In this era of relative sexual enlightenment, it is not uncommon for a young couple to experiment with sexuality before marriage. For that matter, it was not all that uncommon in any era. It is generally recognized today that women have essentially the same sexual drives and sexual needs as men. Moreover, it is increasingly being accepted that women have the same right to satisfy their sexual needs that men have.
For a young teenage girl such as Holly Danby, the heroine of Bill Saxton's latest novel, The Jungle Rapists, it is understandable that she should want to have her first sexual experience with a man whom she loves. However, the man she loves, Steve Collins, is employed by her father, and he has serious misgivings about taking advantage of his employer's daughter. Added to that, Steve has known Holly since she was a little girl, and he finds it difficult to believe that she really loves him and is not just going through a teenage crush.
So far, as in the lives of a majority of teenage girls, things are developing at a normal, easy pace. But suddenly, everything is changed. Holly is kidnapped by a group of savage guerillas led by the sadistic Jake Norman and his equally vicious mistress, Rena Ferral, and the young girl is forced to be a witness to the cruel rape of her young maid. Even more terrifying, Holly herself is forced to submit to the brutal sexual attentions of the entire guerilla band, one after the other. The shock of this traumatic situation sets off a string of circumstances beyond the young girl's control.
That a girl has sexual needs and desires is evident - but how these same needs and desires are satisfied is extremely important and can generally make a great difference in the girl's entire life. Author Bill Saxton takes the reader through a chain of events leading to the eventual rescue of the girl - but along the way she has discovered a great deal about herself - facts that she will never be able to hide from herself again.
The publishers are certain that this novel of violence and love will be a welcome addition to the mature reader's library of contemporary mores.
-The Publishers
PROLOGUE
The green foliage flashed with stabs of orange flame. Agonized cries of the hurt and dying filled the half-light of the Philippine jungle. Stilettoes of fire sought out the warm flesh of men as small arms fire rattled through the thick underbrush. The overturned constabulary truck lay smoking in the ditch, its wheels still spinning. The driver was bent in half, his head under the cab, his body running with rivulets of blood, his feet jammed between the steering wheel and the door. He felt no pain anymore. His neck was broken in four places. Three of his ribs protruded from his chest like toothpicks jutting out of a piece of raw meat. There was a raw hole in his breastplate that oozed black now that his blood was thickening.
Beyond the ditch, two Philippine constables, the policemen of the islands, fought a hopeless battle with .38 handguns. They were outgunned from the start. Another of their number lay a half-dozen yards away, his khaki tunic smoking where a .30 caliber slug had ripped into him. In the brush, a small force of men moved around trying to encircle the P.C. men.
"I'll take the one on the left," whispered the man named Jake Norman.
"The other one's mine," said Nick Farrel through tight teeth.
"Manoling, Paco, Pete, Henri, cover us," ordered Jake. "As soon as we knock these two off, grab the mail pouch. Rena, stay low." He spoke to a beautiful Eurasian woman, olive-skinned, full-breasted, beautiful in her green fatigues, army issue. Her name was Farrel, too. She was Nick's wife.
"Be careful," she whispered to Jake.
He gave her a look. She tried to shake her head, but he turned away.
She knew he was going to do it, once the P.C. were out of the way. She shuddered, a knot of fear rolling around in her belly like a cannonball. She knew he was going to go through with it. She looked at her husband who was already moving through the underbrush on his belly. She wanted to wave good-bye to him. Silly. That would give it all away. She pursed her lips and formed the words.
"Good-bye, Nick," she said soundlessly.
The policemen knew they were in a bad spot. They sat huddled in the ditch, back to back, trying to cover themselves. If they could hold out long enough, the backup patrol would help them out. On an assignment like this, the P.C. always sent three men ahead, brought up three in the rear at 15 minute intervals. The landmine had gone off three minutes ago, perhaps more. It had blown their truck off the road, tipped it into the ditch. They had escaped only because they had been blown clear. By rights they should be like their compadre, the driver, out of the fight permanently.
Jake Norman raised his fist straight up in the air and brought it down. Manoling, Pete, Paco and Henri opened fire. The P.C. cringed. They didn't have enough ammo to answer such a fusillade. The distraction was all that Jake and Nick needed, though. Jake took his man out first. His .45 kicked once, belched flame and the heavy slug sped on its way. The policeman rose up, almost as though he had been jerked from a hidden wire in the top of his head. His face flew apart, sticky with blood. Bone chunks splattered his companion. Parts of his brain stuck to the trees like cotton. Jake moved fast, on all fours, to reach the scene. He knew Nick would have no trouble taking out the other man.
Nick, manning a .30 caliber government issue carbine, squeezed off a shot with quick aim. The slug ripped into the constable's throat, cutting off his scream. Bits of cartilage, blood and bone came out the back, severing the man's spine. He crumpled in a heap, lifeless before his body hit the ground. Nick started to get up and rejoin the others when strong arms wrapped around his neck. He struggled to get free, but the grip was too tight. He fought for air, clawing at the arms that held him tight, choked off his vital supply of air.
"You sonofabitch!" Jake breathed in his ear.
Nick felt the hot barrel of Jake's .45 at his other ear. His eyes bulged in panic. He started to twist free when he felt a blinding crash of pain in his groin. Lights exploded in his brain as Jake's knee came up hard, ripping into his scrotum like a sledgehammer. As he folded up, more pain and more lights followed the first. Jake's arm moved like lightning, the .45 slammed into Nick's skull. Nick felt a burning pain in his chest as he struggled to remain conscious. He dropped to his knees, pain drenching every fiber of his body.
"I'm gonna kill you," Jake spat. "Now!"
Nick felt himself being wrenched back onto his feet. Again, the steel arm encircled his neck. The barrel of the automatic came to rest against his temple. He had no strength left to fight his assassin. He hung there, waiting for the end, his pulse weak, his body numb with agony.
Jake held his own breath for a moment, just before squeezing the trigger and butt safety. In that instant, he heard shouts from his men. Rena came dashing up, out of breath, her brown eyes fierce with a strange light.
"Kill him!" she husked. "There's a back-up force of P.C. here."
"Damn," muttered Jake. He squeezed the trigger just as firing broke out on the road behind him. He let Nick fall, then ran. He didn't have time to look back, to check and see if his shot had done the job. But he was sure it had. He'd had the barrel right at Nick's temple. By now, his brains were mincemeat. There was blood on his hand. Wet, fresh blood. Nick had bought it for sure. Now there was nothing between him and Rena. She was his woman!
He scurried back to the others in a zig-zag pattern, crouching to stay low. The firing was thick, but he knew the odds were still in his favor. He came upon his men and saw that they were intact. Rena had just joined them.
"Did you get the pouch?" he asked Pete.
"We got it."
"Let's get the hell out of here, then," Jake ordered.
They melted into the jungle like smoke. The firing gradually grew fainter before it died out entirely. They were out of it, according to plan. Jake gloated with satisfaction. If he hadn't waited around to snuff Nick, they wouldn't have run into the back-up force, but it didn't matter now. Nick was dead and they had the mail pouch. The road to Cavite from Manila was strewn with dead, and their boat was waiting off Sangley Point in Manila Bay.
They moved fast, the five men and the woman, heading on a straight line to the concealed speedboat. The night caught up with them as they ran, turning them into dark shapes that floated across the landscape. Some distance from the road, they climbed into the stolen jeepney that had brought them as close to the ambush as they had wanted to go. This was their element now, and they roared through farmlands and bogs, past the dark masses of feeding carabao, past nipa huts on stilts, through gardens and over wagon ruts, sure of their way.
Manila Bay was placid, lit by the lights along Roxas Boulevard which used to be called Dewey Boulevard before the Filipinos became chauvinistic. The scorched and rusted hulks of Japanese ships, grim reminders of the slaughter in World War II, jutted out of the waters of South Bay. The moon rode high, streaming the calm waters with a wide swath of quicksilver.
Nobody had spoken throughout the hair-raising ride. Jake was satisfied that all was well. They would ask about Nick later, but he didn't care. He was top man and no longer had to share that role with Farrel. He no longer had to share anything with him, including Nick's beautiful wife. The mail intercept had worked well. The federal troops and the constabulary would be combing the countryside by now. No matter. They would block off the road at two points - where it went to Cavite and where it entered Manila. No one would think of their not going to either place. That would have been the logical path for anyone else. Not for Jake Norman, although he had to admit that the plan had been mostly Nick's. Nick! He had been a thorn in his side for a long time. He was the smart one, the planner, the hunter. Well, he was just a piece of stiffening meat now.
The boat was right where it had been stashed. They removed the camouflage tarp and threw it in the back. Pete, the German, ex-Nazi, pressed the starter button after they had pushed it out into deep water. The engine roared into life. He slipped it into gear and roared off across the moonlit bay. Their wake" burning green fire from the phosphorus in the water. Henri, the Frenchman, broke out the beer, San Miguel, the best in the world. Rena got a bottle of Rum Cana, a lime and a Coke, two glasses. She made Cuba Libres for herself and Jake, iceless, but welcome after the ordeal that had gone before.
"Well," Jake said, sipping from the drink, "we made it. No sweat."
"Walang pawis," laughed Manoling, repeating the English words in his native Tagalog dialect.
"We got dem good," said Paco who had a thick Filipino accent. "Wha hoppen, Farrel?"
Jake laughed out loud.
"He got careless," he said and there was an ominous quiet on the boat. Everyone knew Jake had been balling Nick's wife, Rena. No one believed that he had been killed by the P.C. It made them all a little uncomfortable, for when Nick had been alive, Jake was kept in place. Now that he had no serious rival for leadership, they were a little apprehensive. There was something twisted in Jake; not that they all weren't a little haywire, but he seemed to be driven by a demon that none of them could understand.
A rugged, red-faced man in his late thirties, they all knew he had deserted the tough Special Forces during the Vietnam conflict. He had worn the green beret and had finally gotten so used to killing he had snuffed the wrong man - a U.S. officer of the 101st Airborne. That murder, too, had been over a woman. He had deserted, made his way to Manila and hooked up with the Hukbalahap, the rebels who were out to overthrow the Philippine government - by force. Jake, light-haired and tall, knew he had burned all his bridges behind him. He wanted life to give him what he could take now -money, a good loyal woman, the chance to stay in action. He was at home with violence - with the garrote, the knife, the gun.
Henri Le Beau was more frightened of Jake than the others. He was a Frenchman who had fought at Dien Bien Phu and lived through it. But he was a broken man who felt that his country had betrayed him. He had hated De Gaulle and France after coming out of that part of Asia wounded and half-dead. The Huks were his chance for revenge against all mankind, but inside, he was a coward. He killed because he hated, but he was furtive about it, lacking the boldness of the others. He didn't even like to see his enemy because his enemy was locked somewhere in his mind, created back there in the smoke and stench of Dien Bien Phu.
Manoling Quirino was the deadliest of them all. He had absolutely no conscience. A poor Ilocano from Ilocos Sur, he was short, thick-bodied but with a cat-like wiriness. He was lithe and lethal, like a cobra. He was good-natured except when he drank hard liquor so they tried to keep him on beer. He loved women because that was his reason for being in the Huk band. He had been rejected by a girl one drunken night in Vigan. He had raped her and then cut her body up into pieces. He could never go back to his own village so he was now a Huk, an outcast and a killer.
Paco Pacebas was the youngest of the band. He was from a slum area of Manila called Lico, a rat-infested, pestilence-ridden sewer where people lived in small huts stacked together like cord wood. He was a good fighter and a cool head. He loved being a part of something and was too stupid to have joined the army. That's why he had found his way to Roxas, the Huk leader, because of rejection by the army. He had been trained in guerilla warfare and was assigned to Nick's and Jake's strike force because of his desire for action.
Pete Stamm was the oldest of the group. A disillusioned German, he still followed the teachings of Hitler, even though he had been too young to fight in that war. He had a strange dream world of his own that involved the master race, genocide and a master plan to conquer the world if only he were leader. But he was not a leader, merely a follower and a weak one at that. He was blond, blue-eyed and lacked any conscience whatsoever. He was a good fighter, though, and was liked except when he began to get glassy-eyed on booze. That was when he always started spouting his ideas about politics. Spittle would form at the corners of his mouth, and he wouldn't stop talking until someone threatened him. He would almost always go to bed crying after that, and so he was not respected at all for those quirks of character.
Rena was one of those women who always seemed to be around violent men. She looked not at all like one of these women. She was darkly beautiful with doe-eyes that she inherited from her Italian mother. She had large, firm breasts that were always falling out of her tunic. Her body was voluptuous. She had white shoulders and was taller than Paco, Manoling or Henri. Pete was about her height, Jake slightly taller. The men liked her because she fought alongside them and settled arguments when they arose. She was cool, lovely and a crack shot. She had a way of keeping her distance when any of the others approached her for sexual favors.
"Hands off," her mien seemed to say, and they respected her for it. All except Jake who respected no one. That was why Nick was dead, they all knew, and it made Rena all the more unapproachable.
The boat headed toward Bataan, full bore. On the left, Corregidor loomed out of the night. Near it, a huge chunk of stone, shaped like a battleship, squatted in the bay, its guns long since silent and rusted. They were very close not to the jungles of Bataan where men had died like flies during the long march to prison in front of Japanese bayonets. It was a place that no one ventured into unless he was familiar with its secrets.
These men knew Bataan like a book.
Pete headed into the small, shark-infested bay, homing on a blinking light that beeped from the depths of the surrounding jungle. He cut his engine and they drifted to shore. Figures separated themselves from the shadows and grabbed the line Henri threw out to them. The others disembarked. Two Filipinos boarded the boat. They would take it back to Manila, complete with a catch of fish and disappear, two ordinary men who had been out all day fishing.
A few crisp words in Tagalog were exchanged, and the party, headed by Jake, made their way to a prearranged bivouac. Paco carried the mail sac, Henri and Pete the supplies. Manoling foraged ahead, his M-l carbine at the ready. All were heavily armed with his, machetes, sidearms and rifles. They traveled light and fast.
They came to a clearing deep in the jungle where pup-tents were set up. The men who had taken the boat back had prepared everything, including a hot meal of pancit miqui, pork and noodles, eggs, a steaming pot of rice and fresh fish. There was no fire anymore. The dishes sat on hot coals ready for the party of guerillas. They ate, with little talk and then retired to their separate tents. There was one tent left empty, Nick's, and Jake ordered it struck so that it wouldn't remind the men of their missing compadre.
"We leave early," he told them. "Before dawn. Paco, you take the first watch. I'll take the second. Then Henri, the mid-watch, and Pete, you relieve Henri." Manoling was given the break because he would do most of the trail-breaking the next day. Everyone nodded to his instructions and Paco moved out to take up his watch. He would range in a large circle around the camp, quietly, listening for any sounds out of the ordinary. They were mainly worried about helicopter patrols. That's why their tents were spaced out wide under cover from the searchlights that could come from the air. They were guerillas and left things to chance.
In his own tent, with Rena looking on, Jake took the wire cutters and cut the cable that was locked onto the mail pouch. He found the special pouch inside and sheared the lock to that, too. There was the letter addressed to the President of the Philippines, Malacanan Palace, as expected. The envelope bore the return information - Commander Richard B. Danby, USN, Sangley Point, P.I. Jake knew that Ramon Roxas, in Quezon City, the capital, would be pleased that he had intercepted this mail confirmation from Danby. They had been monitoring the calls from the palace to Sangley for over a week. The last one had told about this letter being sent under special escort. No matter that the president would already know what it contained. Roxas needed to know. That's why Jake and his bunch had been mobilized quickly, staked out on the Cavite road for two days, waiting for this letter. Jake winked at Rena and put the letter back in the special pouch without opening it. That was for Ramon to do.
Rena breathed a sigh of relief.
"I'm glad that's over with," she said.
"Yeah."
"Are you tired, Jake?"
"Not too tired. "You?"
"Never. Not for that."
He took her in his arms then. She melted into him, eager, pliant in the haven of his arms. He felt her full breasts press against his chest. Their mouths met and caught fire. Their tongues pried into wetness, touched, moved to circulate still more heat. They had learned to make love quickly and almost anywhere. That's the way it was with warriors. They took their sex where they found it. Rena and Jake had been hungry for each other now for many days. Nick had been around too much. He would have killed Jake if he had known. Now the way was clear. Jake had taken Rena before, but that had been over a month ago. It had not been leisurely, like this.
"Oh, Jake," Rena said. "I've waited so long. I could hardly stand it."
"I know."
His hand slid inside her tunic, clutching her firmly rounded breast rising up out of the half-sling of her black brassiere. He felt her body shudder as he grazed the nipple already erected from her excitement. The dark-haired man rubbed her nipple brusquely with the tip of his finger. They kissed again while Rena began unbuttoning her shirt, his rough lips smashing brutally against her softer ones. She slithered out of her tunic, her upthrust breasts jutting out of the black-lace halter. Jake unclasped the hampering brassiere, and her quivering breasts tumbled free.
He thrust both hands over her breasts and began to knead them cruelly as the wantonly aroused young woman quickly unzipped his trousers. Her hand burrowed into his open fly, and her eager fingers circled the burgeoning hardness of his cock, squeezing the throbbing shaft. She began to moan softly, deep in her throat as his mouth slipped down to her breast, his wetly throbbing tongue licking salaciously around her tingling nipple, and then he sucked it in between his hungry lips. The areolas flared from the surge of blood that raced through her breasts, and she quickly slid out of her own trousers, completely naked now, her olive-skinned body lit by the moonlight that filtered in through the tent. In the reflected light, he could make out the dark triangle of her pubic hair, waiting for his caress.
They grew into one another, lying on their sides, his kisses like wasp stings on her marvelously perfect breasts. Her hand now had his cock out, and she was pumping it madly up and down. The acorn-shaped head, purple with engorged blood, pulsed like a spongy heart in her hand.
"I want to suck you first," she pleaded.
He squeezed her breast in affirmation, nibbling excitedly on her turgid nipple as he moved around, putting his hand behind her head and pushing her mouth down toward his straining cock. Then her mouth found the rubbery head of his cock, and she ovalled her lips hungrily, her tongue darting out to lick frantically all around the bulbous head. There was a drop of precoital fluid oozing out of the tiny slot in the tip, and her wicked tongue slid up to it, lapping it into her mouth wildly.
Her teeth grazed against the glans, causing him to wince with an exquisite stab of pleasure. Then she sucked the full length of his iron hard cock into her mouth, her lips like a rubber band squeezing him tight. She tasted his tart, lemony precoital fluid as it seeped through the eyelet of his cock, her tongue lapping up and down the shaft in a frenzy of obscene delight.
His hips arched up involuntarily as she sucked the full length of his cock into her mouth, and he pushed against her until the spongy cock-head rammed brutally against the back of her mouth. A groan escaped from his lips. This was how he liked his women, subservient, eager to do anything for him, anything to satisfy his lust. He reached down between her legs, brushing against her soft pubic hair, and, extending his middle finger, he dug into the heated furrow of quivering flesh between her legs, burrowing between her moistly heated pussy-lips until he found the tiny nub of her quivering clitoris.
She bucked as his outstretched finger touched her, almost as if an electric shock had lashed through her body, and she sucked him now with mindless excitement, exulting in the sensual feel of his cock arcing deep into her mouth and throat. She swallowed the shaft deep into her throat and held it throbbing there, delighting in the sensation of rippling movement against the membrane of her throat. His extended middle finger was an electric rod between her legs, stabbing the clitoral trigger, urging it to a swollen frenzy. She began to move her hips in the motions of coitus, caught up in the rhythm of his probing finger, and he moved the finger down until it slid easily into her hotly gushing cunt, ramming it in as far as it would go -almost as if it were his cock he was plunging deep up inside her.
Jake felt the flood-tide of his semen gather in his lust-swollen balls, boiling to burst free. He jabbed his turgid cock deep into her throat, and Rena gave a soft, muffled cry as her first orgasm jolted her. She mewled in agonized ecstasy as this one was followed almost immediately by a second orgasm, sharper, more intense. She began to suck him faster, her cheeks alternately ballooning and hollowing from the suction. Her teeth raked his skin like diminutive razors.
She rolled him over so that he was straddling her face, and he began to fuck deep into her throat hard and fast. He continued to pump his cock-like finger deep up into her cunt, rubbing her throbbing clitoris with his thumb. The lust-driven man felt his seed gather and boil in his loins. The pain in his cock was exquisite, her teeth seemed to be biting through his flesh. He stabbed into her throat, smothering her with the weight of his body over her face. She held him there, his hair-covered balls brushing against her chin, his almost rock-hard cock buried deep in her hot throat to the very hilt.
"Unnnh," she said, unable to speak and not willing to release his spasming cock from her mouth for even a moment.
Jake's turgid cock exploded like a fragmentation bomb. His cum splashed down her throat in a milky cloud, sticky and gagging to her. She choked and swallowed unwilling to lose a drop of his precious fluid and then spewed him out so that she could suck in the welcome air. Cum ran down the corners of her mouth and dripped onto her chin. She bucked frantically three more times in orgasmic shudders while his merciless finger continued to fuck up into her frenziedly gushing cunt.
"You wasted me," Jake said, pulling his sticky finger out of the still-spasming pussy and lying back, gasping for breath. There was a wide grin on his face, but Rena couldn't see it. "You got it all, Rena," he panted.
"I can make you want me again."
"I know. I want you again already."
"It was good," she said, "I wanted it that way first. I wanted to suck your cock. I've wanted to for a long time. The next time I will suck it and then put you in my cunt."
"Five minutes," he told her.
Her eyebrows arched.
"That soon?"
"Sooner, if you get busy," he laughed. "Dios, what a man!"
He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, pushing his tongue inside, tasting himself inside her mouth. Already his loins were beginning to stir once more. He took her in his arms and held her very tight. He put his face in her soft, dark hair. It felt like velvet or silk. The musk of her sex filled the tent. He breathed deep of it, wanting her again. She began to work on his cock with her hand, kneading it like a piece of dough between deft fingers.
