Heller (38 page)

About fifteen
minutes into his speech, a small group of women stood up and
started heckling Pastor Peachey. I sat up on my chair on full
alert, but my brief was to look after the wives, not to protect the
Pastor from dissent in the audience.

The women
appeared to be refugees from a polygamous cult who had dedicated
themselves to rescuing other women from the same fate. I’m sure
they were well-meaning but they were over-emotional and an easy
target for the abrasive tongue of the Pastor, who skilfully
ridiculed them and their claims, questioning their credibility.
They soon lost any support from the audience who had come to hear
about the blissful joys of polygamy, not about the sexual and
financial exploitation of young girls and women. The women were
booed down every time they tried to speak and eventually stormed
out of the meeting, throwing threats, obscene gestures and explicit
curses at the Pastor in particular, and the audience in general, as
they left.

I relaxed back
in my chair again, although I spent the rest of the boring lecture
keeping an eye on the hall’s entrance. Once the lecture was over,
we again left the Pastor in the hall while I escorted the women
back to their hotel room.

Walking across
the foyer to the lift, there was a fracas behind us. Without any
warning, I found myself being picked up by the elbows in two sets
of very strong hands and half-carried, half-dragged out the sliding
glass doors of the hotel’s entrance. I tried to twist around to
view my abductors, but they had such a tight hold on me I couldn’t
move. I presumed it was two men.

A woman, who I
recognised from the earlier altercation in the hall as one of the
hecklers, came rushing up from a dark van that was parked at the
entrance and shepherded the men towards the open side door of the
vehicle. The men tried to force me into the van but I decided not
to cooperate. I kicked, scratched and bit my assailants in wild
fury until one of them partially released his grip on my arm in
pain. I took the opportunity to kick him hard in his stomach and he
doubled over, letting me go. But there was still the other goon who
picked up his partner’s slack by roughly throwing me into the van
and attempting to slide the door shut on me. I forced my boot into
the door entry and grimaced as he slammed the door hard on my foot.
Repeatedly.
Bastard!

He leant over
trying to push my foot back into the van, and I raised my leg
suddenly and collected him under the chin with the full force of my
boot. He fell back clutching his neck and I flung back the door,
jumped out of the van and, head down like a bull, charged him in
the stomach. He lost his balance and fell back hard onto the
concrete.

“What the hell
do you people think you’re doing?” I screamed at the woman, who was
cowering next to the cabin of the van.

“We want to
rescue you from that life of servitude,” she trembled. “I noticed
you seemed really uncomfortable during the lecture. You don’t look
as though you belong in that lifestyle. I wanted to get you away
before you become brainwashed like them.” She pointed to the wives,
who were huddled at the entrance, watching everything with huge
eyes and horrified expressions.

I began to
tell her just how mistaken she was when the first goon, recovered,
made another attempt to get me into the van. He swept me off my
feet and not in a romantic way either, flinging me over his
shoulder, fireman-style. I punched and kicked him viciously. He
crushed me so hard with his arms that I had trouble breathing.

“For God’s
sake! Are you insane or something?” I wheezed, continuing to hit
out feebly. “Let me down. I’m not one of the wives.”

He wasn’t
listening though, concentrating on squeezing me so hard I thought I
was going to throw up. The wives ran to him and started pummelling
him with their fists and feet, until he was surrounded by angry
women assaulting him. He staggered around, unbalanced by my
squirming weight on his shoulder and being attacked from every
direction. Rebecca was pulling cruelly on his hair and Mary was
valiantly trying to gouge out his eyes. Elizabeth was kicking his
shins, and Sarah and Hannah were punching him weakly on his torso
and back. It was Gulliver and the Lilliputians re-enacted in front
of a run-down hotel, but unfortunately without a happy ending. He
dropped and shoved me unceremoniously into the van and slammed the
door, helping his fellow goon up and into the front of the van. The
woman jumped into the driver’s seat after them and we all screeched
off into the darkness.

It was the
kind of van that had a solid partition between the cabin and the
back, so I couldn’t see or hear my abductors. There were no windows
in the back either and that meant it was pitch black inside. I was
very disoriented and tossed around as they drove recklessly fast
away from the hotel. I clung on to the floor desperately. When the
van pulled up at what I thought might be a set of lights, I sprung
over to open the sliding side door to escape, but there was no
internal handle. You couldn’t open the door from the inside. There
was no escape for me.

