Melissa cried as Mrs. Hough gagged, and then the door on the cage was opened, and they were all herded up and inside the swaying contraption at the point of machetes.
There were already four prisoners in the cage, all Australian, three men and a woman, who Jennifer thought looked as if they had been there for months, and when they told her that they had only been there two days, she briefly wondered what toll the ordeal was taking on her own appearance.
There was a tight weave of rope along the bottom of the cage, save for a corner, where one went to do their business, with zero privacy, and the waste would fall down into the pit atop the corpses.
“This is bloody inhumane!” Juan shouted and his words rewarded him with a jab in the back from a stick the guards kept on the ground for disciplinary purposes.
Juan winced in pain, then fell down and settled on his ass, while rubbing the place where he was struck.
One of the men who had already been there when they arrived looked around at the newcomers and sent them a grim smile.
“Welcome to hell.”
***
Later, with most of the men in the camp inside the largest tent and eating a meal, the young rebel Prendy paid the cage a visit.
He had just collected money from a bet he’d won and could think of no better use for it than to bribe the guards to give him access to the American girl.
At fourteen, Prendy was even younger than he appeared to be, and so hard had his short life been, that the demanding trek through the jungle had been a huge improvement over his normal existence, which had consisted of scrounging for food in the dumpsters of the resort hotels, avoiding violent gangs, and sleeping on the beach at night.
When Firman first began spouting his beliefs about a God that loved everyone like a father, Prendy thought the man insane, and still did, but by joining up with the skinny man’s cause, he had gained a feeling of fellowship and had even been given a gun to hold while guarding the hostages.
As he approached the cage, Prendy rubbed his crotch in anticipation, he had only been with one girl and she had been a skinny thing of twelve years without breasts. He longed to touch Melissa’s breasts and ached to be inside her, even knowing that if he were caught with her, he would be in huge trouble.
But, he had been nice to her, hadn’t he? He had even fed her and so he hoped that she would give in to his desires and not make him have to hurt her.
If she did cry out, he’d have to kill her and move on to the tall one, the one with the golden hair. Prendy grinned while thinking of the tall one’s breasts, which were even larger than the girl’s.
Maybe he would have them both.
***
Jennifer saw Prendy approach the cage with a grinning face and watched as he passed something to the two men who were standing guard over them.
After looking around furtively, the men came over and opened the cage.
Prendy pointed at Melissa, and if not for the lecherous glint in the boy’s eyes, Jennifer might have thought that he was doing her a kindness by removing her from the nightmare that was the cage, even if only for a short time.
“Something’s not right here,” Juan said and when Jennifer looked over at Melissa, she saw that the girl was frightened.
One of the guards gestured for Melissa to come out of the cage, but she shook her head as tears began to flow.
Prendy spoke to her in a loud whisper, then, he unsheathed his machete and entered the cage. When Juan stood up, Prendy swung the machete at him and just missed slicing open his face, and then he grabbed Melissa by the wrist and began pulling her towards the cage opening.
Melissa cried and thrashed about, which made Prendy even angrier and caused the guards to look back towards the mess tent.
One of the guards said something to Prendy and the boy slapped Melissa on the side of her head. The blow stunned her, she fell upon her back, and Prendy reached down and stuck his free hand inside her blouse, to fondle her.
Juan was red with anger and cursing at Prendy with everything he had, even as a guard was repeatedly poking him in the ribs with a stick, and Jennifer feared that the father of four girls was about to lose his life in a vain attempt to save Melissa from rape.
A glazed look came over Prendy’s face as he felt the girl’s breasts and Jennifer knew that he planned to rape Melissa, and possibly kill her if she regained her senses and resisted.
“Hey!”
Prendy turned towards her with his machete poised to strike and then licked his lips as Jennifer opened her blouse to give Prendy a view of her cleavage.
“Leave her alone and I’ll go with you.”
Prendy stared at her, then, he reached out and touched her short blond hair.
“That’s right, take me and leave her, don’t hurt her.”
Prendy jumped down from the cage and gestured for Jennifer to follow, he was so engrossed with the thought of having her that he never noticed Firman leaving the tent and walking his way.
No sooner had Jennifer stepped out of the cage in order to sacrifice herself to save the virginal Melissa, when Firman cried out in anger and called back into the tent.
Men flooded from the tent, among them their leader garbed in robes, and when Firman reached Prendy, he knocked the boy to the ground with a hard slap across the face, as he let loose a long string of words in his native language.
The guards were questioned and then escorted away for disciplinary training, which would take the form of a severe beating, and although Jennifer didn’t understand a word that was being said, she knew that Prendy was in serious trouble for going against the tenets of his religion, by seeking to have sex with her.
When Prendy was dragged off, Jennifer was relieved, but then the white-haired man wearing the robes leaned over and spoke into Firman’s ear.
Whatever the man had whispered, it pleased Firman, who turned and pointed at her, and soon she was being dragged away as well.
“I didn’t do anything! I was only trying to protect my friend.”
