The Hydra Conspiracy

by Len Levinson

  “Are you all right?” Butler asked her, as he breathed like an ox.

  “I think so,” she replied weakly. “You’re really something, Butler.”

  “So are you.”

  “I think that was the best fuck I ever had in my life.”

  “I bet you say that to all the guys.”

  “Here we go again,” she said sadly.

  “Well, you probably do.”

  “So what if I do? The main point is that whenever I say it I mean it. I can’t understand why you can’t take a compliment like a man.”

  “I’m suspicious by nature, I suppose. It’s part of my line of work, I imagine.”

  She rolled toward him and kissed his shoulder. “You’re such a sweet man, Butler. And you have such a hard life. Perhaps I shouldn’t judge you so harshly.”

  “No, I deserve your criticism, because I’m a selfish horny bastard. I don’t deserve any sympathy.”

  “You poor man. I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”

  “No one could ever criticize me more severely than I criticize myself,” he replied. “I have to keep myself on my toes.”

  She kissed his shoulder again. “I’d much rather have you on your back.”

  “Why is it that women are so coy and demure before you have sex with them, and after you have sex with them they’re always making suggestive remarks.”

  “Deep down we’re all a bunch of raunchy broads, Butler. Once we loosen up we’re liable to say anything, or do anything.” She reached down and wrapped her hands around his softening dork. “How’s my poor little baby doing?”

  “I think he’s tired,” Butler said.

  “Can I kiss him good night.”

  “I think he’d appreciate that quite a lot.”

  She got onto her knees, bent over his drooping member, and kissed it. At the touch of her lips it gave a little jerk.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “A gesture of appreciation.”

  She kissed it again, and noticed that it had become just a little bit harder. Kissing it once more, she realized she was making it big and stiff again.

  “My goodness, Butler,” she said with admiration. “You’re a regular Olympic champion.”

  “Only because you’re such an incredible inspiration.”

  “You are a truly great fuck, Butler.”

  “So are you, Ms. Morrissey.”

  “I feel like giving you a blowjob. Is that all right?”

  “I could never say no to you, Ms. Morrissey.”

  She placed his dong in her mouth again, and commenced sucking. Butler lay with his head on his hands, counting his blessings. Although life certainly was difficult at times, it was not without its little compensations, such as an occasional sexual interlude with the likes of Nora C. Morrissey. He wiggled his hips around and felt tickles run up and down his spine. Closing his eyes, he imagined the fair Wilma B. Willoughby copping his joint, and it became even harder.

  Then they shifted about so that Butler could devour Nora and at the same time screw her pretty face. He held her firm shapely buttocks in his hands and nearly fainted from ecstasy, while she nearly choked on his dong. They went at each other in this manner for a long period of time, as wolves howled in the distance and the wise old owl of Halvados hooted at the moon. At one point Nora lost her balance and fell sideways onto the down sleeping bags. They rolled over and they hit the wall of the tent.

  “I’m going to come!” she screamed.

  He came up out of the valley. “Try to come quietly, because we don’t know who might be around here.”

  “Don’t stop!”

  They both kept sucking each other, and then they both exploded at each other. Fountains of cream gushed into Nora’s mouth, and as she struggled to swallow it all, it ran down her cheeks and into her fiery red hair. Meanwhile, her little valley welled up with hot champagne, and Butler rubbed his face in it. They went into convulsions, kissing and sucking each other, murmuring endearments, and going out of their minds. Finally the waves of passion subsided and they lay panting for breath, wondering why the tent hadn’t collapsed. Butler thought that perhaps he should write a letter of thanks to the tent manufacturer.

  “Come up here where I can see you,” Nora whispered.

  With great effort Butler raised himself, turned around, and lay beside her, touching her cheek with his lips.

  “It was rather good, wasn’t it? Why don’t we do it again?”

  They did it again, again, and again, as the wise old owl of Halvados hooted his encouragement, and a mountain hyena laughed uproariously.

