At the appropriate point the ninja held his breath and swam underwater to the big pipe inlet where the river water was drawn into the town's supply system. Well water was not good in this swampy area, so the river was the cleanest source, bad as it was. The water was pumped to a big tank where it was allowed to stand, so that much of the sediment settled out and floating particles could be skimmed off the top. It was passed through filters and piped to the army camp and many of the houses, now fairly clean and safe to drink.
The swimming ninja opened a packet of powder, carefully kneading it so that it mixed with the water as it emerged. This solution was sucked into the supply pipe.
The action took only a few seconds. The ninja swam back to his drifting debris, now further downstream, and applied his mouth to the tube embedded there. He continued on down the river unobserved, following the major.
There was no immediate result of this mission. But the deed was done. The powder was a secret ninja formula derived from crushed mushrooms: a hallucinogen similar to LSD but more potent because there were no safety standards. In short, a drug of madness.
All day the dissolved drug sat in the tank, spreading through the water. It was so powerful that even diluted thousands of times it still was dangerously potent. It neither floated nor settled out; it permeated the tank, being further thinned by incoming replacement water. Its effect was thus diminishing, and would vanish in a few days without trace. But that one day would be all that was necessary.
Hallucinogenic mushrooms such as peyote have been used in many parts of the world. In some cases their essence passes through the human system without chemical change. Thus the shaman or medicine man may take a potent dosage, and the tribesmen drink his urine and suffer similar effects.
The ninja drug intensified the natural, usually-suppressed propensities of people. A moody person would become so depressed as to sink into catatonia or commit suicide. A violent one would become a raving maniac, destroying everything around him. A strongly sexed one would become a literal satyr, indulging in repeated and grotesque sexual acts, raping women and buggering men.
A few hours after the ninja's passage, it began. Not all the people drank from the tank; many poorer ones had to dip directly from the river, and wealthier ones drank milk, wines and fruit juices in lieu of water. But they were in the minority, and because there were so many armed soldiers in the town, in such an atmosphere of alarm, the sane people were swamped in the rising tide of madness.
No ninjas or other outsiders were near to report on that awful night. In the morning a river boat discovered the town burned to the ground, its inhabitants strewn all about: some shot, some stabbed to death, many strangled or clubbed. The women lay naked, evidently sexually molested, and many children too. The few survivors could offer no explanation; inexplicable madness had suddenly descended on the population, and the town had become a gruesome battlefield.
Only the sergeant who had blown up the privy had a reasonable insight into the rationale of that destruction—and he had not been there. He had been a member of the major's honor guard, cruising down the river as the ninja swam in.
Chapter 6
Wrath of the God
I don't know how long I slept. Maybe a couple of days, for when I finally came to I was ravenous. In fact, it was the dinner bell that woke me. I needed no shill of a boy to guide me to the chow line this time, which was just as well, because Filho was gone.
I fell in at the end of the long queue; it had taken me just enough time to get my bearings to make the last. My shoes were gone, and I was now in baggy prison pants with no belt, so that I had to hold them up with one hand. So when I made it to the front, I'd have trouble holding my meal.
But the man on the end protested. He spoke no English, but pointed toward the head of the line. "Por favor. Almoco."
"Uh-uh," I said. "I don't believe in crashing. I'll wait my turn."
But now others saw me. Two men came back toward me. I thought it was going to be more trouble, but they were smiling. "Please, Mr. Jason," one said in recognizable English. "I am Honorio Chagas. No one will eat until you do."
My brow wrinkled. "What's this all about?"
"It is all over the prison. How they put you under the shock treatment, and you just laughed and told them nothing. And the butcher Mirabal got burned by his own machine and had to have a doctor come. And you never betrayed your comrades even though they were tortured before your eyes."
"I had no comrades," I said. "Those were innocent strangers." But I wished he hadn't reminded me of that lovely girl and that poor old man, so brutally treated because of me. Mirabal was a butcher!
