Thursday, May 11th, 2017
01:12 GMT+7 (18:12 GMT May 10th)
Cambodia
Chloe and Freya
The ride down into the ravine had been an experience, not altogether a bad one, but not one which Chloe wanted to go through again.
As she had tumbled down and down, being thrown from side to side, she had seen Joshua's reassuring face in her mind, and she had wondered if she would ever see his face again for real. The landing had been harsh, knocking Joshua from her mind and knocking her out for good measure. As she regained consciousness, she figured that she had blacked out for probably just a few minutes, but she had no way of telling. It took her several minutes to free herself of the muddy wreckage and she was amazed to find herself intact without a single broken bone. Chloe stumbled over the gloopy mud and bits of tree and rocks, searching for a way out of her predicament.
"Hey!" a voice hissed from several feet away.
Chloe scrambled over towards the voice and she found a dazed Freya half buried in the mud. With a heave, Chloe heaved the girl out of her muddy prison.
"You okay?" Chloe asked.
"I think so," Freya replied as she checked out her limbs for damage. "All good, I suppose – what now?"
"Good question, my young friend," Chloe replied as she tried to see the top of the ravine, but the overhanging jungle was preventing her from even seeing the sky, let alone anything else. "We can't go back the way we came, so we need to find another way out of this fucking hellhole."
"Let's make a move," Freya suggested. "Which way?"
"Towards the coast," Chloe decided.
04:42 GMT+7 (21:42 GMT May 10th)
The Fishing Boat
Dave, Mindy, Joshua, Craig, Jennifer, and Ariana
As they headed on a north-westerly course, Mindy turned to the three new arrivals.
"Hello, Jen – you still have the commander, I see; well done," Mindy said with a broad grin and after a big hug before she turned to Craig. "Hello, Craig – good to see you alive and well."
"Mindy," Craig replied with his own grin. "Thank you for the rescue, it was much appreciated, but we can talk about that at the debrief – let's get to safety, first."
"Definitely," Mindy replied.
"Where's Chloe?" Jen asked as she looked around the boat.
"We lost her . . . a few hours before you came across us – she fell down into a ravine . . . along with another," Joshua said, his face a mask.
"Oh, my God!" Jennifer exclaimed.
"Hopefully, we can send help once we are rescued," Joshua added.
"Who's the spare?" Mindy asked as her eyes settled onto the young girl with the Colt M4A1 SOPMOD assault rifle.
"Ariana, ma'am."
"Polite!" Mindy commented with surprise before looking at Jennifer. "She one of them?"
"Yes – we found her in the jungle, a few days back."
"We lost one with Chloe," Mindy said as she turned away to look ahead of the fishing boat.
The engine was noisy and incessant, not to mention that the boat also stank of fish, but to those aboard, it was the sound and smell of freedom.
05:00 GMT+7 (22:00 GMT May 10th)
Chloe and Freya
It had felt like hours, and both girls were certain that it had been, but time only appeared to stand still in the jungle.
They knew that dawn could not be too far away, and if they were caught in the open during daylight, then they were finished. Weapon-wise, they had very little – a bayonet, a Type 65-2 assault rifle with pitifully few rounds, and a combat knife. However, Chloe knew full well what Freya was capable of – assuming she was as good as the other Phase 3 Predators she had come across. Though Chloe knew truly little about the girl, she had no choice but to trust her as they both sought out somewhere safe to hide out. Chloe had seen the desire for freedom in the girl's eyes – that had not been faked in any way – and that was a desire that would keep them both united. The hike had been torturous. More than once they had had to change course due to hearing voices speaking Khmer. Both girls feared being caught and sent back to the camp – for their own personal reasons, they knew that Colonel Priabin would not be very pleased to see them alive – not after they had slaughtered many of his men. At one point, not that long before, they had heard automatic gunfire and explosions, some way off to their right, but the jungle was too thick and they had no way of seeing what was going on – anyway, the gunfire sounded like it had been too far away for them to have been able to do anything, so it was not worth worrying about.
Neither talked much – they needed to keep their energy for walking, and possibly fighting – speech was an irrelevancy.
06:32 GMT+7 (23:32 GMT May 10th)
The Fishing Boat
Dave, Mindy, Joshua, Craig, Jennifer, and Ariana
They had not made the best of progress.
