Listen To Her Heart, page 37
“I will,” Briana said as she sat down and put her legs through the hole.
“Easy now,” Yalen said, holding Briana’s hand until she had climbed down two steps. “You two go next,” Yalen said, looking at Demescko and Emily.
After everyone was down, Yalen handed Rheyna the backpacks and her flashlight. She then took the small plastic bag that contained the SD disks out of her pocket and tucked it inside the front of her bra before stepping onto the ladder. When she was halfway down, she reached up, grabbed the trapdoor, and pulled it shut just in case anyone happened to come by.
“Oh, my gosh. This water is so cold,” Briana said through chattering teeth.
“Try not to think about,” Rheyna said as she put her arms through the backpack straps.
“We need to get moving because the water is going to slow us down,” Yalen said, taking the lead.
“Wait a minute,” Demescko said. “Wo … won’t we need the ladder to get into the club.”
“Shit,” Rheyna swore. “Can you take my backpack?” she asked, shining the light so she could see Briana’s face. “It’s going to take all of my strength just to carry the ladder through this water.”
“Yes,” Briana said, helping Rheyna get the backpack off.
“You guys go ahead and I’ll catch up with you,” Rheyna said, turning back to get the ladder.
Together, the five women pushed through the water as quickly as they could, moving under archway after archway.
“D … do you hear that?” Demescko asked.
“Yeah, we’re getting close,” Rheyna said as the sound of music playing, along with a heavy bass beat grew louder.
“We need to find the trapdoor,” Yalen said, shining her light along the ceiling.
As soon as they passed beneath the archway, the area opened up into a large room with flat ceilings. The music growing louder with each step.
“I think I have hypothermia,” Briana said, having to talk through clenched teeth in order to keep them from chattering uncontrollably.
Emily let out a squeal. “Something touched my legs,” she said as she tried to move away from whatever it was and in doing so, stumbled, splashing water all over Demescko.
“I got you,” Demescko said, reaching out to grab Emily just before she fell head first into the water.
“It’s probably just a piece of wood,” Yalen said as she shined her light around the area where Emily had been. She wanted to scream as her eyes followed the path of the light on the water. Next to her, she heard Briana and Rheyna both swear under their breath.
“Oh, my gosh,” Briana whispered, covering her hand with her mouth. She could not believe what she was seeing with her own eyes.
Floating face down on top of the water was the nearly nude body of a dark-haired woman.
Demescko wrapped her arms around Emily, who was now openly weeping.
Yalen made her way over to the body, and grabbing the woman by the arm, flipped her over.
Briana gasped as she looked at the woman’s pale and bloated face. Her eyes, clouded over by death, blankly stared at the ceiling above her.
“Emily, I know this is hard, hon, but can you look at her for just a moment to see if you know who she is,” Yalen asked.
Emily turned her head slightly and then quickly looked the other way. “Her name is … Dariya.”
Yalen and Briana both recognized the name immediately. It was the woman who Suchin had told them was killed while they were making their snuff films.
“There’s nothing we can do for her now but everyone needs to stay close,” Yalen said as she began sloshing through the water at a more hurried pace. She shined her light in front of them and less than one-hundred feet away; she spotted a wall that ran from one side of the tunnel to the other.
“Is that a door?” Rheyna asked, coming up beside Yalen.
“Sure looks like one,” Yalen said as she headed straight for it.
By the time they reached the wall, Yalen had seen the bodies of two more women floating in the water. It was now obvious to her that after killing the women in their films, they were dumping their bodies in the canal as if they were pieces of garbage. She had never wanted to kill another human being as much as she wanted to kill Vladimir Lebedev and given the chance, she planned to do exactly that.
“Well this is interesting,” Rheyna said as she leaned the ladder against a four-foot retaining wall that measured approximately six-feet in length by twelve-feet wide. The wall was set in a u-shape and surrounded three steps that led up to the door. “This wall looks fairly new,” she said, shining the light along the wall that the door sat in. She then scanned the light above the door, checking for cameras.
