ASSET - an Action Thriller: a Brill Winger Thriller

by Chris Lowry

  Brill swallowed hard and took another sip.

  This time his stomach cooperated by only doing a half flip.

  "I don't want to sleep," he told Doc.

  The man nodded.

  "Half measure then," he slid the needle into the line and squeezed the plunger to just below the halfway mark. "Should make the pain bearable."

  Brill sipped again.

  "How bad?"

  Arnoux frowned but the Doc locked eyes with Brill.

  "There was some extensive damage. Repeated trauma on top and... on bottom. I put twenty stitches in your head, and about sixty in your rectum and anus. Your colon was perforated so I stitched that up, but a lot of junk got in your bloodstream. I've got you on broad spectrum antibiotics for any infections, and we did some mega dosing on penicillin. I'm still running tests on STD's and AIDS, but we don't do that here. Commander let me send off for them."

  Brill nodded, wide eyes staring over the edge of the cup.

  "You're going to hurt for a while," Doc continued. "We can get you up and moving tomorrow, and that will help with the healing, but you're on a liquid diet for two weeks, which will let you heal."

  "What then?" Brill asked.

  Doc glanced over at Arnoux.

  The medic shrugged.

  "The Commander wants to debrief you. After that, you heal up here and we send you back."

  "Where?"

  "Johannesburg I suppose. Then America. Back home."

  "I can't..." he said softly.

  "Can't what?"

  "Go home."

  Doc double checked the lines in his arms.

  "You're going to need some mental help too. We don't provide that here. Hell, we usually just wrap some duct tape around it and keep on going. I nearly used up all my supplies on you."

  "Sorry," said Brill.

  "No worries mate, I was just joshing. You were cracking wise on the table yesterday, so I was just trying to crack back."

  "I don't do crack," said Brill. "But I would if it helped the pain."

  "Was that a joke?"

  "Supposed to be."

  "Yeah, that one needs work. You can ponder it while you're resting up. Commander will see you tomorrow," Doc called over his shoulder as he left.

  Brill finished the water and held out the cup.

  "May I have some more?"

  Arnoux poured another glass.

  "He wasn't kidding about the duct tape," said the medic. "I'll help today but tomorrow you get your own water."

  Brill sipped the glass slowly.

  "Tomorrow," he said. "Who was the guy with the golden eyes? Is that the Commander?"

  "That's who you remember huh? No, our Commander is Simon," Arnoux set the paperback in Brill's lap. "You can borrow this while I've got duty."

  Brill watched him walk out of the door.

  The pain was receding, and he started feeling lethargic.

  Two sides to that medicine coin, he thought.

  He wished he could think clearly, make a decision.

  But the medicine didn't work on shame, or rage or the emptiness he felt every time he thought of Laurette.

  He should have asked for the whole dose.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  His name was Simon.

  No last name given.

  He was the leader of the company, or at least the ground portion of it as far as Brill could tell.

  There may have been a de facto figurehead sitting in a high rise in Johannesburg, but this man was the HMFIC.

  He was led into the command cabin set up on the edge of campfire in the middle of the clearing.

  There was no guard posted at the flaps, but two men sat in chairs by the fire, rifles in their laps as they watched the compound.

  Hyper alert. Brill barely acknowledged their presence.

  In the future, he would note the way they watched him, the way they sat on the edge of the chairs, the illusion of looking relaxed to the untrained eye.

  He would note the fingers on the trigger guards and the tight straps that allowed the weapons to pivot quickly toward any perceived threat.

  Today he noticed only that two men were there and neither called out a challenge to Goggles, the man leading him into the tent.

  He hurt.

  There was an ache in his bottom that wouldn't leave no matter how many shots of morphine the Doc injected.

  The repeated violations, the brutality of it echoed through his mind.

  In the two or three day’s he'd been in camp, he needed sedatives to sleep.

  He constantly worried.

  Did he have AIDS? Would he have a virus?

  Visions from high school films flickered through his mind unleashing horrors.

  He felt sorry for himself, then guilty that he was alive to feel sorry.

  He should just get over it.

  He lived, she didn't.

  At least he was alive to feel the pain, to wonder.

  They hadn't told him when he'd be cut loose, but they must be planning to take him back to the city.

