Sacrifice

Agamemnon took a breath and then keyed the microphone again. “I have just sent half of my force into the jungle.”

“What for?” Luis asked.

“We had an escape.”

“The American girl?”

“Yes. She was something more than we expected. Jojo is dead.”

There was a pause over the air. Luis had always viewed Jojo as something of a student to be mentored. Agamemnon worried he might take his death hard.

“How?”

“She cut him in half with a sword.”

“A sword?”

“I have no idea where she was able to obtain it. One minute she was praying, and the next, she’d cut Jojo in half,” Agamemnon said.

“I don’t understand where she could have gotten a sword.”

“I don’t, either. But rest assured when we find her—and the men will find her—I will make her tell me everything.”

The radio squawked again. “Agamemnon?”

“Yes?”

“When it is time to kill her, I want to be the one to do it,” Luis said.

Agamemnon smiled. Revenge was something that Luis always took as a matter of personal pride. He keyed the microphone. “She will be yours, my friend.”

“Excellent. I will inform my men to post additional sentries around our camp, in the event that she happens to wander right into our welcoming arms.”

The other camp was situated ten miles away from Agamemnon’s location. By splitting their resources and locations, they believed it afforded them better security. And with the American military now actively engaged in hunting down Abu Sayyaf camps, such precautions ruled the day.

“Be careful with your preparations, Luis. Any misstep—”

He heard Luis chuckle through the static. “If there are any mistakes, I think it will be readily evident to you, Agamemnon. You won’t need me to call you on the radio, that’s for sure.”

“I suppose not.”

“I must go now. There’s much to be done before we launch this upon the godless infidels.”

Agamemnon keyed the microphone a final time. “Good luck to you, Luis. And to the men you choose to go with you.”

“I need only the grace of God to help us find our way. Then we will deal them all a blow from which they will never recover.”

Agamemnon turned off the radio and leaned back in his chair. Luis would accomplish his mission, no doubt. But there would be casualties when they launched their mission. Such losses were to be expected. In this fight, there was no such thing as a bloodless battle.

The only thing that still bothered him about the operation was the loose thread of Annja Creed. He hadn’t had time to think about it until he’d mentioned it to Luis, but where on earth had she gotten the sword?

It was as if the thing had appeared magically in her hands.

Agamemnon frowned. It was my fault for agreeing to uncuff her. I should have had Jojo kill her instead of granting her a moment to be with her god. Then again, not granting her the freedom to pray one final time might have been misconstrued by his people that he saw religion as frivolous.

No, he had done what he had to do. Unfortunately, Jojo paid the price for it.

No bloodless battles, he thought.

One thing was certain, however—when he recaptured Annja Creed, Luis would make sure that all the magic in the world wouldn’t be enough to help her. Agamemnon had, after all, witnessed Luis’s savagery. It was one of the things that had attracted him to the young man in the first place. Luis had a killer’s cold, calculating capacity for extreme violence combined with a reasonably sharp intellect.

He wasn’t as smart as Agamemnon, but then, that was the point.

Agamemnon didn’t need someone smarter than him around. That would have been foolhardy on his part. He needed men with courage and the ability to kill without regret. He needed women who cared little for the pleas of their victims as they detonated bombs and sprayed bullets in crowded shopping malls.

So far, Agamemnon had been fortunate enough to attract the people he needed.

But losing Jojo would be a blow to morale around the camp.

He sighed. Later on, when the search teams returned with the American woman, Agamemnon would see to it that everyone was properly rewarded. A party of sorts would be in order.

He nodded. He would send some of the women to the nearby village to secure some pigs for roasting. There was nothing like a feast to make his people forget a tragedy.

Combined with the success of their planned operation, Agamemnon felt certain that any lingering sadness over Jojo’s death would evaporate in the joyous triumph they would all experience.

Perhaps he would have Luis bring his men over to the party. Luis had a young girl in his camp that Agamemnon hadn’t yet taken the time to properly indoctrinate into the more delicate ways of being a revolutionary. After all, the sweet thing would need to understand how the needs of her leader always had to be met in order for the revolution to grow stronger.

He grinned. The island girls were always so much easier to deflower than their counterparts in the big cities. They could be readily persuaded with a bit of extra food and wine.

He felt a swelling in his pants and smiled. Rank, it was very true, had some very distinct privileges.

All I need is for tomorrow to go off well. And for my men to find Annja Creed.

Agamemnon stood and walked out of the hut. Daylight was already starting to fade. Night would soon blanket the camp.

He waved over one of the few men left in camp. “See to it that Jojo’s body is prepared for burial. If we leave it too long, he will only attract predators.”

The man saluted and ran to find help. Agamemnon watched the flies buzz away from the carcass as a woman approached, waving a broom at the body.

His people, he knew, had learned the lesson.

All around him, people came out of their huts and approached Jojo’s body with a degree of reverence. They would see to it that he was buried in the ground beyond the camp.

Later, when the American woman was dragged back into the camp, Agamemnon would allow them to vent their frustrations on her.

Then, and only then, would he allow Luis to kill her.

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