Christopher Golde

Date:           11th January 2002                            Location:     Tokyo, Japan

 

 
            Julie Pierce could see very little in the early morning darkness except for a thin sliver of light under the door. The room she had been moved to only a few days ago had no windows, a cold, bare, concrete floor, a small table and the mattress she was now sitting on.

            The move had been somewhat, of what seemed to her, like a panic shift, as there had been allotting of yelling, shouting and anxious expressions among her captors. They were rarely nice to her, but during the shift, they were extremely abusive, as if they were blaming her for the inconvenience. For the previous twelve months, she had at least been in comfortable surroundings, even though the periodical sexual attacks had been horrific. She had been moved from what was more like a hotel room to what was now comparable to a dungeon.

She had been awake now for what seemed like an hour. She had always had her watch with her, but in this new location, night times were pitch black and she was unable to read it in the dark. The only light in the room was controlled from the outside and her captors would only turn it on when they would come in the morning with breakfast.

            The light outside her door had just come on and she had been watching a shadow under the door moving back and forward as if the person outside the door was pacing. Suddenly, she heard a door slam. She lifted her head from the jacket she had used as a pillow and listened. Then there was another distant noise that sounded and felt like an explosion, as she could feel the vibration in the air as well. Another shadow flashed past the door as if someone just ran across the adjoining room. She sat upright and pushed her scraggly, matted, hair away from her face.

She knew that her room was joined to a much larger room and outside of that, was a corridor or passageway. She had been blindfolded when she was brought into the outer room, but she could tell by her movement previous that after leaving the vehicle that had brought her here, she had entered a door, walked down metal stairs and then walked down a long,  what seemed like corridor or passageway, to the outside room.

The explosion she had heard could have been as far away as the entrance. Was it possible after all this time someone had come to rescue her? She had almost given up and lost hope of ever being released after so long in captivity and had even wondered why they had kept her alive for so long.

She heard a door slam in the outer room and excited loud voices speaking in Japanese. The door to her room burst open and light from outside flooded in blinding her. A silhouetted figure moved towards her quickly and grabbed her by the arm. As she lifted from the mattress she managed to focus her eyes and saw that it was the vilest of all her captors holding her arm. She knew the others addressed him as shuutoku but when he was not present she had heard the name Akura.

She had no doubt, he often expressed a desire to kill her and strangely enough, had never been involved in the sexual attacks on her. Now, he dragged her from the room. Her feet were still bare as he gave her no chance to do anything other than follow him. As he dragged her through the outer room, he yelled at two other men that were standing watching him and they grabbed large long automatic weapons from the table and ran towards the outer door.

In the distance, from outside the door, she heard more shouting and this time she thought she heard an English word. There was another explosion, but still in the distance and one of the other men in the room pulled open the door and raced outside with his gun pointing out. He came back quickly and yelled to the one called Akura. He turned to Julie with a hateful look and yelled something at her in Japanese, then dragged her to towards the door. She could not resist and for the most, she was too weak to put up any fight after being in confinement for so long.

Once outside the door, Akura again yelled at the two other men and they ran off ahead down a hallway away from the outside noises which now included high pitched explosions that must have been gunshots. The four of them ran and fell for about one hundred yards along the corridor until they came to another door. That door was unlocked by the frontman and then all of them passed through into the relative darkness of a small room. Right next to the door Julie saw the frontman start climbing a ladder that went up into the nothingness above them. Akura pushed her towards the ladder and yelled what could only have been ’climb’. She did so, following not far behind the man at the front and she could feel a hand behind her pushing at her feet each time she would take a step.

After a climb that had taken probably two minutes, above her, she heard a metal on metal noise and light blasted down from above. This had obviously been an escape route from the dungeon planned for exactly this type of occasion. As she climbed toward the light an arm grabbed her from above and started pulling her upwards. With surprising ease, she seemed to fly from the hole in the ground and into the open air where she was unceremoniously dumped onto a muddy surface.

Looking around she could see that they had, in fact, emerged from a manhole and Akura was now climbing out of it himself. The man who had pulled her out was standing above her pointing his gun at her and looking about nervously. Once Akura and the other man were out Akura once again grabbed her roughly by the arm and yelled at his two accomplices.

She noticed they were surrounded by rows and rows of shipping containers loaded up on top of each other, stacked three high and stretching as far as she could see. This she assumed meant they were somewhere near the docks or a shipping precinct. The lead man began running down the row of containers, his gun outstretched in front of him and Akura, with his gun, slung over his shoulder on a strap, dragged Julie along behind him.

