by H. L. Valdez
"What kind of fools are you?" Richard asked angrily, sweating with fear.
"Colonel, I was raised on Mad Magazine. But if you're as smart as you think you are, you'd better examine your responses," Gina warned, nudging his head with the rifle barrel.
"Listen. We just slipped over the edge, this is a mistake," Karl stated, as Sasha knelt in front of him staring into his eyes. "The deal was money for drugs and guns. Drugs and guns down, money back," Karl replied shaking.
"So, this isn't the first heist for you two?" Sasha asked nodding.
“No.”
"Who are you working with?" she whispered, grabbing his throat with her left hand. Gasping for air, he opened his mouth and Sasha swiftly plunged the needle into his wiggling tongue, injecting half of the powerful contents into his blood stream.
"Aaaghh!" He warbled, as Sasha shook his head while squeezing his throat as his eyes bulged. "Herr Karl, were you raised in a gay nursery?" She shouted angrily, pulling the needle out of his meaty pink tongue, and releasing her grip. As he was groaning and clutching his throat, Sasha searched his pockets, pulling out a folded piece of paper and without notice, stuffed it into her shirt pocket.
"OK, Richard, get on your stomach," Sasha ordered.
"Drop dead," he replied adamantly, infuriating Gina who promptly slammed the rifle's stock against his forehead, stunning him into a semi-conscious state.
"What a waste of good narcotics," Sasha said, plunging the needle into the Colonel's neck, squirting the remainder of the illicit drugs into his carotid artery.
"Let's look around," Gina urged earnestly.
"Sure, go ahead," Sasha replied standing, repeatedly kicking the Colonel in the stomach with the needle still stuck in his neck. Turning around, she slowly walked toward Karl while unbuckling her belt and unfastening the buttons of her fatigue pants. Gina remained silent watching Sasha stop in front of Karl.
"OK, Karl," Sasha whispered, grabbing his collar while pulling him up on his knees as she lowered her trousers before him, revealing her pink silk panties and slender torso.
"Time to make little Sasha happy," she said softly, gently rubbing and stimulating herself to moisture. The narcotics’ effects slowly moved Karl into a submissive mood and euphoric consciousness. Gina remained silent, glancing at Sasha sexually intimidating Karl while rubbing her crotch back and forth on his face. Karl inhaled her exotic scent as she put her hands behind his head, firmly pressing his mouth against her needy moist labia.
"Go ahead. Don't be shy. You know what to do. You’ve done this before," she suggested, tapping the pistol against his head, forcing his face against her unshaven vagina. Gina stared at them curiously for a moment then began to ransack the tent searching though the men's possessions scattered about the room.
"Can you play the labia? Make her sing," she encouraged, as he licked her impassively.
"Tonight, you get a free face lift," she said in a soothing voice, her moisture pulling Karl into a state of surrender as he licked her, thinking of Rita.
"Kiss her deeply and mean it," she ordered, cocking the pistol and tapping his head with the muzzle, while arching back, holding onto Karl's head as she quivered and pressed herself against his responsive tongue as he firmly held onto her buttocks, passionately losing himself between her legs, desperately attempting to please her, and save his life.
"Ahhh, so nice, so nice. You did a good job," Sasha sighed, quivering and gripping his shoulders as her body exploded into rippling shivering pleasure while slowly easing herself away from him and un-cocking her pistol.
"Well that was quick!” Gina laughed.
"Better now than none," she quipped, pulling up her pants, grinning.
"Okay guys, on your feet! The good times are over!" Gina shouted, stomping her foot on the floorboard with her heavy boot. "It's time to leave," she yelled, motioning with her rifle, and shocking Karl into the here and now.
"I can't move," Colonel Rose mumbled in a daze, scratching himself repeatedly in reaction to the narcotics.
"You can't move or you won't move?" Gina shouted scooping morphine and heroin from the table, then stood over him, sprinkling the deadly mix into his bleeding wound, and then yanked the needle from his neck.
“You’re gonna pay for this,” Colonel Rose garbled incoherently, with glassy eyes.
"You sap," she hollered, slamming the rifle stock against his head.
"Karl, get off your fat television ass and help the Colonel," Sasha ordered, pointing her pistol at him. Karl rubbed his face gathering his thoughts trying to track the direction of the two women. Both men stared at each other in ambivalence trying to psychologically survive the moment.
"You can do it Karl, I have faith in you," Sasha said, supportively.
