Balance Of Power td-44

by Warren Murphy

  He reached deep into the drawer and pulled out something soft and ashen. He tossed it toward Barney. It hit him on the cheek, feeling Mice a cold leather bag, then dropped to the floor.

  130

  And there, at his feet, rested Denise's severed hand, its thin gold wedding band still encircling the third finger.

  "She wouldn't take the ring off," De Culo spat. "So we took it off for her. Get hinrout of my sight."

  Dazed, Barney allowed himself to be dragged out of the room where De Culo's laughter grew louder and louder, where the little hand with its cheap ring lay on the floor.

  She wouldn't take it off, Barney said to himself as he felt himself being shoved into a small stone cell dripping with cave water. Two rats scurried into the corners at the intrusion. A solid door closed slowly and finally, first narrowing the light to a thin line and then obliterating it.

  He sat on the cold stone floor in the darkness, with the squealing of the rats behind him, and thought only: She wouldn't take my ring off.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SWEENEY, GLORIA P.

  B. 1955, BILOXI, MISS.

  ATTENDANCE, FARMINGTON CO. ELEMENTARY OCC: NONE

  131

  INCARCERATION: MISS. STATE PENITENTIARY, 1973-76

  SUB (1) INCARCERATION

  MANSLAUGHTER, DEGREE 1, 15 YRS.-LIFE, COMMUTED WHEN SUBJECT SUBMITTED TO VOLUNTARY WORK PROGRAM IN PUERTA DEL REY, HIS-PANIA, 1978

  Harold W. Smith stopped the printout. "I think I've found her," he said into the phone. "Hold on, Remo."

  He keyed in:

  SUB (2) VOLUNTARY WORK PROGRAM, PUERTA DEL REY.

  INSTITUTED 1978 BY ESTOMAGO, GEN, ROBAR S.,

  CHIEF, NATL SECURITY COUNCIL,

  CURR. AMBASSADOR TO U.S. VOL. WORK PROGRAM FOR

  FEMALE PRISON INMATES IN LIEU

  OF MAXIMUM SENTENCE. NATURE

  OF WORK: DOMESTIC. NUMBER:

  (1978) 47

  (1979) 38

  (1980) 39

  "That's odd," Smith said, stopping the machine. "What's odd?" Remo asked. "Look, I don't have

  132

  all day to hang on the phone while you play tunes on your computer. There's still the business of De-nise Daniels and some kind of map on Gloria Swee ney's wall and some mosque somewhere-"

  "The mosque is at 128-26 West 114th Street," Smith said. "If Denise Daniels was Barney's wife, that's nothing to worry about," he muttered offhandedly. "Just a personal matter. Naturally, he would have been concerned by her death, so he would have opened the envelope with the bomb in it, since it carried her name on the return address. It was obviously intended for Daniels, although Max Snodgrass beat him to it. But in itself, this Denise Daniels is really . . . nothing . . ."

  He trailed off as his eye caught the last line of the printout. "Remo, when Daniels was talking, did he say anything about seeing a lot of American women on the island?"

  "Only Gloria Sweeney."

  "Funny. The CIA doesn't have any records about them, either. According to this printout, there are at least 120 female American prison inmates in Puerta delRey."

  "I didn't know there were prisons in Puerta del Rey. I thought they shot criminals first and tried them later."

  "That's not far from the truth," Smith said. "Nevertheless, Gloria Sweeney was sent to Hispania as a prisoner serving a life sentence. She's back in the States now, illegally. My guess is that she's involved with Estomago, the Hispanian ambassador."

  "Then why all the black freedom business, and the Peaches of Mecca and all that? And why did she have Calder Raisin killed? And what about the map Daniels keeps hollering about?"

  133

  "I have a theory or two, but nothing substantial. You find that out," Smith said. "I have to scan some prison records. Remo?"

  "What?"

  "Be quick about it." He hung up.

  It could be nothing. All of the information gathered so far through Smith's records and Barney's delirious testimony, might mean nothing more than that the leadership of a dissatisfied banana republic decided to make America uncomfortable by stirring up its black population. Just another case of the mouse chewing between the elephant's toes.

