Carlos made everything ready for his departure.
He had released us from our bonds one at a time, allowed us to use the facilities and then given us a drink. We were all re-bound and re-gagged
in the same manner. Wrists secured at the small of our backs, knees and ankles bound. The gags were uniform in our mouths being packed, taped shut and then the folded cloth drawn over both and tied off tightly behind our necks. Not one of us put up any resistance, not even Andrea or Paula, we all meekly submitted to our bondage.
We sat in a row on the floor with our backs against the sofa. Paula, Sabrina, Andrea, Barbara and then me. I had been the last to use the facilities and Carlos had permitted me to put my shoes back on before he tied me up again.
As he was putting my gag back on he conversed with his captive audience.
‘This is the first time I have had to transport so many kidnapped women in all my years in this rarefied profession of mine, so please bear with me’. He ignored Paula’s furious gaze as he made a tight knot on the cloth which covered my already taped and packed mouth. He then got to his feet and left the room.
Andrea grunted and started to struggle slightly. As a gesture of defiance it was rather wasted, none of us could get free and we all knew it. All we could do was endure what was to come. Sabrina was tearful, so was Barbara which was a mild surprise to me. I was oddly half terrified and half curious about this stage in my ordeal. Where would I end up? Where would we all end up?
Carlos then returned to the scene with some heavy lengths of fabric draped
over his arm. I shuddered when I realised what they were. Sacks! He dumped them on the floor at our bound feet.
He then reached into one of the large pockets of the hip-length leather jacket he wore and came out with a glass vial two thirds full of a clear liquid.
He then retrieved the cloth which he had earlier jammed over Paula’s face and after opening the vial poured a generous quantity of the liquid onto it.
‘I am sorry that I have to drug you all but it is the only way I can ensure your co-operation in getting you inside the sacks’.
He moved swiftly and applied the cloth to Paula’s nose and gagged mouth, in seconds she was unconscious. Sabrina tried to avert her face but he seized some of her long blonde hair, she gave a muffled squeal behind her gag just before the cloth swamped her face. Her eyes fluttered shut and her head fell gently forward. Andrea then struggled for all she was worth but Carlos got the cloth over her face and soon she succumbed accordingly. Barbara shut her eyes and accepted the inevitable, she assisted Carlos by inhaling deeply of the cloying, fumes on the cloth, her chin then came to rest on her breasts. Then it was my turn. I steeled myself.
However Carlos merely waved the cloth in front of my face, my nostrils twitched at the scent of the pungent fumes.
‘Not yet’. He grinned at me. ‘You are fated to be of assistance to me but first I must bag the others’.
He left me and then went and retrieved the first of the sacks. He went to Paula, knelt, opened the sack and drew it up over her bound and booted feet. Paula rapidly vanished into the sack as it enveloped her whole body.
Carlos tied up the top of the sack over her head.
Then it was Sabrina’s turn. She and her splendid boots were soon confined within the second sack. Andrea was then fed into a sack and Carlos made the knot at the top very tight indeed.
Barbara’s head lolled back as Carlos worked the sack up her body, her face was nearly hidden by her gag and dark hair and then she was gone altogether, trapped into the confines of the sack.
‘So much for your friend huh?’ Carlos commented as he tied off the sacks top.
Carlos then got to his feet and went to the sack which contained Paula. Seemingly with no effort he swung the sack with it’s captive contents up over his shoulder and left the room.
He returned for Sabrina, then Andrea, then Barbara. I was alone in the room until Carlos returned. He knelt down by me.
‘You are the only true innocent in this strange affair, so I am going to let you go but there is a condition, do you want to hear it?’
I nodded eagerly.
‘Good!’ He beamed at me. ‘I want you to deliver the ransom note for Paula and Sabrina to their Father, it is on the kitchen table. I will leave it to you to impress upon Sir Norman Tate how serious my demand is. Sabrina is his darling but Paula is not as black as she is painted nor the bad girl she would like to think she really is. I am sure her Father would not wish her to be harmed and Paula is safer in my hands than in those whom the Irish woman and your lawyer friend proposed to put them. You can have the Irish woman’s car and anything of Paula’s left here you may care to take. Will you deliver the note?’
I again nodded eagerly, liberty was beckoning yet again.
