Anna’s chaotic thoughts were interrupted as the van drew to a halt. She tried to get up, but as the van doors opened, her collar was grabbed and a cloth was wrapped over her head, before she was dragged roughly out and down some steps. The man holding her growled,"Mind!"and held her up by the collar. A door grated and she was flung forward, stumbling on to her knees as the chain stopped her from keeping her balance and the door slammed. Her hands were cuffed together in front and held down by the chain that connected them to her feet, but she was able to bend forward and pull the cloth from her head.
She was in a small, earth-floored brick room. It was cold, damp and very dirty. The dingy walls were covered with a mossy growth. Spiders had made webs over the small, high, barred window, which was devoid of glass and was obviously intended as a ventilator. A broken chair with only three legs was the only other thing in the place apart from a couple of old, mouldy cardboard cartons lying in a corner.  Already, she wished she were somewhere else, anywhere other than this dungeon of a place.
Her wish was not granted. "Face the wall!" came a voice through the door.  "If you look round. I’ll be forced to kill you. Stand still!" She stood facing the wall and a hand came round and the padlock on her collar came open. The hand came down and unlocked the chain on her cuffs, then the chain dragged over the floor and there was a little clinking sound. The door grated closed and was locked. Anna looked round and found she was alone.  The chain which was still fastened to the one between her ankles, was padlocked to a loop in the wall. Plainly, she was not going anywhere for a while!
Meanwhile, back in the courthouse there was plenty of activity. The Judge rang the police commander for a situation report. "The fire at the house is out, sir," he reported, "and we have found Masterson. He is O.K., only bruised. His report can wait until after midday. The body of one of the criminals  has been brought back to the mortuary and the forensic science people will have a report tomorrow. It is quite clear, though, that Masterson killed her. She was still holding a pistol when we picked her up."
"Good," said the Judge,"How about the locators?"
"Only one of those in the house was still functioning, but two have been moved and are working satifactorily. The signal strength is low, so they must be somewhere low in the ground, but their position is very near to the place we suspected was the pick-up spot. I have sent two men to make an inspection." he repied.
"I trust that those two are reliable. I would not like the villians to be alerted to us." the judge said doubtfully.
"No worry on that account, sir. I briefed them personally. They are two of my best." the chief replied, "But you know Masterson; he insisted on being part of the assault team and knowing of your relationship to him, I have not given him permission. Do you wish him to take part?"
"Not directly," the Judge ordered," young Masterson is to be given special responsibility for the girl. Brief him to avoid any risks to her as far as possible in the circumstances and to bring her back alive and well. "When do you propose to make the assault?"
"I will depend on the report from my two surveillance men, sir" the chief replied. "Those three  are only small fry. I -  I mean we - must go beyond them and net the leaders. I would not expect there to be any movement in the situation before dark."
"Keep me posted. You know I have a personal interest in this matter as well as a professional one." the Judge concluded.
"Yessir, wilco." was the reply.
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The Judge’s concern for Anna’s welfare when the weather was so hot, was not completely sincere. Whilst she was outside, chained to the post in the garden, one of his officers had been inserting tiny electronic devices, ‘locators’, into her clothes, which when interrogated by an electrical signal, emitted a signal themselves, indicating their position to a monitor in a police vehicle. There were two locators sewn into Anna’s two-piece outfit. No-one but the undercover officer, the chief of police and the Judge knew about this until after she had been abducted.
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Anna, chained to the wall, handcuffed and fettered, gagged with the ball-gag was in a sorry state after the first few hours. She was cold, hungry and more distressingly, thirsty, because nobody had been near her after the man had chained her to the wall. She could move about to a certain extent in the room, with a little difficulty due the the chain between her ankles, but when she got tired of standing and tried to sit on the broken chair, it had tipped her off on to the dirt floor, so now she was dirty as well as all her other troubles.
Every hour the report came through to the police commander," No change. All quiet. The woman is still in the brick hut. The three kidnappers are still in the main building."
Then at 5-29 p.m.,"One of the men, masked with a Balaclava helmet, is aproaching the hut. He is taking the woman into the main bulding. Masterson is following."
Anna  was led, blindfolded, by the masked man up a stone step and brought to a staircase. The fetters prevented her from reaching her foot up to the first step and the masked man cursed, threw her over his shoulder and carried her with much panting and groaning up three flights and along a carpeted corridor into a large room.

A blindfold device was strapped round her head as the cloth was removed.  When she felt it with her cuffed hands, the fellow  said, "Leave it! If you see any of us, you’re dead!" She felt it and discovered it was a leather and steel thing that blocked every trace of light from her eyes and was absolutely immovable. Steel bars on either side of her nose kept it centralised and two straps above and below it stopped it from being lifted or  lowered. She felt her clothes being cut off again and being dragged along. Warm water gushed over her body and she opened her mouth gratefully.  She felt as if she had been in a desert, she was so thirsty. Hands rubbed her. Fingers poked into her everywhere. A rough cloth dried her and something was thrust into her mouth. It was not a gag, it was edible!! She chewed and swallowed, not knowing what she was eating, but unable to stop herself enjoying the taste and the end of the awful hollow feeling in her stomach. Several times, food was fed to her roughly and crudely, until she could eat no more and shook her head when more was presented to her closed mouth. A cup of liquid was presented to her and she swallowed a slightly bitter drink. She tried to say,"No more!" Immediately, the ball gag was rammed back in her mouth and fastened behind her head. The chain on her cuffs was pulled and she stumbled forwards blindly. She could tell, from the fact that her feet made no sound, that they were in a carpeted room. The chain was pulled up, over her head and then she heard it being fastened.  Nothing was said. Nothing else happened until she heard a door close.
