Circle of Wagons: The Gospel of Madness (Book 4 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series))

by Georg Bruckmann

  I shouldn't be like that.

  You're not gonna make me like this!

  "Good, good. Then I'm sure you understand what I'm about to tell you. To stop your impertinent interference in the affairs of my people, we could, of course, simply send you back home chopped into small pieces. But what would happen then? That's it. Someone new would come and try to pick up where we stopped you. You are far from being the brightest light in this game, Brother Raphael. That's why I'm gonna give you a chance to get away with your life. But only if you let us know about the big picture of your operation, and initiate us so totally and completely that we have no reason to doubt the truthfulness of your words. And I'm warning you! Don't you lie to me! That would be very unpleasant for you. And know that in recent years, we have built up a large network of informants. Some things we already know for sure."

  Mobanta looked at the gold watch he was wearing on his left wrist. A big, snobbish thing.

  "As I mentioned earlier, I don't have much time today. Nevertheless, I would like to start at the very beginning. I'm trying to be patient. If there is one thing I have learned in my earlier attempts to give my people back their autonomy, it is that one should not rush things. So the question I would like to ask you today relates to your recruitment technique. How did you manage to attract so many of my countrymen to your side?"

  Toni was silent for a while, obviously too long for the resistance leader.

  "Well? Do you want to say something, or do you want my men to help?"

  "I ... I need a moment so that I can answer the question to your complete satisfaction. The ... the short answer is: through the sermons. But that shouldn't be good enough for you... so I'd like to think for a moment."

  "I told you before, I don't have much time. An operation needs to be kept going, and I have others... what do they say to you? ...other construction sites. If you stall me too long, perhaps in the mistaken hope that you will be saved, then..."

  "I understand, General Mobanta."

  "Well, well, well! You're not that stupid! So you know who I am. Okay, then. That might make things easier."

  Toni spoke sluggishly. The words still sounded rough.

  "Yes, General. I know who you are. I won't make the mistake of underestimating you. I admire your strategic and tactical skills. Your attack on Tareshka was a military masterpiece.»

  It wasn't. It was a cowardly massacre, you self-opinionated piece of filth.

  "Look, I'm Italian. I don't mind if you raze one or two American embassies to the ground. I'm an opportunist, General. I'm sure we'll come to an agreement. Certainly your organization has needs. Monetary or logistical, it doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure there's something I can do for you. More than answering your questions. I ..."

  The general narrowed his eyes to slits, his face became rigid and he fixed Toni in disgust.

  Damn it, Toni thought. I bet on the wrong horse. My fucking head's not working right.

  The man's tone was freezing when he spoke.

  "Brother Raphael! You misunderstand the situation in which you find yourself quite thoroughly. Please understand this: My political enemies are my enemies, but I can partly understand their motives. I'm a patriot. My enemies think they are patriots too. That I can respect to a certain degree. Opportunists, as you said so beautifully - I hate them even more than my enemies. You and your kind are criminals, and not worthy to breathe the same air as even the slightest of my misguided compatriots. So if you even try once more to negotiate with me as if we were equal, you will regret it bitterly, preacher."

  He took a break that Toni used to confirming by nodding. But apparently that wasn't good enough for Mobanta, because he went on.

  "On second thought, I think I need to give you something that will help you better understand your position. To really understand, I mean. We'll continue our conversation another time, and then hopefully you won't be that arrogant."

  He rose and put the objects he had spread out on his table back in a briefcase. Toni saw that there were large-format photos among them. A lot.

  How long has he been watching me?

  One of the pictures had shown the face of Herod, another one the face of one of the women from the fundraiser. They were the only two Toni had been able to see. General Mobanta turned around and left the cabin. His two men followed him, and the door was locked again. Toni could hear them talking to each other outside in their mother tongue. Then, as they boarded the vehicle, the engine was started and finally the engine noises faded with growing distance.

  An hour later, the door opened again.

  There were others.

  They took him with them.

  ***

  When they were done with him, he wasn't taken back to the cabin. He remembered vaguely that a hatch had been opened, leading in the ground. They had pushed him down into that hole, and his legs had been unable to cushion the fall. He had painfully rammed his own knees against his skull when they had given way. Everything hurt him now, and he bled from countless small wounds. Every square inch of his skin was burned, for they had taken their time with him and given the merciless African sun the opportunity to do its work on his pale, naked body.

  While they tortured him, they had not spoken, or at least nothing he could understand. On two occasions they had made efforts to hack off his hand - first the right, then the left - with a rusty machete, but then they hadn't done it. Each of the men had dealt with him according to his own taste, but a rather young man, whom they all seemed to obey, had taken care that they did not inflict any serious injuries on him.

  With another victim, their method would certainly have worked. Not with Toni. At least not yet. He had noticed that he had been spared, and this circumstance allowed him to regard what the men did to him as a game.

  Okay, he was the ball in this game right now, but he knew that his life wasn't in danger. At least not as long as none of the men who had tried to break him with sexual humiliation had infected him with an illness. And - more importantly - not until he had provided the information the General wanted from him.

