North Korea
Kate's NASA light fiber clothing offered some protection against the cool dampness of the cave, but there was a clammy coolness to the cramped, cell-like chamber that was their prison that had settled into the marrow of her bones. A single, dim oil lamp affixed to the wall illuminated the cave. It was impossible to find a comfortable position or to keep warm. A guard was posted at the narrow opening, watching them, a rifle held at port arms.
Kate knelt beside Commander Scott, who sat on the ground with his back resting against the rock wall. His broken leg was stretched out before him, held rigid by a pair of tree branches that were wrapped, with dirty pieces of fabric, at his ankle and upper thigh. Scott was visibly struggling to remain conscious. His flesh was pasty. He was covered with a cold sweat. She was spoon-feeding him from a bowl of rice soup, alternately providing him with sips of the cool, clear water that had been brought to them moments earlier.
Bob Paxton watched from where he sat, cross-legged, spooning his soup with slurping desperation. His broken, swollen nose and the bruised puffiness about his eyes were turning from red to purple. It was difficult for her to imagine that she had once thought him handsome, or even nice for that matter. Paxton set aside his emptied bowl and gulped a sloppy slurp of water, glaring at Kate.
"Don't think playing nursemaid to the commander will compensate for what you've done, you treacherous bitch. You actually helped Chai inventory the stuff after they brought it back here!"
The words slapped at her like a physical blow because, for all her rationalization, what he said was true.
She returned to administering to Ron Scott. The flight commander's eyelids fluttered, and his head tilted to one side. She gently steadied his head with a hand to the back of his neck, and, using her other hand, she held another spoonful of soup to his lips.
"Commander, please. If you can hear me at all, you must eat. Think of your family. Sir, you must stay alive. We have to get you home. Please, eat the soup."
His lips quivered. "My wife," he mumbled. "Lucy. Tell her I love her." The soup dribbled down the side of his chin.
There was a flurry of movement outside the fissure in the rock that created the entrance to this chamber. The guard was suddenly grasped from behind by someone unseen, and tossed aside. Kate's heart soared for one wild, crazy moment. Trev! Trev, you've come! And her heart sank just as quickly when the bandit, Han, replaced the guard in the doorway.
Fumes of alcohol and body odor emanated from him just as when he'd first captured them in another cave, and force-marched them here. Chai Bin's second-in-command held a pistol. Han tottered drunkenly, his bleary eyes scanning them. He leered at Kate. He smacked his lips and said something in Korean.
Some survival instinct brought Ron Scott awake. Pale, weak, his eyes stared hatred at the drunken man with the gun. He started to translate in a weak voice.
Kate kept an eye on Han, while her peripheral vision darted about, seeking a rock, anything she could use as a weapon. Han obviously remembered all too well her martial arts display in front of Chai when she had made a fool of him. He kept his distance from her, but aimed his pistol at her.
"Save your strength, Commander. I think I know what he said."
Han next spat an angry tirade at Paxton, who cowered in a corner, his knees higher than his head, as if Han were ten feet tall, and not some grimy little brute with a gun.
"Sorry, Specialist," said Scott in a neutral tone. "He says you're a worm and a poor excuse for a man."
Being translated seemed for some reason to infuriate Han, who spat angrily at Scott.
Scott said, "He says that he will make you pregnant with his child, but first he will deal with me."
An apprehensive chill traveled through her. "Tell him that if he touches me, I'll kill him."
Han spat angrily at the astronaut with the broken leg who was barely conscious, trembling with fever.
"He says I'm as good as dead," Scott translated. "He says he'll finish the job."
Kate started to snarl a response at the drunken man.
But before she could, Han tracked his pistol from her to Scott and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was ear-splitting within the chamber. The muzzle flash revealed Ron Scott's head exploding, splashing the wall behind him with his blood and brains like some grotesque mural of modernistic art.
Kate couldn't stem her scream as Scott's corpse toppled sideways.
Han laughed. Holstering his pistol, he withdrew a wide-bladed combat knife and flung himself at Bob Paxton, who cried out shrilly.
"No! Please don't hurt me!"
Han laughed. The stench of alcohol, his body odor and madness assaulted Kate's senses. She realized that droplets of Scott's blood had splattered across her sleeve and cheek. Oh my God! she thought. Oh my God!
Han was atop Paxton's back, pinning Paxton face down to the earthen floor. Han leaned forward, making Paxton extend his arm, bracing that wrist to the ground. With a sadistic giggle, Han lowered his knife blade toward Paxton's fingers that wriggled like spastic worms.
Paxton knew what was about to happen, and even as the blade descended, his index finger was pointing madly at Kate.
