The Collectors Estate

Part One - The Convention

The Democratic Association of Businesswomen's National Convention

Houston, Texas

3:00PM

Three unmarked black semi trucks backed into the loading docks at the center where the convention was held. The event had been underway since eight that morning. Proceedings were the usual drudgery associated with business conferences. The convention center floor was lined with booths and stalls, each operated by and visited by sharply dressed women in efforts to promote, grow and market their businesses and products.

Outside, four white delivery trucks arrived. From the cargo area of each truck emerged twenty men dressed in white. Each man carried a medium-sized box in his arms. Into the convention center went the men, each truck's passengers entering into a different entrance into the building in an orderly single-file line.

The convention carried on. The three hundred attendees went about their business as usual. The mood was light and the business day was nearly over. Many of the attendees looked forward to returning to their hotels or homes. Pleasantries were exchanged, cards exchanged and information traded.

In staging areas just inside four separate entrances, four groups of twenty men in white opened their boxes. Inside were the tools of their trade. They were mercenaries and they were here to recruit for the group now known as The Collectors Estate.

Swiftly and quietly the men emerged from the staging areas. Security and administration were neutralized first, then services and concessions were next. Two concessions employees, both female, were removed to the back loading area where they were to be held pending orders.

Swiftly and quietly the men entered the convention floor. By ones and twos women were directed to the rear wall of the convention area. Escape attempts were blocked by guards at every door. The situation for the women was helpless and soon all of them were lined up against the rear wall of the convention area, their wrists bound behind their back by plastic ties and their mouths taped shut with silver duct tape. A detailed sweep of the convention floor produced three women hiding in their booths. Like their fellows, these women were guided to the rear wall, bound and gagged.

An all-clear signal was radioed and, in the parking lot, the door of a sleek black town car opened. Out stepped a man in a black suit and sunglasses. He nodded to one of the men that had assumed the guise of a security guard as he entered the front door of the facility. The guard nodded back and resumed his vigil for unexpected guests.

The man in the black suit entered the convention floor area. As he opened the door, the barrel of a machine gun swept toward his head. On the other end of the barrel was a man's face, now covered by a white mask. The man was dressed in a white delivery uniform.

As soon as the man in white saw the face of the man in black, he lowered his weapon and pointed to the rear wall. The man in black nodded and turned toward the rear wall, removing his sunglasses as he walked. The man in black was tall, about six feet and four inches tall. He had a broad chest and strong arms under his tailored business coat. The man's blonde hair was short and spiked up with hair-styling gel. He had whipped his slave many times over the space of many weeks until she could style his hair properly and exactly every time she dressed him. His face was angular and sharp-looking and set with cold, grey eyes that seemed to almost literally pierce anything upon which their gaze fell.

He approached the line of women against the wall. They could not see him yet, though, as they had been forced against the wall with their backs to the room so their wrists could be bound. He walked the length of the line of women, his cold eyes looking each one from top to bottom, and seeming to take in every curve of their bodies, every sweep of their hair, every thickness of ankle and thinness of wrist in a split second. In short order, he reached the end of the line of women. He seemed to be looking for something in particular. Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for, and he pulled a woman away from the wall. She shrieked behind her tape gag as he dragged her away from the wall by her hair.

"Shut up." He said, and there seemed to be carried in his voice a sense that he should be obeyed or the consequences would be dire. The woman fell silent at once.

"Turn them around now." He ordered the mercenaries watching the women. One by one, the women were turned around to face the room and the men and woman standing before them. The blonde man had some kind of accent, but it was not easy to identify.

The man tore the tape from the lips of the woman standing in front of him. He indicated to the mercenary standing near him to cut the bonds holding her wrists. The mercenary deftly slashed the simple bit of plastic, freeing the woman's hands. She rubbed her wrists and looked at the man, not knowing quite what to do.

"Strip out of your clothing." The man commanded, his piercing eyes looking directly into hers.

"What?" The woman asked, startled. "No!"

