"And your underwear. That too," Paul said, without turning around.
After another look back at his comrades in arms, Veja timidly stepped out of his white boxers.
Paul went up to him, arms behind his back.
"Hold up your dick." Paul looked to make sure he'd complied. "Now stand at ease."
Max watched Paul lower himself into a tensed-up catcher's crouch, eye-to-eye with the soldier. He took a deep breath through his nose, and then, at the speed of a blink, he whipped his rock-holding hands around from behind his back and slammed them together on Veja's dangling scrotum. Max heard two soundsthe loud crack of the rocks impacting and, right behind it, a strained, wet pop.
The soldier's mouth dropped wide-open, as if all his jaw muscles had dissolved. His eyes pushed up out to the rims of his sockets, and every vein and artery in his skull bulged up in a network of thick, gorged knots.
Veja first screamed in an unnaturally low register. Then, as the realization of what had happened to him caught up with the pain, the scream cracked into a rush of terrible, terrifying howls, delivered in searing bursts from the pit of his soul. Max felt Veja's cries all the way down deep inside of him and wanted to puke. Some of the soldier's comrades did just that, while two fainted and the restincluding Captain Saggarwept, whimpered, and pissed themselves.
Paul wasn't finished. He jerked his arms sharply to the left, until his elbow was in line with his neck and his whole body shook with the strain and effort. Max saw the soldier's naked right leg lifted up off the ground, his foot shaking. Paul repeated the whole motion with his right side, before bringing his arms back down and then twisting them rapidly back and forth, as if he was wringing out wet clothes.
He stopped. He gulped down air, filling and clearing his airways with great big breaths before he uttered a heavy, exhausted grunt and tore Veja's mangled scrotum from his body with a massive backward lurch. The sound of it going reminded Max of stitches popping and tight fistfuls of feathers being simultaneously ripped out of chickens.
Veja staggered backwards, two steps, three, one, mouth working soundlessly, throat spasming up and down, all screamed out, unable to expel any more of his immense pain. He lurched forward and then went back again.
Max saw the bloody gash in the middle of his legs, the crimson rivulets pouring down his thighs.
Veja reached for his violated crotch and touched the mush below his dick.
Paul tossed the blood-soaked rocks and flesh away.
Veja brought his bloody fingers up to his eyes, studied them closely, and then, just as his face began to crumple into tears, he keeled back and slammed into the ground, cracking his skull.
He was dead.
Paul took out his gun and put a round in Veja's head. Then he dragged another soldier, screaming and pleading and crying, out of the shattered group. Paul slapped the man's face with a huge, bloody paw.
"You stay here and watch your friends. Just like you did when they raped the girl," he said and turned him around to face his comrades. He then shouted at the two guards who were watching Saggar. They shoved him over to his men.
"You are animalmonster!" Saggar yelled out at Paul. "You vill be punished for this."
Paul stepped away and whistled. The rocks began to fly.
The first volley came from the girl's family, who'd moved into position, opposite the rapists. They threw large rocks at them, over-and underarm, and fired smaller ones by catapult. All found their targetsheads were opened, brows were split, eyes were put out.
The rapists tried to run backwards but they met an immediate hail of rocks flying out of the darkness, hurled and shot at them by unseen hands. One soldier was knocked out, another dropped to the floor and pulled his legs up in fetal position.
The rocks flew into heads and faces and knees and chests. Max saw a man killed when one catapulted rock struck his cheek and spun him right into the path of another, high-velocity stone that caved his temple in and rammed skull bone into his brain.
Saggar was on all fours, scrambling around, feeling his way along the ground, blood covering his face from a gash in his forehead, one eye buried under a mound of swollen skin.
None of the rapists were left standing when the Le Fen family moved in, sticks and machetes in hand, Verité leading the way, helped along by her father. The other rock-throwers came out of the darkness and together they formed a circle around the fallen men.
Moments later, the sounds of beating and pounding and stabbing and slashing came from the circle. Max heard a few cries of pain, but it all seemed minor after Veja's screams that were still clearly echoing around his head.
The crowd worked on the bodies, letting out their hatred, sucking up as much raw vengeance as they could before their muscles gave out and tiredness got the better of them.
When they staggered away, they left behind a pulped vermilion mass, a gleaming, viscous lake of retribution.
A guard went around and put nominal bullets in the skulls that were still intact.
Paul looked at the driver.
"NowyouI want you to go back to your barracks in Port-au-Prince and tell everyone what happened. Start with your friends and colleagues, then tell your commanding officer. Tell them I was responsible. Vincent Paul. You understand?"
The man nodded, his teeth chattering.
"And when you tell them what happened, tell them this from meif any of you ever rape or harm any of our women and children in any way, we will kill youlike that," he said, pointing at the tangle of body parts. "And if any of you come looking for revenge, rounding up our people, we will all rise up and massacre each and every one of you. And that isn't a threat, it's a promise. Now go."
The driver started walking away, very slowly, head down, slouching, steps uncertain, as though they were the first he'd taken in a long while and half-expected his legs to give way. He put a good few meters between himself and the scene, and then he broke into a run and disappeared into the night like a man on fire who's spotted water.
Paul went to be with the family.
Max couldn't move. He was numb with shock and disgust, his mind paralyzed by conflict. He hated all rapists and, in theory, up to the moment it had happened, he had agreed with Paul's actions.
True, what the soldiers had done was evil, and their official "punishment" had been a joke, an insult to the victim, but justice hadn't been served by Paul's act. The girl hadn't got her life and innocence back, just the satisfaction of knowing that the rapists had been punished, that they'd suffered before dying. But what good would that do her next year, and the year after? What good was it doing her now?