CHAPTER ONE
In the hot, humid arena beneath the bright lights, the sweat poured off Nicky. Beneath
her karate gi, itself damp with her perspiration, her tee-shirt stuck to her.
She was exhausted, her normally crisp, flowing movements sluggish and jerky. And she
was losing.
“Yamay!”
The referee’s call for pause was welcome. Nicky returned to her line and took a moment
to tuck a stray lock of her dark cherry-red hair back into place and then wipe her sleeve
across her brow so that the sweat would not run into her eyes. It was phenomenally hot,
but this was Sri Lanka so what would one expect? She glanced at the electronic digital
clock, paused on just 34 seconds left to go. Just below that, the scoreboard confirmed
that she was two minor scores down. From the edge of the contest area, the British team
manager was yelling advice, but over the roar of the crowd she could barely hear him.
Nicky breathed deep, her lungs filling with the hot air that she wished contained more
oxygen. This was her last contest, the play-off for bronze: lose it and she would go home
with nothing but memories. Well, if the eighteen year-old was going to lose, she would go
down with all guns blazing after giving it everything she had. But then, that was Nicky
all over.
“Hajime!”
Barely had the referee announced the restart when Nicky was moving forwards again. The
other girl was oriental and so probably more used to the ferocious heat, but she too was
tired. Nicky was very fit and she had to use that fitness now. From somewhere deep
inside her came a last burst of energy. She swung first with her left, then her right.
The girl evaded both, as Nicky planned and expected, but did not see the follow-up as
Nicky’s bare foot swung round and made contact with the girl’s temple. The girl was sent
sprawling to the floor. This karate style was more or less non-contact, but a strike was
a strike. As the referee called pause again, Nicky waited for the judgement of the score.
She fought for breath, her heart in her mouth.
“Wazari! Hajime!”
A high score! Now she was in the lead and the other girl was suddenly, desperately,
coming at her. Nicky side-stepped, moved around, parried and defended. Just a few more
seconds ...
The buzzer went for the end of the contest.
The British squad broke into a massive cheer. Nicky felt her legs turn to jelly. She
had won! Bronze medal at the Junior World Championships!
The next hour was a crazy wave of celebration. For half her life she had trained in
karate, always dedicated, always determined. Her black belt had come two years ago, but
this was an even greater honour, one of only two British medals at the event. She rushed
to a phone and rang her parents at home. They too went wild with delight for her. Then
she rang her coach, Vic, the man she most respected in all the world. All that training
and hard work had been worth it: the feeling was indescribable.
Two days later, it still had not sunk in, but her natural calm had re-asserted itself.
Nicky gazed out from the open-top bus. The rest of the team were back at the hotel,
relaxing, but Nicky had been determined to see something of the country she was in before
their return home tomorrow. She had never been abroad much and she would not miss this
chance. Back home, she had a rather bitter rival, a girl called Claire Sanderson. Claire
came from a wealthy background and could afford to travel all over the world to events,
whereas Nicky had to scrape together every penny she could and a trip like this was an
opportunity not to be missed. Claire had even bought time with Nicky’s coach, Vic, to try
to emulate Nicky’s success. Vic had taken the money because he could then quietly siphon
some of it to Nicky to help her: that was the sort of man he was. Nicky was not jealous
of Claire’s money, or her good looks that rivalled Nicky’s own but were aided by costly
hair styles and sun bed tans and clothes; the jealousy went the other way, because Nicky,
having had to work for everything, had a determination and courage that Claire simply
could not match and that was why she was the better player; and it was also why, being
here, she was determined to get out and see this wonderful country. Her parents would
worry if they knew she was out unaccompanied, but they would also know her too well to try
to stop her doing it. Anyway, she was on a bus with nearly a dozen locals and had no
intention of getting off until it returned to the city, so she was safe enough.
Or so she thought.
There was no other traffic in sight and the bus was trundling through beautiful woodland
scenery when the first loud bang came. Nicky assumed it to be a burst tyre, but then a
whole series of bangs followed as a machine gun opened up. People screamed and ducked
down onto the seats. Nicky looked around in bewilderment. The bus skidded to a halt and
she realised that the driver had been hit. From the side of the road, half a dozen
khaki-clad figures emerged from the bushes.
Sitting a couple of rows in front of Nicky was an off-duty army officer. He got to his
feet and whipped his gun out of a holster by his side. Then there was a red flash in
front of him and he sat down again and slumped forward into the aisle; blood poured from a
gunshot wound. Some passengers began to scream.
The confusion was quelled by the armed men who invaded the bus. A couple of men who
rose to protest were clubbed viciously and two hysterical women were slapped down hard. A
middle-aged woman, evidently a nurse, pleaded with the gun-toting attackers to be allowed
to treat the two shot men. That was allowed, whilst everybody else, Nicky included, was
marched off the bus, hands on head, petrified. Nicky tried to stay calm, but her heart
was pounding. She had read of Sri Lanka’s problems with terrorists and separatist
guerrillas. This feud was none of her business as a foreigner, but it was still
frightening to be caught up in it.
Leaving the nurse behind to tend the wounded, the guerrillas marched them through the
bushes to a dirt track and then down the track at a fast pace. Nicky counted nine
prisoners: five men, one older woman and three younger ones: herself, a pretty Negress and
a stocky, plain Caucasian girl, both of them of similar age to herself.
