The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 41

Ellie heard a thud, and turned around.

Sameh had moved up behind Mark and hit him with her baton. She hit his arm, not his head, hit him to hurt him, to startle him, and so she didn’t risk injuring him or actually knocking him out. He would be difficult to carry if he was unconscious, and difficult to interrogate too.

“Fuck,” he said, and started turning towards her.

Sameh hit him again. A tap to the side of his knee, so he fell, and then again to the arm he raised to cover his head.

Mark was swearing under his breath, kicking at Sameh, trying to fight without quite seeming to know what was happening.

Ellie stayed where she was, looking around. The house door was still open, but Mark seemed to have been the only one inside. The street was quiet. There was enough suburban noise, barking dogs and distant traffic, that the gasps and grunts Mark was making wouldn’t carry very far. It was odd there was even suburban noise in the middle of Měi-guó, Ellie thought, but she supposed suburbia was suburbia, and people had dogs and cars everywhere.

She took out her sidearm and pointed it at Mark’s door, just in case anyone else came outside.

There was no need to look harmless now. It was obvious what Sameh was doing to Mark. There was no need to look harmless, and probably some actual good in looking dangerous.

Thinking that, Ellie took her corporate secureID out from under her shirt, and left it hanging on its cord around her neck. It looked official. It was official. As official as anything was now. Official enough it might make someone hesitate, and go back inside.

Ellie watched Sameh hit Mark, glancing around, covering the street and the house. Sameh didn’t need help, not with this. She was vicious and bored and dangerous. She had killed people like this, killed them without a thought, so many that a small-town Měi-guó debtor didn’t have a chance against her.

Not taken by surprise, anyway. Not without some kind of firearm to help him.

Mark was still on the ground, still being hit, and that meant he’d already lost. Ellie knew that, although Mark probably didn’t. Mark’s only chance had been to get back onto his feet after he fell, and fight back against Sameh using his size and weight against her.

Now it was too late.

Now he was being hurt, and was weakening. Now he was starting to give up, and lie still, and just hope it would end soon.

Hoping things like that got you killed.

Sameh kept hitting him. She was being slightly sadistic, prodding and tapping rather than clubbing him, drawing it out a little more than she should. She was being careful though, too, and only hitting his limbs and body, not his head. She hit him until he stopped struggling, stopped trying to get away, until he just lay on his driveway, curled up, covering his head. Then she stood over him, and took a cloth out her jeans pocket, and pushed it into his mouth.

Sameh knew what she was doing. She knew how to kidnap someone properly. She’d grown up seeing this done by pros, by people far better at it than Ellie could ever hope to be. Ellie’s instinct was to grab someone quickly, and try to drag them into a vehicle right away, but that actually wasn’t the best way. If you tried to pull someone into a car, they knew they were being kidnapped and shouted and made a fuss and then everyone nearby looked to see why. If you kept hitting them instead, they thought they were having a fight, and so got all worried about being hit, and concentrated on fighting you off. They usually didn’t think about very much else, and they usually fought you without shouting very much either, at least not at first. People had a kind of tunnel-thinking when they were surprised and under attack. They pushed and shoved and responded, but it took a while for them to make an actual plan.

It was far better to do this the way Sameh was. To hit someone for a while, quietly and steadily. To hit them enough to beat the fight out of them, and make them calm down, and then, just when they’d given up, just before they remembered they had friends and should be shouting for help, you gagged them. There was a knack to doing that, too, a knack to knowing exactly when to try, because sticking a gag into someone’s mouth in the middle of a fight just wasn’t going to work.

Sameh had a feel for it. She gagged people early, while they were still trying to avoid being hit. She did it early, like she was to Mark now. She shoved a cloth into Mark’s mouth, and he made a surprised sound, then tried to spit the gag out.

“Don’t,” Sameh said, and hit Mark’s hand, so he groaned into the cloth. “Leave it.”

Mark tried again.

“Don’t,” Sameh said, and hit his knee, hard.

“Careful,” Ellie said. “It’s easier if he can walk.”

“No shit,” Sameh said, then, “Tell your mother how to give birth.”

She seemed to be having that kind of day. Perhaps kidnapping people was making her think of home.

Sameh tapped Mark’s chest with the baton, then tapped his head, then his chest again. He moved his arm, trying to fend her off, but he was too slow. Sameh was teasing, almost, having fun. She was also letting Mark know she could do what she liked, which was something he needed to start realizing about now.

Mark seemed to understand. After a few more failed grabs at the baton, he went still, and just lay there looking at her.

Sameh grinned, and tore off a strip of tape, and stuck it over his mouth to hold the cloth inside.