Gone at Zero Hundred 00:00 (23 page)

She started to quiver. “They
called themselves The Privileged Ones. They said they owned us.”

I read a lot of information on
the internet about people being trafficked, and forced into labor or other
despicable things, but I didn’t think it would happen in Sutter Beach. Or that
it would ever be anything I would have to deal with. It never occurred to me
that people would actually traffic people out of the United States.

“Do you know their names?” I
asked her. I was pretty sure I knew who was involved in this criminal
conspiracy, but it would help to have confirmation.

She shook her head no.

“How long have you been with
them?”

She started to get emotional.
“Several months, maybe…it’s been hard to keep track of time.”

“Okay. I’m going to get someone
to help me, and then we’ll get out of here, okay?”

She slowly nodded her head.

I attempted to stand up, but
stopped when I noticed the distinct look of fear when her eyes went wide. I
slowly turned around…

It was instantaneous, leaving me
no chance to react.  A strong arm wrapped around me holding my arms in
place. At the same time, a rag with a foul smelling substance covered my nose
and mouth.

“You think you’re so smart,” a
voice spat out at me. “Trying to take us on was a mistake, Sydney McSwain, a
big mistake. You couldn’t wait one more day.”

I struggled to fight him off,
using my feet. I slammed my heel down on his foot, tried kicking at his shins
and knees. But the smell was too intense, too overwhelming. I was losing the
fight. My body was getting limp and I couldn’t control my arms. It felt like I
was falling through the air, with only this evil person to hold onto me. I
glanced over at Amber, hoping I could hang on to set her free, like I promised.
I willed myself to continue to fight; but then everything went black…

WHEN I came to some time later,
I looked around, confused. Where was I? It took me a couple moments to focus.
My mind was murky. I was lying down, so I forced myself to sit up. When I did,
my head started to spin. It felt like a time-bomb was exploding inside my
brain. I was sitting on the steel deck floor, along with the others. My hands
and ankles were taped. The sequins mask had been ripped off my face. How long
had I been out? How much time do we have until Zero Hundred?

I couldn’t see who gagged me,
but I could hear them talking. They were trying to decide what to do with me.

“We should just eliminate her
from the equation,” one male said, and his voice was filled with anger.
Obviously, it was somebody I pissed off.

“Why eliminate her?” a second
male voice said. “We could use her, and make up for the financial loss of
Tamara.”

Yikes.

“You sent me to her so we could get
the evidence back,” the female pointed out. She was clearly irritated. “You
said it would be easy. That she was just an eighteen-year-old simpleton who
wouldn’t be any trouble. Your goons already lost one chance to take her out.”

I’m a simpleton
? There
were two people I was sure had called me that.

“We can’t have any more legal
issues until we’re out of the country,” said another male voice who I assumed
was Diego, because of the thick Hispanic dialect.

“That’s right,” the second male
said. “I don’t want any loose ends. Wait until we leave; then take care of it.
Just don’t leave any visible marks.”

I heard three males, and a
female. I recognized the voices, which gave me the confirmation I needed about
who was involved. I looked over at Amber. She was watching me with eyes filled
with terror. I moved my hands and checked my thigh. They took the gun, but they
didn’t check for the nail file I pulled from the army knife. Good, it was still
connected to the metal clasp.

***

Two men walked toward me a good
twenty minutes later. I looked up at them. Why didn’t I tell Carter of my
suspicions? It was Officer Clay Smith of Sutter Beach P.D. and Officer Larry
Foley of the L.A.P.D. Vice Squad - the guys I dubbed Anchor and Skater. I did a
little research on them. I couldn’t find anything on Clay Smith, but a news
article on Larry Foley described him as a disgruntled officer who was
repeatedly turned down for promotions. He worked on a few cases with Marty
Cole, when he worked vice for SBPD. The same guy that was arrested the day my
mom was killed.

