Chapter 2
General Carlos Mendez woke up in between his two concubines, reaching out with both hands to caress taut buttocks. It was his policy to deflower as many girls as possible, but rarely did one make a lasting impression on him that was strong enough for him to welcome her into his little harem.
Lolo had Castillian blood, and had blonde hair and a very pale fine body. Christina was a mix of Latin and Indian, with fine olive skin and a tall womanly body. Both of them were addicted to the good life that General Carlos Mendez offered them. All of the cocaine they wished. Fine clothes, and the status of queens inside of the General's limited world. Often the General would have his men rip through a town or village, looting and stealing. At such times, he would make gifts of various jewels and baubles, which his two concubines wore proudly on their well oiled and pampered young bodies.
The General reached for Lola's full breasts, waking her up by tweaking the titty tips.
"What? Oh, General!" the blonde girl cooed. She smiled, reaching for the bowl of grapes that was sitting on the small table next to the bedrolls. She popped one in her mouth, smiling.
"And how can I help my General welcome in his day?" the concubine wondered out loud, licking her lips as she swallowed the grape.
Carlos Mendez snapped his fingers and pointed to the box of cigars that were on a nearby chair. The girl reached for them, took a cigar out of the box, and prepared it for her master. He'd taught her how, and took pleasure in watching as the feminine blonde bit off the tip, put it in her mouth, and held a wooden stick match to the other end. She twirled the cigar, to get an even glow.
"Bueno! Bueno Lola, my little girl. You are good at sucking on the things you love, are you not?"
She smiled wickedly, handing him the smoking cigar.
"I am good only at pleasing my General," she cooed softly.
He looked around the tent, which was decorated elaborately. The General and his men were forced, since defecting from the government, to live in a jungle camp. Not many people inhabited this terrain, because it was hostile and threatening. But the General felt secure here. He knew that government troops did not venture past the mountains and into the jungle here, unless it was necessary. And even then, as a rule, they respected this terrain as tribal turf. This section of jungle, before the General arrived, was ruled by the descendants of ancient Mayans, who had no use for governments or outside influences. They tolerated the General and his men, because Mendez gave them gifts, and kept his men from bothering them in any way.
The General wanted to set up his camp inside the sanctuary of the ancient ruins that sat at the base of the mountain, but the local tribe warned him that if he did, they would be compelled to kill him and his soldiers. So Mendez respectfully picked another camp spot. He did not like being out in the open, and searched for days for this quiet, well-hidden little clearing in the dense jungle. Here, he set up his tents and shacks in a broad circle, with his own dwelling in the center for safety. The General had a high wall around his tent, forming a private garden in the rear where his concubines could sun themselves in the nude if they wished.
Electrical generators, which ran on gasoline, provided lights and radio power. Mendez ran his little empire without leaving his private space much. He was content to rule from this headquarters. Palace intrigue proliferated in this tiny monarch. The General demanded complete respect from his soldiers. To disobey him was to die. Everyone knew this, and none dared challenge his absolute rule.
The Mayans were masters of metal work and irrigation, and their descendants kept up the old ways as much as possible. The General would give them stolen gold, and they would hand him back elaborately worked gold jewelry. They would take a percentage. But what they made was much more valuable than what they took, and often the General used these beautiful objects to buy cooperation from important people in the world outside his domain.
The locals grew their own food, and surplus harvest was sold. So the General could feed his army without much effort, and keep things quiet and well running. It was an ideal situation. The government could not flush him out. And he had very little reason to make himself vulnerable by leaving.
To supplement his income, and gain weapons, the General engaged in the cocaine trade. Not in a big way. He was far from a professional. But he did have a little number going, which provided his men with modern weapons and crisp uniforms.
It was easy for a man in his position. He'd buy coca leaves from one of the hill-tribes. He employed a few chemists to convert the leaves into the finished product, in a jungle laboratory under his protection. The white powder was then packed on pack mules and taken into the city, for sale to the gringos who flew in with their suitcases stuffed with yankee dollars.
Once that was accomplished, the General would contact one of the many international arms dealers that also visited the city, and make a trade. Cash for weapons. Sometimes he had the merchants come to him. Sometimes he went to them. When he did leave the jungle, it was with a troop of soldiers clinging to him at every turn.
The lovely blonde was between his legs, sliding her fingers over his prick and smiling at him. "What can I do for my General as he smokes his breakfast cigar?" she said, secretly pleased that he'd woken her up instead of Christina. The two concubines competed full time for his attention.
