“And you little fucking prick, I’m sure you won’t recognize your sponsor. You were a pain in the ass to locate. Just sheer luck, really, that you fit the bill we were looking for. Remember that dinner at the Mashhouse? You started bragging about all of your stupid accomplishments, and I realized you were the exact fit I was looking for. We had a sponsor who had no real specific target for us to acquire. He simply wanted to hunt and kill a veteran SWAT cop. You know, the whole post-Ferguson environment has stirred up a lot of resentment towards cops. Your sponsor just wanted to be able to kill one of you, for no other reason than just to do it. Congratulations, dickweed, you won the lottery.”

  A soft, middle-aged man stepped forward and smiled. “Hello, Nick, sorry for the inconvenience. I’ve read your resume, and it’s most impressive. I hope you’ll be able to live up to my expectations. I expect this to be a most rewarding experience. I’ve wondered what it would be like to kill someone like you for a long time. Finally, I’ll get the opportunity.” The man had a constant smile on his face that instantly irritated Nick.

  Nick sized-up the soft, middle-aged man in front of him up. “I’m guessing you spend a lot of time fantasizing about a lot of sick shit, am I right?” The soft, fat man started to fidget uncomfortably as Nick continued to berate and humiliate him. Finally, Nick struck a nerve. “How many children have you molested, you sick, fat fuck? Be honest, ten, maybe more? I can see it in your eyes, I’m right!”

  His sponsor lost it and screamed at Nick, “You will learn to respect me, soon enough. I own your ass, and I will see you suffer. I’ve paid a lot of money to see you suffer!” He screamed this at Nick.

  “Don’t hold your baby-raping breath, bitch,” Nick responded. He watched the fat lump of shit struggle with his emotions. This wasn’t what he’d hoped for. He wanted Nick to beg for his life. Plead with him to spare him. Instead, Nick had ridiculed him and somehow known his darkest, deepest secret. He was indeed a pedophile.

  “Tell me your name, you fat bag of shit, at least that way maybe I can fulfill your last sick fantasy and beg you for forgiveness at the very end.”

  His sponsor took the bait and smiled a satisfied, content smile. “My name is Kerry.”

  “Is that K-e-r-r-y, or C-a-r-r-i-e? I’m guessing you prefer the C-a-r-r-i-e, am I right, you candy ass fuck?”

  Kerry was beside himself with rage. Spitting fury at Nick, he yelled, “You will respect me! I am an important man! I have had a distinguished career, people look up to me!”

  Kerry didn’t realize Nick was just hitting his stride. He could drop insults on pathetic garbage like Kerry all day.

  “People look up to the Stay Puff marshmallow man as well, you cocksucker. You’ve never known what real respect is. People laugh at your candy ass behind your back, trust me, with that stupid self-important smile of yours. People are always laughing at you behind your back.”

  Nick continued, “I bet you’re even a vegetarian. God knows what meat would do to your frail ass; you might actually get a hard-on for a woman, instead of those naked little boy pictures you keep hidden in a shoebox, am I right? Sucking a carrot make you hard, li’l man?”

  Kerry stomped his feet in a rage-filled tantrum, clenching and unclenching his fists as a weird, sick, high-pitched whine erupted from deep within his chest while Nick continued.

  Nõn watched the exchange between Nick and his sponsor carefully. Somewhere in the exchange, she’d become lost in the realization that she was staring at the tattoo on Nick’s left shoulder. Experiencing tunnel vision. She’d nearly forgotten her dream in the chaotic hurricane of events that had occurred in the last twenty-four hours. The intensity of her focus was broken only by the toxicity of a familiar voice from her unpleasant past. Nõn jumped as she was startled back to the present, her reality rudely assaulted by the venom in the thick accent of that familiar voice.

  “There you are, you worthless little excuse for a whore.”

  Nõn hadn’t spoken his name since that night in the hut, motioning to the bleeding girl to leave. She’d refused to speak it. He was dead in her mind.