Skater leaned over me, his tone
menacing “Play time is over, McSwain. Tell us what you did with the photos and
DVD.”

I stared back at him, with a
look of innocence. “What photos? What DVD?”

Skater slapped me across the
face. “Don’t be cute.”

My face whipped around from the
force. It stung, but I wasn’t going to let him know that. “I’ve been hit harder
playing football, when I was a kid,” I said, even though I tasted blood.

He slapped me again. “Tell me
where they are, or I swear I will, personally make you suffer!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I
noticed Anchor clench his fists at his side. It also looked like he was
speaking into a hidden mic. Was he receiving orders from the boss?

“What’s the big deal with the
photos? I already know what you’re up to. How can they hurt you, now?”

Skater glanced at Anchor, and
smirked. “She doesn’t know.”

“So let’s not waste any more
time on her, then,” Anchor said.

That got my attention. I was
pretty sure I saw everything in the photos. There was a party with lots of
people. Then, there were a couple showing the victims in the room with the
bunks. Was there something in the photos that I missed? Could the slide show
from the DVD be important? I didn’t even bother with it once I knew about the victims.

Skater stuck his face up to
mine. “Where are they?”

I stuck my chin out, and stayed
defiant.

He smacked me again. “What made
you think you could go up against us, anyway? Your mother tried. Look what
happened to her.”

I snapped! “You killed my mother?!”
Then, it was like Cody was standing over me, yelling in my ear: ‘get your ass
into gear girl’. The image of my mother being gunned down ran through my mind,
and it forced me into action. I was suddenly filled with rage. I had to defend
myself. My legs were numb and taped together, but I managed to pull them up to
my chest and let loose. I kicked Foley in the balls using the heels of the
shoes.

He double over, and yelped out
in pain.

“That was for my mom,” I spat
out at him.

I knew I was in trouble, when I
saw the look on his face. He went ballistic. He looked like a crazed maniac as
he rushed at me, ready to pummel me with both fists, but Anchor suddenly
stepped in front of me and blocked his path.

“They said don’t leave any
marks!”

I was stunned. I glanced toward
Anchor. Was he not a cold-blooded killer like I thought?

Skater attempted to push him
aside, and was reaching out to grab me, when a loud crashing noise was heard
from somewhere on the ship. Anchor and Skater exchanged anxious glances.

“Let’s go. We better check it
out!” Anchor ordered.

Skater looked back at me,
irritated his fun was being interrupted. He gave me a quick smack, again. “I’ll
be back, but it won’t be pretty when I do.”

Then Anchor grabbed him and they
both took off in search of the noise.

THE PAIN on my face was
immediate. Blood trickled down my chin. Bruises would probably follow, but I
didn’t have time to worry about that. Amber was shaking uncontrollably, from
being forced to watch me being slapped. Some of the victims started to wake,
but others were still passed out. Whatever tranquilizer they were forced to
take, I hope it wasn’t too dangerous.

Not knowing when Anchor and
Skater would return, I sprang into action. I reached for the nail file and started
to slice through the tape, which was not as easy as it might seem. The tape was
wrapped around my wrists, so I had to maneuver my fingers, but get enough
tension with the file to slice. When I was finally free, I tiptoed over and
peered into the engine room. Thankfully, it was empty.

What happened to Anchor and
Skater? Where were the others? Since we were near the engine room, anything
taking place up on the Starboard deck was drowned out by the humming of the
machines, so I had no idea what was going on.

I hurried back to the victims,
determined to set them free - more than ever now that I knew these thugs were
involved with the death of my mom. As fast as I could, I sliced through the
binds on Amber’s. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, too afraid to speak.

“I don’t know how much time we
have, so we have to hurry. Try to wake everybody while I remove their binds.”

We worked in tandem. I started
to slice through the binds while she shook them, and called out their names.
Waking them was a long process, but they slowly came around. When each one
opened their eyes, they started to ramble about their experience. I listened to
the horrific tales of how they were abducted and what they endured.