"You can put my prick between those big pale tits, Lola," he groaned, watching with passive pleasure as the young girl worked her ass off to please him.
Suddenly there was a knock.
"What is it?" Mendez barked.
"It is I, General. Tico! I must speak with you this morning."
"Wait a moment, hombre!" the General yelled. He turned his attention back to Lola. "Make me cum quickly, Blondie. I have work to do today."
"Sure," she said, smiling boldly, cupping her breasts and pushing them together with his prick between. Lola knew how to make him spurt. She'd been with him for a year now, and knew all the secrets that delighted him.
She bent down and fluttered the tip of his prick with her tongue, holding the long shaft between her titties. It didn't take long.
"Yesss!"
The General groaned and twitched. His dick throbbed and he began spurting.
"I want to bathe you with cum, my Lola. Open that pretty mouth for mee!"
The girl obeyed him happily, showing her tongue.
The General's jizz spurted onto the blonde's moist flesh, on her lips and tongue, on her cheeks and brow. A pearl of jizz landed on her nose.
"Ohhh! That's the way, Lola! Mouth open for me. Now take it in and swallow the last few drops!"
Lola grabbed the ejaculating prick and forced it deep into her mouth. She felt his hand on her neck. The General liked to feel her swallow him.
"You are not to wash until I tell you, Lola. It is good for your complexion to wear my cum on your face and tits. Now go back to bed. I have things to do. I will call you when I need you."
Lola wiggled out of the way, falling back into the bedroll next to Christina. She felt a wicked satisfaction knowing that Christina would wake up and see that the General's jizz was all over her face. She would know that he'd chosen her for his morning pleasures.
"And what do you want of me, Tico?" General Mendez barked, ushering his henchman into the tent.
"General, I have heard news of Captain Noble. It is said that he and his men are moving into the neighboring areas and are asking questions about you."
The General turned red with anger. Captain Noble was a serious threat, because he was a unifying factor between the current government and the main rebel factions. Captain Noble was well respected by the freedom fighters, as well as the government. He represented those in the government who agreed with the freedom fighters, and wanted things to change for the better in their land.
It was essential to General Mendez, that those two factions never merge. Because if they did, they would wipe him out easily. He was totally dependent on the chaos that swept through the land. Captain Noble was a threat to that chaos.
"Are you sure of this, Tico?"
"Our spies have alerted me, General. What do you want us to do? Your men are at your disposal."
Mendez puffed on his cigar. For a laugh, he touched the glowing tip of the stogie to Christina's butt cheek.
"Yeeowoww!" Christina yelped, waking up instantly. Her dark eyes sparkled as she glared around her wildly. "What the fucking hell are you doing?" she spit at the General.
"You sleep all day, Bitch! Go and get coffee for me and Tico! Now!" he barked. "Move it or lose it!"
Christina knew better than to talk back. Rubbing her hot butt, she got quickly to her feet and walked out of the tent to get coffee.
The girl returned in a few minutes, holding a silver tray. On it were shot glasses of very strong Peruvian coffee, and tall glasses of ice cold water.
The General threw back a shot glass of the strong sweet coffee, then washed it down with the entire glass of cold water. Tico did the same.
The General's eyes popped wide open. That was strong kick-ass coffee. Generally a shot glass was enough to make one ready to climb as mountain. When Mendez wanted his men to fight for him, he gave them coffee with a pinch of coca in it to fortify them.
"This requires some thought, Tico. Leave me alone. Come back in an hour and I will tell you what I want."
"Si. Oh, General, there is one bit of news that might interest you."
"What's that?"
"Captain Noble's daughter has returned from the Mission. She is living in the settlement outside the Fort."
Mendez smiled wickedly. "You are sure of this?"
Tico made the thumbs up. "Bet your life on it."
"No, Tico, bet your own. If I risk men on a mission like that and she is not there, you are in very deep shit."
"But General, you do not need to risk a lot of men. I was thinking of going for her myself," Tico let out, grinning with confidence.
The General spit. "Tico, you are a young fool. Do you think that Captain Noble would leave his daughter in a place that is not fortified and protected?"
Tico shrugged. "He does not know that we know she is there."
The General laughed. "He is no fool, Tico. Be sure of one thing. Captain Noble is no fool."
Tico left.
