REVELATIONS

Chapter 7

In Little Salvador two white vans pulled up into an alleyway from the main street that went through the suburb. They pulled up into parking spaces that were on the side of an old grocery store that had seen better days. The back of the building had one large room that they used for receiving of supplies. It also housed a walk-in freezer and equipment for butchering meat. Hooks hung from a rail system that was connected to the ceiling where they could hang large pieces of meat such as beef or pork and occasionally lamb. The rail system was set up so that the meat could be pulled over to the large metal tables where they could be more easily cut up.

The vans had been parked by the store many times so it wasn't an unusual sight. Neither van had the name of the store on them. The van from California had joined the store just 1 month ago and had replaced another white van that had been totaled in an accident just 2 months ago.

Even though there were homes across the street and behind the store no one thought to take precautions since it was still dark and people were still quiet. Two men pulled the unconscious women out of the vans and slung them over their shoulders and took them over to the stores receiving area as someone else rolled up the door. Ortiz stood inside by one of the tables. He had already been drinking beer as he waited for the rest to kidnap Dr. Brennan.

"Where did you get the other one?" Ortiz asked no one in particular.

"She was a freebie that was in the car with your Dr. Brennan. We took her as extra entertainment." Fernando, a man dressed in nothing but a sleeveless t-shirt and baggy pants answered with a wicked grin.

"Did you have any trouble?"

"No, it was easy. Manuel made his first kill when he took out the driver." Fernando answered.

"Where do you want them?" The man carrying Dr. Brennan asked.

For the first time Ortiz got up from the table he was sitting on. "Tie their hands together and hang them on the hooks. They shouldn't be able to do anything from there. Tape their mouths shut so that they can't make any noise when they come around."

Ortiz was practically salivating as he watched the others tie the women up, tape their mouths and hang them from two hooks. His mind was busy thinking of ways that he was going to get back at this bitch for humiliating him at the FBI building. No one could ever get away with that and still live if he had anything to say about it. Now he was finally getting his chance to put her in her place and have some fun while doing it.

When they were through hanging the women from the hooks they all went to the front of the store and started making sandwiches for themselves. Of course no thought was given to compensating the store owner for what they took. They all knew that the owner wouldn't dare approach them on the loss to his income. They were afraid of no one as long as they were in a gang and had the numbers to support their backs.

One hour later, in the receiving room, Brennan and Angela were waking up. The first thing they thought of when they regained consciousness was that their mouths were taped and their arms and wrists were hurting. Brennan looked around the room and took everything in. She looked at Angela and could sense her rising panic.

Brennan knew she had to try to get off of the hook she was hanging from. She maneuvered the rope tied around her wrists so that she could grab onto the hook. With her left hand she held onto the hook then put her right hand above her left one. When she felt she had a good enough grip on the top of the hook she let go of the hook with her left hand and lifted the rope over the pointed end and off of the hook. Carefully she let go and fell to the floor. She was barely able to keep standing when she landed since her hands were still bound together. She quickly pulled the tape off of her mouth then went over to Angela and put her arms under her legs so that her arms encircled them then grabbed her legs and lifted her up enough so that she could lift her hands off of the hook. As soon as she could, Angela pulled the tape off of her mouth then stepped out of Brennan's arms.

"Try to untie my hands." Brennan told Angela. The knots on the ropes had been made very tight as their weight pulled at the rope. It took Angela several minutes to get the knots out. Just as they finished untying each other they heard the door open.

"Where do you think you're going?" Ortiz said real loud. Angela screamed and jumped at the sound.

Brennan recognized Ortiz right away. "If I were you Ortiz, I would let us go because my partner will have all of the FBI to find us. I feel that I must warn you that Booth never gives up when going after a criminal."

"He'll never find us here. We left no witnesses to tell them who took you." Ortiz and his men moved to surround the women. Angela stuck close to Brennan. She was so scared that she was shaking.

One of the men grabbed Angela's arm and pulled her away from Brennan. Angela screamed and struck out at the man that had his hand on her arm. She struck out with the only weapons she had which were her nails and teeth.