I started to
panic, not having been in this situation before, when I gave myself
a good mental shake.
Calm down and think
, I instructed
myself. So I sat down on the dirty floor and asked myself a
question: what did I have that could help me? The answer I gave
myself almost made me weep with joy. My phone! I had my mobile with
me. I dug it out of the deep pocket of Mary’s dress and dialled
Heller’s number.

“Hello, my
sweet. You’re ringing me early tonight.”

“Heller . . .
um . . . this is embarrassing, but I’ve kind of been
kidnapped.”

Silence at the
other end. “You’ve been kidnapped?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know
who they are or what they want?”

I sighed
shakily. “They think I’m one of the wives, and they’re trying to
rescue me from a life of servitude with the Pastor. I guess they
want to deprogram me. I’m in a van with no windows and no
escape.”

“Did you tell
them that you’re not a wife? Why would they even think you were one
in the first place?”

“Because I’m
dressed like the wives. It was the Pastor’s wish that I blend in
with them.” A muffled noise issued from the receiver. My blood
boiled. “Heller, are you
laughing
at me? Because it’s not
the slightest bit funny from where I’m standing. I’m being
kidnapped! And anyway, you’re the one who told him that he could
have any arrangement that suited his needs. Me looking like a wife
suited his needs, and now I’m being kidnapped because of that.
So it’s all your fault!
” Yep, I was definitely starting to
lose it.

“Okay Matilda,
stay calm and don’t panic,” he said coolly, no further sign of
laughter. “Did you manage to note the number plate of the van so I
can see who we’re dealing with?” I hadn’t. “That doesn’t matter.
Your mobile phone has a GPS tracking system that we can turn on and
monitor from here, so don’t worry, I’ll be able to find you soon.
Are you hurt?”

My voice had
an emotional wobble in it that I couldn’t hide. “They roughed me up
a bit. There are three of them – a woman and two big men. The men
had a struggle to get me inside the van. I almost escaped from
them. Almost.”

“I bet you
made it as hard as you could for them,” he comforted gently. “I’m
going to hang up now so I can organise Sid to track the GPS and
Clive and I will come to rescue you. Be patient and brave please,
my sweet. I’m sure these people don’t mean to hurt you.”

“Thank you,” I
sniffed and then I was alone again in the back of the van. I sat
quietly, conserving my energy, thinking of what I’d do when they
finally stopped and opened the door. Maybe there was something in
the van that could help me. I felt around cautiously on the floor
with my hand to my left but didn’t find anything useful, just some
discarded fast food wrappings. I felt around to my right and ditto,
until my hand came up against a metal box secured to the wall of
the van. I moved my fingers up its side until they hooked onto a
lid, slightly ajar. I opened the box and carefully felt inside,
hoping it wasn’t full of mousetraps, cacti or scorpions.

Hmm, tools, I
realised as I cautiously ran my fingers over the contents. A
toolbox. Tools are handy – there’s a lot you can do with tools. You
can make things, you can fix things, you can use them as weapons.
My fingers closed over a long screwdriver. Oh yeah, that would make
a good weapon. I pulled it free from the toolbox and slid it into
my deep pocket. It’s just amazing what you can keep in a deep
pocket.

We drove along
for another ten minutes, according to my watch. I wondered what
Heller was doing and fought the urge to ring him again. I wondered
if the wives had managed to get to their room safely. I wondered
how on earth these people thought that kidnapping a woman would
predispose her to: one, take them seriously, or two, be willing to
cooperate with them in any way. Because I was feeling pretty damn
disobliging at that moment and more than ready to let them know
about it.

The van slowed
down and we made a left hand turn, bumping down a road pocked with
potholes. Of course I couldn’t see anything, so didn’t know if we
were headed for a castle or a caravan, but it felt as though we
were nearing our destination. The van stopped and it sounded as
though everyone in the front got out. I tensed, waiting for the
door to slide open, but nothing happened. Nobody came for me and I
sat in the back, no idea what was going on, my anxiety growing with
each minute that elapsed (another ten of them so far, according to
my watch). They weren’t going to leave me here all night by myself,
surely? Maybe I was meant to be mulling things over and they were
giving me some quiet solitary time in which to do so.