They all made love with all stops pulled out. They thrashed and bucked, coupled cuntally, for half an hour. Her orgasms came in a steady tattoo, blurring into one another until they were a continual stream of pleasure. It took him a long time to cum, which made Rena happy. His strength became hers, and she felt completed when it was over. Her pussy was soaked from the mingling of their love juices. She lay there for a long time, her legs spread wide as the jungle breeze blew between them, drying the cum on her cunt hairs so that they were stiff and brittle like hundreds of tiny wires. Jake, limp and exhausted, the sweat drying on his naked body, lay beside her, thinking.
They lit cigarettes in the darkness. It was very quiet. Suddenly, Rena felt a chill steal over her body. She moved closer to Jake.
"Did you - are you sure you killed him?" she asked, her voice husky and far away.
Jake drew deep on his cigarette, the tip of it glowing angrily in the dark.
"Yes, Rena," he said. "He's dead. For sure."
"How do you know?" she whispered, her flesh crawling with goose bumps.
"Because he fell when I dropped the hammer on him. His blood is still on my gun and on my hands."
But neither of them slept while they waited for Jake to take his watch. They were both awake, listening through the darkness.
CHAPTER ONE
The Hukbalahap leader, Ramon Roxas, ripped open the confiscated letter that Jake had handed him. His round, flat-nosed face was stern at first, then, as he read, loosened up into a half-smile. He was a short stocky man, strong-armed, powerful. He wore green jungle clothing, a field cap shading his dark bright eyes. His Thompson sub-machine gun leaned against a chair within easy reach. Around him, along with two of his own bodyguards, were Jake, Rena and Manoling. The others were waiting outside of Quezon City until Jake rejoined them.
"This is what we've been waiting for," said Ramon, whose accent was more American than Filipino. He had been in the U.S. Army and was a Mestizo, part Filipino, part American. He chewed on an unlit cigar. Years of guerrilla warfare had made him a non-smoker. It was too dangerous when you were being hunted. He chewed strong cigars into bits instead. He went through a lot of them in a day, depending on how fast he was moving or how nervous he was inside. His face always showed calm.
Right now he was hardly chewing at all.
Jake, Rena and Manoling looked closely at Roxas, their eyebrows raised in question marks.
"This is strong propaganda. We can use it. We will use it," said Roxas. "This is a letter from Commander Danby to the president directly mentioning the present negotiations for the United States to come back into the Philippines and run the country. This is ammunition for the people."
"What else?" asked Jake.
"Plenty, compadre. This confirms that the U.S. is ready to give our president financial aid in exchange for more military bases, more policy control, the works. It also states that he will move into the villa provided by the palace so that they can maintain close contact during these negotiations. He even mentions the address. We knew about it, but they are already moving in, the Danbys. His wife, Fern, his daughter, Holly."
"So?" asked Manoling.
"So, this is the plan. You will kidnap the daughter. The wife, too, if you can. We will hold them for ransom. Danby must give up these negotiations and return to the States. Once he has given in to our demands we will release his letter to the public on behalf of our glorious cause. Then they will know of the treachery. We will have enormous prestige."
"Why not release the letter now?" asked Rena.
"Because that would blow the whole thing," said Roxas. "Right now they think we're just mail robbers. I hope. The letter is just one of many that was in the pouch. These things happen all the time along the Cavite road. No one saw you. Nick Farrel can't be connected with us, I don't think. No, we want Danby out and all negotiations broken off. Then we can claim the coup. The kidnap will make enough headlines as it is."
"You want us to pull it off?" Jake asked.
"Yes. Your force is small, experienced. Here is the address of the villa they're staying in. Move fast. Don't fail to get the girl alive. She is very young I believe ..."
* * *
Holly Danby pouted in the living room of her parents' home. Steve Collins laughed at the futility of her anger.
"Hey, you're only seventeen," he said, "you've got plenty of time to grow up."
"I do not. I'm a woman and I know what I want. Just because you're twenty-four, don't think you're so smart."
"I don't, Holly, but you're rushing things. Besides, I'm sure your father would agree with me."
"My father doesn't know how I feel. I want you, Steve. I've waited for you for a long time, and now you're treating me like a little kid."
Holly was wearing white tennis shorts and a tight-fitting blouse. She wore no brassiere but her breasts gave a voluptuous form to the shell she wore. She and Steve had just come home from a vigorous tennis game. He had beaten her soundly and she was frustrated by that as much as by his refusal to take her seriously. She had been in love with him for a long time.
"Well, I've known you since you were a kid," he said, "and I don't think you're grown up enough to know what you really want. You've never dated any boys your own age and I think that's important."
She fluffed her blonde hair and glared at him with fiery blue eyes that were like polished star sapphires. She had been trying to get Steve to notice her as a woman ever since she had reached puberty. Steve, a Naval Intelligence Officer attached to her father's staff was the handsomest man she had ever known. She loved his dark wavy hair, his dazzling blue eyes that reminded her of Paul Newman's, his wide shoulders and quick smile. She knew her father thought the world of him and, while she had always kept her feelings to herself, lately she had hinted that she would like to marry Steve. Her father had not said anything, so she didn't know how he felt about it.
This afternoon, three days after Jake and his band began setting up plans to kidnap her, she had felt the stirrings of womanhood more strongly than ever before. The teenage girl knew that she would have to go after Steve. He would never make the first move. He had known her since she was a kid, darn it, but now she wanted him to know that she had grown up, that she was mature enough for him. Why was he so exasperating about it?
"I don't want to date 'boys'," she said emphatically. "I want to date you. I want you to hold me in your arms, kiss me and make love to me."
"Hey, Holly, you'd better cool it. I don't want your old man down on my neck. I'm not a cradle-snatcher, either."
She rushed over to him then and began pounding on his chest with small fists.
"Oh, see, there you go again, Steve Collins, talking to me like I was a little girl. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"
He grabbed her arms and pushed her away. He couldn't help noticing how she had filled out, but to him she was still jail-bait. He still thought of her as the daughter of his commanding officer, a child, not used to the rough ways of Navy men. He didn't want a scene with her now.
"Stop it, Holly," he ordered. "Get a grip on yourself. I'll see you tonight and we'll talk about it."
"Will you see me tonight?"
"I told you I would. I'll take you to a movie, that's all."
"Will you kiss me now? Before you leave?" She puckered up her lips and closed her eyes.
Steve thought she looked funny.
"No, I won't kiss you now. Or tonight, either. I'm your official escort in Manila, Holly, that's all."
"Oh, you! You make it sound so cold, so military. Darn you, Steve!"
"Goodbye, Holly. See you tonight."
"Kiss me."
"No!"
"All right," she sobbed, "be that way. See if I care!"
Steve watched her as she raced upstairs. He shook his head and walked to the door. Just a kid, he thought, infatuated with him. She'll outgrow it. The first guy she meets her own age will make all the difference. He thought he'd better have a talk with Fern and Commander Danby about their daughter. She was feeling her oats and he didn't want to get into any sticky predicaments with her. He closed the door and ran to his jeep. He'd have time to clean up and get ready for their "date" that night.
A few moments after Steve left, Holly stood frozen in her tracks just outside her mother's bedroom door, her eyes wide. Her blue eyes shone with a strange light. Her father had gone to the palace earlier and she thought her mother was still asleep.
Asleep! Not by a long shot!
The teenager could see her clearly through the open door. She was rolling around the huge bed in apparent ecstasy while a big Filipino was fucking her. She recognized the man. He had made them welcome and comfortable in their new quarters the day before. He was from the Consulate and his name was Antonio Salazar. She thought he looked odd without his clothes on. His dark skin contrasted sharply with her mother's alabaster flesh. She could see his erect brown cock going in and out of her mother's pussy while she writhed as though impaled on the end of his shaft.
The blonde-haired girl wanted to run away, to wipe the scene from her eyes. But she was rooted to the spot, transfixed by what she was seeing. A virgin, Holly had been kept sheltered partly because of her father's secret work all over the world and partly by the fact that she was naturally shy, having made few friends in her young life.
The scene before her seemed totally unreal, the people like caricatures, half-animal, half-human. She was bombarded with images of naked flesh, legs and arms entangled, the glistening cock of the Filipino driving in and out of her mother's moist red slit that seemed to be made of elastic; she could see her mother's anus, puckered into a brown knot and the flash of buttocks. When the pair came to rest, Holly was afforded a view of the coital connection that stimulated her despite herself. The aroused teenager felt her loins go weak, strange hot fluids seeping from deep within her cunt through to her pubic hairs. Her knees turned to jelly and it was all she could do to stand up. She heard her mother's voice, oddly distant, seeming to come from another source.
"Oh, Tony, it's sooooo good!"
"Yes, yes," he said huskily.
"You're fucking me deep, baby," she moaned.
"Right on the tingle," he said, using a Filipino euphemism for the clitoris.
"Yes, right on the tingle," Fern said, her arms around his burly back.
The words were exciting to the impressionable young' girl. She didn't fully understand their meaning, but the husk in their voices, the tone was enough. She knew her mother was excited that this brown man was doing something to her that gave her pleasure. He was driving into that swallowing cunt with a fury that made Holly think it must be hurting her mother. Fern was squealing like a stuck pig, though, her own body bucking back at Tony's with a matching exuberance.
Holly felt a warm flood inside her own pussy, an itching that begged to be assuaged.
As she watched, her mother and Tony uncoupled. Then he slithered down her pulsing pneumatic body until his face was buried in the steaming flesh of her cunt. Holly saw the man part the cunt hairs and open the lips like a flower. She heard him lapping at her mother's wet cunt, heard her mother moan loudly with pleasure. Fern's face was contorted with wild pleasure, then it relaxed and her mouth opened wide.
Holly gasped at what she saw next.
A huge cock suddenly appeared over her mother's open mouth. Holly's eyes followed the shaft to the body of the man. She couldn't see his face at first, just his naked bulk, hairy and obscenely white. Her eyes traveled back to the cock. Her mother was licking it as though it were an ice cream cone. Her tongue flicked around the bullet-shaped head for several seconds, while her body rocked with the rhythm of the Filipino's tongue deep inside her soaked and swollen cunt.
Then the cock moved forward and her mother raised up on her elbows. She turned her head and swallowed the blunt instrument between her lips as though it were nothing more than an elongated piece of cotton candy. Her cheeks collapsed from the suction, and her lips flamed like cherry coals, then drained white as the blood retreated from the labial pressure around the glans. As Holly stared in disbelief, the huge member began to slide in and out of her mother's mouth in steady pistoning friction.
Fern took the cock deep into her throat and Holly imagined that she could see the obscenely swollen organ throb at her mother's breastbone every time it sank in to the hilt.
The watching teenager's attention was fragmented by the tableau on the bed. Her eyes flickered from the Filipino madly sucking on her mother's cunt, to the man being fellated by her mother. Her mother looked like some depraved animal obsessed with sexuality. Holly wanted to feel disgust and loathing, but her own body acted as a governor on these feelings. How could she feel these things when her own body was screaming for sexual release? She longed so for relief. There was no mistaking her mother's own enjoyment. Fern's hips were undulating with the rolling pleasure of Tony's tongue buried deep in the furrow of her cunt. Her mouth and throat were working hungrily at the big cock that thrust in and out with a growing savagery.
Holly's pleasure was distant, indefinable, disappointing in its incompleteness. Torn by confused thoughts, she could only stand there, helpless and tingling with excitement, as her mother writhed on the bed, storm-tossed by the penetration of tongue and penis at two of her sexual orifices. The three bodies were soaked with sweat. Humidity in the Philippines was high and this was a sultry day. The reek of perspiration and sex assailed Holly's nostrils, further stirring her recently awakened libido.
She looked up, then, and saw who the other man was. Blood rushed to her head and she fought to stay conscious.
It was her father, Commander Richard B. Danby!
* * *
All through the movie, Holly's mind had reeled with the impact of the scene she had witnessed that afternoon. She couldn't concentrate on the feature at all. When Steve asked her if she wanted some coffee afterwards she had declined. She wanted him home, with her. She knew her parents were gone and the house would be empty except for the Filipino guards and Tining, the maid. He thought she was strangely silent and distant, but attributed it to the fact that he had treated her the way he had after their tennis game.
It was dark when they arrived at the Danby mansion. Steve took her inside, thinking to get home early himself. He was tired and their days were busy in Manila. Holly, though, would have none of that.
"Steve," she said, when they got inside, "I want you to forget about our fight this afternoon." Her voice was strangely husky.
"Okay," he said easily, "it's forgotten."
"Come here," she said, going to the couch. "I want you to sit with me awhile."
"Well, I should be getting back," said the handsome officer.
"Not yet. Stay a little while, won't you?"
Reluctantly, he sat beside her on the couch.
"I could fix you a drink," she cooed.
"No thanks."
It was very quiet in the living room where they sat. A guard discreetly looked in then went to another part of the house. Tining, the young Visayan maid was already asleep, upstairs. Where the two sat, the shadows gathered because Holly had purposely not turned on the table lamp. She looked at Steve, the love in her eyes making them shine with a strange glow. Steve lit a cigarette, unaware that the teenager was staring at him with something more than curiosity. When he finally looked around at her, he was surprised to see that she had pulled her short skirt up to her thighs.
"What're you doing?" he asked.
"Adjusting my panty girdle," she said coyly. The naval lieutenant stared at shapely legs and creamy thighs. He gulped. He could see her panties, pink and soft, between her legs.
"Well, adjust it and pull your skirt back down," he said.
"What's the matter, Steve, don't you like my legs?"
"Oh, sure, fine, Holly. But you're showing a lot more than your legs."
"Oh?"
She pulled her skirt up even further. Now, the young officer could see the girl's golden thatch of pubic hairs underneath her panties. He began to feel uncomfortable. It was so still in the house and he knew they were alone together. This was unlike Danby's daughter, he thought. She was being pretty blatant for some reason.
Before he could say anything she was on his lap, throwing her arms around him. He fell back on the couch, too amazed to immediately react. He felt her body move over his, her breasts - with no brassiere as usual - pressing against his chest. Her legs clamped around one of his and she began rubbing up and down on it. The aroused girl found his mouth with hers and began smothering him with kisses.
The young man couldn't speak. Her tongue was in his mouth, hot and probing.
The eager teenager pressed her pantied cunt against his leg and rubbed hard. She could feel the stimulation begin to seep through her. Visions of her mother and father and the Filipino swarmed through her mind. She was hot, her pussy was starting to seep fluids through the crotch of her panties. She wanted Steve, she wanted him to do it to her.
The intelligence officer tried to push the excited teenage girl away, but she had the benefit of being on top of him. He was out of position. She was relentless with her kisses and with the lascivious rubbing of her silken cunt on his fire-hot leg. Despite himself, his cock hardened in his white trousers, throbbing with a mind of its own.
Her skirt was up around her hips, her breasts rubbing up and down his chest. He found himself returning her passionate kisses, entwining his tongue with hers. It came on so suddenly, he forgot his resolve, forgot that she was only seventeen years old, forgot that she was the daughter of his commanding officer. As the aroused teenager ground her hot cunt down on his leg, he could almost feel her hungry vulva swell and open. Her hand moved to his lap and rubbed the rigidly throbbing organ hidden inside his trousers.
He sat up with a sudden effort, pushing her away from him. He tore her lips from his and gasped for breath. God, how he wanted her at that moment! He could have just thrown her young body on the couch, jerked her panties down and plunged his flame-hot cock into that pulsing sweet-honeyed pussy of hers, jammed it to her so quick and fast she would have buckled with the intensity of his fuck. Instead, reason suddenly took hold. The youthful lieutenant looked at the teenager sprawled before him, her panties soaked with the stirrings of her desire, her dress up around her waist, her breasts heaving with lust.
"No, Holly," he said, "for God's sake no! I -we can't. Not this way. Don't tempt me. We'd both be sorry afterwards."
"Steve, I want you. Isn't that enough? I want you to make me a woman, to take my cherry. I've wanted you a long time."
"Godammit, no, I said!"
She began to weep, then, the desire in her draining away as she realized it was futile to get him to do what she wanted him to do. She had hoped to overwhelm him with the heat of her body, to show him she was a woman, to open herself to him, but he was turning her down.
Steve wanted her. His turgid cock was hard as a rock and his lust-swollen balls ached as though they had been stabbed with a square needle, but he felt he couldn't take her - not here, not like this. He lifted Holly up from the floor and smoothed her miniskirt out. Their eyes met.
"I almost forgot myself," he told the trembling young girl. "You almost made me forget my duty to your father and to the Navy. You may be on the threshold of becoming a woman, but don't ever try that again. My willpower isn't the strongest in the world."
She brought a hand to her tear-filled eyes.
"Well, that's something, anyway. At least you're part human."
"Holly, I've got to go. We'll both do something well regret if I stay any longer. I'm sorry. Maybe, some day ..."
He let it trail off and Holly nodded.
"Goodnight, Steve," she said. "I wish you'd leave that willpower at your apartment next time!"
"Goodnight, Holly. Don't count on it."
He left then, hating himself for passing up such a golden opportunity but knowing that the teenager was merely infatuated with him. He sensed that he had to remain in control or they would both wind up in trouble. As he walked across the porch, nodding to the Filipino guards, his passion began to subside. His balls ached still and he desperately wanted to turn around and go back in. His judgment prevailed, however, and he continued on out to his jeep. He saw the downstairs lights go out and he sadly started the motor. Then he drove off in a rush - passing within three feet of Jake Norman and his waiting band.
Jake had had the Danby's mansion cased during the three days after receiving his orders from Roxas. He watched the Naval lieutenant leave, satisfied that he could now move. They knew about the Visayan maid, Tining. Jake judged her to be 13 or 14 years old and anticipated no trouble from her. The Danbys were gone. There were two outside guards, three patrolling inside the fence and two more inside the house. Two German shepherds were the front door sentries. The guards were relieved every four hours, the dogs fed once a day, in the morning.
There was no moon, the skies hung with elephantine clouds when the guerrillas took up their positions. The front gate was closed, but unlocked, guarded by the two outside Filipino soldiers who had grown bored with their lonely vigil. The house was dark and Jake knew that Holly and the maid had probably gone to sleep. Manila nightlife lasted until dawn most of the time and he knew he had time to accomplish the kidnap before the Danbys returned.
The guerrillas knew their jobs. Rena and Henri waited in the two jeeps, she at the wheel of the lead vehicle, Henri handling the back-up in case of a chase. Both wore .45s and had Thompson on the seat beside them. The jeeps had been pushed to their present location, a short distance from the mansion, but out of sight completely. Manoling and Pete moved on hands and knees to the guards outside the gate, their faces blackened with charcoal, shoeless and wearing only shorts to eliminate the rustle of cloth. They wore garrotes around their necks, the piano wire stretching thin and lethally between two wooden handles.
Jake and Paco carried Thompsons and grenades. Once Pete and Manoling had taken out the two guards they would spring through the front gate, to accomplish the next stage of the operation. Pete and Manoling would jettison the garrotes and pick up the rifles from the soldiers and join the fight inside the house. It was a neat and quick plan.
Jake stood in the shadows, with Paco, trying to watch the progress of his men. They were so stealthy he couldn't see them until they rose up out of the darkness. He saw the gleam of wires just before they went around the necks of the guards.
Soundlessly, Manoling crossed the handles of the garrote and twisted. His knee was in the small of the soldier's back. He pulled, bending the man backward. There was no escape. Pete was doing the same thing. The two men died without a word, crumpling into the arms of their killers. They clutched their rifles in a death-grip. Gently, almost tenderly, the two guerrillas laid their victims down and removed the rifles from their tightened fists.
Jake and Paco had already moved through the gates like whispers.
The dogs were the first to meet death inside the compound. They came bounding down the front porch too startled to bark. Paco and Jake were ready for them. The first dog leaped at Paco's throat, his fangs gleaming white in the darkness. He never made it. His throat opened up to the knife Paco had waiting. Paco ripped savagely once the knife was in and the dog collapsed in midair, his life torn from him before he hit the ground. The other dog almost made it. Jake let him get on top before he ducked and came up underneath with his knife. He slit the dog's belly from breastbone to genitals as though it were a piece of cheesecloth. The animal's guts spilled out for twenty feet before it hit the fence, half-dead, in shock. It whimpered just before Jake crushed its skull with his heavy metal-bracketed machine-gun butt.
Pete and Manoling joined the pair and, in twos, they moved around the house. Jake caught the first man while he was taking a leak. He got him from behind, shoving his knife into his kidneys. As the Filipino turned to look at his attacker, Jake chopped him karate-style in the Adam's apple, shutting off his wind forever with a crunch of bone. The last two outside guards were snuffed from life as they moved off the back porch to begin their circling of the house.
Paco took one of them out with his knife. He shoved it up under the rib cage into the heart, twisting it as it slid home. The Filipino guard grunted once and slumped over in death, his blood gushing over Paco's arm. Paco pushed him down and wiped his arm on the dead man's trousers.
The foursome gathered briefly, then moved up the stairs to the back porch. Jake jimmied the lock and they were inside the house. Stealthily, they moved down the corridors toward the main part of the mansion, looking for the two inside guards. The house was two-storied and they didn't expect the sentries to be upstairs. They were right. The two men were chatting like gossips in the downstairs parlor, unaware of the death that stalked them.
Jake and Manoling were the first to enter the room. They moved fast to take advantage of the element of surprise. But they weren't fast enough. Sensing something, the guards turned and saw the two coming at them. They were mobilized into instant action through fear.
Too late. They were just raising their rifles when Jake and Manoling opened fire. Jake stippled his man's chest with flesh-ripping fire from the Thompson. Manoling's fire caught his victim in the groin before he corrected and blew puncture holes in the chest. The guards got off a shot each before they were cut down for good. The floor was slippery with their blood. Paco and Pete checked the bodies while Jake and Manoling caught their breaths. Pete delivered the coup de grace, a .45 slug behind the ear of each man. The gun made a deafening roar in the silence of the room. Upstairs, they heard voices, female cries that punctuated the sound of footsteps scurrying about.
