12

'Mr Padaleki?' Traff asked, walking forward with an outstretched hand. The man stood, removing his cigar from his mouth and squinted through the blue smoke. He returned the handshake and motioned for the soldier to sit on the couch opposite. He was a small rotund man with a ruddy, flushed face surrounded by a fringe of bushy black hair, a bald spot showing on the crown of his head. He had beady dark brown eyes and wore an expensive dark blue smoking jacket in brocade, a cream cravat visible at the neck of his shirt. The hand that shook Traff's was limp, cold and damp and Traff was reminded of handling the fish he used to catch when he went fishing with his brother. He repressed the urge to wipe his own hand down the sides of his trousers when Padaleki had finished with it.

'What can I do for you, Mr….?'

'Rushton. Thomas Rushton. Please, call me Tom'. Traff smiled at him, his eyes dancing around the room and taking in the sumptuous surroundings.

'Well….Tom. What can I do for you?' Padaleki appraised the tall dark haired man. He looked rich and influential – just the sort of money his syndicate were interested in. He made a conscious decision to treat this one with kid gloves and give him the gold standard treatment.

'A friend of mine told me about this place. He said you were looking for investors? I have a little extra capital I wouldn't mind throwing your way, for the right return' Traff winked.

'And which friend would this be? What has he told you?'

Traff sighed inwardly. He'd never been a great one for small talk and he was itching to get down to basics and try to find his friends, to make sure they were ok and to try to break them out, if indeed they were here. But he played along with Padaleki, acting his part as the rich investor and biding his time.

'The friend isn't important; he'd prefer to…erm….remain anonymous. But he told me you have some interesting entertainment going on. It sounds like something I might consider, but I'd like to know a little more before I jeopardize my kid's inheritance on my little whim. Are you interested in investors? Or is this just a wild goose chase?'

Padaleki threw his arms up in mock horror. 'We're always open to the right sort of investor. May I ask what sum we'd be thinking about?'

Traff shrugged casually. '$2 million, give or take' he said with as much disdain as he could muster.

Padaleki's eyebrows raised slightly, but he retained his outward show of calm. 'And what would you like to know, Mr Rushton?'

'Tom….please. Call me Tom' Traff smiled. 'Wouldn't mind a little look around the facilities before I put my money where my mouth is. I know one should speculate to accumulate, but I'm no newbie to this kind of thing. And I don't just want the corporate blurb. I want to see everything, not just the fancy stuff you show to most visitors'. Traff's face turned steely.

Padaleki was unphazed. He walked towards the door without a backwards look. As he put his hand on the door he looked over his shoulder. 'Very well, shall we begin?'

Traff followed the man out of the room and down the corridor to an expensive Otis lift at the far end. They entered and Padaleki pushed the button down to the ground floor. He seemed very relaxed and it crossed Traff's mind whether the information Dobey had received was right. Surely if Padaleki was involved in something shady, he'd want more time to prepare; to hide away anything he didn't want a stranger to see. His skin crawled. What id he was just wasting his time and his friends had never been here? The lift stopped and they got out.

'This is the arena' Padaleki said, escorting Traff into the large round room. 'It has a capacity of 250 on a good night and of course, its licensed. The fighters enter through those two doors and everyone has a good view. We usually play to capacity, so the money flow is no problem. Our investors are currently receiving a 7.5 percent dividend at the end of each quarter'.

The soldier looked around no longer having to feign interest. This was a neat set up and he was impressed, if not by the subject of the entertainment then by the way the business was handled. The seats were arranged around the central arena, each red velvet seat having an unobstructed view of the entertainment, and surrounding the whole thing was a wrap around bar which must have measured 50'.Idly, Traff wondered how many bartenders they'd have to employ to keep up with demand. He dragged his mind back to the job in hand.

'Where do you get your fighters from?' he asked

'All over the country. They're all volunteers who come to us because they can get a good rate of pay for doing what they do best.' Padaleki said. 'I'll take you down to the quarters now and you can see and maybe meet one or two of the boys'.