The General sat back, puffing on his cigar and thinking of the lovely young girl that was Captain Noble's daughter. Angelique was her name. The General saw her once, a little over a year ago, in the city. He was in disguise, moving through the city with his men on a mission to unload some cocaine for fresh M16s. They were walking down one of the narrow Backstreet, when they saw a military formation marching down the Avenue. They watched from the intersection. Captain Noble was being honored on this day, receiving waves of affirmation from the people as he was paraded through the city. At his side was his lovely wife and their daughter, the beautiful Angelique. She was only seventeen or so, back then, with long honey colored hair and slashing dark eyes. A virginal white cotton dress covered her latent sexuality. The General eyed her hungrily, able to make out the outline of her titty tips through the thin cotton of her dress. He recalled thinking that one day he would like to capture her. What a treasure she would make in his bed! What a joy it would be to torment the illustrious Captain Noble!
But the General had his own problems, and he soon forgot about this dream of his. Now, sitting in the solitary luxury of his tent, surrounded by his men and his concubines, he once again let himself have that dream of conquest over Captain Noble.
Yes, it was time to show the Captain that he was a mere mortal, that he could be controlled and beaten by his military superior.
General Carlos Mendez told Tico to have the troops in battle fatigues and mustered in two hours for his inspection. The General's ego was often fanned by these exercises, and he held them often.
As the hour approached, Mendez fired up his passions by commanding Lola to bind the beautiful Christina, with her buttocks up.
The General liked to spank and whip his bitches. It gave him great pleasure. He also liked to keep his men standing at attention in the sun, waiting for him.
Lola was only too pleased to comply. Since she was always competing with Christina, it did the blonde girl good to watch Christina squirm under the General's lashings.
"Tie her tight, Blondie," Mendez barked, watching as Lola lashed Christina to the central post in the tent.
The dark-haired girl was bound with her wrists and ankles together, so that she was arched over and jutting her buttocks up.
Mendez walked around her, gloating in her helplessness. He came down hard with his jackboots, scaring the bound beauty. Then he cracked his whip in the air before her face.
Christina's eyes widened in fear as the whip whistled through the air.
"Please, General. Not hard! Please don't hurt me!"
"You are mine, Bitch. If I wish to hurt you, I will."
"But haven't I been good to you, General?"
"Si, my dear. Very good to me. Still, it pleases me to see you dance under the lash."
CRACK!
The dark-haired girl's spine tightened and she hissed through her pearly white teeth, the lips moving up, the nostrils flaring wildly.
CRACCKK!!!!
Christina's taut body danced to the tempo of his driving whip, as it left welts on her left buttock cake, then the right, and then across her upper back.
CRACCCKKKK!
The whip splashed over her lower back, making the girl's titties quiver as her spine tightened.
The General walked around the girl, observing her glistening olive skin. She was obviously close to fainting, so he let her catch her breath. It pleased him to see her full breasts heaving as she took in air.
CRACCCCKKKK!
The whip fell over her butt cakes again, criss crossing the former welts. The General took the whip's long leather handle and placed it to her chin. He lifted Christina's face, so that her dark eyes looked into his.
"Are you my slave, Christina?"
"Yes, General, of course I am," she let out between gasps.
"That's right. You are mine. I am going to untie you now. Be a very good girl for me, Christina, and I will not whip you again until the whip marks heal."
"Yes, General. Yes."
Mendez stepped back and nodded towards Lola. "Untie her, Lola. I want you to rub oil, gently, over Christina's flesh. Make sure you pay attention to the welts, girl. And don't hurt her. Only I may hurt my bitches."
"Si, General."
"Lola, my blonde bitch. Be warned. If you hurt Christina, I will whip you until you faint."
"Si, General. I will be careful."
Lola noted the smirk on Christina's face and knew that her fate was in Christina's hands. If the dark-haired girl complained, the General would whip her silly.
Mendez stomped out of the tent, after placing down the whip and picking up his walking crop. He stepped into the clearing, where his men were lined up in formation.
"TenHup!"
General Mendez paraded past the long rows of troops, admiring their crispness. They were well trained soldiers, who, before defecting, had distinguished themselves many times in combat.
These men were the source of his power, and yet the General treated them with detached contempt. He knew that being hard to please would force each man to seek his approval desperately. It was a tactic, and it worked. The men fell all over themselves for an approving word. And once in a while the General would decorate one of them with a medal, for bravery.
Among the men, these medals were the very manifestation of approval, and they competed with each other for medals while doing the General's work.