"Where we going?" Karl questioned groggily, rising to his feet, scratching himself in reaction to the large dose of heroin as his pupils constricted.
"To a place where you'll be safe," she said warmly. "You could be in danger; can't you see that? We're doing you a favor. Come on now, help the Colonel and let's go before the Meo get here," she said reassuringly, looking into his tired eyes. Karl obliged and nervously helped Richard to his feet. Then, side-by-side, they staggered outside and began walking as the narcotics made their minds confused and their reflexes sluggish.
"Now boys, stay quiet," Gina requested nearing the main gate, as Sasha readied her pistol. "Just let us do the talking," she said, as the two men were counter-balancing each other as they walked, while mortar fire intensified landing dangerously close to them, blowing up another latrine and the portable mess hall. Suddenly, illumination flares began lighting up above the camp and machine gun fire started ricocheting in every direction.
“Am I on LSD?” Colonel Rose asked delirious, staring up at illumination flares attached to small parachutes, floating above the camp swaying like a pendulum, casting eerie and surreal shadows flickering in the darkness.
“Oh shit,” Dr. Messner scowled, slipping on foul smelling feces. “This is disgusting,”
“My sentiments exactly,” Sasha blurted. “Just keep moving.”
“Where are we?” Richard asked, stepping on fecal material, tightly gripping Dr. Messner, as he struggled to steady himself. “I don’t deserve this. I don’t. I’m a doctor.”
"The same guards," Gina blurted, approaching the entrance.
"Too bad for them." Sasha replied ducking her head, as mortar fire continued to detonate, and scattered machine gun fire echoed everywhere.
"Let's stop right here everybody!" The sentry yelled, jittery from the shelling, assessing the situation.
"Where's your buddy?" Sasha asked grinning, gripping her pistol.
"Leaving so soon girls?" The guard replied, stepping from the shadows.
"Yeah, we're going out to dinner," Sasha replied, shooting one guard in the head and the other in the throat with her silencer equipped 9mm pistol. For a moment, the sentry remained standing. Then his eyes widened and his face went flush, staring at Sasha. Within seconds, his legs collapsed onto the soft dust. Bleeding to death, his eyes blinked watching them walk away. In a state of detached consciousness, he couldn't move. He blinked again, then his eyes rolled back into his head, as his final moment of awareness became darkness.
"You backward jerk," Sasha grumbled, shouldering her holster as Gina pressed her weapon against Dr. Messner's ribs as the pharmacological effects of the narcotics rendered both men into obedience. The silence of the walk was a prelude of things to come. Sasha nodded her head to Gina, signaling to turn as she entered a small dark trail.
"OK, fellas," Sasha said cheerfully, as Richard fell to the ground, exhausted from limping.
"Help the Colonel, Karl," Sasha suggested calmly.
"What are we doing here?" Dr. Messner asked, rubbing his eyes trying to focus, then began scratching himself.
"We're having a showdown. You show me yours, and I'll show you mine," Gina said in good spirits.
"Look guys. It seems you're both
suffering from collective amnesia," Sasha said seriously.
"Make this easy on everybody, and tell us where the shipment went, and who is working with you," Gina asked in a businesslike manner, as the men swayed in a silent stupor staring at her.
"We were alone and just happened along the trail," Karl answered, holding his aching head as Sasha switched on a flashlight and began scattering leaves with her foot, searching for bamboo stakes protruding from the ground.
"Quit using your head for a hat rack, Colonel," Gina shouted. "It's impossible to do the job alone."
"Got it," Sasha blurted, locating the entrance to the tunnel, then opened the small bamboo trap door. "Okay Mr. Wilderness, over here. “You too, Karl!" Sasha shouted.
"What the hell's this?" Karl bellowed in confusion, rapidly scratching his arms.
"Karl, somebody has to tell you, life peaks," Gina shot back.
"I'm sick, don't do this. This is a bad mistake. A real bad mistake," Karl said trembling, his eyes welling with tears, infected with fear.
"Okay, kneel down over there!" Sasha said impatiently, wiggling the flashlight beam on the ground. "You want to keep your little secret, fine, just remember; there's no rank underground," She remarked, as the men tensed in apprehension.
"You guys get on your bellies and look inside the tunnel," Gina said sharply.
"Come on get your faces down here, and look inside," Sasha demanded.
