Chapter 10:
"So what's the deal Isra?" Darcy asks the car door thunking behind her as she slides into the backseat of the black sedan. Isra smirked as she slid onto the seat opposite Darcy, her dark eyes glinting with mischief.
"Always one to get straight to the point aren't you shay." She smiled, "this is the first time I've seen you in what four years?-"
"almost five actually." Darcy interrupted.
"- as I was about to say can't we have a little catch up first, it would be nice to know what an assassin has been doing for the past five years that isn't assassinating people?" Isra inquired playfully dodging the question. 'She's not going to tell me anything before I tell her what she wants.'
Darcy sighed "I spent a while drifting around before I settled in America, did a few odd jobs before finally deciding to go to college. Now I'm Darcy Lewis poli-sci graduate." Darcy stated monotonously before leaning forward. "So now that's out of the way, do you mind telling me why I'm half way across the globe?" She asked curiously.
Isra huffed indignantly before her gaze turned serious. "There's a human trafficking ring that I've been tracking down for a while now, they've been taking young girls from the poorer parts of the cities all over Asia and some parts of Russia. The operation they're running it's the largest one we've heard of to date. We came so close to getting them a couple months back but something went wrong, they knew we were coming, they intercepted the ambush we barely managed to prevent it from turning into a blood bath." Darcy remained stoic on the outside as Isra talked. Isra's hands clenched in her lap.
"It set our progress back months, they changed their routes, trucks, how they picked their cities and even how they went about capturing the women. It could take us months and months before we find out where they're base of operations is." Isra replied anger seeping into her voice.
"You need someone on the inside." Darcy said quietly. "That's why you called me." Her teeth clenched in irritation. Isra looked at Darcy, her dark eyes meeting the fake green ones.
"Yes, we figured out the next place they are going to hit." Isra replied unapologetically. She leant back against the seat.
"Where is it?" Darcy questioned, eyebrow raised.
"Khabarovsk, we're staying at a hotel near Beijing tonight –we should be nearing the train station now actually- where you'll be able to perfect your cover before we fly out tomorrow. We'll drop you near the city but as soon as we are there it'll be radio silence. If they so much as get a wiff of us-" Isra replied menacingly.
"I get it, deep cover. But why pick me, surely you would be able to do it." Darcy replied, her mind easily slipping back into that of a highly trained operative. Isra smiled sardonically.
"You fit the criteria of the victims and you can keep a deep cover a lot better than I could. It also means that I can head up the extraction team whilst you disable the security systems with your CS skills." Isra replied as the car rolled to a stop. She passed Darcy a folder before undoing her seatbelt. "here, this should cover everything you need to know." Isra got out of the car, shutting the door behind her.
"Yes I'll act as bait for the human traffickers Isra, no of course you didn't need to ask" Darcy said sarcastically before slipping out of the car to follow Isra into the train station.
The train ride was positively short compared to the plane journey, Isra and Darcy played poker to pass the time, but after Darcy won five games consecutively in a row Isra called it quits. As soon as they got off the train they headed straight to the hotel.
"And here is your room." Isra said extending her hand to the door in front of her. Darcy dragged her suitcase along behind her. "There's everything you need for your cover in there, and this ring will track the signal as soon as you smash the main black gem" Isra stated. Darcy walked into the large room, putting her bag by the door before turning around to face Isra whom placed the delicate silver ring with a large black gem with two red gems set beside it, into Darcy's palm before curling her fingers around it.
"I'll see you in the morning then." Darcy said leaning against the doorjamb.
"Get a good night's rest." Isra smiled touching Darcy's upper arm before turning around and leaving. Darcy turned around to head back inside when Isra called over her shoulder, "Oh and I suggest leaving the hair dye on for an extra ten minutes to make the colour look more natural." Darcy raised her eyebrow.
"What hair dye?" she questioned.
"You'll see." Isra replied before wandering down the corridor. Curious, Darcy walked into the bathroom, shucking off her shoes and Jacket on the way.
