Once again, Hudson had said she had a bad feeling about this job. There was something fishy about this ‘contact’ they were supposed to meet that would tell them how to find the mysterious ‘man in the glasses’ from their whole Rivcon affair.
The escape wasn’t particularly daring that time but each woman certainly had her pride hurt that night and they wanted to find the man who had run the whole weapon theft operation, and whose people had left the three of them bound and gagged in their underwear on a crate of grenades.
Kate Rivers and Helena Harper arrived at the old train station, as agreed, to meet their contact. Helena, the taller woman with dark brown hair and hard, brown eyes took the lead this time as they approached the darkened terminal. A person inside awaited them, seeming to stand and just stare out the window.
Helena wore her usual long sleeved, collared blouse, coloured white this time, with her black vest on over that. A matching pair of pants and flat shoes completed the former Secret Service agent’s attire. Now the partner of Kate Rivers and Deputy Joey Hudson, the three formed a private detective agency but they had been caught up in a spate of trouble recently.
All of these shady arms dealers, set ups, and clandestine dealings had them now out on their own, trying to get to the bottom of it all. Although Hudson stayed behind, as she usually did, to back up her two partners and come running if anything went wrong.
Walking just behind Helena, Kate dressed in her brown, leather jacket, a tight fitting, black t-shirt and a matching pair of black leggings to go with her low cut, black running shoes. She was a pale woman with shoulder length, light brown hair and soft brown eyes, standing quite a bit shorter than Helena.
Both came prepared this time, drawing their guns before even approaching the person inside the old terminal building. Helena held them up before they reached the door.
“Kate... I want you to stay behind me.”
Kate sighed. “Why? I’m just as good a shot as you! And I can take care of myself!”
“Because people seem to have it in for you. That’s why. How many enemies did you make before Hudson and I showed up?”
“Um... that’s not important!’ Kate said. “I did my job and there are people who don’t like that, okay?”
Helena let out a long breath. “The point is, it’s not me or Hudson they’re all that interested in. They keep setting us up because they want to get to you. And I’m not letting that happen. That’s why you’re staying behind me.”
“I don’t need protection!” Kate said, charging ahead of Helena.
“Damn it...” Helena followed after her, watching as Kate kicked the door open to the terminal, her gun raised, flashlight pointed at the darkened figure by the ticket window.
“You!” she said. “You have information for us? Let’s talk.”
They didn’t answer as the two women approached, getting closer. Now something really was feeling off... was Hudson right again?
“Hey! I’m talking to you...” Kate said, trailing off. They were close enough now that they could see why the person was not answering them. It was a mannequin, wearing a dark coat and a hat, holding an empty file folder in its plastic hand.
“It’s another setup!” Helena said, rushing in to pull Kate back. “Kate we need to get-”
The windows shattered as several metal canisters crashed through the windows and their vision was immediately obscured by thick smoke, choking the air around them. Both women got lungfuls of the gas and started feeling woozy.
“How does this... keep... happening?” Kate asked, coughing between words.
“Just... move to... the... door...” Helena said, trying to pull Kate forward. But Kate lost all motor control and her muscles went limp as she fell to the floor, dropping her gun, and falling unconscious.
“Works... fast...” Helena said, fighting hard to keep herself upright. She knelt down to try and pick Kate up off the floor when her own muscles gave way and she collapsed to the floor beside Kate. It took only a few seconds for Helena to fall unconscious beside her friend. The last thing she saw in the fog of her mind were blurry, human shapes shuffling toward them. She thought she could hear laughing, and words...
“No getting away this time, Rivers...” a woman’s voice said, before Helena’s vision went black.
...
Kate’s mind swam as she tried to gather her senses, the fog of her mind starting to clear. She could hear a sound like a muffled woman’s voice... and woke up much faster. There was no use even checking if she could move because she just knew she couldn’t. Letting out a long sigh, she heard someone else let out a sigh just after her.
From what Kate could tell, she was in the back of a large van sitting on a sort of bench. She knew she had been stripped to her white bra and panties and could feel duct tape sticking to her body and face. Indeed, her ankles had been tightly taped together with a very thorough and thick wrapping of tape that wrapped from her ankles to halfway up her calves. Her wrists were pinned behind her in a similar wrapping of tape around her wrists and forearms and she could even feel her fingers trapped beneath further wrapping of tape. One final tight wrapping of the duct tape stuck her arms to her back just above the elbows, wrapping around just below her breasts. There was something soft, a cloth most likely, jammed into her mouth and sealed in with duct tape that wrapped around the back of her head.
“Mmmpphhh...” she sighed, trying to kick out her legs. But she found herself unable to move very far as a thin steel cable had been wrapped around the tape on her ankles and anchored to a metal loop in the floor.