“My guess is they built it to accommodate their new venture into the world of filmmaking,” Yalen said as she climbed over the retaining wall and then reached back to help Briana. Yalen looked at the door. “It can’t really be this easy, can it?” she asked as she placed her hand on the door handle and pulled, fully expecting it to be locked.
“It’s definitely our lucky night. Le … let’s hope it continues,” Demescko said as the door opened easily. The sound of ominous music blasted through the opening, catching all of them by surprise.
“It must be soundproof,” Yalen said as she closed the door and then removed her backpack. She took out her cell phone and hit the speed dial for Sgt. Mueller. When he answered, she said, “We’re ready.” She put her cell away and then grabbed the cell jammer and turned it on. They were far enough away that the jammer wouldn’t affect Sgt. Mueller’s phone. “The power should be going off any second now,” she said as she pulled the slide back on the Glock, chambering the bullet. “Briana, you and Emily make sure you stay between us and once we get inside, we’ll decide which way to go.”
“Time to kick ass and take names,” Rheyna grinned.
Yalen opened the door and held it open for the women to go through. “Turn your flashlights off until the power goes out, she whispered loud enough for the women to hear as they stepped into a dimly lit hallway that was an eighth of the width of the tunnel.
Yalen, leading the pack, walked up the hallway toward a doorway on the right that had red lights emanating from beneath a closed door. Suddenly all the power went out and the music stopped. It was dead silent and so dark, none of them could see their hands in front of their face. She felt Briana grab ahold of the back of her hoodie.
They heard a man yelling in Russian as they got closer to the door.
“Fuck,” Yalen swore under her breath as the light in the hallway flickered a few times before coming back on.
“Guess they have generators,” Rheyna whispered.
“All right. We’ll just have to work around it,” Yalen whispered as she moved to the left side of the door, her back against the wall. She waited for Rheyna to take a position on the opposite side. Their eyes met and Rheyna nodded.
Yalen slowly pushed the door open and peered inside the room. The first thing she saw was two very large men with bare chests. They were dressed in black leather, ass-less pants, their heads covered with black executioner’s masks.
Her eyes quickly scanned the cave-like film studio, which consisted of fake rocks and large boulders. Six-foot high flames shot up in the air from several recessed holes in the floor. If she ever imagined what hell looked like, this room was it.
Over in the far corner, opposite the men, was a film camera set up on a tripod. Its red light flickering, which indicated they were taping.
Yalen swallowed hard as she focused back on the men. The shorter of the two laughed as he drew his arm back, his hand balled into a fist. The next thing she heard was a scream as his fist made contact. As he stepped slightly to his right, Yalen felt rage course through her mind and body. A chain had been attached to the ceiling, on the opposite end, a completely nude woman hung by her ankles with her hands handcuffed behind her back. Her face was beaten to a bloody pulp, her blood pooling in a puddle on the ground below.
Yalen and Rheyna had seen enough. Rheyna nodded at Yalen and the two of them stepped silently into the room.
Less than twenty feet from the men, the terrified woman, one eye swollen nearly shut, looked at Rheyna and then locked eyes with Yalen.
As Yalen took another step closer, she held her fingers to her mouth for the woman to be quiet. Yalen looked over at Rheyna and nodded. The two women, their legs slightly apart, raised their guns.
“Hey fellows,” Yalen yelled. As the men turned to face them, there were two simultaneous swoosh sounds. Both men, with a bullet hole in the center of their foreheads, dropped to the ground with a thud.
The woman began to cry hysterically. Yalen moved quickly over to the woman, knowing she had to get her calmed down before someone heard her. “It’s okay, sweetheart, you’re safe now,” she said, speaking in Russian. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Briana, Demescko, and Emily come running into the room.
Rheyna went over to the wheel gearbox that controlled the chain. “Someone please shut that damn music and camera off and grab the tape or disk,” she yelled as she slowly lowered the chain.
Demescko and Yalen held onto the woman and gently set her on the ground.
