Laureano put little metal discs on the nipples of my chest. Wires trailed to the machine. He taped the disks in place so they would stay. Then he turned a dial.
I lurched, straining against my bonds. A terrible electric current was passing from one terminal to the other, wracking my chest.
"I see the system is operative," Mirabal said. "Now do you care to talk?"
Talk? I could hardly get my breath! I slumped, gasping, as the current abated. What appalling pain!
"Turn it up a notch," Mirabal told Laureano. "And hold it for a few more seconds."
The agony wracked me again. I jumped like a bucking bronco, straining against my bonds. A hoarse scream tore from my throat. My chest was on fire, my lungs fast becoming paralyzed. Like a red-hot rod, the current seared through me. Could tooth extraction be worse than this? Water torture?
"You respond very well," Mirabal remarked as the power subsided again. "I shall be most interested to see how far your threshold extends. We'll just try another intensification."
I couldn't take much more of this. Had the electrodes been attached to some more vital region of my body, the surges would have knocked me unconscious or even killed me, and it would have been over. But Mirabal's torturer knew his business; this machine merely caused intolerable pain.
Yet I had no choice. I had to endure this torture, or somehow escape it. And not by turning traitor to Fu Antos.
"Perhaps we should attach an electrode to his genital," Mirabal said musingly. "This has always been effective in the past."
God, no! I remembered now. I had heard of this. Pulverizing shocks run through the victim's privates, not only wracking him with ultimate pain but destroying his masculinity forever. No, that was probably an exaggeration. The awful beauty of this electric torture was that it left no telltale signs, no raw tooth-sockets or ruptured guts. There would be no proof that I had been tortured. No proof except my word—the word of an accused pederast. Electric interrogation was a Latin American specialty.
But the bastard was only teasing me. He made no motion to strip me further. Maybe he didn't want to abort my masculinity until he had made me watch what he did to Dulce. It was enough for the present that I realized the possibilities, and knew what would be employed—at his convenience. Psychological torture augmenting the physical torture, again, and a very effective job of it.
I had to get out of this! But how?
Then I remembered a way.
I could not escape physically—but I had mental resources that Mirabal was hardly in a position to comprehend. I could control the pain my body suffered, to a certain extent. Pain, after all, is self-generated; it is the system's warning that the body is being damaged, and it is a strong inducement to stop. But when the damage cannot be stopped, pain is superfluous, a counter-productive effort. Then it has to be blocked out.
The current flowed again. I stiffened. But I fought to achieve dominance of mind over matter. I can not feel it! I told myself. It is only an irritation.
It didn't work. I knew the pain was real. Anything else was a delusion. Yet I still had to resist it somehow.
Then I remembered the ki, that mysterious force that lay within my body, more powerful than anything else I knew. It was not under my conscious control, but was there when I needed it. I needed it now! I willed it forth, hoping it would come. The torture current flowed again. The pain was excruciating; they had stepped it up another notch or two. I tried to scream, but my chest muscles were knotted, cutting off my very breath.
Then the ki cut in. From my hara, my abdomen, the seat of my being, it expanded—and where it went, pain abated. It crossed the area of the electrodes on my chest, and the muscles relaxed. I could breathe again, and my head was clear. It did not completely eliminate the pain, but it was as though a powerful sedative had been administered. Now I could tolerate it, as I did the pain of a back wrenched in judo practice.
"Something's wrong," Mirabal said. "The current's not—"
Laureano checked. "It is going through; see the dials."
"I see him. He's not suffering. Look how he's relaxed."
"Maybe he is dead."
"No. He's breathing normally. Check the generator."
"I tell you, the current is there! Check it yourself."
Mirabal was evidently from Missouri, in the United States of Brazil: he had to be shown. He put his hand on my chest, letting the fingers touch the two taped terminals. He jerked it away, cursing as the current pulsed through. He shook his hand. "It's there, all right!"
Now he glared at me. I gave him a level gaze back. "Give it up, Mirabal," I said. "You can't hurt me."
"Turn it up to maximum!" he snapped.