They went out of the arena room and down more stairs into a lower floor. Here, they turned to the left, a large white door blocking their way to the right. Traff looked in on a long row of rooms, which resembled good quality motel rooms, all well furnished and decorated and with en suite facilities, before Padaleki took him to see a fully equipped gym. Traff looked enviously at the treadmills, the weights machines and the barbells. It was as well equipped, if not better, than the army gym and he knew it would be easy to get in shape in a place like this. He walked through another door and the chlorine smell and heat of the large heated swimming pool took him by surprise. There were two large, well built men powering up an down the marked lanes with purposeful crawl strokes and a third climbing up to the diving board. Apart from one or two bruises which Traff would have expected if they were fighters, the men looked happy and well cared for.

Lastly, they went into a fully equipped hospital room. It resembled every ER that Traff had ever had the misfortune to visit and once again left the dark haired man with the impression that this was definitely no "two bit" organisation. Rows of white cabinets with glass doors revealed tidy stacks of packets and bottle for drugs, bandages and the like and there was a shiny metal autoclave in the corner standing next to a microscope and other machinery that Traff had no idea of the use of. A shiny metal operating table stood in the middle of the room and over it was a diffused light. There were a couple of white uniformed male nurses and in the background Traff caught sight of a portly, grey haired and bespectacled doctor. So far he had seen no signs of coercion of any of the men, and also, depressingly, no signs of his friends.

'And so that's our little facility' Padaleki said, ushering Traff back out into the corridor. As they were turning to leave, the doctor came out of the back room.

'Mr Padaleki? Could I have a brief word please?' he seemed deferential and almost scared of speaking to Padaleki and wrung his hands together as he smiled at Padaleki's consent.

Padaleki turned to Traff with an apologetic smile.

'Would you excuse me? I need to speak with the doctor. Please, look around. Go and talk to the boys' he indicated expansively and headed off into the back room.

Traff walked out of the hospital room, looking back up the corridor, taking the chance of being on his own to try and find anything else out about the place. He'd seen just about everything, and the few men he'd seen seemed happy and well cared for. So what was going on here? Was it a wild goose chase? Was the girl who'd spoken to Dobey wrong? He saw the big white door at the end of the passageway. The only place he hadn't so far seen. It was now or never. Checking that the club owner was still engaged with the doctor, Traff set off quietly towards the door. He pushed against it, half expecting it to be locked, and was surprised when it gave at his touch. He pushed the heavy door open and stepped into a completely different world.

The plush carpet and ornate furnishings of the previous corridor were gone and in their place was a white, sterile world. Even the air felt different some way and Traff was staggered by the silence on this side of the door. The corridor continued in cold stark whiteness for maybe 50 yards and was lined on one side by glass fronted rooms. He started to walk along the line of them, peering through the enormous glass windows. All were empty and in darkness although he wondered at their use. They were so different form the hotel room style quarters he'd seen previously, his blood running colder by the moment. This was a completely different place to the club he'd just seen. This environment smacked of cold and pain and looked almost like a science fiction programme. He checked all of the cells continuing down to the end and taking a detour to look into another ER type room, this one equipped with what looked like some kind of a dentist's chair. Ominously, medical restraints hung from the arm and foot rests. This room too was lined with white cabinets, although these sported large padlocks on their doors

Traff suppressed a shudder and walked out of the room, continuing down the rest of the corridor. He got to the last two cells of the row and looked in through the window. His breath steamed against the glass as he peered inside the room, which, in contrast to the others was dimly lit by a single red bulb. He let out an involuntary gasp. On the floor of the white room, a body lay huddled on the floor. It had dark brown curly hair and was dressed only in white cotton pants, bruises and cuts showing livid across the body, showing almost black in the ruby light. There was a broad, blood stained white bandage around its middle and there were blood stains on the seat of the pants. Starsky! Rushing to the next cell he saw a blond man, equally damaged and seemingly asleep, propped in a corner.

Whatever had happened to them, neither Starsky nor Hutch looked as if they were there of their own volition. They looked as though they'd taken at least one real good beating and the soldier realised that the woman's description of them fighting correlated to the injuries he saw on their bodies. Traff was about to bang on the window of the cell, but he froze when he heard the big white door open. Quickly, he ducked back inside the medical room and hid behind a cabinet as he heard Padaleki's voice.

'Mr Rushton?'