  “Nõnkos Zia,” he continued, “do you remember me? You should, I used to fuck you when I had no others to use. You were by far my least favorite. Do you remember how you used to lay there when I was through with you? Unemotional, like a limp rag doll? I do, I’ve looked forward to this day for a very long time. When I’m done with you, you will feel pain like you never imagined possible, you will scream for mercy, that is a promise.”

  Nõn said nothing; she wouldn’t allow this demon to have the satisfaction of interaction with her. She just stared, unafraid and unemotional. Her protector had shown her a sign in her dream, the wolf waiting for her in the three pyramids. Follow the wolf, that was her path. The rest would be what it would be, death was just the final act of life, she had no fear of death.

  Her sponsor wanted something from her, some sign of fear or anger. Some emotion, any emotion. Instead, she was exactly as he remembered her when he raped her, unemotional, barely present in this world. He wanted to see her fear of him, instead she refused to acknowledge him. It drove him insane with rage, much like Nick’s taunting of the soft, fat, and ever smiling pedophile.

  The meeting was over, the sponsors watched as the naked trophies were wheeled back to the trophy room, and then they went back to their own individual huts and waited for the hunt to begin in the morning.

  Back inside the trophy room, no one said a word for several minutes. The team’s darkest secret was out, and their demeanor changed in kind. The façade of the uniform and the hope of this being some kind of loyalty test removed, the team began to display exactly what Nick had realized the night of the pushup contest. They were no better than the human traffickers they’d been duped into being hired to hunt. Nick had to give Jay credit, he’d played his hand with each and every one of them expertly.

  Rooney broke the silence. “So now you know why our asses are here. I’m sorry, Nick, but I couldn’t hear what the paper pusher Pillsbury Doughboy had to say to you. Why would he want to hunt you? Did you steal his favorite 6th grade lay from him?”

  “You nailed it, Rooney, I had better Legos and stole his boy toy for my own sick use. Now he wants payback.”

  Rooney laughed. “No, really, what the hell does he want with you?”

  Nick was more serious now. “Guess I won the lottery, seems the sick prick is a sadist. He likes to torture and molest small children and has some sick fantasy in which I end up begging him for my life. He’s never met me before today and has no idea who I am. I just fit the pedigree he was looking for. That’s all. Trust me, if I get the chance, he’ll regret this decision. He has no idea of the shit storm coming his way.”

  No one said a word. They all knew talk was cheap. Naked and tied to the dollies, it was easy to brag about what you would do when you were freed. Reality was, they were all at their sponsors’ mercy.

  The team made small talk with each other for the next couple of hours, tossing contingencies back and forth, what to do if this happened or that happened.

  Finally, Rohlk said to Nõn, “So who was that tall black dude? He looked really pissed at you, Nõn. An old boyfriend, maybe?”

  Everyone on the team laughed.

  Nick watched Nõn as she took a deep breath. As she began to tell the story of who her sponsor was, the room was instantly silent as all the men realized her voice had changed and she now spoke with a thick accent.

  “When I was a girl, I went through an unfortunate series of events. I thought I had escaped the local medicine man who was trying to harvest my body. My red hair makes certain parts of my body more magically powerful to medicine men, and they will pay a high price for the breasts or labia of a virgin redhead. You see, in my village only my brother and I were redheads, and we were hunted by those who practice Muti medicine. The hunters killed my brother and cut his body up to sell to the Muti medicine men. I escaped, or so I had thought at first. I was taken in by a woman who I thought was kind, and she treated me well. Instead, she sold me to human traffickers. I was sold as a sex slave, and to make the whole story shorter, I ended up as the property of that demon you saw today. I learned early on that he liked to see others in pain, he enjoyed it. Later, I realized he was a pure sadist. He could only enjoy raping me if I reacted. I learned to escape into my head and gave him nothing to enjoy. I think the mechanism is called Dissociative Disorder. It felt like I left my body and went somewhere else.”

  The room was quiet for several minutes while the team waited, realizing now the hell Nõn had been raised in. She continued quietly.