Laureano turned up the dial. I was aware of the increased power, but it passed through me harmlessly. My ki had nullified it. Not completely, but enough so I could stand it, smiling.
Mirabal stared at me, baffled. "He must have lost his feeling! No one could withstand that current."
I shook my head, affecting sorrow. "I feel it; I just don't suffer from it. Too bad you can't understand. You should meet my friend Fu Antos; he really knows about ki."
"Fu Antos!" Mirabal grated. "So you do know him, just as I suspected! You're one of his minions!"
Oh-oh! I had really spilled the beans, right when I thought I'd won. Treachery of overconfidence. I had to distract Mirabal, before he found a way to pry what little I knew of the ninja's situation out of me. So I pursed my lips and wafted a shimmering globule of spit at him.
It scored, right in the middle of his gloatingly open mouth. Mirabal lost control, just as I had hoped he would. His fist lashed out to strike my cheek. The blow didn't hurt me, for the ki made me well-nigh invulnerable. But he had carelessly let his other arm brush against the metal frame of the machine, and as his fist made contact with me the current grounded through his body. For a moment he stood transfixed as the full power of his devil machine paralyzed him, his eyes staring in agony. Physical strength is no hedge against electricity. Then the contact was broken, and he fell back.
Quickly, horrified, Laureano turned off the machine. "Colonel, are you all right?"
Mirabal had to maintain a front; I understood that, without having to like the man at all. "I'm all right!" he snapped. "Get him out of here!"
And so my siege of torture ended, thanks to the ki. I was hardly conscious of being led back to the main prison cell, to be stared at by my fellow inmates. The ki had drained from me when the threat ended, and I was virtually unconscious on my feet.
They unbound me, and I fell on my bunk, too weak to do more.
Chapter 5
Spear in the Rear
The forest of the Amazon basin in South America is one of the largest in the world, and it covers almost half of Brazil. The trees grow close together: chestnut, mahogany, cedar, rosewood, kapok, wild rubber trees, many varieties of palm, and of course Brazil nuts. Hundreds of species can be found within a few square miles, and many trees are over two hundred feet tall. They are overgrown with lichens and vines, so that the deep jungle becomes a tangled mass.
Through it all twines the Amazon River, largest (not longest) in the world, with its myriad tributaries. It is the only feasible access to much of the backwoods. Roads can quickly be overgrown by the living carpet of foliage, so only the water remains clear. Thus a watch on the rivers gives an insight into much of the human activity of the region.
It was technically illegal to molest the jungle natives of Brazil, but few of the authorities paid attention to this. If the Indians had land that "civilized" men wanted, it was a simple matter to kill or drive off the primitives. Professional Indian-killers were available for hire at reasonable rates.
But this time the Indians, stirred up by intruders from Japan, had had the audacity to strike back. A prospector's camp had been wiped out, and Fernando Mirabal himself had barely escaped with his life. Such a demonstration had to be dealt with.
Actually, Mirabal was sure the ninja camp was not
here; Fu Antos was too smart to give away his location so readily. But with luck a ninja might be captured, and then perhaps truth serum or a lie detector would bring forth the necessary information. No more crudities like flaying; that took too much time, and was too risky. Torture was ineffective against ninjas. But drugs—maybe. Possibly some of the Indians knew where the ninjas were; for them torture would be in order.
Colonel Mirabal himself was not along on this expedition; he had business in Rio de Janeiro, following up another lead. But he had given the task force leader specific instructions. The job would be accomplished.
There were about 50 policemen collected from all the towns of the neighborhood, and about a hundred volunteers. It was an ill-matched, motley crew, in it strictly for the money and the chance to indulge in a little harmless bloodletting. But they were well armed and eager to collect the bounty on every dead Indian, plus whatever pillage was available for free enterprise.
On the way upstream they had a little practice mission, nothing serious. They encountered a small village of pacifico, pacified Indians. About 25 old men, women and children were taking their morning bath in the shallow waters. They stared at the convoy, not knowing its purpose.
