Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  But Leotu spoke many. He recognized their language and spoke back in an angry tone as a soldier put one hand on the machete sheathed behind his back.

  With no hesitation, the man produced a handgun in his left hand and fired it at the back of Leotu’s head, allowing gravity to unsheathe the machete as Leotu’s body fell to its knees. The gunshot echoed through the jungle, spurring more birds to take flight and other animals to rush away through the tangle of underbrush and roots. His body fell forward, leaving shattered brain matter exposed to the midday sun. The huge knife was free and the man turned it this way and that, pleased by the feel of it. He barked an order, and another man quickly removed the sheath from the dead man and handed it to his master, who slipped it crossways over the bandolier. He slipped the machete in and out, practicing and smiling. His white teeth gleamed, one gold tooth reflecting sunlight like a beacon.

  With his boss distracted by his new toy, the other man noticed the leather thong around Leotu’s neck and helped himself to the necklace, admiring the leopard’s tooth. He put it on and tucked it inside his military shirt.

  Through all of it, the red dots danced gleefully over our heads and chests. With the lights in constant movement it was impossible to count them, or be sure of their trajectory. They sometimes crossed each other, passed from one body to the next, moved up and down as well as right to left and diagonally. It was clear that sudden movements, any sign of resistance, could be met with gunfire and we had no way to know who the victim would be until they fell, no way to know if the injury would be a deadly head shot or a non-lethal flesh wound to the upper arm.

  We were silent as the men herded us through the jungle, away from the plane, eastward toward the Atlantic Ocean. There was no opportunity to make a strike. They had all our weapons, and though we were trained in hand-to-hand, and in fact that was the twins’ specialty, the presence of the red dots kept us as reined in as horses hitched to a wagon. The men indicated direction changes with their rifles and with rough shoves when we didn’t quite understand.

  Three quarters of an hour later we reached what appeared to be some kind of compound. A large area had been cleared of all trees and vegetation and was populated by a small group of military style tents. There was a long wooden table on which the lackeys piled the HEP belts. Mr. Gold Tooth kept the machete for himself. To the left of the table as we approached was a cage built out of stripped, thick branches tied together with hemp rope. Four people were inside it, mostly sitting along the border. They stood as we approached. Two were men, two women, all looking haggard and tired, their clothes dirty and torn. Even more guerrillas were milling about the compound, speaking to each other jovially, greeting the returning members with proud shoulder slaps, high fives, and fist bumps.

  One guerrilla prepared to open the doorway to the cage, which was both tied and chained with a metal lock. The seven people moved to the back of the cage, all looping their arms through the bars and holding hands. After a signal from Mr. Gold Tooth, the guerrilla opened the door wide and we were shoved inside. As he pushed Sylvia through he stopped, examining her empty eye socket. She gritted her teeth and held her tongue as he forced the lid open to peer inside. Apparently satisfied, he let her go, grunting some words at the others. They also made a somewhat inappropriate examination of the twins, apparently to make sure they were really and truly attached, before they were allowed inside the cage. There was barely room for all of us. I entered last, and turned to see Mr. Gold Tooth locking the door. He stood there, tying an elaborate knot with the rope around the padlocked chain. He smiled.

  I saw that the gold tooth was in the position of his right canine and had an engraving on it. .22. It was a caliber marking. The gold tooth had been made from a bullet shell casing.

  Chapter Two

  “Hello.”

  “Crap.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The exchange was between Billings and a blonde man. With a crew cut and an untrimmed beard days ahead of Billings’, he seemed short of breath. “CURDS?”

  I shouldered my way through. They were in a back corner of the cage. “Team A,” I told him. I shrugged and admitted, “Rescue mission.”

  “Crap,” he repeated.

  “We found Ben. I’m sorry.” His eyes lowered, accepting my condolences. “How many others?”

