Cadet 3 (7 page)

The remainder of the group sat staring in
silence in the direction Kate and Murphy had gone.

The first to speak was Jodie. “I think I’ll
into change into something a little more practical while we’re
waiting.” She rooted through a duffel bag and dug out a set of
camouflage fatigues and boots, then stripped off the colorful silk
blouse and embroidered jeans she had been wearing and slipped into
the more rugged garments.

Steph, Robin and Merry wordlessly copied her,
stuffing their civilian garb into the duffel bags. Merry dragged
out another metal suitcase from under the last row of seats, this
one containing four partially disassembled M-63 assault rifles. She
distributed parts for three rifles to the others, and the four
women rapidly put together barrel, stock and receiver to make
operable weapons. From another box, she took 20-round magazines of
5.56mm ammunition and handed them around.

“There’s probably nothing to worry about,”
Merry said as she locked and loaded her weapon. “I mean, Murphy did
say this was an ultra-secret location.”

“No, probably not, but it can’t hurt to be
prepared,” Jodie agreed. “So, why don’t we find some decent cover,
and set up a secure perimeter?” She pointed. “Steph, you go over
there. Robin, set up behind that fallen trunk on the left, Merry,
work your way through the woods to the right of the trail about
twenty yards, and try to find someplace to take the road under
observation. I’ll go up the other side.” Although she was supposed
to be under the orders of her security detail, Jodie was a born
leader who almost instinctively took command of situations, and the
others responded to her automatically.

The women moved quickly into position, then
settled down to wait either for the return of their comrades… or a
fight for their lives. With the approach of sunset, the red light
reduced visibility and made the thick woods look as if they had
been bathed in blood. Jodie was on the verge of sending someone to
see what had happened to Murphy and Kate, when the two scouts
suddenly appeared, as if out of nowhere.

Kate silently gestured for Jodie to go back
down the trail, and she signaled Merry to do the same. Robin and
Step joined the others as soon as they saw the others returning.
The team huddled together in the thicket of shrubs around the
vehicle.

“Sorry we took so long,” Kate said. “It
looked OK, but something didn’t feel right, so we moved very slowly
and extra carefully.”

“They had a beautiful set-up,” Murphy said.
“The cabin looks vacant, no cars in sight, no signs of anything, if
you came up the drive to the front door. They have infra-red
detectors, sound detectors, trip-wires and people in position to
pounce as soon as General Lawrence appeared.”

“Luckily for us they didn’t know about this
back entrance,” Kate said. “All their stuff is pointing the wrong
way.”

“This still seems like a poor choice as a
campsite,” Jodie said. “I suggest we hop back in the car and put
some distance between us and our friends up there.”

“General, I think it would be a mistake to
try to go back out to the highway now,” Murphy said. “It’s very
likely they’ll have aerial surveillance covering all the roads
after dark, and the canopy will provide pretty good cover, as long
as we stay in the forest.”

“OK. What do you suggest?” Jodie asked.

“The National Forest is huge, and bordered by
more uninhabited woodland,” he said. “My advice would be head west
into the heart of the preserve, find a likely place and set up camp
down there somewhere. They probably don’t know that we came out
here after we left Washington, or the whole area would be swarming
with patrols, with ’copters everywhere. Even if they eventually
begin to suspect that we’re around here, we could make ourselves
almost impossible to find in that wilderness.”

Jodie considered for a moment, and then said,
“All right. Let’s do it.”

They eased the SUV out of the shrubs, and
then with the engine off pushed it until it started to roll
silently back down the logging road, starting the engine only after
they were well away from the cabin. They left the road a mile down,
plunging into the forest, navigating by using infrared night vision
goggles. Kate expertly maneuvered the big vehicle across rocks
whenever possible, and they stopped frequently to wipe away any
evidence of their passage. This meant that progress was
painstakingly slow, so it took three hours to reach a location that
they agreed would be reasonably safe.

They hid the SUV at the base of a knob in a
stand of blue spruce which grew so close together that their
branches intertwined. The knob was covered just as thickly with the
evergreens, except at the very top, where an ancient forest giant
had fallen, leaving a clearing big enough for their tents. The
remaining trees were tall and wide enough to roof over most of
their refuge.

