Joe Ledger: Unstoppable

1

As I stand before the window of my small but well-appointed hotel room overlooking the rich blue ocean of Micronesia, I find myself pondering a question I should have asked — more than once — before submitting myself to twenty-plus hours of travel: What the hell am I doing?

The answer is simple enough: An old friend needs my help. Those six words propelled me around the globe to a volcanic island that seems to be mocking fate with its name. Pohnpei. The spelling is different enough from Pompeii, I suppose, but when I say it aloud, it sounds close enough. I left my girl, Junie Flynn, my dog, Ghost, and the job three plane flights behind me. For some, that might sound like a vacation, and I suppose it should be, but I’ve learned to depend on the people in my life. They keep me alive. And sane.

Working for the Department of Military Sciences isn’t exactly a low-stress job, and genuine vacations are hard to come by, thanks to the pervasive nature of the threats facing the world. I asked Mr. Church for some unstructured, unsupervised, unencumbered time off. He opened a fresh packet of vanilla wafers, selected one, tapped crumbs off it, and ate the whole thing before he answered me.

“The world is not currently on fire and there are no missiles inbound to the White House,” he said slowly. “Enjoy your vacation.”

I was on a plane three hours later, and back on the ground on one of the planet’s wettest locations, before the day was done. And that’s where things get complicated.

I came all this way, as I said, for a friend. Honestly, she was more than a friend. A lot more. But like the ruins that pock the outer fringe of this tropical Pacific island, she was ancient history. Was being the operative word. This morning — or is it yesterday morning now? — she leaped back into my present. Reading the morning news is a habit for many people, but I go deeper, scouring for hints that one of the DMS’s adversaries might be active again. While the DMS has MindReader — a globally connected supercomputer — for tasks like that, I think there are some things only the human mind can niggle out of a news report’s text.

But in this case, no niggling was required. The headline said it all:

I didn’t believe the woman in question was my Laura Jones until I saw the photo topping the article. She looked older, and a bit tired, but there was no questioning her identity. Laura Jones, the girl who won over the Civilized Man in me, who stole my heart for three years in high school, who volunteered to feed homeless people on weekends, who wrote letters for Amnesty International, and who collected unicorn stuffed animals. This woman had been caught planting a bomb under the bleachers of a school gymnasium. Hundreds of kids could have been killed.

My bullshit meter pinged red, and I started making calls. The story seemed to check out, but was so far outside the DMS’s sphere of influence, and mission parameters, that I decided to take some personal time and step into my old detective shoes. Get to the bottom of it. Find out what really happened.

Two hours after touching down, I walked out of the Pohnpei State Police office feeling as though I’d been on the receiving end of a very elaborate prank. When I asked the receptionist about Laura Jones, I got a blank stare. When I asked about a bomb planted at a local school, the blank stare turned panicked. After assuring her I must have misread a news article, I checked in at the Ocean Breeze Hotel, confusion melting into anger.

On the far side of my third-floor window, there are palm trees, a sandy beach, the orange glow of a setting sun, and a view of the ocean that would lull most people into a relaxed state of mind. But until I can answer the question of what I’m really doing here, relaxation is the furthest thing from my mind.

After a quick speed-dial to the person best equipped to shed light on my situation, the voice of Jerome Taylor answers. “Hey, Joe, how’s the—”

“Go secure, Bug,” I say, using his call sign, which lets him know I’ve gone from “Detective Joe” to “the shit is about to go down, Cowboy.” I wait as a series of clicks indicate our phone call is being rerouted and encrypted.

“We’re secure, Cowboy,” Bug says. “What’s happening? Did she do it?”

“There is no she,” I say.

“They didn’t kill her…”

“I’m not sure she was ever here. Do me a favor and check on Laura Jones. From Baltimore. Married in ’04. Teacher. No kids.”

