Protection 101 Part Two

 

            Arthur was laying on his couch and thinking about the great work he and his friends had accomplished at the warehouse but a small concern rose in his mind regarding the evidence left behind, possible fingerprints, and if anyone came across the room or the bodies they had buried inside the warehouse. “Phew, we need to do something to make sure that everything we did there cannot be traced back to any of us,” he thought, “time for a phone call to Jonathan.”

               He sat up, retrieved his cellphone from the coffee table to his immediate right, hit speed dial to connect with Jonathan. After two rings, Jonathan answered with a sound of excitement and concern, “Hey Arthur, what’s going on with you? Did you find more pedophiles who will be released soon?”

               “Hi Jonathan, no I have not,” Arthur answered, “I check my sources every few days and it will be at least six months before any criminals like this will be released. I was laying here thinking about the work we did at the warehouse and I came up with the idea of installing surveillance cameras there in case anyone comes across the room or the bodies we buried.”

               “Oh, yes, that is a good idea,” Jonathan answered, “I’ll make some phone calls and see if we can raise some money to buy that equipment, I’ll get on that right away and let you know what is decided in my conversations with the other guys. This might take a couple of days of dialog.”

               Two more days passed and Arthur continued to be troubled by the thought about their work at the warehouse, concerned that their involvement could be exposed, until Jonathan finally called him back with confirmation that everyone agreed with his concerns, and that money had been raised to purchase the surveillance equipment. “That is awesome to hear,” Arthur said, “you and I need to get together as soon as possible, buy the equipment and get it installed, I can connect the video feed to a cellphone that we can leave at the warehouse to provide constant video feedback.”

               “Let’s get together tonight after dinner,” Jonathan said, “I have the money so we can buy what is needed, travel over to the warehouse, get everything installed, and take care of our concerns about exposure.”

               “That would be perfect,” Arthur said, “pick me up at six-thirty, that’ll give us enough time to buy what we need and get it installed in the warehouse.” Arthur finished his dinner by six o’clock, giving him time to think through the details of setting up the equipment, and thirty minutes later Jonathan knocked on his door. The two men climbed into Jonathan’s car, drove to an electronics store, quickly finding what they needed, paid for the equipment and drove across town to the abandoned warehouse, to thankfully find it empty and void of activity.

               While it was still light out, Arthur installed one surveillance camera in the torture room and a second in the warehouse overlooking the area where they had buried the bodies. The cameras were carefully placed, intentionally out of view, the wiring was run from both cameras to the router which fed the two video feeds into the cellphone and after a few minutes Arthur confirmed that the video feeds were fully functional.

               Jonathan parked his car near the main entrance to Arthur’s apartment building. “The cameras are set up to record whenever there is any motion or activity,” Arthur said, “I’ll let you know if there is any activity, let’s hope that no one stumbles across our previous work.” Arthur hurried into his apartment, turned on the video feeds to a separate laptop to happily see no activity.

               At eight o’clock the next evening, his laptop released a ding, pulling him away from the evening news to see that a group of eight middle-aged men had entered the warehouse with a college age girl and a college age young man. Arthur then placed a phone call to Jonathan, urging him to hurry over, pick him up and make a trip to the warehouse because someone was currently making use of the space.

               Jonathan quickly dropped what he was doing, drove as fast as he could to retrieve Arthur, to hurry across town to the abandoned warehouse to enter through a rear door and from a position of obscurity, they watched as the men became violent with the girl and the young man. Three of the older men held cellphones and began recording what hoped would soon take place.

               The young man approached the college age girl and began speaking to her. “Miss, I am sorry that you are going through this,” he said, “I don’t know who these men are, they grabbed me off of the sidewalk and I presume they abducted you as well?” Through uncontrolled tears and sobs, the girl confirmed his suspicions.

               “After they abducted me,” he said, “they gave me two options, my first choice was to remove all of your clothing and rape you while they recorded the event and also have it live streamed. The second option they gave me was that they would chain me to a nearby wall, and force me to watch all eight of them gang rape you with extreme violence. I chose the first but be assured that I will be gentle, I have never been with a woman before, so I will be considerate of your physical and mental wellbeing.”

