As he surveyed the camp, his second-in-command, a tall black Maroon tribesman named Jacques, approached. At the age of thirteen, Jacques had been exiled from his village after raping a girl from a neighboring tribe. The man still bore a scar from his boyhood journey through the jungle. One side of his nose was missing from an attack by a piranha. He nodded his head respectfully. "Doctor."
"Yes, Jacques."
"Mistress Tshui indicates that she is ready for you:"
Louis sighed. Finally. The prisoner had proven especially difficult.
Reaching into a pocket, Louis pulled free the dog tags and jangled them in his palm. He crossed to the lone tent set near the edge of the camp. Normally the camouflaged tent was shared by Louis and Tshui, but not this past night. During the long evening, Tshui had been entertaining a new guest.
Louis announced himself. "Tshui, my dear, is our visitor ready for company?" He pulled back the flap and bowed his way through the opening.
It was intolerably hot inside. A small brazier was burning in a corner. His mistress knelt naked before the small camp stove, lighting a bundle of dried leaves. Aromatic smoke spiralled upward. She rose to her feet. Her mocha skin shone with a sleek layer of sweat.
Louis stared, drinking her in. He longed to take her then and there, but he restrained himself. They had a guest this morning.
He turned his attention to the naked man staked spread-eagle on the bare-earth floor. The only bit of clothing he wore was a ball gag. Louis kept his eyes diverted from the bloody ruin of the corporal's body.
Still holding the man's dog tags, Louis crossed to a folding camp chair and sat down. He glanced to the name etched on the tags. "Corporal James DeMartini," he said in crisp English, reading the name, then looking up. "I've heard it from good authority that you're ready to cooperate:"
The man moaned, tears flowed from his eyes.
"Is that a yes?"
The Ranger, a beaten and tortured dog, nodded with a pained wince. Louis studied the man. What hurt more, he wondered, the torture? Or the actual moment you finally broke?
With a tired sigh, he pulled the man's gag free. Louis needed information. Over the years, he had learned that the difference between success and failure lay in the details. He had reams of facts on the opposing team-not only information supplied directly by St. Savin, but also timely intelligence gained from a closer source.
Still Louis hadn't been satisfied.
He had kidnapped the young corporal because his other resources had proved woefully lacking in specific details about the Army Ranger unit: their firepower, their radio codes, their timetables. Furthermore, there was always the unspoken military objective, orders meant only for military ears. And last, Louis had arranged the abduction simply as a challenge, a small test of his forces.
The maneuver had gone flawlessly. Equipped with night-vision glasses, a small team had snuck in via the river. Once the chance arose, they had poisoned one of the Rangers with a special curare dart prepared by Tshui. Afterward, they had covered their tracks, setting up a false trail beside the river with caiman dung and prints. His mistress had then kept the kidnapped man alive by breathing mouth-to-mouth until he could be revived back at their camp with a special antidote.
But Tshui's true talents were proven during the long night. Her art of torture was without equal, plying pain and pleasure in a strange hypnotic rhythm until finally her prey's will broke.
"Please kill me," the man begged, hoarse, blood dribbling from his lips.
"Soon enough, mon ami . . . but first a few questions:" Louis leaned back as Tshui walked around the corporal, waving her smoking bundle of dried leaves through the air. He noticed the broken soldier flinch from the woman, his terrified eyes following her every move.
Louis found this extremely arousing, but he kept himself focused. "Let's first go over a few numbers:" Over the next few minutes, he extracted all the codes and time schedules of the army unit. He did not have to write any of it down, setting all the frequencies and numbers to memory. The information would greatly facilitate eavesdropping on the other team's communications. Next, he collected the details on the Ranger force's strength: number and types of weapons, skill levels, weaknesses, means of air support.
The man proved most talkative. He babbled on and on, giving out more information than requested. ". . . Staff Sergeant Kostos
has a secret stash of whiskey in his rucksack . . . two bottles . . . and in Captain Wax-man's boat, there's a crate that holds a cradle of napalm minibombs . . . and Corporal Conger has a Penthouse mag-"
Louis sat up. "Hold on, monsieur. Let's back up. Napalm bombs?"
"Minibombs . . . an even dozen . . :'
"Why?"
The corporal looked confused.
"James," he said sternly.
"I . . . I don't know. I suppose if we need to clear a section of jungle. Something that blocks our way:"
"How large a region would one of those bombs clear?"