The bathroom consisted of a sleek bathtub, a shower cubicle, a toilet and a marble sink. On the side of the sink stood two packets of hair dye, the bright blonde colour of the packets stood out against the pale bathroom. She walked over to the sink her eyes fixated on the colour of the dye. 'It looks just like my old hair in the red room' she thought pulling the blonde bob wig off of her head, her brown waves falling over her shoulders.
She took her contact lenses out before walking back into her room to put on her pyjama shirt so she wouldn't dye her cream blouse . She closed her eyes seeing flashes of Natalia's face and hair assaulting her eyelids along with her own. She snapped her eyes open and took a deep breath. 'Snap out of it Natalia wouldn't be this weak' she mused to herself. She cleared her mind of all thoughts and marched herself into the bathroom.
A week went by in Khabarovsk without a hitch, Darcy settled in quickly pretending that she had just moved from the countryside to live in the city all by herself, spending her days working in a small café near the place Isra had set up for her.
It was strange pretending to be a young innocent girl - no less a child - after the past few years she had spent as a brash smart mouthed college student.
She made her connections quickly, setting everything up so it would almost look wrong for her not to be taken. Her days spent working in the little café down the road and her nights spent either in the bar near the café doing recon or tracking the ring from her laptop in her room.
On the eighth day of the mission she got ready to work as usual, knowing that today would be the day she would be captured. She kept the ring with a tracker inside that Isra had given her on a chain tucked into her bra under the frilly floral clothing that had become her shell for the past week. Heading for work she picked up her reinforced steel toed black boots and left her room.
Eight hours later her shift at the café was done and she was heading to the bar when she felt someone following her. She pulled her coat tighter and kept her pace the same flicking her blonde curls over her shoulder a small smirk curling at her lips.
When she passed the open mouth of an alley a set of arms grabbed her from the side, she let out a scream that was muffled quickly by the hand that wasn't pinning her arms. She rolled her eyes at how easily she would have been able to get out of it if she was trying. Pretending to try and fight off her attackers she was dragged to a van that was idling at the end of the alleyway.
They zip tied her hands behind her back and gagged her. They threw her into the van where seven other girls were already there, all of them were crying. Her knees hit the dirty floor of the van scratching the bare skin. The doors slammed shut behind her and the van started with a jolt that sent her flying into one of the other girls. She cried out and Darcy immediately extricated herself off of her.
She shuffled into the corner, her floral dress ripped over her hip so much so that you could see her light rose underwear; luckily her leather jacket covered it so she wouldn't get too cold. Darcy filtered out the other girls sobbing cries so she could stay focused. She pulled her knees tight to her chest before slowly slipping her hands under herself, wincing at the momentary pain it caused them. She released a breath of success when her hands came in front of her.
By that point a few of the girls had noticed what Darcy was doing and were staring at her. She smirked around the gag in her mouth; she brought her hands up to her chest and reached into her bra to retrieve her necklace. She shook it off of her head, unclasping it she let the ring drop carefully into her lap before slipping it on the middle finger of her right hand. She wrapped the chain around her head before going into her bra again this time fishing out a small knife. One of the younger girls who must have been 18 at the most whimpered in fear.
Darcy pulled the gag out of her mouth, knife still in hand, leaning forward she whispered quietly in russian "It's all going to be okay, trust me." hesitating over giving the girl her knife. "Here, turn around." The girl looked at her in fear, her green eyes glistening, before slowly turning around. Darcy grasped the girls hand straightening her fingers out before sliding the small knife up her sleeve, whispering. "You'll know when to use it." She pulled her gag back into place.
Darcy shuffled back before rolling onto the balls of her feet so she could put her arms behind her back without smashing the gem. She huffed and lent back against the van mentally going through her plan of action as the van carried on its course to the main base.
It took a couple of hours to get to the base; the cries of the other women in the van had quietened down to a background noise. Darcy had zoned the noise out and levelled her breathing and heartbeat, settling into the familiar mind-set of an assassin knowing she would probably be needed to kill tonight.
The van slowly chugged its way to the base, Darcy felt it pull its way up and down inclines. The incessant drone of the engines helping her concentrate on the task head.
