INTRODUCTION

 

Long before the Vipers infected the world's computers, long before The Insanity, before The Slave War,

even before the Five Powers existed,

there was Innocent!--the reality show.

 

Barhoum stared at the girl's calves. They were graceful with a sexy hint of muscles underneath. His eyes moved to her well-turned ankles. They were luscious especially when she lifted herself up on her extraordinarily long toes. His eyes moved on down to her exquisite feet; he loved watching women in their bare feet; they seemed so, well, so womanly.

For a moment, he felt badly contemplating the terrible destruction of this amazing creature.

Her toes were nearly prehensile, almost like short fingers. Her lovers had admired those toes, he guessed, perhaps even asked her to use them to...stimulate. He flushed the errant thoughts from his mind. This was not the time for casual sexual meanderings; this was serious business; he needed to maintain his objectivity, his separation.

Still...

It wasn't easy for a natural man to turn off his feelings. She was a classic English beauty, blond-haired, sloe-eyed, a lean and long fluid body. And a hard-ass, he thought bemused, literally a hard-ass--she had the hard ass of a professional volleyball player, and tits to match. He wanted to reach out and touch them, to caress those...her hard pointed nipples buggered a man's imagination.

He forgave himself his moment of weakness. It would be impossible for any normal man to keep his thoughts from this body.

"Take her up higher," he ordered evenly, forcing his voice to remain flat, dispassionate.

One of the jailers pulled on the rope holding her wrists and her arms rose up, lifting her even higher on her spectacular toes.

Aaargh.

He analyzed the sound. It wasn't from pain or fear. It was a woman's mental anguish. She was appalled at being revealed, exposed in such an immodest way in a room full of men. Mentally, he nodded his approval. It was an appropriate response. When a woman was stretched, racked by the ropes, the sudden loss of privacy should always produced this kind of reaction, this heartfelt groan, this anguish. He had overseen many such interrogations and he could always tell when the woman in their hands was a whore. It was her lack of outrage. For him, it was clear evidence of wantonness.

A dark muscle-line appeared down the length of her thigh as her feet struggled to reach the floor. Her entire body was now revealed in the room's harsh light. He couldn't take his eyes from the high mound between her legs. She was spectacular in the way she tried to turn her body away from them.

As much as he admired the instinct, he often wondered what it was about. These Western women dressed like whores; they said and did things that provoked a man's sexual lust, that defiled their honor. Why get so upset over their nakedness? Wasn't this the goal of their behavior...to have men staring at them, transfixed by their lines, their curves, their...

Didn't she understand what was about to happen to her...the terrible pain that she was about to endure? Why was she troubled over such a small thing as her lost modesty at a time like this?

He stepped in close to the girl and stared into her face. His heavy field boots were pressed up against her bare toes. He could feel them scratching, moving desperately onto the boots themselves, struggling for even an inch's relief. She had intelligent eyes, bedroom eyes, full of sexual need and promise. He changed his mind.

Yes, she knew what was coming, he decided...then why the groan? He ran his hand along her naked side and down her flanks all the time continuing to stare into her eyes.

"Please. Noooow, Please!"

She didn't want him to touch her bare skin, her perfect skin, her perfect body. He smiled. This was a lie. She wanted his touch, she wanted it very much. He could see it in those luscious eyes. She had the wild notion that her incredible body could save her; she thought that she could make him a slave to her beauty. It was a natural response. It was a woman's natural defense to use a man's lust against him. Even a person of value like this one reverted to her natural instinct when in danger. Their Islamic woman were different though; they valued honor above life, above personal suffering.

This one was a journalist, a young aspiring reporter who had gotten too close to the flames of Middle East conflict. They had found her unconscious in the rubble, knocked senseless by the concussive effect of an errant mortar shell but otherwise unhurt. As such, she was a prize of war.

Normally, they would have killed her out of hand--there was no room for prisoners in a terrorist army--but her role as a journalist and her youth and beauty made her useful for another purpose, propaganda. She would carry another message, a more powerful message back to their enemies.

The long-established procedure was to make her suffer, to put marks of great suffering on her beautiful body then send it back to some Western outpost. The outraged public would bemoan her loss, her treatment and demand retaliation. That was what they wanted...some foolish enemy reaction that would play into their hands.

In effect, her torture would be the bait for a new ambush. It was amazing how often the Western forces fell for the trap. In their arrogance, they assumed that we were savages, savages who had no regard for human life, for human suffering. They never suspected that this act of barbarity was a strategy, a tactical provocation. They just rushed in headlong, thirsty for revenge. Stupid...!

