Chapter 3

Sophie grunted loudly through gritted teeth as the wooden cudgel was shoved even deeper into her colon. She struggled to block out the doubts and recriminations that streamed through her consciousness: Why did I volunteer for Level Nine training? What could I have done to keep from getting captured? How could I let my team down like this? If I give in, it will stop...

With great effort she shoved those thoughts aside. None of them mattered now. The only thing that mattered was the razor blade between her fingers as it sawed at the fibers of the rope binding her to the chair.

"Where is your rendezvous point?" her interrogator asked yet again, twisting the thick club in her intestines.

Sophie's only answer was another guttural grunt. She choked back the curse that half-formed in her mind, knowing it would only make things worse. Wholly absorbed with the problem of keeping her grip on the thin strip of metal with her sweaty fingers and working it slowly through the last strand of rope.

The electric shock took her by surprise, almost making her drop the blade, even though she had known it would be coming. The alligator clip on her genitals and the wire taped along the length of the truncheon had warned that it would be coming, but her concentration on the task at hand was so great that she hadn't noticed the interrogator approaching the switch.

"AAAARGH!" she screamed as her entire nether region exploded in pain from the involuntary muscle spasms. Blessedly, the switch opened, and she feverishly returned to her task.

"Where were you to rendezvous? We already have all of your men, so you might as well save yourself some suffering and tell us the rendezvous point."

Finally, the strand of hemp parted, but the time to act was not yet. Carefully, Sophie stuck the razor blade in a crack of the wooden chair over which she was bound and waited.

This time the shock was longer and the voltage higher. Her bladder let go as she screamed in agony.

This was the day she had waited for; the day her captors knew she would break. She had withstood everything they threw at her for three days. The rapes, the beatings, the torture had produced only curses at first, but those had grown feeble, and had finally stopped altogether. Oh yes, she was ready to break. The interrogator knew he wouldn't need any help today, so it was just the two of them in the shack. The final agonizing indignities, he could administer alone, and that knowledge, and the razor blade were all that stood between her and defeat.

When he finally cut the current, Sophie slumped limply in her bonds, sobbing.

"Tell me what I want to know, and the pain will stop, Sophie," her tormentor said gently.

"Okay!" she sobbed in a low whisper. "Just make it stop!"

"I did not hear you, Doña," he said, mocking her with the title tacitly bestowed upon her by the citizens of Phoenicia. He walked around the chair and bent his ear near her mouth. "What was that you said?"

"I said..." she whispered, sobbing, and he leaned closer, " ... eat shit and die, motherfucker!"

Her freed hand flashed out and the stiffened web of flesh between thumb and forefinger caught him across the larynx. As he grabbed his stricken throat, gagging, Sophie swiftly reached behind her and tore the club from her rectum, ignoring the pain she caused herself. With a sound like a golf ball bouncing off a ripe watermelon, the cudgel collided with her tormentor's skull, laying him out on the floor of the shack.

Acting quickly, Sophie transferred the club to her left hand and retrieved the razor blade from where she had stuck it in the wood. Three swift slashes freed her left hand, left foot and right foot. She discarded the blade, knowing that, if she were captured again, the body cavity search would not miss it this time.

With measured haste, she stripped the pants from her captor and slashed off the bottoms of the trouser legs with his belt knife. It was good, tempered Phoenician steel, not the makeshift stuff the barbarians cut out of old cars. When she was done, she slipped the pants on and cinched the web belt up to fit her much smaller waist. The fit was horrible since her captor was many sizes larger than she was, but it would serve.

She didn't waste the time to retrieve and modify the shirt to fit; it would be too loose and catch on things, but one didn't run through underbrush in bare legs if one could help it.

With her former captor tied up and gagged, Sophie finally took the time to wipe the barrel of the truncheon on his shirt, and then peeked through a crack between the dried up boards that served as siding for the shack.

There was only one guard on the porch that ran along the front of the shack, but there were others in the yard with her fellow prisoners. Thinking quickly, Sophie quietly released the latch of the door and swiftly swung her diminutive frame into the rafters above.

The guard heard the hinges squeak as the door slowly swung open, and stepped cautiously inside to see what was going on. His eyes widened in alarm as he saw the room empty, except for the interrogator whose unconscious form now occupied the chair over which the prisoner's naked body had been tied.

He started forward only to fall victim to Sophie's bludgeon, and drop, unconscious, to the floor of the cabin. It took only seconds for the former prisoner to pull the guard out of view of the doorway and bind and gag him.

With the immediate threats neutralized, Sophie's mind slowed and began to plan. She wanted nothing more than to sit and sob away the pain and anguish of the last few days, but there was no time for that. She considered, briefly, leaving the truncheon as far up the interrogator's ass as she could shove it, but thought better of it. For what she had to do, it was a better weapon than the knife or the firearms carried by the guards.