Suddenly the
door was flung back, making me jump. Three faces peered into the
van at me. I brandished my screwdriver with as much menace as I
could muster. Six eyes widened in surprise.

“Get back and
stay away from me!” I warned, thrusting the evil screwdriver in
front of me and slithering towards the door. I didn’t want to give
them the chance to shut the door on me again. I was going to stab
one of them if they came anywhere near me, I was that angry.

“Aw geez,
Alan! Didn’t you take your tools out first?” one goon said to the
other, annoyed.

The other goon
shrugged apologetically. “Sorry Jonno. I was flat-out at work today
and came straight here afterwards. I forgot.”

“We’re not
going to hurt you,” said the woman soothingly, her palms held up in
the universal symbol of peace.

“Yeah, well I
plan on hurting you plenty if you come any closer, bitch,” I
snarled, and jabbed the screwdriver towards her ferociously. She
jumped back in fright, offended by my aggressiveness.

“That’s not a
very Christian thing to say. Is that what Peachey has been teaching
you?”

“Look, let’s
get something straight. I am
not
one of Peachey’s wives. I’m
a security officer hired to protect them from . . . well I guess,
from people like you.” A little white lie never hurt anyone and I
was sure that they’d never go checking to verify my licence.

Jonno
scratched his head. “Why are you dressed like them, then?”

I sighed and
lowered the screwdriver. “Because Peachey made me. He wanted me to
blend in with his wives so nobody would know that he had hired
security.”

Three sets of
shoulders slumped in unison.

“Wow,” said
Alan, shaking his head and looking at his accomplices. “We really
fucked this up, didn’t we? We grabbed the only one who isn’t a
wife.”

The woman gave
a resigned laugh. “I suppose that would explain why you appeared so
disgruntled and bored. And why that dress doesn’t fit you properly.
But we knew he had six wives, and there were six wives on display.
Come on, you must agree it was a reasonable conclusion to reach.
How were we meant to know one of the wives wasn’t real?”

“I suppose,” I
conceded reluctantly. “The other wife is back home minding the
kids. Didn’t you even twig when I spoke without an American
accent?” They glanced at each other sheepishly.

“What’s your
name?” she asked me.

“Tilly.”

“Come on,
Tilly. Come up to the house and have a cup of tea.”

I slid the
screwdriver back into my pocket, just in case, and we all trooped
up to the house and took a seat on its wide, sheltered veranda. She
made the tea and soon I was enjoying a hot brew with my kidnappers.
The woman introduced herself as Carla, explained that she had
joined a polygamous marriage in a cult when she was sixteen,
escaped with her four children when she was thirty-five, and had
now made it her life’s work to campaign against polygamy. Alan and
Jonno were brothers, her cousins, and they weren’t really goon-like
at all once you got to know them better. They were actually quite
friendly. Alan was a carpenter and Jonno a guitar player in a local
bluegrass band.

I suggested to
them that kidnapping polygamous wives and trying to deprogram them
probably wasn’t the way to garner support and that instead perhaps
they should hit the media, polygamy being such a hot topic at the
moment with the Pastor’s visit. They promised to think about it.
Then to be fair, I said, “Look, have you even asked the wives if
they want to leave? They are adults, you know. It’s a weird
situation and makes me uncomfortable, but they don’t seem unhappy
to me. They seem to really enjoy each other’s company.” And that
made them think even harder.

I had taken
the last few sips of my tea and placed the cup gently back on the
saucer when Heller’s Mercedes screeched up the driveway at a
dangerous speed for the night-time road conditions, skidding to a
sudden stop. Heller and Clive jumped out, guns in their hand. I
don’t know anything about guns, so couldn’t say what kind they
were. But wow! Real guns! That really put my screwdriver to shame.
I waved at them while the other three tensed in alarm. It’s not
every day two huge, furious, gun-toting men descend on your house.
Heller quickly assessed the situation and ordered Clive to holster
his weapon, as he did the same.