Drake Sisters 04 - Dangerous Tides

next time, and next time was coming much quicker than he had anticipated. If he didn't find a way out soon, all the physical and psychic enhancements in the world wouldn't save him.

    The rebels had every right to be angry with him. Jack's twin brother, Ken, and his paramilitary GhostWalker team had successfully extracted the rebel's first truly valuable American political prisoners.
    A United States Senator had been captured while traveling with a scientist and his aides.

    The GhostWalkers had come in with deadly precision, rescued the senator, the scientist, his two aides, and the pilot, and left the camp in shambles. Ken had been captured and the rebels had had a field day torturing him. Jack had no choice but to go in after his brother.

    The rebels weren't any happier with Jack for depriving them of their prisoner than they had been with Ken. Jack had laid down the covering fire as the GhostWalkers were extracting Ken and had taken a hit.
    The wound wasn't critical—he'd been testing his leg and it wasn't broken—but the bullet had driven his leg out from under him on impact. He'd waved his team off and resigned himself to the same torture his brother had endured—one more thing they shared as they had in their younger days.

    The first beating hadn't been so bad—before Major Biyoya showed up. They'd kicked and punched him, stomping on his wounded leg a couple of times, but for the most part, they'd refrained from torturing him, waiting to find out what General Ekabela had in mind. The general had sent Biyoya.

    The majority of the rebels were military trained, and many had at one time been of high rank in the government or military until one of the many coups, and now they were growing marijuana and wreaking havoc, raiding smaller towns and killing everyone who dared to oppose them or had the farms or land the rebels wanted. No one dared cross into their territory without permission. They were skilled with weapons and in guerrilla warfare—and they liked to torture and kill. They had a taste for it now, and the power drove them to continue. Even the UN avoided the area; if they did try to bring medicine and supplies to the villages, the rebels robbed them.

    Jack opened his eyes enough to look down at his bare chest where Major Keon Biyoya had carved his name. Blood dripped and flies and other biting insects congregated for the feast. It wasn't the worst of the tortures by any means, nor the most humiliating. He had endured it stoically, removing himself from Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    the pain as he had all of his life, but the fire of retribution burned in his belly.

    Rage ran cold and deep, like a turbulent river hidden beneath the calm surface of his expressionless face.
    The dangerous emotion poured through his body and flooded his veins, building his adrenaline and strength. He deliberately fed it, recounting every detail of the last interrogation session with Biyoya. The cigarette burns, small circles marring his chest and shoulders. The whip marks that had peeled the skin from his back. Biyoya had taken his time carving his name deep, and when Jack made no sound, he'd hooked up battery cables to shock him. And that had only been the beginning of several hours at the hands of a twisted madman. The precise, almost surgical, two-inch cuts covering nearly every inch of his body were identical to those this man had given his brother. With each slice, Jack felt his brother's pain while he could push away his own.

    Jack tasted the rage in his mouth. With infinite slowness, he eased his hands to the seam of his camouflage pants, fingertip seeking the minute end of the thin wire sewn there. He began to draw it out with a smooth, practiced motion, all the while his brain working with icy precision, calculating distances to weapons, planning each step to get him into the foliage of the jungle. Once there, he was certain of his ability to elude his captors, but he had to first cover bare ground and get through a dozen trained soldiers.
    The one and only thing he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, was that Major Keon Biyoya was a walking dead man.

    Two soldiers tramped through the camp toward him. Jack felt the coil inside of him winding tighter and tighter. It was now or never. His hands were tied in front of him, but his captors had been careless, leaving his feet free after the last torture session, believing him incapacitated. Biyoya had smashed the