It would be nice if she could wait until the sun went down, but she knew the two in the cabin would be found before then, so Sophie had to act quickly.

In her time at the camp, she had counted only five guards, and two of them were now tied up in the interrogation shack. If she could catch the other three off-guard before the alarm was raised, she just might have a chance.

She slipped out the only door and into the brush at the side of the cabin, thanking her lucky stars that her captors hadn't taken a lot of care in clearing the site.

The first of the other guards was easy. Sophie caught him from behind, coming up the path from the guard's quarters with two cups of what looked like stew, probably for the occupants of the cabin.

Perhaps it was her memory of how sadistic this one had been when he participated in one of her many rapes that caused her to hit him a little harder than necessary, but she managed to catch one of the cups as he went down and wolf down the steaming contents.

She couldn't have testified as to the taste, but since it was the first real food she had had since her capture, she thought it must be at least as delicious as anything served at Ruth's café back home in Phoenix.

Sophie looked longingly at the steaming mess spread across the ground from the other cup, but decided she couldn't afford the time to scrape it up.

The last two guards were patrolling the prisoner's enclosure, and she had the bad luck to have the last one see her as she knocked out his partner. The last guard came tearing around the fenced enclosure, un-slinging his weapon as he ran. Instead of running or hiding, Sophie simply raised her hands in surrender, her head falling forward in resignation.

The guard angrily ordered her to her knees and her legs bent in surrender. As she dropped, her right hand shot forward and released the club, which flew swiftly toward the guard's head.

He wasn't to be taken that easily. The barrel of his M16 came up to block the flying club, but Sophie followed closely behind, giving him a hard kick to the left knee as he was occupied with dodging the club. The guard screamed as the ligaments in his knee gave under Sophie's kick, only to have the scream cut off abruptly as the bony top of her foot connected solidly with his chin.

She found the keys for the padlocked compound on his belt and swiftly unlocked the gate. Her team filed out quickly and quietly. There would be time for cheering and celebration later. For now, they were a Phoenician Special Ops team, and they had a job to do. A couple of them headed for the guards and Sophie told them, "Knives and truncheons only. Leave the guns, but take the ammo clips and boots."

It would take the guards a little time to get themselves untied and resupplied and she intended to be long gone by then. A couple of the men sat and began pulling on the boots of their captors, but Sophie stopped them.

"No time for that. We don't have far to go. Just take the boots so they'll be barefoot too."

"Yes ma'am," the men answered. There had been a couple of the men who were skeptical about her leadership at the beginning of this mission. They weren't now.

She led them to the guard's quarters where they found the pot of stew that number three had prepared. She made sure each one got a share before leading them out again. Sophie chafed at the delay, but knew the men would need their strength, and they couldn't afford the time to search for grubs or edible insects and plants.

The team began to file out of the camp toward the east, but Sophie stopped them after about a quarter mile and turned south, then west, saying, "This way. We can't take a chance that they know about the boats."

The men traded looks, but followed her lead. Finally, about two klicks from the camp, with the sound of surf in their ears, her First Lieutenant asked, "How are we going to get back if we don't use the boats, Captain?"

"You think those guys in the camp walked to this island, Ramirez?" Sophie asked. "We didn't see any other boats on the eastern side, but the map I studied before we were captured says there's a sheltered cove on the southwest side. I'm betting that's where they left their transport."

It took them forty-five minutes to locate the harbor, and another five to hot-wire the ethanol fueled powerboat they found there. A couple of hours later, they tied the boat up at the pier on Coronado Island.

Dragging her bone weary body onto the pier, Sophie called, "Team One! Fall in! Sergeant Nguyen, how about a little marching song to get us in the mood?"

"Yes sir!" Nguyen grinned, then in his finest parade ground voice, "I don't know but I've been told..."

The cadence got their feet moving as the bawdy words took weary minds off of the fatigue in their bodies.

It was, by no means, their finest performance, but when the team jogged into camp and came to attention in front of the commandant's office, the entire base turned out to stare.

Wearing nothing but her attitude and a pair of cut-off fatigue pants about five sizes too big, Sophie marched up the three steps to the Commandant's office, entered, and came to attention in front of his desk.

"Team one returning from Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training, sir!" she exclaimed.

General Carson stared open-mouthed at the half-naked woman before him.

Finally, he shook his head and asked, "I thought your team was captured, Captain."

"Sir! Yes, sir!"

"And yet, here you are, out of uniform, standing in front of my desk. Your responsibility is to your team Captain. What do you think it will do to their morale when they find out you've escaped?"

"They already know, sir!" Sophie answered, struggling to keep a straight face. "As for what it did to their morale, sir, I suggest you ask them yourself."

"Ask them myself?" The general's left eyebrow rose a half inch. "All right captain. Orderly! Prepare a boat for the trip to San Clemente Island!"