There was a tide running and they were pushing against it, reducing their speed of advance to only a few knots. Dave had also thrown in a few course corrections to try and throw off anybody who may be following them. Finally, though, after almost two hours, they had reached what they hoped was the open sea, with Cambodia to port, and the Gulf of Thailand ahead of them. The southern tip of Kaoh Kong Island was passing to starboard which reminded Dave that they were approaching Point Alpha. He smiled grimly as he considered that the last time they were at Point Alpha was nine days ago and so much had occurred in those nine days – so much pain and anguish. They were alive, barely, and they were missing a dear friend, but Dave decided to look positively on everything and he simply prayed that everything would come out right. It was almost broad daylight and they were visible to anyone who cared to look, however, from the outside, they looked like a small fishing boat which had obviously been sailing those waters for many decades.
Dave chose to head west and hope that they would find a friendly ship awaiting them, however, he was not to know that HMS ALBION had been pulled off the coast of Cambodia, and even then, was making for Singapore.
06:45 GMT+7 (23:45 GMT May 10th)
The Jungle
Junior Lieutenant Misha Aleksei was not a happy man.
He was baby-sitting five Cambodian Private 1st Class soldiers and their Corporal. He was a Russian officer who had no desire to waste away his career in some stinking humid backwater such as Cambodia. The men were tired after a night of sweeping the jungle for the runaways, and they had stopped to brew up some tea. To be brutally honest, Misha was happier in the jungle at that very moment, rather than back at the camp where the Colonel was due back at any moment - the Colonel was not exactly known for his forgiveness. As the men settled down, breaking out their canteens, the junior lieutenant dug through his own daypack, looking for something to eat, other than fish and rice. After three bites of something the Cambodians called Num Yip – it was sweet and fairly tasty – the officer decided to take notice of his bladder and he headed off a short distance to relieve himself.
Something in the water made him need to urinate regularly – maybe it was a stomach bug, he figured.
..._...
Once he was finished, the young Russian officer headed back to his men.
Strangely, all was very quiet which was out of the ordinary for a start as the men loved to jabber away in their native language – a language which the man struggled to understand on a good day. As he reached the small clearing, he found all six of his men present. He touched one man on the shoulder . . . then he jumped back as the man fell forwards before rolling onto his back, knocking over his canteen of tea. The man was obviously dead, as evidenced by his throat which had been cut so thoroughly that his head flopped about. Quickly, the junior lieutenant checked the other men. Despite the heat and humidity, he suddenly felt very cold and his face went very pale as he found himself to be the only one of the seven-man patrol who was still breathing. Various thoughts ran through his mind – one of which was the story told by some of his men concerning what they called: 'បិសាច' – loosely translated, it meant 'The Devil' or 'Monster'. Neither sounded very nice, and he was horrified that six of his men could have been slaughtered when he had been just five or six metres distant taking a leak without him hearing a thing.
Then he saw movement, and he was very thankful for the earlier bladder relief as he suddenly felt fear like he had never felt fear before. He was only twenty-two and he wanted to live a long and healthy life, only he figured he would be dead within the hour unless he could get help. There were other patrols close by, the man knew, and he hoped that he could find one, or attract their attention. He took about six steps towards the far side of the clearing, but then he paused as he saw a pair of wraiths emerging from the jungle before him, and he froze. Each was covered in mud from head to toe, but it was not that which unnerved the man, nor was it the almost silent way in which the wraiths had emerged from the jungle. It was the blood which adorned them – the blood of his men. His trained mind told him that they were two of those he was out looking for, but his own mind caused him to see them very differently as he stared down the broad gaping 7.62-millimetre muzzles of two Type 56-2 assault rifles.
The man instinctively reached for his MP-443 Grach pistol from the holster on his webbing, but he recanted from that idea as the barrel of one of the assault rifles was taken across his right cheek, sending blood flying.
08:45 GMT+7 (01:45 GMT May 11th)
The Fishing Boat
Dave, Mindy, Joshua, Craig, Jennifer, and Ariana
As was usual in that part of the world, the day simply became hotter and hotter, but there was a pleasant breeze coming off the gulf and it helped to cool them all down.
