Sacrifice. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ as if she was swallowing thick porridge.

      She’d already resolved herself to the one simple fact about being in the jungle—she would never be dry. Her clothes clung to her, accentuating every curve of her body. They were soaked through with sweat and the twice-daily rains that haunted her new home.

      It wasn’t a home she wanted to live in. But, for the moment, she had no choice.

      She worked her hands behind her back, trying to relieve some of the pressure on her wrists. The handcuffs didn’t help matters.

      She stretched to get her hands under her, hoping she’d eventually be able to slide them under her legs so her hands ended up in front of her rather than behind her. A stream of sweat ran down her face for her efforts.

      Annja took a deep breath and sighed. How do they stand it here? she wondered. She’d been in the Philippines for less than a week and she still hadn’t acclimated to the tropical environment.

      Of course, she hadn’t come here thinking she would end up as a prisoner of the dreaded Abu Sayyaf, the notorious terrorist group with links to al Qaeda. Annja was supposed to be researching a new story for Chasing History’s Monsters. But a contact hadn’t turned out to be who he said he was. Instead, Annja found herself looking down three gun barrels, and when the small Toyota van had rolled to a stop in front of her, the wisest move was to get inside.

      She smirked. If she was being totally honest with herself, part of her wanted to see where things led. She was getting used to unexpected adventures and the truth was she usually enjoyed them. She was pretty good at getting herself out of tight spots.

      Her smile faded. I should have considered all the options beforehand, she thought. Before she was forced to endure a bumpy flight away from Manila, and then a riverboat ride to some desolate part of the country.

      And there was also the fact that she had no idea where on earth she was. The Philippines comprised over seven thousand islands. Annja could be on any of them.

      With no real way home.

      She racked her brain. What do I know about Abu Sayyaf? Not much. Just what had made it to the news. She knew they were notorious for their cruelty. They hadn’t pulled off much in the way of actual terrorist attacks—a stray bombing here and there. But what they lacked in a track record, they made up for in terms of their lucrative side business—kidnapping.

      Abu Sayyaf operatives had resorted to kidnapping over the past ten years to help finance their various other operations. Normally, the kidnappings took place at expensive resorts frequented by wealthy Europeans. But in the past few years, Annja knew that Abu Sayyaf had also kidnapped several missionaries. The results weren’t always positive. If the ransoms were paid, by and large most of the victims were released. In the case of one missionary, however, he was beheaded.

      Annja wondered what they hoped to achieve by kidnapping her.

      She looked around the makeshift camp. There were several huts built a foot off the ground on stilts. Their rooftops had been painted and thatched over to help conceal them among the other plants of the jungle canopy, probably to discourage them from being seen from the air by the military units that hunted the terrorists.

      She wondered if it was true that U.S. special-operations troops were involved in the hunt for Abu Sayyaf. She supposed they could be, and the thought of them attacking the camp cheered her.

      The reality of it seemed unlikely, though. Annja hadn’t heard any type of aircraft in the area since she’d been here.

      The jungle, she knew, could be utterly impenetrable. Walk in any direction and within ten yards, you’d be totally lost unless you knew exactly where you were going and how you were going to get there.

      She heard a chicken clucking off in the distance. They were one of the few animals that Abu Sayyaf members seemed to keep around the camp. She was grateful they at least fed her well enough. Last night she’d had a chicken-and-rice dish that had filled her stomach and set her at ease for the first time in a few days.

      They kept her well hydrated, too. Of course, they had to. In this heat, even just being leashed to the wooden pole a few feet away, Annja could dehydrate fast. Someone stopped by about once an hour and forced her to drink water.

      The dark skin of her Filipino hosts suggested they were indigenous to this area, rather than city transplants. She knew that Abu Sayyaf, like many terrorist groups, preferred the disenfranchised lower classes to the middle class or wealthy. It was easier to recruit them, easier to get them to commit to suicide missions if they believed their families were going to be taken care of after they were gone.

      From her vantage point in the camp, Annja had seen a total of twelve men and four women. Each one of them was dressed in camouflage fatigues. And even Annja was wearing fatigues. Her own clothes had been unceremoniously stripped off when she’d first arrived. Annja wondered if her nakedness might have aroused any of her guards, but they merely looked away while she put on the new clothes, which smelled of mothballs.

      She heard the tramping of feet and looked up. One of the guards, a guy she’d named Big Nose because of the bulbous snout he had, approached with her hourly ration of water.

      “Drink.”

      Annja tilted her head back and opened her mouth. The water was cool. Annja wondered if they had a refrigerator somewhere, and if so, what sort of power it was running on. A generator out here would be too noisy and would require a supply of gasoline to run. She didn’t think they would opt to trade their concealment for a creature comfort. But who knew?

      She swallowed some water, pausing to take a breath before finishing off the water off. She felt a few drops run down her chin and smiled at the guard. “Thank you.”

      He frowned and walked away.

      So much for making a friend, she thought. I don’t think I can count on him as an ally.

      She continued the struggle to get her hands around to her front, but couldn’t make it work. She slumped forward, straining to stretch her back muscles. She’d already worked on keeping her legs flexible, but her arms had pretty much gone numb.

      She sighed and took another deep breath. Now what? Annja closed her eyes and looked inside of herself. The sword she’d somehow inherited from Joan of Arc hung in its ready position. All she had to do was reach in and take it.

      But how could she do that when her hands were cuffed?

      She was still learning about the powers of the sword and what she could and couldn’t do with it. Maybe I don’t need my hands free in this plane to do it in that plane, she thought. Perhaps she could reach into the otherwhere and then, when she opened her eyes, the cuffs would be gone. All she had to do was see it so.

      Annja saw her hands as free as she reached toward the sword.

      She felt the hilt and wrapped her hands around it.

      She opened her eyes.

      Her hands were still cuffed behind her. The sword was nowhere to be seen.

      Annja frowned. So much for that.

      She knew she had to get her cuffs off before she tried to do anything at all that might spring her from this place.

      The problem, she realized, was that even if she СКАЧАТЬ