The officer screamed long and hard and the hair on my head stood on end.
‘Jesus…?’ West whispered.
The Asian guy came out of his tent again briefly to investigate the noise and then went back inside, uninterested.
The officer howled as he bent double, curled over his spurting stumps. The guard and his pal who had done the machete work reappeared with a metal poker, its end steaming. They pulled the officer back on his haunches and smoke rose as each wound was cauterized while the victim shrieked.
I tapped West on the shoulder, and we wriggled backward. The tents, including the one occupied by the Asian guy, obscured a third of the clearing. Though we’d seen enough in one sense, our reconnoiter wasn’t complete. I led the way on my stomach and forearms around the clearing’s circumference, moving slowly, trying to get the picture of the officer having his hands chopped off out of my mind.
The position of the underbush on the other side of the clearing allowed us to crawl to within ten meters of Twenny Fo and Peanut, close enough, perhaps, to let them know that help was near, though of course it wasn’t. Giving our position away to the armed guards wouldn’t help our principals or us, or the folks depending on us to return. Twenny stumbled a little, and his arms pulled upward behind his back against their natural range of motion. He cried out in pain as he regained his footing. A couple of the guards wandered over to check on him, but then lost interest when they saw that the prisoner’s bonds were working as intended. Dickfucks. They had to know Twenny was an American, but did they know what he was worth? Maybe they did. Maybe, as I’d suggested to Leila, the possibility of a ransom with a big payday was keeping Twenny Fo and Peanut in possession of all their appendages, at least until… until what, exactly? Did this theory also account for Fournier and Ayesha’s absence? Had they killed them because they couldn’t cough up bags of loot?
I heard a roar above the sound of the ravine. Rain. It moved across the HQ like an attacking formation.
West motioned with a tilt of his head to take a look at the Asian’s tent.
Ayesha was being led away from it by two guards. She was naked, cowed and terrified, some kind of fruit jammed in her mouth, her hands tied behind her back. The guards took her to a trestle table barely discernible in the night shadows and tied her to it face down, securing her wrists to the table legs. One of the men, joking with his buddy, undid his fly buttons, pulled out his dick and jerked it around a few times until he was happy with its condition, then rammed his way into her from behind while she struggled, twisting away from him, grunting in terror. His pants fell around his ankles, and the man pulled back to speak with his pals. He wasn’t happy about something. That something was resolved for me when I saw them each take one of Ayesha’s legs, force them wide apart and bind them to the legs of the table.
I backed away, my face hot, muscles twitching with anger.
‘Stay here,’ I whispered to LeDuc, then signaled West to follow.
I was back on my stomach, pushing through the mud, keeping to the shadows, slithering fast through the bushes. On this side of the HQ, the rain together with the water rushing through the nearby ravine was making a hell of a racket. I lost visual contact with the compound for a brief period while I skirted around some bushes armored with thorns. When I regained it, the tactical situation was in danger of becoming Defcon Fucked Up. Number one rapist had blown his load, number two was undoing his fly, and now a third guard had joined them. West and I were outnumbered, and it was only a matter of time — moments, perhaps — before more of these fuckwits got the scent and wandered over for their turns.
The front of the trestle table was hard up against a massive tree trunk. I came up behind the tree, with West at my shoulder. I could hear Ayesha whimpering, making the sounds of the utterly terrified and powerless. I turned to West and signaled what I wanted him to do. He shook his head vehemently. I repeated the signal and mouthed that it was a direct fucking order. I unsheathed my Ka-bar and waited while he pulled his. I gave him no choice. The plan was only going to work if we did it quickly, and together. I got down low and had one last look at the angles, because the first few steps coming around the tree would be blind. Then I moved around behind the trunk to the opposite side and, using my fingers, gave West a count of three.
Three.
Two.
One.
Walking around the tree, nice and casual, I resisted the desire to run past the front edge of the table, keeping my mind on the job by counting steps. The asshole bending over Ayesha glanced up helpfully, presenting his throat. I slid the Ka-bar across it, making sure the steel found his jugular before I finished the slice and he had the pleasure of watching his own blood mingle with the sweat and rain on Ayesha’s ass before slumping over her, dead. I took another step past him, angling the knife so that it would slip unhindered between the fourth and fifth rib of the number two party guy. I buried the blade almost to its hilt, venting the fucker’s heart, his mouth open in a big silent ‘O’ of surprise. He was a corpse before the surprise left his lips. I lay him down in the mud for the first few moments of his eternal rest, stood on his chest, and pulled the knife free. West took out number three guy, giving him a smile from ear-to-ear with his Ka-bar that made him gurgle softly. Apart from that, there was no sound. We gave them no warning and made no mistakes. Neat and professional. None of the other guards even looked our way. I gathered the dead soldier’s weapons, a submachine gun and two M16s, and patted down the bodies for extra mags.
The deceased were tall but not heavily muscled. I pulled the body off Ayesha, laid him beside his limp buddy, then grabbed both their lapels and dragged them behind the tree. Twenty meters beyond it was a screen of bush, then a drop into the ravine. I reconnoitered it quickly. Satisfied that the area was clear, I dragged the bodies behind the bushes and rolled them into the roaring darkness but didn’t hear a discernible splash over the sound of the churning waters. I prayed that they were gone, washed downstream by the torrent, and not jagged on a rock or hung up on driftwood where they would be easily found come morning. West dragged the other corpse to the edge.
‘Strip him first,’ I said, before going back to Ayesha.
I cleared her mouth, cut her bonds and stuffed them in a pocket, and then helped her off the table. She whimpered and cringed away from me.
‘It’s Cooper,’ I whispered.
But Ayesha was still afraid, unable to see past the DRC uniform. I grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a quick shake.
‘Ayesha, it’s me, Cooper.’
She swallowed and blinked and grabbed my forearms, her nails digging into my skin.
‘Cooper,’ she whispered, as if pulling herself out of a nightmare.
West put the dead man’s shirt over her shoulders and handed her a pair of pants. I scouted the ground quickly for signs of a struggle. There was plenty of blood, but the rain would take care of that. Leaving no indication of what had happened here would be a big help. West put a finger to his lips so that Ayesha knew the drill. We still had to get around the other guards and make our way out. We led her behind the back of the tree and crawled into the bush on our bellies. We picked up LeDuc where we’d left him, then found the tree I’d put in charge of the satchel and the M16.