"Now watch this," she said, firing a tracer bullet into the inky darkness of the tunnel. With wavering sensibilities, both men followed the bullet’s trajectory until it slammed into a mud wall with a forceful thud as Sasha jumped to her feet.
"Get in!" She ordered Richard, kicking his filthy boots.
“What?”
"Let me make it easy," Sasha added, "This entrance is a single complex and runs four or five levels deep. It has several exits to secret passages from one tunnel level to another," she said with detachment. "If you find the exit, you go free."
"What kind of guarantee do I have of getting out of the tunnel?" Richard questioned suspiciously, lying on the ground.
"You have an Oklahoma guarantee: 50-miles or 50-feet whichever comes first!" Gina yelled, staring down at him, laughing sardonically.
"Listen, lady," Karl said, rolling onto his back. "The other person working with us is exempt from travel clearance procedures," he volunteered, trembling, hoping for leniency.
"Shut up Karl! Just shut up!" Richard shouted. "Don't tell these girls nothing," he yelled, staring Karl down.
"You've got a thrift store mentality, Colonel," Sasha replied.
"Yeah, you're in the social woods, Mr. Wilderness," Gina added seriously.
"Now get in that hole," Sasha shouted with an icy stare that pierced the Colonel's soul. With a smug grin he looked at Gina then Sasha. Karl stared at Richard for identification and reinforcement, then looked at Sasha in desperation, hoping that their familiarity would exempt him from being forced into the tunnel.
"You both built your own reward system," Sasha said with a flat expression. "I know the tunnel is dark, but if you find the exit, I'll be waiting at the other end with a little reward," she added with a warm sadistic smile.
"Hey! Hey! Survival is just a lottery boys," Gina blurted angrily. "Now, I'm losing my patience real fast; get in!" she scowled, looking at the Colonel and firing a tracer bullet into the ground igniting the dry leaves surrounding the tunnel. Richard took a deep breath, and slowly crawled, and clawed his way into the two-and-a-half feet wide by three-foot high entrance.
"Go ahead," Sasha said to Karl, as he lay motionless on the ground thinking of Rita and the day he threw the small vial of prescription drugs in the air. "Rita I love you," he whispered closing his eyes.
"Rita who?" Sasha asked softly, leaning her head forward. Karl just shook his head and began crawling into the dark tunnel.
Fire ants in the damp black holes of the tunnel dropped onto the Colonel's back as he inhaled the dank air with blood seeping from his thigh. Saturated in sweat, claustrophobic panic, barely controllable, gripped both men as they crawled through the pitch-black hot tunnel.
"The stink is horrible," Richard blurted, nauseated. “What is that awful smell?”
"I can't stand it," Karl said with deep sobs, sensing death.
"Come on Karl, keep it together. Individual strength, guts, and cunning count more now than anything," Richard encouraged as he grimaced, trying not to breathe.
"Why did I ever listen to you?" Karl grumbled, as the clay squished between his fingers as he crawled. "I'm a doctor for God's sake," he said, filled with self-pity and sorrow.
"I can't see, I can't see," Karl shouted in panic.
"Go slow, just go slow. Feel your way through," Richard said, trying to convince himself and disbelieving what his mind was thinking and creating.
"Hold on," Richard said, pulling a silver Zippo lighter from his side trouser pocket.
"This will help." He said, holding the bright burning flame in front of him. "What the hell?" Richard blurted in mental confusion, staring ahead trying to make sense of the scenario.
"What is it? What?" Karl shouted impulsively.
"It seems like the hole is moving in on me," Richard said confused. "Christ, I'm losing my equilibrium," he muttered in fright. Several paces behind, Karl crawled faster as clumps of clay became embedded into his fingernails.
"Oh my good God, oh sweet Jesus, help me," the Colonel shouted, as a panic attack gripped his psychological anchors.
"What? What?" Karl screamed.
"Giant crab spiders! The whole chamber: the walls, the top. It's one great black moving mass of spiders," Richard Rose cried out in disbelief. "Help me, help me, help me," Rose screamed, losing his self-possession and panicking.
"Scramble back. Scramble back to the entrance," Richard shouted, shaking uncontrollably as both men frantically clawed into the moist earth desperately trying to crawl backwards.
"Oh shit. I'm stuck!" Richard shouted in uncontrolled confusion.
"On what?" Karl cried, frantically.
"I don't know," he yelled, yanking a trip wire with all his might.