"We've got to move fast," Jake said. "Cover us, Pete and Paco, at the bottom of the stairs. Come on, Manoling."
Jake and Manoling raced up the stairs, their weapons at the ready. They headed toward the sound of voices.
Jake kicked open the bedroom door. He was confronted with the sight of two frightened girls, Holly and the maid, Tining. Their faces drained of blood when they saw the two men force their way into the bedroom. Holly had already changed into a baby doll negligee that was transparent; Tining had on a long opaque housecoat. Both girls were frightened speechless.
"Get some clothes on, girl," Jake told Holly. "You're coming with us. If you scream, I'll knock you cold."
"Halika na, dalaga," Manoling told Tining. Dali na eh!"
"Hindi, hindi," said Tining, her voice weak. "No, no!"
"Ngayon!" said Manoling, coldly. "Now!"
He stepped over to the maid and grabbed her roughly. Holly still stood stock-still, too afraid to move. When she saw Manoling push Tining across the room, she tried to run away. Jake caught her in his arms.
"Either get your clothes now or go like this," he told her. "We don't have time to waste." He slapped her across the mouth and this seemed to awaken the terrified girl to the seriousness of the situation.
Holly knew that the first person her father would call would be Steve Collins. She wished he hadn't left so abruptly. She could just see his face when her father told him she had been kidnapped. His sparkling blue eyes would snap with icy fire and his firm jaw would set square. He would insist on going after her. That was the way he was, independent and courageous. That's why her father had picked him four years before, when Steve was twenty and the best of his class.
"All right," she said. Jake released her and she went to the closet. While the men lewdly watched her, she put on a pair of jeans and a blouse over her negligee. Tining began to cry and Manoling pushed her through the door. Jake followed with Holly. They went down the stairs where they met Paco and Pete.
Holly stared at the bodies of the two guards they had killed in the downstairs parlor. These were the first dead men she had ever seen, and she felt as if she were going to faint. Waves of terror spread through her body. The blood seemed to be everywhere. The holes in the one man's chest were bubbling with it, bright and shiny in the light of the room. Her knees went weak and Jake had to hold her up.
Oh, my God, she thought, they've killed everybody here. They 're going to kill Tining and me, too.
As they led her outside, double-time, the worst thought of all struck her. "Steve! They've killed him too! They must have!" The frightened teenager saw the shapes of the dead police dogs, the two outside guards sprawled like hulks in the shadows. She felt a scream rise up in her throat. Was Steve out there? Was he slaughtered like all the rest? For the first time in her life, she felt a nameless dread, a terror that hovered over her like some dark bird of dreams. Everyone was dead. Steve. Her father, her mother. Why was it so quiet, otherwise. They must be dead!
And, she knew in her frightened and sad heart, she would be dead too. The scream tried to break through her trembling lips, but only a small croak emerged, a gasp that was full of horror and fear.
"Not a sound," Jake warned the shaking teenager. His mind was full of her youth and beauty. He had gawked at the patch of golden hair between her legs when he had surprised her. He thought of her young breasts, pert and peach-shaped through the diaphanous material. This was going to be a rewarding kidnap if he had anything to say about it.
The group made it to the jeeps. Jake, Holly and Manoling went with Rena, who roared away as soon as they were in the vehicle. Pete, -Paco and Tining went with Henri, who followed in a cloud of dust. Lights out, they took back streets until they came to the highway leading to Baguio. There was still the chance of pursuit but they kept to normal speeds once they left Manila behind them and began to climb to the mountainous country.
"What are you doing?" Holly finally asked. "You'll be in a lot of trouble for this."
"Shut up," said Rena, nervous about driving at night with a kidnap victim in the jeep.
"You'll be all right," said Jake, "if you follow orders. Your father will get you back if he does what he's told."
So that was it, thought the confused young girl. My father's alive and maybe Steve is too. I'm kidnapped for ransom. Who were these people, she wondered, and why did they kidnap her? Her father wasn't a rich man, though he was very respected and did a lot of secret work. She knew that she wouldn't be given any answers and shuddered in the chill air. This wasn't funny. They might kill her - she had already been slapped, hard.
As they left Manila, Henri in the chase jeep shot a flare off. It went high in the air. Roxas would now learn that the kidnap had been accomplished.
Jake looked at the teenager on the seat with Manoling. She was a nice piece, too good to waste. They would be holed up in the hills for several days at least because these things worked slowly. They had to make Danby sweat. The men could also have some fun with Tining. It wasn't necessary to return her. There had been a lot of girls like her along the way. He remembered one barrio they raided as punishment for not supplying the rebels with enough food and cooperation. Several girls had been raped, one of them died because too many men had entered her too roughly and in too many places. The thought of that night made his blood tingle. He had enjoyed the violence, the sexuality of seeing the girls cringe and struggle before they were fucked. That made the people fear and respect them, but it was not a good thing to do too often. They needed the loyalty of the countrymen, too. But, he and his men had enjoyed that night and Tining reminded him of it.
Holly was something else. He would have to be careful with her, yet he had no intention of letting her go scot-free. That little cunt of hers was too enticing. He wondered what Rena would think when he took the girl. Hell, she was sexually liberated. She'd probably enjoy watching - or maybe she'd like to get in on it too. Rena was cruel, as cruel as he was. She was stimulated by violence and she liked sex as much as any man he had ever known. What did it matter where the sex came from?
He was getting excited thinking about all these things. The killing had keyed him up and now, as the night closed around them, he felt the need for a woman rise up in him. He reached over and touched Rena's breast. She looked up at him and smiled in the dark.
"What was that for?" she asked.
"I just wanted to touch you," said the rugged man.
"The girl get you horny?" Jake laughed. "Maybe."
"You want me to stop?" she teased. "Not yet," he said. "There'll be plenty of time."
"For you to fuck her?" Rena asked, the cattiness apparent in her voice. "Or you. Or both," he grinned.
"I'm glad you included me, you bastard."
"Yeah."
They were silent as Rena turned off the highway and rode over an unmarked course through the pines. They were above 5000 feet and the air was cold. They could see the stars sprinkling the skies. Behind them, Henri followed, then stopped his jeep several hundred yards from the turn-off. Paco and he got out and obliterated their tracks where they had left the road.
Rena's stomach tightened up as they got closer to their well-hidden camp. Jake's talk had excited her. She was anxious to get a better look at the girl. She knew Jake was thinking of balling Holly. There was an element of excitement in the atmosphere. She felt it emanate from Jake and from Manoling. In her thighs she felt a deep stirring, electric and pervasive.
"We got her maid, too," said Jake, as if reading Rena's thoughts. "About fourteen or so."
"You are a bastard, Jake." He popped a cigar in his mouth and began chewing it.
"So are you, Rena," he said.
In the back seat, Manoling laughed.
CHAPTER TWO
The hide-out camp was set in a box canyon between two high ridges. There was an overhang that made the place invisible from the air. The site had been carefully selected for keeping Holly Danby out of sight and safe from pursuit. There was a tribe of Filipinos who lived in the mountains, the Igorot, but they would not know of this place. They were once cannibals but civilization had tamed them and they were just curiosities. Once Jake had been to an Igorot camp and thought they were boiling a human baby alive for supper. Fascinated, he had watched the men and women devour the pink flesh with gusto. He was disappointed when he learned that the human baby was really only a skinned monkey. They stayed away from the Igorot, not because they were afraid of them but because they had become like children and were not trustworthy. That's why the camp was unknown to everyone except Jake's band and, of course, Roxas himself.
The last five miles were driven in darkness.
Both jeeps had to pick their way over rocky and wooded terrain. Finally, Jake's jeep arrived at the well-provisioned camp. There would be no fires, only C and K rations until the kidnap terms were met or turned down. After Henri's jeep pulled up, Jake ordered the frightened girls tied up and gagged. This was taken care of by Pete and Manoling who were both expert at creating escape-proof bonds. The girls were then put inside a small cave with Jake and Rena's tent placed at the entrance.
"We'll sleep hard tonight," the fierce leader told his men, "because it may be the last we get for awhile. This girl is a hot property."
The rebels nodded and went to their assigned tents with Paco taking the first watch. It was cold but no one needed any urging to go to sleep. They knew what it was like to be on the run, to be hunted. They knew that they were being hunted now. Jake, even, was too exhausted to respond to Rena's heat in the tent. He curled up in her arms and fell promptly asleep. The kidnapped girls, Tining and Holly, lay awake a long time, huddled under warm blankets, but soon, they too, gave up struggling to free themselves and dropped off despite the uncomfortable bonds.
The two jeeps were hidden in a draw and covered up with branches by Pete before he turned in. Jake was careful and insisted on such measures all the time. He always watched his back trail. He was suspicious of everyone. That's why he had stayed alive all these years. That's why he had gotten the jump on Nick. Nick would never have gotten Jake that way and all of them knew it. The cautious leader slept with his pistol in his hand and he slept light. Pete, who had gone to college, thought that Norman was probably a psychopath. Well, they all were, really, but Jake was the worst of all. He could kill at the drop of a hat and he never showed mercy. It was more than being hunted that made Jake that way - he enjoyed it, even more than the cold-blooded Manoling. It was the way Jake did it - with a smile back of his clenched teeth, with a lightness in his step as though he were going to a picnic. It was enough to make Pete Stamm nervous and wonder if he hadn't run out his string with the outfit. Hell, you get a guy like Jake mad at you and he'd wipe you out without blinking an eye.
He finished covering up the jeeps and went to his own tent nearby. He had the next watch and he needed sleep. He wondered, just before he went under, if it would be possible to kill a tough man like Jake and walk away from it. It was a dangerous thought, but one that Pete was thinking more and more lately, ever since Nick had gotten snuffed and Jake had taken over his woman. Pete would have liked to have had some of that sexy piece himself. Now that bastard Jake had it all. Yes, it would be something to terminate such a man with extreme prejudice. It would be damned nice.
* * *
The camp slept late, all except Norman and Le Beau who had the morning watch. It was extremely quiet on the high slopes and the skies were sparkling clear. There was no sign of pursuit and Jake liked it that way, had even planned it that way. This was a desolate region. Even the Igorots, who now wore brightly colored clothes like the American Navajos, stayed away from this kind of place. It was full of spirits, of aswang and capri, the dark creatures that Filipinos believed in. The rugged leader didn't believe in such things, but he often capitalized on his brown brothers' superstitions.
He knew the flare they shot off last night would have been seen by Roxas' man and that the leader would get the message to Danby today. The runner would come, in time, and tell them their next move. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but wait. And be quiet. That was the hard part for Jake. He was a man of action. So were his men. Waiting would have been even harder, except that they had a diversion. Two diversions. Holly and Tining.
The innocent young maid would be the first entertainment for the camp. Jake had already decided that. That way he could watch Holly's reactions. He liked too pit people against one another, set up crucial situations and see how they behaved. You never knew how people would respond to pressure, violence or sexual stimulation. It was a game he enjoyed, one he had played often, sometimes with startling consequences.
Jake untied Tining's feet so that she could move about and then hobbled Holly so that she could only walk with short steps, but could not run away. He left her hands tied also until it was time to eat breakfast, shortly after sun up.
"I don't want you getting hurt, girlie," he told Holly. "Your father wants you back all in one piece."
"Thanks a lot," the disgusted teenager said sarcastically.
"Don't get too cute," he warned.
Once everyone was up and fed, Jake ordered scouting parties sent out. Above the rim, the forest was quite thick and he really expected no trouble this soon, but it was good to check and it kept the restless rebels busy. Tining was allowed to help with the camp but he had Paco keep a close eye on her. "Shoot her if she tries to run," Jake told the Filipino. Tining understood his meaning although she spoke no English. She was a Visayan from Dumaguete far to the south. She spoke a little Tagalog, but Jake decided she was stupid as were many of these girls who left the provinces and became maids or whores. They worked for peanuts, but it was more money than they had ever seen. Most of them were like Tining, ignorant and superstitious. Some of them practiced Voodoo, even.
The dark-skinned maid was flat-nosed from the Negroid blood that permeated her ancestry. Yet she was slim-bodied and small ankled. Her breasts were firm and well-developed despite her young age. She wore no brassiere or shoes, only panties and a housedress that revealed her girlish curves to the horny men in the camp.
All that day the men in the camp looked at the Filipina girl. She was a bonus, after all, and there was no need to worry about her welfare. She was just a "piece of meat", as Jake would say. As Tining came and went, helping pass out rations, keep the camp tidy, the loud men began making obscene offers to her, commenting on her virginal status, her skinny anatomy.
"Hey, dalaga, mayron ka ba ang puki?" they would say, "Young lady, do you have a pussy?"
Tining's face would darken and she would walk more lightly, her head held high and proud. She had heard such language before, but here she knew she could not run nor talk back.
"Hihiga ako dito, gawin mo ng gusto mo," Paco said once, jokingly. "I'll lie down here, you do whatever you want with me." The rowdy men laughed at that and even the young maid had to fight to keep from smiling. She hoped that they would just keep joking that way and not try anything. She had never known a man before and she was afraid. Her mother had told her that it hurt very much unless you were used to it and that almost all men were very rough and only a few knew how to be gentle. The men that had brought her here certainly did not look very gentle to her.
By late afternoon she was used to them, however, and she thought that maybe their talk was all in fun. That was before Manoling brought out the rum.
"Hey, Jake, you want some drinks?" asked the dark Filipino.
"Sure," said Jake. "About time." It was hot, even in the mountains, and there was no better drink in the P.I. than Cuba Libres, rum and cola and lime, the calamanci and a case of Cokes. There was no ice.
"You're a life-saver," said Pete, grinning, as he lined up to get his share. Paco opened a Coke, poured half of the bottle out on the ground, squeezed a half a lime in it, then filled the rest with rum. He drank deep. The rest of the rebels, Manoling, Pete, Jake and Rena, followed his example. Jake filled two more bottles of cola and took them over to the two young girls.
"Here," he said, "this might make you forget your troubles."
Holly shook her head. Tining took a drink and made a sour face. Jake laughed as she put the bottle down. Holly was still tied, but the maid sat, Filipino style, flat-footed, legs spread, her buttocks close to the ground with her hands untied.
"Suit yourself," he smirked, and wandered over to where Rena waited in the shade. His eyes scanned the camp. Something had been bothering him all afternoon and he hadn't been able to put his finger on it until now. Someone was missing. One of the men had not been in camp for several hours. It was information that had no meaning at the moment. The guy might be somewhere pissing it off. He may have started early on his own bottle of rum. One thing, Jake didn't want to say anything to anyone else just yet. Sometimes it was better to be quiet and learn a little more than to blow the whistle and never know what really was going on.
He sat beside Rena. Their eyes met.
"Anything wrong?" she asked.
"Nope. Not yet. Feels good to relax. There might be some fun later on." He glanced devilishly in the direction of the girls who were talking together at the cave entrance. Rena knew what he meant. She took a deep swallow of the Cuba Libre and her stomach warmed and she felt good for the first time in days.
"Yes," she said. "There might be at that."
They were right. It didn't take the other men long to get a glow on from their drinks. Soon Paco and Manoling wandered over to the cave. Jake smiled with satisfaction. This was the kind of set-up he liked. He heard the men teasing the Filipina girl.
"Have a drink," said Paco.
"Loosen you up," Manoling told her. "I don't want to loosen up."
"I'll loosen you up," said Manoling lewdly. "Leave me alone."
"Tayo na hindut," Paco laughed; "Let's fuck."
"Hindut mo," said Tining; "Fuck yourself."
"Hindut ka," said Manoling; "Fuck you."
The exchange was a popular one in Tagolog, often used in teasing, but Tining knew that the excited men weren't kidding her. She tried to draw herself up, make herself very small, but Paco went after her. He grabbed her arm and jerked her away from the cave. Holly told them to leave her alone but they just laughed. Their rowdy laughter carried all the way over to Jake and Rena, and they laughed too. That's when Paco and Manoling knew that it was really all right to continue, that they didn't have to worry. They both took huge swigs from their Coke bottles, emptying them, and threw them on the ground where they clinked together.
"Give her to me. I'll giver her some good loving," Manoling husked through slurred syllables.
Paco pushed the frightened girl into Manoling's arms. The husky Filipino wrapped his arms around Tining, trying hard to kiss her. The feisty maid struggled and this made him angry because he knew that others were watching and he didn't like to be humiliated about his manhood. He cursed her strongly in Tagalog and squeezed her thin curvaceous body hard in his arms. Paco danced excitedly around the pair like a referee, making obscene references to what was going to happen in the next few minutes. His lewd talk spurred Manoling on even more.
The aroused Filipino put one of his rough hands down the front of Tining's dress, and as he touched her naked full breast, the fighting girl squirmed and tried to bite him. Manoling was in complete control though and Tining never even came close with her teeth. The frightened maid could see that his mood had changed as he turned lustfully serious and was no longer smiling. She began to tremble, afraid of what she knew was going to happen to her.
Manoling smelled her fear and was stimulated by it. Paco also sensed the fear.
Tining's eyes grew big and pleading as she looked at Manoling, begging him in silence not to touch her anymore. The gruff Filipino's lips tightened over his teeth. He shook his head as he held her at arm's length for a moment so that she could read his message clear. Tining was like a small bird transfixed by a snake's steely hypnotic gaze - she couldn't move.
That's when Manoling drew her close and put his hand up underneath her dress. Tining winced as his rough fingers brushed against her soft vulnerable pussy. She looked around wildly for Holly, as though hoping she could somehow help. Manoling's extended middle Finger slipped between her pliable pussy-lips and probed brutally inside her virginal cunt. The helpless girl screamed, more from surprise at the touch on her tight pussy-lips and fear of what she knew would follow than from pain.
Holly stared at the scene in complete fascination. She could see Manoling's hand up Tining's dress. When the girl screamed, Holly felt as though she had been electrocuted. He was hurting her with his hand, she knew. The blonde-haired teenager shuddered but she knew there was nothing she could do to help her defenseless young maid. And, worse, bound as she was, she was forced to watch the brutal scene. Even terrified as she was, she found that she couldn't take her eyes away from Tining and the dark man.
Tining's scream brought Pete Stamm running over.
"What're you going to do?" he asked, though it was obvious.
The Filipino laughed as he bent the maid backwards and she went to her knees. When she saw Pete she became even more frightened and struggled to get away again, but Manoling continued to forcefully bend her over backwards, his body pressing her to the earth.
"Take off her dress," he ordered to Paco.
Paco rushed up and pulled the flimsy dress over Tining's head and then ripped off her sheer panties, shredding them to bits in order to pull them off without forcing Manoling to remove his finger from the helpless girl's virginal cunt. Her naked brown body was taut as she struggled to get free of Manoling's weight. His finger was still buried in her tight cunt, working lewdly at the small slit to enlarge it for the entry of his turgid cock.
"Huag na!" she screamed. "Don't!"
Her protests and struggle to escape only excited Manoling more. He threw his entire weight on her so that she was flattened beneath him as his probing middle finger tore at her cunt furrow. His burgeoning cock was rigid with desire and his- balls were swollen and aching, painfully. With his other hand he unbuckled his khakis and pulled his trousers and shorts, sighing with relief as his bulging cock was released from its cloth prison. It sprang free fully hard, lethal-looking it's purple crown throbbing excitedly, and when Tining saw the obscenely-huge organ, a drop of clear fluid oozing from the tiny hole in the tip, she closed her eyes and tried to bury her face in the dirt. Manoling grabbed her long dark hair and pulled her face up and forced her to look directly at his lust-swollen cock.
"Give it to her," Pete said, his voice husky with desire.
"Yeah," said Paco. "Fuck her, Manoling. Then let me at her!" His own cock was already bulging and pulsing in the tight confines of his clothing, and he reached down to rub it, his mouth half-open, and his eyes staring greedily at the prone girl's exposed pussy-lips.
The panting Filipino removed his finger roughly from the defenseless girl's virginal pussy, and he spread her thin legs wide. She squirmed and fought, but Paco took his hand away from his pulsing cock and rushed up to grab her arms, pulling them straight out behind her.
"Stop it!" Holly screamed from the cave entrance, but on one paid any attention to her. They were all hypnotized at watching the vicious sexual scene before them.
Tining felt the hot breath of the Filipino as he drew his hot body over hers. The helplessly pinioned teenage girl realized there was nothing she or anyone else could do to help her now. This brutal man was going to take her virginity and there was nothing she could do to stop him; nor would he do it gently - she knew that. He wasn't one of the few gentle men her mother had told her about.
Tining was fourteen; she had known that she would lose her virginity sometime soon - but she had dreamed of a gentle boy her own age, . one who would love her and protect her - and who would marry her. She had not yet met this boy of her dreams . . . and now ... she did not want to give into the cruel, merciless lust of these men. And she knew that, after Manoling, the others would take her, one by one, brutally, painfully - not caring if they killed her, just as long as their animal-lust was satisfied. They would rape her, one after the other, and then they would cast her aside, leave her there to die. Well, there was nothing she could do to prevent them, but she was determined in her young mind that she would do nothing to help them.
She struggled even harder, but Paco held her arms out straight as Manoling crushed her with his weight. She tightened up her body, determined that he wouldn't penetrate her body with that awful-looking shaft that looked swollen beyond belief. She knew he would hurt her because his blood-filled cock was too big for her tight pussy. She was a virgin and there was no place ready for such a large organ - not yet. She prayed to her saints that he would change his mind and leave her alone, but even as she prayed, she knew it was hopeless.
Manoling was completely excited now as the maid's young brown body lay stretched beneath him. She was tightened up, but he knew how to overcome that obstacle. He looked down lustfully at her tantalizing sparse thatch of dark pubic hair and his bulging cock throbbed with heated blood. He squeezed her small breasts, hardly bigger than peaches, and then he cruelly pinched the tiny nipples, forcing them into a tingling erection despite her determination to not respond, and the frightened maid cried out with the pain caused by his rough fingers.
