Out Of Their League, the follow up to OOHD, begins like this…
The van pulled away down the drive, turned out onto the main road, and joined the flow of traffic. Inside a large basket on castors in the back of the van, the body with the cotton hood cable-tied over its head was cushioned from the bumpy road by a half load of dirty towels and sheets, but he didn’t regain consciousness for another five minutes. Long enough to make sure he had no idea where he was. He was almost upside-down in the basket, knees curled into his chest and lying on his back, where his hands were also bound together. His brain was foggy and he had no idea how he’d got there.
After roughly fifteen more minutes of driving the van stopped and the engine died. The man knew that his day was going to get worse before it got better. If it got better.
The back doors of the van opened and the basket landed heavily on tarmac below, releasing an involuntary “Ooof” from the man in the hood. The basket’s tiny wheels made a racket as they growled across the rough surface and banged up a kerb. The surface changed, yet the man could tell he was still moving. No traffic noise. They must be inside somewhere. There was a pause for a door, then the ping and opening of an elevator, and the clunk of the wheels into the metal box. Less than ten seconds later, there was another clunk out of the box and then cushioned silence on soft carpet. A pause, another door, then silence. Then the door opened. Muffled voices.
“Get him out,” a man said.
“Where?” said another male voice.
“In there.”
Hands grabbed at the man’s arms, legs, and head and yanked him roughly straight up and out of the sweaty, soft coffin the basket had become. Two or three people carried him, still unable to see anything but the odd chink of light through the cotton hood, through a doorway into another room, and dropped him on a cold hard floor.