  “He would beat me repeatedly with a long piece of wire, whipping me for hours at a time. He wanted to see me cry, to hear me beg for him to stop. I did neither. I would not give him the reward for his efforts. I realized it took his power over me away by refusing to cry out. I should have died many times, but I did not. One night I awoke and felt I was ready to die, and I somehow knew that he had planned on killing me since I refused to please him. I was very weak from the beatings, my wounds were infected, and I actually welcomed death. Then I was visited by my protector. My name was taken from a woman who was a prophet of sorts among my people many years before I was born. She guided and protected my people in a time of great pain and many wars. My protector came to me in a dream and told me to take my tormentor’s power, I was filled with her strength. I felt healed, strong and fearless. I walked through the camp weaving among my captors, who were now asleep and drunk. I walked to his cabin and found a young girl there bleeding, crying. He had finished with her and had fallen asleep. I motioned to her to be silent and leave, which she did. I tied him up with the ropes he had bound the young girl with and took his power.”

  Garcia rolled his eyes. “What the hell does that mean, took his power? Like what, you took his Indiana Jones whip? What the does that mean, Nõn?”

  Nõn looked at Garcia, her eyes now dark and cold. “The demon had a pet hyena he kept tied up in the camp. I tied the demon up, and piece by piece I cut off his power and fed it to the hyena. The demon screamed while he watched me feed his power to the hyena. But I had bound him and stuffed his mouth with rags. No one could hear his screams. I wanted him to know his torture of children was ending. Piece by piece, it was ending. When there was nothing left, I got up and began walking. It was remarkable, really. I was filled with strength and walked for miles. I should have been dead, I was so weak, but somehow my protector had filled me with strength.”

  Johnson, in a sarcastic tone, asked, “So what did you feed the hyena? I mean, what did you think was his power?”

  Nick interrupted, “She cut off his dick, you idiot, piece by piece she cut off his cock and fed it to his pet hyena. Her demon had hurt the kids with his dick, so she took it from him.”

  Nõn replied, “Yes, exactly,” looking at Nick with a strange look. No one she’d ever dared to tell the story to had understood what Nick had immediately. Again she could see the tattoo on his shoulder and stared at it. She couldn’t see his face, as he was always placed facing away from her towards the outside wall of the room. They all faced outward in the room, so they only caught a sideways glimpse of each other as they talked.

  The team was silent for some time, finally someone whispered quietly, “Holy hell, that shit is brutal. Remind me not to piss that bitch off.”

  Nõn broke her silence. “Nick, what is that design on your shoulder? Does it have any meaning?”

  Nick mumbled, “Which shoulder? They both have tattoos. I have tattoos all over.”

  She replied, “The geometric design on your left shoulder, surrounded by a circle.”

  “Oh, that one. The circle is a Chaos star, it’s a Viking symbol. Its eight points symbolize the potential for chaos in any decision. Some see it as satanic, but it was originally intended to mean unlimited possibilities were present at every decision. Inside the star is the shape of a Valknut, it’s a warrior’s symbol that represents the nine worlds of the Vikings’ mythology. Each world was basically a level of existence. The Viking beliefs are complex. The warrior’s goal was to die well in battle and reach Valhalla.”

  Nõn’s vision narrowed, the room became very dark. All she could see was the tattoo of the three interlocking triangles. The Valknut, as he’d called it, looked like three pyramids interwoven. Nõn felt herself slipping slowly into unconsciousness and was barely aware of her own voice asking, “What are the other tattoos you have?”

  The last thing she heard before the darkness came was Nick’s voice saying, “I have a tattoo of a wolf head on my chest.”

  Nõn was unaware of the rest of the conversation in the room.

  Rooney interjected, “I once knew this girl who had a ruler tattooed on her leg, beneath it said ‘you must be this long to ride my ride.’”

  The team erupted in laughter.

  Garcia, laughing, said, “And I bet you were too damn short!”

  Even louder laughter rolled out of the team. Nick had to admit, it did feel good to laugh again, even if only for a moment. Straining to look over at Nõn, he saw that her head was down and she appeared to be asleep.

  One by one, they all drifted off to sleep. Fatigue had taken its toll on all of them. An hour later, Nick woke up to Rooney talking quietly to his team.

  “We’ll do what we did in the desert. We’ll put these animals in their place. Never forget, they aren’t people, they’re animals, and we can defeat them. We’re smarter than them, better than them.”