At the same time, the lust-driven man forced his knees between her legs and pried them wider apart, and when she tried desperately to pull them back together again, he hit her hard on the muscle of one calf. His knuckle was like a ballpeen hammer as it drove into the muscle with a sudden sharp shock. The leg relaxed even as Tining screamed again.
"Don't fight me you little bitch," he spat out at the girl. "You're going to get fucked whether you want to or not!"
"No, please," she pleaded, tears filling her eyes. "I-I'm a virgin."
Her words were added fuel to the blazing lust of the swarthy Filipino, and his rock-hard cock lurched excitedly. With a joyous cry, he slapped the writhing young Visayan girl on her quivering belly, then on her other leg, driving it down, opening up the defenseless furrow of her steaming cunt. The lust-crazed man aimed the thick spongy head of his frantically pulsing cock at the soft, peach-fuzz-covered lips of her tiny cunt, and putting all his strength behind the motion, he lunged viciously forward, driving his lust-swollen cock like a battering ram at the virginal portals of the frightened young waifs unprotected cunt. His obscenely huge cock smashed into the tender lips of her pussy, parting the pink lips as though they were fleshy tissue paper.
Her young shapely legs splayed out as his desire-bloated cock knifed into her like a scimitar, clear to the sperm-laden balls that swung in the sac between his legs. He burst through her moist pulsing cunt, through her tender rubbery maidenhead, tearing it asunder as though by a fiendish scalpel. The quavering brown-skinned girl tightened her whole body for a brief searing instant and let out a shrill, heart-rending scream as the hot pain of her flesh was ripped. She shuddered with the blinding flash of her own agony as the flood of blood poured through her gaping cock-invaded vagina.
"Oh no, oh no," she moaned, over and over. "Oh, no, oh, no!"
The fiercely excited Filipino pumped deep up into the girl's splayed sex-cleft, spreading the barely teenage slit wide, assaulting the tiny bud-like clitoris that even now - despite her pain and her resolve to remain cold and inert - was hardening with the fresh blood of sexual excitement. He dove with greedy lust deep up into the steaming depths of her plundered sheath, his semen boiling frenziedly in his balls, his precoital fluid soaking her insides like some oily sea-serpent probing a dry seaside cavern. The dryness of her virginal vagina was soon driven away by the fresh blood of her broken hymen and the lubricating juices he stirred with his savage plumbing of her tunneled depths. In and out he drove, delighting in the virginal tightness of her cunt, wrapping itself around his pounding cock like a hot, slick glove. The skin-tight confines of her defenseless young pussy sucked blisteringly against the mercilessly invading shaft as it plunged in and out, only to plummet home, clear into her cervix, again and again. He pressed down on her trembling legs, holding her beneath his lust-enflamed torso while he savagely raped her boiling cunt with a terrible lust-driven vengeance.
The rum had exhilarated Manoling so that his desire was spurred to uncontrollable heights as he mashed her heaving breasts and brutally battered her sex-tunnel with his iron-hard cock. It was so good to fuck a helpless young virgin like Tining, he thought, even if it was difficult to hold back the excitement that rushed through his eager body.
Holly stared at the rape scene in horrorstruck fascination. She could see Manoling's swollen cock arc in and out of Tining's small slit and she felt that same hot wetness in her own loins that she had experienced when she had seen her mother and the Filipino a few days before. She watched and writhed, almost feeling Manoling's cock entering her own body. Tining lay so still, though, and she wondered if she were hurt, or dead.
Tining was stunned by the suddenness of the attack, by the shock of the burst membrane and by the myriad sensations that were flooding her body - sensations that she had never suspected existed. She lay still because she was bewildered. Then, as the rugged Filipino's swollen shaft hammered relentlessly in and out of her bloodied vagina, she slowly became aware of a distant tingling somewhere near her womb, a spark of nerve ends brought to life as though a feather were being drawn across the edge of her brain.
It was as though it were not connected to her at all. That other, disconnected body moved with desire, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Then, slowly, that other body joined her own, and it became her body. She knew it was hers because it became solid again, full of pain and pleasure - with each stroke of her rapist's cock, she felt her own movement in response. Horrified at her own unwanted reaction to this brutal range, she found that she was rocking to his rhythm, pulling his swollen member deeper inside her with each upward thrust of her teenage loins than the invading cock had gone the time before. She felt a series of explosions rip through her until her body was jerking spasmodically with each jackhammering lunge of his swollen pulsing cock.
Manoling felt her reaction and grinned, and he knew he couldn't hold back any longer. He fucked up into her still faster and, with a bellow of animal lust, he roared out, "I'm cuuuummmmiiinnnggg! You made me cum, you fucking little bitch! Arrrrrgggghhhhh!" And he lunged savagely up into her one last time, his cock a flaming Roman candle bursting with milk that spurted again and again and finally sputtered and died.
He climbed from her body, looking at her in amazement and nodded to Paco. Paco dropped her arms and tore off his trousers, releasing his aching cock into the warm night air. He had watched Manoling fucking into her while his rigid shaft had pulsated agonizingly against the cloth of his trousers, but he had both his hands securely on the girl's wrists, and while he was aching to pull out his cock and squeeze it and massage it, there was nothing he could do to relieve the terrible pressure of his lust-swollen balls until this moment. And he wasted no time. He was on her before she became aware of the change and she looked up at him and sighed, then began to pump back and forth with her wet pussy, even before he slid his rigidly throbbing cock up into her steamingly clasping cunt.
Paco fucked her fast, excited by her sensual movements. She was saying the same word over and over while he pumped her. Hindut, hindut, hindut... fuck, fuck, fuck. Pete stood over them lustfully waiting his turn, but so aroused by the sight that he had his own thick cock out of his pants and was massaging it rapidly back and forth, unable to take his eyes off the salacious scene. Manoling panted and pulled his pants back on, sated. Rena and Jake had come over by then and stood some distance away, lewdly watching the action.
"She likes it now," Rena said.
"Don't they all," Jake responded cynically.
They all could see the helpless girl's widening cunt as it sucked at Paco's purplish shaft, the pink inner flesh oozing out around his dark cock each time he pulled it part way out. They could hear her moaning the Tagalog word for fuck over and over, and they were all extremely excited now, all amazed at the transformation in the Filipina girl who had been a protesting virgin only a few moments ago.
Holly felt strangely cheated. She was ignored, while Tining had the attention of all the men in camp as well as the only other woman. The girl had protested at first, but now she was wild with desire; the sudden change in the girl confused her teenage blonde-haired mistress. She was flooded with unwanted desire and found herself almost wishing that it was she there on the ground being fucked! She thought of the handsome lieutenant, Steve. She wished that he had responded to her advances, had taken her like this, without question, without concern for her feelings. She knew that Tining was enjoying it. She could hear her saying that word "hindut," over and over - and she knew what the word meant.
The worst thing for the teenage American girl about having to be a witness to the rape was that her hands were tied behind her back. She could only watch and move her body back and forth, and she found herself straining to free her hands and to move them down between her legs to soothe the moistly aching discomfort she could feel centering on her still virginal pussy. When Pete took over, entering the Filipina, Holly found her innocent young body shuddering all over with a strange, unwanted sensation. The orgasm shook her whole body, startling her out of her reverie. "How fantastic!" she thought. Then, "What's the matter with me?" She sat there trembling, in disturbed awe of herself.
CHAPTER THREE
Lieutenant j.g. Steven Francis Collins stood at ease in Commander Danby's office. His wide shoulders looked even wider in the white dress uniform he wore. His blue eyes sparkled with excitement as he spoke to his superior. His hat was tucked under one arm. His black hair shone like a raven's wing where the sunlight hit it. He was deeply tanned and handsome at twenty-four, an Intelligence officer who had the deepest respect of his commanding officer, Richard B. Danby.
"He was in bad shape, but suffered no permanent damage. There was a lot of blood. He had a slight concussion." Collins talked easily, sure of his ground.
"You think he's well enough to do what you want?" asked Commander Danby, a gray-haired career officer who looked as though he had once posed for a "Man of Distinction" advertisement.
"He'll make it. The man's tough. And mean."
"I know. He's got a bad reputation in the Philippines. Did you get the information you wanted, Steve?"
"Pretty much. He's full of hate. Jake Norman's the new leader. He's the man who tried to kill him. Stole his woman."
"Very well," said Danby, "Bring him in. Ill have a talk with him." The naval officer sat on the edge of his desk, toying with a letter opener. His hands were soft and well-manicured. His gray eyes were thoughtful as he waited for Collins to bring in the man they were discussing. A few moments later, Steve returned. Ahead of him slouched an unkempt man who should have been dead but wasn't.
"Commander Danby, this is Nick Farrel."
"Mr. Farrel. Lieutenant Collins tells me you'll cooperate. I want my daughter back."
Nick looked at the white-suited Commander, appraising him with cold dark eyes.
"What's the deal?" he asked. "How do I make out?"
"Immunity from prosecution by the Philippine government as a rebel, as a spy. They assure me that if you don't cooperate, you'll face a firing squad."
"That's for sure," said Nick wryly. "I'd have to get out of the country."
"We'll arrange that," said Danby. "Now, what makes you think you can find Ho - my daughter."
Nick laughed. Steve shuffled his feet uncomfortably.
"I know these bastards," spat Farrel. "I know every one of 'em. I know where they live, man! It won't be hard to track them."
"They think he's dead, sir," said Steve. "I think we have a pretty good chance to get to them before they know we're after them."
"I've already received their demands," said the Commander. "I don't want my daughter harmed. Nor do I want these malcontents to escape justice."
"I understand," said Steve. "I think we have to trust Nick Farrel somewhat."
"Not too much, though," warned Danby.
"Just enough, eh?" said Farrel. Danby looked at him, hard, his eyes level. He saw a thin, axe-faced man whose face looked like a hawk's. A thin aquiline nose was framed by piercing brown eyes that were almost black.
"Lieutenant Collins -has been trained in guerrilla tactics. He's been in some of the roughest jungles in the world. He can keep up with you."
"There'll be some fighting," said Nick. "These guys have nothing to lose. They don't give a damn."
"Like you, Farrel?"
"Like me, Commander. Now I want Jake Norman! I want to make him crawl and beg for his life before I kill him!"
"I'll stall on the ransom note, Steve. As long as I can. How much time do you need?"
Steve looked at Farrel, his eyebrows raised.
"Two, three days at the most," said Nick. "We'll have to move fast, though. Like right now." The scar at his temple flared then turned white. The flesh was still tender, soft, not fully healed. He thought of Jake and Rena, how it had happened. If Rena hadn't screamed when she did, he'd be dead now. The bitch! She hadn't meant to save his life. She was trying to warn that bastard Jake about the other wagon full of P.C. Still, her cry had diverted Jake's aim just enough so that the bullet had torn through bone and flesh but missed the brain. It had driven a furrow alongside his head, creating an ugly scar that he would wear for the rest of his life.
"I'll change clothes and we'll be on our way," Steve told Danby.
"Good. I'll give you seventy-two hours, Steve, Farrel. Get my daughter back!"
"We'll try," said Farrel.
"Have him wait outside a moment, Steve. Under guard. I want to talk to you alone for a moment before you leave."
Steve took Farrel outside and placed him under guard. When he returned, Danby made sure the door was tightly closed. Then he went to his desk and opened the middle drawer. He took out a small box and handed it to Collins.
Steve opened it and looked inside.
"You'll conceal that on your person once you've changed into jungle gear, Steve. It's a transmitter. We'll be tracking you the whole way."
Steve's face mirrored his approval.
"Great," he said. "You'll be nearby then?"
"Naturally. This is a tough job, son, and I wouldn't trust it to anyone but you. These Flips, well, they mean well, but they're a bunch of bunglers. Holly wouldn't have been taken in the first place if they'd done their job right. Find her and we'll do the rest."
"Thank you, sir." Steve saluted and Danby returned the recognition. Then he put his arm around the young man's shoulder.
"I'm counting on you. Holly thinks a lot of you. So do I."
"I know, sir. I'm on my way."
Danby watched the lieutenant leave then went to the phone. He dialed a number, listened to it ring.
"Fifteen minutes," he said into the phone. He heard the acknowledgement, then hung up. In five minutes he was changed into battle khakis, a .45 strapped on his hip, an M-16 carbine slung over his shoulder. He, too, would have like to make Jake Norman crawl before he blew him straight to hell.
* * *
Holly was tense, excited. Her nerves seemed to be jumping all through her body, never in one place. She wanted to run away and she wanted to stay there, tied up, watching Jake and Rena. Beside her, exhausted, Tining slept deep, unaware of the conflict the American teenager was undergoing in the seclusion of the cave. For several moments, Holly had been watching Jake and Rena kissing each other. The cave was filled with the sounds of heavy breathing.
It was still daylight and the young girl had no trouble seeing Jake's hands roaming over Rena's breasts underneath her tunic. It almost seemed to her that the pair wanted her to witness their lovemaking. They certainly made no attempt to conceal themselves from, her sight. It was frustrating because her hands were tied, not behind her as before, but in front. She was hobbled at her feet, as well. She lay on a pallet that had been made up for her. It wasn't the most comfortable bed in the world.
As she watched, Jake began unbuttoning Rena's shirt as he kissed her on the neck and the ear lobes. The couple were about a dozen feet away from the two young girls, at the cave entrance, illuminated well by the light outside. The interior of the cave, where the kidnapped girls lay, was darker and there was really nothing to see except the passionate couple, who could not be seen from outside the cave, but were framed like a picture from the inside.
The afternoon had been exhausting for the teenager. She had watched the men take their turns balling Tining, watched the Visayan girl gradually begin to enjoy the sexual contact she was experiencing. She knew that the young maid, like she, was a virgin, or had been until today. She was curious and had wanted to ask the Filipina how it had felt, what it was like, but when Pete and Manoling carried her into the cave, she had been too tired to talk and had fallen asleep immediately. Holly felt cheated because she couldn't even ask the girl any questions about what it had been like.
Now her senses were being assaulted once again as Jake had Rena's blouse off and was kissing her bare breasts. Holly could see the nipples harden, the areolas darkening with engorged blood. She could almost feel Jake's tongue on her own breasts, stinging her own nipples to a tingling hardness.
The exotic Eurasian woman arched her back with pleasure. She was like a graceful cat, a leopard, Holly thought. She seemed to purr with the excitement of Jake's lust-filled caresses. The teenager watched, fascinated by the pair of lovers, as the rebel leader unbuckled Rena's trousers and began sliding them down her legs provocatively. Fine firm legs appeared, and dark panties that soon slipped down the slender legs as well. Rena moved with a slinky seductiveness as the light-haired guerilla undressed himself. Holly's eyes widened to see his huge desire-swollen cock leaking with pearly drops of precoital fluid, suddenly spring free of clothing, and waving in the air like a cobra's head seeking prey.
Holly felt that the American rebel was throwing a glance her way every so often, that he and Rena were performing the sexual and stimulating act for her benefit. But why? The teenager had always thought of sex as something private, between two people alone, and now she was confused. Her mother and father had taken another partner. Everyone had watched while Tining was raped by first one man, then another and another. Now she was witness to still another arousing act of copulation and she knew that the couple were aware that she was watching them. What did it all mean? Holly didn't know. She just watched with a growing fascination. Her senses had been bombarded the last few days by so many things, not the least of them sexuality. She began to wonder if she was not destined to be merely a voyeur, never a participant. It was a shattering thought and she quickly removed it from her mind.
Jake ran his rough hands over the woman's sensuously naked body and she writhed like a dancer in chains. As his naked body bent to her, his mouth swarming over her voluptuous breasts once again, she responded with her own manipulating hands, like birds in slow motion, shadows that moved in quiet flight over the landscape of his bare flesh. She moved them around his belly, to the bones of his hips and into the darkness of his burning loins. Finally, one hand grasped his long rigid cock, moving up and down its swollen length with tender finesse and gently stroked his heavy sperm-laden balls.
"Oh, Jesus, that feels good," Jake muttered.
"I've been waiting for this," the beautiful Eurasian said, giving his lewdly-swelling organ a squeeze.
"It'll be well worth the wait," Jake said cockily.
Holly felt a sharp twinge deep inside her as she saw the mestiza's hand squeeze the mass of purple swelling flesh that was Jake's cock. The teenager was grateful for the shadows that surrounded her, but she had trouble breathing. She was afraid they would hear her, afraid they would come to her, look into her eyes and discover the confusion and apprehension lurking there.
The rebel American and the mixed-blood beauty, however, seemed oblivious to the girls in the cave. Their twin passions seemed to enclose them in an invisible bubble where no person, no sound intruded. Naked and aroused, they swarmed at each other's bodies with a pent-up lust that consumed them with lascivious heat.
The darkly beautiful Eurasian turned her body around, clasping the hugely swollen member of her rebel lover in her hands, drawing it towards her wet and waiting mouth. At the same time, Jake spread the dark furrow of her pussy with his hands, extending his tongue and darting toward the warmly quivering flesh that nestled furrily between her widening legs. The teenager in the shadows watched with starkly widening eyes, her breath a lead weight in her constricted chest as she became more stimulated.
The erotically inflamed mestiza mewled with pleasure as she took the plum-colored penis into her wetly parted lips. His cock throbbed with racing blood as it disappeared into the searing cavern of her mouth. The rebel leader speared her scalding cunt with his eager tongue, his face lost in the musk of her steaming thighs. He felt the hot caress of her lips around his lustfully pulsating cock, her breath fanning the cock-head to a cherry-coal glow as she suckled his throbbing manhood. Delight surged through both their bodies as they sixty-nined at the cave entrance, watched only by the blonde teenager in the shadows.
Jake groaned and pumped in and out of the woman's heat-filled mouth, his teeth gritting with the fierce pleasure of her orally erotic manipulations. He panted as he tongued her elongated clitoris, the roughness of his tongue tingling it to a rigid arrow buried in the moistly heated folds of her sex-cauldron. He was glad that he had killed Nick. What a woman! Her mouth and tongue were exciting his swollen cock-head into a tautened instrument of pleasure. Her throat opened and he jammed his wildly throbbing cock deep into the rubbery channel. Her lips closed tight as a canning jar washer around the base of his burrowing rod while her fingers sought his bulbous cum-filled testicles. She kneaded the sac with scrotum-tightening expertise, squeezing them gently while she swallowed the long hard length of his ramming shaft deep into her throat.
His excitement soared ever higher as the dark-skinned woman peeled back the loose skin, exposing the raw throbbing flesh to her laving tongue, the tight ring of her lips. She was sucking hard, her tongue enscribing a circular path of delight around the stretched skin and the underside of his mushroom-tipped cock. She bobbed her head up and down like a sewing machine, twirling her tongue around the sensitive head of his member, while she gripped the shaft tightly with her hand, squeezing and pumping on it frantically.
Her own body began to writhe and undulate to the rhythm of the rebel's tongue. She moved her voluptuous hips in contrapuntal motion to the bobbing of her head as his probing tongue stabbed deep up into her moistly heated pussy.
The teenaged American, watching the two, felt the contagion of lust-inspired activity seep across the floor of the cave and infect her own sex-starved body. She began to rock in rhythm with the pair, unaware that she was moving at all, so fascinated by the sensual tableau that she was oblivious to anything except the pervading excitement of her unwilling voyeurism. She could not help but think of her parents and the scene between them and the consular aide. She had never thought about oral sex at all, and now, in a space of a few days, she had been subjected to stark visions of this aspect of sexuality so that, despite herself, her young body yearned for a tongue to penetrate her virginal depths, to slide past her slit and find the pink bud of her clitoris. These thoughts were not clearly defined, they were intermingled with what she was seeing, threaded through her yearning flesh and embedded somewhere in the dark regions of her own awakening sexuality.
Rena was totally dedicated to sucking the juices from Jake's heart-shaped cock. Her ovalled mouth was flexing and pulling on the flared purple head of his spear while her tongue stabbed at the tiny slit-hole of the glans. His pelvis jerked down into the slavering mouth of his lover, plunging his blood-thumping penis deep into her greedily swallowing throat. His sperm-bloated balls slammed against her chin with each deep stroke. The American girl could hardly believe her eyes. The man's voluminous cock disappeared completely into that lustfully sucking mouth until only the bulging shape of his balls was visible.
The hot buttery depths of Rena's quivering vagina were helping to slake the sexual thirst of Jake as he lapped at the steaming flesh. He held on to her wriggling grinding legs as he plied her deep sex furrow for the honey inside. Her vaginal musk assailed his nostrils, and her pulsing clitoris was an electric tingle as he drew on it with his lips as though it were a succulent root with aphrodisiacal properties. He found he could no longer hold back the sperm that boiled in his balls. He pumped in and out of the Eurasian woman's mouth, faster and faster, until he felt himself caught up in the ecstatic elevator of orgasmic convulsion.
"I'm cumming," he gasped, his face wet with the soaking fluids of Rena's steaming cunt, "Ohhh, Christ!" he moaned.
"Arraaagh! I'm cumming too," Rena mumbled, her entire body a quivering mass of aroused flesh, as his throbbing cock lurched deep into her throat and began to spew out his white-hot semen, filling her mouth and forcing her to swallow quickly as spurt after spurt of the viscous fluid jetted into her mouth.
Their groans and grunts filled the cave and the teenaged girl was caught up in the excitement of their climactic moment. She knew that the two were experiencing the deep racking thrills of orgasm. She could see their bodies convulsing with mindless pleasure. She reached wildly for her own cunt, hands tied, but fingers free, and began rubbing against it furiously, hoping to stem the itching prurience that tore at her loins.
Jake rammed his bulging cock deep into Rena's throat when he came, jamming the swollen head against the tarpaulin-like membrane. The Eurasian woman swallowed and choked as the cloud of his milky sperm cascaded against the lining of her throat. Her own body began to galvanize with pleasure as the rebel American sucked her clitoris sending her into an orgasmic earthquake of flesh-tingling convulsions. Climax after climax ripped through her body until she clamped her long lean legs around the American's shoulders in a final eruption of pure pleasure.