"Pretty soon a few of you will be asked to volunteer for a very dangerous mission," the General announced. "Would any of you like to register for this mission now?"
Almost every hand went up. The General smiled.
"I am proud of my men," he said. He turned to Tico. "You see, Tico, what a lucky man I am. Pick four of them, and they will accompany you."
"I can do it alone," Tico insisted.
The General frowned. "I want this mission to succeed, Tico. You will do it my way."
"Si, Sir!" Tico saluted and clicked his heels.
The General saluted and turned to his men. "You all pass inspection today. I want your weapons cleaned and oiled. You might be needing them soon."
"YESSSSS SIR!"
The General saluted and clicked his heels. "As you were, men."
"AT EASE!" Tico echoed.
Mendez walked back into his tent, then out the back and into his garden. Christina was sprawled out on a cot, being oiled by Lola.
"Is she doing it softly, Christina?" Mendez inquired.
"So far," Christina let out softly, barely catching her breath.
The General sat on a big wicker chair and lit a fresh cigar. He allowed himself a dreamy interlude, reflecting on the delights in store for him with the daughter of Captain Noble.
Tico and his men were wearing camy fatigues, to make them fit into the jungle unnoticed. They swept past the mission just before dawn. No one was up yet. No one saw a thing. A few of the priests woke early, but not that early. The men moved along the narrow dirt road that went to the village. Once, a vehicle came and they moved off the road to watch it pass.
Tico was afraid of military activity, but it was just one of the local sugar growers. A few of them made enough money to use jeeps as transportation. Tico smiled. There were no guards around the village. At least none that he could see. He signaled for his men to spread out and observe the area, while he set up his field radio and pulled out a comic book. He would have to kill an hour, waiting for a report.
Tico would have just charged in there and took the girl. But he had to follow the General's orders or, successful or not, he would have his ass whipped. One of the men was sure to tell Mendez that Tico had not obeyed. So to play it safe and protect himself, Tico waited.
Tropical birds chirped. Cocks crowed. The morning sun was beginning to break through the last shadows of night.
One of his main men, Juan, came back and made his report.
"The village is not as defended as the General imagined," Juan said. "About fifteen men are in the barracks tents. They are sleeping." Juan winked. "Two women are in the tent that Angelique Noble is in. They sleep on either side of her. There should be no problem," the man said, hefting his M16.
"Juan, we do not want to fire a single shot. General Mendez told me that it is vital we carry this off as professionals. We must obey his wishes. Not as shot, you understand?"
Juan looked a bit upset at this strategy. It was clear to Tico, that Juan would have rather gone in loud and nasty and cleared the area. The General, as mad and blood thirsty as he could be, would rather operate as a sneak thief in the night. He had great respect for the Corsican bandits that he always read about in his big tent. The General was a complex man. He was also a vicious dog. One had to anticipate his moods, or die in an effort to have him understand.
Tico was a master at walking that tightrope, and for that reason he was second in command.
"Alright Juan, I want you to station men in a loose circle around this entire settlement, so that if something goes wrong and we have to leave in a hurry, anyone chasing us will run into a wall of M16 fire."
"And what of the grenade launchers?"
"We won't be needing them, Juan. Keep a lid on your desire to blow things up, for now." Tico shook his head as Juan slid into the thick jungle brush, to pass on the word and place his men.
Men like Juan came in handy on occasion, and he was well thought of by Mendez. But Juan had to be kept in line. He came from a family of professional soldiers; men who only moved up in the ranks through severe acts of lunacy and mayhem. Juan was a born killer. Sometimes such a man could be useful. Often, he was a problem. If Juan was with him the other day, when he raped that pretty village girl by the river, the girl would not have lived.
Tico believed firmly, that if you are going to do something like that, do it alone. It was unlikely that the girl would talk. In their culture, her shame would be as great as his.
He had no fear of being caught. If someone blew the whistle, the General would smile and wink and tell him to keep his dick in his pants.
Juan made a birdcall, and Tico looked up in the trees in the direction the sound came from. The field radio crackled and then Juan's voice came through.
"Tico, we are in position. What now?"
"Now you and I will go in, Juan. Meet me over by the wooden building to our left."
"The sun will be breaking out full in the sky soon," Juan said. "Someone might see us. Please, Tico, make sure you are ready to use your weapon."
"Shit, Juan. Don't worry about me. Just do what you're told and try not to use yours."
