Love and Lies
By: AliasCWN
Chapter 3
The truck driver made his way slowly and carefully along the streets of the base. The last thing he wanted to do was attract any attention to himself or to his truck. Weaving through the narrow alleys, he made his way to a couple of neglected buildings close to the Arab quarter.
The Corporal jumped out to check the area, making sure that their arrival had not attracted any unwanted attention. Seeing no one around, he ordered the driver to pull up in front of one of the buildings while they unloaded their prisoners.
Tully and Hitch were pulled from the rear of the truck and shoved into the larger of the two buildings. Still tied, they were each forced to stand against a support post where they were secured to the beam. The Corporal inspected the ropes and pulled them tighter, making them dig into the flesh. Within minutes their hands started to tingle from the lack of circulation.
Outside, the truck pulled away, to be parked where it would not give away their location.
"Pete, go take a look outside. Make sure no one saw us coming in here. Then make sure that Tommy finds a good spot for the truck. We can't have anything lead searchers here."
The one called Pete nodded and stepped out the door, leaving the Corporal and Jimmy with the prisoners.
The Corporal walked slowly around his captives as if studying them from every angle. His eyes blazed with a strong emotion as he looked at them. He didn't speak, he just walked around and around, eyeing them coldly.
"Wes." Jimmy spoke nervously to the Corporal. "What are we going to do with them?"
` Wes, the corporal, smiled at Jimmy before he turned back to the prisoners. "We're going to kill them Jimmy, just like I promised."
The private named Jimmy gasp in shock. "But you just said you wanted to talk to them!"
"And I will Jimmy." He smiled. "Right up until I kill them." He stopped in front of Hitch to look into his eyes. With a wicked grin, he placed the barrel of his gun under the blondes' chin.
Tully squirmed as hard as he could, watching the Corporal threaten Hitchcock. Struggling against the ropes, he tried to yell despite the gag. Hitchcock met the Corporal stare for stare, refusing to look away. He could hear Tully fighting the ropes but he couldn't look his way without breaking eye contact with the Corporal. He did his best to hide his fear from the other man. The barrel of the rifle under his chin dug in painfully as the Corporal twisted and pushed.
It was Jimmy who ended the staring contest. "Wes, don't you think we should wait for the others before we do anything?"
Wes smiled again, giving the rifle one final push, forcing Hitchcock's head up until his head banged off the post. "Oh I'm not going to kill them just yet Jimmy. I want them to suffer first; I want them to know why they are going to die. I want them to admit what they've done."
Tully quit struggling as he realized that Hitch was safe for the present. He glared at the Corporal with an unspoken warning to leave his friend alone.
"Don't worry Pettigrew, you'll get your turn; then your sergeants will get their turn. I'm going to kill both of them too."
Tully looked over at Hitch and noticed that the blond seemed just as confused as he felt. He couldn't place the men from any of their previous encounters. He'd briefly considered that they might be German but everything he'd seen so far suggested that they were American. Racking is brain; he tried to remember if they'd ever made anyone, other than the Germans, mad enough to kill them. There were several officers who came to mind who may have considered it, but this seemed too personal to be them. When he glanced at Hitch, he could see that the blond was not having any success in figuring it out either. Since they were still gagged, they couldn't ask any questions. They were forced to wait until the Corporal decided to explain it to them. Tully tried to catch Hitch's eye to give him a reassuring wink, but the blond was staring at Jimmy intently. Thinking he may have missed something, Tully gave him another look but he still couldn't place him.
They waited in an uneasy silence for Pete to return. The time dragged as the Corporal stared at them and Jimmy paced nervously around the room. They heard voices outside but the soldiers passed on by without realizing what was happening inside the building. It was over an hour before they heard Pete outside the door.
The door opening drew Tully's attention to the two men who entered. One of them was Pete, the other had to be the truck driver, Tommy. A flash of memory, gone as quick as it came, made Tully take a closer look at the two men. He could almost believe that he may have forgotten Pete, but that was not the case with Tommy. Tommy, he was sure he would have remembered. The tall, skinny private looked like a bean-pole on legs. Even his uniform looked too large for his thin frame; it hung loosely from his body.
"What took you so long?" Looking toward Jimmy, the Corporal looked irritated as he questioned Pete.
"We had to move the truck twice." Pete answered. "The MPs didn't like where we parked it the first time and made Tommy move it. Then some Arabs started nosing around and we had to move it again."
The Corporal jerked his head to look at Tommy. "Did the MPs ask you any questions?" Tommy shook his head. "Good. We don't need them nosing around. Did anyone see you come in here?"
"No, we were careful. That's one of the reasons we were so long getting back. We took the long way to keep an eye on our trail. Nobody saw us." Pete looked from Jimmy to the Corporal, wondering why his friends seemed so tense. "What's wrong Jimmy?" Pete looked past Jimmy to where the captives were tied; everything looked under control.
"I gotta talk to you Pete, can we go outside?"
"Talk in here." The Corporal ordered. "We don't want to attract attention by being seen going in and out of here."
Jimmy glanced nervously at the Corporal before turning to Pete. " I thought we were just going to talk to these guys, that's all I agreed to do."
"That's all we're going to do Tommy." Pete assured him, looking to the Corporal for confirmation.
"No, it's not Pete. Wes says we're going to kill them. He says that they have to pay for what they've done. He says that we're going to kill both of them and their sergeants too."
Both Pete and Tommy turned to stare at the Corporal, surprise evident on their faces.
"Come on now fellas," Wes chided, "you don't really think we went to all this trouble just to talk, did you?" The Corporal met their stares with a smile.