They set up two tents: one for Jodie, Robin
and Merry and another for Murphy, Steph, and Kate. They made a
silent meal from self-heating ration packs, and set up a rotation
of watches. At first, Kate and Murphy wanted to excuse Jodie from
sentry duty, but she insisted and would not be denied.

“If they find this place, it won’t matter if
I’m on guard duty or hiding in my sleeping bag when it happens.
I’ll be scooped up with the rest of you,” she said. “We have to
make sure they don’t find us even they’re poking their noses near
here, and we need alert, well rested sentries. I’d rather not trust
my neck to somebody stupid from lack of sleep, thank you. We will
all take turns.”

The night passed uneventfully. They heard no
sounds but birdcalls and water rushing along the little stream at
the base of the hill. They had a few anxious moments when they
heard a helicopter in the distance the next day, but it never came
any nearer and the sound soon faded away. Nothing much happened
until a little after midnight on the second day.

Jodie and Merry had taken the first watch and
were sound asleep in their tent. They were abruptly woken when the
tent flaps flew open and a large, soft object landed heavily on
them. Jodie sat up, still more asleep than awake, to discover that
a human body was sprawled across her sleeping bag. As she fumbled
for her flashlight, Merry’s light flicked on, and she heard her
gasp, “It’s Dick Murphy, and he’s hurt!”

At first glance, Jodie thought he was dead.
His eyes were closed, his mouth open and blood trickled down over
his forehead from a scalp wound. She was relieved when he moved his
head a little and groaned, proving that he was, for the moment at
least, alive.

Suddenly, a bright light played on Jodie’s
face, momentarily blinding her before it switched to Merry. A
strange male voice said, “All right, now. You cunts put yer hands
out where I can see ’em, nice and slow like, then come on outta
there. Don’t do anything sudden-like, or I might just get scared ’n
accidently blow you all to Hell with this shotgun.” His tone
suggested that he considered the last part to be a jest. Jodie
instantly sized up the man. He was relaxed, and confident he was in
complete control of the situation. She did not doubt that he had a
shotgun pointed at their heads, nor that he was prepared to use
it.

“Do what he says Merry,” she said. As she
unzipped her sleeping bag, moving with extreme care, Jodie pointed
at the unconscious Murphy and said, “Our friend needs attention.
Let me get the first aid kit, and take a look at that head
wound.”

The man turned his head to the side, spat and
returned his gaze to Jodie. “No need for that, he’ll be fine. He
just got a little bump on his head.” He called over his shoulder
without turning around. “Charlie, bring up some rope.”

A figure, no more than a shape in the
darkness outside the tent, appeared behind the man. Then two
lengths of rope landed on Murphy’s unmoving form. “You tie his
hands behind,” he told Jodie. “An’ you lie down on your belly,
hands behind your back,” he said to Merry.

After Jodie finished binding the hands of the
unconscious Dick Murphy, their captor ordered her to do the same to
Merry. Jodie made a show of pulling the knot on Merry’s wrists
tight, while actually leaving it as loose as possible without
making this too obvious. Her attempt to trick the man was rewarded
when her chin met the steel toed of his boot, sending her flying
backwards and making little light bulbs pop in her head.

“Nice try, girly,” she heard the man say
through the white noise in her brain. “Now, get up, ’n you kin do
it right.”

Jodie sat up, blinked, rubbed her jaw and
went back to work on the knot, saying blearily, “Well, you can’t
blame me for trying.”

The man laughed, a short, sharp bark. “No, I
can’t,” he agreed. “I kind a like you, little missy. You got guts,
fer a girl. Now come out here an get on yer belly for me, so I kin
fix you up like your girlfriend.”

Jodie obediently crawled out of the tent, and
lay quietly on the ground while the man tied her hands behind her
so strictly that they almost immediately started to lose sensation.
He placed a booted foot on her back while he bent low to seize a
hank of Merry’s long hair, and used this hold to drag her out to
lie in the dirt beside Jodie.

“Fucking bastard,” Merry whispered to Jodie.
“That hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“Sorry, kid,” Jodie answered. “But if that
was the worst thing they do to you tonight, I’ll be mighty
surprised. These men…
ah
!
Fuck
!” she shouted as a
boot thumped into her ribs.

“Shut up,” the man ordered. “What did ya get,
Mort?” he asked a hulking man who stood in front of the other
tent.