Julie wondered where her rescuers were now because no longer could she hear any shouting or explosions. She assumed they must still be searching for her underground and no doubt was meeting resistance from other cult members while Akura was making his escape. She tried to think about how she could slow them down. She then took a dive on purpose, making it look like a trip and even though she took off the skin and drew blood from her leg, the fall had the desired effect as she managed to pull Akura to the ground with her.

Akura cursed as he hit the dirt and even though the lead man had kept going on his course, the other man stopped to assist Akura to his feet. Julie just lay there and sobbed as if hurt badly enough for her not to be able to walk. Akura, once on his feet, grabbed her arm and so did the other man, both of them lifting her off the ground. It felt like they might even be able to carry her but that did not last for long.

Akura cursed dropped her arm, took the gun from his shoulder and pushed it into the back of her neck as she lay on the muddy ground. Now he spoke in English.

            “Get up and walk or I blow your head off right here and now.”

She knew he was not bluffing, as she had wondered for a long time why he had not just killed her. She assumed that Fujimo had wanted her kept alive and that was the only thing that had saved her. This man would not hesitate to kill her now if it meant his own freedom.

She crawled to her feet, not making it look too easy and then began to limp in the direction of the lead member. Akura just smirked and pushed her in the back with the shaft of the automatic weapon. She stumbled at the push but kept going. She knew she could not stall anymore, or he would just kill her.

As they rounded a break in the containers, she saw blue water not far ahead, confirming they were right on the waterfront. The lead man ran towards the water and when he got to the end of the row of containers stopped and looked around the corner. He pulled back immediately looking anxiously back towards them.

Soon as the group got to him they stopped and he said something to Akura who then looked carefully around the corner. Akura pulled back, a look of frustration on his face. He pointed towards a boat that sat next to the dock, less than twenty yards from where they were and said something to the lead man. The lead man took one more careful look around the corner, put his long gun on the ground and then walked casually out and towards the boat not looking in any other direction.

The boat was a large thirty to forty-foot white cruiser with an upper deck and flew a Japanese flag from the rear. He got to the boat before he looked in any other direction, then after a quick look, he bent down and began to unhook the mooring rope from the jetty post. Just as he did that Julie heard a voice. It was some distance away but she distinctly heard an English word in a French accent. Her spirits lifted.

The lead man at the boat now acted as if he heard nothing and having unhooked the moorings, jumped aboard. There came another yell and this time it was closer and more urgent. Akura braced himself and readied his gun. Julie knew what his intentions were and she knew the owner of the voice was in trouble if she did not do something.

 The man on the boat started the engines and now the voice was yelling to stop and getting close faster. Akura lifted his gun ready to pounce and Julie knew she must act. She dived into Akuras back and he fell forward pulling the trigger and discharging a shot into the open air. He and Julie lurched forward and the rear man grabbed Julie by the arm in an all too late attempt to stop her.

As she fell forward, she now saw two men in military combat gear running towards the boat. As Akura’s gun discharged, both fell to the ground and pointed their guns in Julies direction. Akura forgot her and jumped to his feet launching a barrage of bullets in the direction of the soldiers. Most of these shots seemed to dance harmlessly off the jetty surface and the military duo returned fire.

The rear man now joined in and his fire was much more balanced and accurate. As the soldiers reacted to the third man and returned fire towards him instead of Akura, the Ong leader took the opportunity to run. He covered the distance to the boat quickly and dived for its deck once within distance. Julie could hear him yelling over the noise of all the gunfire and she also heard the engines of the boat hit high rev as the boat catapulted itself away from the jetty.

In true Ong style, the third man had sacrificed himself for his master and fell to the ground in a hail of bullets from the soldiers. Julie lay on the ground and covered her head.

Soon the shots were redirected towards the boat, but as she did not lift her head, she watched the action with a sideways view from under her arm, which was covering her head. She could see one of the soldiers chasing off in the direction of the fleeing boat firing in its general direction. It was too late, Akura had escaped. The second soldier came over quickly and lifted her head gently.

            “Mademoiselle, are you alright,” he said, in his charming French accent.

Julie just smiled and wiped some mud from her face Even though she felt far from alright, it was the best she had felt in more than a year. At last, she was safe.

     Chapter fifty six
         The Rescue

Then the angel showed me
The river of the water of life,
Bright as crystal,
Flowing from the throne of God
And of the lamb.

John                        Revelation 22.1