The password: Chris Kramer
It was just me and him. We were sitting inside his conference room. It was a little dark, cold. Nobody was really in the mood to change the settings on the AC. His daughter was OK, they said. They were really hush hush about the details. I demanded to know the details. I wanted to make sure she was safe. That she was OK. She's on a plane, they said. She's in stable condition. Dr. Drake is with her, but so are Don Pablo's men. There's a video they want Mr. Karlovic to watch in its entirety with pieces of a password intermittently placed within the video feed that they'll stream over once the plane has landed. Mr. Karlovic himself has to be the one to give them the correct password, letter by letter, and they will only stream the video once. Only then will they release her, alive.

And so we waited for Mr. Striker's call.

He said nothing initially for a few seconds when I picked up. There's a flash drive we have here, sir, he said. It's got the video. We'll play it on our end, and it'll stream to your laptop. We waited for a few minutes. It's connected now, he said. Go ahead and see if the video plays.

The video began to play.

If I wasn't there, Mr. Karlovic would have never gotten his daughter back. He left the room five minutes into the video. He left as soon as they stripped her naked. I don't blame him. But that left me with the near impossible task and responsibility of watching every single minute of the video. I couldn't stop. I couldn't take a break. Pieces of the password intermittently flashed onto the screen. I wrote them down, letter by letter.

'M.' I watched as the poor girl was raped mercilessly by man after countless man. The video flashed forward. I. I watched as they beat her body with a wooden handle, and a wire hanger. 'R.' I watched as they struck her genitals over and over again, sending the girl into howling fits of screaming and writhing. 'A.' I watched as they forced the girl to perform fellatio on the men. 'D.' And I watched as she hesitated to perform oral sex on their dogs. 'E.' I watched as they found a pair of jumper cables, grabbing the red positive terminal first. On its end was a large alligator clip the size of a fist. And in my horror, I watched them open its horrific jaws, pushing one jagged end into her vagina and the other end into her anus, allowing the two sharp jagged claws to shut, clamping tightly the sensitive flesh in between her two orifices, and sending her into a blood curdling cry. I watched as they attached the black negative terminal to her clitoris, allowing the copper jaws to crush and cut into the most sensitive area on her body. I then watched as they attached the jumper cables to a battery inside the engine of a running care, and as the poor girl, hands bound behind her back, arched her body, and seized violently, kicking her legs chaotically out in every direction every time they revved the engine, louder, and louder. Now let's have her suck our dog's cocks, they shouted in their ravenous and crazed frenzy. When she didn't suck fast enough, they would rev the engines faster, sending more and current through her most sensitive areas. N. I watched as they crushed her nipples next, connecting her breasts to the car battery, and as she mounted every man, raping herself on each of them. I listened in pure horror as they revved the engine, once more, pushing her to thrust her hips up and down faster, and faster. T. I watched as she lost control her of bowels and bladder, due to her abject fear of them (or maybe because those areas were so damaged) while she raped herself on their members, further aggravating her already severely bloodied and wounded orifices on these men. Upset that she got urine and feces on them, they simply punished her with harsher beatings, and more electricity to her nipples, her genitals, her tongue, her ears, her fingers and toes, and her armpits. R. And finally, I watched as they forced a large dirty toilet brush into her vagina, twisting, and angling the brush as they pushed, so as to maximize the pain of its entry. Where are we going to put the video, one man asked. I have an idea, another man said. I watched them grab a large turnip, and with a knife whittle out a little hole at its tip, pushing into it a small object, which appeared to be a flash drive. Get her ready while we load the video, the men said in Spanish. I watched as two men held her down, with another man pulling her buttocks wide apart, exposing her bloodied anus. And then finally, the last letter. O. Just before video stream ended. This innocent young girl. What did she ever do to deserve this fate?

I rushed to find Mr. Karlovic, defeated, head slumped over on the couch outside the room. Sir, I said, the password is (and I spelled it out for him) M-I-R-A-D-E-N-T-R-O.

We made the conference call. He gave them the password, letter by letter. And they released poor little Anna. What was it you saw, he asked me. I could tell it took him a lot of courage to even ask. I did not dare answer him. Sir, I said. All that matters is you have your daughter back. I made a frown. I furrowed my brow. Where did the video come from, he asked again. No idea, sir, I said. I knew where the video came from.

At least tell me what those letters meant, he said to me. I could tell he was a sad, desperate man. I spoke enough Spanish. What does that mean, he asked again. Having not watched the video, I might not have understood its meaning. But I did. And if you had watched the video, you didn't need to know Spanish, to realize what it meant. Mira Dentro, I said. It means look inside.