The Rescue by Sophie McKenzie Page B

turned towards the two men at the table in the middle of the room. I had a dim impression of a card game and a bottle of beer. The man nearest me was reaching towards his pocket. For a gun? I didn’t stop to think about it. I leaped forwards, Lockdown outstretched, and pushed the weapon against the man’s chest. Sparks shot out. The man’s eyes glazed over. He fell back, with a thud, into his chair. Behind me I could hear the same sequence of sounds repeated as Stanley dealt with the third guard.
    The whole thing had taken less than ten seconds.
    ‘Find the keys,’ Stanley barked.
    Panting, I reached inside my guard’s jacket. A bunch of keys bulged in his pocket. I took them out and we raced to the door. We dragged the guard Stanley had knocked out earlier into the room, removed all phones and guns, which Stanley placed by the front door, then locked the men in.
    ‘So far so good,’ Stanley muttered. ‘Now, where’s this cellar?’
    We made our way down the stairs. There was silence inside the room. As Stanley fumbled with the keys, trying one after another in the lock, my heart beat a loud drum roll against my throat. Suppose all the kids inside were gone already?
    It seemed to take forever, but it could only have been a few seconds before the door opened and I raced inside. A single light bulb swung from the ceiling, casting an array of eerie shadows around the room. I looked over at the kids, most of whom were huddled together on the two camp beds, as they started to stir. A short boy with tufty hair stared sleepily at me.
    ‘Ed?’ he said.
    It was the boy I’d spoken to earlier, on the other side of the door.
    ‘Si.’ I looked round. There were six kids here. Two boys and four girls. None of them looked older than eleven. There was no sign of Dylan.
    ‘Donde esta la chica con el pelo rojo?’ I asked, hoping Dylan’s distinctive red hair would have marked her out.
    ‘Ha salido.’ There was a finality to the boy’s tone I didn’t like.
    ‘Gone where?’ In my haste I forgot to speak in Spanish.
    The boy stared stupidly at me. One of the girls started speaking in a rapid, high-pitched Spanish I couldn’t follow.
    I turned to Stanley, who was watching all this intently.
    ‘What’s she saying?’ I asked.
    ‘The girl with red hair has gone with the other big girls, to the Casa Elena,’ he translated. ‘It’s a place where people come to find cheap labour – you know, housemaids and cleaners and so forth. This girl heard the guards talking about it. Apparently there were arguments. Someone called Jorge wanted to sell her on, but your guy Fernandez insisted she should stay here until he’d found you – then he’s taking her back to his camp.’
    I nodded. That made sense. As far as Fernandez was concerned, Dylan had wealthy parents expecting her home at some point. She was worth far more to him in camp, than out of it, though clearly Jorge had disobeyed his orders to leave her here while he looked for me.
    ‘Where’s Casa Elena?’ I said.
    ‘I don’t know. This girl says it’s in San Juan, though, which is something.’ Stanley paused. ‘We need to get these kids to a safe place, then we can look for her.’
    I nodded. ‘Venga,’ I said to the first boy. Come.
    The six kids obediently followed Stanley and me out of the cellar and up the stairs. Once we were outside and on the street, Stanley spoke again to the girl who’d told us about Dylan and the Casa Elena.
    ‘These kids have been fed and allowed to wash,’ he said to me quietly. ‘Doesn’t look like they’ve been physically harmed. My guess is that Fernandez and Jorge are planning to sell them on as slave labour, like the older girls, but in factories rather than households.’
    My mouth fell open. ‘That’s terrible. Surely they wouldn’t get away with that?’
    Stanley gave a tired shrug. ‘It happens all over the world. Street urchins like these . . . no families to speak of . . . in constant trouble with the law . . .