  He sank to a sitting position on the dirt, leaning against the rear wall of the cage. His head came conveniently to the height of the first crossbar, allowing him to rest it. “Six, so far.” I sat to his left. Others resumed sitting, some stood. The two groups began mingling and introductions were exchanged. Someone was admiring Roxy’s dress and she was showing off her snap-on wedge heels. The twins touted the benefits of being conjoined, and Sylvia took her eye out of her pocket to show the survivors, explaining that she couldn’t put it in because bonobos. “Edward Hightower,” the blonde man said, offering his right hand across his body. “Coordinator, Team C. What’s left of it.”

  “Helena Montana. Coordinator, Team A.” Between all the bodies in the cage and the jungle heat, I was surprised to find his hand cold and dry. “What can you tell us?”

  His head tilted back and he looked unseeing at the crisscross of branches that formed the roof. I got the impression he didn’t really want to go over it again. I decided I wouldn’t push him for too many details, but I really needed a better understanding than I had so far. “We all survived the crash. Our pilot, Amanda Ingalls was amazing. She said something about a problem with the fuel gauge, I think.” I interrupted him to tell him about the sabotage Dinny had found and he nodded. “I suspected as much. Anyway, we had some bumps and bruises, of course, but not even a broken bone. We popped the hatch and got out to survey the area.” His expression grew a bit angry. “Amanda told me that there’s no black box on our planes. She’d sent an SOS but there was no way to track us.” His gaze focused on Dinny, who was listening intently to his story. He knew intuitively that she was flight crew and addressed her directly. “Why is there no black box on our planes?”

  “I –.“ She clearly felt defensive, though it was certainly not her decision. “To make room for the APE equipment. There’s supposed to be a black box equivalent in the system, but it’s been buggy. It … I think it was fixed in the upgrade.”

  His eyes closed in understanding. “The upgrade we didn’t get yet.”

  “Yes.”

  “Please, continue,” I prompted him. I wanted to spare Dinny any further embarrassment. Equipment shortfalls were not her responsibility.

  He resumed looking at the makeshift roof. “We’d been looking around for maybe 15 minutes when they came. Dozens, plenty we couldn’t even see, with laser sighted rifles. We had our weapons, but we didn’t know where to shoot. And I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice anyone trying to find out. I surrendered. This is on me, in case anyone asks.”

  “No, Ed. Stop talking like that.” It was one of the other three people who’d been in the cage with Hightower when we arrived. A pale woman with short red hair and a spray of faint freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her sleeveless blue and gray madras shirt was torn at the collar, and her tan twill pants looked black below the knees. I would think her skin would have burned in the hot sun, but instead she was freckling like mad. Her arms and the backs of her hands were covered in them. “There was no choice.” To me, she added, “Iris Beneman, Biochemist. Is anyone in your party hurt?”

  I shook my head. “No one here. They killed our guide. A man from Kinshasa that saw your plane go down. He was leading us through the jungle, but they shot him in the head as soon as he –“ I stopped myself short as a light bulb lit up in my head. “He tried to talk to them. Ben was communications, right? Did he --?”

  Iris nodded. “Yes. He spoke Swahili. They shot him before he finished the first sentence.”

  I tilted my head to find Badger. There wasn’t much room to move around, so I just called his name as I sat there.

  “Here, Helena.” He was standing behind Dinny.r />
  “You hear that last part?”

  “What?”

  “Ben and Leotu were both shot when they spoke Swahili. Under no circumstances are you to even practice a single word of an African language. You understand?” This was almost like telling a kid not to eat a cookie he was holding in his hand. In hindsight, it was surprising he hadn’t done so already.

  Badger nodded, understanding completely. “They don’t want anyone to understand what they’re saying.”

  “I know you’re not fluent, but you’ve been picking up words, haven’t you?” He nodded at me again. “Don’t let on. Tell me what you can, but keep it in English.”

  His head swiveled back and forth as he checked for anyone listening. “So far, all I’ve got from Gold Tooth is that they are either going to kill us or a hyena ate his mother-in-law.”

