it was thrilling beyond their sharpest dreams - the hollow stripped-down cargo plane landing at the secret airstrip , the black suvs tunneling through the jet-black night , and then the trip over the rooftops when the company spread out like cats in the dark , lured by the scent of the suffering girls and women held captive in a brothel-slave barracks from which they , d soon be smuggled into the united states under threat of torture and death .