                The girl stood up, gave the young man a hug and thanked him for being kind and considerate. “Go ahead and get started,” she said, “please don’t climax inside of me, I cannot become pregnant at this time, that would be a horrible situation.”

               “Yes, of course,” he said, “I will be gentle and careful with you. I will keep my attention on any opportunity for us to escape this terrible situation, there is always a possibility that someone will come along to assist us.”

               Jonathan and Arthur slipped on their ski masks and picked up their baseball bats to silently creep across the warehouse toward the eight men surrounding the college girl and young man. With sudden and aggressive swings, they began breaking bones to watch the cellphones drop to the floor, as the men dropped one by one, Jonathan hurried toward the frightened couple and assured them that they were there to help them escape. “I’ll call the police right now,” he said, “we’ll do our best to stay in contact with both you to make sure that you’re doing well.”

               All eight men were subdued, rendered unconscious, and given multiple broken bones, while Jonathan placed a call to 911. “We have easily twenty minutes before the police arrive,” he said, “we need to be going, please don’t give a description of us to the authorities, tell them that we were wearing masks and rescued you from this horrible crime.”

               Arthur and Jonathan hurried across the warehouse and fled through the rear door to drive away in the opposite direction from which the police would likely approach. They rushed back to Arthur’s apartment and watched the video surveillance feeds to see six police officers enter the warehouse and begin interacting with the college girl and young man. The eight broken men were dragged from the warehouse, put in handcuffs, and presumably incarcerated. A team of EMT’s arrived to verify the physical wellbeing of the college girl and the young man.

               “Wow, that was really good thinking, Arthur,” Jonathan said, “we are continuing our good work of protecting the innocent, because you had that idea, we were able to rescue two people from a very bad situation.” The two men continued to watch the video feeds and were thrilled and somewhat frightened when a very large team of crime scene investigators scoured through the warehouse, uncovered the buried bodies and were hopeful that the eight men were presumed to be the culprits responsible for these multiple deaths.

               “Okay, Arthur,” Jonathan said, “keep doing your secret research and find out the identities of the girl, the young man, and the eight criminals, and how and when their trials will take place. The more we know the better.”

               “Yes, no problem at all,” Arthur answered, “I will have no trouble hacking into the necessary systems to gather all we need to know, this is a remarkable turn of luck that the discovery of the bodies will be blamed on someone else, these are clearly very bad people who would do such a thing to those who seem to be good people.”

               Letting out an aggressive yawn, Jonathan stood up, excused himself, and shuffled to the door to drive home before he became too sleepy as the hour had become quite late.

               “I’ll begin my research tomorrow morning and will let you know what I find,” Arthur said, “honestly it may take a few days before the details of this crime scene become available or is spoken of in the news.” As Jonathan passed through Arthur’s front door, Arthur walked around his apartment, turned off the lights, turned down the heat, took a quick shower, and slid into bed with the scenes from that evening still playing in his mind.

               He rose the next morning, ate breakfast, and began a cursory review of police records and current news, to find that nothing had been documented yet about the crime scene at the abandoned warehouse. “Oof, I need to get ready for work, catch the bus before too long, and continue watching the news,” he grumbled.

               Three days passed when Arthur watched a brief report about the situation at the warehouse, which clarified that multiple bodies had been found buried and were obviously persons who had been tortured to death. The college girl confirmed with the police that the young man with her had been abducted as well and was working hard to protect her from the eight guilty men found lying around the warehouse. She also shared that two men in ski masks rushed into the warehouse and began beating the eight men with baseball bats, which led to their rescue and the phone call to the police.

               The police released an official statement about the situation, thanking the two good Samaritans for their efforts at helping the college girl and the young man, they also confirmed that the eight men who had been arrested were charged with multiple murder charges. No mention was made of the surveillance equipment that Arthur had placed in the warehouse.

               When the news report was finished, Arthur made a phone call to Jonathan about all that he had learned, and that he was still searching for the identity of the college girl and the young man. “We really should contact the young man and thank him for his acts of bravery and self-sacrifice,” Arthur said, “I’ll let you know when I find his name and address, we really need to encourage him and support him.”