“Stalker much?” Bug says, trying to lighten the tone as his fingers clack over keys. “Got her. Annnd… you’re right. Financial records show her buying laxatives on Amazon two days ago — that’s embarrassing — and groceries earlier today. Probably prune juice. I can send someone to her house to confirm if you—”

A knock at the door interrupts him. I drop the phone on the bed’s comforter, reach for my sidearm, and find the holster not only empty but missing entirely. I’m here as a civilian. I flew internationally, on commercial flights. I’m a long way from my guns, but I’m far from defenseless. The hallway on the far side of the door is narrow, and gun or no gun, I excel at close-quarters combat. I lift my hard-shell suitcase in front of my torso and pick up the empty instant-coffee carafe seated atop the room’s minifridge. Armed like a hobo-gladiator, I give the door handle a twist and prepare to lunge.

The door creaks open and thumps to a stop against the wall. Aside from a small envelope on the floor, the hallway is empty. A quick glance in either direction confirms it. I crouch down, snatch up the envelope, and open it. It’s a dumb move, but I don’t think someone lured me all the way to the middle of South Pacific Nowhere to slip me an envelope laced with anthrax. There’s a stark white card inside, its front gilded with elaborate calligraphy reading: You’re invited.

Inside are two words and a set of numbers I recognize as coordinates.

I retrieve the phone from the bed. “Bug?”

“You realize I spoke to myself for like two minutes before I realized you were gone, right? What happened?”

“Send a team to Laura’s house. I need confirmation. ASAP.”

“On it.”

“And run these coordinates for me.” I read him the digits, suspecting they won’t be far from my present location.

“Nan Madol,” he says. “Ruins on the eastern side of the island. Capital city of the Saudeleur dynasty until 1628. Built in a lagoon. Lots of canals. Like Venice, but actually sunken. Pretty popular tourist destination. And not small. Nearly a mile from end to end.”

“So lots of places to hide?”

“If Nan Madol meant ‘Ambush City,’ it would be an appropriate name.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You want backup?”

I consider the request for a moment. Even if backup left now, it would be nearly a full day before the team arrived. I’m not one for sitting around and waiting. But since I’ve clearly been lured here, probably for nefarious reasons, my little side mission is now official DMS business. “Fill in Deacon. It’s his call.”

“You got it. And Cowboy, be careful.”

I hang up the phone, thinking about being careful, and I decide against it. Whoever brought me here — unless they have a very good and noble reason — is going to find themselves in a world of hurt, courtesy of my fists, or this coffee carafe.

2

During the hour-long taxi ride from Palikir to the outskirts of Nan Madol, I learned a few things about the ruins, the first of which was that Bug had taken his short breakdown of the historic site straight from Wikipedia. The actual history was much more colorful. The city was built upon one hundred man-made islets at a time before the invention of modern landscaping machinery. The massive stones used to build walls, floors, sculptures, and steps are said to have been flown in via black magic. Given the ruins’ mysterious origins and otherworldly feel, it’s not surprising that the city of R’lyeh, in H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, was inspired by Nan Madol.

The city once housed one thousand ruling elite and local chieftains who were forced to live on the islets, where they could be watched and, if deemed untrustworthy, slain. The megalithic site’s centerpiece, as with many ancient cities around the world, is its walled mortuary. I wonder how many people met their end inside the city, which had no fresh water and was incapable of growing food. Nan Madol was completely dependent on outside support. It’s no wonder it was found abandoned in the early nineteenth century, by Europeans, some of whom believed they had found the lost islands of Lemuria.

Now it’s a tourist trap that isn’t quite a trap, because it really is stunning, though I may never confirm that with my own eyes. It’s been two hours since I hung up with Bug. After visiting a hardware store, waiting twenty minutes for the taxi, and then the drive around the south end of the island, the sun is far below the horizon.

The taxi’s worn brakes squeal as we roll to a stop. The driver, a man with a perpetual smile, swivels around with his elbow on the seat back. He’s shirtless and slick with sweat from a day in the car without air-conditioning. Yet somehow, he doesn’t smell. “Should I wait?”

“I’m fine,” I tell him, handing him two $20 bills — U.S., which oddly enough is Pohnpei’s official currency. I point to the dirt path beside the old mustard-yellow vehicle. “Your friend knows I’m coming?”

“Yes. Yes. I called him. He is not happy about the nighttime rental — there are sharks, you know — but for the right amount of money…” He shrugs and smiles.

