—

The sharp rise in missing persons cases all over the county was something the police had never seen before. Murder rates yes, but not kidnappings especially not when all the victims were grown men. Most were single, some married, some visiting tourists and some locals. The first thing Detective John Sneed concluded was they probably were murders. So many of them in so short a time suggested an apparatus, a group of strong experienced men probably connected to hustling, organized crime, gambling or prostitution. None of those were a reason for mass-kidnapping however, it would only bring attention to something they want to keep secret. Not one of the victims escaped with his life to provide a single lead.

Only a small minority of them had any history with prostitution, the rest were respected husbands or even students, but it was this possible connection that made them choose Detective Sneed. He was a World War II veteran and as an older man could be trusted to observe prostitution maturely, as somebody’s daughters without scaring them away. He was also perfectly suited to keep watch over Atlantic Avenue and its neighborhoods working the case with his eyes, while the department pursued other leads with pencils and patrol cars.

There was a group of streetwalkers that were very cooperative but when he showed them photos of all the missing persons they didn’t recognize a single one of them. Women of the evening tend to have an excellent recall of men including tattoos and other details of interest, they were a useful asset going back to before some of these younger cops were born, which left him astonished that this was a dead end. He didn’t think there was any way the murderer could be a prostitute, but she might be a frontwoman who entices men into a safehouse (which still left no clue to a motive as some of the men had left their vehicles with the engine running). He asked if there were any other girls they knew about, perhaps ones that made house calls or worked for a suspicious employer.

They all drew a blank but they did share something bizarre that was a great conundrum to them although it meant little to him; two corpulent prep school girls trying their hand at streetwalking to get dates while they were on vacation.

The girl with the scar led him to the beach the next day and pointed them out to him. Detective Sneed observed them from a café table for several hours with his binoculars, a much more seasoned observer of human nature than the gang was. A couple of things were plain to him right away; they were not “prep school girls” as the gang supposed, they were simply projecting their attitude on two ordinary college-age girls. Also the word “overweight” had led him to think they were ugly which was not the case; the taller blonde was exceptionally beautiful despite having quite a few rolls which a gentleman could conceivably overlook. He had imagined the kind of square-bodied, multi-chinned women who are ostracized from childhood but these two had been relatively slimmer in high school perhaps even enough to be envied. Was that what this was, a hint of jealousy? This made him think back to WW2 when he was stationed in Italy and the “war prostitutes”, of which the chunkiest one was the most in demand. It was something that had always existed people today just weren’t accustomed to seeing it.

He watched them splash around in the water, sunbathe and do silly things like feed each other hot dogs and play “rock paper scissors”. The gang was mistaken; prostitution is an all-night profession where they sleep during the day, not act like tourists on vacation let alone overpower a grown man. And they were mistaken about them being tramps or well-off just because they showed too much skin. People aren’t the same wherever you go, they just came from some other place.

—

That night a young college boy fresh from pledging fraternity at a friend’s house came walking out of the dark down the sidewalk to a bus stop, his hair hanging in his face. To his surprise there was a short girl with black hair sitting by herself on the bench who was as fat as the kid they used to harass in the 8^th grade. His first thought was that she was a runaway. Her black sweater didn’t come down far enough to cover the roll of flesh that was like a white streak around her midsection as if she’d rushed out of the house not fully dressed, and she didn’t have a suitcase or even a purse. He absentmindedly reached up and pushed the hair out of his eyes.

“You have a nice face.” she said. “Do you live around here?”

“Um, no.” he looked at the ground not knowing what to make of this situation.

“Don’t you have any family?” she asked next, looking him in the eyes.

“Naw they’re on the other side of the navel… I mean nation.” the gaff was so bad he covered his face with his hand.

“Did you just say navel?” a chuckle erupted from her painted mouth. “Why, were you thinking about my belly?”

He was too embarrassed to answer.

“Do you like this outfit?” she pressed on. “I mean do you think it looks good on me?”

“Yeah I uh…” he struggled to think of a compliment. “I think it’s really brave of you, to be so forward I mean…”

“Well do you want to go someplace?” she didn’t miss a beat. “My house is just two blocks from here, no one will know.”

He didn’t have to think about it for very long, and soon they were walking a short distance to the back of a brick building.

“My apartment’s upstairs.” she said as she opened the door for him.

The moment he stepped inside Chelsea raised her plastic weapon that was loaded with some kind of clear liquid and injected it into the back of his head directly into his hypothalamus. He collapsed to the floor like kindling. She stepped around his body and reached down to a nondescript place on the hardwood floor, lifting a handle that caused a long metal hatch to rise up on hydraulic pistons. Underneath it was something that looked like a meat press, the kind that seals ground beef in cellophane. She dragged him by the arms, placing his body into it and closed the hatch again as the sound of a conveyor belt carried him down and out of sight. Then she dusted off her chubby hands, whistling.