  Chapter Forty

  At daybreak they were on the trail again, climbing up and down the sides of mountains. They came upon the footprints of mountain goats and cougars. Mists arose from the deep valleys and eagles flew through the air. At nine o’clock they came to the entrance of a canyon. Nora held her hands to her cheeks and made a sound like a trill of a bird.

  “That was very nice,” Butler said. “I didn’t know you did bird calls in addition to everything else you do.”

  A bird responded to her, and then men and women with rifles came out from behind boulders and bushes. They recognized Nora and greeted her warmly, then were introduced to Butler.

  Nora and Butler were taken to rebel headquarters, a cave in the side of one of the mountains. On a table,’ beneath a kerosene lantern, Butler laid out his maps before the rebel commanders, a group of lean young men with long mustaches and clear eyes. He pointed out the observation post built by the military regime to observe the atom bomb that would be dropped on the Sierra Chorino Mountains.

  “Atom bomb!” said Jorge Allesandro, a former architect, aghast.

  “Yes.”

  “They’re going to drop an atom bomb on us?”

  “But it’s defused; I took care of that myself.”

  Butler explained that they must put together a sizable detachment immediately and march toward the observation post. They would surround it and wait for the signal that the plane had dropped the bomb. The signal would come via radio from an observer on one of the mountains. When he saw one big plane fly overhead and drop something, he was to notify the rebel detachment immediately. Then the attack would begin.

  “If we’re successful,” Allesandro said, looking at the map, “we should be able to capture them all and take back our country.”

  “Precisely,” Butler agreed.

  “But what if you Americans intervene the way you did in Guatemala and Santo Domingo?”

  “You will have won before the American government finds out about it. Just think, you’ll have all the admirals and generals and politicians together. You’ll hold them hostage so that the Halvados Army and Air Force won’t attack you, and then you’ll organize your new government. The first order of business will be to arm the workers and peasants, of course, so you’ll be able to defend the country when the military regime changes its mind.”

  “As it most certainly will,” agreed Manuelo Duarte, another rebel leader, a former machinist.

  “You can bet on that,” said Butler, “but by then your people should have enough tanks and guns to hold them off.”

  The rebel leaders organized their troops, posted an observer high in the mountains, and by noon were making their way down the mountains toward the observation post where the leaders of the regime were gathering to observe the first atom bomb blast in the history of South America.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The observation post had been built on a hill that had a clear view of the Sierra Chorino Mountains some twenty-five miles away. Army bulldozers had cleared the jungle from the top of the hill and dug bunkers deep into the ground. A road had been constructed by construction battalions and trucks had brought in furniture, food and champagne. The high-ranking military officers and political leaders of the regime then moved into the bunkers, while their servants lived in tents outside. Periscopes were constructed so that the country’s leaders could watch, from
the comfort of their bunkers, the Sierra Chorino Mountains go up in smoke.

  In the very center of the bunker network were Phillip Noble, Kurt Leiberfarb, President Santiago del Pisco, and a variety of generals, admirals and field marshals, and a contingent of the nation’s millionaires. They passed their time drinking and eating and telling stories about successful business deals, stock market swindles, land frauds, tax evasions, price-fixing, bribes, cartels and various other practices dear to the hearts of businessmen. They were eagerly awaiting the morning of the next day, when at eleven o’clock a bomber of the Halvados Air Force would take off from the Santiago Del Pisco Air Force Base, fly to the Sierra Chorino Mountains, and drop the wondrous bomb that would solve all their problems.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Five hundred armed, determined guerrillas crossed the Halvados pampas and entered the jungles of Iquitos Province. Butler, armed with an M16, was in front of the column along with the guerrilla leaders. Nora C. Morrissey had left by another route for the Institute headquarters to report the success of her mission.

