Sacrifice. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ that all the magic in the world wouldn’t be enough to help her. Agamemnon had, after all, witnessed Luis’s savagery. It was one of the things that had attracted him to the young man in the first place. Luis had a killer’s cold, calculating capacity for extreme violence combined with a reasonably sharp intellect.

      He wasn’t as smart as Agamemnon, but then, that was the point.

      Agamemnon didn’t need someone smarter than him around. That would have been foolhardy on his part. He needed men with courage and the ability to kill without regret. He needed women who cared little for the pleas of their victims as they detonated bombs and sprayed bullets in crowded shopping malls.

      So far, Agamemnon had been fortunate enough to attract the people he needed.

      But losing Jojo would be a blow to morale around the camp.

      He sighed. Later on, when the search teams returned with the American woman, Agamemnon would see to it that everyone was properly rewarded. A party of sorts would be in order.

      He nodded. He would send some of the women to the nearby village to secure some pigs for roasting. There was nothing like a feast to make his people forget a tragedy.

      Combined with the success of their planned operation, Agamemnon felt certain that any lingering sadness over Jojo’s death would evaporate in the joyous triumph they would all experience.

      Perhaps he would have Luis bring his men over to the party. Luis had a young girl in his camp that Agamemnon hadn’t yet taken the time to properly indoctrinate into the more delicate ways of being a revolutionary. After all, the sweet thing would need to understand how the needs of her leader always had to be met in order for the revolution to grow stronger.

      He grinned. The island girls were always so much easier to deflower than their counterparts in the big cities. They could be readily persuaded with a bit of extra food and wine.

      He felt a swelling in his pants and smiled. Rank, it was very true, had some very distinct privileges.

      All I need is for tomorrow to go off well. And for my men to find Annja Creed.

      Agamemnon stood and walked out of the hut. Daylight was already starting to fade. Night would soon blanket the camp.

      He waved over one of the few men left in camp. “See to it that Jojo’s body is prepared for burial. If we leave it too long, he will only attract predators.”

      The man saluted and ran to find help. Agamemnon watched the flies buzz away from the carcass as a woman approached, waving a broom at the body.

      His people, he knew, had learned the lesson.

      All around him, people came out of their huts and approached Jojo’s body with a degree of reverence. They would see to it that he was buried in the ground beyond the camp.

      Later, when the American woman was dragged back into the camp, Agamemnon would allow them to vent their frustrations on her.

      Then, and only then, would he allow Luis to kill her.

       4

      A special-operations commando had once told Annja that the biggest problem in the jungle was disorientation. She now understood why. It was entirely possible to have no sense of direction. Looking out five yards in front of her, Annja couldn’t see much. The green-tinged semidarkness surrounded her, giving her a vague sense of claustrophobia.

      Already, under the canopy, she felt the jungle’s shadowy onslaught starting. Small bugs nibbled at the exposed bits of her skin. The humidity must have soared to over ninety percent. Her clothes were all wet and clung to her like a second skin.

      She took a deep breath. Somewhere behind her, she could hear people shouting.

      They were looking for her.

      Annja knew the direction she’d run into the jungle. She picked out a landmark in front of her roughly fifty feet away. A tall tree arcing up toward the inevitably green sky. Annja maneuvered her way to the tree and stopped when she got there.

      She was desperately out of breath, not necessarily due to the exertion. After all, Annja was in excellent shape. But stalking through the dense undergrowth while breathing air that seemed more like soup than anything else taxed her like nothing she’d done before.

      At the tree, Annja picked out another landmark to aim for and then started off toward the clump of vines that stretched high into the treetops.

      Behind her, she could hear more noises. The telltale clang as a machete cleaved its way through the greenery.

      I need to find a place to hide, Annja thought. And then I need water. Lots of water.

      Already she could feel the beginning stages of dehydration coming over her. In the jungle, with her body temperature rising and sweat dripping off of her, she would need a constant supply of water to replace what she was losing. Otherwise, her vision would fade and her body would start to shut down. It already felt as if her skin temperature was higher than the air temperature. Worse, her sweat wasn’t evaporating.

      She knew she was on a steep downward spiral.

      Annja spotted what looked like a red buttress tree farther off in the distance and struck out for that. Scores of thick vines wrapped their way up the trunk like giant snakes. Annja grabbed the vines and pulled herself up the trunk. If she could get off the jungle floor and into the tree, she might be able to wait out her pursuers. With luck, they might walk right past her.

      Annja scrambled up the trunk, feeling her feet dig into the vines. Bits of leaves and bark broke off and flittered to the jungle floor beneath her. She hoped it wasn’t enough of a sign to indicate to a tracker where she was.

      She finally managed to get herself into the nook of the tree where its lower branches forked off in a variety of directions. She found a pile of reasonably dry leaves nestled in the hollow and settled herself down against them, sucking in air.

      I need water, she thought.

      Annja looked at the round vines wrapping their way up the tree and wondered if they might be tube vines. They were round rather than ribbon flat. That was a good sign.

      She closed her eyes and reached for her sword. When she opened her eyes, the blade was in her hands and Annja reached farther up the trunk and cut one of the vines.

      Here goes nothing, she thought.

      She held the cut vine over her mouth and almost instantly, a stream of water flowed out of the vine. Annja took a mouthful and despite the mossy taste, she thought it was delicious.

      She gulped as much as she could. The effect seemed instantaneous. Her vision cleared and she felt better. She took as much water as she could and then slumped back into the hollow.

      The sounds of her pursuers grew closer.

      She could hear them now, their Tagalog dialect unfamiliar to her, but she could tell by the tone that they meant business. They sounded furious that she had escaped.

      Annja risked looking out of her improvised shelter and down on the ground. Several batches of leaves obscured her view, which made her feel somewhat more secure. If she had a hard time seeing them, they would have a СКАЧАТЬ