(Present-day villa on the outskirts of Padua, Italy)

At four o'clock in the morning, outside on the empty street it was still and peaceful. Somewhere far in the distance of this Italian bedroom community, a dog could be heard barking. Two rented vans quietly pulled into an alley behind the string of large, white homes. The two female drivers, dressed in black military fatigues waited behind the wheels of their vehicles, leaving them running. The five women passengers in the first van, wearing ski masks and similar uniforms, threw open the side door and ran toward the back wall of one of the estates. The second van was empty and remained waiting. The leader of this all-female team skilfully threw a rope ladder over the top ledge of the stone wall, allowing the lithe, athletic women to scale it effortlessly in sequence. Their black crossbows were slung over their backs via a wide-band nylon sling. Attached to this utility belt were also several clips of poisoned darts, cameras and powerful spot lights. Sliding their night vision goggles over their eyes, they moved quickly and stealthily across the dark lawn area, adjacent to a large pool. They all quietly moved toward the back door of the two-story villa and positioned themselves for their mission.

Suddenly two large dogs charged out of a small enclosure, barking and growling viciously as they approached the assault team on the lawn. As planned carefully, the first two archers knelt on the grass allowing the animals, a Rottweiler and a Doberman, to come within closer range. One of the women now standing behind the kneeling shooters accessed with a switch her seal beam spotlight, momentarily blinding the dogs and allowing her fellow commandos to make accurate shots with their bows. The embedded darts planted a strong and instant tranquilizer into each animal, causing the to stagger silently then fall onto the lawn motionlessly. The kneeling archers mechanically clicked secondary, more sturdy shafts into the slots of their crossbows and ran forward to join the others. They remained poised at the rear entry of the house. Using a large, wedged crowbar carried by one of the women, they sprang open the backdoor and entered the darkened villa, moving precisely with their goggles toward their well-planned objective-a stairwell leading down to the basement.

There was, by this time, no resistance from the inhabitants inside the stately neoclassical house, attesting to the team's accurate planning and skilled execution of it. Kneeling and waiting at the base of the stairwell on the ground-floor level, two of the women planted themselves in a defensive position while the other three ran down the stairs to the subterranean level of the villa. Again the crowbar was employed to break the series of chains and locks which secured any unwanted entry or exit from this basement chamber.

As the women rushed into the damp room with their powerful lights shining, the screams of girls could be heard. The women quickly aimed the lights up to the ceiling, illuminating the entire room. They tried to calm the frightened teens by speaking to them in both a Romanian and Bulgarian dialect. They told them in gentle voices that they were being rescued and not to fear. One of the women commandos quickly slid off her mask, exposing her female face and long, brown hair. The girls, six in all, and ranging in age from thirteen to sixteen, instantly reacted to her looks and nurturing words. One of them spoke up quickly and warned the others to be calm. While this transpired another of the women quickly took several photos of the girls, huddled together in their chambered living quarters and recorded the dire conditions of the cell they had been confined to. They had been huddled, asleep on several dirty mattresses spread out on the floor. There seemed to be no visible light sources in the room, save for the women's spotlights. All of them did their best now to abate the girls' earlier hysteria and tears. Once calmer, the youths were given directions as to how to escape with them. The two lead women assured the teens of their imminent release if they followed the directions and remained calm. They quickly positioned themselves for the critical run back up the stairs and out the back door to safety.

"Please. Calm yourselves. We are escaping all together," the women repeated in both Balkan dialects and in whispered tones. The female commandos soon had all the girls on their feet and ready to exit the basement door. One of the archers took the lead, walking in a crouched position in the front with her bow poised for action. A long military knife could be seen strapped to the outside of her thigh. The other two members of the mission held the girls hands, leading them up the stairs quietly.

Reaching the top of the first floor where they met the other rescuers, there was still no interference by the girls' captors from anywhere inside. Obviously they had not anticipated any such a well-planned and surgical interference with their human trafficking business, which sadly been in operation for years there.

But suddenly, there came the sound of a door opening upstairs. A flood of light illuminated the stairs and the railing below.

