Whatever Gods May Be Part 23

"All right." Shoo Juh paused behind a facade of near amiability.

"We will review what you've told us about this briefing. Who was present and what was discussed?"

Jamie said nothing until Shoo Juh bent closer with her wordless threat.

Our training... training... "Our training was discussed."

"Yes, yes. Training for what, hong mao?"

Jamie was close to panic. Somewhere beyond the spotlight, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d watched, waiting for his chance. Just a preliminary briefing...

"It was just a preliminary briefing. Just the scout/sniper platoon leaders, so we'd know how to train our people for the invasion."

"The invasion." Shoo Juh prompted expectantly.

"Of-of Borneo," Jamie mumbled.

"You know I need certain specifics, hong mao. Who briefed you?"

"The battalion's intelligence officer."

Shoo Juh came closer, seeking something else. "And-" No names, no names. "Th-there were some other people, too," Jamie said, forcing herself to glance at the interrogator's face for hints about what to say next.

* 191 *

Shoo Juh seemed not to notice the glance; she came closer still.

"Who were they?"

Jamie played for more hints. "Don't know. We weren't introduced."

The slap across Jamie's face stung as it resounded. But it didn't knock her off the stool.

"Were they civilians?" Shoo Juh asked too avidly.

Civilians? d.a.m.n! This is about the mercs! Jamie drew in a slow breath. You want mercs, you got mercs. "They weren't in uniform," she said. "When I came in I saw one of them waving around some kind of contractor ID."

"Which contractor?"

Jamie shrugged. "I didn't get a good look." The interrogator gazed into the dark beyond the spotlight where the b.a.s.t.a.r.d stood. Then she leaned over Jamie. "Tell me what you know about how the invasion will proceed. All of it, hong mao." But Jamie had little to tell. Amphibious a.s.sault... Marudu Bay...

In a stuttering hush, trying to hide a high-frequency shudder, Jamie stumbled through what little she now recalled of the fiction she'd concocted months ago.

From his corner, The b.a.s.t.a.r.d snorted loudly and stepped nearer to the spotlight. "That's ridiculous! Why would-" Without taking her eyes from Jamie, Shoo Juh held up a hand to silence him. "We already know of the American interest in Banggi and Balambangan," Shoo Juh growled at Jamie. "Now you talk only of entering Marudu Bay. Not even Americans can be that stupid."

"That's right!" the b.a.s.t.a.r.d shouted. "She fabricated the whole thing."

"I have cooperated," Jamie said softly, seeking time to think, time to recall the topo maps of northern Borneo.

The interrogator's eyes glowed. "You have lied to your superiors, hong mao."

Too late, Jamie recollected more. Islands! Banggi and Balambangan are frigging islands off the northern tip of Borneo! "I-I coulda got it wrong," she said. s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t. I just blew it. "There was only the one briefing-a-and yeah, I think I must've got it wrong. Pulau Banggi first, and Balambangan, then into Marudu Bay...I-I'm sorry, I get confused. I have trouble remembering."

* 192 *

"You see?" the b.a.s.t.a.r.d said. "She lies. It's all a lie." Shoo Juh's sculpted face, impermeable as glazed porcelain, filled Jamie's vision. "You said before that five places would be attacked simultaneously, but nothing about entering Marudu Bay."

"After," Jamie said, blinking to keep her eyes from closing out the sight of Shoo Juh. "Into the bay after we take the three islands and either side of-"

"No!" the b.a.s.t.a.r.d screeched. "There will be no invasion of Borneo by the Americans or anyone else. I will prove it. Just let me have this lying c.u.n.t again for a-"

Shoo Juh wheeled to face him. "Your organization serves many masters. Perhaps some of its loyalties are in conflict with others."

"No," the b.a.s.t.a.r.d said. "She is deceiving you, not us."

"Perhaps." Antic.i.p.atory excitement sparking in Shoo Juh's eyes.

If she asks me more questions, I'll f.u.c.k up again... What the h.e.l.l, I'm screwed anyway... Jamie ran her gaze over Shoo Juh's body, halting at the woman's crotch. "Already creaming, fah kao yee-un chuh?" she taunted. "Only way you get gao chao, isn't it?" Through the glare, Jamie saw shock overtake the interrogator's fine features. The guards gawked in amazement. Jamie's attempt to use Mandarin terms for s.a.d.i.s.t and female o.r.g.a.s.m was jumbled but comprehensible, and it detonated Shoo Juh like a bomb .