"Oh, God, oh God, that's good," he groaned as she spewed his detumescing cock from her cum-filled mouth. "I've never cum like that before."
Jake extricated his head from between her nakedly clasping legs and looked into the cave with steam-filled eyes. The trembling teenager felt he was looking right at her, right through her. She hadn't satisfied herself and she took her hands away from her hot pussy area as though they were burned. Could he see her in the gloom? She couldn't be sure.
But if he could, she knew that his lust had carried from the soaked pussy of the Eurasian woman over to her own thighs. She shuddered, recoiling inwardly at the thought of the unknown torments or pleasures that might await her in the hands of this crude, rough rebel chieftain.
Seconds later, Rena had turned around and was gazing in Holly's direction too. Her eyes were filled with a strange lust-light that seemed to illuminate the young teenager with a terrible omniscience. My God, she wondered, what are they going to do to me?
CHAPTER FOUR
Tining was very sore, still, the next day, and the rebel band, terribly hungover, except for Jake and Rena, left her alone. She limped painfully around the camp early in the morning, gathering bits of wood and pieces of string here and there. Unobtrusively, she stored these in the furthest and darkest part of the cave. She also began to accumulate small pebbles and some sap. When she knew no one was looking, she carefully cut off swatches of khaki from the uniforms the guerrillas had given her to wash for them. These, too, she concealed in the cave with the other things.
Jake and Rena were on lookout that morning, so the Visayan girl was able to come and go as she pleased. Only Holly, who was frankly puzzled, watched her perform this strange, seemingly idiotic ritual. Still securely tied, the blonde teenager said nothing at first. Later, when the Filipina began furtively to work with the materials she had gathered, the Danby girl's curiosity got the better of her.
"What are you doing?" she whispered.
The Filipina shook her head and put a finger to her lips for silence. Then she beckoned to the fair-haired American girl to come and watch her. Tining gestured to the lump of materials in her hands and then pointed outside the cave. Holly, not understanding, shook her head, but continued to watch. Soon, it began to dawn on her what the dark-skinned young girl was doing.
As Holly stared in fascination, the deft fingers of Tining shaped six little dolls out of cloth, wood, bits of string and the swatches of clothing. She used damp soap for glue, some of hers and Holly's hair for the hair of the dolls. She used pieces of pebbles for eyes, and soot-blackened string for gunbelts and holsters. When she was finished, she lined the dolls up for the American girl. They stood in a row while Tining's eyes gleamed with a savage light. The likenesses were remarkable! Holly thought. There was no mistaking who these tiny figures represented. As the Filipina girl touched the head of each one, Holly whispered their names in a hollow voice.
"Pete, Paco, Manoling, Henri, Jake and Rena."
Tining nodded, a fierce glow dancing in her dark eyes. Her young breasts heaved underneath her ragged tunic as she reached in and brought out a knife. It gleamed as she turned its thin blade over and over in the light from the cave entrance. The blonde teenager watched the Filipina in awestruck fascination.
What is she going to do? Holly wondered.
Tining set the knife aside and picked up one of the dolls. It was the one that looked like the Frenchman, Henri Le Beau. The Filipina turned it over in her hands, then threw it violently to the floor of the cave. She leaped up and began kicking it with her bare feet. She stomped on it, ground it under her heel until the tiny figure was torn and unrecognizable. The girl then tossed it into a dark corner of the cave. There was a thin stream of saliva on the corners of her mouth.
In turn, she took Pete, Paco, and Manoling, saving Rena's and Jake's icons until the last. She stabbed each one several times, Pete's doll in the chest, Paco's in the genital area. She decapitated the Manoling doll. Then she ripped at Rena's breasts, mutilating them before she disemboweled the lifeless figure. Jake's diminutive mannequin was stabbed repeatedly, until it was a mass of wire and string and cloth, unrecognizable from its original image. As the blonde girl watched, Tining threw the ripped and shredded icons, one by one, over in the corner where the first doll had gone.
Holly's eyes were wide with fear and wonderment.
It looked like voodoo to her. She didn't know the Filipinos practiced such things. But what else could it mean? When she looked at the brown-skinned girl again, Tining was making the sign of the cross on her knees.
"Hindut mga lahat," she whispered. "Fuck them all!"
The two girls were aroused from their contemplation by a sudden commotion in camp. Tining ran to the cave entrance while the blonde girl hobbled over to stand beside her. A strange Filipino had run breathlessly into camp calling Jake Norman's name. As the girls gazed down below they saw Norman and Rena come running out of the pines that circled the top of the canyon. Both of them raced to the camp down the rimrock, their feet clattering the loose stones over the edge.
Jake recognized the runner as one of Roxas' messengers, a man who was called Dudong. "What's up?" asked the rebel leader.
"For your ears only, Colonel," said Dudong, calling Jake by his true rank within the guerrilla band, using the Spanish pronunciation.
Jake gave him a look, then glanced at Rena.
She nodded that she understood. The two men walked some distance from the main part of camp before Dudong began to divulge his message to Jake. The guerrilla leader chewed on an unlit cigar as he listened.
"Roxas say you move camp quick. The Presidente has offered a big reward. Someone in your band want that money. He traitor."
"Who is it?"
"Not know. Roxas say find out. Kill."
Jake looked at Dudong through narrowing eyes. He bit the end off the cigar in a slow rage.
"Tell Roxas well move in twenty minutes. I know who the traitor is."
Dudong, whirled then and left. He knew Norman would take care of what had to be done. The American stalked back to camp, a grim look on his face. The Eurasian beauty looked at him questioningly as he came up to her. Her eyebrows were arched over her beautiful almond-shaped eyes.
"Call the others," he told her. "Something came up." He glanced up at the cave where the two girls were. He moved his head, warning them back inside. He didn't want any trouble with the hostages just now. As he stood there, he checked his .45 pistol, the Thompson slung over his shoulder. He knew they were all right, but he checked them just the same.
As he stood there, his legs spread wide, Rena brought the others to gather around him, Pete, Henri, Paco and Manoling. He looked them over silently for a moment as he worked his unlit cigar from side to side in his mouth. Overhead a lone vulture circled ominously in the morning sky while puffs of clouds moved in silent fleets over the vast expanse. Someone coughed. Another man shuffled his feet. It became very quiet all of a sudden.
"Something wrong?" asked Pete, his eyes bloodshot from the rum and the deep sleep.
Jake spat a fragment of cigar into the ground.
"Yeah, something's wrong," he said, his eyes roving from man to man.
"You tell us, we fix," said Manoling, still groggy from being awakened so abruptly.
"Yeah, well, there's this problem. The president has offered a big reward for the return of our blonde hostage and the capture of our group. Nothing new there. Someone finked on us, though. Someone narked bigger than shit. Wonder who that could be?"
"One of us?" queried Paco.
The men looked at each other self-consciously.
"Yeah, one of us."
"Who?" asked Rena, her eyes suddenly filled with a dark smoke.
"I think I got it figured out," Jake said, crunching down on what was left of his cigar.
"It couldn't be any of us," said Henri. "How? Why?"
Jake's gaze pierced the Frenchman with an accusing lance.
"No? I figure it's you, Frenchie. You want to deny it?"
"Of course I deny it," the man said, "emphatically."
"Bullshit!"
"Hey, what is this?" asked Pete. "Is it Henri?"
"He's the one been gone a couple of times," said the rebel leader. "I've been wondering about that. He's always been something of a weasel. He's the one."
Henri bolted at that moment. He was immediately grabbed by Pete and Manoling. His eyes widened in terror.
"No! No!" he screamed. "It's not me! You're wrong. All of you! Sacre bleu! Don't do this to me. Give me a chance."
"Like you'd give us a chance, you sonofabitch!" spat Jake. "Strip his shirt off, Paco."
"No!" the Frenchman screamed.
Jake stepped up and hit him hard in the mouth, shutting off the scream in midair. He sank to his knees while Paco jerked his shirt off. Jake took off his submachine gun and rolled up his sleeves. The two girls in the cave crept over to the edge to watch what was happening. They saw the rebel leader light his stub of a cigar, puff it until the end was glowing cherry red.
The American guerrilla stepped up to Le Beau and ground the end of his cigar into his neck. The Frenchman screamed. Paco and Manoling held him fast, while Jake again lit the cigar and applied the glowing tip to still another part of the man's anatomy.
"Better start spillin' it, Le Beau," Jake told him. "When and where. I want to know how long ago you finked on us."
The Frenchman looked at Jake with fear-glazed eyes. He shook his head, still trying to convince the others that he had not divulged their whereabouts.
"I-I didn't tell anybody anything," he stammered.
"You lyin' sack of shit," the American rebel spat. "Strip him naked, boys. I want to see what this frog sonofabitch is made of."
Pete and Paco literally ripped the trousers and underwear from the protesting Frenchman's body. The cigar burns on his flesh were raw, oozing fluids from their gaping wounds. The two men jerked the naked Henri to his feet. He stood in abject humiliation before his peers as they glared at him with hatred and contempt.
"Any man who'd sell his comrades out for a few lousy pesos isn't worth shit," Jake said. "Hold him tight, boys. I'm going to give Frenchie a singing lesson. Manoling, bring me a piece of piano wire."
The Filipino responded with alacrity, bringing a piece of piano wire, used for the garrotes, from one of the jeeps. He gave it to the rebel chief, who stretched its thin metal into a straight line. While Le Beau watched in horrified fascination, the yankee guerrilla wound one end of the wire tightly around a small stick. The other end he placed at the glowing tip of his cigar. He puffed until the lighted end was like a miniature forge.
"What're you going to do?" whimpered the Frenchman.
Without answering, the American stepped up to him and kicked the surprised Le Beau square in the balls. The scrotum started swelling even before the scream was out of the agonized man's mouth.
"Gag him," Jake ordered.
Manoling stuffed a piece of cloth into the Frenchman's mouth, shutting off the piercing scream. Overhead, another vulture joined the first, circling patiently on an invisible wheel in the blue, cloud-flecked sky. Holly watched the tableau with growing fascination and fear. There was a sickening curdle starting to form in her stomach. The obscenely nude body of the Frenchman hung painfully distorted between Paco and the German. The blonde teenager could see the agony on the Frenchman's contorted face. His stricken visage was bloated with the combined effort of trying to scream and breathe at the same time through the stifling gag.
When it was ready, the rebel chieftain shoved the red hot piano wire into the Frenchman's right ear. The smell of seared flesh and fluids permeated the air. The hapless Gaul writhed in excruciating agony as a tiny trickle of blood seeped from his ear and down his neck. His eyes widened and filled with tears. Deep choking sounds emanated from his throat, muffled by the gag.
"Feel like talking now?" the rebel leader asked.
The Frenchman nodded, his face a twisted mask of pain and terror.
Jake pulled the gag from the tortured man's mouth. Air filled Henri's lungs as he gasped to find his voice.
"Talk fast or you'll get more of the same in your other ear," Norman ordered.
"I - yes, I did it. Two days ago. It was all arranged. I met my contact a few miles from camp. He tracked me. Phosphorescent powder. I-I, oh sweet Mary, Jake, don't kill me. Please!"
"You miserable bastard," snarled Pete, twisting hard on the Frenchman's arm. "For a few fucking pesos in your pocket you turned us all in. You Judas sonofabitch, you French dog!"
"Two days," said Manoling. "The Constabulary and the Army are probably on their way here right now. Hindut na naman."
"Why did you do it?" Rena asked.
"Because of Nick. I did it because Jake killed Nick. He was my friend."
"You liar!" yelled Jake.
The Eurasian's eyes hardened like agates. At that moment she hated the Frenchman more than anyone on the face of the earth. What she had long suspected was true. The man had to die now. He should have been killed a long time ago. Later, when this was over, she would tell Jake why her hatred for this sniveling Frenchman was so intense.
The rebel leader angrily stuffed the gag back in the Frenchman's mouth, then he systematically began to kick the helpless man in the stomach. Huge raw welts began to appear on the naked man's body. He sagged in the arms of his captors, pain flooding him like a torrent, choking and snorting through his distended nostrils for precious air. Paco and Pete released their holds on him, letting him fall to the ground in a pathetic heap.
Then, all of them, spontaneously, began to kick the helpless traitor. Hard leather boots thudded into his flesh, cracking fragile ribs, raising huge weals where they struck viciously at muscle and tendon, veins and capillaries. The groaning groveling man turned over on his belly trying futilely to escape the flurry of punishing blows that rained down on him with sadistic force. He crawled pathetically while his tormentors followed him with merciless persistence, kicking him again and again in relentless fury.
"Chongo puti!" shrieked Paco. "White monkey."
"Kill the bastard," growled the German, his voice tight in hatred of the traitorous Frenchman.
The Eurasian woman drew her knife suddenly, caught up in the frenzy of corporal punishment, and plunged it horribly into the Frenchman's kidneys. The victimized man doubled up in shock and suffering. Blood and bile flowed through the gushing wound-slit, yellowish-red, full of the stench of his vital juices dying on his skin. The dark vultures swooped lower in the sky, their circles diminishing as the smell of blood and raw meat rose upward in the thin clear air.
Pete and Manoling jerked their knives from their sheaths, spurred on by the sight and stench of blood. The German buried his knife to the hilt in the Frenchman's calf, while Manoling's blade sank viciously into the opposite buttock. The crawling man twisted grotesquely in the dirt, his body shriveled up in severe torment. He turned a dirt-drenched head sideways to gaze up horribly at his relentless attackers. His eyes clouded with the fear of imminent death. They seemed to be silently pleading for pity and salvation.
The rebel chief looked down at him with a stoical expression of contempt. Suddenly, snatching Rena's knife from her hands, Jake stepped over to the piteous hulk and with one terrible slash, opened the Frenchman's throat from ear to Adam's apple. The carotic artery burst like a crimson fountain, the blood spurting all over the killer's pantslegs.
"Holy mother," mutter Paco. "Dios, Maria ..."
The Frenchman quivered like a beheaded chicken in the stark convulsions of death. He died silently and grotesquely, his blood soaking into the loose earth, staining it with a rich crimson that soon turned to a muddy rust color. Everyone stood back and watched his chest heave several times, then stop as the last of his agonized breath whimpered from his shuddering corpse.
"Leave him," said the rebel leader, handing Rena's knife back to her. "We've got to move out. Fast!"
The blonde teenager in the cave watched the death throes of the piteous Frenchman with horror. Beside her, Tining's brown eyes burned like a starving animal's, her pupils widening and narrowing as exaltation gripped her. She began to whimper unintelligible chants under her breath. Holly looked at the Filipina with shocked understanding beginning to filter through her consciousness. She thought of the torn and ravished dolls lying in a dark corner of the cave. A chill spasmed through her young body as the awful realization of what had happened imprinted itself on her young mind.
Outside and below the cave the camp was in a furor. Everyone seemed to be moving at once. Jake bounded up the slope to the cave and grabbed the two girls. He ushered them down to his jeep, already fired up by Rena. He didn't even stop to tie up the Visayan girl's hands but pushed her impatiently into the back of the jeep. He boosted Holly up beside her and climbed in next to Rena.
"Move it," he snapped. The Eurasian slammed the gearshift lever into first and spun the jeep in a circle so her rebel lover could check the camp one last time before they left.
In a few moments the camp was stripped of the band's presence and two jeeps roared off, skirting the outer edges of the canyon like mountain goats. They pushed on, clear of the secret hideaway, deeper into the wilderness of pines and thick brush, lower still, into even thicker jungle closer to Manila.
Behind them, the torn and broken body of Henry Le Beau began to bloat grotesquely in the hot sun as the vultures spun lower and lower, their beaks clicking evilly in the still air of the abandoned canyon. Soon, on the ground, they were joined by others of their kind at the side of the dead Frenchman. They tore savagely at his still warm flesh, gorging themselves on the last remains, fighting over the tenderest morsels, their strange childlike screeches filling the sad empty canyon.
* * *
Less than ten kilometers away, Dudong lay on the ground, fighting for his life. Nick's shot had disembowled the Filipino runner, a soft-leaded hollow-point .30 caliber round that had entered from the side and thrown splinters through his abdomen with scalpel-like results. Steve and Nick stood over the dying man, safeties off their rifles, their jeep hidden in the brush two hundred yards away. Dudong lay a few feet from his own jeep, the windshield shattered by Steve's first shot.
"We're getting close," said Nick. "Dudong came from the direction I figured. What's up, Dudong? Roxas send you to see Jake?"
Dudong nodded, his eyes filmed with pain. He held his bloody hands at his groin, holding up the mass of intestines that had fallen out when the bullet fragments had ripped through him. He knew he was dying and he didn't care. The pain had stopped and he felt calm. If he stayed quiet his life would just leak away like sand through an hourglass. He was in shock from the loss of blood and could only nod his head numbly as Nick questioned him.
"Does Jake know we're on his trail?" Nick queried.
Dudong nodded.
"Is he moving camp?" Again, the Filipino nodded.
"Collins, we've got to move. I have a good idea where they are. If they're in a hurry we can track them easy."
"My bet is they're in a hurry," said the Navy man. "Roxas must have tipped them through this man."
"That's what I figure, Lieutenant. There's a canyon not far from here that I scouted for Jake and Manoling a long time ago. This is rugged country and I knew it would make a good hideout. Jake never forgets anything."
"He still thinks you're dead so he feels safe. Let's get to it, Farrel."
Nick pulled his gun from its holster, flicked off the side safety and held it to Dudong's head.
"So long, Dudong," he said, pulling the trigger.
The Filipino toppled over, the side of his head blown away. Steve looked at the ex-rebel American in disgust. He knew it was probably necessary but Farrel hadn't even winced or turned away. He had killed Dudong as casually as one would fire at a lifeless target. The lieutenant noticed that Farrel put another round in the clip before he reholstered his sidearm. The man was a pro and dangerous.
Twenty-five minutes later, the two men cautiously threaded their way into the canyon. It was obvious to both of them that their quarry had fled once they saw the swarm of vultures hopping around a dead body. They made their way to the remains and Nick examined the torn and shredded figure carefully while Steve watched him. A cloud seemed to pass over Farrel's face when he determined who the dead man was. He stood up and looked away from the lieutenant, but Steve could tell that this corpse meant more to him than it should have. He had seen the look on Nick's face when he cashed in Dudong. Death didn't faze him, usually. But this man, whoever he was, had an effect on the ex-rebel.
"Who was he?" asked the lieutenant.
"A man named Le Beau," growled Nick. "Henri Le Beau. They tortured him before they killed him."
"I know the man. He was our intelligence contact."
'They tortured him before they killed him. That fucking Jake ..."
"This man was working through the Philippine Intelligence, the N.B.I."
"Because of Jake. He thought Jake zapped me. Poor Henri."
"Let's get after them. There's nothing you can do about this man."
Nick whirled at Steve, his lips twisted in a snarl of sudden hatred. The lieutenant was taken aback.
"Shut up, Collins. We'll do it my way from now on. I'm going to burn every fucking one of them. They won't know what the hell hit them. But first I'm going to make them suffer like they made Henri suffer."
"You'll do nothing of the sort," asserted the Navy man. "You're under my orders now, Farrel. There's more to this than petty revenge. A girl's life is at stake, a government's on the line. Take this man's death like a man and assist me in the capture of those responsible. They'll get a just trial and they may help us to break up the Huks once and for all."
"Crap! They didn't give Henri a fair trial. I'm not going to watch these bastards stall for years while the trials go on. They'll get the justice they deserve - my justice!"
Collins became angry, then. His face darkened in a scowl. He didn't want any trouble from Farrel now. They were too close. He started to speak again, to try once more to reason with him, but at that instant, the ex-rebel leaped forward, straight at Steve's body. Steve felt a fist crunch into his jawbone. Stars and shooting lights filled his head as he reeled away from the blow, off-balance, stunned. He fished and flailed for his sidearm, but Farrel was on him like a panther. Judo chops thudded into the Naval officer's sides and arms, painful jolts that kept him spinning away from the onslaught of the ex-rebel's attack.
"You're making a mistake, Farrel," Steve grunted. "You'll ruin everything."
"I-I'm not listening to your shit any more, Collins."
A knife appeared in the guerrilla's hands. Steve rushed to ward off the stabbing attack, but he was too groggy from the previous encounter. He put up his arms and felt the blade rip his flesh as it passed, trying for his throat. He ducked low and tried to encircle his attacker. Nick feinted and came in on Steve, the knife low and deadly.
"Uunh!" Steve grunted as the knife slammed into him, just along the rib cage. The bone of the lower rib partially deflected the blade and this probably saved the Navy man's life. Nick was sure he had rammed the knife into a vital spot. He saw the lieutenant half-turn and fall, blood staining his shirt front in a widening pool. He didn't wait any longer, but took off in a run, out of the canyon, back to their own jeep. Steve heard him start the engine and roar off on the trail of Jake and his men.
The Intelligence officer put a hand to his side. The wound was big enough and dangerous enough. Still, he must go on. He couldn't wait here to die like a dog. Through pain-filtered eyes he watched the dust from the jeep fall slowly to the ground. He rose and began to trace his steps back to where Dudong lay dead. Steve must have his jeep. Behind him, the vultures descended once again to feed on the carrion that was once Henri Le Beau. A pair of frightened brown eyes followed him from concealment.
CHAPTER FIVE
Tining made her move in the confusion and hurry of the first few moments after the rebel band headed away from the canyon. She gave Holly Danby a significant look; then when Jake's jeep hit a severe bump, she merely tumbled backwards. The Filipina landed hard, rolling into a clump of bushes where she could not be seen. She waited a long time, listening, before she moved away from her place of concealment. Then she headed back in the direction of the canyon, knowing the Hukbalahap band would kill her if they ever found her again.