  The jungle was thick with vegetation and humid as a steam bath. Vines hung from the trees and monkeys cackled at the guerrillas, occasionally throwing a coconut or banana at them. Weird tropical birds screeched from their branches and snakes slithered everywhere in search of prey.

  By late afternoon they were five miles into the jungle, and their commander, Jorge Allesandro, called for a break. They Were in a clearing near a lake, and they sat down to drink from their canteens and chew some bread.

  Butler thought he’d wash his hands and face in the lake. He got up and walked to it, where it shone like a mirror in the tropical sun. Kneeling at the edge of the lake, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

  “Don’t move!” somebody yelled.

  Butler turned around and saw Jorge Allesandro running toward him. “Get away from that lake, Butler!”

  Butler stood up. “What’s the matter?”

  Jorge stopped before him; in the clearing, all the guerrillas were looking.

  “These waters are infested with piranha fish,” Jorge explained. “If you put your hands in there they’ll eat all the flesh away in a few seconds. They can finish off a whole cow in two minutes. Halvados has the most ravenous piranha fish in South America.”

  Butler looked at his hands and realized they would have been gone if Jorge hadn’t noticed him kneeling at the lake. “I’ll keep that in mind from now on,” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  It was eleven o’clock the next morning at the Santiago del Pisco Air Force Base. A B-52 bomber, purchased from the United States of America, sat on the runway, its engines warming up. In its belly, directly over the bomb gates, was the atom bomb. Next to the bomb, sitting at a little table, was Lieutenant Rudolfo Diaz, the bombardier, adjusting his bomb sights, making last minute checks.

  In the cockpit was Major Eduardo Pina, the pilot, who was looking over his instruments. Assisting him was his copilot, Captain Casanova Castelango.

  Diaz, Pina and Castelango had received intensive instruction during the past twenty-four hours in the dropping of the bomb. Their instructors were United States Air Force officers flown in from Washington D.C.

  Major Pina spoke into his headset microphone. “CX4 to control tower, CX4 to control tower, request permission to take off.”

  His earphones replied, “Control tower to CX4, wind southeast, ceiling twenty-four hundred, permission granted for takeoff. Happy hunting, amigos.”

  Pina eased forward the stick and the big B-52 rumbled down the runway. All eyes followed it, because everyone knew that the fate of the republic hung on the success of the plane’s mission. At the end of the runway Pina pulled back the stick and the B-52 climbed into the sky.

  Pina took it up to ten thousand feet, then made a big circle and headed for the Sierra Chorino Mountains. The sky was blue and the jungle was like a vast green carpet below. Pina turned to Castelango and said with a smile, “We are making history this morning, my friend.”

  “Yes,” Castelango agreed, “our names will be in history books someday.”

  “Maybe then my children will show me some respect,” Pina said.

  In the fuselage next to the bomb, Lieutenant Diaz studied his map of the Sierra Chorino Mountains. He thought that someday when a movie was made of his life, this would be the most suspenseful scene as it showed him, the loyal, dedicated bombardier, preparing to eradicate the filthy, lying, vicious, atheistic communist fiends who threatened the happiness of all good middle-class people everywhere.

  The B-52 crossed the pampas; in the distance the Sierra Chorino Mountains could be seen. Major Pina licked his lips and picked up his microphone. “The objective is dead ahead,” he said.

  Back in the fuselage, Bombardier Diaz answered, “Aye aye, sir.” Then he looked into his bombsights. He saw the pampas passing swiftly under the cross hairs of his lens. On the right side of the bombsight was a little button and a switch. To the right of that was a big lever. The lever opened the bomb doors and the switch activated the button that would drop the bomb. Diaz turned to look at the bomb, resting quietly above the doors. “What a masterpiece of engineering you are,” he said softly.

  “We are now approaching the objective,” Major Pina said into his microphone.

  “Aye aye, sir,” Diaz said.