  A quiet “WHoo-Rah” rolled around the room.

  Nick sighed. “Jesus, you stupid fucks will never learn, will you?”

  Rooney said to Nick, “Fuck off, old man, we’ll see who comes out of this alive. We survive as a team. We have each other. What do you have besides a crazy bitch who feeds dick to hyenas?”

  Straining to see each other, Nick and Rooney locked eyes. Rooney was defiant to the last, sure of his ability to overcome this circumstance he and his team had found themselves in. They’d never known failure as a team. Problem was, they weren’t taken out as a team. Jay had already thought of that. They were to be removed in pairs.

  The next morning came much too quickly, the door opened, and Jay entered the room. “Judgment day, gentlemen.” He motioned to his workers to wheel out Rooney and Rohlk. The door closed as the team shouted encouragement to the exiting team members.

  Jay noticed that Nõn’s head was down and slapped her face until she woke up.

  Nick asked Jay for water, saying, “We’re no good to your clients dead, Jay. We need at least some water; not asking for a shower and a hand job, just a bottle of water.”

  Jay said nothing but returned a short time later with two bottles of water. He poured a small amount into each of their mouths. Surprisingly, no one spit it back in his face; they were too thirsty to waste the water with a meaningless gesture of spite.

  The next two hours passed much too quickly. The door opened to Jay’s smiling face. “Gentlemen, we have a new camp record! That was the single fastest successful hunt in camp history. Rooney and Rohlk were dispatched in under two hours.”

  The remaining team members were rabid with rage, screaming barely comprehensible insults. They never imagined the two veterans of the Gulf War would be dispatched so quickly. They’d hoped the two would return and lead them out of this nightmare; it wouldn’t come to pass. Jay motioned to his workers to remove Garcia and Johnson. They were wheeled out, and the door shut.

  Outside, the scene was a grim reminder of the sins in the team’s past. The sponsors were taking photos with their now deceased trophies, the lifeless bodies of Rooney and Rohlk. Trophies were also taken, and then the bodies of the former members of the hated and feared Kill Squad of Umm Qasr were dragged to the rear of the compound. The scene was a mirror of the events that had occurred in Iraq. Jay had staged it masterfully to please his clients.

  Garcia and Johnson were loaded onto the still idling truck and driven deep into the jungles of the Darien Gap. A few miles away, they were removed at gunpoint and given the filthy uniform worn by loggers from a logging company that had been unfortunate enough to become the example Jay had needed to win the Wounaan tribe’s loyalty. He kept the ruse alive by dressing his trophies in the logging company’s uniforms. When the trophies were hunted by their sponsors, they would be stalked wearing the familiar uniforms. This served two purposes. First, it maintained the façade that Jay was protecting the Wounaan people. Second, it made it very clear to the sponsors who to shoot. Killing a Wounaan tribe member by mistake would be very problematic. The Wounaan were primitive but formidable. Jay didn’t want them as enemies.

  Garcia and Johnson dressed at gunpoint and then were given an empty canteen, a knife and a map of the area. Jay continued to play his twisted mind games with the trophies as he said, “Good luck, gentlemen, I hope you make a better show of it than your previous two members did. A new record! Imagine! Good luck,” Jay yelled out as he drove off, headed towards the camp.

  Garcia said, “Jesus, I would love to cut that smug motherfucker’s throat!”

  The two men headed off into the jungle using the maps. They decided to travel directly to the nearest water supply and fill the canteens. Then they would begin to plan their escape from the Darien Gap. Their plan was precisely what Jay had hoped they would do. His safari experience had been proven accurate time and time again. The trophies’ pattern of behavior was incredibly predictable. Just like his lion so many years ago.

  Back in the trophy room, Nick was trying to get the remaining team members to listen to him.

  “Listen, whatever Rooney and Rohlk did, Jay must have anticipated it. So when we get out there, we have to think outside the box, do the unexpected. Whatever seems to be the smart thing to do, do the exact opposite. Does that make sense?”

  No one responded; they were all too discouraged. They listened, but he wasn’t sure how much they actually valued what he said. Even Nõn seemed lethargic.

 

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