They took the opportunity to eat and drink some of what was onboard. The food, though bland, was like nothing any of them had tasted in days. The freedom from abuse and humiliation was amazing and for a while, they simple lay in the sun as the fishing boat motored through the waves. Everybody ached, although not all from torture. Jennifer had taken time with Dave, Mindy, and Joshua, checking each of them over. She was horrified at the visible injuries and marks all over their bodies. At one point, she actually cried as she checked over Mindy's back, bottom, and thighs. Craig was very subdued when he saw what his friends had endured on his behalf, and he felt more guilt than he had ever felt in his forty-three years of life. Joshua was very quiet as he thought about Chloe and where she might be. He was in a bad place and very angry with himself for losing Chloe. His mind was conjuring up images of her broken body lying at the base of that ravine, dying alone with nobody to care for her.
"I'm sorry you lost your friend."
Joshua looked up to see the young girl, Ariana, looking down at him.
"These things happen; there was nothing we could do."
"Were you in love?"
"Yes, in the best possible way," Joshua replied. "Thanks for caring, Ariana."
Ariana smiled as she stared out towards the horizon before turning and following the horizon around. Then she stopped moving and she focussed on something that had not been there a few minutes before.
"We have incoming!" Ariana shouted as she pointed towards the object which was growing larger with each passing minute.
Everybody leapt out of their trances and they grabbed up their weapons. Dave dove for the wheel and he altered course to try and avoid the incoming vessel, attempting to push the throttle even further forward, but to no avail. The opposing vessel appeared to be both bigger and faster.
"What's our ammo situation?" Joshua asked.
"Don't ask," Mindy growled unhappily as she studied the remaining rounds in the magazine of her Chinese assault rifle.
"I've got one forty mil grenade and about sixteen rounds," Ariana commented.
"I've got twenty-six rounds – last magazine," Jennifer advised.
"We've got plenty of pistol rounds, it seems," Craig added. "But not much use for a distance fight."
"Business as usual, then," Dave grimaced.
..._...
The other vessel came closer and closer.
It was a naval vessel, quite a bit larger than they were with weapons of its own. The newly acquired morale vanished and everybody began to fear the worst. After so many days of despair, it was all but impossible to see any good coming out of their immediate future.
"Anybody got an anti-ship missile in their pack?" Joshua asked hopefully, eliciting a few flat laughs as his mind drifted back to the briefing materials aboard the ALBION. "It's a Shershen class patrol boat. Thirty-millimetre cannons. Surface-to-air missiles. Crew of twenty-four. Speed about a hundred times faster than this old tub."
"Thanks, Josh," Jennifer commented. "Just keep those happy thoughts coming."
"Any thoughts, Commander Lawrence?" Mindy asked optimistically.
"Nothing comes to mind – we're a tad outclassed," Craig commented dryly.
The patrol craft came closer and closer, a white frothy bone in its teeth as it thrust aside the waters of the gulf at a speed of almost forty knots. If they resisted, they would be cut to threads, and they all knew it. Then the craft slowed, and the frothy bone vanished. As the patrol boat turned to starboard, its bow and stern mounted cannons turning to track the fishing boat, another vessel became visible, this one a large BK-10 RHIB carrying a dozen armed men, some in Russian military fatigues. Somebody wanted them back; that was damned obvious! The patrol boat had stopped, about sixty yards away, leaving the RHIB to close on its own.
"Give them a warning shot?" Joshua suggested.
Mindy nodded. "What have we got to lose?!" she growled.
With that, they all raised a weapon and sent a fusillade in the direction of the RHIB. Heads ducked on the other craft as the bullets flew above and alongside, small plumes of white water rising into the sky as bullets struck the waves and a single much larger plume as Ariana's forty-millimetre grenade detonated in the water, soaking the men in the RHIB. Then, as they each fired off their final rounds, a few heads reappeared on the RHIB and Joshua issued an urgent command as he jumped on Mindy and Jennifer.
"Everybody down!"
