Bayou Brigade (16 page)

“You’re an idiot, Slayton; you’re talking gibberish.”

“Don’t bet on it. The Army knows about The Brigade. They know
everything.”
Slayton hoped this psychological game would burst Bathurst’s integrity, and so far it was working.

“Impossible.”

“We checked the service records as a routine, on my hunch, because I remembered The Brigade when it was just a rumor in South
Vietnam. All the deserters’ names were in the computer.”

Bathurst checked with one of the aides. “Get Baal, bring him here.” The man vanished up the hallway.

“Go on, Bathurst, bring that slick Aryan mental case down here so I can tell him all about his mission in South Korea. He
failed, Bathurst. He failed. We got the intelligence report. We know everything about this organization, man, so forget your
fuckin’ plan to conquer the American government.”

As Baal approached the scene in the dungeon, an extremely agitated Bathurst was kicking the shit out of an immobile Slayton.
“What’s the matter, Commander?” said the German. “Is he starting to bother you, too?”

Bathurst wheeled around, suspending his unmercifully rough exercise. “I don’t know how he did it, but the bastard worked around
the videotape interview. All test results showed that Slayton would be easy to sway into The Brigade. Ninety-nine percent
probability, it said. I can’t believe this.” He booted Slayton again for good measure.

“You must keep in mind that Slayton is an expert; he finds any way he can to infiltrate. He is a trained spy—what did you
expect?”

“I thought he’d adapt to us, the way he’s trained to adapt to
any
situation.”

“But he is not a robot. We aspire to destroy the American capitalists. That is something he cannot allow; he has a higher
ideal in his mind. Our cause cannot interest him.”

Bathurst sighed. “He could have helped us.”

“He
did
find fault in the video interview concept, so perhaps his intervention served as useful. If the machine could not detect
his level of resistance, there may be serious failure in its programming.”

“He used me and the machine, and for what?”

Baal shrugged. “We knew the Americans would try something like this. Remember, they sent a CIA agent to China to infiltrate
our organization. It failed, as this mission has failed, Slayton.”

Slayton had been listening, crumpled on the floor. His reply was barely audible to Bathurst. “Tell him about the Korean.”

“Yes, Baal,” Bathurst started. “You killed the ambassador in Seoul, correct? You burned his body? Slayton claims the CIA report
got through.”

“On microdots, Baal,” said Slayton, “in fire-resistant paper clips. They didn’t burn up.”

“It cannot be true!” Baal was shocked.

“It is, bimbo,” snapped Slayton. “Lists of gun shipments, Pond 2 to Pond 3, Pond 1 to Pond 3—”

Bathurst was furious. “He knows about them all!”

“You must expect,” said Baal, “that in dispersing and collecting any intelligence, you automatically run the risk of losing
information to the other side.”

“We must not let this happen again, Baal. You are the hired gun.
You are
supposed to take into consideration the probability for error.”

“I am sorry, sir,” responded Baal.

Slayton, able at last to sit up somewhat, laughed at Baal, choking on his pain. “How does it feel to kiss ass, killer?”

A sharp boot in the mouth sent Slayton into another dimension of consciousness. He imagined his head had been pierced by the
tip of Bathurst’s shoe, and that blood dripped into his eyes, forming images of gaseous red cloud formations on his inner
eyelid. No sound entered from the real world—he was not dying, but his mind convinced him of his own death.

In his “death“-dream, a field of gold-covered grass extended for miles from where he stood. The sense of wind and sun and
air was heightened—warmer, stronger, crisper—while deep inside his body there beat a cold heart. The feeling made him shudder.

Then the cold, damp jail cell air seeped into his fantasy, tumbling him back into ghastly reality.

Wilma had been calling to him all night. “Ben, is your head all right?” She strained to see beyond the darkness. His soft
breathing told her he was alive.

“Where are you?” - he said, whispering, once again awake and aware.

“It’s been hours,” she replied. “I’m to your left, I think. You’ve been out for hours!”

“Don’t worry, I’m okay. My headache keeps getting worse, though.”

o “I can’t see anything.”

“We’re at opposite ends of the room. There’s some light over here. Barely visible.” With one hand Slayton groped the floor,
passing over muddy, stained wood and mounds of human feces. He touched an arm. There was a dead body in the room, just outside
his cell.