With a barely-perceptible nod, the man indicated the mercenary nearest him again. There was a quiet puff and suddenly the woman standing before the man in black fell down at his feet. From the rear wall of the room there were muffled screams and shrieks as the mercenary lowered his weapon. A couple of the women tried to run only to be forcibly thrown back against the wall by others of the mercenaries.

"You will obey or you will die!" The man shouted in his odd accent at the remaining women at the back wall. "If you do exactly as you are told, you may live. If you do not..." He indicated the lifeless body of the woman that had been shot in the head and was now being dragged away by two men. There was no sound as the women watched the body being dragged away. Aside from a couple of drops of blood on the carpet, there was no indication the woman had even been injured.

The man in black indicated the woman on the leftmost end of the line. A mercenary dragged her forward. She was blonde, obviously not naturally, short and petite. She was brought before the man in black. He tore the tape from her mouth.

"Please!" The woman began to beg.

"Silence!" The man in black commanded. "You will shut up or die." Instantly, the woman was silent, except for her sobs. Her wrists were cut free and she was ordered to strip naked.

Slowly, almost robotic, the woman moved her hand to the button of her business jacket. Angry-looking red marks still showed from where her wrists had been tightly bound with the plastic strip. She slowly slipped the jacket from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. As it did, she let out a small sob, knowing what was to come next. She unbuttoned her blue silk shirt, hesitantly letting it slip off her shoulders to the floor, revealing a lacy blue bra underneath. With a horrified glance at the man holding the gun on her, she reached behind her back and unzipped her black skirt and let it fall to the floor with her shirt and jacket. Standing in front of the man in black on the now silent convention room floor in front of nearly three hundred women and several strange men, the woman looked pleadingly into the man in black's face, but his face was stone. His grey eyes penetrated her with a cold, dreadful look that told her instantly that she would either comply with his orders or he would have her killed just the same as the woman before her. She knew that she didn't matter to him. To him, she was barely more than a piece of meat; an animal to be ordered and herded, or to be slaughtered if she resisted.

Knowing any pleas she offered would fall on deaf ears and would very likely get her killed, the short blonde woman stepped out of her shoes, pushed her stockings to her ankles and stepped out of them. She then removed her bra, very slowly letting it fall away from her now naked chest. All that remained were her lacy blue panties that matched the bra that was now in the heap of clothing at her feet. The man in black offered no sign that she should leave them on and he offered no sign of mercy either, so she slipped the panties off her hips, what little of them there were, and to the floor with the rest of her clothing. She now stood completely naked before the cold gaze of the man in black's dead, grey eyes.

"Step back to the wall. Place your hands behind your back and be quiet." He commanded her. Without hesitating, she walked to the wall, clasped her hands behind her back and stood silently.

The man in black now walked down the line of women, speaking loudly and clearly as he walked from one end of the line of women to the other end and back again. He said, "You will all be unbound and your gags removed now so that each of you may remove your clothing. You will do so quickly and quietly. If any of you try to beg for mercy, these men will shoot you. If you try to run away, these men will shoot you. If you do not remove your clothing quickly and efficiently, these men will shoot you."

He had reached the end of the line of women, and was again standing before the now naked blonde woman. He looked at her as he spoke, but he was speaking to all of the women and they knew it. He said in his accented voice, "You mean nothing to us and are easily replaceable. Cooperate and you may live to see another day. Resist and you will die here on this floor. Now! All of you, turn around and hold your wrists away from your bodies. These men will cut your bonds."

In unison, the women all turned around and held their hands away from their bodies as well as they could. There were muffled sound of sobbing and whimpers coming from various women along the line. These sounds were completely ignored by the men that were now going from woman to woman down the line. The men cut the women's bound wrists and then turned them around and removed the tape gagging their mouths. In short moments, the men were finished.

"Strip completely, all of you," called the man in black. The sobs of the women increased in volume as the command was uttered. One woman, whether by accident or on purpose, let out a ragged sob of despair that was immediately followed by another quiet puff and she fell to the ground, motionless. A small hole directly above her left eye and a drop of blood on her forehead were the only indications that she'd even been injured. Two men instantly dragged the body away.