The men crept into the cluster of buildings and tents without any trouble. There were a few village dogs, but they did not seem to mind the intrusion, and went about their business.
The building that their prize slept in was half wood, and half canvas; a lean-to with a large canvas extension in the rear.
That was fortunate.
Tico took out his broad-bladed knife, which was more like a short sword, and signaled for Juan to cover his back. He cut a line along a seam of the canvas, then another line under it. Soon he'd formed a doorway into the rear of the construction.
Tico pushed on the canvas, and it gave. He winked at Juan, then stepped through into the rear of the construction.
Tico was good at moving about without making noise, and he had no trouble slipping between the two older women who slept on either side of Angelique Noble. He stood over the girl for a few seconds, looking closely at her to make sure he had the right target.
Tico had seen this girl a few times, and he'd studied a picture of her that General Mendez had provided. The fair olive complexion and narrow nose. The full lips and sculptured high cheekbones. He looked hard at her, because he had to be sure. But the second he saw her sleeping there, he knew who she was.
"What a beauty this one is," he muttered to himself. His eyes burned through the light cotton sheet she was covered with. He could barely make out the dark buttons that capped her girlish breasts.
The sleeping beauty stirred, and Tico crouched down. But she did not wake up. She merely moved on her side after wrinkling her nose, as if an insect was bothering her. Tico smiled. The hips were now outlined in white cotton sheets. The girl was absolutely stunning. More gorgeous than he imagined. He hadn't seen her in a year. Back then, she was a mere girl. Now, she was part girl and part woman. She was at that stage in the transformation, where her beauty was becoming a very sexual thing to behold.
The angelic beauty made Tico's heart pulse, and for a split second, he wished he could just back out of the girl's quarter and report to Mendez that he could not find her.
That was impossible, of course. But there was something so pure and virginal, so lovely and unspeakably clean about young Angelique, that his heart was stirred.
Tico swallowed this notion, and stifled all impulses that contradicted his mission. He drew his blade out, but he quickly realized that was not the way.
He drew out the kit that Mendez's doctor had prepared. It contained ether, and a wide cotton pad. Doc had told him that it must be done with a light touch. If he just covered her face with it, she would wake up and scream before the chemical put her to sleep. The way to do it was, gently.
Tico looked over at Juan, who made the ok sign with his fingers, winking.
Tico spilled some of the chemical on the cotton. He held it well over the girl's face, not touching her or even breathing on her.
Slowly but surely, Angelique Noble's breathing took on a different pattern; slower and deeper. Tico's eyes studied the sweetly childlike face as he watched her slip into a deeper sleep than natural.
A full fifteen minutes later, Tico slid his arm under the sleeping girl's legs, and under her shoulders. Slowly, he elevated the warm girl body, straightening his legs painfully. He became aware of how light she was, as soon as he was able to stand. A feather!
She felt tender and sweet in his arms, and he imagined himself to be rescuing her, instead of kidnapping her. It was a more pleasant thought, in the face of such extreme beauty.
Juan held his M16 cocked and ready, and Tico was pleased that the women sleeping on either side of their target had not woken up. That would have been bloody and unnecessary. He looked up at the sky. Dawn had broken. In moments, the sky would be on fire with bright yellow light.
Juan waited until Tico was safely out. Then he slipped over to the bedroll the girl had been sleeping on. On impulse he bent and sniffed her sheets. The scent of pussy sweetness filled his nostrils.
Juan quivered with lust. But he quickly regained his composure. He drew a playing card out of his pocket. The Jack of Diamonds. It was the General's calling card, and would send a message to Captain Thomas Noble. He would know at once that General Mendez had his daughter, and that if he wanted to see her again alive, he would have to negotiate with the General.
Juan snickered. He knew that, however reluctant the General was to admit such a thing, he had a real fear of Captain Noble. Simply, Noble was a professional. A man to be reckoned with. He was from a wealthy industrial family, the Captain, but instead of taking a college deferment and passing on the whole thing, Noble had volunteered for Special Forces. He led a command of Special Forces that distinguished themselves many times in the jungles of Vietnam.
Since the war ended, Noble and his elite men formed a close knit private command. Noble and his loyal men were soldiers of fortune. They were no longer in the American military. But they were still a functioning fighting unit.
Because Noble had a strong academic background as a field anthropologist and archaeologist, he and his men were busy in South America, collecting artifacts and information for a very wealthy body of academic scholars.