"Just so," Honorio agreed approvingly. "You had no comrades, and so the lives of many in the movement were saved. It is unfortunate that brave old Carlos died, but at least he did not talk. And you beat up the informers. Here is your food." For he had brought me to the head of the line, and they were serving me. I decided to go along with this; they were determined and I was hungry.
But now I had another problem. I couldn't take the food without letting go of my baggy pants, and then they would fall, and after what had happened before I was damned if I was going to bare my rear. Accused of pederasty, indeed!
My new friend saw the problem. "Here—some string," he said. He looped the twine about my waist and tied it with a bow.
"Thanks," I mumbled, accepting the food. It was a special treat, my friend informed me: Picadinho, or ground meat with okra and pimentos. Inpame and Xuxu, a pale green squash. Jilo, a delicate variety of eggplant. And so on, an astonishing variety for prison fare, I thought. Of course not everyone had every type; there was not enough. But the fact that there was any choice at all was remarkable. "What's the occasion?" I asked.
"Did you not know? It is the Carnival," he explained. "Even in prison, we must celebrate, and we honor you especially, for your courage."
"I was only trying to stop Filho from getting raped," I said. I don't like rape, and the involvement of a child or young person makes it worse, and homosexual rape of a boy-but it had all been a setup, unreal. Someone had figured my reactions very carefully! "Why didn't anyone speak up then? You all saw what happened."
"We did not trust you, sir," he explained. "We thought you were another shill, that we would only betray ourselves by speaking out. As for the boy—" and here he spat eloquently to the side—"impossible to rape that kind."
That set me back. The clear implication was that Filho was himself a homosexual, used to the act. A male whore. I had heard somewhere that boys of a certain age were highly prized for this purpose; indeed, that they had erotic nerves in the anus that—or maybe it was a conditioned response—and I had charged to this one's rescue! No wonder the other prisoners had been suspicious! "I see you did not know," Honorio said. "We Latins hate sodomy worse than you do, but this was a trap, and it smelled. We are sorry we misjudged you; we apologize."
"First you thought I was a shill," I said. "Now you think I'm one of the urban guerrillas. I'm neither. I really did not know those poor people who were tortured. If I had known them, I probably would have admitted it, to save them from—you know what Mirabal did to them?"
"We know," Honorio said. He opened his mouth wide, to show two teeth missing. "But even if you know nothing, you are still Jason Striker. You would not come here to betray us."
Was he trying to pump me for information about my mission? I could not afford to trust him. "I didn't want to come to Brazil at all," I said. "As soon as I get out of here, I'm going straight home."
He nodded, not questioning me further. I finished my meal. It wasn't enough; it left me still hungry. But I knew I had a generous portion, and I was not about to complain.
The whole of the prison had changed. Now everyone was friendly. I went for a drink of water at the lone tap, and someone warned me to beware of the worms. I had not been able to read the sign, in Portuguese. I didn't know what kind of worms were in that water, but I was good and thirsty this time, an
d there was nothing else. I drank.
I returned to my bunk, feeling better. The long rest had done me good, and the improved mood of my fellow prisoners helped a lot. I lay down to rest some more.
Several gunshots woke me. Honorio was with me almost immediately. "Down, friend!" he exclaimed. "Take cover." We cowered down by the bunk.
Then all hell broke loose. There was a terrific explosion, and all the prisoners started running around and screaming. It was an instant, full-scale riot!
Honorio grabbed my hand. "Follow me, Striker; it is for you they come."
"What?" I was confused.
"The MR-26 blew up the wall of the infirmary. Now we all escape, but especially you."
Still I resisted. "I don't know anything about the Mister Twenty Six! It has to be a mistake!" Later I was to learn that it had been no mistake. Dulce had escaped, made contact with the Communist MR-26 Revolutionary Movement, organized them together with the MR-8 and several other similar groups, and planned a full-scale attack on the jail—all to free me. It was quite an irony, these Communist revolutionary groups coming to spring a complete capitalist like me.