Dave dove to the deck, dragging Ariana with him and they both landed beside Craig who had taken a brief moment to throw a package over the starboard side. Everybody grabbed the backs of their heads with their hands and they awaited the imminent response. The Kord 12.7-millimetre heavy machine gun mounted in the bow of the BK-10 RHIB ripped out, sending a steady stream of bullets tearing into the wooden superstructure of the fishing boat. Glass exploded out of the windows in the wheelhouse, showering most of those aboard with the flying remnants which joined the shredded wood and splinters which covered everybody on the deck. Time seemed to stand still as the gunfire kept up for what seemed like hours, but which was, in reality, less than thirty seconds. As silence descended on their little patch of sea, those on the fishing boat began to dust themselves off. The backs of Mindy's hands stung from the glass which had pockmarked the flesh. As she sat up, she noticed that Dave and Jennifer were examining their own hands which were in just the same state. There was a warning shout from Ariana, as six heavily armed men jumped over the port gunwale and crunched through the broken glass and shattered woodwork which littered the deck.
Nobody reached for the weapons which they had previously thrown down as they had dropped to the deck just a minute earlier.
..._...
Jennifer screamed as a boot was driven into her right side.
No one was spared as the boots and rifle butts struck their bodies. Everyone concentrated on protecting their heads and faces from the impacts which all appeared to be aimed at their abdomens. Again, time seemed to stand still as the pain-level rose and rose. Ariana was screaming at the abuse, as were Mindy and Jennifer. It was Jennifer's first exposure to such abusive treatment and she was suffering. For Mindy, the kicks were simply re-energising the existing bruises which had already been aching. For Dave and Joshua, it was just another day at the office as far as they were concerned. For Craig, it was simply a return to the hell that he had hoped to have put behind him, physically, if not mentally. As for Ariana, the pain was not exactly new for the youngster, but that did not stop it hurting just the same. Mindy had to fight to control herself, to fight the instinctive urge to respond to the beating in kind – knowing that to respond could very well invite death, or vengeance on herself and her friends.
The savage beating only ended when each one of them received a swift, but substantial, injection of Ketamine Hydrochloride into an available muscle, then the pain subsided before eventually blissful unconsciousness swept over each one of them.
11:21 GMT+7 (04:21 GMT May 11th)
Camp 43, Cambodia
Mindy felt woozy as she began to regain consciousness.
She struggled to make her mind focus on her environment and what state she was in. She was cold, not uncomfortably cold, but she began to realise that she was lying on bare concrete and, just as she had been before, she realised that her body was just as bare as the concrete. Her limbs ached, just that little bit more than the rest of her body, but she knew that that was because of all the walking and fighting the previous night – was it the previous night? Mindy had no idea how long she had been unconscious, and as she opened her eyes, she saw more concrete which was illuminated by a harsh white light set into the concrete ceiling. Her mind surmised that she was back at the camp, somewhere in the subterranean bunker. She tried to move her hands, but she felt the cold steel of handcuffs on her wrists which were secured ahead of her. Then her mind reacted to the sound of movement and she screamed out as she felt immense pain in her right thigh as a savage burst of electricity surged through her body. Mindy knew a cattle prod when she felt it and she figured that whomsoever was wielding it wanted her on her feet.
With supreme effort, Mindy forced her limbs to life, and she pushed herself onto her knees. Then her hair was grasped, and she was yanked the rest of the way to her feet. Mindy saw the cattle prod in the left hand of the same Russian junior sergeant who appeared to favour the same torture device from the last time they had met.
"So, you have chosen to come back to us?" the man asked in heavily accented Russian.
"Yeah, fucking right!" Mindy growled defiantly. "пошёл на хуй!"
"Not very polite," the man responded cheerfully.
"Я буду охотиться на тебя, и я убью тебя и твою сволочь," Mindy spat back, her face an expression of pure malevolence.
The man's cheerful expression changed to one of incredulity.
"You, you little whelp, you will hunt me down and kill me and my family? You will never be free. You will die under interrogation after we take you back to Moskva. We will extract everything that you and your friends know . . . but by then, there will not be much left of you – mentally or physically," the man responded.
The man released Mindy's hair and he pulled something out of a thigh pocket on his army-issue fatigues. Mindy did not like the look of what she saw in the bastard's right hand. The man raised that hand and he brought the heavy leather belt down across Mindy's buttocks. The loud crack as the leather struck already tortured flesh made Mindy jump, even before the searing pain reached her brain. Mindy tried to absorb the pain which was like nothing she had ever felt before. The blow had also knocked the breath out of her and she struggled for breath as she fought to contain the energy of the strike. Then the belt struck again . . . and again. Her bottom was on fire and she writhed on the floor in agony from the full-strength blows.