For the right amount of money, just about anything, good or evil, can be bought. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

I step out into the humid night, offer the driver a wave and a smile, and start down the narrow, muddy path. At the end of it better be a kayak rental joint, or Mr. Smiley cabdriver is going to be short a few teeth when I catch up with him. I click on the flashlight I picked up at the hardware store. I also picked up a machete, a utility knife with a three-inch blade, and a hammer. All excellent weapons in a pinch. And if I’m lucky, I won’t need a single one of them.

Problem is, I’m lucky only when it comes to finding trouble.

After ten minutes of slogging through damp earth, I part with another $200 and park my ass inside a kayak. It’s a two-seater… just in case it’s Laura’s husband who’s constipated.

There’s not a lot that creeps me out. I’ve seen shit that can’t be unseen, forgotten, or tamped down into the subconscious through hypnosis. It’s hard to get me spooked. But something about being on the water, at night, in a snack-sized boat, unnerves me. Each slap of water against the plastic hull conjures images of sharks. I turn the light on the water, but I only manage to see a few feet down. Anything could be lurking below, and I would never know. The mesmerizing number of stars above tugs my eyes upward and help me forget about the dark possibilities swirling beneath me.

As I leave civilization behind and plunge deeper into the mangroves of an ancient coastline, I do my best to put on my game face. People lured me here. Not sharks. People with unknown but likely malicious intentions. People who probably have guns. And that, I can deal with.

I put my shoulders into the paddle and surge along the coast, guided by the feeble illumination provided by my $20 flashlight. When I spot the first of a hundred islets covered in the blocky ruins of a time long forgotten, I turn off the light and coast through the darkness.

In the silence that follows, insects sing out a tinnitus-like buzz. I close my eyes and focus beyond them, listening for anything out of place, anything unnatural. A chirping, like some kind of homunculus-bird hybrid, echoes through the night. Voices, I think, and then I refine the realization to a singular speaker. Despite the high pitch, I can identify the speaker as a single, incredulous man.

My instinct is to leave the kayak behind and wade through the water, but I’m faster and quieter in the small vessel. I dip the paddle in the water and push closer to the voice, letting the stars and moon light my path through the maze of lush trees and the walls of gray stone. When the voice is loud enough to clearly hear, I dig the paddle into the water and let it drag me to a stop, just a few feet short of a staircase ascending out of the calm sea.

Just hours ago, the site would have been full of tourists in kayaks like mine. Whatever is going on here hasn’t been happening very long.

“You will scream,” the homunculus-bird man says. “If I have to fillet you one sinew at a time.”

My first thought is that I’ve stumbled across a violent interrogation, but the man’s words reveal something far more sinister. The silent person on the other end of this one-sided conversation isn’t being questioned. He, or she, is being tortured. There’s no way to know why, or if it has anything to do with Laura, or if it’s Laura being tortured. But the silence in response to the man’s taunts, and who knows what else, speaks of a strong character.

The torturer growls something unintelligible. The muffled sound implies he’s right up next to his victim, speaking into the ear, close, like a lover. He’s frustrated, but he’s still getting off on it.

“You think about that while I’m gone,” the man says. I duck as loud footsteps plod away. A silhouette moves through the ruins beyond the staircase. The footfalls become splashes as the man enters the water. This is followed by the clunk of an oar on the side of a boat, the noise sounding more like a canoe than a kayak — perfect for transporting an unconscious victim.

Guessing the victim is now alone, but not sure, I slide out of my kayak and into the water, letting the liquid cushion absorb my bulk. I slip out of the sea, onto the stone stairs, staying low so the water dripping from my body makes no sound. I slip up to the stone wall and peek around the edge. Ten-foot walls constructed of thousands of flat gray stones surround what looks like a small courtyard, but may have actually been a building’s interior a few hundred years ago. Shrubs and lush vegetation fill the open space to my left. To my right is a tree with coiling roots. And strapped to the tree is a shirtless man.