  Where he would have to see Laurette's dad and tell him how he couldn't save his daughter.

  They would send him back to the states and he would meet with the Senator and Governor and tell them how he failed.

  How the rebels raped him.

  His vision blurred and he stumbled.

  Goggles reached back and put a rough hand on his shoulder to haul him close.

  He didn't say a word, just half held, half dragged him into the tent.

  “Here we are, Sir,” Goggles called out to the darkness in the rear of the cabin.

  It wasn't a big space, but the front half was lit and the back shrouded in black.

  A sheer black mosquito net hung at the halfway point, blocking the rear.

  A long conference table made of rough sawed planks rested on two barrels at the front of the tent and surrounded by tables.

  The table held a map, and desk instruments, a radio perched on the edge of the boards.

  The mosquito net parted and Simon stepped out.

  He was a completely unassuming man.

  Five foot ten or eleven, compact frame of solid muscle.

  His hair was military short and sprinkled with gray, which put his age somewhere between forty and sixty.

  Sharp brown eyes glared at Brill over a prominent nose.

  Simon was dressed just like his soldier's though his combat fatigues weren't as worn. It made sense.

  He probably spent more time in the tent than crawling through the jungle to execute missions.

  He waved Brill to a chair and nodded to Goggles.

  “That will be all Becker.”

  Brill twisted his head. Goggles had a name.

  Becker. He would remember to use it.

  Becker saluted and marched out of the tent while Brill settled into a canvas camp chair.

  Simon sat across from him and steepled his fingers in front of his face as he studied the young man.

  “The doctor has informed me of your progress,” he said.

  His eyes didn't blink.

  Brill glanced at them and looked down at his hands, his feet, withering under the intensity.

  “Yes Sir,” he said barely above a whisper.

  “Call me Simon in the field.”

  “Yes Sir,” said Brill.

  “I cannot imagine what you're going through,” Simon said. “But I have seen many men in your position. It's a particularly vicious tool used by the rebels.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “Look at me.”

  Brill followed the order.

  He locked eyes with Simon and felt a twitch as he fought back tears.

  “This has broken many men,” said Simon. “It can break you. I'm sitting here looking at a boy and it's like looking at cracked glass. One wrong touch, one strong breeze and it shatters. I can only tell you what I would tell one of my men.”

  Brill sat up in the chair and ignored the ache in his bottom.

  “Sir?” />
  “Don't let this break you. It is tragic. It is a horror. But you are alive, and so long as you are alive there is hope.”

  Brill slumped back into his seat.

  “What have I got to hope for?”

  “What do you want? We're going to get you out of here just as soon as you're cleared to travel. And we're going after the rest of the rebel group that escaped. We'll get them for you.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  “After the rebels? Will that help? Do you want to watch us kill them? Do you want to make sure your captors, your tormentors are dead? Will that help you heal?”

  “No,” Brill said in a low growl.

  “Then what?” asked Simon. “What do you want?"

  "I want to kill them. I want to kill them all."

  The Commander studied him again, ratcheting up the intensity two notches.

  They were at a crossroads in a complicated situation.

  The girl they had been hired to rescue was dead, the boy lived.

  They would have to tell the father, and the boy would be sent back to the US.

  But there was nothing that said they couldn't give the boy a little revenge before they shipped him home.

  Revenge and a little blood lust could go a long way to helping the healing process.

  Because if the damn rebels had done to Simon what they did to the boy, he would want to same thing.

  Salt the earth.

  He nodded at Brill and smiled a shark smile.

  "And so you shall."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The compound was just under a quarter mile in circumference.

  Brill was cleared by the Doc to run. Slowly.

  It's how they had him do everything, as if the stitches holding him together would pop and release his insides.

  His guts, his shame, his desire for revenge.

  It was jogging really.

  The damage made him lurch a little, so he shuffled around the inside of the compound wall.

  The sun turned the jungle into a wall of heat, thick humidity like cutting through cotton candy.

  But it made him sweat.

  He relished the heat and the pain and the sweat.

  He felt as if he was pushing the toxic sludge of his thoughts out of his mind.

  All he had to focus on was running and the rhythm of his footfalls.

  His brain could hold a four count and so that was his mantra.

  One two three four and again. One two three four.

  Over and over until it was second nature and the sweat poured out of him.

