War Lord

Prologue

The man’s battered head rolled from side to side with the motion of the boat. A sound escaped his throat but nothing else had a chance of freedom. Not out here. Not now.

Benicio von Weiss regarded the man at his feet and then upended the chilled bottle of Evian. He took a long drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand while the lavender sea rolled slow and languid beneath the white hull of the Medusa, the über-luxurious Mangusta 130, his toy du jour. Von Weiss’s eyes moved on to survey the horizon and saw nothing but the crisp blue line where sea met sky and the small solitary green island of Queimada Grande. Brazil lay thirty-two kilometers to the west. Out to the east, six and half thousand kilometers of empty Atlantic Ocean stretching all the way to Africa.

A woman in a brief yellow bikini appeared in the doorway, distracting him. The sun had turned her hair gold and her skin bronze. She was tall and… accommodating.

‘Come and watch,’ he told her.

‘No thanks,’ she said, in passable Portuguese.

‘Really, I insist.’

‘Okay, if you insist.’ The woman lowered her sunglasses onto her face and sat on the leather bench seat, her mood one of disinterest.

Von Weiss caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a smoked gray panel over her shoulder and liked what he saw: a muscular build, blond hair and a new nose and laser peel that made him look closer to thirty than forty. He admired himself some more, lingering on the image before returning to the immediate business. ‘Maybe this will teach you a valuable lesson to take into your next life,’ he said.

Semi-conscious, the man, whose name was Diogo ‘Fruit Fly’ Jaguaribe, barely responded.

‘Having fingers that stick to other people’s money can get you into trouble, eh?’ Von Weiss bent down, lifted one of the man’s destroyed hands to give it a final inspection and then squeezed the thumb and forefinger together, producing a gratifying flinch from his captive, accompanied by a groan, as the knuckles parted once more.

The woman in the bikini barely moved.

Medusa’s tender, a white jet boat, maneuvered closer, its exhaust pipes gargling seawater. It gently nudged the mothership’s transom and von Weiss gave his men the nod. They picked up Jaguaribe and dragged him across the gap between the two craft, timing the transfer between the peaks of the swell, before throwing him onto the other vessel’s spotless teak floorboards.

‘Julio!’ von Weiss called out after taking another mouthful of Evian. Julio Salvadore, a heavy-set young man with a mean streak and a bright future, glanced up from the tender. Von Weiss twisted the top onto the plastic bottle and then tossed it underarm toward the smaller craft, an easy catch. ‘We don’t want our friend to die… of thirst.’

Salvadore gave von Weiss a grin. He had a good feeling in his balls — other people’s pain always had that effect. ‘Yes, O Magnifico.’ He turned to the man behind the wheel. ‘Go!’ The jet boat leaped high out of the water as the throttles were opened and it accelerated toward the island, sixty meters away.

‘Wake him!’ Salvadore shouted over the roar of the wind and the engine.

A man who had been using Jaguaribe as a footstool pulled the captive to his knees and slapped him several times before throwing a cup of seawater from a bucket into his face. The shock of it brought the captive back to full consciousness and he blubbered several times, blowing water from his swollen, blood-encrusted lips. The jet boat slowed as it closed with the rock shelf protruding from the island.

Satisfied that Jaguaribe was in control of his wits, Salvadore gave the signal and the man was tossed overboard into the deep blue water. ‘Swim, Fruit Fly!’ Salvadore shouted as the man bobbed to the surface in a plume of silver bubbles, floundering and choking as he struggled to keep his head above water. ‘Go! Swim!’ he repeated and pointed in the direction of the island. Jaguaribe swam toward the boat, but when the craft reversed a few meters he seemed to understand the implication and began struggling to the shore, his injuries and shredded clothing hampering his movements.

Salvadore watched patiently. Eventually, a wave lifted the man and pushed him up onto the black and gray rock shelf, where he rolled and tumbled and got dragged back into the ocean by the backwash. The next wave deposited him higher, but not before pushing him through a patch of oysters that tore skin off his stomach and legs. Then somehow the man managed to get his limbs working and drag himself higher before collapsing onto the rocks.