  Sir Haughty, who’d been standing nearby, turned away. “That poor woman.”

  Why worry about our understanding them if they were just going to kill us? I thought. It’s not like we were going to escape and post it on Facebook.

  “Keep me informed if you hear anything useful,” I told Badger.

  The sweat dripping from his overheated pores began sweating too. “Yeah, sure. No pressure.”

  I saw Nitro making the rounds and taking a look at the various flesh wounds. Iris gave him a sidelong look, slightly offended. “Don’t be mad, Iris,” I said. “He’s just doing his job. Besides, he can’t do anything more for them than you can. They took his field kit.”

  Her expression said she didn’t agree with me, but she also didn’t argue. She sat on the other side of Hightower and hugged her knees. “We’re all going to die.”

  “No, we’re not.” Hightower and I both gave the standard Coordinator response to fatalism.

  Dinny had heard Iris and looked panicked. She turned to me, not believing our joint rebuttal. “We’re all going to die!?”

  “Poppycock,” I heard from behind her. Sir Haughty came over. “We’ve been through worse than this. Buck up.”

  “Like what?” Her bottom lip was trembling. This wasn’t in her job description.

  Sir Haughty crossed his arms. “Well, like, for instance, there was … no, that was because it was raining, but there was another time when … wait, there was only three of us. There was … oh never mind,” his voice switched to a higher octave and he fluttered his hands in the air, “we’re all going to die! We’re all going to die!” His voice came back down. “Well, that was helpful.” I saw people behind him, ours and theirs, looking at Sir Haughty incredulously, but no one contradicted him.

  He was making a point, but he’d been rather rude about it. “Sir Haughty, that was uncalled for. Apologize to Dinny.”

  “That’s alright,” Dinny said, looking calmer already. Sir Haughty’s tactic of using humor to defuse her panic had worked. “I should have known better. It’s not like I’ve never faced danger before. I mean, I don’t want to tell you how many times we’ve been down to one engine. Must be the heat.” She ran her forearm over her forehead and shook off droplets of sweat. As I watched her go I noticed Billings standing with the twins. His hand kept brushing Avis’, their rings almost clinking together. It was interesting that our captors had taken everything else, but not the rings. They weren’t interested in the silver. If the gold bands had been there, it might have been different, but even gold was small potatoes compared to weaponry in the world of Uber guerrilla warfare. Billings never actually grabbed hold. He knew that any sign of special affection that our captors noticed might be used against them, against us. Their eyes exchanged looks, acknowledging the intent and accepting the restriction. I could see his teeth grinding. I could see Agnes and Avis finding things to keep their hands busy, examining the tree branch bars and rope bindings, fixing their hair, greeting other survivors.

  “Go ahead and panic,” mumbled Hightower, leaning his head against a crossbar. “I don’t know why they sent another team in anyway. What good does it do? There’s no way out.” His requisite optimism had vanished like spring snow.

  Nitro’s came to me to report his medical findings. “A couple contusions, nothing from the crash to worry about. I’m more concerned about the heat.” He took a quick look at Hightower. “The survivors are all showing early signs of heat exhaustion. So will we soon, without sufficient water.”

  Hightower was still looking at the makeshift roof. “No problem. It’s going to rain soon.” I looked up. The sky had gone pretty hazy and now that he mentioned it I could smell the ozone in the air. It is a rainforest, I thought. I started looking forward to the rain. I could not only smell it, I could taste it on my tongue. “Won’t matter,” Hightower continued. “There’s no way out of here. Heat stroke sounds better than whatever they’ve got planned.”

  “On the contrary.” Nitro pointed to the long table where the guerrillas were now sorting our weaponry and hardware into piles. “See that black square pack? That’s my field kit. That upgrade you didn’t get yet included STDs and inside that field kit is one injectable tracking device. The extraction team is in Kinshasa by now, waiting for a new signal to tell them we’ve found you. They’ve been following our STD signals for days, waiting for a new one to show up.”