The women, horrified, all removed their clothing as quickly as possible. Each garment was dropped on the floor either at the feet of the owner or slightly in front of her. As the women undressed, the man in black approached one of the mercenaries and said quietly, "Tell your men to start phase two."

The mercenary said, "Yes sir" and walked toward the convention booths, gesturing to some of his men as he walked. The men went booth by booth and stall by stall collecting purses, handbags and wallets. Each group of men was soon joined by another man holding a sturdy canvas bag into which the bags and wallets were deposited. Once a bag was full, another man would take the bagman's place and the process continued uninterrupted.

The man in black had taken from his jacket pocket a red marker and was walking the line of women, inspecting each one and marking them. In just a few seconds, the man in black could size up a woman. It seemed he was used to this sort of thing. He could instantly discern bra size, height, weight almost to the kilo and whether or not the women had any surgical enhancements. One woman at a time he inspected, first the front and then the rear. He would mark their bra size on their breasts and height in centimeters and weight in kilos on the back of each of their right shoulders. If a woman had piercings, other than her ears, then the piercings were indicated by a red circle. If a woman had breast enhancements, then he would circle their breasts and mark and X over them. Other enhancements were marked as well. Red marks went on lips, cheekbones, even some women's hips and buttocks. Finally, after each woman had been inspected, a letter was written on each woman's forehead. Each woman was marked with one of the following letters: S, E, A, B, or X.

After each woman was graded, she was led away by a mercenary to the loading dock. There were four men stationed in the dock already. As a woman was led into the loading dock, one man took note of the letter on her forehead. Those with an S or E were escorted into the cargo area of one truck, those women with A or B were placed into another truck, and the women labeled with an X were placed in the last truck. Once the woman was led into the appropriate truck, she was pushed to her knees and told to stay where she was. One man stood guard at the open cargo door of each truck to keep watch on the women inside.

Escape from the trucks was unlikely. Not only did the men watching the trucks have machine guns, but the loading area was enclosed. The loading area worked like most loading areas work. The actual loading area itself was just a large, open room with several bays closed off by large doors that rolled upwards. A truck that was to be loaded or unloaded would back up to the door, the door would be opened and then the back cargo doors of the semi trailer would be opened inward or rolled upward, depending on the design of the truck. In any case, trucks were backed up flush with the bay doors. Foam padding even lined the outside of each bay to ensure that a flush seal was maintained and that trucks were not damaged when they backed to the doors. So, it was impossible for the women in the trucks to just jump out and run away, because they would just be running right back into the building.

In just under two and a half hours, all the women were stripped, marked and sorted into trucks. The truck doors were closed and the bay doors closed and sealed. The mercenaries had removed their masks and stashed their guns in the bags that they had placed the women's purse and wallets in earlier. Each mercenary walked out of the building loaded himself back into a white delivery truck and the trucks were driven away, followed by the semi trucks carrying the nearly three hundred bound and gagged women.

Finished with his work, the man in black put his sunglasses back on, walked out of the building, returned to his car and indicated to the driver to continue on to their next destination. All that was left of the women were many piles of clothing and many, many empty booths and stalls. The convention center was empty and deadly quiet.

The following day, a newspaper ran the following story:

Slaughter at the Convention Center

The city is in a state of shock today as the bodies of twenty-three people were found slain in the Convention Center late last night. The bodies appear to be members of the Convention Center security and staff. Along with the bodies of the staff, the bodies of two women identified as attendees of The Democratic Association of Businesswomen's National Convention which was being held at the Convention Center through tomorrow.

The bodies were discovered last night by the cleaning crew. It appears that all of the dead had received a single gunshot wound to the head. When asked for a comment, the Medical Examiner's office said that 'death was instantaneous.'

In addition to the dead, all of the members of the convention are missing in what can only be called the largest non-airline-related kidnapping in history. When asked to comment on who could have arranged and executed this heinous crime, police officials were only able to say, "This horrible act could only have been the work of professionals. At this time, we are not ruling out the possibility that this is an act of terrorism."

Among the missing are...

The story continued and the mystery lingered.