Warning Order (A Spider Shepherd short story) by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online Page A

off, baffled. ‘Maybe it’s that without a hand, they can’t bear arms against the people who did this and seek revenge for the slaughter of their parents?’
    Shepherd shrugged. ‘Maybe. Have you noticed the lack of bodies of older children, boys and girls?’
     ‘Yeah,’ Jock said. ‘You can guess why the girls have been taken. They use them as camp prostitutes and then abandon or kill them if they become pregnant. AIDS is rife here and there’s a widespread belief that the only cure is to have sex with a virgin. The rebels will even take babies - girls as young as two years old - and rape them in search of a cure.’ He shook his head. ‘Bastards.’
    ‘That means the girls get infected?’ said Shepherd.
    Jock nodded. ‘The boys are recruited to fight as soldiers for the rebels. The standard practice is to make them kill their own parents. If they refuse, they’re killed themselves. Most do it. I’ve even heard of parents throwing themselves onto the knives their sons were holding, if they hesitated before killing them. Once the boys are brutalised, they’re kept high on a concoction of what they call “brown-brown” - raw, impure heroin, amphetamines and gunpowder - and given an amulet that they’re told is juju to make them invisible to their enemies and turn bullets fired at them into water, then sent into battle.’
     Jimbo stared at him open-mouthed. ‘How do you know all this shit?’
    ‘Me?’ Jock said. ‘I read a lot and I listen more than I talk. You should try it some time.’
    ‘So what we can do?’ Shepherd said. ‘Are we going to just look the other way? Or shall we track them? They clearly weren’t worried about leaving sign.’ He gestured towards the route the killers had taken, marked by footprints and broken stems as they’d pushed through the scrub, and a trail of drips of blood left by some of their wounded captives.
    ‘We’ve a few hours to spare before the landing. Let’s see how far they’ve gone at least,’ Geordie said. ‘My guess is that, once they’re out of the immediate area, they’ll find a place to stop so they can have their fun with the girls they’ve captured.’
    There were no dissenting voices and as Shepherd glanced from face to face, he saw the same cold hatred for those who had done this. They did not deserve to live, Shepherd thought, and though the task of securing the beach for the landing came first, he hoped there would be time and opportunity to avenge the murdered villagers they had found.  As they moved off, they went into the familiar patrol routine, with Shepherd as lead scout, Geordie and Jimbo in the middle of the patrol watching left and right, and Jock as ‘tail end Charlie’, watching the rear.
    They made their way through scrub bush and a few overgrown plantations, and worked their way around belts of elephant grass that towered above them. As Geordie had suspected, the rebels had not gone far. They had covered no more than a mile and a half when, as Shepherd inched his way forward to breast a low rise, he heard the sound of voices and smelt woodsmoke on the wind. Shepherd gently eased apart the branches of a thorn bush and through the gap he saw the rebel encampment, no more than a hundred yards away. The rebels had set up in another abandoned village. There were dark circles of charred earth in places where huts had been burned, but three still stood, their sagging roofs of palm fronds relatively intact. Groups of boys and girls were huddled together, sitting cross-legged on the ground, watched over by a couple of the rebels with AK-47s and bandoliers of ammunition across their chests. The remainder of the rebels sat or lounged in the dust, swigging from bottles, laughing and joking. Most were armed with AK-47s but a couple had RPGs.
    Shepherd motioned the other members of the patrol forward to take a look, then they retreated a few yards and held a whispered discussion. ‘The mission comes first,’ said Shepherd. ‘We