  But some of the printouts Smith had pulled from the CURE computer banks late the night before didn't sit well. Like the three bulletins from American air surveillance over the Atlantic confirming the presence of Russian freighters heading toward Cuba. Or the flutter of activity on banana boats between Hispania and Cuba. There had been too many incidences of Hispanian boats getting lost in Cuban waters for Smith to accept, especially since neither Hispania nor Cuba needed to trade bananas with one another.

  There was nothing definite, nothing to cause anything more than idle speculation on the part of Dr. Harold W. Smith.

  Idle speculation, Smith repeated to himself as he keyed in the code for penitentiary inmate files. Still, time should not be wasted. He made a point of ac-celebrating his typing speed from forty words a minute to forty-three.

  134

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Barney was starving.

  Had it been a week? A month? No, he reasoned, with what was left of his reason. He couldn't go a month without food.

  One thing he knew for certain: his water was drugged. After his first screaming, shaking experience with the water, he tried to ignore the little metal pan that slid through a rubber opening onto a small shelf in his cave cell, but when his thirst overcame him he drank. He took as little as possible to moisten his parched, raw mouth and throat because he knew that after he drank, he would have to submit to the dreams.

  Terrible dreams they were, confusing, nonsensical hallucinations that stabbed at his brain and burned it from inside. When they came, he tried to remember Denise, Denise in her kitchen, Denise making coffee. Denise kept him alive through the dreams while he convulsed and retched and screamed. She watched him. She smiled. She comforted.

  It must be a month, Barney thought as he dabbed one finger onto the surface of the water and carried the drop to his lips. The drug was less virulent at the top of the pan, Barney learned, if he let it sit. He

  135

  allowed himself no more than ten drops every time he drank, and he drank as infrequently as possible. Still, the dreams and nausea passed through him 'like air through a screen, and there was nothing Barney could do except to summon the name of his dead wife.

  "Denise," he whispered. "Help me."

  Light appeared. For the first time in the countless days of absolute darkness since he was first brought to his cell, the door opened.

  The flash of high-wattage interior lighting hurt his eyes. He shielded them. "Come," a voice said. So loud. It sounded like cannons to Barney's sound-deprived ears.

  Hands groped for him on the cold slime of the floor. He tried to pull himself to his feet. He couldn't stand.

  Outside, he curled himself into a tight ball to protect his eyes from the blinding light. A boot kicked him in the groin. "Move."

  With the help of four men, Barney stumbled through a vast empty-sounding cave, his eyes closed for fear of being blinded, and out into the welcome darkness of the jungle.

  Barney heard the jungle, teeming with noise. The flapping of birds' wings. Their songs. The piercing wails of animals dying miles away. The rustle of salamanders on leaves fallen to the earth. The earth itself exploded with sound: the rush of wind from the ocean, the music of moving water. And the smell. The wonderful smell of green things. The smell of life.

  "Water," he said. "Agua. Agua." The young men escorting him turned to their commander, a swarthy guerrilla in Cuban-style fa-

  136

  tigues and combat boots. He was the only one besides Barney who wore shoes,

  "Move," the soldier repeated, pushing Barney forward.

  For a moment, Barney's eyes met those of a young barefoot recruit to his right. He was still a boy, no more than sixteen. The boy's eyes were sad. They reminded him of Denise.

  Es nada," Barney said to him. "It
is nothing."

  The jungle grew more dense, until only an incidental patch of sky could be seen at the very tops of the trees. Ahead, Barney spotted a small fire.

  It glowed like a coal in the darkness, becoming brighter as the squadron dragged him toward it. The fire was in a thatched bamboo hut. Inside the hut, a cot waited for Barney.

  His shoes were removed and he was tied down with hemp rope. The young recruit with the sad eyes stoked the fire. Why they felt Barney needed a fire in the sweltering heat of the jungle was beyond him. Then they left him alone.

  At nightfall, the music of the jungle changed. The chattering beguine of the day birds gave way to the more somber, dangerous rhythms of night. Night was for the screams of vultures, the ravenous compaints of the big cats.

  It was at night that El Presidente Cara De Culo came to Barney.