The van finally came to a stop, the women's cries quieted to an almost eerie silence. The front doors slammed and Darcy pressed her back against the wall of the van and clenched her hands together, she slammed her hands down hard against the floor of the van, certain that the gem had smashed. The other women in the van looked at her with fear in their eyes.
The doors to the van were thrown open with such a force that it made the van shudder. Darcy retreated back into a cowering position that mirrored the other women's poses. The two men that had captured her earlier were at the doors entrance holding semi-automatic rifles - another man was stood behind them - in their hands pointed into the van.
"Get up!" The man closest to Darcy shouted at them in Russian. The women cowered but didn't make a move. "I Said GET UP!" He shouted louder pointing his gun menacingly, he dragged the woman closest to him out of the van, and it set Darcy's blood boiling 'Asshole' she seethed. She stood up along with the rest of the women and slowly walked out of the van making, sure that she was at the back of the congregation.
Her feet hit the wet ground below, the sky was dark above them the only thing giving off any light were the sparse stars above them and the crescent shape of the waning moon. She could see the building they were being lead to looming in front of them. The grey walls of the concrete building blended with the mountainside it was built into.
The man that she hadn't seen before stood behind her as they were hustled to the entrance of the compound. She spotted two guards at the entrance, both of them wearing earpieces; a camera was nestled above the entrance. Darcy hid the smirk that was playing at her lips; by the looks of it she would be able to disable their security system. 'If I have to fight my way through them I will do it gladly' she thought, her blood pumping through her rapidly, her muscles jumping to be used.
They were going down a corridor (two old cameras at every doorway, one above one opposite) when they suddenly stopped. Darcy planted her feet quickly to stop herself from careening into the young woman who she had given the knife to earlier. The guard behind her huffed and pressed his hand to his ear clearly listening into someone on his earpiece Darcy rolled her eyes 'Very inconspicuous'. The man in front who seemed to be in charge pointed to the left and pulled his second in command to his side, he pulled his hand up to his face and talked into his wrist.
Darcy strained her enhanced hearing and listened in, "we're taking them to the holding cell in the south side, they aren't finished in the cleansing room yet." She ground her teeth at the thought of what the cleansing room was, there was no doubt in her mind that it would be something like the "Shower" rooms at the red room.
They carried on walking, passing by two more doors until they came upon a corridor branching off to the left. They followed for what must have been around 27 minutes slowly sloping downwards, when they walked past a door with a loud electrical humming emanating from it. 'Bingo!' she thought having found the room she would need later. They kept going for a further ten minutes before they were marched into a large room.
It was as bare and cold as a prison cell (well that's what it is) water dripping down the walls. They were all hustled in; two guards followed them in shutting the door behind them, leaving one of them to guard the door.
The two guards pushed the women into sitting positions and started to tie up the women's feet (leaving their weapons by the door out of reach). They came to the young woman whom Darcy gave her knife to, turning their backs to Darcy. She lightly coughed which caught her attention and then she winked and gestured to her wrists, the girl blinked her big hazel green eyes owlishly and then inclined her head in a slight nod.
Darcy clambered to her feet and rushed at the two guards who had turned around, she kicked lightly at their knees and legs pathetically avoiding their blows trying to give the hazel eyed girl enough time to get her knife out and attract the attention of the guard outside.
One of the guards caught her in the face splitting her lip open she stepped backwards pretending that the force had knocked her backwards. The other guard caught her in the ribs with his foot which sent her careening into the wall behind her.
She saw the girl having trouble getting the knife out of her jacket so she slipped down onto the floor, hoping that the quick tempers of the guards had been aggravated.
It had.
The guards boot connected with Darcy's side crashing down repeatedly on top of her ribs. Crack!
Oomph! Darcy's breath escaped her lungs in a burst; she heard the collective inhale and whimpers of the other women. 'Fuck, that's broken' she thought absentmindedly, looking up from her cowering position on the floor. The glint of polished silver caught her eye and she slowly pulled her legs up to her chest against the screaming from her ribs which she shoved to the back of her mind.
