Warren Murphy - Balance of Power

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 fatigues 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. 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 life 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 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 lizard 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 iridescent 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 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.