‘Closer,’ Salvadore said and the boat surged forward. When it was just off the shelf, Salvadore took the half-bottle of Evian and tossed it high and far so that it landed among the smooth rounded rocks above Jaguaribe’s head, causing half a dozen birds to leap screeching into the air.

Mucus and salt had gummed Jaguaribe’s eyes closed. Partially blinded, he tried to crawl but even the smallest movement sent bolts of pain shooting through his body. His hands in particular were spheres of agony. Blood and salt glued the remains of his torn clothing to the flayed skin on his belly and legs. He shifted a foot and the clothing pulled away from his raw wounds; the pain made him cry out. Tears welled in his eyes, loosening the mucus and allowing him to open them.

Birds were everywhere — darting through the air, rummaging in the bushes. Several were nesting on the ground in the dry scrub behind him. His head dropped. A half-full plastic bottle lay nearby. Water. Why had they left him with that? Jaguaribe was suddenly aware of his thirst. He licked his cracked lips and tasted salt and copper. He had to get to the bottle. Coming to his knees, he cried out again with the messages of pain the raw nerve endings sent to his brain. He tried to flex his wrecked fingers but they had swollen to the thickness of Cuban cigars. He reached for the Evian bottle and with great difficulty held it between his palms, using his teeth to remove the top, spitting it out. As he tilted his head back to drink, the bottle slipped from his mangled hands and rolled down the rock shelf and into the sea.

Jaguaribe swayed on the spot, not knowing what to do. He glanced at his wrist. His watch was gone, but the sun was heading toward the horizon. How long had he been lying there? His pants were wet. The smell… He’d urinated where he’d lain, above the waves.

They’d taken him aboard Medusa in the early hours of the morning, but this nightmare had begun much earlier than that. It had started when they’d dragged him from the bed of his favorite whore, his exhausted member still clasped within the warmth of her hand. The beating had started out on the road and continued in the back of the truck as it had sped through the streets of Rio. The serious abuse had begun in von Weiss’s mansion, in the cellar where the walls were lined with bottles of wine, the atmosphere controlled so that it was unnaturally cool and dry. It was also soundproof. Reeling from all the beatings, Jaguaribe had watched with morbid interest as they’d placed pencils between his fingers. Why were they doing that? he’d asked himself. The question had been answered when they’d then squeezed his fingers together until the joints had separated one at a time. When they were done with his fingers and the screaming had subsided, they’d worked on his knuckles. And when they’d finished with those, they’d gone back to his fingers, this time with a hammer, smashing them one by one.

Some time later they’d thrown him into the trunk of a car and driven for over an hour. The fact that they had not asked any questions frightened him. It was as if they were sure of his guilt. But he’d done nothing — nothing he could think of — that warranted this treatment. At dawn they had pulled him from the darkness of the trunk and he’d found himself in the forecourt of a house he recognized. It was von Weiss’s house on the beach at Angra dos Reis, a holiday town down the coast from Rio. Jaguaribe had seen pictures of this house, sleek and modern and worth millions. After dragging him inside, they’d then beaten him unconscious, and that’s all he remembered.

Jaguaribe turned and saw that von Weiss’s boat was close by, barely a hundred and fifty feet away across the water. Von Weiss himself was standing on the rear deck, watching him through binoculars. A woman was beside him. Where am I? Jaguaribe asked himself.

O Magnifico had the wrong man. He was being blamed for something done by someone else. Jaguaribe had not double-crossed him. The risks were too great, as his current situation proved.

A man joined von Weiss and the woman. It was that dangerous pig, Salvadore. There was a rifle cradled in his arms. Yes, he recognized it — how could he not? It was a British RPA 7.62mm sniper rifle — the urban model. Jaguaribe had bought it himself and had it dipped in eighteen-carat gold. A present for O Magnifico on the occasion of his birthday. The rifle flashed yellow in the afternoon sunlight.

Von Weiss held out his hand and Salvadore passed him the weapon. He dropped the magazine and checked that it was full before replacing it, pulling the bolt back and pushing it forward to chamber a round. He shouldered the weapon and then took a knee, resting the long golden barrel against a polished chrome cleat.

‘Can you see any of your little friends, O Magnifico?’ Salvadore asked.

