what about our contract? We’re short on what we’re supposed to send to Dr. Black, and you know the consequences if we don’t fill our contracts on time.”
The technician nodded, gesturing toward the girl on the video monitor, who was now dancing with a different partner. “I understand. It’s just a shame to let that go to waste.”
“Not waste,” the voice corrected, “just a different purpose. Alert George, Rachael, and the team.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the technician acknowledged.
Wendy was having a great time. She had already danced with four men, and she hadn’t even ordered a drink yet. She maneuvered through the crowd to a section filled with individual tables. She found an empty one, and the waitress appeared as soon as she put her clutch purse down. Wendy saw that her nametag read “Rachael.”
“What can I bring you?” Rachael asked, keying the table information into her tablet.
“Vodka with a twist,” Wendy responded over the music.
Rachael entered the drink order into the tablet. The tablet flashed a notation saying “Special” on the screen, and Rachael entered an acknowledgment code. She nodded to Wendy and made her way to the bar.
George, the head bartender, saw the drink order show up on his screen: “Vodka with a twist. Special.” Even though there were several bottles of vodka on the lower row of liquor behind the bar, he reached up to the third row in the back, grabbed a bottle of vodka, poured the liquor into a glass, and returned the bottle to the third row before putting a twist of lime in the drink.
Rachael held out her hand when he turned around. “Is that my special vodka with a twist?”
George nodded and handed the drink to Rachael.
Rachael took the drink to Wendy’s table and set it down. “I’ll be back to check on you in a little bit.”
“Thanks!” Wendy said as Rachael turned to leave.
Wendy took a sip of the drink and looked around, wondering who she’d dance with next. She downed the rest of her drink, reached for her purse, and headed for the dance floor.
She was about to tap a good-looking man on the shoulder and ask him to dance, when she suddenly felt funny. She headed for the bathroom instead. I probably shouldn’t have finished the drink so fast on an empty stomach.
The room was spinning by the time she reached the door of the ladies room. She pushed the door open and saw the sinks and stalls off to the left. She turned left but felt two sets of strong arms grab her and pull her back. She lacked the strength to struggle, and the arms dragged her through a panel in the wall behind her, which closed once she was through.
She was vaguely aware of the arms pulling her through a large room, out another door, and into a van waiting behind the club. She noticed that there were three other young women in the back of the van, but everything went dark after that.
“The van just left for Dr. Black’s,” the technician said.
“Good,” the voice in the shadows responded. “Alert the clinic to be ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Wendy woke up, she couldn’t move. Her arms and legs were tightly secured, and there was a strap over her forehead holding her head in place. She could only move her eyes. She glanced to her right and saw her reflection on a smooth silver metal panel on the wall. She was naked and strapped down to some kind of gurney. A large circular panel of lights hung above her, and she heard the clink of metal that sounded like kitchen implements being placed on a metal tray.
What happened to me? Was I in an accident? Did they take me to the hospital? Why can’t I move? Why can’t I speak?
She heard a door open and several people enter the room. “Ah, good,” a man said. “She’s prepped and ready.”
Wendy saw someone wearing surgical scrubs and a curved plastic mask that covered his entire face. “Let’s start her on the gas and get going. We have only a few hours, and there’s lots to do tonight.”
“Yes, Dr. Black,” a woman’s voice said.
Wendy saw a mask being placed over her mouth and nose by a gloved hand. She smelled the antiseptic odor of the gas and felt her body relaxing, but she was still somewhat conscious. What’s happening? What are they going to do?
She saw the man in the surgical scrubs pick up a large scalpel. A moment later, she felt the blade as it began to cut her chest.
The pain was indescribable, but she couldn’t scream. She had no control over any of her muscles. Trapped in a nightmare, she felt the man as he cut, peeled, and pushed. Her mind couldn’t comprehend what was being done to her. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally lost consciousness.
“What’s going on inside?” the detective asked.
“We don’t know,” the patrol officer replied. “We’ve been watching the clinic for almost three hours, but the windows are all covered. A van arrived and pulled up to the loading dock at the back about two and a half hours ago. Four people were taken inside, and they haven’t come out yet.”
“Is the van still at the loading dock?”
“Yes,” the patrol officer replied.
“The search warrant is on its way,” the detective said. “Once it gets here, we’ll go in.”
“What do you think we’ll find?” the patrol officer said.
“Our information is that someone is using the clinic after hours to illegally treat undocumented patients. I expect we’ll find people practicing medicine without a license and people seeking medical care because they can’t go to the hospital without it being reported to us.”
“Stabbing and gunshot wounds?”
The detective nodded.
“We’ll be ready when the warrant arrives,” the patrol officer assured the detective.
The doctors and nurses carefully removed Wendy’s organs, tissues, and bone marrow before vacuum sealing each one in a heavy plastic covering. They then placed the sealed packages in special containers to keep them cooled during transport.
Once they finished with Wendy, they took the special containers out of the room and loaded them into the van that had originally brought the four women to the clinic. A person that no one from inside the clinic knew was already waiting in the van’s driver’s seat. He started the van’s engine as soon as all of the containers were loaded, and the van drove off into the night to deliver the containers to the people who would repackage the organs and transport them to the individual buyers.
The organs and other tissues from the four women were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on the black market, with buyers located all around the world.
The doctors and nurses that had worked on the women walked down the hall to get cleaned up while another crew came in to dispose of the remains and sanitize the rooms for the next day. The cleaning crew unceremoniously dumped the little that remained of Wendy and the others into heavy-duty trash bags. The crew would take the trash bags to a nearby incinerator before dawn, removing all evidence of the girls’ presence at the clinic that night.
“Here’s the warrant.” The lieutenant handed the paper to the detective.
“Thanks, L.T.” He grabbed his walkie-talkie. “All units, converge on the clinic.”
The teams surrounding the clinic moved forward to enter the building and arrest everyone inside.
Officers entered through the loading dock, the side doors, and the front door to prevent anyone inside from escaping.
“This is the police!” the detective bellowed as he entered the building. Officers began