He hangs limp. Eyes closed. Blood drips from a handful of cuts on his chest and arms. What I first think is blood on his side turns out to be a large, port-wine-stain birthmark. He has the body of a man who’s seen action. Chiseled, but not shaven like a bodybuilder or beach bro. His face sports a healthy dose of stubble, and his black hair hangs loose over his forehead. My guess is ex-military. A mercenary, most likely. Which means he’s probably not up for any good citizenship awards. Whoever he is, I can’t in good conscience let his torture continue.

I creep toward the man, still careful, still quiet. I’ve left all of my fear and apprehension behind. But when the man speaks, I nearly stumble and fall.

“Don’t need your help,” the man says without looking up.

What the fuck?

“You’re tied to a tree,” I point out. “Being tortured.”

His eyes open, the color hidden in darkness. “Not really. Not yet.”

Hand on the machete sheathed on my belt, I take a step closer, evaluating the man. Despite his situation, he’s fearless. The kind of fearless that only comes from 1) having been in this situation before, and 2) knowing you’ve got a way out. And if he has a way out, I can’t see it. His hands are cuffed to a branch high above his head. His legs are tied to roots below.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

“He’ll eventually start asking questions,” the man says. “And every question is an answer.”

Something clicks. This man’s presence, at the location to which I was given coordinates, is not a coincidence. I draw the machete and spin around, on the lookout for danger that’s not coming.

“You can leave,” the man says, and then he falls silent for a beat. When he speaks again, I hear a threat in the tone. “Unless you’re here for a reason?”

“Same as you, would be my guess.” I fish the small white card out of my pocket and hold it up, the gold You’re invited… text easy to read in the moonlight. “Came here to help a friend in trouble?”

“Shit,” the man says, and with a quick yank, he’s free of the cuffs. They’d already been picked. He was just biding his time, allowing the homunculus-bird to cut him with the hopes of garnering information about his friend. “You military?”

I hand the man my utility knife, and he starts to work on the ropes binding his feet. “Something like that. You?”

“Something like that.” After a few quick slices, he’s free. He stands up, swivels the short blade around in his hand, and offers it back, handle first.

“Keep it,” I say. “You’ll probably need it.”

He looks at the knife and smirks. “I’m used to longer.”

“Thankfully,” I say, “you’re the first person to tell me that.” I offer my hand. “For now, you can call me Cowboy.”

He shakes my hand and introduces himself with a single word. “King.”

3

My grip on the man’s hand and the machete’s handle tighten in unison. “King of what?”

Still unruffled, the man named King glances down at our hands, and then the machete. “That’s a bad idea.”

“King of what?” I ask again. If he makes me ask again, I’m going to punctuate the question by removing his hand. My previous experience with the Seven Kings has left me with a stark distrust of anyone bearing the name. King of Plagues. King of Fear. King of War. They’re all dead now, but there are always unsavory people looking to claim their legacy.

Without tugging his hand away, he turns his back to me, revealing a tattoo of Elvis Presley. He wiggles his shoulder blade and the King of Rock ’n’ Roll looks as if he’s swaying his leg back and forth. “That and chess,” King says.

I release his hand and step back.

“Good grip,” he says, flexing his fingers.

I motion in the direction the homunculus-bird exited. “Did you learn anything from him?”

“Not much,” King says. “He’s a slight man. Aryan features. Hooked nose. Whoever he works for, he’s not the brains. But he does enjoy his job. What I really want to know is—” His head twitches as though he’s listening to something. Then he taps his ear and speaks. “Copy that. Thanks, Lew.”

He taps his ear again, grumbles, “Damn it,” and then seems to remember I’m there. “The old friend used to lure me here is missing. Looks like someone has been living in his house for a week. Collecting the mail. Making purchases. And not leaving a trace.”

I dig into my pocket, retrieving my phone, which is powered off and protected by a Ziploc bag. I power it on and clench my jaw when I see several messages from Bug. I play the newest, listen to the short message, and nearly crush the device in my hand. Laura is missing. Her husband is dead. Rotting in the bathtub, while someone created the digital illusion that the couple was still safe and sound.

I don’t need to confirm my situation. He can see it in my eyes.