Von Weiss scanned the bushes behind Jaguaribe. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘There’s one. It’s time to get our little fly’s feet moving.’ He cocked his head briefly toward the woman. ‘Watch this.’

Von Weiss took the rifle off safety and brought the telescopic sight’s crosshairs onto the bridge of Jaguaribe’s nose for a moment before shifting the fine black cross down and to the left. He held his breath and squeezed the trigger. There was a deafening crack as the rifle stock punched into his shoulder, and almost simultaneously an eruption of blood blossomed on Jaguaribe’s upper arm.

Salvadore complimented him. ‘Excellent shot, O Magnifico.’

‘Can I go inside now?’ the woman asked.

The force of the blow twisted Jaguaribe around violently. At the same instant a small bomb appeared to have gone off inside his arm, an explosion of flesh and blood. Shock paralyzed him for a handful of seconds, but then he clambered to his feet and staggered up the rock shelf, toward the low bushes where the birds were nesting and there was cover. There he sat for a full minute, behind the tree line, breathing heavily, his heart pounding, thorns in the soles of his bare feet. He tried to pluck them out but his wrecked fingers were useless. Von Weiss was an excellent marksman; if Benicio wanted him dead, then why was he still breathing? Wounding him had to have been the intention, Jaguaribe told himself. Which meant that perhaps he had not been brought here to die after all. Perhaps O Magnifico would send the boat for him and toast his bravery with a bottle of cachaça. Jaguaribe lifted his head above the bush to see what was going on out on the water, hoping to find the tender coming for him, his crimes, whatever they were, forgiven. But the small bay was empty, the tender still tethered behind the Medusa.

Jaguaribe saw von Weiss hand the rifle back to Salvadore, exchanging it for binoculars. And the flash of relief he’d felt only moments ago was gone, the dread rushing back. Von Weiss was watching him, waiting for something. But what? The pain in Jaguaribe’s arm was beginning to bite. It mingled with the jagged signals from his destroyed hands, clouding his judgment. What should I do? He caught sight of a blood trail across the rocks. It led to him, he realized. The length of his arm was now bright red and slick with blood oozing from the torn flesh and dripping from his fingers. Two birds began pecking at his naked ankles and bare toes, squawking and flapping their wings. Jaguaribe had to move again, get away from the birds and the shore, away from the golden rifle, away from whatever it was that von Weiss was waiting and watching for. Jaguaribe had no idea what that might be, but he was terrified. He got up and stumbled through the bushes, which were low near the shoreline but thicker and taller as he penetrated them, climbing away from the shore.

Jaguaribe trampled several birds’ nests before he found a trail and then he stopped, panting. A trail. It had to lead somewhere. He turned to look behind him. Between the leaves were now only glimpses of the sea sparkling through the gloom. He saw Medusa in one of those glimpses, von Weiss still standing there, watching.

Movement above distracted him and he glanced up. A small brown bird hopped along the branch and then flew away. Jaguaribe turned, took a step, and froze. Something moved under his foot. It writhed and jerked its small powerful body. He lifted his leg, slowly raising his foot, then jumped as the thing coiled and struck, its fangs punching into the fabric of his pants above his ankle. Jaguaribe kicked out his foot in midair and the snake — yes, it was a snake! — flew spinning into the bushes. Jaguaribe’s heart pounded rapidly. Was the snake venomous? He closed his eyes and swallowed and wondered again, Where am I? But then suddenly he knew. Benicio’s love of reptiles, the barren island in the middle of the ocean, the birds. Oh God, this was Queimada Grande. Jaguaribe screamed.

Von Weiss lowered the binoculars.

‘Did you hear that, O Magnifico?’

Yes, he had seen Jaguaribe stop and then the sound of a man on the edge of madness had come a moment later, striking out over the water. Von Weiss brought the binoculars back to his eyes and spotted his soon-to-be-ex associate a moment later, running on the spot, turning one way and then the other, knowing that he was trapped. It was comical.

O Magnifico was crazy for snakes. He kept them as pets. Jaguaribe recalled being brought to this island once before, years ago, to collect specimens — a special kind of snake. It was small and golden in color. Von Weiss had said that it was the most lethal in the world, and that it was everywhere on Queimada Grande. Jaguaribe stumbled a few steps forward. There was a viper farther down the path, moving toward him. Another hung from a branch up in the tree, close to where he had seen the bird. He turned, and saw another viper drop from the branch of a nearby bush onto the trail right where he had been standing. It moved toward him, drawn to him.