“Do you speak English?” Yalen asked and when the woman nodded, Yalen then asked, “What is your name, hon?”
“Nadia,” the woman answered in English.
Rheyna knelt down behind Nadia and using the bolt cutters, she removed the handcuffs. “Nadia, we’re going to get you out of here but we need you to do exactly what we say, okay?”
“Yes,” Nadia nodded.
Briana came over and knelt down in front of Nadia. “I found these over on the table,” she said, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt in one hand, the tape disk from the camera in the other, which she handed to Rheyna.
Yalen looked at Emily and then Briana. “I need you two to help get her dressed and then take her out the door into the tunnel and have her wait there until we come back for her,” she said and handed Briana her flashlight. “Let her keep the flashlight, so she’s not in the dark.”
Yalen looked at Demescko and Rheyna. “The three of us need to check to see if there are any more girls down here before heading upstairs.”
Briana and Emily got Nadia dressed and then helped her to her feet.
Nadia looked at both women. “Who are you?” she asked after the other women left the room.
“Friends,” Briana said as she and Emily got on either side of her, their arms wrapped around her waist as they led her toward the doorway.
Out in the hallway, Yalen, Rheyna, and Demescko made their way toward the last door on the left. Yalen and Rheyna took up the same position as the last room, with one on the left and one on the right side of the door. They waited for several seconds, listening for sounds coming from inside the room. Unlike the cave room, they heard no music playing. What they did hear was the unmistakable sound of whimpering.
Yalen nodded at Rheyna and then slowly pushed the door open. A bare chested, blonde-haired young woman, wearing a red Santa’s hat and matching miniskirt, lay spread eagle on a wooden table, her arms and legs shackled. Unlike the room down the hall, this makeshift film studio was set up to look like a winter wonderland with snow and decorated Christmas trees. There were also two fake horses attached to a sleigh filled with wrapped presents.
Yalen was somewhat relieved to discover that the woman was alone but she didn’t think that would be the case for long and they needed to hurry and get her out of there.
At a table near the hallway to the left of the front stage, Sgts. Whitley and Mueller sat close to each other. Mueller had his arm draped around Whitley’s shoulder as if they were lovers. They were both terribly nervous. The lights had been off less than a minute, before coming back on, something Sgt. Mueller had worried about.
“What do you suppose they found down there?” Sgt. Mueller asked, leaning sideways to whisper in Sgt. Whitley’s ear.
Sgt. Whitley smiled as she looked around the room, her eyes didn’t miss much as she spotted cameras behind the bar, in each corner of the room, and one that pointed at the hallway. “I don’t know but we need to be ready and move fast because it’s only a matter of time before Lebedev’s people spot them,” she said, whispering into Sgt. Mueller’s ear.
The club was packed with men as well as women but Lebedev’s men were easy to spot. Not only did they dress alike but they looked mean and Sgt. Mueller knew the leather jackets they wore, were covering loaded weapons. While Sgt. Whitley ordered their drinks, he did a head count and from what he could tell, there were at least six men scattered around the room.
Lebedev, Karzi, two other men, and a woman were huddled together in his private room. It was obvious by the look on Lebedev’s face, along with his dramatic hand gestures, that he was pissed off about something and that something was no doubt linked to the disk that Martinez now possessed.
Yalen and Demescko unshackled the woman’s hands and legs and helped her down from the table.
With the tape disk from the film camera in her hand, Rheyna looked at Yalen. “We’ll take her back and have her wait with Nadia.”
A door to the left of the women flew open. “Who the fuck are you?” a deep voice growled in Russian.
Yalen and Rheyna turned to see two men standing just inside the doorway, a set of stairs behind them. One was dressed like Santa Claus, the other as an elf.
Before Yalen or Rheyna had time to react, there were two swoosh sounds in succession. Santa Claus dropped to the ground first, followed by the elf. Dark spots in the middle of their chest spread rapidly, the blood staining their costumes where Demescko had shot them.
“Thanks,” Yalen said gratefully, looking at Demescko.