Over the din of insect chirps rolling out of the jungle on the island’s coast, my ears pick up the familiar whine of small engines. “Take cover!” I lean behind the ruins of an interior stone wall, while King remains rooted in place, making me look and feel a little like a chicken-shit. But my caution comes from experience. When most people think of drones, they picture Peeping Toms hovering the craft outside bedroom windows or over nude beaches. But they’re easily modified to carry more than cameras — a fact I learned the hard way.

“It’s a drone,” he says, eyes on the night sky, watching the stars, any one of which could be something else. “Ten of them, actually.”

This revelation pulls me out of hiding. “You can see them?”

“Their lights.”

If the drones have lights on them, they blend in perfectly with the backdrop of stars.

“I’ve looked at the stars long enough to know which of those”—he points at the sky—“shouldn’t be there. And if they wanted us dead, it would’ve been easy to blow up this rock when you arrived.”

He’s right about that. They want something from us. From what I can tell, we’re similar men in similar positions. He’s a little more… casual about his mortality, but he’s got a familiar look in his eyes, as if he’s already strategizing. Chess King indeed.

Several of the stars high above start shifting about, revealing themselves as drones, hundreds of feet up, where the buzz of their rotors blends with the sound of insects.

Before either of us can react, a loud buzzing brings our attention to the air just thirty feet above us. A hexa-rotor drone hovers overhead, capturing King and me within the cone of its spotlight.

“Glad to see you both made it.” It’s the homunculus-bird, his voice pumping from a speaker. “And thank you for not killing each other. The others bet against a civil meeting. Thought you two might tear each other apart. After all, life requires you both to sometimes shoot first and ask questions if there are survivors. But I had faith. You are two of the best candidates I’ve seen. Noble. Determined. Skilled. Team players. Deadly.”

Candidates? This is some kind of test?

A single drop of water, the faint bloop striking my ear like a Klaxon, warns me of danger. I whisper, “Incoming on my ten.”

“More at my three,” King says.

“This is a little elaborate for the Boy Scouts,” I say to the drone. “Who are you?”

To my surprise, the man gives an answer that I suspect is honest, because it’s too ridiculous to be fiction. “The Princes of Peace.”

“Listen, princess…,” King says.

“Princes. Plural of prince.” The man’s loud retort makes the speaker crackle. King’s quip has revealed just how short a temper the man has, and people with short tempers make mistakes. “We will bring peace to Earth by ending conflicts before they begin. By toppling violent despots. By—”

“Who decides?” I slowly pull the hammer from the belt loop where I tucked it. I tap King’s hand with the handle and he takes it with a subtle nod. It’s not much, but it will complement the three-inch blade. “Who decides who to kill, or overthrow?”

“The Princes.” He enunciates more clearly this time. “We vote.”

“Democratic assassins,” I say. “That’s new.”

The drone buzzes for several seconds. When the man speaks again, it’s clear he’s trying to remain calm. “I’m no longer sure which of you I want to see survive this.”

And here it comes. The reason why we’re here, and why only one of us is supposed to leave.

“As you’ve no doubt already discerned, we have your friends. Whichever one of you walks out of Nan Madol will have their friend returned and be welcomed as a Prince of Peace. The other will meet the same fate as their fallen hero. And no, I don’t expect you to fight each other. I’m many things, but cliché is not one of them.”

“Says the man giving a monologue.” King grins and it takes a concerted effort to not laugh.

“And if the survivor refuses membership?” I ask.

“There is no refusing. You are a member whether you accept it or not. Votes will be cast via text. Refusing to vote simply allows members you might disagree with to direct our course. Participation is the only way to influence the outcome.”

“We could always stand directly in your way,” King says.

“One of you,” homunculus-bird says, “is welcome to try. The other will be buried alongside Pohnpei’s ancients. Now then, the rules are simple. You—”

King lunges to the side, hammer raised. There’s a shout, a thunk, and a splash.

“Stop!” homunculus shouts. “The rules!”

When King is thrown back into the small courtyard, rolling back to his feet, knife and hammer at the ready, I head for the men entering to my left.

