching on the sidelines while she went on to greatness. Revenge
against her would be sweet. “Now you are watching Gail, aren´t you?’ she
had to ask him.
“Oh yes, she´s under effective guard,’ Reginald reassured her, “Mrs.
Hayes, my network is a lot bigger than you expect. I work nationally with
outreaches everywhere. I have a network of at least five hundred men, and
almost a quarter of them are helping in this mission, including keeping Miss
Gilbert quiet.’
“I need her to look like the genuine target in this,’ Anita told him, “They
can´t suspect the Marcliff girl´s who we wanted.’
“Speaking of the Marcliff girl,’ a young man Anita knew to be the boyfriend
of one of her players--one of several she´d secretly gotten involved in the
plan for a substantial payment--said as he walked out of the warehouse,
“She´s acting up again. Should I give her the muscle relaxers?’
“Let me take a look,’ Reginald walked back into the warehouse. Anita
followed; she was quite interested in seeing how her quarry was doing. She
followed the master kidnapper across the warehouse floor and up the stairs
to the top level. Reginald nodded to one of three guards standing outside
one of the doors, who unlocked it for him. Anita saw a wildly struggling
figure on a small metallic bed in the middle of the room. “That´s her?’ she
asked.
“As you can see, I´ve restrained her perfectly,’ Reginald lifted up the
sheet covering Bonnie. Anita examined the handcuffs and straps binding her
to the bed. “It looks professional enough,’ she admitted, “How often do you
check to make sure she´s not working herself free?’
“Every hour on the hour,’ Reginald said, “We always keep spare restraints
on hand in case we need them.’
“Good,’ Anita´s eyes now drifted to the large plastic bottle in the corner,
where two familiar forms were squirming around like worms. “And how about
my traitors?’ she asked, walking over to the bottle and looking down harshly
at the struggling Elizabeth and Felicia, “They won´t be a problem, will
they?’
“Not if I have anything to say about it,’ Reginald said, “They´ve been
putting up a good fight, but those ropes are unbreakable.’
“They know too much,’ Anita told him, “We can´t let them go after this,
they´ll go straight to the cops.’
“I can arrange for them to permanently disappear,’ Reginald said coyly, “I
have three dozen safe houses across this country for stashing my hostages,
including remote regions for those who are designated never to return. Four
of those are here on the west coast. Now that I´m thinking about it, would
you like the Marcliff girl removed too? She knows about everything now;
they told her yesterday before we caught them again.’
“Absolutely,’ Anita nodded firmly, “I want Bonnie Marcliff to essentially
vanish from the map.’
Angry moans came from inside the bottle. Anita glared down at Elizabeth
and Felicia, who were looking up at her with indignation in their eyes.
“Don´t give me that!’ she snapped at them, “You got yourselves into this
mess! I´m very disappointed in the two of you; I take you in and train you
to win, but apparently you´re not worthy to play for me! Well, maybe
permanent exile will teach you a thing or two about spying!’
She glanced at her watch. “Well, I think I´d better get going,’ she told
Reginald, “Keep calling me back every two hours or so.’
“Actually, there´s still one more thing,’ Reginald said, “We
caught Marcliff´s friend the goalkeeper at Gilbert´s house last night. She
was snooping around. Would you like her to disappear for good as well?’
“If you can, please do,’ Anita said, licking her lips, “That´ll be one less
threat for me. Another All-American off their list.’
“It would be an honor,’ Reginald nodded to her. Anita took
one last look around the rooms at the prisoners. She was quite satisfied
none of them would be an issue to her cause anymore.
looser. It only took several shakes of her feet to work them all off. It
was the first breakthrough after a night of hard struggling that had seen
her work her chair backwards toward the wall she was now up against.
Outside she could her the guard snoring loudly, just the way she wanted it.
And she could feel a metallic hook of some kind near the back of her head.
She angled her head backwards until the knot to her blindfold had hooked on
it, then jerked her head forward. In a flash it was undone and fell from
her eyes. Gail blinked as the world came back into light. A small glimmer
of light trickled in through the window of the office she was locked in,
which was piled with junk. Gail´s eyes searched for something to use to
free herself. On the desk in corner, she spotted a letter opener. Just
the thing she needed.
Taking several deep breaths, she tipped her weight forward onto her freed
feet and ever so slowly inched forward across the floor. Foot by foot she
came closer and closer to the desk until after a fifteen minute walk she was
almost to them. It was as she tried to turn around and grab the letter
opener in her hands, however, that the legs of the chair hit into a stack of
drawers and sent them crashing to the ground. Outside the guard jerked
awake. “What´s going on in here?’ he yelled, opening the door and coming
in, “Hey, what do you think you´re doing!?’ he demanded, advancing toward
her.
Gail swung around and conked him in the face with her chair, sending him
slumping to the ground. There was a crack as the legs that hit him broke.