The man reached down, to raise the heads of a
pair of prone figures by their hair. “Got these two right here,
Billy,” he said. “Looks like some real nice pussy.” Billy shone his
light on Mort’s prisoners to reveal the dirt-streaked faces of
Robin and Steph.

“No better than this here,” Billy said,
nudging Merry and Jodie with the toe of his boot. “I’m mortal
anxious to get started, an’ if them Carson boys don’t get their
asses up here soon, you, me an’ Charlie is just gonna go ahead
without ’em.”

At that moment, three new men popped out of
the trees into the clearing. They were dressed like Mort, Billy and
Charlie in camouflage hunting clothes and hunting boots, each
carrying either a rifle or a shotgun. The newcomers also all had
infrared night scopes hanging on lanyards around their necks. That
explained, at least part, something that had been troubling Jodie:
how had these men managed to get the drop on Dick Murphy, who had
been equipped with military-grade night-vision glasses?

One of the three newcomers said, “Now, you
wouldn’t really do a thing like that to us, would you, Billy? We
was going ’round to see if they was any more of ’em, jus’ like you
tole us.”

“An’ did I tell you ta take all night about
it?” Billy grumbled. “Anyway, you’re here now, an’ we got plenty a’
fancy cunt to go around, so let’s get this party started.”

Jodie felt a sinking sensation in her the pit
of her stomach. All four women were alumni of the NWMA at
Highpoint, and after surviving that experience they had no great
fear of rape, even the anal variety. But she had a feeling that
these men were not going to be content with merely using them
sexually, or even beating them to a pulp. She had a strong
intuition that, unless they were rescued before then, by sunrise
not one of her people would be alive.

Chapter Five: Guilty Pleasure

The men whooped with joy, and rushed to take
possession of their selections. There were a few scuffles, as there
were six men and only four women, and some of the men wanted the
same girl, but these were quickly settled with a few blows. There
seemed to be an established pecking order among the mountain men.
At the bottom were the three Carson brothers who had arrived last,
to Billy’s displeasure: Rand, Bran and Ed. They were eventually
forced to settle for sharing Steph three ways, after each was
knocked to the ground in turn by the short but powerfully built
Charlie and the massive, towering Mort. The former plucked Robin
from the ground as easily as if she was an inflatable doll and
tossed her over his shoulder, carrying her away to tie her to a
tree. The latter grabbed Merry by the ankle and dragged her
caveman-style across the clearing, face down in the dirt.

The others waited until after Billy had
announced that Jodie was his chosen playmate. None of them
challenged him. Jodie decided that Billy was the leader of this
pack of human sharks because he was the toughest, smartest and
deadliest by far, and the rest of the gang was justifiably afraid
of him.

Billy knelt down on one knee beside Jodie, a
commando knife in his hand, his flashlight blindingly in her eyes.
“Now, cutie-pie, what’s your name, an’ how old are you? You look
mebbe fifteen, if that, but somethin’ tells me you’re older’n
that.” He flipped her over onto her back and began to cut away her
shirt with the blade whispering against her flesh as he cut through
the cloth.

“My name is Jodie,” she answered, trying not
to allow fear show in her voice. She suspected that a man like
Billy would want to terrorize his victims before he killed them,
and he would want to keep her alive until he had fully savored her
fear. “I’m a lot older than I look, you’re right about that. I’m
actually twenty-four, and very experienced at sex. I’ll be happy to
give you a great fuck, the best you ever had, and you don’t need to
hurt me.”

“Huh. Is that a fact?” Billy asked. He drew
back his boot and kicked Jodie in the midsection, explosively
driving all the air out of her lungs and making her double up in
helpless agony. He pulled her halfway from the ground by her hair
with effortless strength, as she retched and fought to make her
battered diaphragm start to function again. “I hope that’s not yer
best offer, ’cos I plan to hurt you plenty, an if you don’t gimme
the best fuck I ever had, why, I’ll hurt you lots worse.” He
resumed plying the knife, cutting away Jodie’s trousers and panties
with a few apparently careless but actually precise strokes of the
razor-sharp blade, scoring her thighs with long, shallow cuts. When
he was done, Jodie’s clothing had been reduced to a ragged ring of
cloth around one ankle, and the collar of her shirt, and there were
thin trails of blood running down her legs where he had cut her.
Other than the few scraps that were the remnants of her clothing,
she was nude.