by James Hunt
The girl kicked her heel at Rodion, knocking him in the shin. He cracked the pistol against her cheek, knocking her to the ground.
Blood trickled down her face and brightened the light, white layer of snow. The girl’s arms shook, and she tried to push herself up. Rodion yanked her up with one powerful motion and tossed her dazed body against the tree as if she was a rag doll. He thrust the barrel of the pistol right under her nose and pulled her hair back, exposing the bruise and cut on her face. “Tell me where your camp is, and I’ll let you live.”
“Just like your men let my family live when they stormed our village in the middle of the night?” The girl’s voice cracked from the dry cold, and her eyes lolled back and forth lazily, her head no doubt still reeling from the vicious blow.
Rodion’s men finally caught up with him, rounding the trees with their rifles raised, then quickly lowered once they saw the bruised and beaten girl. One of the men, young, barely any scruff on his face, looked down at the girl and nearly dropped his rifle at the sight of her.
The squat commander shoved him in the arm and marched him back behind the rest of the squad for his sloppiness then approached Rodion. “General, our men found her camp just north of here. No one is with her.”
The girl’s actions were out of desperation and revenge. She’d hoped to kill one then run off through the wilderness until she made it all the way to the governor’s house and tell her precious leader of what she saw. “You will not make a difference, girl.”
Rodion squeezed the trigger, and the bullet sliced through the front of the girl’s forehead, out the back, and lodged itself into the tree. Smoke rose from the barrel’s tip in a serpentine pattern as the girl’s body collapsed, blood pouring out both the front and back of the skull, soaking the white snow red.
A few of the soldiers looked away, the sight of the young girl too much for them to handle, but Rodion barked at their cowardice, “This is war!” Spit and frost flew from his mouth as the sole of his boot stepped into the still-wet blood that had turned the snow into a red slush. “This is merely the first drop of blood to be spilt, and it will not be the last.”
The soldiers tried hiding the shivering of their arms and legs, but Rodion saw. He grabbed one of his men by his neck and kicked the back of his legs, sending the man to his knees right next to the head of the slain girl. “Look at her! You will be asked to do this and more once we march south. We do not come for these people, we come for their land! And they will not give it up willingly.” Rodion shoved the soldier’s head down hard, flinging his head forward.
Rodion spun around quickly, causing the rest of the men to take a step back at the general’s aggression. He marched down the line, eyeing each soldier one by one. He felt the swell of bloodlust rise within him, and he didn’t have the time or patience to wait for his men to fear their first kill. “You have followed me here in search of new homes for your families. Food for your children’s mouths and clothes for your wives’ backs.” Rodion pointed down to the girl. “This is that price! And those of you not willing to pay for it will die.”
The men remained quiet for a moment, and then one of the soldiers thrust the butt of his rifle into the hard, icy ground, where it thudded and crunched. Then another soldier joined in, and another, all falling in line into the same beat. The drum of war pounding in rhythm.
***
The jungle brush was thick, and insects swarmed in search of moist flesh. It was a constant battle to keep the bugs at bay. The heat was nonstop day and night, and a man could sweat by doing nothing but sitting down.
Jason Mars took another swig of water from the small canteen he was given by his guard. The rest of the camp was fairly quiet and had been since his arrival. He was still uncertain as to whether he was a prisoner or guest. He hoped it was the latter.
Ever since he was taken by the woman in blue three days prior, he had not seen her. The only companion that he was offered was the lanky, sweaty guard, who kept both hands on his rifle and both eyes on Jason at all times.
Jason had conducted numerous fruitless attempts at communicating with the sentry, but while the man offered nothing in return, with each try he felt as though he was breaking the guard down. He extended the canteen of water. “You should drink. Need to keep your energy up if you’re going to stand there all day.”
The guard took it hesitantly but did not drink. Instead he dumped the water out and tossed the canteen back to Jason. “I hope you were done.”