"Chi è la! Ciao?" A man's heavy voice shouted from somewhere in the house in Italian demanding who was there. He commanded again, down the hall, towards an adjoining room, "Georgi . . . get up! Someone's here!" The kneeling archers gave the signal to the point commando leading the girls to run for the back door under their cover. The captives, wearing ragtag and thin nightgowns were pulled at full speed by the women through the house on the ground floor and out the rear exit into the crisp night air.

The two archers at the base of the stairs-once the girls had passed them safely, maintained a position out of sight behind the stair railing. At that moment, two stout men in leather jackets, one balding and the other sporting a pony tail, slowly appeared at the top of the landing. They were brandishing hand guns and wearing athletic training suits. One of them switched on a series of ceiling lights. It flooded the entire lower floor where the girls had exited and the archers still remained poised. As the men began to walk down the stairs cautiously brandishing their hand guns, the commandos lifted the tips of their loaded bows slowly, just over the wooden railings. Their shots would have to be strategically placed for a clean escape.

With a metallic 'ping!' the first tranquilizer arrow was released, striking the bald man directly in the face-throwing his head back with a jerk and insuring his instant immobilization. He fell forward, quickly losing consciousness. The other man, now exposed, fired two loud shots randomly down into the room. He took aim with both hands ready to shoot at any movement near the staircase. Suddenly, seeing how motionless his partner was, he panicked and ran back up the steps. He was hit simultaneously between his shoulder blades by two immobilizing projectiles released from below. The ponytailed man, too, now slumped to the stairs silently and remained incapacitated by the tainted dart's narcotic. One of the women's assault team ran to the top of the landing with her camera, while being covered by the other. She took several photos of the girls' captors' bodies and faces, as well as the inside of the villa's room before joining her comrades. They then both exited out the back door to join the others on the other side of the lawn. Assisting the last girl down the rope ladder from the garden wall and into the second van, the leader of the female rescue team gave the signal for it to speed away.

While en route to a girls' sanctuary in Rome for the purposes of harboring victims of abduction and the slave trade, the team leader of the operation made a cell phone call to the Padua authorities. She reported an "emergency rescue, involving armed suspects" at a certain residence, giving its precise address. Speaking in Italian and from her unregistered phone, she reported the crime to be "incarceration of minors for the purpose of slavery or sex trafficking." She also made the declaration that she and her team had performed a "citizens' arrest," of the suspects, explaining their injuries and temporary immobilization through tranquilization for the purposes of the rescue. Photos of the girls' incarceration at the house, and their living conditions, intended as evidence, she assured them, would be mailed to them from an undisclosed location.

En route, the six teens while still in the rescue team's protective custody were being debriefed, fed and clothed. In less than an hour they would be delivered to the new facility for girls, sponsored by the initiated efforts of an NGO called Antiope's Daughters. This recent international organization gave such girls shelter and protection until they could be either returned to their home through appropriate asylum channels, or cared for during their physical and emotion recovery.

Within several days, as promised, an anonymous delivery by post was made of the photographs taken at the crime scene. It was forwarded both to the Italian Police in Padua and an Interpol headquarters in Rome. The dossier featured the pictures of the girls in the basement, their living conditions, the house interior and exterior, as well as the defendants' faces taken at the residence where the incarcerated victims of trafficking were kept indefinitely against their will.

This event was just one of such reoccurring interventions erupting suddenly on the international scene, involving hundreds of girls and young women. It was sponsored anonymously.

As the news agencies in certain major cities of Europe and the USA were becoming appraised of this phenomenon, it was rumored to be perpetrated by a rogue group of female vigilantes claiming responsibility for such operations under the name "Aristomache's Force." In the Padua case, the story was covered the following day in three of the city's local newspapers and one national paper in Rome. It would be included in a subsequent special report about other precision strikes on human traffickers by the same female group and aired by both the BBC and CNN. According to those investigative reports, similar stories had been covered in the past week of bold rescues involving underage girls in Manchester, England; Frankfort, Germany; a wealthy community in the outskirts of Paris, and an affluent estate in New York.

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