They were all sixteen to
twenty-years-old. Bradley came from a poor family who accepted money from The
Privileged Ones, with the promise of a better life. A few of the victims were
runaways who escaped a horrible life at home, and were living on the street.
Some were suburban teens who were abducted from a local mall, or cinema, but
they had no parents to worry about them. Then, there were a few victims who
were thought to be away at college, so it would be a while before they were
considered missing by their families.

“We were all abducted, and
confined in a basement where we went through weeks and months of grueling
training,” Amber said, and she tried to fight back tears.

“Training for what?” I saw the
boy, Bradley, learning how to pick pockets and fight. And I saw Tamara posing
in front of a camera. Was there more?

“They were teaching us how to be
professional cons that could bring them huge profits,” Bradley said, filled
with teenage defiance. “They knew I was from a poor family, who had to
sometimes beg and scrounge for food without getting caught. So they taught me
how to pick pockets and steal from the rich people who came to their clubs.
They also wanted us to break into rich people’s homes to earn our keep.”

“Some of us were forced to fight
for their entertainment,” one male said. He still wore the bruises from his
ordeal.

“We were trained to work in
their new clubs,” said a small blonde who looked like she came from small-town
USA. “Put in cages and forced to dance and entertain them. They didn’t want to
pay employees. They wanted free labor.”

“Some of us were dressed up and
told we were to entertain the men,” said another. “They paraded us around and
filmed us to decide how much we were worth.”

“Did they hurt you?” I asked,
but braced myself for the answer.

They looked around at each
other, and nodded their heads. Lips quivered.

Amber said, “We were threatened
from the start, especially if we didn’t do what they ordered. They denied us
food, and locked us up in a room, alone, for days, until we agreed to
cooperate. They slapped us. Kicked us. They told us they knew everything about
us. Who our friends and family were, and they threatened to hurt them.”

“They said they’ve killed before
and would kill again,” Bradley said. “And then…” He got angry and looked like
he wanted to throw something.

“And then?”

“One of the girls, her name was
Tamara. They treated her so bad, but she just kept defying them,” Amber
continued. “She kept sneaking out, to try and get help, but she always came
back. She didn’t want to leave us. The last time she snuck out, she didn’t make
it back. They told us she was dead, and the same thing could happen to us. Were
they telling the truth? Is she dead?”

Tears welled up in my eyes, as I
nodded.

“They wanted us to be huge
money-makers for their new business empire,” the blonde said. “They brought us here
on this ship, and told us we would be leaving for Mexico that we would never
return.”

I grimaced. How do you decide
how much a human is worth?

In the time it took to set them
free and hear some of what they went through, I came to realize that they
were
the perfect specimens in more ways than one. Because of how they were taken,
there would be no police report filed before they were out of the country. Some
were abducted off the street. Some were bought, lied to, and told they’d have a
better life. Some were approached by a good-looking couple claiming they were
looking for models. All lies. There would be no one out looking for them. Their
captors didn’t have to cover their tracks.

The minute they were all free,
they were hugging and crying, each holding a glimmer of hope in their eyes. I
watched them, and got swept up in the emotion. I couldn’t fail them. Anchor and
Skater hadn’t returned, and I had no idea where they were, but we had to get
out of there.

“Okay, get behind me and try to
stay quiet until we’re safe. Okay?”

They slowly filed in behind me.
While watching them, holding hands with their eyes filled with fear, I couldn’t
help but think of how odd it was that they were forced to rely on me and Cody
for their freedom. What if I had just taken a job as the local café? What would
have happened to them? Would someone else have come along and saved them?

I guided them back through the
engine room - past the ugly steel monstrosity. Any other time, I would have
been curious, asking a dozen questions to find out how it worked. But this
wasn’t a tour. Lives were at risk. How odd was that? Just a couple months ago,
I was a self-involved teenager who took everything for granted.