The lead craft went on upstream, machine-gunned some tapirs drinking at the edge, hacked them into great chunks and threw the bloody pieces into the center current. The blood suffused the water, arousing the crocodiles and piranhas. Then a small party went ashore and cut behind the Indian village.
When all was ready, a couple of launches came close and sprayed the Indians with rock salt from sawed-off shotguns. The stuff did not kill outright, but made numerous small wounds that bled and hurt.
The Indians scrambled for the shore, terrified, uncomprehending, helpless—and were met by the machine guns of the land party. They could not escape, so had to stay in the water, and now the killer fish attacked savagely, incited to a frenzy by the new blood.
The two prettiest Indian women were hauled onto the boats, mass-raped, and tossed back in for the crocodiles.
Temporarily sated, the men re-formed their convoy and pressed onward. It had been fun, but it wasn't as though they had killed any real men. The hunters' appetite, like that of the piranha fish, had only been whetted for the real mayhem.
But Fu Antos, Lord of the Ninjas, had profited from his experience with the oil-prospecting camp. He knew that the presence of men from the coast meant trouble. Had they been content to leave him alone, he would not have fought them; but he could not tolerate a direct invasion of his territory, and he had promised the Indians protection. So he kept his spies out, though this meant slowed construction of the Black Castle, and he was well informed of this expedition. The village massacre had caught him by surprise; he had thought the Indians would be ignored. But the episode had given him time to prepare, and a ninja did not need much time, ever.
The lead boat was a modern police launch. It passed a bend in the river near where the prior oil group had its doom, and entered a narrow section. Suddenly it shuddered and halted, and began to sink. Its bottom had been ripped open by submerged stakes, sharply pointed and angled to pierce the hull of a fast-moving craft. Overloaded by the number of men on its deck, it was helpless. Men dived off from either side.
Immediately there was a stir in the water. From one side electric eels approached, released from underwater cages by the shock of the boat's collision with the stakes. From the other converged caimans, reptiles related to the crocodile. The action was violent. The second launch rounded the bend in time to see the last of the first. It slowed, its .30 caliber machine gun coming to life, raking the shore on either side. But there was only silence from the jungle.
Then something arced high over the trees and fell on the deck of the boat. It exploded into flame. It was a homemade thermite bomb, a ninja formula like Greek fire. It spread across the deck, burning relentlessly. The men dipped buckets of water from the river to douse it, but the flame only spread faster. In moments it had eaten through the deck and was taking over the boat, its terrible heat driving back the men.
The remainder of the expedition now arrived. Six smaller boats, bristling with armed men. Too many to nail with the thermite catapult, they moved to the banks of the river, firing at anything. They did not dare remain exposed on the water, and the caimans prevented swimming. But they could take over the shores, and now they knew the enemy was near. This was what they had come for!
There was no resistance. All the boats beached without loss. A hundred and twenty men spread out, beating the brush, firing up into the trees, making sure there were no men in the area. Then someone screamed. He had been bitten by a tarantula, the huge hairy tropical spider. Such bites are seldom fatal, but attack by such creatures can be terrifying. And suddenly there were spiders all around, dropping silently from the trees. Not only tarantulas, but also black spiders, larger than the black widow and with a more poisonous bite. They had been cleverly anesthetized, awakened by the commotion below, still too drugged to hide. So they attacked.
The men charged screaming from the area, losing all semblance of discipline. And as they dispersed, and became separated from each other, and lost sight of their boats and officers, the silent arrows began to fly. One by one the men fell, firing wildly into the brush before their struggles were ended by well-placed ninja arrows, nooses and spears. Some put their feet into miniature covered pits filled with sharpened sticks smeared with human excrement. Painful, disgusting, but not serious wounds, except that the chance of serious infection was excellent. Others tripped over cords stretched near the ground, releasing sprung saplings that hurled spears forward. Or were caught in loops that lifted them high into the air where they were easy targets. One man, lifted by such a snare, whipped out his hunting knife and cut the rope—only to land on his head, splitting his skull open.