That was not the end as Mindy shook violently from another electric shock and she felt the belt being passed around her neck, closely followed by another jolt from the cattle prod.
11:23 GMT+7 (04:23 GMT May 11th)
Комната K
Commander Craig Lawrence slowly regained consciousness and he found himself sitting in a solid wooden carver chair.
To his immense surprise, he found himself in a well-decorated room. The decorator had made use of copious amounts of a dark wood which panelled the room and also formed many bookcases. Beneath his bare feet, he felt a thick opulent carpet. As he ran his eyes over the spines of some the books, he raised an eyebrow as he recognised the Cyrillic language. Where was he? It could not be the camp, could it? Mindy had said something about being interrogated by a Russian Colonel at the camp, but he had only seen Cambodian personnel. Then it hit him as he noticed that there was heavy air conditioning, and not a single window in sight. The Russians had built a secret bunker beneath the camp, using the camp as a cover for something much more sinister. Now, he really understood the injuries on his friends. He tried to move his arms, but he found his wrists secured to the arms of the chair with straps. There was another strap around his chest, securing him to the back of the chair. As he struggled, he heard a voice.
"Good morning, Commander!"
Craig turned his head and he saw a tall man closing a wooden door which appeared to blend back into the wood panelling. The man wore the neatly-pressed military fatigues of a Russian Army officer and, more specifically, the shoulder boards of a Colonel officer. Okay, his failed operation to discover Russian involvement in Cambodia had suddenly come up trumps – only he was to die before ever telling anybody about it.
"Colonel," Craig responded politely. "Any chance of these straps being removed?"
"They are there for your own safety, Commander," the Colonel explained. "You and your friends have proved to be more than a little bit difficult."
"My friends?"
"Yes, your friends."
"I have no friends."
"Ask anybody, Commander, I do not take fools gladly," the man responded patronisingly. "My name is Colonel Dimitri Petrovich Priabin and I am certain that a full Commander in the Royal Navy is no fool. Now, I need information before you are taken to Moscow. I am certain that you will not reveal anything without persuasion. Torture was tried during your first visit, and my Cambodian comrades had little success breaking you. It is time to escalate things, don't you think? Ефре́йтор!"
The last word was bellowed, and almost immediately, a set of double doors, which Craig had not previously seen, suddenly sprung open. Four private soldiers, under the watchful eye of a private first class, entered the room with a large roll of thick plastic. Without further command, the plastic was laid out, covering the luxurious carpet completely. Craig found himself lifted out of the way by two of the soldiers as the plastic was laid beneath him. The plastic was an ominous escalation, Craig considered. However, the command given by Colonel Priabin once the plastic had been laid was even more ominous.
"Принесите первого заключенного!"
Craig translated the barked order in his mind: 'Bring the first prisoner!'
11:25 GMT+7 (04:25 GMT May 11th)
Camp 43
Doctor Jennifer Staite could not believe the suffering which she had endured.
She had awoken to find herself being thrown out the back of a truck into the mud. Then she had been set upon by three soldiers who had stripped her of all her clothing before binding her hands behind her and forcing the woman to her feet. She felt humiliated as she was marched through the camp in broad daylight, naked as the day she was born. She was covered in mud, but her assets were still readily visible to the smirking men. Jennifer was in a shocked state of intense misery. The beating on the boat. The beating back at the camp. The stripping of her clothes and dignity. She found herself shaking with fear as she was pushed up some wooden steps and shoved into a hut. She had seen the appalling injuries on Mindy's body and she was very frightened about what lay ahead of her. Pain was never her thing, and the mere thought of being beaten scared the living daylights out of her. However, right at that moment, as she was being pushed into an elevator, stark naked, her mind was conjuring up ideas of rape, and she knew that she had no defence against it – none at all.
