An Employee Vanishes · Part 1 (1/2)
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Sarah Sterke was a very successful woman who owned and profitably operated her own business. Still on the right side of forty, she had a full figure yet still retained a somewhat girlish waist. Short, carefully tinted hair framed a square determined face that was obviously used to giving the orders. She dressed well and stylishly, as she could afford to.
Well over a decade back there had been a hard fought divorce in which she had taken her worthless husband very thoroughly to the cleaners.
This had given her the stake she used to start her business in the field of investment and computer research, national and international.
Responsible people might have questioned some of her dealings but she had been very successful. Now she had her own modern premises in a discreet part of the financial district. She lived above her office in a tasteful, well designed apartment. She employed three ladies, well qualified and well trained and who served her very well indeed.
On a typical day her three employees were in the office by eight thirty a.m. Her office supervisor, Donna would ascend the stairs and meet with Sarah in her private upstairs office. The two would talk briefly for a while, discussing any major business to be handled that day and the two would go down to the main business office and the day's work would begin. The two girls were Elizabeth and Bev. Tertiary educated and very computer literate in the field of international investment, they would be told what they needed to know to carry out the day's program. The whole office workings were extremely complicated yet as a rule everything worked smoothly and efficiently.
Some of the overseas information they handled was very valuable. Worth perhaps, millions.
What was surprising was that Donna, who was now responsible for the smooth running of the whole office had only been there for a little over three weeks and had been completely unknown before that. Yet it was as if she had been there for years. She herself could be described as having a good figure, fit and with shoulder length blonde hair with a face that might be described as attractive. She was reputed to be very well qualified for the job she had only been in for such a short time.
Prior to her coming the work supervisor had been a lady named Janette Flack who had been there almost since the founding of the business.
She had left mysteriously and unexpectedly and now Donna was in her place. In order to understand this strange business we have to go back to the day of this lady's departure.
The now vanished Janette had not been kindly treated by nature, or by people. Unlike Donna, she had not been particularly tall and was thin and mousy. Her face had been narrow, her chin pointed and her short hair was straight, scraggly and already greying, though she had been only in her mid late thirties. Her skin had always been coarse and spotted. No one would ever have called her pretty.
But she had had much in her favour. She was remembered as a prodigious worker, who had fully understood research computing and coped with anything Sarah's office could throw at her. It was largely due to her that the business had continued to function smoothly year after year.
Elizabeth and Bev had respected her for her competence and because she was always ready to help them with the intricacies of their work, they had even liked her. They had also felt sorry for her.
The tragedy was that Janette had not been the strongest of personalities and could not hold her own in any company. She had been very much underpaid for the value of the work she did. And she had also been a tragic social failure. Throughout her adult life she had never had a lasting male friend. It was nastily said she was becoming a chronic old maid. And Sarah had been insensitive enough to ridicule her about this from time to time.
Janette's last day at work had not been a happy one. There had been a cruise ship due to depart the harbour that night on a voyage to the tropics. Sarah had maliciously suggested that she stow away on it in the hope of enjoying a few shipboard romances to brighten up her dismal social life. She had kept up this less than tasteful joke long after it ceased to be funny. The very sensitive Janette had been close to tears when she left to go home that afternoon. She had not come in to work the next day or the day after. Sarah made a few snide remarks that perhaps she had gone on the boat after all. Elizabeth and Bev had wondered if she were out looking for another position somewhere. If so, they both wished her good luck.
Sarah had not been able to contact Janette at all. Not that she tried very hard at first. Nor did she report her as a missing person, saying it was for her family to do that. Even though, as far as she knew, her vanished supervisor had no immediate family.
It was shortly before this that Donna had come onto the scene.
Two days before Janette's untimely departure Sarah had been approached by Donna who had shown what she said were her qualifications and enquired about a supervisory position with the firm. At the time Janette was competently and efficiently doing her work and there had been no need for her. Donna had smilingly withdrawn, asking only that she be kept in mind if an opportunity did arise. She had said she wanted to work with Sarah and her organization.
Five days later Janette was still missing and, by then, seemed unlikely to reappear. Sarah started to get worried and then she remembered Donna. A quick phone call and an even quicker interview and it was agreed that she be given a trial. Amazingly, Donna took to the supervisory work the vanished supervisor had done with the greatest efficiency. It was almost as if she were somehow in contact with her and been told what to do. In two weeks she was installed in the supervisory position. Sarah was only pleased that she had found such an excellent replacement in so short a time. She even took to making hurtful remarks about her vanished employee as if she were still around. Elizabeth and Bev were puzzled about the whole business and wondered what had really happened to Janette. On hearing this Sarah derisively remarked that she had probably eloped with a famous movie actor.
The reality was very different.
But to get the full story we must go back to the evening of Janette's last day of work with Sarah, Elizabeth and Bev.
Janette was near crying from Sarah's unkindness when she left late that afternoon. She had shed a tear or two on her way home on public transport. It was almost dark when she reached the street where her lonely flat was located. Such was her distress she did not notice two women standing in the deep shadow of a tree about a hundred yards from her front door.