Fu Antos was unsatisfied. He had organized the ambush so that no ninja would be seen, and none killed. That caution had prevented him from carrying through the eradication of the invading party. The secret of the Black Castle was in danger of becoming known, and therefore was in peril of complete destruction; secrecy and security were virtually identical. He had to take immediate steps to stop future excursions. Simple defense of the jungle area would no longer suffice.
He was very high up in Petrobas, the Brazilian Oil Company, literally. He was on the thirtieth floor of the modern skyscraper that housed the oil bureaucracy in Brasilia, the futuristic capital of the United States of Brazil. He was a highly paid executive in charge of locating potential oil fields in the central Amazonian wilderness. He was one of the few really intelligent bureaucrats. Given the mere hint of oil in a given region, he would sniff it out relentlessly. And he had the hint: special purchases of equipment, shipped up the Amazon River. Someone was drilling for oil—not a mere test well, but a producing one. Somewhere in the jungle of the Amazon.
There were other evidences. An oil prospecting unit had been attacked and wiped out by formerly acquiescent Indians. That suggested that some private enterprise was operating in that region, stirring up the natives with promises of wealth or whatever, acting to keep their discovery secret. Fernando Mirabal, brother to the Director himself, had narrowly missed being killed in that action. The Mirabals were bad enemies to have; those Indians would be sorry.
If he, Gal Costa, could locate that strike and verify it, he could arrange to expropriate the site for the government petroleum company. There were certain complexities involved, but that was his business: to comprehend and manipulate the jungle of economics and regulations so as to bring maximum profit to his company. He did the brainwork, then turned the matter over to Ramiro Mirabal, the Director, for the action. It was a good working arrangement.
Fu Antos, hidden in his half-built, largely underground Black Castle in the jungle, thought so too. There was much dead-wood in Petrobas, as there was in any government enterprise. But some branches were live wood. It was necessary to prune those branches, so as to render the g
iant oil company inactive, at least as far as new oil fields research went. So a few select assassinations would alleviate the problem with minimum fuss; there need be no more bloody excursions up the river. The Mirabal brothers had proved more formidable than anticipated. Fu Antos had hoped to nab Fernando during the police raid up the tributary, but the man, wary of such traps, had not come. It had been a bad mistake to let that man live after their first encounter. But the lesser actions could not wait; if he held them up pending the death of Mirabal, he could lose the war.
This sort of thing was far from the mind of the executive Gal Costa, high in his air-conditioned office in the capital city. Never in his life had he been physically threatened. His concern, as he stood hands linked behind him looking out the immense picture window at the magnificent skyline, the almost purple sky above the red earth beyond the modern building—his concern was only with the evidence on paper. No one else had fathomed the pattern; no one but he knew where the secret oil field was. There were elaborate maps on his wall, and hefty tomes of statistics on his shelf. By a process of perceptive elimination he had narrowed down the possibilities to three, and two of these were questionable for devious but convincing reasons. In the third there was probably an extremely rich oil field awaiting exploitation. Now it was time to make his report, significant not so much for its factual information but, like a lawyer's summation, for its clear rationale and the specific thrust of its recommendations. Costa was in his fashion a creative artist; he could perceive and document that obvious possibility that all others missed. Ramiro Mirabal would read this report, act on it, and strike oil, and there would be a new world power nexus right here in Brazil. This was potentially more significant than the Mexican strike. And Costa would be well rewarded. Ramiro was very good about things like that; he helped those who helped him, so long as they were loyal.
Costa buzzed for his secretary. She entered, carrying her notepad. She was a Meztiza, half-Indian—a small mousy-looking girl, dark of skin and hair. No office ornament; he had chosen her for her discretion, competence, and loyalty. She was an excellent stenographer, and never spoke of company matters outside the office. She lived in one of the favelas near the city, supporting her aging parents and feebleminded brother. She was not well paid, for then she might have become independent; as it was, she knew that only absolute loyalty to the company would preserve her job and therefore her livelihood. For if she were fired, she would be blackballed, and her half-caste family would starve unless she turned to drug traffic or prostitution—and she lacked the nerve for the first and the figure for the second. Costa knew his employees well.