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Larra disentangled herself from her
lover’s arms. She had been
with Grey for more than a week now, and despite being a little weak from
the lingering effects of her wound, she felt fully
recovered. Her swim in the magical
pool had seemed to speed up the healing
process. She had been away from
her friends long enough.
Grey awoke. He always slept very
lightly. He smiled as he looked
at the ravishing woman he had made love to the previous
night. He and Larra had mated
many times in the past few days. It
was one of his more memorable
experiences.
“I feel strong enough to travel now,” Larra
said.
Grey nodded. He knew it would
eventually come to this. “You
wish to return to your companions,” he
said.
“They will be looking for me.
They are probably extremely concerned over my
disappearance. I have to get
back to the base camp to let them know I am
alright.”
“I will show you the way. It
is not too far.
About a day’s journey from
here. We can start as
soon as you are ready.”
Larra nodded. It would have been
wonderful to spend more time with Grey high in the treetops and bathe in
the marvelous pool, but she had a duty to her friends to
return. She could not allow them
to search fruitlessly through the forest for her, and she knew that was exactly
what they would do until she showed up.
She had already selfishly delayed her return simply to enjoy more
sexual pleasure with Grey.
They ate a light breakfast. Grey
carried Larra through the treetops for part of the way, but eventually came
to a part of the forest where the trees were spread too far apart for that
mode of travel. After that they
walked.
The rainforest was a marvelous place.
All around them colorful birds flitted through the trees and monkeys
and other primates screamed at them from the highest
branches. It was a place of
incredible beauty as sunbeams streamed down to the forest floor through gaps
in the canopy. It was like walking
through some gigantic green cathedral.
Larra could well appreciate why Grey had decided to make the forest
his home. Civilization had little
that could match the natural splendor of the equatorial
forest.
They stopped briefly for lunch and then continued their
trek. They were not going back
exactly the way that Larra had entered the canyon where she had been
captured. Larra guessed that
Grey was intentionally trying to confuse her about the direction of the spring
that prolonged life. But it might
also be the most direct route. With
Grey’s climbing ability, physical barriers did not present as much of
an obstacle as they might to others.
Eventually, however, they found themselves in familiar
territory. Larra began to recognize
certain landmarks. She had a
natural ability that way.
Geographical details stuck in her
mind. She was sure that she could
find the way back to Grey’s mystical found of
youth. And she was sure that
Grey did not know this, as she had never commented on her ability to memorize
landmarks.
They were walking down a narrow forest
trail. Larra knew that the camp
could not be more than a few hundred feet
ahead. Suddenly Grey stopped,
holding up his hand to signal a halt.
He crouched low and moved stealthily
forward. Larra emulated
him. Grey’s senses were
more highly developed than those of ordinary
men. Larra knew he had a good
reason for exercising caution. They
crept slowly forward, parting the vegetation in front of
them. Gradually the forest thinned
out and Larra found herself looking at her camp from behind a screen of
leaves.
“Germans!” Larra
whispered. Grey
nodded. There in front of them
was the camp, but none of the original members of Larra’s expedition
seemed to be present. Instead
everywhere they looked there was a young man with military
bearing. Most of them were armed
and they could be heard quite clearly speaking their native
tongue.
It was clear to Larra and Grey what had
happened. The Germans had overrun
the camp. But what had happened to Larra’s three female
companions? Larra was filled
with dread. She had experienced
first hand what Nazis could do to helpless
women.
She nudged Grey. “It’s
best we just watch the camp for awhile until we learn where my friends
are.”
Grey nodded. Slowly they both
moved away from the edge of the clearing.
There were a number of tall trees overlooking the
camp. Anyone of them would do
as a place to observe the camp.
Larra and Grey clambered to the upper branches of one of the forest
giants. Their vantage point afforded
them a fine view of the entire camp.
Except for the Germans the entire camp seemed
deserted. Larra could see no
sign of a guard on any of the tents, nor was there any sort of enclosure
that could accommodate her missing
friends. She and Grey watched
the camp for a couple of hours.
It became clear that her friends were not in the
camp. Larra began to have dreadful
thoughts about what might have happened to
them. Had they all been killed
by the Germans? There was only
one way to find out.
In a whispered conversation, Larra discussed the problem with
Grey. “We’ll wait until
night and then pick one of them off,” he
said. Larra
nodded. They sat together and
waited until night fell.
Sometime around
It was almost too easy. The guard
never knew what hit him. Grey
came up behind him at the same time that Larra lunged out of the shadows
and struck from the front.
Grey’s muscular right arm encircled the guard’s throat choking
off any cry. At the same time
his left arm reached out and caught the man’s rifle before it could
hit the ground. Larra drove her
arm straight into the guard’s diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him
and partiality paralyzing his breathing.
Struggling for breath, the guard
collapsed. Grey threw him over
his massive shoulders and carried him off into the
night.
They carried the guard a few hundred yards from the
camp. Far enough
away that any cry for help would not be
heard. Grey dumped the
man on the ground and quickly trussed him
up. By the time he was finished,
the man was beginning to revive.
For several minutes the German fought to get his
breath. Eventually, his breathing
returned to normal. Larra knelt
in front of him; drawing her sheath knife she placed it at his throat, pressing
the point against his Adam’s apple hard enough to draw
blood. She wanted the man to
have no illusions about the seriousness of the
situation.
Larra spoke to him in fluent German.