This time it was the man holding her that screamed out in pain as she ran her nails down his face and almost took his left eye out. The man hit her with his fist and that was the last thing she remembered as she went down hard on the concrete floor.

Two men grabbed onto Brennan. She fought them as best she could but there was just too many of them. When she would knock one down another would take his place. Finally when Ortiz thought the others had a firm grip on Brennan he came towards her and said, "I told you that all you needed was a real man like me to teach you how to behave. Tonight I am going to give you your first lesson." Ortiz wanted Brennan to be awake for all of what he considered fun so he kept his fists away from her head. His first strike was to her stomach. For the next 15 minutes he used her as a punching bag. When he started to get tired he started to hit her face. With the first blow to her face Brennan lost consciousness.

FBI Headquarters: 10 AM

Both Booth and Hodgins were tired from being up since yesterday but they were too wound up to even attempt sleeping. Booths head shot up when he heard a telephone ring. He saw Hopkins answer the phone. Another agent answered another phone as it rang.

Booth and Hodgins went over to Sp. Agent John Hopkins when he signaled to them to come over.

"We've received a call from our undercover man. Rumor has it that Ortiz has kidnapped two women from the Capitol Mall but no one knows where he is keeping them or who they are. Apparently everyone that knows where they are, are still with them and no one has come out to brag about it."

Booth's cell phone rang just as Hopkins finished updating them. "Booth here."

"Booth, this is Jose Duarte, my friend is almost certain that he knows where Dr. Brennan is being held."

"Where?" Booth asked.

"At the corner of 16th and 17th Street there is a grocery store owned by an old couple. Their son is a member of Ortiz's gang and they often gather at the back of the store where they receive supplies. Today the store has a closed sign on it when it should be opened because Saturday is usually a busy day for them."

"Can you trust your friend's information?"

"Yes, he is my son's Godfather."

"Okay, thanks for all of your help. When we get Dr. Brennan back I'll make sure that she knows who helped us." Booth told him then hung up.

He turned to Hopkins and gave him the information that he had just been given. Some of the Agents started to get their gear together so they could go after them but Sp. Agent Hopkins told everyone to stop. "Let's not go running over there yet. We want to send our undercover guy over to the store to check it out first. We all know what has happened before when we've been given bad information." Hopkins picked up his phone again and called the undercover Agent.

Once again they sat and waited for a call back.

Little Salvador: 12 Noon

Brennan hung from one of the hooks again. It could be plainly seen that she had been badly beaten. One side of her face was swollen from her eye down to the bottom of her jaw. She had bruises up and down her arms where some of the men had held onto her while Ortiz had his fun.

As Brennan was being beaten Angela was tied up again and was once again hanging from one of the hooks. They had replaced the tape over her mouth but she could easily see everything that was happening to her friend. Her tears never stopped as she watched. Every time she tried to turn away so she couldn't see Ortiz beating Brennan one of the men would turn her back towards them. Over the group circled around Brennan Angela could see that some of the men would walk over to one of the tables where they would inhale some cocaine then go back.

Within the next few minutes, what they were waiting for started.

Ortiz backed away from Brennan. He looked at his hands and could see them covered in Brennan's blood. "Give her a shot of heroin, take her clothes off and put her on the table then throw some water on her. When she wakes up again she won't have so much fight in her." As Ortiz walked over to the sink to wash her blood off of his hands he looked over at Angela for the first time. "Do the same for her friend over there. Divide yourselves up into two groups."

Ortiz looked at the group of men following his orders. He saw the young boy, Manuel, standing over by the door by himself.

"Manuel, come over here and make yourself useful." Ortiz knew that this was the first time for him to be involved in a gang rape. Manuel came over to Ortiz while watching what was happening to the women. He had never seen a woman with nothing on before except in playboy magazines.

"Is there something you want me to do?" Manuel asked.

"Go and get the hose they use to clean the meat off. Hook it up and put it between the two tables. We'll need it to clean them out after each one has their turn." Ortiz saw the questioning look on the boys face. "If we don't clean them out they'll get too slippery inside and we won't be able to get what we want." The boy didn't want to appear dumb so he just smiled at Ortiz and went to get the hose.