  "Fancy meeting you here, Mr. Daniels," he said smoothly. "Isn't it a small world?" He waited for an answer. Barney could no longer speak.

  "I see you're not feeling talkative this evening. Too bad. I was hoping your days of relaxation might prompt you to participate in a discussion of your country. Rather for old times' sake, you know.

  137

  After all, someday soon it may not exist any more. Tsk, tsk. Things come and they go, don't they Mr. Daniels?"

  He sighed. "Yes, they come and they go. Just like your dear, departed wife. Remember her? The one who spread her legs for half the island?"

  Barney closed his eyes. Denise in the kitchen making coffee, Denise smiling.

  "She went so badly, too," De Culo said with mock concern. "First the hand. Ugh, ghastly. Nothing uglier than a screaming woman with a bloody stump for an arm."

  Denise in her shawl, Denise carrying his baby.

  "Then, of course, she was still alive when the men raped her. Boys will be boys, you know. Although I think she secretly enjoyed it. They all do, the experts say."

  "Denise," Barney croaked, the dry sobs racking him.

  "As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember someone telling me she was alive when the knife cut her open. Apparently she called out 'my baby' or some such drivel. God only knows who the father was."

  "I will kill you if it takes all my lif e and the next," Barney said slowly, the words rasping out of him like rusted nails.

  "Very poetic," De Culo said, smiling. "Well, I must be off. I only stopped by to bring you another present. You left the first on my office floor. Perhaps this will be more to your liking."

  He picked an iron poker up off the floor and thrust it into the fire. "These are rare around here," he said. "It's from my own personal fireplace. I want you to know that."

  Then he stood over Barney and with both hands bashed the lower part of his abdomen. "Stinking

  138

  slime," De Culo said. "I'll see to it you stay alive as long as possible."

  "I'll stay alive long enough to kill you," Barney wheezed, his belly knotted and cramping violently from the blow.

  Within a half hour, Estomago entered, along with the four men who had brought him to the hut. Once again, the young boy with the sad eyes was with them. Once again he stoked the already blazing fire.

  Estomago loosened the top button of his uniform and ran a finger along his red, sweating neck. "It's hot as hell in here," he said to no one in particular. He looked down at Barney, shriveled to almost half his weight, his wrists raw and bleeding from the rope around them.

  "Water," Barney rasped.

  "No water," Estomago said. "It is not permitted."

  The boy stoking the fire looked over to the two of them.

  "This is a bad way to die," Estomago said without a trace of De Culo's sarcasm. "Tell us who else knows about the installation, and I will see that you die quickly, with a bullet."

  It would have been so easy for Barney to tell him the truth, that the United States knew nothing about the installation. He would die then. It would all be over.

  But he could not die. Not until De Culo was dead. Not until his wife's death had been avenged.

  "Let me go," Barney said. "Then I will tell you."

  Estomago shook his head. "I cannot do that. You must die, soon or late."

  "Late," Barney said.

  "As you wish." He motioned to the soldier in army fatigues. "Dominquez. The whip."

  The soldier approached Barney's cot, a long liz-

  139

  ard whip in his hands. He tapped it on his palm expertly, a small smile of anticipation playing on his face.

  Estomago moved out of the way.

  Slowly, with sensuous pleasure, the soldier teased Barney's skin with the end of the whip. It glistened irridescent green in the light of the fire as it snaked across Barney's chest and legs. The soldier began to breathe heavily. His lips moved, wet with saliva. His eyes half-closed as he played the whip on Barney's genitals. Then he raised the whip, and, with a cry of pleasure, let it fly with a skin-splitting crack on Barney's belly.

  Denise. Oh, help me, Denise.

  The soldier raised the whip again, his own sex now obviously hard and throbbing, and threw out his arm to his right. The whip coiled and sank into the tender skin on the insteps of Barney's feet.

  Sparks flew inside Barney's brain. The pain was aflame, burning, burning. Endless pain. Denise. Don't go. Don't leave me.

  The whip snapped high overhead. It slashed him between his legs.

  Up from the pit of his stomach, black bile gushed from Barney's mouth and bubbled on his lips. Then he was unconscious.