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d laughed-an odd, abrasive sound that Jamie realized she'd heard before-while Shoo Juh howled orders that the guards scrambled to obey. Frozen at the center of the tumult, Jamie peered with new understanding into the dark where the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's darkened form lurked. You. You're the one who did this to my hands.

Then the guards yanked Jamie from the stool and began obeying their orders. Shoo Juh still shouted. For a brief while, Jamie managed to translate some of her words. "Bian"-whip. "Shung"-rope. "Ko kuh"-thirst. "Chee-ih tao"-beg.

"Go now," a voice in Jamie's ear soothed as the beating intensified under the chief interrogator's ardent surveillance. "I'll show you the way."

* 193 *

Chapter tWenty-tWo.

saint eh Mo's This is Gwynmorgan?"

Male voice, tinged with relief and far, far away. Though it nearly whispered, Jamie heard it quite clearly.

"Yes, sir. Not ready to wake up yet."

Female voice-gentle, concerned. From North Carolina... Nah, not that lucky. Smells too much like the Palawan...

"So that's everyone. Twenty-two of ours, eight Filipinos."

"Yes, sir. We got everybody now."

Jamie's hands hurt-the same ceaseless throbbing that made it so hard to move her fingers for so long. Yep. Still here. But I like this dream... She drifted away from the conversation, wis.h.i.+ng only that the woman from North Carolina would touch her. Soft, on my cheek first, then down my neck and- A gush of pain splas.h.i.+ng white-hot across her back and b.u.t.tocks ended Jamie's reverie. She tried to find relief by moving but could only jerk and squirm. Her eyes sprang open but refused to focus. "Aahh fuh- uuh..."

"Lieutenant Gwynmorgan? Ma'am?"

Her eyes had to close. "Please. Don't," Jamie muttered through clamped teeth. "Call me that."

"Try to relax, ma'am-uh, Lieutenant," soothed North Carolina.

"I got something here that'll help."

Uh-oh. Jamie made her eyes open again and blinked through most of the blurriness. Hammock. And cammies. Not naked anymore. And North Carolina looking really young and pale, holding a med injector.

"Morphine?"

* 194 *

North Carolina nodded solemnly, bringing the injector closer.

"No. No ph-pharma. Makes me nuts. M-More nuts." Jamie tried to wave the injector away but her hand hardly moved.

The pain flamed through her in waves. Aw jeez, gotta get outta here.

The next wave made her gasp.

"But, Lieutenant-"

"C-Corpsman, right?"

North Carolina nodded again, her round, genial face creased with worry.

"'Kay, Doc, need you to help me get off my sorry a.s.s." North Carolina's touch was just as Jamie imagined it. Gentle, firm, confident. A gift. Soon she'd been eased onto her left side and the pain began ebbing into something less incendiary.

"Thanks, North Carolina." Jamie let herself fade toward sleep.

Wow. Not dead yet. How'd that ever happen?

v "Good to finally meet you, Lieutenant," said a tired-looking man in oversized Marine Corps cammies as soon as she woke. "I'm Donato." A major, according to the brown oakleaf on his collar, whose somber Mediterranean features were eased by an earnest smile. Jamie pegged him as a regimental fobbit. He didn't have to bother telling her he was the senior POW officer and therefore her acting CO. He started a handshake but stopped when he saw her wounds and gripped the edge of her hammock instead. "How're you feeling?"

"Stronger, I think, sir." Jamie glanced at the hand the major decided not to shake. "Sorta."

"It'll get better. We figured you for all kinds of infections and ulcers. But the corpsman says you're in pretty good shape. That beta-defensin booster really works. You just need some antibiotics, which we finally have."

With effort that left her breathless, Jamie s.h.i.+fted her weight in the hammock, waving off the major's offer to help. When she got herself hiked up on her left elbow, she divulged the obvious. "I'm, uh-Guess I'm a little disoriented."

The major's smile warped into a grimace. "I'm not surprised. It's the eighteenth of May. Sat.u.r.day."

* 195 *

Jamie looked around. She lay in a hammock strung across a dreary cell constructed in the same Malihud church to which the Zhong had brought her months ago. Tight rows of gray-black bars comprised two of the cell's four walls; a door of bars had been swung open to a hallway. Beyond it she saw other cells, but no Zhong. "I'm real glad to be here."

Donato raised an eyebrow.

"I mean with you and everybody instead of, you know..."

"Yeah. We're real glad to have you, Lieutenant."