"You're going to wish you didn't do that." She seethed in a menacing tone in Russian.
The guards stepped in closer to her.
She gritted her teeth and swung her legs out in a kicking motion, catching the guards in the ankles and landing them on their asses. She brought her legs back up and flung them forwards landing with her knees bent which had started bleeding again. She snapped the zip ties from her wrists, quickly she delivered knock out blows to the guards, watching their limp bodies slump on the floor.
She took the proffered knife from the hazel eyed girl and stood to the left hand side of the door waiting for the other guard to come in after hearing the commotion from outside.
3…2…1
The door slammed open and Darcy leapt into action disarming him of his rifle immediately then slashing down with her knife into his collar bone finishing off with a quick jab to the pressure point in his neck he slumped to the floor unconscious. 'He barely knew what hit him' she thought wryly.
She pulled the knife out of his collar bone and wiped it down on her white floral skirt, staining the blue roses red. She ripped the gag out of her mouth and threw it on the ground by her feet, she smeared her bleeding lip against the back of her hand leaving a trail of blood on her ring. The blood seeped into the cracks of the black stone.
She quickly went around and removed the bindings and gags from the women in the room, two of the women clung onto each other for dear life the smaller one burying herself in the other ones hair, on closer inspection they held a close resemblance, 'Getting sloppy they're obviously sisters'.
Lastly she knelt down next to the hazel eyed girl and cut away her bindings around her feet and hands, carefully she lifted the gag from around her mouth. What happened next she was not expecting, the young woman wrapped her in a hug, "thank you." She whimpered tears dripping down her face. The girl released her and Darcy sat back on her feet. Shivers wracked the girls body.
"What's your name?" Darcy inquired softly.
"It's Bo." She whispered back rubbing her wrists where they had been chafed.
Darcy smirked, "Well Bo you have nothing to thank me for yet we aren't out of here. Do you think you could help me?" She asked whilst slipping out of her jacket, draping it around her bare shoulders. Bo shrunk into the warmth emanating from the jacket, the shivers subsided.
Bo nodded her head, "of course."
Darcy's smirk turned into that of a Cheshire cat "Good I was sent here to help rescue everyone by one of my friends, she's great. Her and her team are skilled you could say and so am I , they should be arriving here soon to commandeer the compound. Before that I need to get to the monitor room and shut down the security system. To do that I need to get out of here and get there unnoticed. I need you to guard this door for me okay?" Darcy explained in one big go whilst kneeling by one of the unconscious guards stripping him of his jacket and earpiece, slipping it into her ear she tuned it into the right frequency.
"Okay." Bo replied kneeling next to Darcy and helping her strip the guards. Bo pulled out a wad of zip ties from the guard's pocket.
"I'll help you tie them up then I have to go." Darcy said whilst pulling the jacket over her shoulders. Between all of the women they managed to strip the guards of their weapons, jackets and earpieces tie all of them up and gag them in under ten minutes.
"Take this gun, keep it pointed at the door if anyone tries to come in and they look like this-" she pointed at the guards on the floor "Don't be afraid to shoot them, aim for their chests, they're wearing bulletproof vests but shooting them will hurt like hell and knock them over. My friend's people will most likely not have guns, they tend to favour old fashioned weapons" She smirked thinking of Isra's Katanas.
She cracked her knuckles and slipped her knife up her sleeve. She turned around to leave, waving but Bo grabbed onto her arm "What's your name?" she asked sheepishly.
"That's a loaded question," she muttered under her breath "you can call me Shay." she replied before waving her hand and leaving the room.
She slipped silently down the corridors her feet patting the floor quietly in a jog, her head was down and the collar of her jacket was up in an attempt to hide her facial features not that it would help any. She had been going for seven minutes making her way up the levels to get to the room she wanted when she heard the sound of footsteps (1 set) ahead around the corner that was 50 metres ahead of her.