  In a fury, the soldier tore his canteen from his belt and threw its contents on Barney's face to bring him back to consciousness. "You will not sleep now," he roared in almost incoherent Spanish. "Not until I am finished."

  Barney's tongue reached for the droplets of water on his face, the pain returning with horrible intensity. The soldier beat him again and again, each time bringing the whip down with the force of a lover's thrust. "Now!" he screamed. "Now!" He curled the

  140

  whip in a giant loop that circled the ceiling and brought it down so that it caught the length of Barney's torn body and sent it into convulsive spasms. As Barney's muscles jerked in reflexive agony, the soldier bucked and groaned until he lay spent on the dirt floor, moaning with pleasure.

  Barney did not regain consciousness for several hours. He came to with the taste of cold mountain water trickling down his throat. He sputtered and coughed, but kept drinking, for fear that it would be taken away before he could drink enough to stay alive through the night. Hands that smelled of earth and green plants smoothed more of the water on Barney's eyes and forehead.

  He opened his eyes. The boy whose job it had been to stoke the fire in the hut made a signal for him to be silent, and gave him another bowl of water to drink.

  "I will not forget you, my son," Barney muttered in Spanish. Immediately a rustling sound outside the hut alerted him to the fact that guards were posted. The boy ducked. The guard peered inside. "He's delirious," he said to an invisible comrade, and went back to his watch.

  The boy made a face at Barney as he got up off the floor, then offered him the bowl once again. Barney shook his head. The boy doused his wounds with the water left in the bowl, warning Barney not to cry out in pain.

  It hurt, but Barney would not let the boy be killed for helping him. He held his breath and let the water do its work. Then the boy slithered through a slim crack in the rushes of the hut and was gone.

  The days went on. The beatings, the interrogations, the whip. Always the whip. Each day, a man

  141

  would appear with a clamp to break one of Barney's fingers. And each night, the whip.

  "What does the CIA know?"

  "Eat shit."

  "What have you told them?"

  "That your mother is a whore."

  "Are there any other agents hidden on the island?"

  "May your rectum be a pool for the love juice of ditchdiggers."

  Sometimes Barney spoke in Engl
ish, sometimes in Spanish. It didn't matter. As long as he spoke. As long as he stayed alive.

  After all of his ringers were broken, Estomago gave him water. It was the drugged water of the cave prison, poisoned and fearful. It made the dreams come.

  He began to have a special dream, one that recurred with predictable regularity. The dream was of women.

  Each night since he was forced to drink the drugged water, .a host of beautiful women, naked and shimmering in the firelight, danced into the hut and surrounded him, smoothing their fragrant hands on his face, rubbing their breasts and lips on him. Each night they came and left without a word, to return the next night, feathery and lovely.

  The beatings stopped. He was given water four times a day. During the daylight hours, the soldiers would come to stoke the fire and give him water, and at night they were replaced by the women, smiling, dancing, tantalizing.

  He began to heal. His rope-burned wrists were bandaged, so that his only bondage was a rope around one ankle. He began to crave the water.

  The dreams were not so terrible any more. They

  142

  were pleasant. Confusing, crazy, colorful dreams. Who cared? What was so great about reality, anyway? Barney looked forward to his four bowls of water. They made the world fuzzy and pretty. They made the world nice.

  Even the soldiers were nice. They began to smile at him. They brought him food, first an easily digestible paste made of mashed vegetables, then soft bread and fruit, then good meals of army rations. And throughout all the dishes was laced the delicious dreams in the water.

  Everyone smiled. Everyone was happy. Except for the young boy who stoked the fire. What was with him, anyway, always staring at Barney as if he worried the sky was going to fall? Such a worry wart, for such a young boy. Maybe he was just a gringo hater. Well, it took all kinds of people to make a world, good and bad, and what difference did it make, anyway?

  Barney began to wonder what life was like outside the hut. Had he ever been outside? It seemed that his world began and ended there, hi that thatched roof paradise with the wonderful water. Well, that was fine with him. Especially if the women kept coming around.

  They did. Now they spoke to him, too, sweet words of comfort and flirtation.