‘Good!’ Carlos said again and promptly applied the chloroformed cloth to my nose and gagged mouth. The sweet smelling fumes assailed my nasal passages, burning them. His face became twisted and distorted in my vision and then all faded swiftly to black.
I awoke with pain behind my eyes and a very dry mouth. I reached up and felt my face, it was still there. I could touch my face with my hands?
I moved my legs and then joyfully realised that I was free. I was no longer bound and gagged.
My vision cleared rapidly and all about me began to take on definition. I was lying on the soft carpeted floor of the lounge in front of the sofa. I was still in Barbara’s secret holiday home. I was alone, I was free.
I got to my feet and swayed slightly. I sat back on the sofa and waited for a few minutes. I gathered my strength and then stood up again. My mouth was so dry. Water, I had to have water.
I made to the kitchen where I slaked my thirst. I then saw two envelopes on the kitchen table. One was marked ‘Sir Norman Tate’, the other ‘Angela’.
I picked up the one emblazoned with my name (it was thicker and heavier) and opened it. It contained a generous wad of Fifty Pound notes, probably a hundred of them. I returned them to the envelope and stuffed it into a pocket of my baggy pants.
I then saw the car keys to the Audi which had belonged to Andrea. They jangled as I picked them up. Paula’s leather jacket hung from the back of a kitchen chair. I went through the pockets and found her cigarettes and an ornate gold lighter. Although I was not really much of a smoker, a cigarette suddenly seemed very appealing so I indulged accordingly.
It was night in the valley. I would be driving on dark and unfamiliar roads but I had no other options. I had to get away. After all I had a ransom note to deliver. I went about the house and gathered up what I regarded as a few essentials. The latter included a certain object Carlos had thrown in the trash. There was some satisfaction as I slammed the door of my former prison behind me and even more as it vanished in the rear view mirror as I drove away into the night.
Three months later.
It had been a difficult time for me up until I got the phone call confirming that Paula and Sabrina had been returned safe and well. Sir Norman Tate had called me.
‘My daughters are back with me’. He had told me.
‘They’re safe now?’
‘They are and you still have told no one?’
‘Of course not! It’s what we agreed, no police and no press. When can I expect the rest of the money?’
‘Soon’. He said. ‘Soon’.
The deal had been for £200,000. For the latter sum I was to stay silent and inform neither the police nor the press. Sir Norman Tate would deal directly with the kidnappers for the release of his daughters. It had all been against my better judgement until Sir Norman had mentioned the money. I felt slightly ashamed of myself for putting a price on my conscience but my kidnap ordeal had been frightening and painful and I wanted to be compensated for it.
I had quit my dull job and moved into a more comfortable flat in London and spent many long quiet days alone with the TV and magazines. Sir Norman Tate had instructed me to stay out of sight and have minimal contact with anybody.
Sabrina had called me three days after Sir Norman had informed me of her and Paula’s release.
‘How are you?’
‘Fine-just fine’. She sounded in remarkably good spirits. ‘I’m glad it’s all over, it does make a change not being bound, gagged and blindfolded for most of the day and night’.
‘It must have been awful?’
‘Pretty much so but you were there for a time too’.
‘Yes but for days not for months. Where were you kept?’
‘No idea’. Sabrina told me. ‘Paula and I were wrapped up nearly all the time, I think we were taken out of the country’.
‘I’ve been waiting’.
‘I know, Daddy told me you delivered the ransom note, he thought it for the best that nobody else got involved’.
‘How much ransom was paid?’
‘A lot’. Sabrina laughed. ‘More than a little but less than too much’.
‘Paula?’
‘In trouble’.
‘What about the others, Barbara and Andrea?’
‘I don’t know? Daddy want’s to see you, it’s about money’.
‘I’m sorry Sabrina, I’m not mercenary, I’m really not but Sir Norman was adamant about it, he wanted to pay me for keeping quiet. He said it would be safer’.
Sabrina was amused. ‘Don’t worry I spend that in a year on clothes and clubbing, he can afford it’.
The following evening I made my way across London to the Tate Tower. The traffic of the working day had died down as I steered the Audi (courtesy of Andrea) through the reclaimed industrial wasteland of East London. An area once full of derelict factories, warehouses and rubbish tips now consisted of expensive apartments with views of the River Thames, exclusive shops and high priced eateries. Even with my impending wealth I still could not afford to live there but it would allow me to take a couple of years off and travel the world in comfort.