“Ah, so you can talk.” But before any more words were exchanged, another Brazilian rushed inside and whispered something in the guard’s ear. Before Jason knew what was happening, they lifted him by his arms and rushed him through the rebel camp.
Men sharpened swords, and women and children gathered food and melted whatever iron and metal they could find into bullets for their muskets and rifles. The faces he passed where worn and tired, their hands performing their duties mindlessly.
The two guards thrust Jason inside a tent, where he caught himself on his hands and knees in the soft mud, which had somehow found a way to every inch of his body over the past few days during his stay.
“So, this is one of the famous Mars brothers.” The clothes had changed for the woman in blue, but her voice had remained the same. She sat upon a pile of crates, rifles on either side of her, peeling an orange with her fingernails. “You are a far cry from home, Governor.”
“I am.” Jason pushed himself up from the mud, doing his best to scrape the clumps that had gathered on the front of his shirt. While the woman had exchanged the blue dress for heavy cargo pants and a dirty blouse, she still had the same striking features he remembered from their night together in his cabin. “I need to know how my friend is doing. I’ve heard nothing about him since you brought me here.”
The woman popped a chunk of the fruit in her mouth. “So my guards have told me.” She chewed loudly, continuing to pull the orange apart. “Your friend lives.” And that was all she would give him.
Jason looked around the room, noticing the guards had not followed him inside. “I never got your name from the other night. You took off so quickly.” And now I know why. The moment President Ruiz’s men had arrived at his ship at the docks, she had disappeared, only to return hours later after Ruiz tried to capture him.
“Gabriela.” The word left her mouth still stuffed with orange as she devoured the last slice. She wiped the juices from her fingers onto her pant leg and stood, her wavy black hair swinging from its pony tail. “Walk with me.” She brushed past him quickly and was outside the tent before he had a chance to turn around.
While Jason had a good six inches in height on Gabriela, he had to walk briskly to keep up with her pace. Every person she passed looked up to her as she walked by. “All of these people follow you?”
“Did you take a good look at the streets of Rio when you arrived, Governor Mars?” Gabriela marched past a group of women loading ammo into crates. “Brazil is the wealthiest nation in the world. Our ports and our resources that remained untouched during the Great War have made us the envy of the rest of the globe, and yet poverty has run rampant in our streets. Why do you think that is?”
“Most likely because someone wants to keep it that way.” Jason trotted in front of her, forcing her to stop. “I can understand your quarrel with Ruiz. It’s something we have in common. But I need to see the man that was brought here with me.”
Gabriela took an aggressive step forward, and while she had to look up to Jason because of his height, she offered a look of defiance. “You and your family have been quite cozy with Ruiz over the past year. Why should I listen to anything you say?”
Jason tilted his head to the side. “Well, he did try and kill me a few days ago. But I have you to thank for saving me. I would say that gives us a common enemy.”
Gabriela pushed Jason aside with a quick jab of her elbow to his ribs. “There is no ‘we.’”
Jason spun around and grabbed her arm, and it was
n’t half a second from the moment he touched her skin that there were at least a dozen rifles aimed at his head. He gently uncurled his fingers from her arm and put his hands in the air. “There could be a ‘we.’”
Gabriela waved the guns down. “Depends on what you can offer.”
“You get word to my brother that I’m no longer a prisoner of Ruiz, and we will aid you in your campaign to bring him down.” The offer was too tantalizing. While she may have a few guns and willing rebellious souls, she lacked the necessary resources to remove Ruiz from power. “I have no doubt that my brother will already have word of Ruiz’s deceit, but if he knows I’m alive and already have an army here willing to help, we can accomplish more together.”
“And what do you get out of this deal? Are you and your brothers looking to take over the entire western hemisphere? I will not trade one dictator for another.”
“We have no interest in the South Americas other than as a trading partner, which I hope after we help overthrow the current regime, the new leaders will take note of our willing participation for change.”