Taking a look around, she spotted Helena on the opposite side of the bench to her right, taped up in the same way and also anchored to the floor. Helena, too, had been stripped to her black bra and panties, though Kate was a little surprised to see her wearing a garter belt and dark stockings as well. Not usually something to wear underneath pants but perhaps there was a hidden fashionista to Helena... These thoughts were distracted, however, when she spotted someone unexpected seated and tightly taped up between them.
She was a tall woman, rather pale, with shoulder length, black hair and angry, dark eyes. Her arms were crossed behind her in a box-tie position and held there with a thorough wrapping of duct tape. Tape hugged her arms and torso tightly above and below her breasts and further tape restrained her legs at the ankles and just above the knees. It seemed their captors thought this woman was more dangerous than the others. Like Helena and Kate, she was also wearing nothing but her underwear, a matching set of grey bra and panties. Her mouth was wrapped in tape as well, with something stuffed inside. And her ankles, too, were anchored to the floor by a thin steel cable. She struggled hard against the tape but stopped when Kate glared at her.
“Mmmmrrghh...” Kate growled.
Jade. Jade Veers. In her past, Jade was always there fighting Kate tooth and claw and just making her life difficult. She seemed to enjoy causing trouble for Kate and this wasn’t the first time that Kate found herself bound and gagged while looking Jade in the eyes... but it was the first time she and Jade were bound and gagged beside each other.
“Mmmmpphh! Ymm dmmd thmmpphh!?” Kate squealed, thrashing against her bonds. Damn Jade. This is probably just her getting some kind of sick kick out of kidnapping me. She’s trying to get in my head!
“Lmmt mmph gmmm!” Kate snarled, still struggling hard. “Ymm bmmph! Wmmt mmr ymm plmmnmmng!?”
Jade scowled and fought against her own bonds, knowing Kate blamed her for this. True, it would have been nice to kidnap Kate Rivers again but, this time, she had nothing to do with it. In truth, it made sense that Kate would blame Jade, given their history. But she had learned what was really happening! She had been awake when their captors explained their plan. Unfortunately, Jade was gagged just as tightly as the other two and simply could not get the words out.
“Nmm! Mmt wmmphmnt mmm! Lmmphmmmnn! Mmmtph thmm mmmb!”
Kate couldn’t understand what she was saying but there was no way she would believe Jade even if she could. She just struggled and glared, shouting muffled profanities at her longtime rival. Squirming and thrashing away, Jade shouted into her gag right back at Kate trying to explain how it wasn’t her that set this up.
With both women just mewling and grunting back and forth, Helena tried getting their attention.
“Hmm! Stmmp! Cmm dmmmn!”
Neither woman could hear her over their own muffled voices and the tight tape gag silencing Helena’s own voice. She rolled her eyes at their childish, muffled bickering but sat up straight when she could feel... movement. The van was moving!
“MMMMPPHH!” Helena squealed, turning to the other captives. They still cursed back and forth at each other, unintelligible behind their gags, grunting and growling away in blind fury. We’re moving, you idiots! Pay attention! Helena thought. She took in a deep breath and would keep trying to get their attention.
“MMMPPHHH!!”
...
Hudson could only shake her head as she stared at the phone on her desk, waiting for one of them to call. It had been too long. They should have been back by now...
The tall deputy wore her usual attire; dark blue jeans, heavy brown boots, a black t-shirt and her olive green jacket. With her long, black hair tied off in a braid, the woman with sharp green eyes simply glared at the phone, willing one of her partners to call her.
Her attention was grabbed suddenly when the door to the office was flung open and a tall, thin woman dressed all in black and wearing a shielded helmet stepped inside. She reached for her shotgun but the woman raised a heavy pistol and shook her head.
“Don’t. I’m not here for that.”
Hudson glared, sitting back in her chair, and eyed the stranger carefully as she approached. Something Kate had said long ago about her past came forward in her memory as she watched the woman step closer, stopping in front of the desk.
“Phantom...” she said.
“It’s the Phantom to you...” the woman said as she slammed a photo down onto the desk. “You and I have a mutual problem...”
Hudson sat forward, eyeing the gun in The Phantom’s hands before taking a look at the picture. She three bound and gagged women in the back of a van, sitting on a bench with their ankles tied to the floor.
“What the hell is this?”
“You’re with Rivers and the other on,” The Phantom said. “The one in the middle is with me.”
Hudson had run into her a few times as well so she knew exactly who was bound and gagged between Kate and Helena, the picture taken of the two in the middle of a gagged argument.
“Jade Veers,” Hudson said.
“My partner,” The Phantom added.
“You two set this up?”
“Why would we do that? I’d be there, dumbass. Someone took them.”
“Who?”