The Visayan girl hadn't intended on going into the canyon again, nor ever looking back on that place of evil. Her young, ravished body still hurt where the men had handled her roughly. While they had stirred her latent sexuality, fanned the sparks of desire into a raging inferno of lust through their rapacious violence, she longed for tenderness and understanding. In her primitive, unschooled mind, she held sex between a man and a woman as something private and sacred. Wasn't that what her Visayan parents had taught her? Now she was no longer a virgin, and she felt that she had little to offer a good and decent man. She could not deny the excitement she had felt during the rape, but neither could she ignore the sadness that pervaded her thoughts as she came closer to the place where she had lost her virginity. No, she hadn't intended looking upon that nightmare place again, but suddenly she found herself close to the canyon's mouth.
That's when she heard the loud voices, arguing. A ball of fear knotted the young girl's stomach, rose up quivering in her throat. Who could it be, she wondered. She knew it wasn't Jake and his men. Their voices were indelibly etched on her young mind. No, these were different voices, ominous nonetheless because of their unfamiliarity. Or were they unfamiliar? One voice sounded familiar. She thought she may have heard it somewhere before. But the pitch was wrong. Something was off-key.
Quickly, the Filipina teenager scrambled to the side of the canyon, peering cautiously over the edge. Below, she saw the two men whose voices were Filling the air. She also saw the horrible remains of LeBeau, smelled its rotten stench. Her nose crinkled in disgust, but she could not turn away. Something compelled her to continue watching. She saw the dark, unkempt man hit the other. She saw the smooth-shaven one stagger and try to ward off the savage blows that slammed into him. That's when Tining recognized, Finally, that it was the Danby's friend, Lt. j.g. Collins, who was being struck by the wiry, evil-faced man.
The frightened girl watched as Farrel pulled his knife. She gasped as the Navy man's arm burst crimson when the blade slashed across it. A moment later, she saw him lurch to the ground, a red stain spreading at his side where the knife had viciously plunged. She wondered if Lt. Collins was dead. She waited there, breathless, while the murderous assailant dashed out of the canyon. The crouching girl heard the jeep start up and drive off in the direction of Jake and his band.
When the Navy man arose, staggering out of the canyon, her eyes followed his progress. If he was heading towards Jake, she didn't want to follow. If he went some other way, well, she would see if she should make her presence known to the man. She knew that Holly liked the man and that he was the Danby's friend, but why was he not going after the man who stabbed him? Was he afraid? Or was he hurt so badly he didn't know where he was going? She followed him, curious, and more than a little afraid. She felt drawn to him because he was hurt and because he seemed to be, like she, a victim of evil.
Steve's progress was slow and painful. Blood was still pouring copiously from his wound. He knew it couldn't set up and coagulate until he stopped. But there was danger in that, too. The wound could stiffen and force him to wait several hours before he could move again. He must get to the jeep of the Filipino guerilla that Farrel had killed. Then, the lieutenant told himself, he could get back on the trail of the Hukbalahap. The jeep was his only hope of saving Holly Danby. Farrel, in his blind rage against the fleeting rebels could be the cause of her death. This would be senseless. Time was the enemy now, time and further loss of blood.
The Navy man struggled through rocky terrain, following his own jeep tracks. Every step was agony, every gush of blood in his side a grim reminder that he might die himself long before he had a chance to fight. He estimated his speed at just under four miles an hour. The jeep was at least five miles away, he figured. If he could keep up the pace it would take him at least another hour to reach the abandoned vehicle. Not good enough. He must step up the pace.
Collins stopped and gathered leaves from some small plants. He dug a handful of dirt from the ground. Moistening the moss with his own saliva, he packed his wound. It was makeshift, but his jungle training told him it would help to stem the flow of blood, promote the healing of his wound. The country had been too rocky before this for him to have found the proper materials for a poultice.
Traveling again, the lieutenant stepped up his pace. He felt lightheaded, weak, but his confidence began to build with each forward step. Gradually, the pain seemed to subside, yet he knew this was only an illusion. His brain was dulled from the loss of blood and the high altitude. Still, he kept on, shortening the distance between himself and the jeep.
The Visayan girl watched the Navy man struggle through the pine forest. She began to draw courage from his effort. At the Danby's, she had never spoken to the handsome lieutenant, but had always lowered her head and looked at him through lash-veiled eyes. Even now, she was still half-afraid to contact him, afraid that he would not understand who she was and why she was here. Her mind was not as sophisticated as the American girl's, she knew, and she did not know the customs of the white people. The jeep tracks told her that the Navy man had a mission. She was grateful that he was going away from the camp of the rebels. She began to feel as though it might be safe, after all, to reveal herself to the wounded American. She hoped her English was good enough to make him understand.
"Lieutenant Collins," she called, "Dito na naman ako-e. Here I am. Tining."
Steve turned, wincing at the sudden pain in his side. He recognized the Danby maid instantly, although from her dirt-streaked face and torn dress, he knew she was not the same girl he had seen in Manila. Colored lights swam before his eyes. He stretched out one hand to her in welcome, then pitched forward on his face, unconscious.
Tining ran toward the fallen man, a little cry piercing the still mountain air.
* * *
Farrel drove far too fast in pursuit of the fleeing guerillas. He knew he was pushing it. He couldn't help himself. He was not really surprised when the jeep spun out of control, finally, and smashed into a solid tree, just before dark. Cursing, he got out and surveyed the damage. The tie-rod was broken and the left front tire was flat from the impact. The ex-Huk looked at the gold-streaked sky, knowing that daylight was slipping away fast. He could go on, not knowing how far ahead Norman and his band were, or he could stay, using the jeep as shelter until dawn when he could begin tracking again. He decided on the latter course. He checked his guns, stuck some extra ammunition in his pockets and nibbled on C-rations as the sun gradually pulled the light after it as it sunk into a sea of darkness far out at sea.
* * *
The guerillas were a mere five miles from where Farrel crashed his jeep. They had agreed to stop early so that they wouldn't risk driving through the rugged terrain in the darkness. It was shortly before they halted that Rena discovered the absence of Tining.
"She's gone," the Eurasian announced.
"When?" asked Jake.
"I don't know. The blonde does, though. Holly? When did she escape?"
"Way back," said the blonde teenager. "Just after you left the other camp."
Jake frowned.
"Well, it's too damn late to go back after her. She'll die up there unless somebody finds her," he said.
"We should have killed her," said Rena.
Holly shuddered. The rebel chief jerked her out of the jeep when they got to their stopping place. The Eurasian glared at her.
"You're in for a surprise, you little bitch," Rena said. "You should have told us when the Filipina jumped out. Now you're going to get it."
"You bet your sweet little ass you're going to get it," Jake said, chewing on a fresh unlit cigar.
The blonde teenager cringed as they led her to a tree and tied her to it while the rest of them, Paco, Manoling and Pete, set up their camp. The glade was nestled among thick trees, easily guarded. Jake set the first watch, Pete and Paco, just before the sun sank over the western horizon.
"We will camp in this place until Dudong brings us word from Roxas about the ransom demands," the rebel American told the group. "It's well protected, and if we go any further toward Manila we'd risk capture."
He didn't know that Dudong would never come and that other forces were at work even while they slept that night.
* * *
Lieutenant junior grade Stephen Collins, U.S.N., struggled upward through layers of consciousness. He tried to open his eyes, Fighting to rise above the sucking whirlpool of mindless quicksand. He felt a cool hand on his face, smelled the musk of another's presence. The Navy man managed, finally, to shake off the cobwebs of sleep and open his blue eyes.
The teenage Filipina's face swam before his eyes. Focusing them, he saw that it was Tining and that she was frightened. He tried a smile. At least he hoped it was a smile. His senses still were not completely in order. He must have smiled, though, because the slender girl, her face framed by her raven hair, smiled back at him. Slowly, he felt his strength returning. He remembered reaching out for her, pitching forward. Then, nothing. Only blackness, a swirling nightpool of unconsciousness that enveloped him. He started. Where was he? What time was it? How long had he been under?
The lieutenant managed to look at his watch. He breathed a quick sigh of relief. He had only been out for a matter of minutes. It seemed like hours. He sat up; Tining helped him.
"Thank you," he said. "Maraming salamat."
"Walang ano man," she said in Tagalog. Steve knew what she meant. "You're welcome."
He knew some of her language, enough to get by. That was what made him valuable as an Intelligence officer. He knew a lot of languages, could understand far more than he spoke comfortably.
The young Filipina helped the officer up, and he made her know that they had to find Dudong's jeep. She nodded in understanding, and together - she helping him - they managed to go the rest of the way. Steve nearly broke down when he saw the jeep, intact, Dudong's body a few yards away where they had left it. Time was all mixed up for him because of falling into unconsciousness. He felt refreshed, stronger somehow, after seeing the jeep. He knew he was still weak, though.
In the jeep, they found fresh water and supplies.
"Let's eat," he told her in Tagalog. "Tayo na comain."
Gratefully, the weakened girl ate rice and dried fish. They washed down their meal with wine that Dudong had in the jeep. They sat so they couldn't see the dead Huk's body, but when they finished, Steve told her they must get on the move. She nodded, completely in his debt. She knew she might have wandered for days, lost, before she got out of the forest. She may never even have found anyone and died there, all alone.
The handsome lieutenant knew it was late. He wanted to follow the trail as much as he could, though. He had lost so much precious time already. Finally, when it became too dark to see, he pulled the jeep into a clump of trees. They had not gone much further than the old Huk camps, but he was satisfied that they were on the trail. He was counting on Jake not moving after dark, but he was worried about Nick Farrel. The man was unpredictable, off his rocker.
When he got out of the jeep, the intelligence man's knees buckled. He felt his side, gingerly. His hand came away wet and bloody. Tining watched him with widening eyes of concern.
The young Filipina gestured that she would help him. He nodded weakly, sat down next to a tree, unable to stand. The pain seeped back into his body as suddenly as it had left.
The dark-haired, dark-skinned girl worked quickly. She removed the tangle of leaves from his wound then washed the dirt from the raw flesh First with water, then with wine. When the lieutenant winced, she put her hand on his face as if to reassure him that she was doing the right thing for him. She looked at the cleansed wound and told him in Tagalog that she had to stop the bleeding and make it well. He only understood some of what she said, but he was grateful that she was there to help him.
The young Filipina gathered fresh leaves, dampened them in water and placed them over the wound in layers so that they overlapped. She built the compress up so that it was thick. Then she made a paste out of the rice in the jeep and placed this over the top of the leaves. Taking her dress, she ripped half of it away so that she had a wide bandage. She wrapped this around the handsome sailor's body, around and around, pressing the leaves into the wound, making it so that they would not fall off when he moved about. She tied the makeshift bandage tightly.
Steve groaned in mock pain as though he couldn't breathe.
The Filipina girl laughed.
"You will be better soon," she said in English.
"I know, thank you," he said. "You name is Tining, isn't it?"
"Yes, Lieutenant Collins."
"Did they - were they bad to you?"
Her head lowered and her eyelashes dipped over her eyes. Steve reached out and took her chin in his hand. Gently, he forced her head back up until she was eye-level with him once again. With his eyes, he told her he understood. He saw tears form in her eyes, welling up then streaming down her copper cheeks.
"I'm sorry they hurt you," he said. "They will be made to pay for this. How is Miss Danby? Did they hurt her?"
The Filipina girl shook her head, but Steve could see that she was afraid of just that. He cursed himself for being wounded and vowed that tomorrow he would catch them, pain or no pain, bleeding or not. Now, though, he was exhausted. He lay flat on the ground and looked up at the young girl. She was half-naked now from ripping up most of her dress to make a bandage for him. Her slender brown legs flashed as she walked to the jeep to look for something to make him more comfortable. She came back, her skirt unable to conceal her naked thighs. She wore no panties and Steve could not help seeing the shaded thatch of sparse pubic hair between her legs. He felt a pang of desire and tried to shut her lithe body out of his mind.
The Filipina teenager brought him a blanket she had found in a jeep. She laid it beside the officer and gestured for him to move his body on to it.
"The ground will be cold tonight," she told him in Tagalog. "You must keep warm."
He crawled onto the blanket, an old army one that was filthy from oil and brush, but it kept him off the ground. He motioned for the young girl to lie beside him. She hesitated a moment, her eyes gleaming unnaturally, then did as he wished. As the two lay there, night came on, stippling the velvet sky with stars. Exhausted, the two people, thrown together by circumstances, still could not sleep.
The Navy man's thoughts were filled with Holly, at first. Then, gradually, Holly's image faded into Tining's. The presence of the half-naked girl so close to him was unnerving. He half-wished now that he had let Holly Danby go through with her seduction scheme. He hadn't and now she was liable to be lost to him forever. He could still feel her young hot body grinding into his, her legs burning into his flesh as she tried to arouse him enough so that he would forget who she was and where they were. He wondered how old Tining was. He was sure that she had been raped. The experience was liable to scar her for life. She deserved better than that. Every girl did.
"Tining," he asked, after several attempts to get her out of his mind had failed, "did the men rape you?"
"Yes," she said simply.
"It was not a good thing?"
"No. They were very rough."
"That isn't the way it should be," he said, his voice thickening. "That way was not good. This coming together of man and woman can be good, though. It can be very beautiful."
"I don't know," she said. She was weeping. He could hear her.
"It is not good for you to think of what happened to you. You should have other memories to replace those. Do you understand?"
"I-I think so, Lieutenant. I will never have them. I am afraid of men now. I am afraid they are all like those Hukbalahap."
"Not all men are like that, Tining. I am not like that."
There was a long silence between them.- "Do you want me?" she asked, finally.
Steve's heart flew up into his throat. Did he dare to touch this young, frail girl? Was he the one to set an example? How could he presume such responsibility? Questions flew at his mind like birds antic before a storm. There were no answers, there was only desire, welling up in his body like a tide, and already he felt his cock stiffening in his pants. His hand moved to her body, roaming gently over her, touching her arms, her neck, her face, mouth, eyes, then falling back down to find a small, pert breast vulnerable under the cloth of her tattered dress.
"Yes, Tining," he said finally, his voice raspy with lust, "I want you. I don't know why, but I do. I saw your body and it made me want to make love to you, Would you let me?"
"I-I don't know. It wouldn't be right."
"Would it be wrong?"
"Not after what happened. I don't think so. I don't know."
"You shouldn't try to think of too many things. Just answer me. Do you want me, Tining?"
He could hear her breathing in the darkness. He looked over and saw her silhouette limned by the rising moon. He gently squeezed her small breast, felt her body move. He could still see her pubic thatch in his mind, the slender dark legs. Desire twinged his loins and his hardened cock pulsed uncontrollable as he waited for her answer.
"I want you, Lieutenant," the teenager said, her voice electric in the stillness of the forest. She was afraid. She was so small down there, and some of the men who had raped her had had big cocks that hurt when they went in. Still, she remembered the way her feelings had exploded, how her body had spasmed with thrills when that strange part of her body had been excited, the "little man in the boat," as the Filipinos called it, the tingle. She might find that excitement again with the white Navy man, and he seemed so gentle.
The Filipina's words were wonderful to hear. Steve pulled the young girl close to him. He kissed her with no immediate response. His hand began kneading her firm, ripe, peach-like breasts as he tried again to stir her passions with his lips and tongue. He pushed his tongue inside her mouth, probed at her own tongue with serpentine dexterity. Soon, she began to return his lingual caresses, her lithe willowy body warming beneath his roving hand.
The teenage girl found her body responding to him in a way it never had when she was being raped. She began grinding her buttocks down into the blanket as his hand traveled down between her legs. Wetness seeped from her pulsating young pussy, streaming in beads through the few springy hairs cuddling her cunt. She felt tiny throbs of excitement beginning to emanate from her buried tingle, her clitoris that wanted to grow out of her like a young shoot.
The handsome lieutenant's hand found her desire-soaked pussy, touched it, and she moved like a shadow to offer herself to his eager, probing. His extended middle finger traced the swelling lips of her cunt, opened the crease and slipped inside the steaming folds. She opened her warm pussy to him, the petals spreading flowerlike as his finger crept inside, deeper, seeking the growing clitoris. He moved over on his side, wincing with pain but ignoring it in the heat of his smoldering passion.
His probing finger found the tiny tuber of her tingle, prodded it gently from its hiding place, fingering her in rhythm to his tongue's darting titillation inside her mouth. The teenager felt an exquisite wave of pleasure pass through her lustfully aroused body. Her hips began to catch up the sensual rhythm of his finger and tongue, rolling from side to side and up and down while her senses reeled with the magnificence of the moment. She opened her mouth and sighed deeply while the Naval officer's cock throbbed in its rigid hardness within the confining prison of his trousers.
"Take off your dress," he told her, removing his finger from her flaming cunt. He slipped his boots off, favoring his wounded side, then slipped his trousers down, kicking them away before removing his shorts. He left his shirt on, but Tining lay next to him, naked, her brown body sparkling with the frosty light of the moon that soared over their trysting place. He looked at her with lust-filled eyes, burning to enter that young body and discover the delights of her teenage enthusiasm.
The highly aroused young girl trembled when he touched her again. He kneaded the pulsating mound of her moistly heated cunt a long moment then once more fingered his way inside to her throbbing clitoris. She bucked with the awesome pleasure of it, her lithe body pliable to his searing caresses. Her cuntal oils flowed like honey, lubricating the sheath of her sex as his outstretched finger slid smoothly in and out rhythmically as if he were fucking her with his finger. He reached for her small hand, the one nearest his own loins, took it and guided it to his thickly swollen shaft. She closed her delicate fingers around the massive organ, and he gasped in sudden delight at the sensation of her fingernails scraping on his sensitive flesh.
"I want you to feel me, too," he told her.
The young girl had never held a man's cock in her hand. Its mass seemed almost too hot to touch, too large to enclose in her fist. Yet she managed and liked the throb of its bulk in her hand. He began to move it up and down, showing her how to jack him off although he did not want to cum this way. He sensed her trembling eagerness to please, her awkwardness at this novel technique, so he didn't worry about her facility at foreplay. Soon, however, the hot-cunted Filipina began to squeeze his tumescent organ and to move her hand up and down its rigid length of her own accord.
"That feels nice to me," the lieutenant said.
"It feels nice to me, too."
She wondered if he was going to enter her with this bulbous battering-ram of a penis. It seemed much too large to fit into her tiny hole, she was sure, yet as his finger kept tantalizing her tingle she kept hoping he would let her feel this beating cock inside her eagerly twitching cunt. The stars and the solitude, the darkness, all seemed to her to make this right. For the first time in her young life she was able to feel a man's throbbing organ, to think about it as a woman. She felt that she would be incomplete this night unless he put the thing in her hand inside her vagina. She wanted him too, she wanted him to know that she was his, if only for this one night of ecstasy.
As though sensing the brown-skinned teenager's eagerness to be sexually coupled, Steve increased his finger-fucking, plundering her shivering little cunt with all his might. He noticed that she began jacking him faster, pulling on his swollen cock-flesh with her small hand as though urging him to plunge his fiery hot cock into that molten furrow up between her spastically tossing legs.
He knew it was time, but he knew, also, that he couldn't mount her. The pain in his side was too intense. He was afraid he would break open his wound and pass out in the throes of sexual exhilaration. For a moment, the eager young lieutenant almost felt like allowing her to bring him to climax with her hand. But no, that wouldn't do! He might never have another opportunity like this. Instead, an idea came to him, so natural, so in keeping with the way he wanted this young backward girl to feel about him.
"Tining," he called softly. "I-I can't get on top of you. It would tear my side out."
"Yes," she breathed, her voice far away, choked with emotion.
"You must get on top of me. Lower yourself over my tupito, let it slip inside your puki."
"I will," she said, extricating her quivering pussy from his still probing finger, eager to please this handsome American who was giving her so much pleasure.
She crawled atop him, looked down at his face in the moonlight and eagerly pushed her hungry pussy down toward his blood-engorged cock. As the moistened tip of his bulb-like cock-head touched her sensitive cunt-lips, she shuddered suddenly with the ecstatic flash of vaginal climax, her body spastic with delight. He grasped her small but well-rounded buttocks with his hands and pulled her down on his upthrust spear, impaling her with a suddenness that took her breath away. She skewered her wildly pulsating pussy onto his lust-swollen cock and felt the cum of her own climax gush once again through her inflamed sheath.
Steve was amazed at how tight her little cunt was, yet how warm and yielding it was, too. He moved her up and down on his cock until she grasped the technique herself. She fell on him in her eagerness to be fucked by this man's huge pleasure-evoking cock. Every inch of his upthrust shaft burned through her spasming pussy as she pumped up and down on it with her soaked, cum-filled sheath. She wept tears with the sheer ecstasy of feeling his bulging rod ramming deep up into her lust-opened womb.
The American sailor ignored the burning pain in his side as he pumped up into that enticingly steaming cunt of Tining's. He looked up at her teenage face, seeing the beauty of her lust mirrored on its dark surface, lit only by the streaming silver of the moon. She gripped his shoulders tightly as she rose and fell on his blood-surging cock, her hair falling blackly around her neck. She was beautiful in her ecstasy, and he felt right about having enticed her into having sex with him. Her primitive loveliness was enhanced by her fragile body's lust-tossing antics as she impaled herself again and again on his skewering cock. He felt her hot juices soaking his organ and seeping through her spindly pubic hairs, finally mingling with his own genital growth like thick rain in lush grasses.
"Unh, unh, unh, aaaaah, unh!" The Filipina gasped as orgasm after orgasm jolted her young body. Insensible to all but the sexual state of excitement that gripped her being, she began to writhe and undulate with uncontrollable passion. The slippery cock of the handsome sailor slid in and out of her lubricated tunnel like a fleshy piston, shattering the nerve ends of her clitoris, sending waves of thrilling electricity through her swollen vagina. This was nothing like what had happened to her at the Huk camp! This was unlike anything she had ever dreamed! This was what drove young girls to lay with a man, and no one had ever told her how good it could be!
The wildly excited teenager threw herself on Steve's body, fucking him now as though she had done it all her young life. She pounded her hungry pussy into him with an abandon that surprised him. She was heedless to his wound, so caught up with gratification, with filling her eagerly squeezing cunt with the massiveness of his blood-bulging penis.
