Thinking of radio contact reminded him to check the radio room, which he recognized by the small, portable transmitting array jerry-rigged to the top of a corrugated metal shack in the northwest corner of the palisade’s interior. Inside, Bolan expected to find a man or men desperately screaming for help, but the shack was empty. The radio equipment was undamaged, so the big American emptied the last of his rifle’s ammo into it. He dropped the magazine, slapped home a spare, then picked his way through the wreckage of the base interior once more. As he moved he was mindful of the dangers, for there still could be men hidden between him and the holding cell.
Nevertheless, the man who threw himself from concealment next to a burning military-style jeep almost managed to take Bolan by surprise. He was incredibly fast, with a sinewy build that translated into a painful blow as the tall man drove a bony elbow into Bolan’s chest. The Executioner allowed himself to fall back, absorbing the hit as he let his rifle fall, and moved to draw one of his knives….
The man surprised Bolan by leaping over him and continuing to flee. The Executioner rolled over and regained his footing, snapping up the rifle and trying to line up the shot. He caught a glimpse of the thin, hatchet-faced man as the evidently terrified Honduran soldier bolted through the smoke, running as if the devil himself were close behind. Bolan didn’t bother to try for the shot; the angle was bad, and too much cover stood between him and the rapidly fleeing trooper. Just as he had been unconcerned with a radio distress call, the Executioner wasn’t worried about a soldier or two running for help. By the time Orieza’s forces could muster a relief effort, Bolan would be long gone.
A bit chagrined despite himself, he was even more vigilant as he advanced on the holding cell. A heavy wooden bar set in steel staples secured the door. He lifted the bar and tossed it aside. The door couldn’t be opened from the inside, which meant there would be no guards within—unless their own people had locked them inside with the prisoners.
“Step away from the door!” he ordered in Spanish, careful to stand well aside. He let his rifle fall to the end of its sling, and drew both his Beretta and his portable combat light, holding the machine pistol over his off-hand wrist. There were no answering shots from within, so he chanced it and planted one combat boot against the barrier. The heavy door opened, and Bolan swept the dimly lit interior.
What he saw hardened his expression and brought a righteously furious gleam to his eyes. There were half a dozen men and women, ranging from their late teens to quite old, hanging by their wrists from chains mounted in the ceiling. They had been repeatedly flogged. A leather whip was hanging in the center of the room, from a nail set in a post that helped support the corrugated metal ceiling.
“Señor,” an older man called, his eyes bright. He fired off a sentence in Spanish so rapid that Bolan couldn’t catch it.
Bolan went to him. “Easy,” he said. “I’m going to let you down. It’s over. Ha terminado.”
“You are American?” the man asked in English.
Bolan looked at him, pulling the pin that secured the chains. The old man fell briefly to his knees before Bolan helped him up. “I’m a friend,” he said.
“You are sent from God.” The old man smiled. “And you are an American.”
Bolan didn’t answer that. Instead, he said, “Can you walk?”
“I can walk.” The man nodded. His lightweight clothes were bloody and ragged, stained a uniform dirty brown, and clearly, he had suffered badly at the hands of Orieza’s men. But he stood tall and defiant under Bolan’s gaze. “What is your name?”
“Just call me ‘friend.’”
“I am Jairo,” the old man said. He grinned. “Amigo.”
Bolan gestured to the others, who were watching with an almost eerily uniform silence. “Help me with them,” he said simply.
“Of course,” Jairo said. “Do not worry about them, amigo. They were strong. They will be all right.”
“Does anyone need medical attention?”
“I will make sure they get it,” Jairo said. “Our village is not far.”
“Village? Where?” Bolan asked.
He pointed. “Over the border.”
“You’re from Guatemala?”
“Sí. The soldiers raided our village and took us prisoner two days ago. It has been a very long two days.” Jairo worked his way among the others with Bolan, freeing the captured villagers from their chains. From what Bolan could see, the victims had indeed been cruelly tortured.
“You were fed? Given water?” he asked.
“Sí.” Jairo nodded.
That was interesting. Bolan completed his survey of the villagers. Many had bad wounds on their backs, and a couple, including Jairo, sported cigar and cigarette burns, but the damage was largely superficial. There had been no intent to kill these people.
“Jairo, did your captors say anything? Did they explain why they took you, or what they wanted from you?”
“No,” Jairo replied, shaking his head. “Nothing. Only that we would do well to tell others, if we lived, just what General Orieza will do to us if his men are resisted.”
So that was it, Bolan mused. Orieza and his people were pursuing an explicit strategy. It wasn’t atrocities for the sake of atrocities; Orieza’s shock troopers were softening up the resistance, both within Honduras and across the border, by instilling fear in the populations of both nations. Combined with the military raids, it was a very good strategy, from Orieza’s perspective. It would enable him to continue rolling over the Guatemalans and probably guarantee at least some cooperation, if not simply a lack of interference from the frightened locals.
“Did he say he might release some or all of you?” Bolan asked.
“No,” Jairo shook his head again. “But I think he would have. His heart, it did not seem to be in it. El Alto had a cruel look to him. He was not so soft as to let us live unless he meant to.”
“Who? ‘The Tall One’?”
“Sí,” Jairo said. “It was El Alto who did the whipping, and the talking. Always him. Never the other soldiers. I think he liked it. He looked, in his eyes, as if he enjoyed it.” Jairo shook his head yet again and spit on the ground in disgust. “He left not long before you found us. Had he wished, he could have cut our throats.”
A tall, cruel-looking man. It was very likely that El Alto, this torturer, was the same Honduran soldier Bolan had seen fleeing the camp. He made a mental note of that. If luck and the mercurial gods of combat were with him, he would encounter The Tall One again.
“Come on,” Bolan said to the old man. “Let’s get your people gathered together, treat their wounds and move them out. Can any of you handle a weapon?”
There were a few murmurs of assent. Jairo grinned. “We are not so helpless. We can see ourselves safely home. We will take what we need from the soldiers,” he said. “The ones who are outside.” He nodded to the door. “The ones you killed.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you, too, have a look in your eyes, amigo.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Sí.” Jairo nodded solemnly. “Su mirada es muerte. Your look is one of death.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The blue-tagged shock-troop guards outside General Orieza’s office snapped to attention as Roderigo del Valle stalked down the corridor. Dawn had broken, yellow and inviting, the sun’s rays streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the corridor. This had no effect