Cheshire was walking around the corner, her high heels causing her body to jiggle when she bumped into an old man with a sweeping gray mustache standing right in her path. He wore a light-colored summer suit, a pair of sunglasses and a fedora.

“I’m sorry I was in your way.” he flashed his card. “I’m not a cop, I’m just looking for a missing person. May I ask what happened to your friend? The one I saw you with earlier.”

“I’m meeting her in a few minutes.” she answered curiously.

He pulled out a series of enlarged photos asking if she had seen any of these men, turning them slowly. To his surprise she said that she had seen one of them, pointing with her painted finger, saying she saw him during the day horsing around with his friends cruising for girls. Sneed didn’t know why she would say this unless it was the truth.

“One more question and then I’ll bother you no more.” he said graciously. “I mean no offense I’m just curious why you go out in the middle of the night dressed like this.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she smirked. “We’re out looking for dates. We’re prostituting.”

“Real prostitutes don’t use the word ‘prostitute’.” he corrected her. “That’s what the police call them.”

She blinked for a moment, then he said “May I ask what usually happens on these dates?”.

“Don’t you already know that?” she smiled as if it was foolish for him to ask.

“What kind of protection do you use?” he fired off an ungentlemanly question.

Her search for an answer told him she honestly didn’t know what he meant, but she recovered quickly.

“Why don’t I just show you everything you want to know?” she offered. “We can go inside, it would be easier than explaining.”

“Inside where?” his eyes narrowed.

She led him behind the furniture building to a door and held it open for him. Sneed suddenly felt a sense of danger and stopped in his tracks.

“What is that?” he pointed to the little plastic gun on her hip.

“Spermicide.” she answered, taking out the transparent cartridge and showing him. “Listen, you seem like a gentleman and someone I can talk to. I need to confess something, some things I’ve seen… I promise it will help your search if you just step through this door…”

He backed away slowly, overcome with a sudden and inexplicable dose of fear and common sense. He turned away from her and retreated down the street.

—

Detective Sneed rushed to get his binoculars, not wanting her out of his sight for a moment and called in a team to search the premises. When he returned the girls had already left; he watched them saunter up the street before dawn past the closed storefronts. Over the next five hours he saw them walk the entire length of town and back again, returning in daylight and going right back to the beach and sunbathing. Meanwhile the forensic unit got back to him that the building was just an empty warehouse with an upstairs loft that hadn’t been slept in.

At midday the two girls were sitting at an outdoor café when he approached them.

“I’m sorry to disturb you again.” he said warily, taking a seat. “It’s just that I didn’t get to meet your friend and show her these pictures.”

“Well I’m Cheshire and this is Chelsea.” the tall one smiled as if they found him amusing.

He spread out the photos of the missing men on the table. The girls glanced at each other as Chelsea tried to make up her mind, which he read as someone playing a strange game with him.

“May I ask what the two of you do for a living? Are you students or…”

“Actually we work for a food export business.” Cheshire answered. “There’s a kind of animal here that’s considered a delicacy.”

“Some kind of fish?” Sneed responded. “I take it you send them overseas?”

“You could say that.”

“I was just wondering where you got the idea of dressing down and walking the streets after dark to get dates.” he stated.

“We heard the men here like a certain kind of woman.” Chelsea answered. “We wanted to blend in, after all who doesn’t want to be popular?”

Sneed blinked trying to absorb this answer.

“Someone told you this town prefers women like yourselves?” he repeated in disbelief. “Explain this to me. You expected to be treated like… the most popular girls?”

“Yes that’s why we chose this appearance.” Chelsea took a sip from her milkshake. “It’s working better than we imagined.”

“And who told you such a thing?” he demanded.

“We knew it from reading men’s minds.” Cheshire gave an unexpected answer.

Sneed was a reader of people himself and their forthrightness had him baffled. They had absolutely no fear of him. There was an extreme cockiness going on here that made him think of a very different kind of case, the Leopold and Loeb murder where a couple of Ivy League intellectuals killed their classmate to demonstrate superior intellect. But it made no difference.

“If you can read minds then tell me what I’m thinking right now.” he said finally, putting his fingers together.

The two girls exchanged a glance and then stood up in unison.

“You’d like us to come with you.” Cheshire replied with a smile.

This blew out of the water what Sneed was about to say, but he said it anyway.

“I don’t usually make arrests or read people their rights, I offer them to come with me voluntarily.” he rose and spoke solemnly. “It works better for you that way. We’re going to the station, if you request a lawyer you will have to remain in custody until questioning. My car is waiting.”

He gestured in the direction of the street corner. The girls followed obediently as he kept a constant eye on them. When they reached his tan-colored sedan he found their eagerness to ride with him unsettling and said “I’ll need to confiscate those”, pointing to their unidentified plastic sidearms which they handed over, still smiling and glancing at each other.