They had filled a fake ambulance with C-3 plastic explosive and TNT and driven it to the prison infirmary, telling the guards they were coming to pick up a sick prisoner. The guards, celebrating the carnival by imbibing 100-proof Cachaca, the colorless alcohol that was Brazil's national drink, had not been suspicious, and had let the ambulance into the inner courtyard, separated from the prisoners' court by a fence of iron bars. The plan was to explode the ambulance there, then charge in with a panel truck filled with men and wipe out the surviving guards. Then they would pick me up and their friends and scorch rubber getting out.
But, as with so many straight-forward efforts, the actual attempt had complications. The two men driving the ambulance had faked papers; the idea was for them to enter the prisoners' courtyard so that they would not be harmed when the ambulance exploded in the guard's court. But one man lost his nerve and started running when a guard challenged him. That had triggered the exchange of shots that woke me. Then another guard had tried to open the back of the ambulance. Booby-trapped, it had exploded far more violently than the guerrillas, unsophisticated in such matters, had anticipated. The bombing was heard all over Rio, and a huge black cloud of smoke rose into the air above the prison, signaling the location plainly. This meant that help for the guards would be on the way much sooner than planned. The panel truck, charging in, rammed into the wall and got stuck in the gate and it was out of commission; and now it was every man for himself. The MR-26 people tried to rescue their own number from the cells, and the MR-8 theirs, forgetting any unified effort. This was the chaos I now found myself in. No wonder I balked!
"Dulce," Honorio said.
Then I decided to go along. How she could have become involved in any of this I could not guess, then, but no one in this prison should know of my connection with her, unless she had told him. Maybe this was another trap—but she did have something to do with the guerrillas, and the explosion and riot were real enough.
Honorio led me to the gate between the prisoners' and the guards' compounds. Acrid smoke filled the area, and there was a wrecked panel truck to the side, partially blocking the way. Bodies were lying around. The explosion had blown the gate off its hinges, but some guards had rallied and were trying to stem the breakout. In the confusion we made it through the bedlam to the infirmary. There was a smoking hole in the wall. Guards were trying to close it off, but were held back by snipers firing from the buildings beyond.
"We can't go there!" I protested. "We'll be shot too!" Honorio raised his hand and yelled something in Portuguese. Prisoners turned to look at him. Then they charged the guards near the wall. There was shooting and a brief struggle; then the guards were dead or unconscious. I was astonished at the number of homemade weapons I saw the prisoners use. The helpless guards were literally hacked to death by spoons honed razor-sharp, fragments of broken glass, razor blades embedded in potatoes, homemade blackjacks, even knives fashioned from metal from the bunks.
"Come!" Honorio called to me.
"What did you say to them?" I demanded, hanging back. "I said, 'Here is Jason Striker whom you let go to the torture on a false charge, and now his friends from the MR-26 Movement have come to free him, and all of you can go too—if you only get rid of those guards. This man whom you wronged so villainously forgives you and gives you your freedom, for this one small favor!'"
"You didn't!" I said, aghast.
He smiled. "No. I said 'Kill the bastards and get the hell out before the army comes!'"
I saw the girl Ester, her of the lost tooth, running with several other female prisoners, apparently quite recovered from her ordeal. Her plump buttocks jiggled with every stride she took. I was glad to know she was free. Too bad the old man had died.
And then I wondered: how had Honorio known about the death? Surely Mirabal would not have advertised the news over the loudspeaker. But there was no time to conjecture about such moot points.
Now we passed on through the hole. I was afraid the underground Revolution snipers would fire on us, but they didn't. Instead someone called: "Jason!"
I looked up—and there on the roof of the building across from the prison was Dulce, waving. What a wonderful sight! She had already been freed. That made my day complete—or so I thought.
