Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island (20 page)

“Ah, a testimonial,” Fallows said.

“Something about what I’m doing makes me think of you,” Eric said. Then to the admiral. “So, even though he’s obviously blackmailing you and you think you can be rid of him right now because your men outnumber him, don’t. He knows what he’s doing.” And suddenly Eric shifted around and let his stream of piss hit another spot in the sand, washing over a small clump of weeds.

“
Vidish
!” one of the admiral’s men said in Russian, pointing. They stared at the clump of weeds.

Slowly the urine hosed away the sand and a face began to appear underneath. The eyes were squeezed closed and there was a hollow reed in the man’s mouth that had been hidden among the clump of weeds. Piss splattered across the man’s face.

He jumped to his feet, revealing the shallow hole he’d been lying in and the three lines of sand that had covered his body so no one could see him. Or the H&K MP-5 SMG he carried.

Eric was zipping his fly again by the time the rest of Fallows’ men were unearthing themselves and leaping to their feet. Each armed. Each aiming their weapon at the admiral. There were six of them.

Fallows was laughing, the sound harsh and metallic. “You still have it, Eric.” He faced Admiral Jones. “Like Eric said, Admiral, I know what I’m doing. If I’d wanted you dead, they’d be sifting sand for your remains right now. But I need you and you need me, so let’s cut the bullshit and get down to business. Twenty-four carat business.”

The admiral wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand while he looked from Fallows to Eric to Nhu to the six armed and sandy men. He crooked a finger at one of his one men and the soldier produced a clean yellow t-shirt. The admiral pulled it on. Immediately it soaked up wet spots of sweat. On the chest was a large blue insignia, a sort of modified checkmark. Over that the word Nike.

“Okay,” he said. “We will discuss this matter. But not in front of him.” He nodded at Eric. “Either kill him now or we discuss nothing.”

Fallows looked at Eric. “What can I tell you, Eric? The guy thinks he’s Joe Stalin.”

“Tell him you can’t kill me, you need a fourth for bridge.”

“You heard him, Admiral,” Fallows said. “But I’ll tell you what, I’ll send him back to camp. Nhu, you’ll take him, won’t you?”

Nhu’s dark face was as emotionless as carved hickory. “I think I should be here during negotiations.”

“I can talk for both of us, General,” Fallows insisted. “Don’t you trust me?”

Nhu smiled slightly. “I have done business with you before, Colonel.”

“Dickens,” Fallows said. The man Eric had pissed on stepped forward. “Take Eric back to camp.”

Dickens, his face splotched with the gritty mixture of sand and urine, glared at Eric. “Alive, sir?”

“Relatively,” Fallows answered. He tossed the handcuffs to Dickens. “You’ll need these.”

Dickens patted his SMG. “No I won’t.”

“Yes, you will.”

Dickens yanked Eric’s arms behind his back and snapped the cuffs on tighter than they’d been before. Dickens booted Eric in the back, sending him to his knees.

“Don’t kill him,” Fallows said.

“I won’t,” Dickens said.

“I was talking to Eric.”

Dickens looked a little frightened as he hauled Eric to his feet and pushed him ahead. He stuck his SMG in Eric’s back and nudged him forward toward the camp.

Fallows waited until Eric and Dickens were out of sight. He nodded at two of his men. “Follow them, but stay out of sight. If he tries anything, shoot off his legs.”

General Nhu watched the two men run off. He shook his head at Fallows. “I would feel better if Eric were dead.”

“Tonight,” Fallows grinned.

Eric ran his tongue over his swollen lip. The blood had crusted some. Dickens had hit him there. The tender knob on his shin still ached where Dickens had kicked him with those steel-tipped boots. A deep pain smoldered high on Eric’s right thigh. Dickens had tried to kick him in the crotch, but Eric had managed to turn and catch the blow on his thigh, though he moaned and doubled over as if Dickens’ kick had been accurate.

Eric had looked up from the ground, blood dribbling down his chin, and said firmly, “That makes us even.”

A fearful look crossed Dickens’ face again and he backed away. Then he remembered the gun in his hands, the fact that Eric was handcuffed, and he stepped boldly forward. “You picked the wrong man to piss on, chump.” He hauled back and kicked Eric solidly in the ribs. “It’s not so funny now, is it?”

Eric had to admit it wasn’t. Especially now that they were back in camp and Eric had the time to inventory his wounds. The kick to the ribs had cracked something because he could feel the rattle in his chest whenever he took a deep breath. He stopped taking deep breaths.

He was alone in Fallows’ tent. Dickens had shoved him to the ground, tied his ankles until the circulation was cut off, and then pounded some tent spikes through his shirt and pants, pinning him to the ground like Gulliver in Lilliputia.

Dickens had grinned down at him. “Now we’re even.”

The only part of his body Eric was able to move was his head. He shook it sadly. “Now I owe you.”

“You’re just lucky I don’t gotta piss, man, or you’d be drinking it right now. Tell you what, though. I’m gonna go out and drink me some beer and see what happens. By then you should be real thirsty and won’t mind if it’s a little used.”

That was half an hour ago. Eric could hear Dickens drinking with several other men. Eric could have killed him on the way back, there had been half a dozen opportunities that wouldn’t have required much effort. But he’d spotted the two-man tag team that Fallows had sent behind them. He could imagine their orders. Maim but don’t kill.