  He soaked through the tee shirt and pants they provided him.

  The combat boots sloshed as the liquid ran down his body and into them.

  Each drop gave him vindication, each step exorcised the pain.

  He knew it wouldn't go away, maybe never would.

  But he could run it out until he was too tired to care.

  The Doc had one piece of good news.

  No diseases, just a run of the mill bacterial infection that a couple of rounds of antibiotics would clear up.

  Brill watched Becker observe him from the front of the hospital tent.

  "Think he'll make it?" the soldier asked Doc who stood in the shade beside him.

  "Did Arnoux tell you he made a joke when I was stitching him up?"

  "He did?"

  "Gallows humor. But if you can crack wise after what he went through..."

  "Fifty/fifty then?"

  "Same chance as all of us."

  CHAPTER

  "What's this?"

  Brill tried to lift the overstuffed ruck sack by one of the two web straps and strained against the weight.

  "Pack," said Becker, eyes hidden behind the mirrored aviators.

  "I can see it's a pack," Brill said. "I meant what is it for? Why is it so heavy?"

  Becker leaned forward and lifted up the ruck with one hand. He held it out toward Brill and motioned him to turn around with the finger on his other hand.

  Brill offered his back and Becker helped settle the web straps onto his shoulders, adjusting them for fit with quick tight jerks.

  Brill sagged under the weight.

  "Good grief," he moaned.

  "It's one hundred and sixty kilograms," thick fingers worked the straps.

  "I don't weight that much," Brill muttered.

  "Yeah, kilograms mate. Divide by two."

  He watched Brill do the math in his head.

  "Half what I weigh."

  Becker grinned.

  "We get out in the green and one of us gets hurt, you're going to haul his ass out of the stink, read me?"

  Brill stared into the face, searching for the joke, but there wasn't one.

  "You want me to carry a man on my shoulders."

  Becker nodded.

  "Yah, we'll practice that later, but for now, this will do."

  He spun Brill around and lined him up facing the well packed dirt track that circled the jungle camp.

  "Go," he used the bottom of his boot to kick Brill forward into a slow shuffling jog and clapped his hands in a beat just a little faster than the boy was running.

  "Faster! Watch your breathing," he shouted.

  Brill picked up the pace, but the straps digging into the muscle of his shoulders felt like it was trying to drag him into the dirt.

  He could run. Had run in high school. He even thought he was good at it. A couple of blue ribbons and trophies testified to it.

  But the pack run made him feel like a toddler learning to walk.

  The balance was off.

  It shifted the weight into the small of his back, which stretched his shoulders and made him run upright.

  He tried to lean forward, but the straps cut into him, and turned each shuffle step into a rocking motion.

  The pack swayed too, rolling side to side as Brill moved his upper body.

  Each rotation threatened to spill him onto the track, and it was only by sheer willpower that he remained upright.

  He made one loop and started to slow.

  "Nine more!" Becker shouted.

  Brill glared at him, but he trudged on.

  Simon came from the HQ tent and stood beside Becker under the blazing sun.

  The thick humid air dampened the sound of the camp, until they only thing they could hear was the buzz of unseen insects in the leafy canopy surrounding them, and the labored breathing of Brill and his footsteps as they pounded against the hard pressed dirt track.

  He fell on the sixth lap.

  His tired feet tripped on each other and he sprawled, scraping dark lines in the ground.

  Becker took a step forward to help him.

  "Hold," Simon rumbled.

  The two men watched.

  Brill's face was pressed in the dirt. It turned to streaks of brown and red mud that covered the sweat on his cheeks and forehead.

  He pushed his hands underneath him and shoved up to his knees, resting for a moment on all fours.

  The moment stretched into two, then longer, and just when Simon was about to give the order to help, Brill pulled a foot up and placed it next to his other knee.

  He fought against gravity and exhaustion and pushed off the ground, getting back up and tottering, the weight of the pack working with gravity to yank him back to a prone position.

  Brill shuffled forward, trying to use the pack to get momentum going again, and after a dozen faltering steps, he fell back into the rhythmic pit pat of shuffling steps.

  "Go, go," Becker whispered under his breath, the image of the boy fighting to keep going reflected in his sunglasses.

  Simon just watched, thin lips pressed in a tight line, his face expressionless.