Sneed felt a cold sweat on his forehead as he watched their willingness to get into the car even without their weapons, thinking as he made his way slowly to the driver’s side. They wanted to be in an enclosed space with him. His hand let go of the wheel and he took a wary step backward out of the vehicle.

“Where are you going?” Chelsea demanded as they both giggled. “Don’t you want to ride with us?”

Not knowing what else to do he walked slowly away from the car, trusting his instincts. The girls exited either side and approached him, following him down the sidewalk. Sneed quickened his pace in unexplainable fear of them, as they marched straight toward him with their bodies jiggling as if they were indestructible.

“Don’t you want to take us to the station?” Cheshire asked in her sweet voice, and he ran until he was out of sight of them.

I once worked as a nanny (Aupair) in a very wealthy family in a small town in Austria.

personal documentation

My job was to look after a 10-year-old child. The parents of the child I was looking after were pharmacists. They had their own pharmacy and a very large, modern, contemporary-style house with a garden and yard that was as large as a basketball court, about 30m x 20m. They had two Volkswagens and one Audi. They had a maid and a gardener who came three times a week. They also had a private apartment at the foot of the mountain, close to their pharmacy. That was where I lived for two years.

This family is very nice. I mean, really nice. And despite being very rich, they never spend their money on extravagances or just buying the latest gadgets . They wouldn’t buy a new phone if their old one wasn’t really broken. They never show off their wealth. They also don’t have social media.

While working at their place, I had many opportunities to go to other countries. During the summer holidays, for example. I was invited to Tunisia, Turkey, and Spain. All accommodation and tickets were covered by them. Even when I was going to travel with friends to Germany and Slovenia, they gave me a lot of pocket money. They also paid for my schooling while in Austria. I took a German language course up to level C1 at a school in the city. The apartment I lived in was also free, I didn’t have to pay for it. In fact, if it was rented, the monthly rent could range between 600€-800€. At certain times, such as when the wife and her husband were on vacation together out of town or abroad, I had to stay at their big and luxurious house to look after their child. I was provided with a spacious room with complete facilities in the house, but I rarely chose to stay overnight if it wasn’t really urgent . I prefer to live in an apartment alone because it is more private and free to do anything, including being free to cook food with a strong aroma at night. Yes, I often get hungry around midnight.

The real significance of the Pakistan, India conflict

Is that Pakistan’s J-17Cs cost only $40M each, and shot down India’s $300M Rafales with the PL-15E, a long-range AA missile which costs only US$1.2M.

The western defense industry has spent billions promoting the view that their weapons systems are expensive, but are technically far superior to Russian and Chinese competitors. This recent conflict has shown that is a myth, at least when compared with Chinese integrated defense systems.

One report has said that the time from target acquisition to the time it was destroyed was 8 minutes on the Pakistan side, but was 12 minutes on the India side. In modern combat, the faster the target can be identified then destroyed is a key in winning any conflict; Pakistan has the advantage because it has an integrated battle management system called Link-17.

Pakistan also has access to satellite reconnaissance photos; this would most likely be from Chinese satellites because they have high-resolution needed for rapid identification. My assessment is that there is only one company which can do the real-time battle management needed, and that would be Huawei, the network equipment maker which the US has tried so hard to destroy.

India has said that they intend to buy the Russian Su-57, which is Russia’s most advanced fighter. This really does not resolve their problem, which is the lack of a ground, air and sea-based battle management system like Pakistan’s Link-17. If the Indians were like the Chinese, they would think about building their own system from the ground up, but that would take at least a decade.

The US has a modern battle-management system named Link 16; Taiwan’s armed forces are linked into Link 16. India’’s problem is that it purchased advanced weapons systems from Russia, the UK, France, South Korea and Israel, so creating a system where they can share battle data in real-time would be a real headache of massive proportions.

By announcing their intent to purchase the Su-57, the Indians are signaling that they believe that air superiority is still important, and more important than battle-management systems and networks. This approach is completely different from the Pakistan/Chinese approach, which is all about real-time data exchange for battle management.

For China, this represents an opportunity to test their cheap battle network management systems, and improve them even more. Now, China can claim that their weapons system have been battle-tested, and have proven their superiority at a cheaper price compared to western systems. This is a huge headache for France and Dassault, the maker of the $300M Rafale, which has been purchased by the wealthy Gulf states. The Gulf states leaders’ will be asking themselves if they have thrown away their money when superior and cheaper Chinese alternatives are available.

The situation is similar to the EV industry, where the hyper-competitive Chinese EV market has created several leading EV brands which offer superior quality at half the price western automakers charge. In several years, COMAC will do the same with commercial aircraft sales.

President Trump says that he wants the Chinese market to open up so that US companies can sell their products in China. His problem: US companies have sold their products in China for decades, but now they are no longer competitive in virtually every field. So what does he want US companies to sell?