“Listen carefully, I am only going to
say this once. I am going to
ask you a series of questions. How
you answer will determine whether you live or you
die. Do you
understand?”
“Yes,” the man nodded.
Larra could actually feel him
trembling.
“How many white women were there in the camp that you
captured?”
“One.”
The man was sweating
profusely.
“Just
one?
Describe her.” Larra
was not particularly surprised that only one of her companions would be in
the camp. It was very likely
that they would be trying to find her.
Still, the man could be lying.
“She was very pretty, with red hair,” said the quaking
German.
“That would be Amy,” Larra
thought.
“Where is she now?”
“Klein took her away. She
was supposed to be kept under guard, but when Standartenfuehrer Steiner left
Klein took her into the jungle.”
“Why did he do that?” demanded
Larra.
“I…I don’t know.”
The German was on the verge of
panic. Larra had unconsciously
pressed the point of the knife more tightly against his
neck. Realizing what she was
doing, She relaxed the pressure a
little.
“When did Klein leave?”
“About two days ago.”
“Who else went with him?”
“He took about five men. Those
he thought he could trust.”
This was interesting.
“Can’t he trust all of you?” asked
Larra.
“No, most of us don’t like
Klein. He is
Gestapo. We are
S.S.”
“Where did Steiner go?”
Larra continued.
“He went to look for the other
women. Up the
canyon.”
“How many men did he take with
him?”
“About
twenty.”
“How many men are left in
camp.”
“About seventy I guess, not counting the black
porters.”
Larra pressed the knife a little harder.
“You better guess right.
Now I want you to tell me all you know about the
camp.”
Larra continued to question him for another
half-hour. Checking and then
cross checking the man’s answers.
Finally, satisfied that he was telling the truth, Larra turned to
Grey. He had remained silent
the whole time.
“What do you think?” Larra asked.
“I think he is telling the truth.
It does not appear that your friends are in the
camp. I would guess that Amy
is in the greatest danger, but I could be
wrong. The others have been gone
for several days.”
“I agree,” said Larra.
“I think we had better go after Klein and Amy first and then
see if we can find Katie and Jia Li.
But first I think we should do something about the Germans in the
base camp.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Larra explained her plan. There
was still plenty of darkness left.
Grey nodded. It was a
good plan. It should
work.
“You stay here,” Larra said to the hog-tied
German. We will be back in about
an
hour.”
Sturmscharfuehrer
Schwartz awoke suddenly. He listened
intently. Something had awakened
him. Quickly he swung out of
his cot, pulling up his pants.
Still fumbling with his suspenders, he stepped though the doorway
of the tent. Outside the tropical
darkness was still and warm. But
Schwartz was sure that he had heard
something. He called to the man
on duty. “Schiller, come
here!”
There was no answer.
“Schiller!” he called
again. “Where the Hell was
everybody?”
Schwartz’s tent was right next to the stockpile of arms and ammunition
that the Germans had brought with them.
There should have been a guard on it at all times, but there was no
one. As a matter of fact, no
one seemed to be on guard anywhere.
By this time Schultz’s alarmed shouting had brought several other men
out of their tents. Several of
them were carrying flashlights and a couple had lit
lanterns. “Get everyone
up!” shouted Schultz.
Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, Schultz caught a flash of red from
the direction of the weapons cache.
“Christ!” yelled
Schultz. “Get
down!”
He threw himself flat just in time.
The night was lit up by a series of thunderous
explosions. Covering his head
with his hands, Schultz hugged the ground as explosion after explosion shook
the camp.
Larra
smiled. She could not see
Grey’s face in the darkness, but she guessed that he was smiling
too. “I think that went
off quite well,” she said.
An especially bright explosion lit up the
night. She saw Grey
nod. Looking back toward the
camp they were treated to an impressive pyrotechnic
display. A series of explosions
shook the air as most of the German’s ammunition supply went
up. Bullets flew off into the
night sky, several of them passing quite close to the two
onlookers. “Maybe we better
move back a little bit more,” Larra
suggested.
Grey laughed. “Good idea,”
he agreed.
Getting into the camp had been relatively
easy. It was apparent that the
Germans were not expecting any trouble.
They had not even missed the man that Grey and Larra had
kidnapped. Silently they moved
among the scattered guards, picking them off one at a
time. There were so few of them
that they were not even within hearing distance of one
another. In about half an hour
they had overpowered and rendered unconscious every guard in the
camp.
Then they had moved to the heap of munitions near the center of the
camp. Larra found a box of high
explosives. A little bit of
scrounging in the dark with the aid of a flashlight taken from one of the
captured guards located a length of fuse.
She ran the fuse back from the cache and then struck a
match. After that she and Grey
had exited the camp as quickly as they
could.
The result was very satisfactory.
With their main cache of arms and ammunition destroyed, Larra expected
that she had dealt the Germans expedition a crushing
blow. In addition, there would
be the psychological damage caused by the fact that she and Grey had been
able to sneak into the camp, carry out their mission, and depart without
even being detected.
Grey and Larra returned to where they had left the soldier that they had
captured. Without a word they
cut the ropes binding his feet and then disappeared into the
darkness. He should be able to
find his way back to camp by himself.
The fireworks display would guide him in the right
direction.
Grey and Larra sought a place where they could sleep out the rest of the
night. As soon as light broke
they would have a more difficult task; that of finding Amy and the Gestapo
officer called Klein.
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