The Tate Tower dominated the skyline and was the headquarters of Sir Norman Tate’s business empire. The impressive structure of glass and steel seemed to catch all the light in the evening sky. I parked the Audi in a side street under a street lamp and walked the last few hundred yards to the Tate Tower.
I caught my reflection in a shop window and halted briefly and checked myself over. I had let my hair grow and now it fell in bright waves to below my shoulders, contrasting nicely with the black of the expensive new business suit I wore, the skirt was very short and emphasised my legs clad in sheer black tights ending with my feet in the sleek black high heeled shoes. My skin glowed and my eyes were bright. I knew I looked good.
I opened my shoulder bag and checked that a certain something was there. It was my insurance policy.
I entered the Tate Tower. The foyer was huge with tinted glass windows, gleaming exposed steel pillars and examples of minimalist art. My four inch heels made a tock-tock sound as I walked across the gleaming black floor towards the reception desk. A handsome black security guard wearing a smart navy blazer looked up at me and smiled.
‘I’m Miss Wright, I have a late appointment with Sir Norman’.
He nodded, picked up a phone and made the required call.
Four minutes later Sabrina stepped from the lift and waved to me. I met her halfway across the floor. We hugged tightly, glad to see ourselves in safer circumstances. We separated and looked at each other.
Sabrina had changed. The glorious and distinctive blonde hair was gone, shorn into a quite masculine crop. Her skin was very pale and she wore not the slightest trace of make-up. Her eyes were still bright and beautiful but there was something oddly different about them. She wore a baggy black top, black cargo pants and black Doc Martens. Sabrina had adored her gold jewellery but now there was a distinct lack of it.
‘You look great’. She smiled at me.
‘So do you but dare I say-quite a little different?’
She shrugged. ‘Things change’.
‘How are you coping in not being a hostage?’
‘Settling back in. Now Daddy does not like to be kept waiting’. She locked up my arm in hers and steered me towards the lift.
The Tate Tower had thirty floors and Sir Norman Tate resided right at the very top. The view afforded from his office window showed London in all it’s blazing glory of a city at night. From this room Sir Norman commanded the affairs of the Tate Foundation.
Sir Norman was a tall, fit man in his mid fifties, hair now thinning and one could see where his daughters had obtained their good looks. He was both handsome and authoritative, a very sexy combination.
He was dressed in an immaculate dark pin stripe suit as he stood up from behind his desk to greet me. He held on to my hand for longer than was required for a greeting.
‘Miss Wright, we meet at last, this is a pleasure. You are very pretty’.
I blushed. ‘Thank you’.
‘I do appreciate all the assistance you have given regarding the safe return of my daughters’. Sabrina was now at his side.
‘I didn’t do anything’.
‘You did as you were told and that was all that was required, shall we sit?’
He gestured to a leather chair, I sat in it while he returned behind his desk.
Sabrina went and stood at the window.
‘We agreed a fee for your silence, please remind me of the amount?’
I took a deep breath and said. ‘A total of two hundred thousand pounds, fifty thousand in advance and the balance when the girls were released’.
The advance lay untouched in an offshore account set up by Sir Norman, the balance would be transferred shortly and I would be given access to the full amount. The past couple of months I had been living on the generous expenses provided by Carlos.
‘I’m intrigued by what happened after I sent the ransom note to you, do you mind me asking?’
Sir Norman smiled. ‘Not at all. Firstly, I always pride myself on getting exactly what I want. As much as I love my daughters I had no intention of paying the millions requested by their abductors. I am not without influence in any circle. Sabrina and Paula were returned to me with me paying a penny in ransom, just reasonable fees for some hired expertise’.
No ransom? I turned in my seat to look at Sabrina. She was still gazing out over the city.
‘Paula kidnapped me and later Sabrina. She had a partner, a man called Carlos, he double crossed her and made her a hostage. What happened to him?’
‘Nothing good I can assure you’. Sir Norman told me. ‘He was a Sicilian with aims above his capabilities’.
‘Is he dead?’ I felt a chill feeling start to creep up my spine.
‘I’ll leave that to your imagination’.
‘You hired people to free the girls and kill the kidnapper, that can’t be right?’
‘Right and wrong is not an issue here’. He was still smiling and it was starting to scare me.
‘What about Paula?’