FBI Headquarters: 1 PM

Hopkins phone rang and everyone jumped up. Their bodies already providing the adrenalin they would need to do what they knew was coming. A few minutes later Hopkins hung up. "He's 100 per cent sure that they are in the back of the store. There are two white vans parked on the side and one of them has the California license plate we are looking for. There are at least 5 other cars parked close by." The rest of the agents grabbed their gear and headed for the door. When they all left the building they had five, large, black SUVs heading for Little Salvador, along with 2 large vans rigged for the transportation of prisoners and 2 paramedics' vehicles.

Booth and Hodgins along with Special Agent John Hopkins were in one of the five vehicles headed for Little Salvador. As soon as they were on the road Booth pulled out his cell phone and called Cullin, Max Keenan then Cam to let them know what was going on.

When Cullin got off of the phone with Booth he immediately called his boss to let him know what had happened. Cam called her boss and Dr. Sweets to let them know what had happened to Brennan and Angela and told Sweets to meet her at the hospital.

Little Salvador: 2 PM

Inside of the large room they had both women on the tables. The men would take turns holding the women's legs up so the men would have easy access to them. As they held the women's legs up they would have fun playing with their breasts.

They barely had to restrain them because the heroin kept their brains from taking in all that was happening to them. The heroin was also masking the pain that Brennan was experiencing. After the third man had his turn at her and pulled out of her a lot of blood came flowing out. They all thought it was because Ortiz was real rough with her and had torn something inside of her. They didn't care though because they were only interested in what they wanted so the fourth man unzipped his pants and entered her after he used the hose to clean her out.

Just as it was Ortiz's turn again they heard a loud bang at the rolling door. Then the door was rolled up and over two dozen FBI agents came in with guns pointing at them. Everyone was shouting at the same time. None of the gang members could ever be accused of being overly intelligent but none were so stupid as to reach for a gun when they had over two dozen guns pointing at them.

Booth and Hodgins went running to Brennan and Angela. Both of the men quickly took off their FBI jackets and covered the women.

"Get the paramedics in here." Booth shouted. He took a moment to check Angela. "How is she?" He asked Hodgins.

"Not as bad as Dr. Brennan. She looks like they refrained from using her as a punching bag. How is Dr. Brennan?"

"She's in bad shape, real bad. Besides everything else I think her jaw is broken and she's bleeding a lot. I think they hurt her internally." Booth backed up as the paramedics came in and started assessing Brennan's injuries. Another pair of paramedics started checking out Angela and Hodgins stepped to the side also.

Booth and Hodgins both backed up and let the paramedics do their job. To get his mind off of Brennan, Booth looked over at the gang members that were being searched then handcuffed. In the middle of the line of gang members he recognized Ortiz. Hopkins was busy watching the arrest and making sure that everyone was read their rights and just to make sure that they understood he had a second Agent that spoke Spanish repeat their rights to them.

Out of the corner of his eye Hopkins saw Booth coming over to the group. He knew what the look on Booth's face meant. Hopkins quickly stepped in front of Booth and had to physically push him away and against the wall.

"You want these guys to be put away where they can't hurt anyone again don't you?"

Booth hesitated for a moment. Hopkins felt him start to relax. He could see sanity slowly come back into Booths eyes.

"Yes, I want that, and more. He beat her real bad John. It looks like they hurt her real bad when they raped her. She has a lot of blood coming from between her legs and it's pooling on the table and around her. The medics are working on her now. Dr. Hodgins and I will be going to the hospital with them."

Booth put his hands on Special Agent John Hopkins shoulders and looked at him. "Don't let anything happen John where he could get away from paying for what he did to her. Promise me John that he'll be in prison by the time she is all healed."

"I promise Booth, that I will do my best to make sure that he pays for what he did to Dr. Brennan and Mrs. Hodgins." John said. He turned away from Booth then and left him standing against the wall. He knew that he needed that wall to hold him up right now.

Hodgins called out to Booth. "They're taking them to the hospital now Booth."

He went running to join them at the ambulances. After helping to put the stretcher in the ambulance he looked over at the other ambulance and saw Hodgins doing the same thing. When he saw that they were okay he climbed in and they left for the hospital.

TBC….