Gabriela’s intrigued silence told Jason all he needed to know. While she mulled over the best way to tell her people about the North Americans’ aid, she led him to another tent, where a half dozen men clustered around a table. All of them eyed Jason suspiciously but made way as he followed Gabriela. The parchment they circled was a map. “We have the bodies, but we lack the reinforcements. Without a steady stream of supplies, Ruiz could easily flee and come back with a stronger force. He still has his wealth, and if we’re going to stop him, we need to take that away.” She pointed to two separate spots on the map. “The main port of trade is here in Rio, where I have five thousand men, but Lima and Panama are just as important. We control the ports, we control the money, and we control Ruiz.”
There was no denying the strategic value of each location. The landscape here was vast, but ninety percent of all commerce activity came from those three ports. Jason gave an approving knock on the table. “You’ve done your homework. But you know you’ll need a navy to hold the port cities.”
“You help us keep hold of the ports with the use of your navy, and when we’ve routed all of Ruiz’s corrupt officials out of their seats, you’ll have a new trading partner willing to give you priority over the rest of the countries we do business with.”
Leaving ships behind would be difficult to convince Dean to agree to, especially if the Chinese threatened the west coast. He knew they’d need all the ships at their disposal to dispense the threat. But the future fruits of this labor were too good to pass up. “I’ll have to work out the details with my brother once he arrives, and there is still the matter of actually getting Ruiz out of that palace of his, but you have a deal, Gabriela.”
“General Ponce,” one of the guards interjected.
Jason threw up his hands. “General Ponce,” he said apologetically. “Now that we’ve agreed to a mutually beneficial alliance, I would like to see my friend. Please.” The added courtesies helped, as the next stop was a medical tent where dozens of wounded lay on cots and crude beds of leaves and grass.
All of the occupants inside moaned and cried in pain, mumbling disillusioned nonsense as nurses did their best with the crude equipment at their disposal. The tent reeked of death, but Jason did his best not to let his distaste become noticeable with every gruesome infection, missing limb, or burned body that he passed. Finally, toward the back, he heard the distinct effort of a man trying to convince one of the nurses that he needed help with his belt buckle.
When Jason walked up to Chris, the charms seemed to be working, as the nurse couldn’t force back a smile as she changed the dressing on his stomach. “I would be careful with this one. He’s better with his mouth than he is with his sword. And he is very good with his sword.”
Chris smiled. “Now, if that doesn’t entice you, my lady, I don’t know what will.”
The nurse pulled the bandage tight, and Chris winced from the pressure. She patted him gently on the stomach then left. Chris propped himself up on his elbows from the layer of grass and leaves they’d set him on and shook his head. “And to think I thought she didn’t understand a word I was saying.”
Chris was covered with sweat, and they hadn’t changed him out of the filthy, torn clothes that he’d worn when he received the wound. His skin was clammy, and despite the life in his voice, dark circles had formed under his eyes, and his arms shook when he propped himself up. “You look like shit.”
Chris collapsed to his back, his arms no longer able to support him. He let out a sigh. “Look who’s talking. I’d been asking about you.”
Jason squatted next to the puffy layer of brush where Chris lay and put his hand on Chris’s shoulder. His skin felt like fire. “You’re burning up.”
“I am? I thought it was just the climate.” Chris shifted uneasily on the foliage. When Jason went to reach for the bandages, Chris snatched Jason’s wrist like a viper biting a rabbit, stopping it dead cold in its tracks. “Don’t. I already know what’s under there.”
Jason retracted his hand. “If you’re infected, we need to get you to an actual doctor. The Brazilians have some of the best here. They can help.”
“And how do you expect us to pay them? Or even get me there? We’re both wanted men, and who knows what happened to the rest of the crew on the ship once Ruiz tried to take you.” Chris’s lips were split and cracked, his clothes soaked with sweat.
“I’m not going to let you die here.” Jason knew that Chris was right about the rest of the crew. Ruiz had no need for them once he had fled. Maybe a few were tortured to get some information, but by now they had all been killed and dumped in a pit somewhere. Three hundred men, dead, for him. “No one else is going to die for me. Not while I can help.”