Steve knew it was all over for him. He could hold back his boiling cum no longer in the throes of this young girl's wildly passionate bucking. She was slamming against his body with all the lust-enraged fury of youth, burying his swollen shaft inside her smoldering cunt right up to the hilt. He let himself go, let his semen burst from its sex-swollen sac and storm through the pole-like flesh of his manhood. He gripped her buttocks tightly, holding her puffed, slippery pussy against the base of his penis until his sperm spurted up into her like a foam injection from a pressurized can of shaving cream.
"Oh, God!" he gasped, and then groaned his delight, "Aaaaahhh!"
The pearly drops eked from her twitching cunt as he drew her to him, holding her tight in his grateful arms. As his passion subsided, the last of his jism fountaining out in decreasing spurts, he felt her shudder against him, the sweat on her brown-skinned body coagulating in the chill that suddenly enveloped them. He felt her hot salt tears on his face as he kissed her on the mouth, feeling her cunt grip him one last time before she tumbled to his side, and he held her close, moving his hand through her dark hair, drying her tears with the tips of his fingers.
"Are you happy, Tining?" he asked, after awhile.
"I am woman now, Lieutenant," she whispered. "You make me woman. I am happy."
"Mabuti," he told her. "Good. I am happy, too. Thank you."
They fell asleep in each other's arms while the moon sailed its way toward a morning of blood-red sky on the island of Luzon. Elsewhere on the island, other people slept that night as though gathering their energy for the terrible trials to come, trials that would involve each and every one of them despite the distance that now separated them all.
CHAPTER SIX
When Dudong didn't arrive on time, Roxas sent a four-man patrol to find out what happened. It took them only moments to see that something had gone wrong when they discovered the partially decomposed body of the Huk runner. The patrol leader, a man named Titoy, quickly dispatched a man back to Roxas, while he pushed on to intercept Jake Norman and his band. Instead of following the deep tracks, he took an angle on the direction he knew Jake was headed and managed to find his new camp with no difficulties. He and his men arrived in the morning before dawn with several important bits of intelligence. Titoy was challenged by Jake himself, who was standing watch.
"Dito na Titoy, Jake," answered the Filipino. The American rebel stepped over to the jeep and shone a light in the faces of the three men.
"What's up?" he asked.
Titoy got out of the jeep. The other two men, Angel and Pepe, sat there grimly, listening for sounds of pursuit. Jake slipped a fresh cigar in his mouth and began to chew it. The Filipino talked fast and low.
"They got Dudong. They are on your trail. Very close now, Jake. You must move. Ransom demands were agreed to, but Roxas suspects a double-cross. Danby is not in Manila. We think he is on your trail. Another man most certainly is, an American naval officer, Collins. This is what we know, what we think. Roxas said to find you, make sure you all right, American girl all right."
"She's all right, the bitch. So they snuffed Dudong, the bastards. I'd like to ambush this outfit on my trail. Can do?"
Titoy grinned.
"Roxas say you fight good when you hear news about Navy man on trail. Look." The Filipino took Jake to the jeep and uncovered some boxes under a blanket that were sitting in the back. The American whistled.
"Gelignite. Perfect. We can make it damned interesting for anyone on our trail. I wouldn't be surprised if Danby himself wasn't coming after his daughter."
"This is what Roxas thinks."
"How the hell did they find us so easily? Le Beau?"
"That is what Roxas is wondering. Le Beau helped but we think this American officer has some intelligence about us that Le Beau didn't have. His jeep tracks do not follow the path Le Beau marked. They went straight to the canyon. After killing Dudong, the jeep took a shortcut. Someone came back for Dudong's jeep after killing him. They ate and they drove away. In your direction. Something bad is going on out there and it would be good for you to move."
"Yeah, Titoy, I know. I'm moving, man." The American drew a map from his shirt pocket. He spread it on the jeep's hood. Titoy bent over it with a pencil flash.
"We're going to head for this place," Jake said, pointing to a place on the map numbered with coordinates. "It's jungle, an old Igorot settlement that only me and Nick knew about. We took Roxas there once and he liked it. It'll take us awhile to get there. Tell him I'll need supplies if we have to stay more'n another week. This is turning into a shit detail."
"I will tell him. I think you better move now."
"I am moving. 'Dios," he said.
" 'Dios, Jake," said Titoy, climbing back into his jeep. After unloading the gelignite, he was gone before Jake could wake up Rena. Soon the whole camp was gone, carrying the boxes of explosives, driving slowly in the predawn dark without lights, moving hulks across the land, fleeing the nameless trackers they knew were hard on their trail.
* * *
The deserted village had been virtually reclaimed by the thick Luzon jungle. Vines and leaves all but hid the nipa structures from prying eyes. For the last few kilometers, Jake had taken pains to eliminate the jeep tracks. It had been slow going, but he felt it was worth it. He knew they were being pursued and this tactic assured him of delays, if not absolute protection from his pursuers. All during the time the camp was being set up, Jake's anger at the course events had taken grew stronger. He was fuming as they put the gelignite in a centrally located hut.
"I'm going to blow those bastards to bits," he promised Rena.
"What about the Danby girl?" she asked, her voice laden with venom. "She's the cause of all this. For all we know she helped Tining escape."
"She'll get hers," said the rebel leader. "If they want to play that way, there's no need to give them back anything, is there?"
"No," said the beautiful Eurasian, her eyes glowing in anticipation.
"I'll send the boys out to scout our backtrail. Bring the bitch to my hut. I'm going to see what she's made of." The American's voice was low and brutal. His anger had been transferred to the teenage blonde he was holding as hostage. The stakes were big, but he couldn't stand to be double-crossed. Holly was now the enemy, the only close object for punishment. Jake had been looking at her sinuous body for the last couple of days and now wondered why he had been so considerate of her. Her damned father was probably out to eliminate all of them whether he got his daughter back or not, the bastard. Well, when he got her back, if he ever did, she'd be used up, he would see to that!
Lizards crawled aimlessly over the walls and ceilings of the hut Jake had chosen for his lustful vengeance on the blonde teenager. In the jungle, monkeys scurried from tree to tree and vine to vine chattering endlessly. Holly was frightened. This place seemed so dark, so remote, so hopelessly shut off from civilization. Even the birds seemed part of the conspiracy! She was trembling when the Eurasian woman brought her to the nipa hut where Jake was waiting. None of the other men were anywhere to be seen and when she saw the way the cruel rebel chief looked at her, she began to weep. Rena looked at her with contempt, shoving her roughly into the dank hut where Jake had just laid out sleeping bags for beds.
"What-what're you going to do?" the frightened blonde asked.
The Eurasian laughed and stood in the doorway to prevent her escape. Without a word, the American Huk stepped over and cut the bonds that held Holly's hands. She rubbed her wrists to restore circulation. Suddenly she knew without anymore doubts what the cigar-chewing rebel was going to do!
Visions of Tining raced through her mind. Well, she wasn't going to give in that easily. She wasn't that kind of girl, no matter what she had seen, what her thoughts had been sometimes. This grizzled guerrilla wasn't going to do to her what she had seen the men do to the young Filipina maid! She would fight him to the death, first. To the death! A sudden clutch of fear grabbed at her throat. He might kill her if she fought him. Well, that was the chance she would have to take. Maybe he would give up when he saw that she wasn't as easy as the maid had been.
As though reading her mind, Jake smiled wryly. He looked at the voluptuous young blonde with lust-filled eyes, stroking her body with his slow lewd glances. The blonde looked away, at the dark Eurasian woman. She cringed inwardly. Rena's nostrils were flared, her breasts heaving with excitement. Holly brought a trembling hand to her throat. They were going to take from her the only thing of value that she possessed, her virginity! They were going to strip her of every shred of decency, plunder her young body of its pristine treasure! She must not let them do it, she must fight them, all of them!
The rebel leader, his mouth twisted in a cruel smile, suddenly grabbed the quaking blonde girl and began to tug at her clothing, his hands lewdly touching her breasts. She began to struggle, but found that her arms were jerked quickly behind her, her back bent by strong hands. Rena! She was holding her while the American guerrilla removed her blouse, touching her full breasts with rough hands, smiling at her with the look of a demented demon.
The struggling teenager felt her skirt snatched away, her panties pulled off painfully. She tried to squirm and hide her nakedness, but she knew it was no use. The dark woman held her fast, her innocent young body completely open to the lustful gaze of the Huk leader. She was conscious of his eyes looking at her full ripe breasts, heaving now from the exertion. She could feel his eyes travel down to the light-haired patch of pubic growth between her legs. She tried to cross them, to hide her pulsing sex from the evil man, but he rapped her on the thigh sharply with his knuckles causing a charley horse to crawl up the muscle.
The bewildered blonde watched the rebel American take his trousers and shirt off, unbuckling his gunbelt and storing it within reach. Shuddering with terror, she looked at the long hardening cock of her captor, while the Eurasian held her arms. She knew his cock was too big for her, that she would be ripped in half if he so much as put the swollen mushroomed head of it inside her pussy lips! Was there nothing she could do to prevent his trying this obscene act? She shook her head, silently, pleading that he would leave her alone.
Jake laughed.
"There's no use trying to fight or argue your way out of this, girl," he said. "You're going to lose that cherry of yours. You might as well relax and enjoy it!"
"No!" the trembling blonde pleaded. "Don't touch me!"
"Rena, let her loose. If she struggles. I'll belt the piss out of her. Now, Miss Smartass, get your butt down on that sleeping bag and spread your legs or I'll put a charley horse on your Adam's apple."
The frightened teenager knew he meant business. She knew she was no match for his strength. She began to weep again, helpless before the terrible cruelty of this pair. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be, she told herself. This wasn't how her life was supposed to be. She should be with Steve, making love quietly, losing her virginity to him the way she had planned to. This just wasn't right!
"Move!" Jake ordered. His hands pushed her toward the sleeping bags. She fell to her knees, looked up at the man with one last pleading look. He shook his head, then looked down at his rigid cock. The young blonde's eyes followed his. Its purple warhead shone in the sunlight from the nipa window, a gleaming instrument that held her fascinated despite her fear. The organ seemed to swell and grow even as she stared at it, transfixed, from a foot or two away. As the startled teenager watched, he moved it toward her lips. She turned her head away and he slapped her face, hard. The blow stung and fresh tears began to flow down her rosy cheeks.
He grabbed her lovely blonde hair and pulled her close to his throbbing cock. The lust-crazed rebel chief took his turgid cock in his hand and moved it toward her defenseless mouth, forcing her lips apart with the cobra-like head of his member. He shoved his bulbous cock against tight-clenched teeth, but his hand went around her throat. She struggled, gasping for breath, until she opened her mouth wide, trying to suck air into her tortured lungs, and, at that moment, he lunged, ramming his pulsating cock into her mouth. Her eyes went wildly awry as she felt the throbbing cock fill her mouth. She tasted the lemony seminal fluid, wondering how she could ever manage to get all of his huge cock into her mouth without choking. He held her head firmly and pumped his cock in and out in the lewd motions of coitus. Her knees were bent and the musk of his genitals enveloped her in a cloud of sexual scent.
"Suck it," the guerrilla ordered. "Suck it good, girlie."
The blonde teenager felt helpless to resist, now, and she tried to do what he said. She pulled on the mass of throbbing flesh as though it were a huge cigar. Her cheeks sunk as she sucked on the enormous penis while Jake pushed it in and out of her saliva-soaked mouth. Her body tingled all over as though she had been drenched in a warm pool. The sensation of sucking the older man's cock was alien to her senses, it seemed so utterly depraved. She could see his sperm-bloated balls swinging as he pulled his cock in and out of her mouth. Her lips felt numb from the friction of the rod of flesh sliding to and fro. She felt as though she would faint in another moment or two.
"Not a bad blow job for an amateur," Jake sneered at her.
"You're getting me all hot," said the Eurasian, her voice low and furry. "If you don't fuck her pretty quick, I will. Her little pussy's twitching like a carabao's in heat."
"Yeah, yeah," the rebel said, "in a minute. I want her to get a taste of what I'm going to bury in that tight little snatch of hers."
Horrorstruck, Holly continued to suck the throat-gagging cock as it plunged past her wet lips and deeper into her mouth. She could derive no pleasure from this degrading act, yet her fear was far too great for her to resist any longer. She was relieved when he suddenly pulled his pumping cock out of her mouth, letting, her breathe normally again. She stared at his spit-soaked cock, its gleaming bulk even bigger-looking than before. Then he pushed her down on her back, and she closed her eyes, afraid that he was going to strike her again. Instead, she felt the full weight of his hairy body fall on hers, smothering her with its obscene nakedness.
The fair-haired teenager looked up at the rebel chieftan. He seemed like a white devil incarnate. Between her voluptuous legs, she felt his thick organ crawling wetly up her leg toward the sensitive pink flesh of her pussy. Involuntarily, she tightened up, determined not to let him enter her portals of virginity. His knees bored into her soft flesh, forcing her legs wider apart. She could see him looking down at her cuntal furrow, aiming his missile so that he could stab into her, part the virginal lips and bury the hot poker of his manhood inside her tender love tunnel. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Eurasian woman, licking her lips in anticipation, her brown eyes glowing with an odd light.
"No, don't, please," Holly said again.
"You're just now getting hot," the eager rebel said. "When I get inside you, you'll go out of your teenage mind."
Then she felt the spearhead touch her outer lips, searing her with its radiant heat. Despite herself, she felt her lips parting as the ramrod-hard cock pushed relentlessly on past. A deep sigh escaped her lips as the pulsating penis entered her steaming cunt, filling her with its flaming mass. The pinioned teenager jerked spasmodically as the probing cock spread her cunthole wider and wider, opening her sex-envelope as it rammed ever closer to her rubbery hymen.
"No, oh, God, no, don't do that," the blonde girl moaned, half out of her mind that such a thing could happen to her. Her mouth had been bad enough; it made her feel almost sick even now to think of having that rigid cock inside her mouth, but, even so, it was better than what he was going to do now. She had never had more than a finger inside her pussy before, and she certainly didn't want this vicious guerilla fighter's cock up inside her. But she knew she was helpless; there was nothing she could do. He was going to fuck her whether she wanted him to or not. She couldn't stop him - but she certainly wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of thinking she enjoyed it.
But, despite her resolve Holly's virginal pussy suddenly filled with the juices of sexual contact, accepting the battering intrusion of the guerilla's penis despite her mind's objections to this violation of her young body. Her tightness began to subside even without conscious thought until the tip of his swollen spear stabbed into the stretched membrane of her maidenhead. Pain from his sudden attack on this curtain of innocence spread in all directions through her loins. She began to writhe in a kind of sweet pain that surprised her with its newness.
"Hey, I like your action," Jake said.
"Ooooooooh, aaaargh," she moaned, as he slammed his cock-hammer into the trampoline of her hymen. "You're tearing me apaaaaaart, hurting meeeeeeee!"
The violated young girl screamed loudly, bucking under the impact of his cock-thrusts as the brutal rebel, driven by his cruel lust, brutally bombarded her last bastion of purity. Her violent struggles spurred on the aroused soldier so that he began to increase his pistoning thrusts. Faster and faster he drove while the young virgin squirmed helplessly beneath his crushing body.
He could feel his wildly plundering cock bounce off the rubbery barrier of her maidenhood. The material seemed to be made of the toughest fibers, an impenetrable wall preventing him from enjoying the blonde virgin's sex to the fullest. He grabbed the cheeks of her buttocks in both hands, then, and impaled the hot unyielding cunt on his spear with renewed vigor. He hammered against the resilient hymen with brutal force, ramming into it with long smashing strokes.
"Aaaaaaaaargh!" Holly groaned as she felt her flesh ripping asunder under the impact of the rebel chief's assault. Her hymen finally gave, opening up like a wound. Fresh blood gushed out of her vagina, and she felt the searing bulk of the rapist's cock as it plunged deep up inside her, clear up to the mouth-opening of the cervix. The guerilla leader drove in and out of her with full-stroking lunges, scalding her love-tunnel with the rasping energy of his passage.
"Ooooooh, God," the young girl moaned, feeling for the first time the awesome strangeness of a man's cock burying itself up inside her boiling cunt. Then, slowly, the pain began to subside and give way to something else, and despite herself, she began to answer the plundering thrusts of his plunging prick, caught up in his rhythm, surrendering finally to the lustful passions of her own traitorous body. She bucked up against him, feeling her hot drenching lubricating fluids spill over her dripping lips and run down between her legs.
Jake knew he had the blonde girl where he wanted her. He knew she couldn't hold out. He increased his devastation of her now-violated vagina, feeling his own sperm-bloated balls smack into her buttocks. The agitated sperm exploded through him with all the force of a rocket, finally. He squeezed her buttocks until they were white as his body shuddered in the midst of ejaculation. "Aaaarrggghhh," he roared as his sperm spurted out the end of his cock and jetted against the red-hot confines of her aroused pussy. He exhausted himself of cum and noted with amazement that his blonde hostage was still writhing beneath him, and she suddenly screamed and shuddered into her own orgasmic explosion. He smiled with satisfaction and pulled himself out of her spasming cunt just at the moment when her climax was at its height.
"Oh, no," she cried. She reached out to grab him and pull him back into her, but he laughed viciously at her abject frustration and moved across the small room, standing just out of her reach, while he and Rena both laughed venomously at her unsatiated writhings.
The lust-enroused teenager couldn't understand what was happening to her. She had felt the change once the strong man had burst through her hymen. She had felt like being fucked, had given her young body to the raping rebel with eagerness and lascivious delight. Now that he had left her, his big cock turning soft, glistening with cum, she felt frantically cheated. It had all been far too short, she had actually wanted more. Her body was panting with wanton lust, and now that she wanted to be fucked, he only stood and laughed at her.
Jake stood up and put his clothes back on. He stared down at the plundered loins of the blonde, exulting in what he had done. Rena came up to him, her breath shallow in her chest, put her arms around him.
"You really turned the little bitch on, didn't you?"
The rebel nodded.
"She still wants that cock of yours up inside that little cunt of hers."
"Yeah. Well, call the boys. They might as well have some of it while it's still hot."
"You call them," Rena said. "I want to watch her eyes. She's begging for it, aren't you, baby?"
Holly couldn't help herself; she knew that what she wanted was all wrong, but, oh, God! She didn't care! All she wanted now was to be fucked. "Yes," she moaned, "yes, I want to be fucked. Bring someone in to fuck me! I've got to have it!"she screamed, and tears streamed down her cheeks, as, somewhere, deep inside herself, she shuddered in horror at what she was saying.
Jake went for the boys as the Eurasian woman stood over the naked teenager. Holly opened her eyes and looked up at the olive-skinned woman. Fear came into her eyes, fear of the woman and of herself. She knew what Rena was going to do when Manoling, Paco, and Pete were through with her! But the blonde captive was distracted by the sound of the men running toward the tent.
"Wait'll I get my tongue in that snatch of yours, girl," the dark-skinned woman told her. "I'll turn you inside out with lust."
Before the blonde could say anything, Manoling was upon her, burying his thickly pulsing cock deep up inside her cum-filled cunt, gloating at the surprise his leader had prepared for him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The dark-skinned Eurasian's chance at the blonde teenager's body came later that afternoon when Jake had the rest of the men busy rigging a gelignite ambush for Commander Danby on the trail leading to the abandoned village. Rena wanted Holly to herself after the men had sated their sexual appetites on the young girl's body, violating her mouth and vagina with their brutal, lust-swollen cocks. As soon as Jake and the others took a load of the jellied nitroglycerin to the ambush spot, she took the blonde captive to another location, a clearing in the jungle far enough away so that they wouldn't be seen but close enough to get back to camp in a hurry. Even as Rena threw the girl roughly to the ground, two other men were heading toward the rebel encampment as fast as their modes of transportation would allow. Nick was well ahead of Lieutenant Collins and Tining, running at top speed. He knew where Jake and his men had gone because they had found this place some time ago and marked it-for just such an emergency. He couldn't wait to get his hands on the rebel leader and tear him apart.
Holly felt her legs being spread rudely apart as the Eurasian woman began her assault on the ex-virgin. The blonde was still nude from her previous rape, dazed from the repeated sexual plunderings forced upon her by the brutal men. She looked down and saw the dark woman's tongue circling her splayed pussy-lips. Rena spread the cuntal flanges wide, exposing the wet, pink flesh; then her probing tongue speared into the tunnel, finding the tiny bud of her clitoris, and she began to abrasively titillate the tiny protuberance.
"Oooooh, aaaahh," the young girl moaned as once again her body began to respond to unwanted sexual stimulation. The Eurasian woman had her face buried between her hot thighs, her tongue scribing spectacular arabesques deep inside her throbbing cunt. This was utterly depraved, letting another woman stimulate her, but she no longer cared. She wanted it, wanted the tongue to do its lusty work, wanted her cunt juices to flow again in electric excitement. She could no longer help herself. Her whole body felt as though it were one gigantic cunt. The dark woman's hands on her flesh, her mouth, her tongue were all exciting to her. She felt the tongue thrumming her clitoris and bucked as another orgasm began to rip through her naked body, setting all the nerve ends afire.
Luck was with Steve Collins. Tining had told him she had to go to the bathroom, and he had stopped the jeep. While he was waiting for her, he heard the blonde girl's excited moans coming from a place in the jungle. When the Filipina girl came back to the jeep, he put his fingers to his lips in a gesture of silence. Carefully, the two picked their way through the lush undergrowth, the sounds of a girl's panting breath getting louder and louder.
There, in the clearing, the American officer saw the two women locked in a lesbian embrace, Rena's head buried between the thighs of the tossing young girl. His eyes stared at the obscene couple on the floor of the jungle, and he drew his .45. At the same instant, Jake Norman came upon the clearing from another angle. He didn't see the lieutenant because his attention was focused on the other two women.
"You goddamned bitch," he said to Rena. "You just had to bring that bitch out here, didn't you? I've been yelling my balls off for you. Get up, you dyke cunt."