‘Ah Paula! A wayward girl in need of something of a re-education in the ways of polite society. Paula had delusions of being some international criminal mastermind but she had neither the resource nor the talent. However she was starting to establish some useful contacts in developing markets, I am already following up on them’.
I did not like what I was hearing.
‘Where is she now?’
‘Very close. Would you like to see her? Darling?’ He called over to Sabrina. ‘Would you wheel your sister in?’
Sabrina turned away from the window and walked over to a door to the left, she unlocked it and vanished beyond it.
I then noticed Sir Norman was staring at my legs. I put my black nylon clad knees together and tugged down on my skirt.
‘You are a pretty girl Angela, I like pretty girls. Ah, here is my naughty daughter’. I turned and saw Sabrina propelling a wheelchair into the room.
The wheelchair was occupied by Paula. Paula was clad in what looked like a short, white hospital gown. Her hair was even shorter than Sabrina’s and to say that she was pale looking was an understatement. She was secured to the wheelchair with several strong looking black nylon straps. These trapped her wrists and elbows to the arms of the chair. Further straps were tight about her upper body. Her legs were fastened to the front of the chair by criss crossed straps from her ankles to above her knees.
I looked up at her face. Her eyes widened in recognition of me but she could make no accompanying comments. There was a considerable amount of white surgical tape across her mouth, almost completely covering the lower part of her face. I could tell by the way her cheeks bulged that her mouth contained a heavy packing trapped behind the tape.
I stood up. ‘Why is she bound and gagged?’
‘A case of a taste of her own medicine and it is also the first stage of her re-education towards more proper behaviour. When she promises to behave she will be released. Do you promise to behave now Paula?’
‘Ummmph! Mmmmph!’ Paula shook her head with a defiant look in her eyes.
‘You will and soon’. Sir Norman told his captive daughter. Sabrina then steered her sister out of the room.
I suddenly wanted to be out of the Tate Tower with my money but curiosity was still tearing at me.
‘There were other captives with us, two women taken away with the girls’.
‘I know’. Sir Norman said. ‘Barbara Parker and Andrea Calder. A corrupt lawyer and a criminal for hire’.
‘Yes but what happened to them?’
‘Nothing yet. You can see them too if you want?’
Sabrina had returned to the room.
‘Angela wants to see her old friends, I use the latter description very lightly’.
Sabrina grinned and I sensed something very dark behind it.
‘Do you mind a trip to the basement?’ Sir Norman asked me.
I was glad to get out of Sir Norman’s office if not the whole Tate Tower as I rode the lift down to the basement with him and Sabrina. The Basement of the Tate Tower was huge. It was a storage area, a wine cellar and the executive car park. There was also a small underground dock that had access to the river Thames.
Sabrina was in the lead with Sir Norman bringing up the rear. It had been a bad idea being involved with these people, I should not have gone to the Tate Tower that evening. Bad things were going on there. I had wanted my money but now I would settle for just being allowed to leave. I could try to run but my choice of footwear for the evening made that a far from practical proposition.
Sabrina unlocked a stout door which led into a store room. Boxes of office equipment were stacked up the walls but my eyes were drawn to the massive packing crate in the middle of the floor. Sabrina conjured up a set of keys and freed the heavy padlocks on the top. She pulled the lid off the crate. I peered over its edge and gasped.
Inside the crate I saw two figures, two very well bound female figures, two figures with their heads enveloped by black, opaque stocking hoods. The figures were clad in the same hospital like shifts that the captive Paula had been wearing.
Their arms were bound to their sides in addition to the bonds about their upper bodies. Their legs were bound at the knees and ankles.
‘Do the honours please Darling’. Sir Norman said to Sabrina.
Sabrina pulled the black stocking hood off the nearest captives head. Barbara Parker blinked up at me, her face damp with her own perspiration. The light hurt her dark eyes. Her dark hair had been cut away into a military style crop. The lack of hair made her face seem narrow. Her mouth was packed and covered by a mass of white tape.
‘One crooked lawyer’. Sir Norman said.
Barbara’s eyes were full of pain and despite what she had done to me I felt nothing but pity for her. Bound, gagged and shut in that awful crate. Barbara looked up at me, she was pleading with her eyes. She made a small sound through her gag at me. Sabrina then shrouded her head again with the stocking hood.
‘I take it that the other prisoner is Andrea?’ I asked pointing at the second bound and hooded captive.