"Aaaghh!" Richard screamed falling three feet through a trap door, which in-turn opened a box filled with angry scorpions.
"Help me Karl! Pull me up!" he yelled in desperation. “Pull me up!” He pleaded as dozens of scorpions quickly stung the Colonel into convulsions.
"I'll talk! I'll talk! Get me out of here! Get me out!" Karl screamed in vain, losing control of his bowels watching the scorpions sting the Colonel's face into a puffy frothy mass under the faint light of the lighter. Engulfed in fear, Karl vomited on Richard as the violent scorpions, covered in vomit angrily continued to sting his swollen face with the poisonous tips of their tails. In an instant, he reached for the lighter and while picking it up, vomited again.
"Oh God!" he cried, "Please help me," he screamed in uncontrollable panic, while chewing and swallowing residual vomit. The stench surrounding him was over whelming as he hyperventilated on the stale, stagnant, humid air. Lifting the hot lighter to the wall, Karl got the dry-heaves looking at two men buried in a fetus-like position, decomposing in the wall of the tunnel.
"Help me make it through. Help me make it through, God," Karl whispered as he cried, crawling backward in the dark subterranean maze with blood racing through his brain, shaking in fear, unable to control his mind and body.
"Crawl. Crawl," Karl whispered as his finger rolled across something round and wet.
"Oh God, what is it?" He cried jerking his hand back gripping the lighter, only to watch a deadly poisonous bamboo viper take a potent bite into his finger.
"No! No! Get off! Get off!" Karl screamed hysterically, violently, shaking the small dangling snake off his hand. Crawling back one-step, he collapsed face first into the dull reddish clay. Fire ants crawled over his cheeks and into his mouth as giant crab spiders crept over his head to attack and devour the strong and determined ants in a final
skirmish for existence. Sasha and Gina stood on top of the bamboo trap door. Sasha pulled a small amount of heroin from her bag and put a pinch of powder in her mouth then pulled a canteen of water from her backpack. Gargling the warm water, she swallowed the potent opiate.
"They stopped screaming. Should we go find them?" Gina asked, watching Sasha shaking her head no, swallowing the drug cocktail.
"It won't be pleasant," she sighed. "Besides, everything rots very quickly; it's the humidity," Sasha said, moving her tongue through her mouth, swallowing the remaining heroin particles. "They're just animals. We’re all part of the dirt," she said, lighting a Seven Stars cigarette as Gina pondered her psychological reasoning.
"What's your next move?" Gina asked.
"Who's Rita?" Sasha questioned, inhaling the smoke.
“Who knows, maybe his wife. Who cares? What’s next? Any ideas?”
"Let’s carry out a few dummy drops in Tokyo to flush out this Crisis Response Team. That’ll give us an idea of their operational response.” Sasha suggested.
"Good idea. From there, we can also review and study where the leaks are coming from," Gina added.
"Yeah, let’s shake up the trees with a dummy drop," Sasha mused, smoking her cigarette. "That’ll give us some firsthand data," she added, dropping the cigarette on the ground.
"I'll go to Manila and put some goons together," Gina suggested. “We don’t want our guys getting killed.”
"That’ll work, then we can meet in Tokyo," she replied.
"That's a good short-term plan," Gina said, staring at her seriously. “But, you know, we should quit smoking and drugging," she suggested, putting her hand on her dusty shoulder.
"Yeah, I know. I've got to work on my karma," she replied with a sense of resolution, handing her the canteen.
Admiral’s Call
9 July 1964. The South China Sea. In the dark of night, five F4 Phantom jets circled over cruisers and destroyers as their afterburners seared crimson holes in the black sky. A heavy bombardment was underway. The amphibious task force was preparing for a major assault on Vietnam's burgeoning guerrilla forces. From the carrier USS Ticonderoga, wisps of steam rose from the slotted groove in the deck as thirty-ton Navy F4 fighter planes taxied on the four-acre deck outlined with faint white lights. With each jet accelerating from zero to 160-miles an hour in 250 feet, hot steam gases deflected off water-cooled aluminum blast deflectors rising out of the deck. Pilots watching the flight crew orchestrating the dangerous mission of flight deck operations were jockeying into position at the end of the cat, where the launch bridle was attached. Stabilizing the ship’s forward momentum, eight boilers and four geared steam turbines turned four 35-ton rudders, steadily steering the carrier toward its mission of peace, officially called a police action.