Chapter 4
Dust drifted down from the rafters with every explosion from the cannons firing beyond the outskirts of Sydney, settling on frightened faces looking up, just waiting for the building to collapse on top of them and bury them in a tomb in which they had voluntarily placed themselves.
Lance sat in the corner, a nurse tending to his left shoulder, watching the fear and anxiety grow on the refugee faces with every rattle and shake of the structure. It was the only distraction to the needle and thread the nurse weaved over the wound.
“Okay, Captain Mars.” The nurse knotted the end of the thread that sealed up the shrapnel wound. “You should be all set. The stitches could tear, so I’d limit your mobility as best as you can.”
Lance threw on his shirt, covering up a chest, back, and stomach carved with scars, a history of war etched upon his skin like braille. “Hard to keep still in battle.” He buckled his belt, his sword and pistol swinging slightly from his left and right hip.
A shriek spread through the room on Lance’s way to the door when a cannon exploded closer than any before it. He stopped in the doorframe, looked back, and for once there were more eyes on him than the roof. The elderly, women, children, those too sick or wounded to fight, all of them sharing the same fate if the Chinese broke through the lines.
A small boy grabbed Lance’s pant leg, stopping him. “You’re a captain?” The boy sat in the lap of his mother, who clutched him protectively.
Lance knelt down to meet him at eye level. “That’s right.”
The boy’s eyes widened at his words. “You’re going to stop the people from trying to hurt us?”
The young boy reminded him of his nephew, Sam. They both shared the same blond hair and curious eyes. He had the mind of his mother, thank God. The gruff, coarse voice accustomed to barking orders softened as he answered, “I will.”
The boy looked up to his mother, smiling and jumping up and down. “Did you hear that? We’re going to be okay.” And while the mother returned her child’s smile, Lance noticed the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
“You keep your mom safe until I do, though, all right?” Lance tousled the boy’s hair and left b
efore there was another distraction to cloud his focus. Outside, the sky had finally darkened, but the bombardment from the Chinese fleet provided a lightning show both in the bay and on land. The Chinese were closing the gap.
Canice already had his horse ready, and Lance winced slightly when he pulled himself into the saddle. “Have they figured anything out yet?” He spurred his horse, and the two galloped through the empty streets of Sydney. Everyone had either fled, barred themselves in their homes, or were on the front lines, keeping the wolves at bay.
“Not yet,” Canice answered, keeping with Lance’s pace. “The Chinese are using some type of code. All we’re translating is garbled nonsense.”
They crested a hill that overlooked the bay, and Lance pulled up his reins. Lines of gunpowder and smoke curled out of the side of the ships like the long, bony fingers of death, slowly inching closer to claim their souls. Lanterns dotted the galleys in the black ocean waters, the thousands of candlelights offered its competition to the stars above. “Any word or sightings from the scouts sent to retrieve the rest of the Aussie Navy?” The dozen ships that were left to plug the port’s entrance looked half sunk.
“Not yet.”
Lance gritted his teeth, squeezing the reins tight enough to crumble the leather in his fingers. “Where are the engineers now?”
“The town hall.”
Lance spurred his mount, the beast’s hooves clapping against the dirt with thunderous applause, Canice chasing after him. He pushed the animal dangerously fast through the narrow streets and skinny alleyways. Mud flung from the horse’s shoes, and it puffed breathlessly in the hurried gallop that Lance leaned into.
Lance pulled the reins, and the horse skidded to a stop just outside the town hall steps, nearly crashing through the front door. By the time Canice caught up with him, he was already taking his first steps inside.
Six men huddled around the dismantled radio spread out on a table. Copper, iron, wood, and wires were all strewn about in the manner of a coroner dissecting a dead body. The mumble of Chinese dialect crackled through the speakers. “Lance?” Danny asked, stepping away from the others. “What are you doing here?”