Free P. O. W. by Donald E. Zlotnik Page A

fucking scared!”
    “Spence… do you want to change your mind? It’s all right if you do.” Garibaldi grabbed both of Spencer’s shoulders and gently
     shook him to get his attention. “Spencer! You’ve done far more than most
men
…. There’s nothing wrong in giving in now!”
    Spencer lifted his chin and looked at the colonel. The tears filling his eyes magnified the light blue irises. Garibaldi felt
     a pain in his chest. He would gladly trade places with the seventeen-year-old. He was in his mid-forties and had lived a good
     life until he had been shot down; this soldier was barely into puberty and had so much to live for.
    Garibaldi hugged the boy tightly in his arms and felt the thin shoulders shaking. “I want you to know, Spencer, that I am
     very proud of you…
very proud
.” The colonel’s tears soaked through Spencer’s hair. “Your father is one very lucky man to have a son like you.”
    Spencer wrapped his arms around the colonel and hugged back. “Oh… fuck, sir… I’m scared.”
    *   *   *
    Lieutenant Van Pao watched the emotional scene from the shadows of her troop barracks. She couldn’t make out what was going
     on—if Spencer had broken down or if he was confiding in the colonel father figure. She left the shadows and approached the
     cage.
    “Spencer… would you like to talk to me?”
    Barnett released his hold on the colonel and glared at the North Vietnamese intelligence officer. “Fuck you, Sweet Bitch!”
    The blunt, hostile statement caught her off guard, and she hesitated with her mouth opening and closing like a fish’s out
     of water. Finally she spoke. “You will see what a Sweet Bitch really is!” She turned and gave the guards orders.
    The camp guards pulled Spencer out of the cage along with the colonel. Van Pao backhanded Garibaldi across his mouth, drawing
     blood instantly. “You failed me!” She turned her attention to Spencer and nodded her head. The guards tore his black pajamas
     from his body, leaving him naked. “There will not be a repeat of what happened to our South Vietnamese officer…. Mother Kaa
     will not have any problems digesting
you
!”
    The guards pulled Barnett to the python’s cage and lifted him on top of the structure. The snake was coiled up in a tight
     ball at one end of the low bamboo cage. Spencer dropped down through the roof hole and scooted to the opposite side of the
     cage. He felt the cool bamboo poles against his buttocks and knew that he could go no farther back.
    “Call me anytime, if you have something to tell me.” Lieutenant Van Pao smiled and ran her fingers back and forth along the
     bamboo bars, making a soft scraping noise. “Wake up… Mother Kaa, wake up….”
    Garibaldi watched from his cage. He instantly picked up the name Van Pao was calling the snake and realized that there was
     only one way that she could have known they called the python by that nickname. Garibaldi was positive they had never referred
     to the snake by that name in front of her, but they did talk openly in front of the guards. Garibaldi was sure that some of
     the guards spoke English. They only pretended that they couldn’t understand what was said to them so that they could eavesdrop
     on the POWs’ conversations.
    Spencer stared at the huge pile of coils. She seemed a lot bigger close up than in the failing light. The coils moved slowly
     and the monster python’s head appeared. She looked directly at Spencer with her black, lifeless eyes and tested the air with
     her tongue.
    Lieutenant Van Pao left to have supper with her men. The single remaining guard retired to the small guard shack to smoke
     a cigarette. The guard knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep once it got dark, with the POW screaming all night long like
     the South Vietnamese officer had done.
    Colonel Garibaldi saw Spencer’s chest heaving in and out rapidly and knew the soldier was scared to the point of hyperventilating.
     “Spence… take it easy,