"That's a good idea, sir," Sophie said. "I suspect some of the 'enemy' will need medical attention, but if you want to talk to my team, you won't need the boat, Sir."

Sophie stepped to one side so the commandant could see the team assembled outside the screen door.

Again, the general's mouth dropped open. "You got them all out?"

"Sir! Yes sir!"

"You didn't kill my instructors, did you, Captain?"

"No, sir," Sophie finally let her grin show, "but they'll have headaches for a few days. With your permission, sir, my team could use a meal and a shower, so if you have no objection, I'll dismiss them."

"By all means, Captain," General Carson replied, "but if you would, I'd like to speak with you for a moment after you've seen to your team."

"Yes, sir," Sophie answered. She stepped out and let the screen door slam shut behind her.

"Team One!" Nguyen shouted, "Atten-HUT!"

"Special Operations Team One awaiting your orders, Ma'am!" the Sergeant said as the others snapped to attention.

"Dismiss the team and see that they get fed and any medical needs attended to, Sergeant. Lieutenant Ramirez, I'll see you back in quarters in one hour."

"Yes ma'am!" Lieutenant Ramirez answered.

"Team One! Dis-missed! You heard the Captain!" Nguyen told the others.

"Have a seat, Captain," General Carson said, closing the office door as a sign to others not to interrupt. "You're off duty now, so relax. Can I get you something to drink?"

"Single Malt, if you've got it," Sophie answered, "otherwise I'll have what you're having."

"You're definitely your father's daughter, Sophie," the General smiled as he poured a stiff shot of Glenlivet into a water glass and handed it to her, "and not just because of your taste in liquor."

"How do you mean, sir?" savoring a sip of the spirit that was getting harder and harder to come by. That bottle alone must have cost at least a hundred credits.

Instead of answering directly, Carson leaned back and took a sip from his own glass, then said, "You know that I was with your father at the Citadel. I wasn't one of the first ones but it was only a few weeks after he arrived that Gunny Garcia recruited me and a bunch of other military types from the bases nearby. From the beginning, I had him pegged as a man who knew what he wanted and would stop at nothing to get it."

He took another sip before continuing, "Over time, I learned that there were some things that he would not do. It was hard to believe, because men of integrity were hard to find in the years before the Sickness, but your father was determined to not only restart civilization, but to make a better world. If he feared anything, he never showed it to the rest of us, but I never met a man with a bigger heart, and if ever a man was born to be leader, it was he."

"I'll be honest, Doña," he said as he savored another sip, "we were more than a little skeptical about you when you showed up for Level Nine training. That little speech you gave me about not treating you any differently than the others, we figured that was for show, but we decided to call your bluff, because the program is too important to jeopardize it, even for the President's sister."

Another sip and then, "As time went on, your father's genes began to show. Not only do you have Gavin's determination, but you have the instincts to be a natural leader. You understand that the ERE exercise was designed to ensure that no matter how good you and your team were, you would be captured, right?"

"Of course, sir," Sophie was on the edge of her chair, leaning forward, and it wasn't until she tried to take a sip that she realized her glass was empty. Her head buzzed and she waved away the silent offer of a refill.

"Our 'enemy' team had you under surveillance almost from the time you landed. Apparently, there were a couple of men on your team who shared our misgivings. They disobeyed your orders and went off on their own, and right into our trap. We scrapped our earlier observations and took this as evidence that you weren't fit to command, and determined to break you."

Carson took another sip and looked into his glass as he continued, "O'Donnell's status report this morning said that he was sure you were ready to break, and yet, here you are, with your entire team. What happened, Captain?"

"I was ready to break, sir," Sophie shrugged, "and I knew that when your interrogators saw that, that would be the best chance I would have to escape. I had managed to smuggle a razorblade in, that even the body cavity search didn't find. When O'Donnell decided he would interrogate me alone, while he was torturing me, I kept myself busy cutting the rope that bound me to the chair. When the rope broke, so did I. O'Donnell leaned over to hear my confession, and I gave him a chop across the larynx, then pulled the club that he was sodomizing me with out of my ass and cold-cocked him. I stole his pants and did a quick tailor job on them, then lured the guard inside and laid him out from where I hung in the rafters. Sergeant Sweeney got hit a little harder than necessary as he was bringing lunch, but then he was pretty sadistic when he was raping me, too. I managed to sneak up on Sergeant Gutierrez, but Schmidt saw me lay him out and came for me. I pretended to surrender, then took him by surprise as he dodged the club I threw at him. I got the team loose using Schmidt's keys and fed them the guards' lunch. We figured your guys would know about our boats but they had to have their own transport to the island, and if it was anywhere, it was going to be in that sheltered cove on the west side. I hope they didn't sabotage our boats, because theirs is tied up at the boat dock outside."