Gunfire highlights the positions of four men. They’re standing by a table, upon which are several sets of drone remotes and a series of interconnected laptops. They’re controlling a dozen aerial drones and the crocs with just four men, which means the laptops must be using some kind of AI. It’s a fairly sophisticated setup, and very expensive. Whoever the Princes of Peace are, they’re not hurting for money.
But where they’ve got money, they’re lacking in brains.
The machete silently slides from its sheath. Homunculus-bird reveals himself by screaming toward the jungle where King continues to evade the bullets being sprayed by the assault rifle — wielding men dressed in black BDUs. “You’re breaking the rules! You should have let me tell you the rules!”
I step out from behind the trailer and cover the distance to the nearest man in ten quick steps. The sound of the man’s life ending is drowned out by the roar of gunfire. Unfortunately, all three men run out of ammo just as the dead man’s death groan slips from his lungs.
All three shooters turn to me, reloading quickly.
But not quick enough. I reach down, snatch up the AR-15 hanging from the dead man’s shoulder, turn the barrel toward the men, and pull the trigger. The weapon’s last three bullets tear through the night air and then through one of the men. While he drops, the other two take aim.
Bullets thud against the dead man’s body. I drop the spent AR-15 and clutch his shirt and the machete, holding his twitching form up, knowing that eventually one of the rounds is going to slip through his flesh and into mine.
And then one does, lodging itself in my shoulder. My arm gives out, and the dead man falls.
I fall with the corpse, trying to stay behind cover, but he’s falling faster than me. I see the assault rifle barrels tracking me, and then chaos arrives. King punches his three-inch blade into the neck of one man, ending his life with a quick jab. He pulls the blade out, eyes on the second man, when he’s shot in the side. The blast jolts the knife from King’s hand, but it doesn’t slow him down. He moves in close as the soldier holds down the trigger. Bullets tear through the night. The scorching barrel hisses against King’s skin as his hands reach up, one grasping the back of the man’s head, the other coming up under his chin. His strong hands twist in unison, first to the right and then the left. There’s a crack and then the man falls away.
King is fearless, skilled, and fast, but the third man draws a bead on him, too far away for King to reach, too close to miss.
But he’s not alone, and the confidence in his eyes says he knows it.
I draw the fallen soldier’s sidearm, lift it fast, and squeeze off three rounds. The second and third bullets strike the last soldier’s thigh and gut, throwing off his aim. King closes the distance and ends the fight with a throat chop that drops the gasping man to the ground.
Mostly naked and unarmed, King’s body glistens with water, sweat, and blood. He looks possessed, but he doesn’t move. I roll to my feet, gun in hand, and see what’s stopped him cold.
Homunculus-bird.
If not for the dead man’s switch clutched in the man’s hand, he’d look about as threatening as a toddler with a rattle. He backs away toward the jungle. “I told you there were rules. I told you.”
“One of us has to die,” King says. “We got it.”
“But if one of you doesn’t,” the man says. “If one of you doesn’t… if you both survive… they”—he points to the two gagged prisoners, who have been roused by the fight; Laura meets my eyes, confusion giving way to desperation—“both die.” He cackles out a laugh. “And you’d have done it. One of you would have died to save them. I honestly don’t know which, but one of you, and that’s the kind of person the Princes of Peace don’t want. Good riddance. We wanted the survivor. The one who valued his life. Instead, here we are, with both of you.”
I aim at his chest, but don’t fire. If he dies, Laura dies.
She’s already dead, the Civilized Man mourns. You killed her.
The homunculus-bird man pauses at the jungle’s edge.
“Don’t,” King says, coming to the same realization.
“Next time you hear from us,” the man says, “listen to the rules.” His thumb comes off the trigger at the same time my index finger squeezes. I lose sight of him as a fireball erupts from beneath the two prisoners. In a blazing flash of heat, the bodies are incinerated, their screams coming and going with the speed of my fired bullet.
I’m lifted off the ground and slammed into the trailer, my consciousness sinking into the depths along with my hopes of saving Laura.
I wake to find the site smoldering. A crater is all that remains of the wooden stakes and the people tied to them. Twenty feet away, King sits up holding his head. Blood seeps from a gash on his forehead, no doubt the result of metal fragments from the explosion.
We stand in silence, surveying the scene. The table has been overturned, the laptops destroyed. The drones under their control are no doubt sinking to the bottom of the sea, along with the remains of the crocs. Despite the amount of physical evidence, not to mention bodies, I suspect it won’t lead anywhere. But there is one corpse I’m glad to see as I hobble across the clearing.
Homunculus-bird lies at the jungle’s fringe, a look of surprise frozen on his face, a neat hole punched through his forehead.
King grunts at the man, but says nothing. His death provides little comfort for the two innocents who died here today, who died because King — because both of us — didn’t listen to the rules. Rules we might have chosen to ignore. It seems equally likely that one of us would have given up his life. But we’ll never know who.
A phone chimes, spinning us around. The sound comes from the overturned table. Then it’s joined by a second phone. We head for the mess and find two phones, one adorned with a king chess piece, the second with a Stetson hat. The screens display identical messages.
Cast your vote.
Target: Afanas Konstantinov, Russian oil tycoon.
Tap for more details.
Operation parameters: Assassination.
The text is followed by two buttons: Approve and Oppose.
“Shit,” King says.
“We have no choice,” I say.
He nods. “I know.”
We both tap Oppose, casting our vote against the assassination and confirming that we are both, like it or not, Princes of Peace.
Jeremy Robinson (aka Jeremy Bishop and Jeremiah Knight) is the international bestselling author of more than fifty thriller, horror, science-fiction, fantasy, and action-adventure novels and novellas, including Apocalypse Machine, Hunger, Island 731, SecondWorld, and the Jack Sigler thriller series, the first of which, Pulse, is currently in development to be released as a major motion picture. His bestselling Kaiju novels, Project Nemesis and Island 731, have been adapted as comic book series from American Gothic Press/Famous Monsters of Filmland. His novels have been translated into thirteen languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children. For the latest news about his novels, comics, movies, and TV projects, and the Beware of Monsters podcast, discussing all things monstrous, visit www.bewareofmonsters.com.