Looking around she saw that she had nowhere to hide. 'Guess it's going to be the harder way then'. She slipped the knife from her sleeve and set off at a sprint. Reaching the corner she ran straight at the wall ahead of her and planted her feet on the wall pushing off she twisted and landed on the guards shoulders tackling him to the ground. He let out a squawk and Darcy silenced it by driving the heel of her palm into the guard's nose knocking him out.
She pulled his body to the side deciding to leave him where he was. She made her way to the computer room at double speed not liking her chances of encountering another guard.
She stopped just on the outskirt of the span of the cameras on the door. She leant against the wall behind her and pulled her knife out. She lined up her shot with the wires attaching the camera opposite the door to the wall. She pulled her arm back, breathed in and let her knife loose.
Clang!
It sliced through wires and fell to the concrete floor below. Darcy walked to the other side of the corridor and stalked down the wall, again stopping just where the camera span ended. She took of the guard's jacket that was on top her leather one and threw it over the camera in front of her hooking it over the lens.
She picked up her knife and stood waiting in front of the door twizzling the knife in her fingers distractedly. She heard the commotion from inside as they realised that both of the cameras outside the room where no longer operational. The guards threw the door open and stood there shocked blinking at the site of a petite blonde woman in a floral dress playing with a knife.
"Hey boys! Gonna come and catch me?" She asked flirtatiously with a smile on her face before spinning into action. She kicked the closest one to her in the solar plexus sending him barrelling into the other one; she released a flurry of punches incapacitating them and pushing them back into the room they came from. She whipped her foot across one of their faces their neck whipped sideways and he fell to the floor. Grabbing the other guard she pulled him into a chokehold lifting herself off of the floor, his face went red and he struggled violently but also helplessly. He slumped to the floor landing on top of the other guard.
Darcy climbed off of him and wiped her hands down on her skirt before heading towards the monitor desk. She sat down in the seat and quickly got to work shutting down the security systems at the borders of the compound so that Isra and her mercenaries would be able to get in. She looked at the cameras on the outside of the building, she could see nothing but the darkness but she knew that they would be there waiting. 'They don't call them the chameleons for nothing' she mused, her lips twisting into a smirk.
She hacked into the lighting system and flashed the outside lights in the signal Isra and her always used. Nothing happened.
"Where are you Isra?" she wondered repeating the signal. Nothing happened again. "How the hell am I supposed to talk to you in Isra, it's not as if I have a… comm link." She said slowly coming to a realisation. She ripped the ring off of her finger, grabbed one of the guard's radios and took the earpiece out of her ear; grabbing her knife she used the sharp point to lift the back off of the radio. She used the computer to back-trace the signal of where the ring was transmitting to. She synced the earpiece into the frequency she was tracking then using the radio's transmitter she listened into the frequency.
"…GO GO GO… signal go …Shadow's in there already." She heard the crackle of Isra's voice over the radio. Picking up the radio she broadcasted a message.
"Luna I'm on the air waves do you copy? Luna do you copy?" She asked a worrying tone entering into her voice.
"….Shadow….are you?... your location" She adjusted the frequency of her ear piece "where are you? Where are the women being kept?" Isra's voice filtered into her earpiece smoothly now.
"I'm in the south of the building about 30 feet below ground level, the compounds been built right into the rock of the mountain." She replied bringing up a map of the compound on the monitor's in front of her. "They keep the women who are ready to be shipped out in holding cells in the north side of the building, the cleansing rooms where they prepare the women are in the east of the building and the group of women I was brought in with have barricaded themselves in the holding room they were put into in the south of the building near me." She pulled up the security footage of the main entrance; she saw Isra and some of her mercenaries in the middle of a brawl. Isra cleanly swinging her blades through the air catching guards, it looked just like a gymnast with a ribbon only with a lot more blood.
"How do I get to the rooms?" Isra asked barely sounding out of breath even during the fight.
"To go north carry the corridor straight on it will slope upwards towards the mountain, going east go north until you come upon a set of stairs on your right, and to go south carry on and take the first left carry the corridor down." She relayed whilst downloading all of the data off of the monitors onto a USB drive which she tucked into her bra. She put her earpiece in and put her ring on, she grabbed one of the collar mics from a guard and synced it to the right frequency and slipped onto her dress neckline.