He stared at the girl again. She knew that she was about to be tortured, that she was about to become the next victim in this unending struggle...yet she groaned over her loss of modesty. He stepped back and she fell back onto her toes. Reluctantly, he nodded his head and the jailer stepped forward.

Thssshhh! Aeeii! Thssshhh! Aeeii! Thssshhh! Aeeii!

The short painful whip stung her hard ass in a dozen place as she danced a frantic tattoo on her long toes. Each stroke made the next more painful until her screams were a continuous wail. Colonel Barhoum held up his hand and stepped back into her face.

"Noooow, Please!" She moaned, gasping, trying to catch her breath. He waited patiently until she had dropped her eyes in surrender. This first surrender was another characteristic of a righteous woman. She was acknowledging his mastery over her, his right to possess her. Sometimes the women he handled were too stupid or too arrogant to submit.

If only the people of the West could see what I see at this moment, he thought. This magnificent creature submitting. Once she's dead, they will just see whip marks on the body of a lifeless corpse. There is no honor in such a scene, no courage. If only they could look into her tortured eyes as he was doing now, if only they could hear her pleading, watch her body twitch under the lash, perhaps they would understand her real sacrifice, appreciate the real depth of her offering. If they could see what he was seeing, perhaps their rage would drive them to more foolish battlefield decisions.

He slipped his hand under her ass cheek and cupped her full breast in his hand. Her hard nipple was between his thumb and forefinger; he was turning it lightly as he considered the though.

Why not? He asked himself. Why not show them the flesh-and-blood price of their aggression, the cost of their arrogance, their unholy ways. Why are we sparing their feelings? Let them see in full and glorious color the suffering of their most precious treasures--their young women. As the idea unfolded, he twisted her nipple harder.

"Oowwww!"

The girl's sudden cry brought him back into the moment.

"Yes, indeed, 'oowwww.'"

He stepped back and waved his hand absently, signaling for the whipping to continue.

Thssshhh! Aeeii! Thssshhh! Aeeii! Thssshhh! Aeeii!

The idea that had sprung to life as he turned her nipple kept returning as he watched her writhe at the end of the rope. Her...her suffering should not be wasted on a few men in a dark cell, he thought. The whole world should see this; the whole world should know the depth of our outrage, the whole world should know what we have been driven to. Only with such terrible insight would they break the stalemate, only then would they have the courage to meet us openly on the field of battle, to come out from behind their tanks and drones and fight us like men.

Thssshhh! Aeeii! Thssshhh! Aeeii! Thssshhh! Aeeii!

She was approaching hysteria. The jailer would back off in a second to let her rest, perhaps even drop her to her feet. She needed to hold onto her life for several hours yet. Her entire body needed to be covered with the harsh evidence of her suffering. They needed to shock people as much as a dead and tortured body could shock...

He turned away and suddenly began to walk purposely towards the doorway. The Sergeant of the guard was so surprised that he failed to open the door before the Colonel arrived.

"Colonel...?" he asked hesitantly, wondering if the man had suddenly been taken ill.

The whipping had stopped with his sudden departure. All eyes in the room were on him even the girl's. The only sound was her plaintive wailing, the frantic scratching of her long toes on the hard ground. Barhoum looked around as if he suddenly remembered where he was and why they were here.

"Let her go," he ordered impatiently. "Give her back her clothes, take her back to the frontier, and turn her loose...alive."

The girl, even in her terror, was staring at him quizzically. The others just looked confused.

"And open this fucking door!"

The Sergeant's hand flew to the handle.

In the bright light outside the prison block, Colonel Barhoum took a deep, head-clearing breath. The girl was indeed a messenger. Allah had sent her with a holy message...a message for him! It would be a grievous sin to kill such a messenger. He resumed his quick walk to the operation's hut. There was much work to do, much preparation.

God's Fury had always had a special role to play in the Jihad. Now he knew what it was; he knew their Holy Mission. He was humbled and honored that he had been the one that Allah had chosen to receive it.

"Al-ḥamdu Lillāh (All praise to God)," he whispered fervently bowing his head in heartfelt submission.

***

For most men, the distance between an idea and a plan is never crossed. They find it impossible to take the first small step in an uncertain journey. Colonel Barhoum had no such limitation. He knew he was right; he knew that the girl had been sent to him by Allah. He spend the next 24 hours outlining the rough-stroke details of his plan then drove the next day to Kanaan, the head of God's Fury.