  Not that they asked him anything. It was too soon for that. The general had said that he was patient. He was sure to find a whimpering white wreck the next time he´d show up here.

  At first it had been really scary, but after the young commander of this prison camp had prevented Toni from losing a hand for the first time, and he had deducted what kind of game was being played here, he had managed to withdraw his mind from his body.

  Strangely enough, the pain inflicted on his body had provided clarity in his head. He still didn't know exactly how they had brought him here, but finally he began to think halfway logically again. The hut from which they had dragged him to the square and then started playing with him was not the only one. Toni had counted six of these low huts arranged in a circle. This in turn was bounded by a wire mesh fence. One of the huts that stood next to a primitive radio mast was quite large. The staff of his prison had to live in there. They probably also stored the supplies they needed there. The space in the middle was big enough to allow one or two helicopters to land. The usual signs of animal husbandry or agriculture were nowhere to be seen. All around, on the other side of the high fence, was only impenetrable green jungle. This place therefore had to be a purely paramilitary institution that had to receive regular supplies. Toni hadn't seen a gate in the fence, but he assumed it was behind one of the shabby buildings. Probably behind the big one.

  Now he was in a damp and earthy smelling hole of about five by five meters. From the edge of the hatch, through which they had thrown him in, a single light bulb dangled down, barely illuminating the place. There wasn't a mattress or even a bed. There was nothing down here. Toni was somewhere in nowhere. This place could just as well have been located outside the world known to him. After taking stock of his injuries in the light of the weak, and occasionally flickering light bulb due to the fluctuations in power produced by the generator, he crawled back into the most shadowy corner
where he felt a little more secure. There he curled up on the bare floor and thought.

  His memories of the time here in Africa were still blurred, but things got better. He had taught and preached. He had talked to important people. What's the matter with them? What did he want from them? He was commuting back and forth between the area of the Mission of the Merciful Brothers of the South and the city. During the day he had done missionary work, and in the evenings and at night he had made plans.

  Again he saw a kaleidoscope of impressions and faces in front of him. The ambassador. Herod.

  I don't know how he got here or what he was doing here.

  Probably the order assigned Toni that idiot to get rid of him.

  The ambassador's wife. Toni remembered. He remembered that he had desired her. Did he have her? Probably, he thought. Is that why he was here? Did the ambassador have something to do with this? Was this whole thing the revenge of an angry husband?

  No. There's got to be more.

  He missed something. Something he couldn't quite grasp yet. But he also knew that he probably wouldn't be able to do anything about it today. He forced his mind to calm down. He had to sleep. Tomorrow the drug they must have used to sedate him would hopefully have disappeared completely from his brain. Then he would finally be able to think again.

  When he awoke, the light conditions and the earthy smells in the room were still unchanged. Yet something was different. Something had been added. Something was below the hatch. Toni wanted to get up to look at it, but the pain impulses that his body passed on to his brain made him crawl. When he could see better from up close what it was, he was astonished. There was something wrapped in a dirty cloth. Surely something to eat. He was expecting it. Next to it, a bottle of murky water. That alone didn't surprise him. No. But there was more.

  A book.

  A pen.

  And some letters.

  Toni recognized them immediately. Antoine had written them to him. This they kept in touch since his puppy had joined the Swiss Guard. Anything else would be too risky. Antoine had somehow managed to find a whore who functioned as a reliable post office and had the same surname as his. For a quite generous fee she forwarded his letters unopened and provided with a new envelope, to Toni's respective address. The other way around, it worked in the same manner. The internal security of the Vatican would presumably assume that he wrote to a family member and did not open his letters. And even if a suspicious security officer researched who the lady was, he would certainly not address Antoine for decency reasons once he got behind the dubious career choice of his presumed relative.

  But what did it mean now that the general had gotten his hands on the letters?

  Toni tried hard to remember and came to the conclusion that he hadn't had them with him at the hotel, when he had been kidnapped.

  Of course not. Why would he carry them around? So the general hadn't just smuggled his people into the hotel. Even in the village that Toni had posed to work in, there had to be informers.

  As Toni continued to think about this, he unwound the bundle that had also been thrown down to him. A millet flat cake and the bones of some chicken legs that had already been gnawed off. The flat cakes were dust-dry, but at least not moldy. When Toni had eaten half of it, he just had to take a sip of the dirty water. He knew it would probably give him diarrhea. Yet his body was longing for the fluid. He carefully drank a small sip, although he knew that it was for this very reason that he would probably lose more fluid in the end than he would have consumed. He heard his stomach working, but at least for the moment he seemed to be able to keep everything with him.

  Maybe that's how it's gonna be. If I have one thing down here, then it's time, by the look of it.

  So I´ll drink just a little at a time. Only a few drops.

  In fact, he felt better after a while. He bent forward from his usual position and reached for the book. It was bound in imitation leather. A cheap thing with no inscription and Toni already knew what it meant.