There was nowhere to go. Jaguaribe backed away from the path. There was a flash of movement in the corner of his eye — golden lightning. A viper sank its fangs into the soft flesh of his cheek, then dropped to the ground, disappearing into the leaf litter. Jaguaribe shrieked. The poison — it was as if someone had whipped his face with a length of barbed wire. Running forward now, Jaguaribe brought his wrecked hands to his head, which was on fire, the venom moving through his blood vessels like boiling acid. He staggered, falling into a bush, and felt the needlepoints of another snake’s fangs puncturing his lips. He screamed again. The pain, excruciating.

Jaguaribe’s panic overwhelmed him. He crawled farther into the bushes, feeling as though his skin was being peeled away from his skull. A large snake dropped down from a low tree bough and sank its fangs into the soft padding around his waist. As he struggled to his feet it got caught up in his shirt and bit him over and over, emptying its venom glands into the flesh around his ribs.

When the poison hit his brain Jaguaribe dropped to his knees, the pain like slashing knives inside his head. In the small part of his mind still functioning, he was aware that he was shaking uncontrollably. And then the last vestige of consciousness that was Diogo Jaguaribe blew out like a small candle, leaving only nothingness.

‘He didn’t survive long,’ said Salvadore, walking behind von Weiss up the track toward the body prostrate on the ground. The skin on the dead man’s face was purple and the tongue swollen, filling his mouth.

‘No,’ von Weiss replied. ‘Not long. Exciting, yes?’ He glanced over his shoulder at Salvadore and snapped, ‘Be careful! You nearly stepped on one!’

Salvadore hopped over the snake as it struck at his boot, its head glancing off the plastic. ‘I am sorry, O Magnifico,’ said Salvadore uneasily. The boss’s passion for these vile creatures was something he found unsettling. It was an obsession, perhaps even a weakness. He pointed at the leaf litter just off the path. ‘There’s one there on the ground, see?’

Von Weiss deftly scooped the adolescent golden snake into the bend of the hook and deposited it in a bag.

And then the body on the ground moved.

‘Did you see that? Is it possible he is not dead?’ asked Salvadore, eyes wide.

Von Weiss lifted a corner of Jaguaribe’s shirt with the hook, revealing half a dozen snakes coiled on the corpse’s back, soaking up the remaining heat. Another viper made its way out from inside the dead man’s pants. Salvadore shivered.

‘They’re pit vipers, drawn to warm blood. Nothing attracts them like the heat of live flesh,’ said von Weiss, handing the sack to Salvadore. ‘Hold this.’ Von Weiss dropped two snakes into it.

‘The Navy will find him,’ Salvadore said. ‘There will be an investigation.’

‘We’re taking him back with us. I would like to see what the venom does to muscle tissue.’

‘Yes, O Magnifico,’ said Salvadore, his skin crawling as he watched another snake wriggle its way out from inside Jaguaribe’s pants.

As the crowd packing the theater applauded the lavish production, Alabama and several other girls made their way quickly to the back of the stage, deftly avoiding the many holes in the floor where other sets had their anchor points.

Alabama noticed that her nipples were standing out like pacifier teats. All the topless ‘talls’ had their headlights on tonight, she noticed. She didn’t think anyone out in the audience would be concerned about it. Something must be in the air.

The costume Alabama wore for this scene was no more than a bikini bottom and a skimpy sarong open at the front, both items dripping with blue cut glass, green Swarovski crystal, and gold and silver sequins. And the headdress was enormous. She called it ‘the dodo’. It weighed more than a large Thanksgiving turkey, was covered in more cut glass and Swarovski crystals, and sprouted alternating blue and black bands of ostrich feathers. The effort required to keep the dodo perched on her head kept her warm, and though Alabama knew how heavy it was, she was damned if the audience was going to be aware of the discipline it took to manage it.