"We must stop playing their game, Sir," Barhoum had said. "We must step into their faces and attack them in the most savage, most outrageous way possible. We must let them see up close and personal the effect of their arrogance.

"But the goal is not revenge...our vengeance must wait. The goal here is to drive them out of their complacency; to make them feel weak and impotent; to drive them to action so that we can meet them on the field of battle and defeat them with our superior courage, our resolve."

Kanaan had listened closely. He was also frustrated by the stalemate. He had also been searching for a way to break out of their never-ending conflict.

"Can you do this, Barhoum," he asked. "Do you have the fortitude to stick with such a program until the end? To feel the hatred of the entire world on you?"

Barhoum nodded.

"I looked into the girl's tortured eyes, Master, and Allah spoke to me. This is his will."

"Then go with my blessing."

 

Chapter 1 - Taken

 

The singer-actress Jenny Remington (her real name) was the first girl to be taken by God's Fury. Her abduction caused a furious protest and instantly created a worldwide audience just as Colonel Barhoum intended.

Jenny wasn't just any superstar--she was the current darling of the Twitter generation--an unspoiled celebrity complete with three current hits. She had been noticed just three years earlier, at age 18, singing a ballad of sexual yearning and lost love on YouTube. It had touched hearts and gone viral with more than ten-million hits in the first 30 days. A movie role quickly followed in which she showed real talent to go along with her incredible body and hauntingly beautiful face. A year later after her second movie, Lovesick, the studio's website crashed when millions of adoring fans tried to leave her a "personal" message. By age 19, bloggers were referring to her as the "Brigitte Bardot of our time."

Eager to ride this tsunami of her early fame, the studio had arranged for her to tour several of the largest military bases, including the NATO firebase in Libya. No one thought security was much of a concern; after all, she would be surrounded by thousands of battle-hardened counter-insurgency troops. Not only that, the idea of sending a true sex-symbol into a combat zone appealed to their sense of drama--the boys deserved to see what they were fighting and dying for in the desert.

Barhoum read about the tour online. He knew that her abduction would be expensive, but that it would be worth the cost. A week later, a small but fanatical group of volunteers from God's Fury attacked the base while an extraction team slipped through the perimeter and literally snatched her out of Western hands. By the time the alarm was raised, she was long gone. Left behind were the bodies of at least 300 terrorists and more than 200 troopers.

He was right on both counts--it was expensive and it did cause a media splash of titanic proportion. It was a disaster that struck at the heart of the American and European self-image. God's Fury could not have attracted more attention if they had abducted the President of the United States. Young people everywhere were numb with shock which quickly evolved into rage, marching in huge loud rallies that called for her immediate rescue and the punishment of her kidnappers.

The day after the attack, God's Fury put up a website announcing their new internet reality show, Innocent! On the front page was a close up of Jenny, naked, kneeling in the sand. Her arms were hard-bound behind her back and there was a black collar around her long neck. The collar was roped to the pummel of a magnificent black stallion whose enormous cock was clearly visible in the shot.

In the days that followed, six other beautiful young girls, all from prominent Western families were snatched by God's Fury in equally bloody and daring raids. They each appeared in similarly outrageous photos, each proclaiming that the soon-to-appear "reality show" would reveal the West's hypocrisy in dealing with innocents.

The public's outrage continued to grow more fierce and irrational. People wanted to bomb the savages into oblivion; some wanted to send in the Marines...all of them. Even the liberal network pundits, who were usually rabidly in favor of diplomatic negotiation, seemed to be calling for some kind of virtuous retaliation.

This was exactly the reaction that Barhoum and the leaders of God's Fury wanted--a grassroots response, a true explosion of blind rage from the West. They were tired of waiting, tired of the sputtering Holy War that seemed to have taken Islam in circles for decades. Their goal was to once and for all unify the righteous behind their more action-oriented version of jihad.

But despite Colonel Barhoum's rantings, they had few illusions. They knew that as violent as the people's response would be to the abductions, that it would be short-lived. The media manipulated the news and through it, public opinion. If the Western governments wanted continued calm, they could have it. God's Fury knew that this smothering of the outrage was the real challenge. They needed to keep the intensity of Western feeling on the front page for a sustained period. Only then could they be sure that the fires of revenge would be hot enough to burn on by themselves.

The abductions were only the beginning.