“You can’t start yet! I haven’t—”

There’s a thunk of metal on plastic, followed by a grinding. I glance up to see the drone wobbling, canting off to the side, two of its propellers shattered. King’s hammer clangs on the stone floor between us. He’s impulsive, but I think I like it.

The sound of wet feet focuses my attention on the entryway through which I came just minutes ago, unaware that I was being watched, not by sharks but by evil men with evil intentions. The first man, dressed in a black wet suit and holding a hatchet, all but walks into the machete’s blade. The second man sees it happen and waits for a third man to join him. None of the men carry firearms, but they look comfortable with the assortment of blades. When one of them double-takes the machete now dripping with his comrade’s blood, I realize they expected us to be unarmed. And while a machete, hammer, and short knife don’t an arsenal make, they help even the odds a little.

Though his face is mostly concealed by the wet suit’s hood, I see a surge of desperate confidence fill the man’s eyes. I’m not sure if these men are here willingly, or somehow being cajoled, but as the first of them swings a sword toward my neck, I decide it doesn’t matter. The sword comes to a stop when his wrist slaps into my raised machete hand. Gripping his shoulder with my free hand, I pull him in close and drive my forehead into his nose. Crunching bone is followed by a wet howl. There’s almost no resistance when I shove the man back, toppling him into his partner and sending them both sprawling into the sea. These men might be killers, but they’re also amateurs.

King handles his attackers with the same lethal force, but employs a series of knife cuts, jabs, and pressure-point strikes that appear chaotic at first, but are actually a fluid use of multiple martial arts and more modern fighting techniques. King has been fighting for a long time.

Who the hell is this guy?

When the last of his assailants hits the stone floor, I say, “The drones have a limited range. Two thousand feet, tops, if they have an extender on one of the islets. We’ll find them on the mainland. And not far.”

King gives a nod and steps toward the exit on his side, about to dive in and start swimming.

“I came in a kayak,” I tell him.

He pauses, looks back, and says, “Behind you.”

I sidestep the man I heard coming before King’s warning and give his back a shove. He stumbles forward into King’s fist and drops. He’s alive, but he won’t be moving anytime soon. When King doesn’t put the knife in the man’s back, I know I’m dealing with someone whose sense of honor resembles my own. He has no trouble killing, but only when it’s necessary.

King steps over the unconscious man and pauses as orange light fills the sky above us. A softball-sized orb of fire plummets from one of the drones.

“Looks like Greek fire,” I observe.

The comment snaps King’s eyes wide. “Down!” he shouts, sounding worried for the first time.

The fiery sphere strikes an outcrop of angled stone and bounces like a kid’s rubber ball — if kids’ toys left explosive mountains of flame in their wake. The fireball ricochets off a wall, the tree, and the courtyard floor, each strike setting more foliage and vines ablaze, before zipping out the entrance beside me. There’s a thud and then a high-pitched wail. The man whose face I caved in took the projectile in the chest, and he’s now a walking inferno. He throws himself into the ocean, but the flames continue to eat him up as he thrashes. When his body falls still, floating out to sea, he looks like a Viking funeral pyre. The ball strikes the water and floats, flames spreading out from its core.

“They’re kinetic fireball incendiaries,” King says. “They’re filled with jet fuel.”

Before I can ask how he knows that, the night lights up around us. Ten more fiery spheres drop from the night sky. In their initial burst of orange light, I catch sight of the drones dropping them. Fucking drones. And then I don’t have time to think. Most of the KFIs strike islets around us, setting fire to the ancient ruins and the surrounding water. But three plummet toward the already burning courtyard.

As fast as I am, and King appears to be, neither of us will be able to avoid being struck if one of the balls ricochets in our direction. And taking cover is a no-go. Our little fortress is about to be transformed into a volcano.

“Water!” I shout, and dive out over the stone staircase I crawled up just minutes ago. I arc out over a blazing trail of jet fuel still leaking from the first fireball and plunge into the depths.

I spin around underwater, watching through the waves, as orange trails of fire bounce around the ruins and through the water. The result is a fiery maze stretching farther than I can see, much of it between me and the mainland shoreline.

