She kept her eyes cast down, and so could not see Xin’s expression of shock or the dismayed frown upon the trader’s face as the mob roared with sudden laughter. The trader pitched her as a boy slave but was now made a fool of by the slender female form on display before him.
Xin cursed bitterly, but the trader joined the crowd’s laughter and brayed in delight. He ran his stick along her flank and held her arm up to better display her breasts, which he squeezed painfully to the amusement of the mob. Caroline’s flesh reddened in deep humiliation, and that caused the trader to make another jest that she could not understand but which produced fresh guffaws all around. A few more minutes of ribald routine were followed by another display of astonishment at the results of years of orthodontics and regular cleanings. The bidding began.
Caroline forced her eyes upward in an effort to watch the bidding. She wanted to see who was buying her. She scanned for signs of Dwayne, but he wasn’t anywhere that she could see. Had he been purchased and taken away by his new owner already? Was Jimbo somewhere here as they theorized? Was a rescue in the works?
A sea of hands was waving below her in an obvious bidding war that the trader had to shout over to be heard. Faces of men stared up at her with hungry looks and mean, humorless leers—lookers not buyers. She raised her head to peer past them.
There, in the middle of the crowd, two men stood side by side in dark cloaks with hoods raised to throw their faces in shadow. They were both distinguished from the rest of the mob. Both were easily a head or so taller than the rest. One of them held a hand up to bid, keeping his fingers splayed and raised to indicate he was prepared to outbid all comers.
53
The Highest Bidders
Caroline nearly collapsed in relief. Rangers. They had to be. Two tall, broad-shouldered men traveling incognito. It was Jimbo along with Boats, or maybe Chaz, come to buy their freedom. She clung to that thought. It made sense. It had to be so.
The bidding came down to three and then two and finally to the cloaked men, one of whom stood with arm rigid above him until his was the only hand raised.
She caught Praxus’ look of frozen astonishment as she was led past him and down the steps. Dwayne was standing at the rear of the stage with some of the armed handlers by him. He was fighting down a grin as she approached. He’d been bought by their friends as well, that much was clear by his barely suppressed smile.
They were both surprised when the auction for Praxus ended and the skinny naked boy was shoved over to join them. He glared at Caroline with resentment.
“A girl? You were a girl all along?” he hissed.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“And an ugly girl at that,” he sneered, and she kicked him in the shin, causing him to howl.
“Settle down. We’re not in the end zone yet,” Dwayne whispered to her.
“Can you see our buyers?” Caroline asked.
“They have their backs to me,” he said. He could see their cowled heads over the mob. They were paying off the trader at the foot of the steps. The fat man nodded from where he stood on the second step. One of the men counted coins from a leather sack into his chubby hands. The fat man counted the coins and placed them in a purse that hung from a belt depended below his protruding belly. The two hooded men moved away, and the fat man gestured eagerly to a pair of toughs. Xin stepped up with hands cupped before him for his end of the take.
The toughs, a pair of men whose faces matched their ugly profession, prodded Caroline, Dwayne, and Praxus with the ends of their clubs, herding them forward like sheep through the parting crowd. They left Xin and the slave trader bickering loudly.
Dwayne put an arm around Caroline as best he could. She pressed against him, as they followed after the pair of hooded men walking toward the arched opening of an alleyway. Praxus and the pair of toughs followed close behind, urging the trio along with thrusts from their clubs.
They entered the narrow alley for delivery to the two men waiting there in the shadows. One of the toughs said something and the taller of the hooded men nodded. The toughs departed, leaving the newly purchased slaves alone with their buyers.
Caroline opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a sudden coughing noise. She turned to see Praxus drop lifeless against a wall of the alley, a fan of blood and brains spread above him.
One of the men parted his cloak to reveal a wicked black handgun with a smoking silencer attached to the end of the barrel.
54
The Anomaly Dance
Caroline stepped in front of Dwayne. The Ranger was starting toward the pair of cloaked men. With wrists bound and ankles hobbled, any attempt at resistance would only get them both killed.
“I only really need one of you,” the man with the gun said in accented English. South African.
Caroline and Dwayne followed the gesture the man made with the silencer and stepped deeper into the alley.
The man was Bohrs. Caroline knew him, as he was a security officer for Gallant Ltd, a company owned through several other shelter corporations by Sir Neal Harnesh. Bohrs was a frequent companion of Augustus Martin, the Gallant exec assigned to oversee the Tauber Tube operation in Nevada.
“We’re heading back to the port. Any shit from either of you and I’ll put a bullet in the troublemaker,” Bohrs said and withdrew the handgun into his cloak. He lowered his hood, the need for disguise over. He might