‘You would be correct’. Sir Norman told me. Sabrina then pulled the hood off the second occupant of the crate. Andrea’s features were jewelled by beads of perspiration. Her hair had been shorn too. Above her gag of tape and heavy packing, her Irish eyes were definitely not smiling. She grunted at me before Sabrina swiftly hooded her again.
‘What are you going to do with them?’
‘We’re not sure-are we Darling?’. Sir Norman asked Sabrina, who shrugged by way of reply. ‘I somehow inherited both of them when my daughters were recovered. I may even release them but don’t worry they may be confined to the crate but Sabrina takes care of them’. Sabrina closed the lid of the crate and replaced the locks.
‘Sir Norman, what you are doing to them and your own daughter is monstrous!’ I told him. I was angry.
‘I know, isn’t it delicious? Now, Angela, time to pay you for your efforts’. Sir Norman was smiling.
I pushed past him and walked out of the storeroom. Something told me that I would not be leaving the Tate Tower that night unless I took some positive action. My hand went inside my bag and closed around something hard and reassuring. Turned and drew the 9mm Glock semi-automatic from the bag in a practised motion, pulling back the slide and chambering a live round.
Sir Norman and Sabrina stopped dead in their tracks. They exchanged glances. They were surprised by my conjuring up of the gun. Surprised but not seemingly scared.
‘Stand still!’ I hissed.
‘Angela-do not be silly, we just want to see that you get what is due to you’.
‘So I see, I probably get to be tied up and dumped in the crate with the others-I don’t bloody think so!’ My teeth were bared and my blood was up.
Sabrina took a tentative step towards.
‘Ange, we’re friends, we always have been, I wouldn’t hurt you’.
‘Maybe not once upon a time but something has happened to you Sabrina, something bad and I think you like it! What is it? Psycho Chic?’
‘What about your money? Come now, surely we can discuss this. I’m very rich and very powerful I could grant to a life you only ever dreamed of’. Sir Norman said and moved towards me.
‘It’s true Ange, Daddy can give you anything you want’. Sabrina told me. ‘Whatever you desire’.
At that moment my one true desire was just to be free of this dreadful situation.
‘Don’t try to stop me!’ I warned them. ‘I’ll shoot if I have to!’
‘No you won’t’. Sir Norman Tate smiled. ‘Anyway we are not alone down here’. He then nodded in the direction of something over my left shoulder.
I turned swiftly to meet the new threat and immediately regretted the action. The space behind me was void of anyone. It gave Sabrina the time to launch her attack. She took me down with a low tackle. We hit the ground together but I bore the brunt of the impact. The gun flew from my grasp.
I tried to rally my forces but Sabrina pressed home her advantage. Getting involved in a scrap wearing a very short, tight skirt and four inch heels is not a sensible course of action. Sabrina soon had me subdued and pinned firmly down. She was grinning fiendishly.
Sir Norman was then standing over me.
‘You are a naughty girl Angela and you do know what happens to naughty girls don’t you?’
Sabrina finished her handiwork with the scissors. I had about one eighth of an inch of hair left. The hair which had previously adorned my scalp had been tossed on top of the untidy pile of clothes which had been stripped from me.
‘Isn’t that better?’
The heavy cloth packing in my mouth secured there by a mass of white tape denied me the luxury of answering my friend who was now my tormentor.
The black nylon straps held my body fast to the wheelchair. I now wore only the short gown which seemed the standard garment of captives in the Tate Tower.
I had been returned to the 30th floor and taken into the room behind Sir Norman’s desk. It was void of any furniture and had white padded walls and was illuminated by pale yellow light. I was to keep the captive Paula company.
‘There! Haircut, change of clothes, straps and gag-all correct!’
Sabrina further smoothed the tape over my lips. My eyes blazed hatred at her.
‘You will learn to behave, Angela. Daddy and I have no time for naughty girls’. She turned to her captive sister.
‘Are you ready to behave, Paula?’
Paula made defiant muffled sounds and vigorously shook her head.
‘Angela?’
I made defiant muffled sounds and vigorously shook my head.
‘You will-you both will’. Sabrina seemed to be looking forward to near future events. Laughing, she then turned and left us. The door slammed shut.
I sat in my bondage and pondered the irony of my situation. Paula had originally made me a captive, now she was a captive with me. Me being a captive of everyone involved in this charade had been the constant factor.
The Ransom Game was over and I had been twice the loser.
The End