Both were wearing trench coats though the rain had stopped several hours ago. They also wore hats and dark glasses. Had Janette been her usual observant self she might have wondered why they needed sunglasses in this darkness. But, greatly upset as she was, she barely noticed them.
As she passed them one stepped towards her and asked directions to a nearby street. The other remained in the shadows. Such was her preoccupation, Janette did not hear properly. She stopped and asked the woman to repeat herself.
The enquirer smiled and did so. At the same time the other stepped from the darkness to behind Janette and firmly seized her arms. The smiling questioner pulled an anaesthetic soaked cloth from her handbag and clamped it firmly over her mouth and nose, stifling any noises she might have made. Both of them pulled and manoeuvred the surprised woman into the dark from which they had emerged. No one in the darkening and deserted street saw this incident.
Unable to utter more than barely audible mewing sounds, Janette struggled for less than half a minute before the drug took effect and she finally went limp in her attackers arms. The cloth was held against her face for a short while longer and then, still holding her upright, they half carried her to a car parked unobtrusively a few yards along the street. Here she was thrust onto the back seat and covered with a blanket. A quick look round and her captors got into the front of the vehicle and drove off. In the space of a few minutes Janette had been abducted from a public street and no one had seen a thing.
She woke up over an hour later. Though she had been heavily drugged, her mind was clear and there were no ill effects. She found she was tied to a chair, not gagged but very effectively blindfolded by a thick surgical bandage that had been wound round and round her head.
The chair itself appeared to be made of solid tubular steel with a very comfortable leather seat, backrest and armrests. Altogether, a very superior sort of office chair. Her lower arms had been bound to the armrests with what seemed to be strips of cloth, as had her waist been tied firmly to the steel shaft which held the backrest. Her ankles had been tightly lashed to the steel ring to which the chair rollers were attached. She had been secured with great care but, on the whole, was not uncomfortable.
She wondered why this had happened to her. Why would anyone want to kidnap her? She wasn't wealthy and neither was what family she had.
There was no possibility of a large ransom for her safe return.
As if to answer her query she heard a door close and footsteps approaching behind her. "Who's there?" she asked.
The visitor was Donna and from this we learn that Janette's abduction had been part of a careful plan and not a random kidnapping. "Good evening Janette," she began pleasantly, "I hope you weren't too frightened when we brought you here. Anyway, I can assure you that you'll be much better treated from now on."
Janette still seemed to think she had been abducted for profit. "I tell you," she began shrilly, "Neither me nor my family are rich. There's no chance of a big ransom."
"Ransom indeed?" laughed Donna, "Please. Nothing so sordid as that. All we want from you are a few details about the work you've been doing. Unfortunately, it'll be necessary to keep that blindfold in place. At least for a while. But first we'll put you to sleep." With that she produced a prepared needle and deftly and expertly injected Janette in the neck. This brought a startled protest from the bound woman but it was done before she fully realized what was happening.
"Just relax darling," she was told, "It'll take effect very quickly."
And take effect very quickly it did. Within minutes the captive's eyelids started to droop underneath her blindfold. After five minutes she was drowsy and in ten she was out to the world. She had been injected with a very effective truth drug and twenty minutes later the questioning began. Janette slowly, dully but correctly answered a series of questions that were tape recorded. Donna took notes on her replies. She was joined in this information extraction by a male associate named Adam who entered the room shortly after.
Over an hour later Janette regained consciousness and her two interrogators told her what they had done. She was told there would be more questioning to come which she could answer freely or they would simply drug her once more. She considered this in silence and, not liking the idea of being drugged again, decided on limited co-operation.
All this, it seemed, was taking place in a room full of very sophisticated computer equipment. And that these two had hacked into Sarah's business website without her knowing and already knew a great deal about her operation. But they needed to know more, which could be best obtained from someone with experience with the firm. And this was where Janette came in.
The work continued for several hours. Janette was asked questions from time to time which she answered very guardedly. From the extent Donna and Adam had infiltrated Sarah's computer records it became very obvious how important she had been to the firm and they also seemed to know how little she had been paid. And the niggling, petty treatment she had had to put up with. They took every opportunity to tell her this. She became very silent as this became more and more obvious.
Later in the evening the work came to an end. Janette was untied from the chair, stood up and, still blindfolded, was led by her two captors out the room, down the corridor outside and into a room a short distance away. Here the blindfold was taken off. In the room was a large bed, a small table and two chairs. An annex to one side contained a toilet, washbasin and a small shower recess. There was no window, she learned it had once been a photographic darkroom and was to be her place of confinement for the time she was with them. Both Donna and Adam said they hoped she would be comfortable for the duration of her stay.
The bed, they assured her was soft and there would be no noises to disturb her slumbers. Their captive heard them in silence and wondered how long she would be a prisoner here – and what was to happen to her after that. From her limited association with them she could see they valued her computer skills very highly indeed.
An Employee Vanishes · Part 1 (1/2)
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