"Me and my team will head North, Scorpion take your team to the East and once you're done there go and grab the women Shadow was brought in with. Shadow come and meet me in the North of the building. We're going to set this building a light once we're done so no one can salvage any of it." Isra commanded, "Got it?" Darcy's noise of affirmation joined the chorus of yesses and got its.
She grabbed the guards' handguns and slipped them into her jacket and one in the thigh holster that she had taken off of a previous guard. She left the room and set off at a sprint to get to the north side of the building. Her adrenaline was pumping hard enough that there was only a slight amount of discomfort from her ribs but she knew it was going to hurt like hell once they had stopped.
It took her less than fifteen minutes to get to the north side of the building; she took down two guards on the way and had left a hand gun behind. Her muscles were burning in appreciation of the use after hours cramped in a van.
She arrived at the meeting point to find no one there "Isra I'm here, do you copy?" She asked looking around her, 'Maybe she went straight to the cells' she thought, jogging onwards she went further up the compound before she came across a door with a bloody handprint on it.
Her senses were put on edge; she pulled her side arm out of her thigh holster and cautiously opened the door. Her hand grasped the bloody door handle she was about to turn it when something caught her attention in the corner of her eye. She saw a polished blade in the corner of her eye and instinctively rolled out of the way of the blade pulling the knife out of her sleeve brandishing it against her attacker.
"Oh I wouldn't have done that if I were you girlie?" The brute of a man chuckled, he was at least 6 foot 4 and he looked as if he were made out of pure muscle even through his protective clothes. He really didn't need the knife he had to make himself look intimidating. He smirked thinking this fight would be easy and hardly a fight at all.
"You know what I'm kind of glad I did." Darcy snarked back. He grinned before launching himself at Darcy, she dodged out of the way of the knife in his hand landing a kick to the man's kidneys which didn't seem to affect him one bit. Darcy tried to sweep his legs out from under him but ended up with the man catching her leg in his massive hands, she kicked the back of his knee with her other foot making him release her foot, she rolled backwards out of his path. They went back and forth like this for whole minutes Darcy getting in a couple of shots the man retaliating by striking back.
Darcy finally managed to get an advantage by climbing onto the man's back but by that time she had received a black eye and a bloody nose. She squeezed her thighs around his chest and her arms around his neck holding on as tight as she could. He backed them into the wall with so much force Darcy's legs faltered and the man managed to turn around and hold a knife up to Darcy's neck. Darcy went limp trying to draw him closer to her.
"Stupid Girl!" He hissed through and broken nose. He pressed himself in closer to Darcy and brought his knife along her face supporting her weight in one hand around her neck. The blade pierced her skin and left a dripping line of blood which pooled in Darcy's open mouth. She pressed her lips together and sprayed her blood into his eyes.
"You little Bitch!" He cried rapidly blinking his eyes, Darcy used his distraction to her advantage. She bit hard into his hand, dug her steel toed boots into his kidneys and snapped the wrist that was holding the knife. He immediately dropped her and before he had time to react she had ripped his throat open with his own knife, the spray of blood covered her in a mist of red. He fell on to his knees first and then gravity pulled the rest of him down too.
Darcy stood still this was her first kill in five years. She wiped the knife down on her skirt and picked up her discarded knife. "Nice knife." She mused flipping it up and down in her hand.
Isra rounded the corner, "You got here early." She remarked. "I was going to savour executing the head of the ring but it seems you beat me to it." She smirked.
"Got a bit bored." Darcy replied hollowly. "Are the charges set?" Darcy questioned snapping out of her daze and walking to Isra. She smiled "Yes so we should get out of here, all the women are safe with either my team or Scorpions waiting at a safe distance." She said extending her hand to Darcy.
Darcy took her hand smirked and set off running pulling her along, her enhanced metabolism was working in her favour now. "By the way, there are some things I should probably tell you when we get out of here." Darcy exclaimed in between puffs of breath. Isra smiled tiredly and saluted her as they made their way out of the building.