I see no sign of the mysterious King.

A twenty-foot gap between fiery streaks burning atop the water provides plenty of space for me to surface. I rise slowly, letting my face break the water just enough to take a breath and check things out. The air stings my nose and throat. It’s choked with chemical smoke. The fire burns hot, steaming the moisture from my skin. All around, ancient ruins burn. The stone structures will survive, just as they did the city’s sinking, but the vegetation will be scorched clean, along with any animal life on the islets — including myself and King if we linger much longer.

There’s still no sign of the man, but my kayak floats free, overturned, but still buoyant. I can turn it back over, but will it carry me safely through the fires? I flinch back when the side of the kayak tips up and a face peers out at me and a deep voice says, “Under.”

“Shit. King.” I dip under the water and come up inside the kayak, treading water, just a few feet away from King.

“If you don’t want rules,” our adversary says, voice booming from another drone above, but muffled by the kayak’s shell, “that’s fine. We were going to do this in stages, but I think we’ll all just embrace the chaos you two seem to prefer.” A series of loud clunks sounds out. I have no idea what they could be, but I’m sure they’re not good.

“Did you know that while uncommon, the occasional saltwater crocodile finds its way to Pohnpei? It’s a surprise every time, but it happens. A half dozen is far less likely, but we’re not making a National Geographic documentary, now, are we? And do you know the one thing every crocodile has in common when it reaches Pohnpei, after swimming through hundreds of miles of open ocean?”

“They’re hungry,” I say a moment before our host continues.

“They’re hungry.”

“And he said he wasn’t cliché.”

King grins, but the smile is wiped away when a loud thunk on the kayak’s hull is followed by a bright yellow illumination. The yellow plastic above us starts to thin and liquefy.

“Get to shore!” I shout before ducking under the water, chased by globs of melted plastic. Under the water, King and I have the same idea. Before swimming, we shed our remaining clothes and shoes down to our boxers. King has the small knife gripped between his teeth, and I refasten my belt, with the machete, around my waist. Looking like a couple of Men’s Adventure action heroes, we swim for shore.

Surfacing to breathe is tricky, but not impossible. The real problem is that the longer the fire burns, the more foul the air becomes. We’ve swum only a few hundred feet when I surface in three-foot shallows, breathe, and gag. We’re between two islets, both on fire. The real problem is that I’ve surfaced just ten feet away from a KFI, bobbing in the water and spewing toxic fumes.

I turn to King, ready to plunge back in, when I see the ocean surging up over some kind of projectile headed for his back. Without warning, I shove King to the side, which is noble of me, but also puts me directly in the torpedo’s path.

Only it’s not a torpedo at all.

It’s a croc. Sort of.

The front of its head is covered in electronics. Where its eyes should be are two sheets of brushed metal, riveted to flesh. I catch only a glimpse before its jaws snap open to engulf me, but there’s little doubt that the predators unleashed in Nan Madol have been somehow modified. Perhaps being controlled. Living drones.

I fall back and slip under the water, letting my body arc beneath the croc. Darkness surrounds me as its massive form blocks out the fiery light above. A loud clunk reverberates through the water as its jaws snap shut, thankfully not on my head. But I’m far from safe. The behemoth starts to thrash. Its tail slams into my gut, shoving the acrid air from my lungs.

Something clamps down on my wrist. I struggle for a moment, but then see King, yanking me out from under the croc. He shoves me above the waterline and my lungs fill with poisonous air. King surfaces beside me, coughing. Despite not being sucker punched by a croc’s tail, he’s not faring much better. But the croc has seen better days. Its thrashing illuminates the area, as its head and then body burst into flames thanks to the KFI clutched in its jaws.

“Divide and conquer, mighty heroes,” the homunculus-bird says, apparently still watching from above. “If you both die, your friends both die. And we really would prefer one of you to survive. That is the point of all this.”

“How long can you hold your breath?” King asks.

“Three minutes,” I say, not taking into account that my lungs want nothing to do with the air I’m currently breathing.

“We need to get off their radar. It’s the only way.”