The Phantom leaned forward on the desk. “Someone we’ve both pissed off... you remember the name Korlus, right?”
“The Korlus family has them?”
“The woman, specifically,” The Phantom said. “Nobody seems to know her name. But she runs everything. The mob. The ones who bought those weapons...”
“And how do you know this?” Hudson asked.
“They sent me this an hour ago. And someone else tipped me... said he knows you three.”
Hudson furrowed her brow. “Was it a man in glasses, by chance? Scruffy beard, three-piece suit-”
“Bowler hat. Yep.”
Hudson stood from her chair. “Why the hell would he do that?”
The Phantom shrugged. “Don’t know. Seemed to mention something about ‘the enemy of my enemy’.”
Hudson growled under her breath. “So... what do you want with me?”
“You want your friends back? You come with me. No way I’m letting the mob have Jade. And I’m guessing you’re not happy with them having Rivers. Or the other one.”
“Her name’s Helena.”
“Yeah, whatever,” The Phantom said.
She turned around and started walking out the door, motioning for Hudson to follow. “Let’s move.”
Her instincts always on high alert, Hudson feared this was a trap. But there was no other choice. She had to save Kate and Helena. Picking up her shotgun, she placed one finger on the trigger and stared right at The Phantom’s visor.
“I know what you’re thinking...” The Phantom said. “But you point that gun at me and you’ll never get your friends back. I know where they’re headed. So follow me.”
Hudson let out a long breath, moving her finger from the trigger and following The Phantom out the door. She only hoped she wouldn’t regret this...
...
Well, at least they were back at the office now. Hudson knew she couldn’t trust that woman. It had been quite a feat of the pair of them, intercepting the van and getting their friends out of the mob’s clutches.
They would later learn that the man with the glasses was hoping that Hudson and The Phantom would track them to their hideout and hopefully kill the mob boss, the mysterious, nameless woman in the business suit, who worked for the Korlus Estate. It seemed he was only interested in ridding the world of ‘monsters’ which he believed that woman to be.
But he had nothing to do with the kidnapping. The mob had their own ideas about taking out the pesky private detective trio and their former employees, Jade and The Phantom. Those two stole from the mob long ago and abandoned their old jobs, teaming up and working together as a sort of criminal duo.
Kidnapping Kate, Helena, and Jade proved easy enough, as was drawing out Hudson and The Phantom to rescue them. But they hadn’t counted on the two of them being so quick to the rescue and stopping the van, taking out the thugs who tied them up, and never even meeting with the mysterious mob boss.
Her plans thwarted, the mob boss focussed on other things, deciding to deal with Kate Rivers and her team later. But that didn’t stop The Phantom from enacting her own plan.
After dealing with the thugs, she knocked Hudson out and took her jacket and t-shirt, checking for extra equipment and leaving her torso only covered in a black sports bra. When she was satisfied, she taped up the deputy, gagged her, and threw her in the back of the van with the other three.
She had the courtesy of driving them all back to their office and securing them to chairs, mewling and grunting all the while.
“MMMMPPHH!!” Hudson screamed in rage, thrashing against the tape. That lying snake! She tricked me!
The Phantom sighed and leaned down into Hudson’s face. “Look, this is nothing personal. I just need to make sure you don’t follow us. I know Rivers wants to throw us both in jail and we’re outnumbered. When you’re not all tied up, that is.”
“MMMPPHHH!!”
“I’m not going back inside,” The Phantom said. “Neither is Jade. Though she is gonna be awful pissed at me for leaving her taped up in that van.”
None of them could understand why The Phantom had done that. What was she planning to do with Jade?
“I see that accusing stare, Rivers,” The Phantom said, leaning down into her face next. “But Jade’s got a real bug up her ass about you. Wants to waste time kidnapping you. But we need to hit the road. If the mob’s found us, we need to skip town. No wasting time. So, I need her out of the way while we run. I don’t turn on friends. So stop looking at me like that.”
“Mmmpphh...” Kate said, squirming in the tape.
The Phantom stood up straight again. “Oh, and just so you ladies know, I helped myself to all the money in your wallets.”
“HHMMMPPH!?” all three captives said, screeching into their gags.
“Hey, we gotta live. You’ll get out of that eventually. Catch you later, Rivers.”
The Phantom left with each woman taped up, gagged, and struggling in their underwear yet again. At least there was no impending danger this time, nor were they abandoned somewhere. They were home... but now they needed to figure out how to get out of the tape.
That might take a while, of course, but they would escape. Eventually. For now, all three could only look at each other, let out a deep sigh, and struggle against the tape. And hope that this was the last of their misadventures... though they all suspected that was not the case. There was always trouble to find and justice that needed to be done. And that was what they intended to do.