I charged down the street and around the corner of the building, hoping to meet her at the entrance. But I was one of a ragtag band of hundreds of escapees. The other prisoners, wisely, were eager to get as far away from the prison as possible, with no delay. My bare feet were vulnerable; I had to watch my step, lest my tender toes get trampled in the stampede. And my damned pants kept falling down; somewhere in the rush the string had snapped and been lost. I had no underpants, and—well, it was awkward.
So we swept pell-mell around the corner—and suddenly the crowd was ten times the size. We were like a rivulet joining a stream, our impetus merged with the larger body. A stream? Nay, this crowd was the mighty Amazon! I tried to get to the door of the building, but it was upstream and manifestly impossible in my present state. I was carried along the opposite way, down the street amidst the crocodiles, I mean the cheering throng.
What was this? It seemed as though the entire population of Rio had disgorged into this one channel. Furthermore, the people weren't walking, they were dancing, despite the press of bodies, and they had a tremendous variety of weird costumes. Had the city gone crazy? No, of course it was the Carnival.
I finally fought my way to the fringe and flattened myself against a building, letting the main current flow past me. Then I gripped myself, especially my sagging trousers, and forged upstream toward the key building. I took advantage of momentary eddies in the human stream, and clung to the wall when the tide became too strong, making erratic but inevitable progress. Soon I would recover Dulce!
But abruptly I stopped.
Because I saw two real predators on my trail, as crocodilian as men could get: Laureano the torturer and the three-hundred-pound football linesman of the original Death Squad that I had flipped on the beach when I rescued Dulce.
I was in trouble. I might ambush them and knock them out, but I couldn't be sure how the crowd would react. They might turn against me, as had the prisoners during the homo episode. Sure, the prisoners had had reason to be suspicious, but maybe this crowd did, too. I was hardly a promising looking specimen, with my sprouting beard stubble, sagging pants and bare feet. I might be mistaken for a mugger or killer. Anyway, the last thing I wanted was to make a big scene. Better simply to lose them. One thing I dared not do was lead them toward Dulce; maybe that was what they really wanted.
So I merged with the flowing crowd again, this time drifting with the current, ducking my head to reduce my height. I was taller than most of the natives, and it was a distinct disadvantage now.
My strategy seemed to work. Not because I had any real expertise at losing a t
ail, but because the surging and varied crowd made keeping track of anyone practically impossible. I lost the Death Squadders—but I also lost myself. Yes, I know that would never happen to James Bond—but I was stuck. Wherever I looked, there was a sea of gyrating bodies, gaudy costumes, smiling faces. What an extravaganza! It was like being caught in an ocean storm, as though I had now been washed all the way out to sea, with dancing human flesh in lieu of the raging elements.
I fought my way to the fringe of the crowd again. And grabbed for my pants again. Too late. They dropped down to my knees, and passersby chuckled at my bare buttocks. If only the bastards hadn't taken my belt, and if only I hadn't lost Honorio's string. I bent over to get hold of my pants, and someone pinched my buttock. I whirled around, but I couldn't tell who in that mass of jiggling people had done it. What really got me was the fact that the only ones within range were women. I guess the ladies like to turn the tables when they have the chance. Can't really blame them. But I got my pants back up in a hurry.
I struggled into a broad central avenue. Here there was a snarl of traffic, and I do mean a snarl, because I saw what had to be the mechanized units of the Brazilian Army on their way up the street. Stalled. Several tanks were unable to move through the jam, and just had to wait, while their crews smiled and waved at the passing people and watched the slow-moving floats. No doubt these units had been summoned to deal with the prison break. Fat lot of good they'd do.
It was the carnival, all right. I saw floats very much like those in American pageants, filled with pretty girls—and let me tell you, the pretty girls of Brazil are just as shapely as anywhere else. I'm sort of a voyeur; I admit it. In fact I'm even a bit proud of it. One striking exhibit was like a giant beer bottle, with an almost-naked girl sitting on the neck, and others dancing all around it to Latin rhythms. I really enjoy this sort of thing, but would have liked it even better if I weren't a hunted prisoner.
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