"I didn't think I'd ever, uh-Why'd they stop, sir?"

"Same reason we now have soap and a fighting chance against dysentery," he said, his smile restored. "Truce talks. The Red Cross is supposed to be here by the end of the month. First step toward an exchange of POWs. With a little luck we'll all be out of here a month after that."

"That mean I can get a toothbrush, sir?"

v "Lieutenant, take it easy," North Carolina said, grabbing Jamie's arm just in time to keep her from toppling out of her hammock.

"Aw, come on, North Carolina, where's your spirit of adventure?" Jamie winked back, subduing a flinch. "Gotta check out all the changes to this palace. I hardly recognize it. So I'm getting out to that grand foyer there with you or without you. And how about calling me something easier to p.r.o.nounce?"

North Carolina appeared puzzled.

"Like Gwynnie. Or LT if you really, really have to." Jamie reveled in not being hungry or thirsty, in breathing air that didn't smell like a sewer, in wearing her cammies again-even if they seemed a size larger than the last time she had them on. No bones had been broken, no organs ruptured, no tropical ulcers had devoured her flesh and tendons and bones. Except for what the b.a.s.t.a.r.d did to her hands, the interrogators had been fiendishly careful to maximize pain and minimize impairment. Like it's not over yet.

Yet maybe it was over. Ever since news of the truce talks, life in the small POW camp had improved markedly, according to North Carolina. Not just the end of interrogations and more and better food * 196 *

but also iodine to purify the water, toothpaste and medicines, no forced labor, no one in the isolation cells, the return of their uniforms. Best of all, the doors to the dozen cells were left open all day, permitting everyone access to the common hallway and even a yard outside.

So now that she could stand up and shuffle around, nothing would prevent Jamie from walking every possible inch of the camp. And the sooner the better. But why should her shuffle toward the cell doorway attract so much attention from the other prisoners?

"What's up, North Carolina?" she asked, angling her head lightly in the direction of a group of POWs. "Do I look that bad?" North Carolina grinned. "It's not about that, ma'am-um, LT. It's because you're, uh, kind of a legend. When I got here, some people said you were dead. But Captain Cavanaugh didn't believe it. He was sure you were still alive-like a faith he had. Then last month we made contact."

"Yeah." Jamie lowered her head and blinked back tears. "I remember. I'll never forget it."

Before Jamie had a chance to ask who had scratched and tapped Morse code that day, other POWs began coming up to introduce themselves. Jamie engaged each one, moved by the mix of concern and exultation in their eyes and pleased that word had spread about not calling her ma'am. She repeated every name she heard, determined to memorize all of them.

But where was Cavanaugh? Leaning on North Carolina's arm, Jamie walked out of the church to the adjoining yard and looked around.

A bit more than thirty meters by maybe twenty meters. Concrete-block walls roughly three meters high, razor-wire on top. Razor-wire dead man zone inside of, say, three meters. A few floodlights, no obvious cameras. One tower, small-bet it's frigging uncomfortable, hardly any shade-and it's got, let's see, one blind spot for sure and maybe another where that heavy door is. Hmm, where might that door lead? And how come I don't see him?

"Where is he?"

"Ma'am?"

"Captain Cavanaugh."

North Carolina's face clouded. "Dead," she murmured. "Escaped with two others about a month ago. Shot when they got caught a couple * 197 *

days later. The Zhong brought 'em back here, laid 'em out right there in the yard-" North Carolina's hand indicated the spot. "Made us all come out for a good look. They said 'escape results in death.'" Jamie stared at the spot where North Carolina pointed. "I see why you call this place Saint Eh Mo's."

She tried to lean a little less on North Carolina while they walked 'round and 'round the yard, indifferent to the light rain that portended the coming monsoon.

"Okay," Jamie said when she'd spent herself. "Guess I'm done." North Carolina nearly carried her back to her hammock. When they got there, Jamie held up her hands. "Can you help me with these, Doc? They're about useless and sore as h.e.l.l. Feel like a couple of ham hocks. Think ma.s.saging them, moving around my fingers some might help them hurt less? I'd like to be able to work a b.u.t.ton, you know?" Gently, the corpsman took Jamie's hands in her own. "Sorry," she said when her exploratory contact made Jamie flinch. "Punctures through your palms, right? Nails or spikes? When'd this happen?" An electric dread slithered down Jamie's spine. "Don't know." Her heart pounded as she tried to duck the shards of memory hurdling toward her. "Remember who, but not how or when."