Masterson followed the man carrying Anna up the stairs. He did not need to be very careful about making noise; the fellow carrying Anna was making enough to drown the noise of an elephant following him. He came behind the man and would have hit him, but the fellow turned into a room and pulled the door to behind him. Masterson looked round for any possible cover. He tried the door of an adjacent room. It was not locked and he opened it quietly.  Stacked along one wall, there were rows of small metal drums, all tightly sealed. He did not dare to try to open one, after finding that it would require a hammer and would make more noise than he thought would go unnoticed. He thought that the rest of the force would have to deal with whatever they contained. Here was no cover in that room, so he crept quietly out again and gently opened the door to the room where Anna had been taken.  He saw Anna’s clothes being cut off her and being taken into the shower and the two other villains mishandling her. It was hard for him not to dash in there and try to beat the men with his fists or anything else that might be handy. However, he restrained his temper and watched. He saw them chaining her hands above her head and moved away quickly when they appeared to be leaving the room. He ran silently down the corridor, trying the doors as he passed them. One was unlocked and he went in, finding more drums, this time the full 40-gallon size, stacked in double rows. There was a suitable place for him to hide here, so he radioed what he had seen back to base. Dusk was beginning to fall. He heard movement and several men in conversation, through the thin partition wall.
"No, she won’t be any trouble now she had the atromine. But have you given her an enema? That stuff makes you lose all control of everything. There’ll be a mess to clean up unless you act quickly. It weakens everything, not just the mind. You’d better fix her right now. O.K.?"
Another voice said," Jack will do it."
"Don’t forget, though, the first one called, "After the enema, she’ll start to recover. For an hour, she’ll be O.K., but after that, she’ll start being awkward. Her muscles will get back to normal. Oh, by the way, get her clothes and put them in the fire in the boiler room. We don’t want to leave any traces of her for the pigs to find after we’ve left here."
A third voice;" That’s enough about the woman. We’ll take her with the next load. Have you got everything ready? I’ll lead you."
There were sounds of people leaving and Master looked out through the crack of the slightly opened door. Two men wearing smart suits were going towards the stairs in front of two of the villains he had seen before. One turned to look and slammed the door closed. Master had just had time to duck back to avoid being seen.
‘I’m sure I’ve seen that face before." he thought.’I think he’s a business man from down town.’ He heard the sound of car engines being started. Soon afterwards, there was the crackle of gunfire and shouts of several men.  Master’s attention was not on them, though. He was anxious for Anna. He went back to  where he had seen her being hung up on the chain, but she was not there. Then he heard the voice of rat-faced Jack. He was saying "Come on now!" and holding Anna upright. Her legs were wobbly and she had an arm over his shoulder as he half-dragged and half lifted her as they came back to the place where she had been chained. It was easy for Master to creep up behind Jack. He never saw what hit him. Master had cracked him on the skull with a length of scaffold pipe left by the last legitimate owners of the building.  He lay out cold. Master felt his pulse. It was there, but very weak.
Anna had collapsed in a heap on the floor. He left Jack handcuffed with his own cuffs and turned to Anna. The naked girl was free of restraints except for a the blindfolding device, a collar and one handcuff on her right wrist.
She was apparently trying to get to her feet but did not have the strength to do so. He tried to help her get up, but she took a wild swing at him as he took her hand. She was incoherent and violent. Master overpowered her and fastened her other hand in the cuff. He held her to himself and she slowly began to calm down. He had nothing to cover her with, so he wrapped his uniform jacket round her shoulders. He radioed what he had done to base and was surprised to receive instructions directly from the Judge.
"It’s O.K. to talk freely on this radio," he heard." We have had encrypted radios for the last six months; the Press won’t get on to us just yet.  Bring the girl back, not to the courthouse, but to your own place."
Master replied, "O.K., but  she is drugged. I heard the name ‘atromine’ mentioned and that she had had an enema. Is there anything else I have to do?"
"No." came the reply," But keep her under restraint and as quiet as you can.
She will know everything that has happened, but her emotions will be quite out of control for the next couple of hours. Atromine has that effect as the victim comes out of it. She will scream abuse at you and everything and everybody if she’s allowed the slightest chance. Oh, and keep her out of sight. I needn’t tell you the trouble we’ll have if the reporters on the ‘Enquirer’ get wind of the details of what we’ve been doing. So as I said, Keep her under close restraint. She’s suppposed to be in chains all week, anyway, according to Court records. I’ll come and see you tomorrow. Until then, I’ve told the commander to order you sick leave."
Master acknowledged and signed off. Anna was staggering and thrashing about, apparently trying to get free of the handcuffs. His jacket had fallen off her and was lying on the floor. When she saw him looking at her she shouted, "Get these off! Let me go!  You’re as bad as those filthy beasts! Mmmfm!"
as
Master pushed the ball-gag back in her mouth.

He looked out of the dirty window. It was almost dark. He could see only one policeman at the main door of the building. He guided Anna, holding to the back of her collar so that she could not attempt to kick at him with her bare feet, and by her arm, to support her, down the staircase and outside by the side door through which he had entered. As they passed the small brick building, she struggled again.
Master thought she was afraid she was going to be chained in there again.  He spoke soothingly, "Hush! You’re safe now. You won’t be going in there again. Quiet now! I’m taking you home."
She shook her head violently and tried to shake off his hand from her arm, but he controlled her and brought her to his car, which he had left a distance away from the scene of these events. With a little difficulty, he got her into the passenger seat, wrapped the uniform jacket back round her and fastened the seat belt. He returned to the hut and checked to see if there were anything there which might show she had been imprisoned there, but the room was completely bare.
Then they were off, back to the place where he lived alone, a mile out of town.
What till Anna experience next?  Is Master her friend or her jailer? Will she be free to talk to the Press? What will the Judge order for her now?  What has been happening to her friend Bella?
More in our next episode....