They came to an old, battered truck and were ordered into the tarpaulin-covered back.
The truck set off down the track and rejoined the road well out of sight of the bus. Nicky
was getting increasingly worried that this was a hostage snatch, but there was nothing she
or any of them could do: there were five alert gunmen against them and besides, the sight
of the two men being shot had deeply shocked and frightened her. Facing a karate opponent
was one thing: this was very different. Everything had happened so quickly, too, that she
was still trying to take it all in. Certainly there was no chance right now: one of the
men drove, whilst four of them sat in the sweltering back, guns trained on the captives.
The truck rumbled on for many miles before coming to another track, which it lurched
onto and down until it came to a farmhouse. Nicky and the others were ordered out and
marched into the barn. They were lined up and waited, hands on head. One man in the line
whispered something to the man next to him. A gun butt crashed into his back and sent him
to the floor.
“No talking!” barked one of the guards as the man picked himself painfully up from the
floor. Nicky did not feel like arguing.
A new man came in and looked them over. Like the other raiders, he was of the local,
swarthy Indian race. The way the others deferred to him clearly indicated that he was the
leader. When he spoke to one of the raiders, Nicky was surprised to hear him do so in
English, accented but fluent.
“Not a bad haul. The four younger men can go to the farms in Uzbekistan. The older man
and the older woman for domestic service in Tajikistan, I had a request from there the
other day. The three girls for the Japanese brothels.”
Nicky gasped in shocked horror. Beside her, the African girl did the same, so she
clearly understood at least some English. The man whirled, realising that they could
understand him and came closer to them. Nicky’s heart pounded anew.
“You two speak English, hey? Where are you from?”
“E-Essex,” Nicky stuttered in fear.
“Nigeria,” the African girl said tremulously.
“Nigerians speak English as well as their own tongue, don’t they?” the man asked. The
girl nodded.
“These two aren’t bad,” the other man observed. “Maybe Xanxta or Corvalle would give us
a better price for them than the Japs.”
“Possibly, possibly,” the leader mused, regarding the two girls. “All right, isolate
them and we’ll take a decision later. I want to get the men shipped out as fast as
possible.”
The other man signalled to a guard and said something in the local language then he led
Nicky and the other girl away to a room in the farmhouse. As the door was opened, Nicky
could contain herself no longer.
“Please! Won’t you tell us what’s going on?”
For a moment she thought he was going to hit her, then he smiled and she relaxed a
little, although it wasn’t a nice smile. They were ushered inside the Spartan room and he
gestured for them to sit down. He did so himself, but his gun remained trained on them.
“We have a nice little racket going on here. Every so often we snatch some locals,
making sure we appear like the terrorists. That nurse we deliberately left with the bus
will report to the authorities that the terrorists snatched you lot, so they get the
blame. Meanwhile, we make a nice packet selling you off as slaves.”
“S-slaves?”
“Sure. There’s plenty of demand for manual or domestic workers and plenty of countries
in this part of the world with isolated settlements where they can be kept in security and
just worked until they drop. But for young girls, we get better prices from Japanese
brothels which will take you, hook you on drugs and then you’ll happily service a
never-ending queue of brutal Jap men just to get your daily fix.” He grinned and Nicky
shuddered. “Between the drugs and syphilis and AIDs, life expectancy there isn’t much
more than three or four years, which is great news for us ‘cause they’re always coming
back for fresh meat.”
Two girls looked at him in mute horror. Nicky felt herself go cold and clammy despite
the heat.
“However,” he went on, “you two might strike it lucky. We’ve got a couple of other
places which take only the prettiest of girls. Life there is no picnic either, but at
least they safeguard their investment and you’ll live to a ripe old age.” He got up,
still smiling evilly. “I recommend that you persuade the boss you’d fetch a good enough
price to be worth the trouble of sending you there.” He left them, closing and locking
the door behind him.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” the Nigerian girl muttered to herself.
“This can’t be happening! It must be a dream!” Nicky said. “They’re bluffing! Aren’t
they? They’ve got to be bluffing! I’m a British citizen! They can’t do this to me!”
Nicky realised that this sounded racist and forced herself to meet the coloured girl’s
eyes. “Sorry,” she said quietly.
“It’s all right,” the girl said. Somehow, that last exchange had led to them both
calming down a little. She extended her hand. “I’m Janet Oluscumi.”
“Nicky Downing.”
The two girls surveyed each other. Nicky saw a pretty, friendly face above a superb,
slim figure dressed in a summery dress, whilst the African took in Nicky’s silky
cherry-red hair which brushed her shoulders and framed a very cute face which belied her
inner competitiveness. Nicky had a very fit, well-toned and shapely body clad in t-shirt,
shorts and simple trainers. Only her cat-like balance, her weight always on the balls of
her feet, hinted at her prowess in her combat sport.
They shifted their attention to finding some way out of the room, but it was quite
clearly hopeless. As they did so, Janet said quietly, “I don’t think they’re bluffing
about the Japanese thing.”
Nicky shuddered. As a serious sports player, she had always been fiercely anti-drugs to
the point of phobia and the thought of that fate made her feel sick. “We’ll get rescued,”
she insisted; “or we’ll escape.”
Janet shot her a withering look. “Get real,” she said sharply.
“But this can’t be! It can’t!”
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