Any idea that her immediate future was going to be easy ended the minute she exited the elevator after a long drop downwards. Sitting on the concrete floor about a dozen feet from the elevator doors, was Ariana. However, her position was not at all comfortable for the fourteen-year-old girl. She was naked, with tears streaming down her face. Her body was a mass of bruises, Jennifer saw. The girl was sitting on the cold concrete with her long legs stretched out before her and spread apart while both arms were raised above her head, her wrists cuffed, and her elbows straight. The girl's arms were shaking slightly, indicating that she had held them high for a while. Jennifer recognised a forced muscle stress position when she saw one. She knew that the youngster would be hurting, and it would only get worse as the muscles cramped in her shoulders and thighs. Ariana looked up at Jennifer as she was pushed past and they both exchanged compassionate looks before Jennifer was turned away from Ariana and forced to her knees. She was made to stare at the concrete wall to the right of a large set of polished doors.
That feeling of intense humiliation was back but mixed with the fear of what was to come.
11:48 GMT+7 (04:48 GMT May 11th)
Комната K
Jennifer was yanked to her feet and she was pushed through an open doorway and into a large room with dark panelling on the walls.
Ominously, she felt plastic beneath her bare feet which was warmer than the freezing concrete, but full of foreboding. Her humiliation grew as she saw that as well as the young soldier who had brought her into the room, there were two men present. Jennifer cringed as she saw Craig tied to the chair – at least he still had his clothing. She saw the man turn away from her, refusing to look at her naked body as she was forced to stand before the Russian officer. Priabin smiled as he ran his eyes across Jennifer, examining every curve, from head to toe. He actually found himself nodding approvingly as the woman was very beautiful.
"What is your name?" Priabin asked politely.
Jennifer looked over at Craig, who nodded.
"Jennifer."
"Hello, Jennifer. My name is Colonel Dimitri Petrovich Priabin. I will not apologise for the situation you are in, as you brought it upon yourself when you invaded this country with your friends."
"That gives you the right to strip me, humiliate me, and beat me? Not to mention what you are doing to that girl out there," Jennifer responded angrily. "Well, does it?"
"Not really," Priabin replied reasonably. "But as you can see, it is happening anyway. As of right now, none of you people exist to the outside world. I can do whatever I want to you people."
As a physical reminder of that fact, Priabin slapped Jennifer's left breast hard enough to make her scream out in pain – only, she was unable to do anything about it as her hands were still bound. Then Priabin forced Jennifer to her knees with a sharp kick to the back of her right knee. Jennifer dropped to the plastic and she began to shake with fear, her earlier bravado gone. She never saw the fist as it came flying through the air, striking the left side of her face. Jennifer fell to the ground, screaming out in pain. Then she was punched in the side, causing her to writhe in agony on the plastic. Priabin calmly walked across to a table a few feet away and he picked up a bucket before turning back to Jennifer who still lay on the plastic, sobbing with the pain. Priabin grinned at the stricken look on the Commander's face as he was forced to watch the torture of a friend. Priabin placed the large wooden bucket onto the plastic beside Jennifer, then he grabbed the woman by her hair and yanked her to her knees. Jennifer's eyes were pleading for mercy, but the Russian was enjoying himself, and he wanted to instil fear into his captives, punishing them for the embarrassment they had caused him by escaping. Once the woman was on her knees, he thrust her head forwards and down into the wooden bucket which was filled with freezing water. Jennifer panicked as her head was thrust into the water and she began to kick and scream, ingesting water. She had no idea how long she had been held there, but it felt like an eternity and her lungs were screaming out for air, but instead they were receiving only water. Her hair was jerked upwards and she fell to the plastic, retching as she threw up the water which she had ingested. Her mind was reeling – what did the man want from her; she knew nothing about anything.
Craig was appalled by what he was witnessing. He knew that Priabin was using Jennifer to get to him and it had been a struggle indeed to watch the woman getting beaten and dunked before him. It had been a shock to see Jennifer brought into the room stark naked, and he could see that she had already suffered quite a bit. He had averted his eyes to give her some sense of dignity, but he knew that Priabin would treat her with no more respect than he might treat a slab of meat.
That thought was reinforced as there came a knock on the door.
"Войти!" Priabin called, and the door opened.
Craig was appalled to see Mindy pushed into the room. She appeared dazed and her hands were secured behind her back. A leather belt was around her neck and being used to manoeuvre her by her captor, a Russian junior sergeant who held something in Mindy's back, causing it to arch backward.