Her words were ignored, if they were even understood, and although she couldn’t know it, Jennifer had been marked for death, death by beheading.
CHAPTER 35 - Kill and kill again
Tanner waited until the guards farthest from the camp came walking along the trail and passed him, before springing into action.
The men were talking to each other about a game of chance, and seemed happy to be returning to camp and done with their workday.
Tanner had gazed down upon the rebel compound from a position not far from the place where Jennifer had stood earlier, and he estimated that there were well over a hundred men present between the ones guarding the trail and those in the camp.
He had also taken note of the cage and knew it wouldn’t be easy to free anyone from it, as it was in plain sight, with the cliff wall at its back,
The weave of rope and hodgepodge of camouflage materials overhead interested him, and he determined that it had to be destroyed if Burke’s men were to have any chance at a successful raid.
However, that would come later, after he killed his share of the men guarding the trail.
The first man died easily, because the fool had actually been laughing and talking to the second man, who died only an instant later, as Tanner slashed his blade across their necks, thus, opening their throats, and rendering them speechless at the same time he delivered injuries that would kill them.
He watched them thrash on the ground and die by exsanguination, then, he listened carefully in case another rebel had drawn near.
There was no need to hide the bodies from view, because the copious amount of blood spilled would speak of their demise anyway, and so Tanner moved on.
There were ten men on patrol along the trail, and he found his third man looking alert and ready. Tanner stepped into view, took careful aim and hit the man in the face with a stone. He had been aiming for a spot between the man’s eyes, but the stone smashed the area high atop the man’s forehead, and caus
ed him to weave about like a drunk.
Tanner managed to reach him before he recovered, grabbed the rock from the ground and used it to smash the guard’s face repeatedly.
The struggle made little noise, unfortunately, the fourth man must have been nearby, because Tanner heard someone running along the trail and coming his way.
After switching the machete to his left hand, Tanner ran towards the sound with his blade up and at the ready, and as he and the fourth man met at a bend in the trail, Tanner sliced deep along the ribs of a man holding a rifle, and watched him crumple onto the dirt.
He walked back to the man, took away the rifle, and delivered a killing stroke with his blade, ending the man’s cries of pain, which had been gaining in volume.
He was rounding the bend in the trail when he became aware of the footfalls coming up from behind, and had just enough time to duck.
A blade whooshed over his head, and when he looked up, he saw a face so damaged that he marveled its owner still had sight.
It was the third guard, the one he had smashed with the rock, and the man was speaking gibberish from a mouth whose teeth were freshly broken.
Tanner tripped him with the rifle barrel, even as the man attempted to swing the machete, and then he finished the job of killing the man by thrusting a blade into his heart.
Guards five and six suffered from the belief that, being the guards in the middle, they would have sufficient time to be alerted if there was any trouble along either end of the trail, and so they sat with their backs against a tree while smoking and sharpening their blades.
Tanner crawled over to them on the side of the tree that was directly behind them and with a machete in each hand, he reached around and sliced open their throats. One man died almost instantly, as the blade had bitten deep, while the other man managed to stand and take several steps before falling face first, and died after suffering a spasm.
Tanner had just hidden behind the same tree when he saw Sara and Garner moving along the edge of the trail while keeping to the shadows. He stepped out, raised his hand to grab their attention and saw that their work had left them as bloody as had his own. He also noticed that Jake looked sickened by the violence.
“If I never have to kill with a blade again, it will be too soon,” Sara said.
“It does get messy, and personal,” Tanner agreed, and after they took a quick stop at a stream to wash off what blood they could, he led them to the view that overlooked the camp.
Sara cried as she took in the cage.
“They’re keeping her like an animal.”
Jake pointed up at the web of camouflage.
“That’s going to be a problem for the helicopter.”
“I can deal with that,” Tanner said. “And when I do, all hell will break loose.”
When he finished speaking, he dug a fingernail into the skin of his opposite arm and freed the tiny GPS tracker that had been placed there, causing a small trickle of blood to flow.
He held the device up.
“Once I destroy this, Burke’s people will be on their way here, so why don’t we make a plan first?”
“Fine,” Sara said. “How will you handle that camouflage tarp above us?”
Tanner removed a lighter and a pack of matches that he had found near the bodies of the two guards that had been smoking.
“I’ll set fire to it, which will cause chaos and alert the troops of trouble.”
“Won’t that endanger Jenny and the other hostages?” Sara said.
“It’s a possibility, which is why we’ll be freeing them when the fire reaches its peak.”
Jake blew out a long breath.
“That sounds like suicide.”
“Not for you two, because you’ll be up here with those rifles and killing any guard that gets in the way.”
Sara’s face scrunched up in confusion.
“How are you going to start the fire and get down there before it burns out of control?”
“I’ll manage, trust me.”
Sara stared into Tanner’s eyes.
“I do trust you; I’m trusting you with my sister’s life.”
“I’ll find her and I’ll get her to safety, but while I’m doing that you two will be on your own.”