The Eurasian woman, her face wet with the blonde's cuntal juices turned to face her man, angry at his intrusion. She was about to talk back when she caught sight of the Navy man out of the corner of her eye.
"Look out," she cried, but she was too late.
Steve hammered a .45 slug into Jake's surprised body, just as the rebel chief turned. The dying man clawed at his holster, freed his own pistol and jerked off a shot as he felt his legs sliding away from him. Blood bubbled up in his throat from the terrible chest wound. Through glazed eyes he saw Tining crumple, gutshot from his own pistol. The American officer slammed another shot into Jake's head, tearing half of it away. That's when Rena kicked him in the side, knocking him over. He felt a searing pain as the hot flow of blood from his reopened wound began to stain his poultice. The Eurasian woman ran as fast as she could back to the camp.
The blonde came rushing over to the American, tears filling her eyes.
"Oh, Steve! Thank God! Let's get away fast before they find us."
The officer looked at the captive girl, her naked flesh so close to him he could touch her. He looked at the wounded Filipina and shook his head.
"But you're hurt," said Holly. "There's blood and you're in pain. We've got to get out of here. They'll kill us!"
Grimacing in pain, Steve got up and cleared his head.
"No," he said, "take me to their camp. We've got to stop them now or we'll never get away. They'll be expecting us to run. Now, we may have the chance to surprise them."
She knew he was right, but she was frightened. Together, they helped Tining as best they could, but they knew she was dying.
"Show me where the camp is, Holly. Hurry, we haven't got much time."
More frightened than she had ever been in her life, the blonde girl headed back for the camp, running fast, with the handsome young officer following her, his rifle at the ready.
* * *
Nick Farrel came into the camp at about the time Jake had left it. He had his rifle unslung and off-safety, but there was no sign of his enemy, Jake. Instead, he was greeted warmly by Manoling, Paco and Pete who all threw their arms around their former leader.
"What happened? You were supposed to be dead!" exclaimed Manoling.
"Yeah, that bastard Jake shot me. Where is he?"
They all saw the scar on his head and knew that he was telling the truth.
"He's gone, looking for the American girl and Rena."
"Rena!" Farrel exclaimed, "that's why he tried to kill me."
"We're on your side," the German told him. "Aren't we boys?"
"Yes. We'll help you kill that traitor!" said Paco.
"Where is he?" asked the scarred man, his finger worrying the trigger of his weapon.
"In the jungle. We'll find him," affirmed Manoling.
The four of men, all armed, then rushed away from the encampment, bent on finding Jake Norman. They were quiet, slinking like panthers, ears and eyes alert, together again as before, when they came upon Steve Collins and the naked Holly, some distance from the village. Nick spotted them first and signaled to the others who crouched deadly in the underbrush.
"Hold it," Nick ordered. "Drop your gun or you're dead."
Steve froze, his eyes darting around him. He saw three rifle barrels aimed at him from the green foliage. He dropped his M-16 rifle. The blonde teenager cringed in terrified bewilderment.
"Get them, boys," Nick ordered. In an instant, the pair were surrounded. The American naval officer glared at Nick. Holly tried to hide her nakedness. She looked like some teenage Eve ejected from the Garden of Eden.
"Okay, march 'em back to camp," ordered the new rebel chief, "but that isn't the end of it, Collins. You're on very thin ground."
The American officer kept silent as he was grabbed roughly by the two Filipinos and marched at gunpoint toward the camp. Pete and Nick prodded the nude teenager ahead of them Steve's first thought was that the Eurasian woman had blown the whistle on them, but when he saw that she was not in the village, he recalled that she had slipped into the jungle heading away from camp. He cursed himself for being so foolish as to get captured by the guerillas, but they had been like shadows, silent and invisible in the thick jungle growth.
"You seen Jake?" Nick asked Holly. "Or my wife?"
"He - he's dead." she said. "Your wife -Rena ran off into the jungle."
"You kill him, Collins?"
The lieutenant nodded.
"I hate your guts for that, you sonofabitch. He was mine!"
"He was trying to kill your wife and me, Farrel."
"Tie the bastard up," Nick told Manoling. "I'm going to make him regret interfering with my revenge."
They tied the lieutenant and secured him to the outside of a nipa hut. The blonde teenager began to worry when she saw Nick and the others break out a bottle of rum from the camp supplies. They were slugging it down straight although Paco found some limes which they used as chasers. She stood there, guarded by Pete and Manoling, still naked. She felt the eyes of the man she loved burning into her. She desperately wanted to talk to him, to try and reassure him that she was all right. The memory of Jake and Rena were still fresh in her mind. She wondered if Steve knew, or guessed, what had happened to her. She felt sore all over from the rape, but she didn't think any bruises showed.
"Get the blonde cunt," Nick said, finally, his voice slurred from drink. "I want you to watch this, you sonofabitch," he said to the lieutenant. "I'm going to fuck your girl friend - right in her pretty little ass."
Holly nearly fainted when the full impact of the newly reinstated rebel leader's words hit her. She was deathly afraid of this man's touching her. He looked cruel with his hatchet face, his wolf eyes and lean look of hatred. His eyes burned into her young flesh for the longest moment when the two guerillas brought her to him. She gave a hopelessly pleading look toward Steve, just before the two men threw her to her knees. She felt awkward in this obscene position, her buttocks high in the air, lewdly exposed to everyone there.
Nick then undressed himself and approached her from the rear, his cock hardening with blood-engorging excitement.
"Hold her steady, boys, you'll get your turns. I want to see if she can take this meat where she needs it most. How do you like them apples, Stevie boy?"
The lieutenant gritted his teeth in helpless anger. He glared at the rebel, wishing he could kill him as he had Jake. As he stared, he saw the lean man grasp the teenager's buttocks rudely and stick his outstretched finger up into her pussy.
"That's to warm you up a little, bitch," Nick told the frightened girl. The men watching guffawed in lewd delight.
Holly felt the probing finger tearing at her cunt, feeling it splay her vaginal folds and driving up to her tucked-away clitoris button. She tried to struggle away, but Manoling and Paco held her fast with Pete standing by to assist them if they needed it.
"Oh, no, don't do it to me anymore!" the girl pleaded. "I-I'm scared!"
"You just hold steady there, girl," the Huk leader ordered, his finger wildly probing her juicy cunt.
"Please!"
As if in answer to the desperate girl's pleading, Nick removed his finger and leaned forward, guiding his swollen cock, the spongy head now gleaming with seminal fluid, toward the hairy furrow of the young girl's much abused cunt. As the bulbous head touched the sensitive folds of her wet, pink flesh, the captive teenager tried once again to move away from this final debasement. It was futile, however, and the lust-throbbing penis slid easily between her moistly twitching pussy lips, burying itself up inside her warm tunnel.
The impaled teenager groaned and wriggled, horrified at the thought of Steve seeing her like this. But she was utterly defenseless. Strong hands on her legs forced her back onto the hard length of the rebel's merciless cock, and she felt the slick wet shaft slide smoothly through her cunt. In and out he drove, fucking her tight tunnel with piston-like efficiency. His sperm-bloated balls slapped lewdly against the crevice of her buttocks as he sank his shaft in up to the hilt. The angle of penetration caused her to cry out in severe pain.
"Ooooooarrrggh! God, no, don't do it to me!" Her blonde head tossed from side to side as the hugely swollen cock opened up folds of flesh in its relentless pounding. The wet smack of flesh resounded lewdly through the abandoned village as the Yankee Huk ravished the young girl's plundered cunt with his poker-hot tool, ramming her with rhythmic thrusts that went deep up into the tight little tunnel. The angry lieutenant, tightly bound, the ropes cutting into his wrists until the blood came, seethed with fury at the rape of his commander's daughter. He heard the teenager's anguished cries and watched the obscene cudgel bury itself in the pink folds of her enticing cunt. The Navy man could hardly believe his eyes. He prayed that Commander Danby would get here but shuddered to think what he would think when he saw his daughter's young flesh being violated in this brutal, animalistic way.
There was no longer time for Holly to think about what Steve's reactions would be. The hot, bulbous knob of her brutal revenger's sperm-engorged cock was pounding her excited clitoris until she was once again caught in the frenzy of multiple orgasms. Great wracking sobs filled the ravished teenager's throat as she began to surrender to sexual hysteria. Her sobs were replaced by panting and squealing as unbidden lust gripped her loins. Her mewling reached the Navy man's ears and he sickened inside. Her white ass-cheeks ground obscenely around the glistening cock as it drove in and out of her yielding cunt-flesh.
All of them knew that the raped teenager was responding to the pounding cock. Her squeals filled them all with voyeuristic excitement. The leader's deep pants told them that he was enjoying the change in rhythm, the lustful response of the young girl's body to his violating rod. Her flaming cunt seemed to suck and pull on the rapacious cock, dragging it deeper and deeper up into the scalding depths of her love-tunnel.
"Oh, oh, oh," the teenager cried, "fuck me, fuck me, man! Keep on fucking me!"
The helplessly bound Naval man writhed in agony as he heard her obscene pleas. Multiple orgasms shook her body as though it were made of rags. Her lewd encouragement only spurred the guerilla leader on until his own climax began to form in the sperm-laden sac that was slamming into the girl's wildly gyrating buttocks. His hips shuddered convulsively and a strangled groan escaped from his open mouth. His cock sank deep up into her twitching, clasping cunt as his white-hot cum spurted into the mouth of the cervix. The teenager moaned as she felt the white-hot liquid of the raping man spurting inside her. She skewered herself onto the still jetting penis even as it began to withdraw from her eagerly clutching cunt.
She wanted more! She didn't care who was watching or how humiliating it was, she had to have more of that hot cock up inside her. The raped young girl gasped as the rebel's cock limped out of her steaming vagina, its bulk deflated to a third its tumescent size. Nick jerked free with a lewd smile of satisfaction on his face.
"She's still hot boys, and I've shot my wad," the rebel chief said. "And I want her screwed in the ass. Anybody game?"
Pete, a sadistic leer on his face, stepped forward.
"Let me have a little of that," he said gruffly, his Teutonic face contorted with lust.
Nick stepped aside and waved at the obscene whiteness of the teenager's buttocks.
"She's a virgin there, I'll bet," said the leader.
"Not for long," said the German. He unzipped his trousers and let them drop to the ground. Stepping out of his shorts, he took his massive penis in hand and began to move the flesh of the burgeoning organ up and down, bringing it quickly to a pulsing hardness. He leaned down and spread the girl's buttocks, checking the tightly puckered anal orifice with his eyes. From the hut, a pair of angry eyes watched him.
"Don't touch her that way!" yelled the American captive. "For God's sake, man, what are you, an animal?"
The German ignored the protesting Naval officer and roughly rammed his extended finger against the puckered anus. The teenager let out a scream of pain and humiliation that turned everyone's blood cold. "Oooooaaarrrggghh!"
The German smiled brutally and rammed his finger inside the tight anal ring, thrusting it in up to the first knuckle, and then he began to finger-fuck her anal passage, loosening it for the entrance of his cock. The sobbing, blonde-haired girl felt this was more humiliating than all those other things that had been done to her. Not only was it painful, but it was abjectly degrading - and it seemed even worse with the knowledge that the young Naval officer was watching all this. In a moment, the German removed his finger and crouched behind the lewdly inviting globes of the young girl's buttocks.
"Spread your cheeks," he ordered.
To Steve's surprise, the ravished teenager reached back submissively with both her hands and spread her ass-cheeks apart. The lieutenant could scarcely believe his eyes. It looked as if she were actually welcoming this act of sodomy, this anal outrage. The way the girl hunched forward, her creamy-white buttocks high in the air, she seemed to be presenting herself to him like some lower-class animal. As she cleared the way for the sadistic German rebel, the Navy man saw the blood-thickened head of his cock move to the tiny puckered anal entrance.
Steve's eyes widened with disbelief as he saw the throbbing cock stab into the tightly closed brown anus. The incredulous Navy officer watched the brutal penetration by the lust-engorged member, saw the large cock-head bury itself hotly in one powerful stabbing thrust.
"Arrrgghh!" the helplessly pinioned girl cried in pain. It was too big! It would tear her apart! She was no longer worried about the humiliation of it or the fact that her young lover was forced to watch. All that mattered now was the pain -the terrible searing pain that shot thought her whole body like a devouring flame.
The brutal German seemed to grow all the more excited as the girl's anguished cried grew louder and more intense. Instead of pulling his turgid cock back out, he pushed forward, forcing it even further up into her virginal rectum. "Ah, Gott!" he exulted, "she's a tight one!"
The virginal orifice rasped against the tender skin of his rock-hard cock, and the grating pain on his cock-shaft was almost more than he could bear, but only the realization that he was causing the poor, helpless girl even greater pain kept him going on, and he slowly - inch by inch - forced the full massive length of his turgid cock up into the hot depths of her rectum until his lust-swollen balls slapped against the lips of her exposed pussy. He rested for a moment, gloating in his sadistic penetration of the defenseless girl's virginal anus, and then he began a slow sawing in and out, gradually loosening the glove-tight nether channel until his penis began to slide easily in and out.
The frightened girl's anguished cries finally subsided into choking sobs, and then, gradually, she realized it wasn't hurting anymore. Somehow, the pain had given way to rhythmically surging warmth, like someone waving a fan over a fire and sending waves of heat gusting out. She found herself rocking back and forth - meeting his savage thrusts with backward thrusts of her own. And, even more humiliating to the young girl, she could feel her lust-stimulated pussy pulsing with increased excitement. She suddenly realized with horror that she was not only enjoying this sadistic assault on her anus - she was going to have an orgasm!
Steve Collins watched the cruel rape with sick impotence. He was completely powerless to stop it. But, slowly, something was happening. Horrified, he stared at the obscene pair. The Filipinos were no longer holding Holly! Instead, they were grinning like demented apes at her lust-saturated body. She was actually enjoying the terrible thing being done to her!
The plundered teenager began to undulate her hips, pushing back her buttocks onto the skewering tool that invaded her virginal anal passage. Her face was contorted with pleasure as waves of pain and delight rolled through her young flesh. She looked as depraved as any pagan hussy, thought Steve as he watched her twirl her buttocks in a lewd manner. She was thrilled at the savage impalement of her rectum, he could tell, and his heart thumped agonizingly in his chest.
The girl seemed oblivious to everything now except the swollen cock that was buried to the hilt in her rectum, the sperm-filled balls of the German banging against the twin mounds of her buttocks. Her eyes were glazed with lust, her lips spread back over her teeth so that she looked like some bitch wolf in heat.
As they all watched, the teenager began to buck with an orgasm once again. The lieutenant knew that the German was ready to cum with her, and he groaned inwardly at his own helplessness. Was this young innocent girl so easily turned into a wanton whore? How could he ever think of marrying someone like this, someone who enjoyed this inhuman rape of her most intimate possession? Was this the girl who had wanted him not so long ago, innocently cavorting with him in the living room? What would happen now if they ever got free of this nightmare?
The Navy man watched it all happening. He saw the German increase his tempo, trying to catch up with the wildly cumming teenager who was gyrating her bottom obscenely on the penetrating mass of male flesh filling her anal tunnel while she moaned out her own unbelievable orgasm. Then the rebel shook all over, the spilling cum began to drip from her plundered anus, rolling out in inexhaustible waves while her buttocks continued to churn with lust. He heard the teenager moan with pleasure as the cum streamed down her trembling thighs. There was an expression of pure joy on the girl's face, and the Navy man wanted to wipe the wanton look of pleasure from her face forever. Instead, he sat there and began to weep, the tears flowing down his cheeks pathetically.
The Filipinos took her in turn after that, and the lieutenant could watch no more of the orgy. They were all getting drunk, too, and he wished, if help were to come, it would come now. When they had all satisfied themselves on the ravaged body of the blonde-haired teenager, Holly lay in a sweat-soaked heap, totally exhausted from the sexual excitement. Her body, even then, seemed to quiver in the throes of orgasm. Nick was roaring drunk, and so were the others by then. The Navy man could only look on in helpless disgust. Later on, Holly arose and staggered over to him, whimpering like some mauled cub. He put his arm around her, unable to speak, hoping that she would never have to know the horrible thoughts that had filled his mind.
With the men of the camp drunk and her Jake dead, Rena sought her revenge. She knew Nick would kill her if she were seen so she sneaked into the nipa with the wounded Tining in tow. This was the hut where the Naval lieutenant was tied, she knew, and she must get him free. Quietly, she crawled up to the spot in the hut where his arms were tied around a rattan pole covered with dried grass.
"Shhh," she whispered to the American officer, "don't speak. I'll set you free. There's a Thompson in the hut and I'll give you a pistol."
Steve nodded and felt the Eurasian's hands loosening his bonds. When he was free, he rubbed his wrists and looked once more at the men down at the hut where the gelignite was stored. He grabbed Holly and they went into the nipa. Both of them gasped to see Tining who was obviously very weak from the loss of blood. The Filipina girl gave them a wan smile and squeezed the American teenager's hand in encouragement.
"Do you remember the dolls I made?" she asked.
Holly nodded.
"Well, the spell is going to work very soon. It had worked already, no?"
The blonde teenager felt her skin crawl. First, the Frenchman, then Jake, and now . .. She remembered the realistic icons and how the Filipina had ripped and shredded them. She gave Steve a look and shuddered with the realization that something terrible was about to happen. Her eyes met the Eurasian woman's, and the blonde girl had to turn away suddenly.
"I'll get you something to wear," Rena told her, her voice thick. Steve picked up the Thompson, checked it. He holstered the .45 that the dark-skinned woman gave him. A look passed between them. The lieutenant's face was grim, hardened by what he knew he had to do. The Eurasian stole from the nipa to get a dress for Holly, her face suddenly drained of all color.
"Stay here," Collins ordered, "both of you. It's going to be ugly."
The young blonde put her hand out to him. He grasped it tenderly and looked into her soft blue eyes.
"I-I'm sorry, Steve. I couldn't help myself."
"That's all right. It wasn't your fault, Holly. I know that now."
She smiled at him and took her hand away.
Tining was breathing hard, the breath rattling in her thin, bony chest. The blonde teenager went to her and put her arms around the frail Visayan. The Navy man gave both girls a last look, then darted out the back of the hut, stealing within range of the drunken Huks, the safety off the Thompson. All the former anger blazed up again as he saw the men reveling around the hut. He knew he might get his, but he wanted to take Nick out first.
That's when he spotted the jeep within ten feet of the hut. He could see that the back was loaded with gelignite. A shadow crossed his face as he took deliberate aim. The submachine gun bucked in his arms as he leaned into it, squeezed the trigger. The bullets raced into the explosive material, ripping into blasting caps and gelignite. The jeep went up in a burst of orange flame, smoke filled the air. The rebels were knocked flat by the awesome concussion. Steve shifted his position quickly and moved in, his Tommy gun blazing death, spraying the men. He cursed himself for losing sight of Nick, but he knew that surprise was in his favor. He had a chance now to get them all and survive himself.
Manoling was the first to recover. He came boiling out of the smoke and debris, weaving drunkenly, his .4 cocked. The navy man cut him down with a thick burst. The whole stomach of the Filipino seemed to burst like a red balloon as blood and intestines flowed from the ripped flesh, the Huk fell in a pool of blood.
Pete Stamm grabbed a rifle and began shooting at the underbrush and the other nipas. The lieutenant ran the machine gun up and down the German's body, sending hot slugs into his genitals, breastbone and face. The man seemed to fly apart with the impact of the high-powered bullets. Paco, coming out of his stupor only to die, caught the overflow as he was running for cover. His face went blank as his throat filled with blood and his spine severed from the exit wound. He danced crazily for a long, frozen moment before his body, too, crumpled beside Stamm's.
Where in the hell was Farrel? The Navy man couldn't see him. He knew the rebel leader was the most dangerous man of all. He had to find him. Stalking carefully, he circled the nipa where he had last seen him. Maybe he was killed in the jeep blast, Steve thought. Maybe he was stunned. That's when he saw Rena running across the open space in the middle of the small village. She was yelling something. Nick's name!
Then the lieutenant saw him. Nick! He had a Thompson, too, and he was rushing toward the Eurasian woman, firing at her, missing, but bent on murder. The bullets spat dust up around the running woman's feet; then it was too late. She was in the rebel's arms. Nick knocked her down and was bringing his Thompson to bear on her when the American sailor let him have it. The bullets stippled a bloody path up the side of the traitorous guerilla, twisting his body grotesquely. Nick's machine gun went off, the lead ripping into the Eurasian woman's body with deadly force. Her breasts popped from her tunic, stained crimson. Her mouth went slack, and she fell backwards, the life oozing from her body. The lieutenant let the staggering rebel have another burst and saw his body buckle with the flaming lead. Nick's body fell atop his wife's, perforated by the death-dealing sluge. He twitched two or three times, then settled into the rigidness of death while the quiet filled up the jungle once again.
The blonde teenager was dressed in one of Rena's smocks when Steve got back to the hut where he had left her. She was holding Tining in her arms. The Filipina was dying.
"I'm sorry," the lieutenant said. "She was a good girl."
Tears filled Holly's eyes as the young Visayan breathed her last. Holly laid her down, wiping her tears. She pulled an old blanket over the dead girl's lifeless form and arose. The Navy man took her in his arms.
"Oh, Steve," she said. "I need you so much."
He felt the excitement flow through him as he held her body close to his. In the distance, they both heard the jeep. The blonde cringed, suddenly afraid again.
"That'll be your father," he told her. "Come on, let's get out of here."
They walked away from the still-smoking camp, arms around each other's waists. Holly, barefooted and bewildered by all that had happened to her, looked like some waif Eve who was leaving the Garden of Eden with her rescuing Adam. Steve squeezed her as Danby's jeep drove into view. He knew she would be needing him more than ever now. There was a lot of horror to erase, a lot of living to make up for all the death that they both had known. He was sure that he could help her look to the future and forget the past. They both had to do that. He knew they could do it - together.
