Chapter Thirteen

The door to her apartment loomed before her a mere ten or twelve feet away. The man was in the kitchen again. If she could dash to the door and use her hands behind her to turn the knob, she would be out and in the hallway. Maybe someone would be there, someone to call the police in the seconds before he cut her throat. No, that wouldn’t work. Besides, the deadbolts were locked. What had been designed to keep intruders out was now keeping her in.

She watched as the Turk returned to the computer with another glass of Merlot. She was hungry, thirsty, tired, and she had to pee. And here he was drinking her wine as if he were a welcomed guest. She swallowed the urge to stamp on the floor in anger and demand better treatment.

As Cheryl stewed before him, Turk made some adjustments to the computer screen. A logo appeared, two crossed whips in a circle of chains. Turk typed in his password and quickly streamed the video and all of the pictures he had taken that day to a remote location over the wireless network. Somewhere in the Philippines, another computer received the data flow and regurgitated it out to two dozen select addresses. Across the globe, thirsty eyes took in the record of Cheryl’s torment and her shame. Each recipient, sworn to deadly secrecy, calculated the value of this most interesting acquisition. By rule, there was an hour to make their bid.

While the Turk packed up his stuff, numbers, six figures long, were racing across the internet.

There were a few other things to do while he waited. First, he booted up Cheryl’s computer, which sat in the corner of the living room. It was easy to find Cheryl’s financial records and pull up her bank’s website. He pulled Cheryl over from the center of the room and took off her gag. Holding his knife before her, he asked her one question: “Password?”

Unhesitatingly, Cheryl whispered the password to the Turk. In a few moments her life savings, about twenty thousand dollars, was winging its way to a numbered account in the Cayman Islands. Eventually, after making its way across the globe and diminished somewhat by special “handling fees” to ensure anonymity, the money would come to rest in the Turk’s offshore account.

Watching her savings fly away deepened Cheryl’s dismay. “He was leaving her with nothing,” she thought. “Nothing.”

As the Turk reached to replace the gag, Cheryl screwed up her courage and whimpered, “Please Sir, I have to pee again.”

The Turk didn’t give a rat’s ass what she needed, but having had a very successful show, he was of a mind to be generous. Besides, he didn’t want her all messy and smelly.

He led her back to the bathroom and let her pee, in the toilet this time. As he watched her pee, he wondered how much she would bring. The best he had ever done was with that blond from Texas. $275,000. With deductions for certain middlemen and protection, he came out with a little over $150,000. This one would be better, he was sure.

Cheryl could not, of course, wipe herself, and the Turk gladly performed the service for her. She looked up at him, a little girl lost, delectable in her nakedness. She dared to venture another request. “Please sir, may I have a drink of water and something to eat?”

Now Turk knew, as Cheryl did not, that she would soon be confined and unconscious and ready for transport. Food or water could kill her. He had been with her for over three hours and had carefully prevented her from any intake. Imagine his reputation if he allowed his product to arrive dead, having choked to death on her own vomit.

He felt sorry for her…a little bit. She was prime stuff and soon to be shipped off to God knows where for a brief life of torment and misery. He could not permit himself to give in to sentiment, however. “No,” was all he said.

He reinserted the gag and walked Cheryl back to the living room. She was crying. He pushed her to her knees and replaced the cuffs around her ankles and hog tied her again. He also replaced the hood. He knew he had to leave the apartment shortly to get the transport box. It was in his van parked two blocks away. He had to leave it there for fear his victim would discover it in the apartment before he had the chance to make his move. Besides, at the time he entered the building he would have been conspicuous and might have been noticed. Too risky. But going out to the van and leaving his subject here was also risky. These were the times when he could use a partner. He had to leave her alone for probably fifteen minutes and that was too much time for comfort. Well, it was now or never. It had worked before.

He leaned over and spoke directly into the young woman’s ear. “I’m going outside for five minutes. When I come back, if you have moved one inch I will cut off both of those delicious nipples of yours and make you eat them. And that’s for starters.” He knew it would be for more than five minutes, but hog tied and blinded, she had no real way to measure time so she would hardly know when five minutes was up.