“Why aren’t you talking?” asked Wilma.

“There’s a corpse here.” A pause. “It’s Orial.”

“Oh my God!” She cried. The events of the past several hours were building up inside her, unleashing an angry torrent of tears.
“I don’t know how to say this, Ben,” she sobbed. “Those men… that sadist Baal raped me… it was horrible!” Her cries were incoherent;
she could not articulate clearly through her overwhelming grief.

“Get some sleep,” said Slayton, smoldering with fury, but holding onto an exterior cool.

“We’re going to die.”

“Just get some rest, Wilma. We’ll need our strength.”

Eventually, she fell asleep. Slayton was tired, sore, angry, and humiliated. While drifting into slumber, he clung to the
fury within, driving out all else. There was little to rationalize in this predicament: Wilma was probably correct in assuming
they’d both be dead come sunrise. Bathurst would waste no time in executing them, he thought. But the pure will to survive
compelled him to search for a plan, a scheme, a deal. Would none work? Nonsense; anything was possible. He had to ultilize
primitive urges and survival tactics to emerge unscathed this time.
No one wilt rescue you,
that’s what Winship had said.

The golden-grass dream returned. He was standing in the field, hearing his cold heart beat, feeling the ecstatic warmth of
the sun. And it was the future. He was alive, and it was in the future. Wilma’s voice filtered in,
“We’re going to die.”

The sun grew hotter.

Morning brought a surreal quality to the bayou spring. Fierce yellow-white streaks of sunlight, splitting into individual
filaments, projected through tall grass, radiating fog-killing warmth. The tule fog hadn’t lifted yet, at two minutes past
six. A breeze blew a beer can across the compound.

Bathurst led Slayton and Wilma to the dock, near the spot where Orial had been shot the previous night. Baal, Merriott, Bonn,
Donati, and others were assembling along the courtyard, facing the two prisoners. They drank coffee while some others ate
their breakfast of eggs, sausage, and toast.

Morning brought out the true middle-class attitudes in terrorists, didn’t it? Slayton felt the breeze lift. The sun shone
through a bending fern. It was very warm.

“What a beautiful day for a hunt,” said Bathurst, shielding the warm rays with his hand.

Wilma sneezed:

“I hope you found the accommodations satisfactory, Mr. Slayton, Miss Christian?” The Commander had a pathological weakness:
the insanity of war brought out his sadistic nature. In the years prior to Vietnam, it lay hidden beneath a layer of guilt-edged
Catholicism. It dared not surface then, but it had taken control now.

He paced to and fro in front of Slayton and Wilma, slapping his side holster which contained a World War Two Luger. “We’ve
deeded to make sport of you two. It isn’t every day someone disrupts our peaceful existence so markedly as you have, Mr. Slayton.
We respect that quality.

“We are on a plain surrounded by miles and miles of swamp—no towns, very few people, mostly wilderness. You will be armed
with one bayonet. Bonn!”

The rusty scabbard thrown at Slayton’s feet contained the knife. Slayton picked it up, smiling. “What do you suggest? You
and I have a showdown in some deserted sugar cane field?”

“How unsporting,” declared Bathurst. “In reality, Slayton, you and Miss Christian may walk to the boat over yonder and sail
out of here any time you wish.”

“Very sporting of you, David,” was Slayton’s sarcastic response. “And of course you, or perhaps all these men, will wait ten
minutes and follow.”

Wilma’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re not serious?”

“Quite the contrary,” chuckled Bathurst. “You will have approximately thirty minutes, starting now, to reach almighty civilization
by boat and by foot. We will use everything in our power—helicopters, guns, knives, whatever we can find—to stop you and kill
you.”

“And if we manage to get out?” Slayton dreamed of something like that happening.

Bathurst removed the gun from its holster. “If, by some miracle,
that
happens, you live, of course.”

Slayton remarked, “Naturally I can’t trust you, Bathurst.”

“Trust doesn’t enter into it. It’s a matter of survival. For both of us. You make it to the outside, then The Brigade suffers
from the American government knowing of its plans. If I kill you both, and I will, then its plans are safe.”