“So we go deep,” I say. It’s bullshit. My body says so. But the Warrior side of my personality is firing on all cylinders, roaring louder than the Civilized Man and Cop ever could.

The familiar whir of chain guns warming up joins the chorus of insects and drones. Without another word between us, we dive into the sea once more, swimming away from the shallows between islets and diving deep. Angry bullet swarms pursue us into the depths, but the water saps their energy after just a few feet, protecting us better than any armor could.

When my ears are about to burst from the pressure, we angle toward shore and kick hard. Forty feet above us is a light show from hell. Fire burns everywhere, in the water and on every dot of surrounding ruin. Water ripples from crosshatching lines of bullets scouring the surface. The silhouettes of four large crocs shift back and forth far above, but just under the waves, seeking us out. One of the apex predators leaves a trail of blood in its wake, most likely struck by friendly fire. The icing on top of this shit-cake is a fifth silhouette gliding toward the wounded croc.

When there’s blood in the ocean, it’s never long before the first shark arrives. And in this part of the world, where the waters have been deemed a shark sanctuary, man-eating species are as plentiful as they are large. Luckily, neither King nor I are bleeding, so the sharks will home in on the croc, but it sure makes me a lot more eager to get out of the water. That, and I’m about to drown. And I’m not the only one. King hitches a thumb toward the surface and we angle upward, while slipping ever closer to the mainland. We surface just beyond the farthest ring of fire, still fifty feet from shore, both of us sucking air as quietly as possible.

Still recuperating from our long swim, when a loud thrashing sounds out behind us, all we can do is turn and look. A croc has been struck by a shark. Blood pools into the water, mixing with burning jet fuel. The assault attracts the remaining crocs, one of which is struck from below a moment later. Jaws snap. Bodies death roll. Sharks twitch. The feeding frenzy is mutual and bloody as predators from two different worlds clash. The absolute mindless violence disturbs me, and despite still not being fully recovered, I find myself moving away.

“We need to get the fuck out of this water.”

King swims beside me, his strokes steady and smooth to not attract attention. We could swim faster, but flailing limbs look and sound a lot like struggling fish. Of course, that won’t stop the swirling mass of sharks from detecting our rapid heartbeats. When I feel the soft sand of the mainland beneath my feet, I start to feel better, but we’re still ten feet from shore, and anyone who’s watched Shark Week knows that even knee-deep water isn’t safe. So when we reach waist-deep water, two men who have seen their fair share of action stand and run for shore, lifting our feet high to clear the water.

Mangrove roots turn our run into a climb, but then we’re clear. I turn back, expecting to feel embarrassed by my retreat from the water, but when a dorsal fin passes by and, fifteen feet behind it, the tip of a tail, I realize the fear crawling up my back wasn’t cowardice. It was something closer to a sixth sense.

“Find them! Kill one of them!” homunculus-bird shouts, shouting at whoever is controlling the drones, and maybe the crocs. His amplified voice sounds smaller and distant, but also in stereo.

My head snaps to the dark jungle ahead. “They’re close.”

Without another word, we slip into the twisting coils of tree branches and roots. Distant voices grow louder with each step through the slick earth. There’s light ahead. A camp nestled in a recently hewn clearing. All of this for us. I crouch lower when I see movement ahead. King follows my lead, ducking beside me.

“We can flank them,” he says. “Come in from either side.”

A chip of wood slaps my face. There’s a bright white gouge in the bark just above King’s head.

“Or not. Stay here,” he says, and then he’s on his feet and moving, running pell-mell toward the camp, like a man who thinks bullets won’t hurt him.

“Stay here?” I say to myself. “Stay here? Not fucking likely.”

I move away from King, who has done a splendid job of drawing fire. So far, the web of trees are shielding him from the barrage, but he’s not going to last long if he charges out in the open.

I exit the jungle behind a trailer, but it looks and feels like a prop. I peek around the corner. The clearing is lit by a pair of floodlight stands. There’s a smoldering fire pit at the center. Two wooden posts jut from the ground. Laura is bound to one, her head hanging down, unconscious. There’s a man tied to the second post. King’s friend.

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.

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.