Deep inside the cave was actually another large stone chamber. I could smell a foul stench of blood before even entering.
The stone chamber had been converted into an operating room. It was filled with medical equipment—operating tables, blood-drawing machines, medicine cabinets, refrigerators, and a layer of dark, caked bloodstains on the floor. It looked like a black-market clinic that performed abortions.
I was placed on the operating table. Two dark-skinned youths moved skillfully as they prepared to draw my blood. Just as one of them was about to tie a rubber band around my arm, I pulled out my pistol and blew his head off.
The other one was so frightened that he turned and ran. I shouted, "Keep running and you'll die!" He continued sprinting wildly, so I shot him in the knee. He collapsed onto the floor, screaming.
I stepped over him and rushed outside. The Village Chief stared at me in terror. The moment he saw me aiming my gun at him, he immediately raised both hands. My guide was standing behind the Village Chief, and he also raised his hands in fear.
The gunshots had been so loud, yet the dozens of people in the stone chamber still lay motionless on the floor. I raised my hand and fired another shot outside. None of them reacted in the slightest, but they were still breathing. They had been knocked out cold.
With my gun trained on the Village Chief and my guide, I forced them into the operating room. Then I dragged in the youth whose leg I had shot. "Whoever tells the truth gets to live," I said. The three of them confessed quickly, scrambling to answer my questions as if they were competing.
My earlier guess had been correct. That insecticide had a nerve-paralyzing