  When he opened it, he saw his suspicions confirmed. It was empty. Together with the ballpoint pen, which they had also thrown into his underground cell, he interpreted this fact as an unspoken order. He should write down what he was doing below here. And by below here, he added in thought, I do not mean the cell, but Africa.

  He sat like that for a while. He was tired again. Only when someone opened the hatch and the light dazzled him did he retreat into a corner again. Fascinated, he observed the stream of urine shining in the light, with which one wanted to tell him what one thought of him. Even in that moment, instead of insulting him, he could perceive for a second the beauty of creation. When he noticed that, he exhorted himself to pull himself together. This religious thought must have been given to him by the remnants of the drug. Maybe the food had also released endorphins. Because beauty of piss in light of a dirty bulb or not, the general and his people would pay for this. Everything they did to Toni, they would get back amplified many times over. To do so, however, he had to remain capable of acting.

  He made a firm resolve to suck every tiny bit of marrow out of the chewed bones, as much as they might disgust him. Every tiny bit of meat, no matter how small, on the leftovers of the food, every piece of cartilage, and every thin strand of a torn tendon, he would assimilate. Slowly, however, so that he could keep everything with him and convert it into energy.

  Energy.

  For a fraction of a second, he saw Azrael's face in front of him. It all had started with him. Toni's conversion. Without this dark and unscrupulous man, Toni would have become nothing but an average sex offender. But in the thought concepts that he had discovered in Azrael's library, in the countless and confused occult writings that the executor of the Lodge of the Seeing had collected and studied over and over again, Toni had found guidance at that time, even though he now thought he was superior to most of these rather simple collections of dogmas.

  But Toni was not allowed to indulge in any occult or pseudo-philosophical thought. In the end, it was only power that counted, and as far as that was concerned, there was a very, very large deficit on his side at the moment. He had to find a way to change that. Toni decided to start with himself as a first step. In pain he stood up and in pain he began to walk back and forth within the small pit.

  Ambassador. Herod. Antoine. Radio mast. General. Massacre. A cleavage, a white one. A naked black woman kneeling in front of him, sucking his cock. Guerrilla war. Gold mine. Mission work. Desire. Stop. Greed. Patriotism. Love. Selfishness. Torture.

  Something he missed, he realized.

  He pondered and pondered, but found nothing. Then light again. Then a ladder. And then they came back and took him upstairs.

  They didn't start their game right away. First the young man, their commander, built himself up before Toni. He had the book in his hands. He hit Toni in the face with its back and his lip burst open. The power of words. Then he held it before Toni's eyes in such a way that he could see it, and leafed through it deliberately slowly, while his men surrounded Toni, who could only hold himself on his legs laboriously. The demonstrative gesture was not difficult to understand. The young man criticized the empty pages. Toni hadn't written anything. With another exaggerated gesture of regret, the young man finally shrugged his shoulders after arriving on the last page.

  He's telling me I'm to blame for what's going to happen to me now.

  They beat him again. Again two of them fucked him and ejaculated, spat and pissed into his body. They were the same as last time. Another took a dog from the big hut and let it bite Toni's calf. Three times all in all they threatened to cut off his hands. Stoically Toni endured everything. He had retreated into his head and desperately tried to gather more information about the men and the camp itself as they spent their time on his hull.

  Then, when a particularly violent blow to the face broke Toni's eye socket, only then did he realize that the peace of mind he radiated in this way drove the men further and further.

&n
bsp; What was it that satisfied him? What made his own angry instincts abate at some point? What was it that gave him a little rest, even if only for a short time? It was the reactions of his victims. Not the mere fact that he did whatever to them, but their whimpering, their pleading, and their fear. That sated the devil in him.

  He understood that if he did not want to be irreparably damaged, he had to return to his body. He had to face the pain fully and give them what they needed. And quickly, before more bones would break, and they might actually chop off his hand just because they didn't think they would get a reaction from him in any other way. If he wanted to get out of here somehow, he had to lay off his pride, he had to make them believe that they had broken him. And that would only be credible if he actually went to his limits. Maybe beyond.

  He was afraid of it.

  What would that do to him? He could not, not under any circumstances, allow them to gain real power over his spirit. Then all the development he had achieved so far would be gone. Then they'd make him one of their own again. An ordinary person. And to a person who had been irretrievably destroyed.

  Could he move his mental protective wall so purposefully that this was possible?

  They dragged him back to the log. Two pressed his wrist down on him. A third lifted the dirty machete and yelled something in his dark language.

  This had always been the time when they stooped.

  Not this time.

  ***

  The commander picked something up from the ground and stalled it for Toni. It was a little finger. A white little finger. Toni's little finger. With a mixture of horror and scientific interest, Toni looked back and forth between his four-fingered left hand and the body part. So now it had happened.

  You've waited too long, you idiot.

  Irreparable damage. That wasn´t supposed to happen. No more!

  He didn't allow himself to feel his way back into his body bit by bit. If he did it this way, he would despair when the pain became too strong and completely encapsulate himself again, he knew that. He had to suddenly drop his cover. Disable its protective mechanism. Once Toni swallowed. Then he dared.