Alabama was just over six feet tall with auburn hair, blue eyes, a perfect thirty-six-inch C-cup, and large, eye-catching pink nipples that were the envy of the other ‘talls’. She’d come to Vegas three years ago from Omaha, looking for work as a dancer, which wasn’t easy when you towered over almost everyone including most of the male partners. But employment had been found eventually, in the cast of the famous Donn Arden’s Jubilee Showgirls, and she’d managed to hold on to it despite the competition from new girls turning up on a weekly basis hoping to break in.

Alabama hadn’t intended to stay long. Her plan had been to get some experience and move on after a season or two. But that had all changed after she’d met Randy Sweetwater, a pilot just out of the Air Force, who’d been stationed at nearby Nellis Air Force Base. Meeting him had sealed her commitment to Vegas and the Showgirls — at least for the foreseeable future. They had planned for Randy to get a job with the airlines, but right now he was making incredible money ferrying private planes around the country, and sometimes to other parts of the world, for a local Las Vegas aviation broker.

When she reached the change rooms, heat laced with suggestions of physical exertion and lavender soap billowed from the doorway. One of the stagehands passed Alabama a bottle of water. ‘Thanks,’ she told him, taking a swig as two of the dressmakers lifted the dodo off her head so that she could enter the room. Most of the other topless talls were already sitting at their mirrors, touching up makeup, re-gluing an eyelash or two, gossiping, joking, hurrying through their between-scenes routines, preparing for the show’s finale.

Alabama picked up a small battery-operated fan and held it in front of her face for a few moments before giving her underarms a turn. She took another long drink of water then changed out of her blue and green costume and into the briefest of bikinis covered almost entirely in white crystal and gold sequins, and a matching choker. The headdress that went with this ensemble was a yellow number and would be lowered onto her head and shoulders by three stagehands just prior to her appearance on stage.

‘Three minutes!’ called the stage manager.

‘’Bama, honey,’ said Sugar, a black girl from New Orleans with a Cajun father, ‘a package come for y’all. It’s at yo’ station.’ Sugar was new to the show and she was also currently the girl all the straight males in the cast were trying to screw. She was short by the talls’ standards — barely five eleven — but her proportions were perfect and her glossy milk-coffee skin had the warm sheen of silk. Sugar swung her hips as she walked, which made her butt and breasts jiggle. Yep, thought Alabama, Sugar was ridiculously cute and deserved all the attention she got. The black girl glanced over her shoulder and caught Alabama admiring her, which caused a hint of mischief to raise the corners of Sugar’s full lips. Alabama had joked with Randy that maybe he should be jealous of Sugar. He might come home one day and find the Cajun beauty in bed with her, taking his place. This conversation had ended up where talk like that usually did — with them fucking, the bedroom windows open to the desert heat, their sweat soaking the sheets and the taste of each other in their mouths. The memory of his last night before taking off for Australia came back to Alabama as she dressed, and a shiver ran up her back as a warm wetness bloomed between her legs.

‘Is it hot in here?’ she asked aloud, snatching up the fan for another cooling blast.

The package Sugar mentioned was indeed on her chair: a FedEx bag. Who would have sent it? Randy would still be in the air, so it couldn’t be from him. Intriguing, she thought.

‘Two minutes!’ came the call.

Several of the girls left the room to get their headdresses fitted. Alabama glanced in the mirror. Her makeup was fine. You’ve got plenty of time, she told herself. Reaching for a pair of dressmaker’s scissors, she sliced off one end of the bag and found a Styrofoam box inside. Styrofoam? Now even more curious, she cut the tape securing the lid on the box and opened it. What the…? Dry-ice vapor surged out and rolled around the rim of the box, onto the seat of the chair and then onto the floor, and she felt the coldness of it on her feet and toes. Alabama turned the portable fan onto the box to clear away the white mist and get a better view of whatever was inside. A few chunks of dry ice sat on top of what appeared to be a sheet of clear plastic wrap frosted up with the cold.

Now running out of time, Alabama picked up the box and tipped it out on the floor. A black plastic container came out upside down, along with more chunks of dry ice. It was the sort of container steak or ground beef bought from the supermarket came packaged in. Was this some kind of practical joke? She turned the container over and wiped away the frost on the plastic, and a scream strangled in her throat. Inside the container was a human hand. On one of its fingers was an Air Force Academy ring. She recognized it. Randy’s.