"No, please, dear God, don't hurt me. Take her! Don't hurt me! I'll do whatever you want!"
Kate bunched her body to pounce at Han.
The entranceway was abruptly filled with the muscular, imposing dominance of Chai Bin. The old knife scar that bisected one side of the bandit's face was livid. His finely-boned Chinese features trembled with fury. He snarled a single word that crackled with authority.
The tone of voice, whatever single word was spoken, stopped Han, who paused with his knife blade less than an inch from Paxton's fingers, and he froze in that position, physically pinning the man beneath him. He looked up with inebriated, confused eyes, and opened his mouth to speak.
The guard who had been assaulted, and another bandit, appeared to either side of Chai Bin, each of them no more than fifteen, but their faces were hard. They aimed their rifles at Han, and the one who'd been assaulted shouted threatening instructions, gesturing angrily with his rifle.
Han dropped his knife and slowly rose to his feet. He stepped away from Paxton, who scampered back into his corner. Han approached Chai with his eyes downcast, wearing a contrite, hangdog expression, and he again started to speak.
Chai Bin barked orders.
The bandits grabbed Han, each by an arm, and dragged him past Chai from the cavern. Han was pleading desperately, sobering quickly with fright under the realization that he was not about to escape with a mild reprimand due to his exalted rank.
When Han had been led away, kicking and screaming, Chai gazed down upon the sprawled corpse of Ron Scott, and the ghastly mural of blood and brains upon the wall.
"Most regrettable," he told Kate. He ignored Paxton, who crouched in the corner like a child terrified of some unimaginable monster. "Miss Daniels, truly, I am sorry about your friend and commander. I wish I could bring him back."
She crouched against her wall, restraining herself from pouncing at the arrogant son of a bitch. Oh, Ron, she thought, with a glance down at the man she had so admired. Commander Ron Scott. Man enough to command a space shuttle flight, human enough to die voicing his love for his wife. There was a man. He would be avenged. But for her to pounce upon Chai at this moment, even though he appeared vulnerable enough, alone and with his arms folded before him, would be foolhardy. Her moment would come, but this was not it.
"I'll bet you'd like to bring him back," she snarled. "This will take some explaining, won't it, Mister Warlord, and will knock down the price you'll get paid." She tried to keep her voice from choking with emotion, but failed. "You promised me that you would provide the commander with proper medical attention! That was part of our deal for me helping you!"
"Yes, but you see, I no longer need your help." A burst of gunfire from nearby startled Kate. Observing this, Chai added, "Everything you say is quite true. Han's disobedience, his summary execution, will provide an ample lesson to the others here that you are to be accorded respect and treated humanely."
The bandit youths appeared, their rifles slung over their shoulders. Chai issued further commands. Each grabbed hold of one of Ron Scott's ankles and dragged the corpse from the cavern, trailing a glistening, bloody slick across the ground behind them.
Chai's eyes roved Kate's curves, evident beneath the flight suit. "You could be my queen," he said. "You remind me of my mother."
"I do, do I? What a strange thing to say."
"You should be honored. My mother was born a peasant, but she was strong and resourceful. She was a queen. My mother was a saint."
Kate snarled. "I'm sickened."
His hands dropped to his sides. His eyes and mouth tightened. "And why is that so?"
"Because you want to fuck me," she snarled. "We have a phrase for sickos like you in my country. It's a filthy, obscene phrase that I never thought I'd hear myself say, but it was made for creeps like you. You, Chai Bin, are a sick son of a bitch." And when she saw his features flush with anger, she threw back her head and laughed without humor, a laugh that, to her own ears, bordered on hysteria. "This whiner," she indicated Paxton contemptuously, "and I are the only human pawns you've got left, so I can say whatever I want and there's not a damn thing you can do about it but take it, you sick son of a bitch."
Chai's expression was stony. "I have business to take care of." He whirled and stormed from the cavern.
Alone with Paxton's blubbering and the smell of death lingering from the blood slick where Ron Scott had been dragged off, Kate felt as if every ounce of her energy had abandoned her in an instant. Her crouching posture became a slouch, and she leaned back against the wall, across the small space from Paxton. She sank into a sitting position, her arms draped wearily across her raised knees, her forehead resting on her arms. She wondered how she had the strength to keep on breathing.
Paxton sneered at her. "Why don't you give him what he wants and spread your legs for him? You've given him everything else. Traitorous bitch." And he relapsed into his incomprehensible blubbering.
He's right, she told herself. She was a traitor. If she hadn't taken Chai Bin to the shuttle, to retrieve everything of negotiable value, would Ron Scott be alive right now? Yes, she was a traitor. She would burn in hell. She was in hell!