Wilma exclaimed, “Ben, this is ridiculous, we can’t possibly… ”

“You now have used thirty seconds of your thirty minutes.” Bathurst looked down at his watch, continuing, “We’ll be starting
the helicopter’s engines in ten minutes.”

Slayton motioned to Wilma. They boarded the dinghy, which had only one oar, and cast off.

From the front line of Brigaders standing on the dock came Bonn’s comment, “Hey, Slayton! Your woman there, she was a good
show last night. Thought you’d like to know she’s some horny bitch! Ask old Baal!”

Wilma swung her fist in the air: “You goddam animal!” Bathurst commanded: “Bonn, silence!”

The boat pulled away, Slayton raising one hand and pointing angrily at the group: “I’ll be sending the Air Force to napalm
this fuckin’ zoo, Bathurst!”

Many of the soldiers erupted in howls of laughter, others chanted a few anticapitalist slogans, and one outraged participant
shouted, “I want to kill! I want to kill!” It was Crazy Laser Orange.

They agreed not to bathe until an hour had passed and their trail was confused with cutbacks. They hoped a sheltered waterhole
could be found. Their clothes, blotched and stained by the jail-cell filth, offended their olfactories as the sun grew warmer
and the swamp moisture soaked in.

The spot Slayton picked was obscured from sight by low-hanging trees, surrounded on all sides by a thicket of dense brush.
They stripped down and enjoyed the cool, murky water.

“Do you suppose we could hide out here until they pass through this area?” suggested Wilma, sitting in water up to her navel.

Slayton was doubtful. “They’ll plow right through the middle of where we’re sitting. See, they are on a maneuver, a guerrilla
warfare practice run, and we’re the prize. You have to understand that they’re trained to move easily in this environment;
the tactics they employ require that you and I respond in the most violent terms.’

“I’ve never been able to appreciate your talent for re maining so unemotional while the world is crumbling around you.”

“I’m just being realistic. We have to adapt to the environment, we have to lose the illusion that we are civilized. This swamp
determines our survival. We must use its resources to defend ourselves. I think we should move up-river and build a few traps,
to help ease the competition.”

Wilma stared hard at the trees. Something slithered over her toes, the sensation creeping up her spine. “Ben, are there any
creatures in this water?”

“Some snakes. Water mocassins are deadly.”

“Something just touched me.”

“If it were a moccassin, you’d be a tad more upset than you are now.”

They managed to stay about twenty minutes ahead of the posse. The low-flying helicopter passed over once, but its extreme
noise made early detection easy, allowing Slayton and Wilma to hide by the time it reached them.

Three traps were set. The first stretched over a soft embankment that Slayton gave an extra seven inches of surface area,
mostly mud and sticks and rocks. It bordered one side of a pond housing a large, alligator. When an enterprising Brigader
took that last step onto the false bank, both of his legs were chewed off before his comrades rescue him.

At one end of a small pasture, Slayton dropped broken shrubs and ferns over a grassy knoll which, on its far side, dropped
into a muddy quagmire twelve feet deep. Two soldiers were swallowed up.

Wilma devised the third snare, a flimsy wooden bridge (made from assorted tree branches tied in bunches with kindling branches),
rigged to break in half and plunge any number of Brigaders into a small pond chock full of water mocassins.

She discovered the snakes, ten in all, floating aimlessly in the pool. After tying down the final section of the span, she
decided to cut away the nearby brush, to give the appearance of a path leading up to and away from it. Tugging on one stubborn
tree, she and Slayton pulled out its roots prematurely, both of them rolling into the pond.

Slayton landed nearest the snakes, but he had only one hand in the water. Wilma’s head submerged underwater briefly, activating
the quick, darting snakes. Her mouth opened to scream, but mud and water flowed in, forcing her to cough, reeling and splashing
in an attempt to crawl out upside-down.

His reflexes were well-greased from the chores of the day. Flying to his feet, Slatyon bounded to the pool’s other side, where
Wilma struggled in vain. The mocassins closed in on her exposed head. Slayton latched onto the belt on her bluejeans and yanked
her up and out of the water. She landed in the damp mud with a dull thud, getting the wind punched out of her.

The snakes had been a shock, and she exclaimed, a bit shrilly, “What luck! Whoever steps in there will get the shit scared
out of them.” Her forced humor hid the queasy realization of just how close she had come to death herself.