Sensing an idea, Gail trudged over to the wall and swung against it. The
chair broke into multiple pieces upon impact, freeing her. Gail ran hard
for the door after pulling her scarf out of her mouth and glanced in both
directions. There were no other guards visible. She nodded and took off
running for the door.
She emerged into a wide alley between a series of abandoned warehouses.
Gail knew where it was. A police station was a mere ten blocks away. By
now Bonnie had to be miles away, and Gail wasn´t sure their disappearances
had been reported. The authorities had to know what had happened.
She ran hard up the middle of the alley toward the main road, trying hard
to ignore the fact she was running over rough ground on bare feet. “Help!’
she cried out at passing cars, “Stop please! I need help!’
A red station wagon was the first to pull over. “What do you want, lady?’
asked the mustached man behind the wheel.
“I was kidnapped last night,’ Gail said breathlessly, “I was held hostage
in that warehouse behind us! They still have a young woman prisoner
somewhere! I need to call the police!’
“Get in, we´ll go where you need to go,’ the man gestured to his front
passenger seat. Gail climbed in………
And immediately regretted it when the car sped off and the door was locked
on her. Not to mention the fact that the driver was now holding a gun to
her head. “Quite efficient of you, to get yourself loose in about ten
hours,’ he told her smugly, “Well, if that´s not enough of a challenge for
you, I can give you a more difficult one. Hold absolutely still.’
plane Bonnie´s family was coming in on´s delayed,’ she told Annie and
Shawna, “They don´t know when they´re going to come in now.’
“Did you tell them?’ Shawna asked.
“I couldn´t bring myself to it,’ Susan shook her head, “It would have
broken their hearts.’
The three of them sat on the bunks staring numbly ahead into space. They´d
given the police everything they could once they´d gone to them last night.
The authorities had thanked them and told them they´d call them if they
discovered anything about Bonnie´s whereabouts, but the phone had been
rather silent for much of the day.
“It´s just not the same without Bonnie,’ Annie abruptly blurted, “She was
always the sunniest of us. She deserved the least of anyone on this team to
be kidnapped. Why did it have to be her!?’
“Who knows?’ Susan sighed, “I´m not ashamed to say it, she´s becoming my
best friend. Let´s just hope they´re not hurting her.’
Another long silence among the three of them followed. This was ended when
Shawna glanced out the window. “Say, does this van out here look familiar,’
she suddenly asked, concerned.
Annie and Susan ran to the window with her. “That´s the one that´s been
hanging around campus for no reason all week,’ Susan realized, “I´ll bet
they were stalking Bonnie.’
“Then why are they back here?’ Annie wondered, “They´ve got Bonnie, there´s
no need to……..’
“Me,’ Susan realized with a low shudder.
“You!?’ Shawna frowned.
“I was a witness, remember,’ Susan reminded her, “When they were at the
mansion. I´m a liability to them. They´re waiting for me.’
Another silence ensued. “So what do we do now?’ Shawna posed, “If they´re
here to……..’
“Wait, I´ve got an idea,’ Annie snapped her fingers.
“What!?’ her friends asked her breathlessly.
“I think they can lead us to Bonnie!’ Annie said breathlessly, “Of course,
there is a risk involved……..’
“It´s worth it,’ Susan interrupted, “Anything to get Bonnie back safely.’
Ten minutes later, Susan found herself walking out the front door of the
dormitory across the parking lot in the general direction of the van. “I
need to check myself,’ she thought darkly to herself, “Anything to get
Bonnie back EXCEPT THIS!!!’
But it was too late now. The van had started and was now pulling alongside
her. The side door slid open, and Susan was jerked inside. “Nice to see
you again, sweetums,’ said a masked figure who covered her mouth and
wrestled her motionless, “Don´t struggle if you know what´s good for you.’
Susan didn´t need a reminder, given her predicament the previous evening.
“I hope you two are watching this carefully,’ she thought to herself.
Inside Annie´s car at the far end of the lot, she and Shawna watched
Susan´s second abduction in a day. The two of them exchanged glances. “I
hope this works,’ Shawna said, “Like you said, there´s a risk; if they
realize we´re following them……….’
“I´ll stay far enough back,’ Annie started the engine and pulled out after
the van, “Once we know where they´re going, we can do what we have to to
avoid being seen. I just hope Susan´s up to the challenge to ride it out.’
Inside the van, Susan had just enough of a chance to take note that her
friends were following her before a sleeping mask was pushed over her eyes.
“No need giving away the surprise,’ her captor said, stuffing her mouth with
packing and wrapping a wide strip of tape around her lips, “I will say your
friend´s going to enjoy company.’
“Well, at least I´ll be with Bonnie,’ Susan thought as rope was lashed
around her wrists, waist, knees and ankles and thrown down to the floor,
“Hold in there Bonnie, help´s on the way…………
was just too much for her already shattered nerves. She knew she couldn´t
escape, and help likely wasn´t coming.