He’d wait for a better time.

Unfortunately, this was the better time. No one around to watch him work his clever miracles. Problem was, he was fresh out of miracles. He was lying on top of his handcuffed hands, his feet were bound, his clothes were staked to the ground so he couldn’t budge. Outside the tent a man was loading up on beer so he could come in here and piss on Eric. And soon Fallows would be coming back, no doubt to kill him. The quick kill wouldn’t suit Fallows’ purposes. He would have to turn it into a show, a major Broadway production with music and a chorus. He would stage it as religious entertainment, a voodoo ritual where his men could see that Fallows could defeat any enemy. Eric had once read of a high school football coach who used to bite off the head of a toad before every game to get his players motivated. Tonight, Eric was going to be the toad.

He struggled against the stakes, not worrying about what he would do if he managed to pull them free. One thing at a time. Big Bill Tenderwolf once had Eric tie him up, hands and feet, as tight and escapeproof as Eric could manage. Eric was only seventeen at the time and learning different sailing knots from a book his father had bought him. He trussed Big Bill up like a spool of cable, tying nautical and Hopi knots, and a few he made up on the spot. By the time he was finished, he had a Black wall hitch, bowline, cat’s-paw, clove hitch, fisherman’s bend, sheet bend, square knot, surgeon’s knot, and a dancing snake. Big Bill had rolled round the floor of his house, writhing and flexing, struggling, his face turning red with exertion. Eric had sauntered smugly into the kitchen, brought a six-pack of Big Bill’s favorite beer back, pulled the ring, and loudly sipped, smacking his lips.

“Great stuff, Bill,” Eric had said.

“Okay, Eric,” Big Bill had said, lying like a beached whale in the middle of his colorful Hopi rug. “Untie me.”

“No way, pard. You told me you could be out of anything I tied within half an hour. It’s barely been ten minutes.”

“I was wrong. Come on, untie me.”

Eric took another swig of beer. Big Bill watched, licking his lips.

Eric shook his head. “You told me not to untie you no matter what you said. Made me promise.”

Big Bill struggled some more, twisting and turning on the floor like a worm on a griddle.

Eric drummed his hand on top of the beer can and sang, “Writhe and roll is here to stay, it will never die.”

Finally exhausted, Big Bill had stopped struggling and just lay there. “Okay you win. How much more time?”

Eric checked his watch. “Ten minutes.”

“Give me a sip of beer while I wait it out.”

Eric grinned broadly as he knelt next to Big Bill. “You owe me a new bow. That was the bet, a new bow or I weed your garden for a month.”

“That was the bet. Now give me some beer.”

Eric lifted Big Bill’s shaggy head with one hand and put the can to his lips with the other.

Suddenly Big Bill’s huge hands were free of the rope and around Eric’s neck. Within seconds Big Bill had Eric on the floor, wrapped in the Hopi rug, and the rope tied tightly around the rug. “We call this pig in the blanket.”

“Shit! How’d you escape?”

Big Bill grinned, sipped beer. “There is no such thing as true escape. One can only change captors.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Eric had said, twisting inside the rug.

“Maybe not. But it’ll give you something to think about while you’re weeding my garden.”

Lying on the floor of Fallows’ tent, Eric smiled at that memory. “Writhe and roll is here to stay,” he repeated, wincing at how much like D.B. he’d sounded. Maybe Big Bill had been right. Eric had been captured by graverobbers, a woman and her ape, and then a Vietnamese general. But it was Fallows that had captured him long ago, the day he’d killed Annie and Jennifer and kidnapped Tim. Ever since it was as if Eric had been hooked on a long fishing line and even though he thought he was attacking, it was Fallows who was reeling Eric in. He’d been a captive all this time and hadn’t known it.

No more!

Eric concentrated on one stake at a time. The one next to his shoulder. The metal stake hammered through his sleeve, the cool aluminum scraping against his skin. He shrugged his shoulder, heaving up with his whole body. The effort brought him back down on his cuffed wrists with a thump, crushing his fingers.

He tried again. He bucked up, rolling away from the stake. It loosened. He repeated the movement several times, each time the stake shifting in the dirt, rocking slightly, then wiggling, and finally, with one mighty heave, it pulled free.

He did the same with his other shoulder, but this time the shirt tore before the stake moved. Eric kept pulling until the patch of shirt staked to the ground tore completely loose of the rest of the sleeve.

“Who wants to come with me?” he heard Dickens shout outside the tent.

Eric froze.

“Come on, you can watch me piss in his face.”

Someone else laughed. “One more beer and we can
all
piss in his face.”

“Yeah,” a few others chorused.

“Okay,” Dickens said amiably. “One more. But I get to go first.”

Eric kicked up with his legs, trying to jerk free the stakes in his pants cuff. Sweat soaked his face and clothes as he listened to the men outside hoisting their drinks. It wouldn’t take them long to finish.

He heard a noise behind him and sat up.

“Father.”

I Eric turned, saw Tim crawling under the tent. Tim stood up and stared at his father. Eric could see the confused emotions struggling in Tim’s eyes. He had a man’s body, a man’s experiences, but he was still a thirteen-year old boy trying to sort the emotions. Eric had to be careful.