“Anytime,” Demescko said as Yalen and Rheyna led the woman, who said her name was Michaela, out of the room.
Demescko walked over to the men. The elf was dead but Santa Claus looked up at her. Gurgling sounds came from his throat as blood dripped out the side of his mouth. As she stepped over the elf, her gun at her side, she pulled the trigger. Santa Claus’ body jerked one last time as the bullet hit him between the eyes.
Out in the hallway, Emily and Briana came running up to Yalen and Rheyna and quickly took Michaela, leading her toward the end of the hallway.
“I have a feeling this is where things are going to get a little more complicated,” Yalen said as she and Rheyna came back into the room and walked over to Demescko.
“I think we need to give ourselves a time-frame here, regardless of whether we can get all of the girls out,” Rheyna said, looking at Yalen.
Yalen nodded. “Agreed. Let’s shoot for ten minutes. It’s more important to get the ones we do rescue to safety as soon as possible.”
“How ar …are they doing?” Demescko asked, looking at Emily and Briana as the two of them came over.
“Nadia was glad to have someone there with her and I think they are doing as well as expected under the circumstances,” Briana answered.
Yalen grabbed Briana by the hand. “I want you to promise me that if any of us tell you to get out, you leave right then with no argument and get the women back through the tunnel as soon as possible—and that goes for you too,” she said, looking at Emily.
Emily and Briana nodded.
Yalen looked at Briana. “Rheyna and I will go first with Demescko bringing up the rear and I want you and Emily to stay between us. Once we go into a room, you and Emily grab the girls and bring them here into the stairwell and direct them to the hallway door that leads into the tunnel.”
Yalen started through the doorway toward the stairs. “Wait a minute,” Rheyna said, grabbing her by the arm. Rheyna knelt down next to the man dressed as Santa Claus. She ripped open his jacket and smiled. Clipped to his pants was a radio. She grabbed it and then pulled the ear bud out of his ear. “You check the elf,” she said to Demescko as she clipped the radio onto her waistband. She used the hem of her jacket to wipe off the ear bud before placing it in her ear.
“He’s got one too,” Demescko said, removing the radio.
“It might not help too much but at least we’ll know when we’ve been spotted,” Rheyna said as she followed Yalen up the steep staircase.
“Yeah, that along with the bullets co … coming at our heads should be enough to indicate they know we’re here,” Demescko laughed.
Yalen stopped at the top of the stairs and took a deep breath; the adrenaline rushing through her veins put all of her senses on high alert. Her heart was racing so fast she could feel her pulse pounding in her throat. Her only regret about not being in the CIA was the thrill of the hunt—the chase.
What she was feeling was something that all adrenaline junkies felt and she was no different. She slowly pushed the door open far enough to get a look. It looked like an ordinary bedroom with floral wallpapered walls. A bed sat in the middle of the room with a dresser to the right and another door, which Yalen assumed was probably a closet.
Lying on the bed was a naked and overweight bald man. Next to the bed was a young black-haired girl who looked like a teenager.
The man was practically salivating as he looked up at the girl who was in the process of removing her clothes. Yalen hated killing anyone who was not directly linked to Lebedev but the men who bought these women for sex, the majority of whom had sadistic tendencies, were just as much a part of the problem. Without their disgusting fantasies and willingness to pay for them, people like Lebedev would be out of business. To Yalen, these men were the real problem; their perversions fueled the sex industry. With her gun raised, she slowly pushed the door open.
Out of the corner of his eye, the man saw Yalen. He glanced at the panic button affixed to the wall by the door, before looking back at Yalen. “Who—” He did not get to finish his sentence before Yalen burst into the room, firing twice, the bullets hitting the man in middle of his chest. She barely made it to the girl just in time to cover her mouth with her hand to keep her from screaming.
The girl’s eyes darted back and forth between the five women now in the room. Emily came up to her. “We’re here to help you,” she said in Russian. “She’s going to remove her hand and you must not scream. Do you understand?”