It would have been bad enough if she´d been bound to the bedposts normally.
But with her elbows and knees lashed together with the accursed plastic
ties, her arms and legs were being pulled in different directions, a
condition all her struggling had failed to alleviate. And the straps
holding her down to the bed forbid her from moving any other part of her
body. She could feel her wrists and ankles bleeding from the strain of her
struggling; the handcuffs fit snugly around each of them and gave her no
slack to work with. And then, just as she had been reaching the height of
her struggles, she´d been given the muscle relaxers by her captors. They´d
immediately drained all of her strength, and all she could do now was lie
still and glumly wait out the six hours until they´d wear off.
The talk of her being whisked away to a remote location never to return had
left her horrified and shaken. She was by nature a social person, who´d
miss her friends, her family back home, and other people she´d met along the
path of life.
The sound of the door opening made her tense up as much as her weakened
body could. It was the guard, coming to check on her. Bonnie had already
come to hate this; the guards so far had made unflattering remarks toward
her, that made her feel terrible inside. She sucked back her tears and
waited for the inevitable to happen again.
But the footsteps stopped a good distance from the bed. “How´re you doing,
Bonnie?’ said a young voice that sounded much gentler than the others, “It´s
OK to cry. I understand how painful this is for you.’
Bonnie turned her head sideways. She could hear the person squatted down
on the floor next to the bed. The sheet was pulled off from over her as
always, but the handcuffs and straps weren´t inspected. The person took a
deep sigh. “I never expected it to come to this,’ he said with regret in
his voice, “I signed up because my friend said I´d be a good help, but after
watching you day after day after day, I came to……….I don´t know. All I know
is, you´re a nice person who didn´t deserve this, and I hate the way they´ve
been treating you. Let me say, from the bottom of my heart, I´m sorry this
happened, Bonnie. I hope someday you can forgive me.’
Bonnie felt him clasp her right hand. He didn´t hold it too tightly. His
other hand stroked her hair gently--or at least where her hair would be if
it wasn´t under the sack tied over her head. For the first time since her
ordeal had begun, she felt somewhat calmed, although not enough to stop
crying . “It´s okay to cry,’ he whispered again, “Crying makes it feel
better. I can guess how scared you are.’
She sniffled loudly in agreement. “It´s all right, I´m here,’ he said,
leaning his head against hers, “Everything´s going to be all right in the
end, I promise you. You won´t disappear forever; I´ll see to it personally
if I have to. You´re going to leave this warehouse free and go back to your
life.’
“Hey, is she still restrained or not!?’ shouted an impatient voice from
down the stairs.
“Give me a couple of minutes, I´ll have to test them all!’ Bonnie´s
supporter shouted back. “Tell you what,’ he whispered kindly in her ear, “I
can´t let you go right now, as much as I want to, but I can make this
experience more comfortable for you. Raise your head up.’
Bonnie eagerly did so. He started loosening the plastic ties around her
elbows. “Here, that should feel much better,’ he said softly, “I´ll put the
center here under your arms; when the next guy comes in to check, hold them
tight together, that should fool him. That´s better, isn´t it?’
Bonnie nodded. Her arms no longer felt like they were being cruelly pulled
in opposite directions, the oppressive ties were now very loose--so loose
she could almost slip her elbows out if she tried--and she now had some
control over her lower arms´ motion. Her friend repeated the process on the
tied binding her knees, restoring some motion to her legs. Then he resumed
his position next to her, holding her hand. Bonnie felt much more relaxed
in his presence. She wished she knew who he was.
How long this lasted, she didn´t know--probably about four minutes or
so--but it was cut off by the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs.
“It looks like our time´s up,’ he said wistfully, pulling the sheet back
over her, “But I´m here if you need me, and you´re in my thoughts.’
Bonnie nodded. Moments later a loud voice echoed through the room, “It
doesn´t take that long to check handcuffs and straps, son!’
“I couldn´t find the edges; she rolled over too much!’ her friend said in
mock protest, “She is secure though, I promise.’
“I hope she is,’ the older man snapped. “Well, at least these two haven´t
been a problem.’
There were moans from Elizabeth and Felicia. Although Bonnie couldn´t see
them, she knew they were in as much a fix as she was, and with nowhere to
go.
“I don´t think they could be--’ the younger man started to say.
“Come on, we´re on tight schedule here! I need you to go…….!!!’ the door
slammed shut, cutting off the rest of the speech to Bonnie. She laid her
head down and sighed with relief. Knowing she had a supporter among these
cutthroats had made her feel so much better. And there was something in his
voice that made her think he had feelings for her. He´d done so much for
her in just a short amount of time. If only she could figure out who he
was--and if only help would be on the way………..