“I told you before we started that getting Jenny to safety was your only job; Jake and I will take care of ourselves.”
“Fine, but for this to work, you both have to be good shots with a rifle, are you?”
“I’m better than decent,” Sara said. “And if I’m not mistaken, Jake has won contests.”
Jake shook his head.
“I came in second two years in a row, but yes, I can shoot.”
“What about the bad hand?”
“It hurts like hell, but it’s good enough to grip the rifle.”
“Alright, and make every shot count, there’s not much ammo.”
Tanner placed the GPS chip on the ground and smashed it with a rock.
He looked up.
“The countdown has begun.”
CHAPTER 36 - Geronimo!
Many of the tall trees in the area had few branches on the lower section of their trunks, and so Tanner climbed up one of them by using two machetes as if they were claws, and then moved over to where a corner of the huge camouflage net was fastened with thick rope.
His hands were on fire with pain, as the web of flesh on one had been previously wounded by gunfire, while the other had a chunk removed from its palm by the descending blade of a machete, just a day earlier.
No stranger to pain, he pushed it aside and put his mind to the task at hand, freeing Jennifer Blake.
Tanner wasn’t certain of just what it was that Burke had planned, but assumed that the man would send as large a force as he could gather to wipe out the rebels.
What that would cost the businessman in terms of new government scrutiny and more hearings concerning his company was anyone’s guess, but Burke wanted his daughter back as much as Sara wanted her sister returned safely, and even in a third-world nation like Guambi, Burke had the connections and resources to get it done.
After giving up on cutting through the many ropes that secured the canopy, Tanner sliced at two of the pieces used and after shaking them and seeing how long the ropes were, he looked down through a small hole he’d made and estimated the distance to the ground.
An idea occurred to him at that point, one that made him smile and Tanner hoped that he wouldn’t make a fool of himself when he put it into action, or worse, get himself killed by breaking his neck.
However, he had been a long-range shooter for most of his life and had a keen eye for estimating distances, and so he was confident that he could guess the distance to the ground.
Tanner crawled out into the center of the tarp while dragging the ropes behind him, and when he reached the middle, he broke open the lighter, spilling its flammable fluid atop dry leaves, and used the book of matches to light it.
The liquid immediately caught fire, the leaves burned, and Tanner waited for his chance to play Tarzan.
***
Down below, on the lip of the cliff overlooking the camp, Sara and Jake lay on their stomachs and gazed down at the sudden flurry of activity taking place.
“What do you think is going on, could they know we’re here?” Sara asked.
Jake shook his head.
“No, if that were the case, they’d be staring up here, no it’s not us, but something has everyone down there excited.”
Sara looked up at the canopy and noticed that there was a black spot at its center, and as she kept looking, she caught the glow of embers.
“Look, he’s done it. Tanner has started the fire.”
“Good, but that thing is a massive patchwork and may take a while to burn.”
Down below, someone let out a cry of joy and when she looked, Sara saw a small figure being dragged from a tent. The figure was male, but not very big, and he was brought out to the rear of the compound with his hands t
ied behind him, and then forced to his knees.
An instant later, Sara spotted another figure being dragged towards the first, and as soon as she spotted the cropped blond hair, she knew.
“Jenny, oh my God, that’s Jenny.”
Jake leaned farther over the rim of the cliff as if another few inches would help him see her better, but he didn’t need to see her face clearly, for like Sara, he knew.
Jennifer also had her hands tied behind her back and was driven down to her knees by two rough hands.
Moments later, Firman appeared, and as he sharpened a long Katana-style sword, his intent became clear.
“Oh... oh good God, they’re going to execute her,” Sara said, and both she and Jake knew that the odds had just risen against Jennifer ever seeing another day.
***
Tanner had moved away from the fire at the center of the canopy and had cut another hole to see through. When he spotted Sara’s sister being readied for execution, he knew that Burke’s men might not reach the area in time to stop it; he also realized that the plan he had made with Sara was now obsolete.
After removing his boots and securing the ropes around his ankles, Tanner hacked at the hole until it was large enough to fit through.
Then, he found himself coughing violently, as the wind shifted and blew the smoke of the fire his way, while also feeding it and causing it to grow.
Tanner readied himself, while hoping that Sara and Jake wouldn’t act too soon, and prepared to leap literally into the fray.
***
Sara was lining up her shot on Firman when Jake pressed a hand on the barrel of her rifle.
“Don’t fire unless there’s no other choice, with these rifles, at this distance, we could just as easily hit Jennifer as the man with the sword.”
Sara groaned in frustration.
“You’re right, but we’ll soon have to take that risk. Look, he’s moving up behind them.”
Jake pulled at his hair.
“Where are those men of Burke’s?”
Down below, Firman began speaking as he paced behind Prendy and Jennifer. His fiery speech was a sermon about the evil of promiscuity, the lasciviousness of western women, and the dire consequences of giving in to the appetites of the flesh.
The TANNER Series - Books 7-9 (Tanner Box Set Book 3) Page 11