  Diaz looked into his bombsight and saw the Sierra Chorino Mountains loom up from the pampas. The plan was to drop the bomb directly in the center of the mountains. Diaz’s fingers itched and his mouth went dry. Zero hour was rapidly approaching. He pulled the lever and the huge bomb door opened wide. Looking through them, he could see the mountains down below. Then he returned his eye to the bombsight.

  “We will be over the objective in thirty seconds,” Major Pina said.

  Diaz reached to his side and flicked the switch that activated the bomb. Then he flicked the switch on the bombsight, activating the button. He squinted through the bombsight and saw the objective, a particular mountain, float toward the crosshairs. And then the magic meeting of crosshairs and mountain top occurred. Diaz set his jaw and pressed the button.

  The apparatus clanged and the bomb dropped out of the B-52.

  “Bombs away!” Diaz yelled.

  Major Pina pulled back the stick and climbed high into the sky to get as far away as possible from the huge blast. “CX4 to headquarters, CX4 to headquarters, the bomb has been dropped!” he said into his microphone. “Viva Halvados!”

  Bombardier Diaz closed the bomb doors and lay on the floor of the plane. He felt weird and began to giggle hysterically.

  The bomb dropped lazily through the sky. High on a mountaintop a guerrilla with binoculars and a radio watched it descend. The bomb whistled and yawed as it fell through the atmosphere, hit the side of a mountain, bounced off and fell into a deep ravine. At the bottom of the ravine was a river and the bomb splashed through its surface, sliced through the water and buried itself thirty yards into the sedimentary mud at the bottom of the river, where it would remain until the end of time.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  In his bunker, Phillip Noble was peering through his periscope at the Sierra Chorino Mountains. He wore the blue dress uniform of a field marshal in the Halvados Army and his chest was blanketed with medals he had recently been awarded for outstanding service to the republic of Halvados. His fingers were adorned with jeweled rings and his officer’s hat was on the back of his head.

  He turned to President Santiago del Pisco, who was looking through the periscope next to him. “Shouldn’t it have exploded by now?”

  “I think so,” Pisco said.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you think you’d better call that plane and find out?”

  “Good idea.” Pisco turned to the radio operator sitting at his transmitter in the corner. “Call the plane and find out what happened.”

  “Headquarters to CX4, headquarters to CX4
, do you read me?”

  “CX4 to headquarters, CX4 to headquarters, we read you.”

  “Headquarters to CX4, what happened to the bomb?”

  “CX4 to headquarters, we don’t know.”

  Noble stomped to the radio operator, tore the microphone out of his hand, and yelled, “Did you drop the bomb?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Did you turn on the switch before you dropped it?”

  “Bombardier Diaz has indicated to me that he did, sir!”

  “But you must have done something wrong, you asshole!”

  “We have done nothing wrong that we know of, sir!”

  Noble drew back his arm and threw the microphone against the wall The abrupt motion caused his hat to fall off, revealing his curly blond hair. “I’m surrounded by fools and birdbrains!” he screamed, his face turning red. “Nobody can do anything right around here! Only I can get things accomplished! Fools! Liars! Incompetents! Scum of the earth!”

  He paced back and forth, in the throes of a major nervous breakdown, while the various politicians, military officers and local millionaires tried to soothe him.

  “Get away from me, you clowns! I’m going back to Washington right away to get another bomb! And this time I’ll drop it myself!”

  Noble stormed toward the door of the bunker, just as the surrounding jungle exploded with the sound of gunfire. He stopped and listened, a puzzled expression on his face. “What the fuck is that?” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “Forward!” cried Jorge Allesandro. “Venceremos!”

  The rebel brigade came out of the jungle with rifles and bayonets at the ready. They charged the bunkers and the network of trenches surrounding them. Defending soldiers, taken by surprise, tried to organize resistance, but the rebels swarmed over them.

  The generals, admirals and millionaires looked out the windows of the bunker in horror. The rebels slaughtered the soldiers who fought, took into custody those who surrendered.