Part IV A year of Slavery
Chapter 4 Limits and Opportunities
It was a bright Friday afternoon in early spring when Lisa walking past Rick's office picked up the ringing phone that would change everything for her.
"Jake! How nice you finally remembered you have friends. We haven't seen or heard from you since the Halloween party; not even when we visited your club for New Years."
"Hey Darlin. I've missed your sweet ass too, but I been a busy boy. Work-in ya know. Not all of us are blessed with the Midas touch like you and Rick." Jakes voice while joking sounded tired. "Is the boss man available? I'm in need of some help, like right away!"
"Rick is here but in bed with a real nasty spring flu."
Jakes sigh sounded like a man who had just lost his last life line. Lisa knew that Rick would want to help his old friend. "Anything I can do to help Jake?"
"Well darling I thank ya kindly but this is more in Rick's old line of work."
Lisa knew that certain elements of the government had made a deal with Jake to do some very unofficial interrogations as a way to allow the government to able to deny that torture was used to obtain confessions. Rick had gone over a few times to observe and even to participate. Torture with no rules and no need to consider the ramifications of one's actions, a sadists dream job.
"Jake, I've helped Rick out on a few things from his old line of work. What do you need?"
"Nuthin I can discuss on the phone, love. Jake answered cautiously. "Why don't you come down to the club and I'll show you the new digs?"
"Thirty minutes Jake. See you soon." Lisa hung toggled the phone to disconnect from Jake and dialed the security line. "Julio, I need the rover and a couple of guards in front in five minutes."
Lisa went to her room, changed in to her dark jeans and shirt; she checked her 9mm and placed it in its shoulder holster along with several extra clips. Packing items that might be useful in a duffel bag she called for Christy.
Three minutes later both young women were just exiting the front door when the armored land rover pulled up. Rick had bought several of the modified rovers and two armored limos after the riots following the big hurricane. While not up to presidential standards, the vehicles were proof against most hand guns and small fire bombs.
Lisa tossed her duffel bag to the guard/driver, as did Christy, both girls climbed into the rear seats as the driver stowed the bags. The driver and his partner got in the front and drove through the gates headed towards town. Arriving at Jakes bar the driver remained in the vehicle as the girls climbed out and retrieved their gear. The guard escorted them to the door of the bar. Lisa told him to wait with the rover and the girls went inside. Jake met them at the door of the almost empty bar. The lunch rush had ended and the afternoon and evening rush was still hours away.
"This way, Ladies." Jake escorted the behind the bar to an office in the rear where he used a key card to open an elevator door and escorted them inside. Once the door closed he handed each of them a key card and programmed their finger prints into a scanner. The elevator descended into the basement.
"The key cards open every door and control the elevator." The door slid back, revealing a short corridor and another door. One wall of the hallway was dark mirrored class. "The glass is bulletproof and conceals a guard watching who enters and exits."
Jake used his card and finger print to open the far door. "There are six separate interrogation rooms in what used to be my basement storage area. The building on the other side has ten separate cells for holding our guests and a medical unit with three beds. Up on the second floor of the other building are the guards sleeping quarters, a kitchen and dining area and the security watch room."
"Impressive!" Lisa remarked. "The government built all this just to have deniability?"
"Yep, the guards and the retrieval squad were hired off island and don't exist in anyway that can be tied back to the government. All information and the retrieval squad's orders come across the internet."
"The problem is somebody giving the orders doesn't have a clear understanding of interrogations, the time they take, and the work involved. They seem to think we can break a person in minutes like an assembly line and just move on to the next."
"So draw them a picture." Lisa laughed.
"I'd like to and I am getting them straightened out so this won't happen again but in the meantime I have to deal with the situation at hand." Jake opened another door that lead to a private office. "Here's the problem in a nut shell. I have six drug runners that the local cops captured in a raid. We know one of them is second or third in the gang and we know that a big shipment is being brought ashore Sunday night. If we can break them before then we can seriously damage the cartels operation here on the islands and maybe all the way back to the big dogs in Columbia or where ever this shit is coming from."
Jake sat behind the desk, turning on a series of monitors. "At the same time we got an opportunity to blow apart a conspiracy inside the government itself." Jake pointed to two of the monitor's, one showing a middle aged man alone in a cell, the other showing a room with a nicely dressed woman, and a younger woman/girl in a school uniform.
"That is Antoine Barrestas, one of the biggest most influential bankers on the islands. We think he is the power behind the drug cartels, most of the criminal element and most of the bribed officials in the government. We caught him as he was leaving on his boat for a weekend holiday. No one knows he has gone missing and won't until he doesn't show up on Monday. If we can break him, we get the names and evidence against a major part of the corrupt officials who allow drugs and prostitution and gun running and who knows what else to go on. We clobber their money laundering, bust the bad cops and soldiers and the people who protect them. Come Monday once they know he is missing, they will disappear or change everything, and our window to catch them is gone."
"Who are the women?" Lisa asked.
"His wife and his daughter, neither of which know anything about hubby except that he is an important banker. They were picked up as his wife was picking up the daughter from school."
Lisa stood up and walked into the center interrogation room on one side of the corridor. Both sides were windowed with opaque glass that could be cleared or made into one way mirrors electronically. "This will do. Wife on one side, daughter on the other, banker gets to watch from the middle. What are the rules?"
Jake looked at her, studying her for a few moments as if making up his mind. "You can't kill him. It would be best if you didn't mark up his face in case we have to show him off on Monday other than that just about anything goes."
"What about the wife and daughter?"
Jake shrugged. "What about them?"
It was only a half hour later when the guards brought the banker into the center room and cuffed him to the chair bolted down in the middle of the floor. They finished securing him and walked out closing and locking the door behind them.
The man looked around, not really worried; after all no matter what the police did by Monday he would be released, after all he was a very important person and had something on just about every other important person in the government. No one could touch him if he just kept quiet and once he was release he would have everyone associated with his incarceration fired or killed.
He watched as the door in the adjoining room opened and his trophy wife, young, slim, stacked, and beautiful was escorted into the next room. She looked scared, which pissed the banker off. It was one thing to threaten him but for threatening his wife, for that he would have his revenge. Then he heard the door on the other side open as saw his 17 year old daughter still in her catholic school uniform escorted into the empty room.
For the first time since he had been captured he began to be scared.
Nothing at all happened for the next fifteen minutes. The banker found he could hear his wife and daughter as they called out or banged on the doors of their rooms but it seemed they could neither see nor hear him even when he shouted.
The door to his cell opened and two women dressed in black with leather hoods covering their heads and faces entered. They simply stood quietly and watched him as he struggled with the steel cuffs holding him in his seat. Neither said a word as he cursed and threatened them, they just stood their like statues.
Finally the shorter of the two nodded at the other who walked over and slapped her leather gloved hand across his face. Stunned he shook his head and began to curse at her only to get backhanded again.
He opened his mouth to rant at her some more and stopped as her hand went back for another blow. When he didn't say anything her gloved fist lowered to her side. She stepped back.
The shorter one pulled a file from behind her back and began reading from it. "Antoine Barrestas, in this file is enough evidence to prove that you are the major money launderer for several drug and smuggling cartels, that you have been bribing or blackmailing officials and police and the military in order to facilitate your drug and guns and prostitution rackets."