  Iris was skeptical. “STDs? That’s what they’re calling them?”

  “Subcutaneous Tracking Device. What do you want them to call them?”

  She palmed her face and rubbed an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Anything else? How about Tracey McTracerface? Anything but STDs. Are they totally clueless?”

  The plan had Hightower’s attention. “So we get the kit, inject somebody, and what?”

  “They come in by chopper and get us out.”

  “Without a clue that they’d be facing a couple hundred heavily armed guerrilla fighters.” He sighed, seeing defeat. “The body count here is going to look like a Peter Jackson film.”

  “Are you always this optimistic?” I was starting to get annoyed by his attitude. Granted, he’d been here in the cage considerably longer than us, but as a Coordinator he should have been exhibiting more positivity, even if he wasn’t feeling it.

  His eyes looked forward without focus. “Sorry. I’ve watched six of my people get taken into the jungle. Until you watch six of yours, please don’t say anything about my attitude.”

  I shifted to face him, still sitting with one knee up and the other foot tucked underneath. “Taken into the jungle? For what?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is they don’t come back.”

  A whistle sounded. With great effort, Hightower stood, his back to the wall, and wrapped his arms through the bars, grasping the hands of those near him. “Dinner time. Assume the position unless you want a broken rib.”

  My team was looking at me uncertainly. My hesitation was short. I stood, moving into the corner and wove my arms through the bars. I didn’t want a broken rib. Been there, done that. Got the T-shirt. The rest took their cue from me and found positions around the walls away from the doorway, sometimes two levels deep, but finding hands to hold onto. Billings finally was able to grasp, firmly, Avis’ hand as he wove his arm through the bars to hers. It wasn’t likely the guerrillas would notice their knuckles going white. Mr. Gold Tooth untied the rope, then pulled out a key and unlocked the door. Dozens more men held rifles at the ready, while younger ones pushed wooden bowls of food and cups of water through the opening. I saw them counting, pointing to each person and pointing to the bowls and cups to make sure it matched up. As soon as all the food was inside, Gold Tooth locked the door and tied the rope. “Wait for the whistle,” Hightower said. “They make us wait.”

  The ones with the rifles were watching us with a gleam in their eyes. I was beginning to notice that their weapons were severely mismatched. While there were several recognizable CURDS issue firearms of both rifle and pistol variety as well as the one rocket launcher and flame thrower that each plane carried, I also saw plenty that had not belonged to us. There were both sub- and full mach
ine guns, assault rifles, long and blunt barrel pistols, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, almost everything but a Howitzer, and they probably had that hidden in the jungle somewhere. They wanted someone to break a rule. That’s the fun of new meat, isn’t it? They don’t know the rules yet and you might get a chance to prove your worth by rapping someone’s knuckles with a gun barrel or shooting someone in the foot. But thanks to Hightower’s warning, no one moved. Besides, we could see from here that the bowls contained the same unappetizing white paste we’d had at breakfast, although the water was much more alluring. I wanted to grab a cup in each hand and dump it over my head. We stood there in the heat, keenly aware of the lack of foliage overhead to provide any real shade at all, sweating and salivating. Cloud cover helped, but not very much.

  Finally, after maybe five solid minutes of waiting, the whistle blew again and everyone let go and claimed a bowl and cup. For two or three minutes, there was only the sound of swallowing. No chewing was necessary. I’m not sure the mealworm paste had been near anything above air temperature, but since air temperature was at least a few degrees above body temperature I wasn’t too worried. There was no crispy coating, but even Badger ate without argument. It was likely to be the only nourishment we would get for the rest of the day. The empty bowls and cups slid easily between the bars and everyone tossed them outside. I thought about hanging onto the dishes to catch the coming rain, but Hightower warned us we wouldn’t be allowed to keep them. They were counted. One of the younger guerrillas rounded them up and carried them away. I didn’t like that. Some of them looked no more than twelve or so.