Again, Craig did his best to avert his eyes as his good friend, totally naked, was forced to walk into the centre of the room.
..._...
Mindy was struggling.
The cattle prod had been forced into the middle of her back and the prongs, although not live, hurt as she was forced to walk down a long concrete corridor with the leather belt around her neck keeping her under control. Her dignity was long gone, and she was beyond humiliation, so she felt nothing at being exposed before several men as she entered Room K. Mindy was, however, appalled to find Jennifer, just as naked as herself, choking and retching on the ground. Mindy had also noticed the young girl, Ariana, suffering outside the room and she figured that Priabin was upping the ante.
Then Mindy clocked the plastic on the floor and her heart ran cold. She saw Craig tied down in a chair and she quickly figured out what the Russian was trying to do. As a rule, Mindy hated anybody who took advantage of somebody who could not readily respond in kind. As for her feelings for men who beat up women, they were right up there with the rapists and other undesirables that she would kill out of hand when out as Hit Girl. Jennifer had her hands bound and she had no way to protect herself or to fight back. She was totally defenceless at the hands of a man who thought nothing about treating her like a piece of worthless shit.
"Приведи девушку!" Colonel Priabin called.
Less than a minute later, a very sore Ariana stood beside Mindy, flexing her legs and arms to try and re-energise her aching muscles. The stress position had been very painful, and it had helped to sap what limited strength the girl had left. Her trained mind had immediately clocked the situation. She had taken in Craig tied to the chair, the naked Jennifer gagging on the floor beside the large wooden bucket of water, and the naked Mindy standing beside her with the obvious signs of a vicious strapping on her backside and a nasty-looking cattle prod in her back. She had just been thrust into torture central, she correctly surmised. Then Ariana's eyes narrowed as the Russian junior sergeant shamelessly ran a hand over Mindy's bare breasts before then grasping her between the legs. Ariana struck out with her cuffed fists, catching the man in the face and flattening the unsuspecting junior sergeant.
As Craig watched, Colonel Priabin stepped back to watch the melee as it unfolded, a large grin on his face. The junior sergeant was quick to regain his feet and he jabbed Ariana with the cattle prod. The girl screamed as she fell backwards onto the plastic. The junior sergeant assuaged his anger by jabbing Mindy and then Jennifer, grinning at the screaming he had caused as Mindy fell to the plastic and Jennifer curled into a foetal position. The junior sergeant loved to cause pain and anguish. He was a bully and he enjoyed his work as it was about the only chance he ever got to see naked females and to touch a naked female body – at least outside of a Phnom Penh brothel – as pretty much all of the Russian women on the base gave him a wide berth. To them, he had a reputation for physical and non-consensual roughness which few were content to tolerate.
As the three females screamed, Junior Sergeant Grigory Ivanov Sokolov grasped hold of Ariana's left arm, yanking the girl to her feet. Ariana was still suffering from the electric shock and she was unable to respond to her rough handling before she found herself turned upside down and her head dunked into the wooden bucket. Ariana kicked and screamed as she fought to escape the water which had choked off her breath. It was not the first time in her life that she had been plunged into water – it had indeed been a few years – but the horror of the event was still fresh in her mind and she fought to escape her watery prison. Her lungs were burning for oxygen, but she was held inverted, water forcing its way into her sinuses. She began to panic as her brain told her that she was drowning, then she felt her head pulled out of the bucket and she was dropped to the ground. For a few minutes, all she could do was lie on the plastic, coughing and struggling for air as she tried to control the involuntary panic attack.
"Get up!" Junior Sergeant Solokov yelled, kicking Ariana in her backside.
Ariana screamed from the pain, but she was too slow in moving, so she received a jab of the cattle prod.
"Get up!"
Ariana struggled to one knee, tears pouring down her face. She was backhanded for her trouble and she fell to the ground, blood spraying from her nose. Solokov stepped after her and he reached down, grabbing the girl by her hair.
"You are fucking worthless!" he bellowed into her face.
The girl was sobbing and as her hair was released, she collapsed to the plastic sobbing harder. Sokolov noticed Mindy's expression of pure hate and he struck her with the cattle prod.
Mindy fell to the ground, blood oozing from a wound on her right cheek.