No one else would brave the jungles, and although Noble's sponsors snickered at his cowboy manners and military like ways, they were pleased to have him on the payroll. Noble always got what he went after. No matter where it was and what he had to go through to get it.
Juan also knew that the General's contempt for Noble was based on an incident that happened two years ago. Mendez had set up a laboratory in the jungle, to process coca leaves into powder for his market.
Noble was not a CIA man, and Mendez's information sources swore that Noble was not even sympathetic to CIA operations in Latin America. But if he did not like the CIA, he hated the drug trafficking community even more. So when a CIA operative requested that Noble locate and destroy a few of the General's labs, Noble agreed to do it. The information sources said that Noble was not paid for this. That he did it for ideological reasons, because he was patriotic, and wished to see his countrymen free of the cocaine menace that was manifesting in the States.
General Mendez had always considered his laboratories to be impenetrable. They were situated in dense tribal regions of the jungle, and in the mountains that loomed overhead. These were areas that men thread lightly. A terrain of flashing steel and quick death, of rapid fire weapons and no warning until death reared its ugly face.
Only the Indians could navigate this terrain. The Indians, and a handful of the General's men, who were under the protection of Mendez. Mendez paid the tribal leaders vast sums, relatively, for access to this jungle and mountain turf. Actually, he exploited the shit out of them. But they had no contact with the outside world. No way of knowing what was happening to them.
The Indians lacked understanding about the evils of the cocaine market. To them, coca was a leaf. They carried the leaves in little sacks, on their sides. Often, they would take a carefully prepared piece of bone, and dip it into a mixture of powdered sea shells. This alkaline mix would potentialize the power of the leaves, which they would chew with a dash of the powdered shell. This gave them a light buzz and fought fatigue, so they could do a day's work in the high country without feeling the bad affects of thin high elevation air. The Indian's used coca leaves, in short, much the way the gringos used coffee. To keep themselves alert and functioning. It was unheard of for a local to refine the coca into a powder.
The Indians found it hard to imagine that anyone would want to do such a thing. It would be like breaking caffeine down to a potent powder and injecting or smoking or sniffing this powder. Sure, one would feel a wild rush. Like drinking a hundred cups of strong coffee at once. But who in his right mind would do such a thing?
Well, no one ever implied that the bleachos made any sense. The gringos were obviously out of their minds, the way they obsessed over the coca leaf and spent large amounts of money buying tons of leaves from local growers.
The Indians sold the gringos coffee and coca leaves, and did not ask what was being done with these commodities. It was simply none of their business.
"Ok, now we must move very slowly, Juan. I will not be able to use my weapon if someone sees me, so stay close."
"Don't worry, Tico. I'm ready to fire at the first sign of trouble."
"No trouble, Juan. There will be no trouble at all." The two men made their way back out of the settlement, and Tico breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped over the outer periphery of men they'd stationed as back up.
Tico found it hard to concentrate with the lovely girl in his arms. She was soundly sleeping from the drug now, and was completely unaware of what was happening. This was good. The Doc had been correct in predicting the way the drug would work on her.
Tico gathered his men a half mile from the settlement.
"What now?" Juan asked. "Might as well take the roads back. No one will bother us."
The General left their escape to Tico's instincts. Tico knew that Juan was right. Anyone who bothered them would not be nearly as well armed and able to kill as they were, but again, why fuck around with weapons when the jungle trails were easy enough to follow and would allow them to avoid any problems.
"We are taking the back trails."
"Shit! You are adding three hours of hard work to this mission, Tico. Let me be point man over the roads. Nothing will happen."
"No bueno, hombre. We do this my way. If we make it back to Mendez without firing a shot, the General will be very pleased."
"He will be pleased anyway, Tico. Look what we're bringing him."
"Yes," Tico said, hefting the girl's legs, as they'd been sliding down. He hoisted her onto his back now, not caring if she whimpered. They were far enough from her people that if she woke, it would mean little. "Mendez will be pleased with us. I will tell him, Juan, that you acted in a brave and professional manner at all times. That you restrained yourself and did not fire a shot."
"Bueno! I am pleased with your high opinion of my methods, Tico. I will do exactly as you say."
The morning sun was bright orange as Tico and his men walked along the narrow trail that cut through thick jungle. Tico felt good. He knew there would be rewards in store for him. And yet, looking down at the sleeping beauty, he detected a hint of sadness. It was a shame to make a victim of one so beautiful. A crying shame.