Shannon breathed deep, knowing immediately what he would do as if his whole life in the jungle had prepared him for this one moment.

A strange beckoning called. A desire, whispering in the night, urging him forward. He swallowed, still scanning the scene before him, his blood now surging through his veins. Not so much in anger, he noted with mild surprise. A craving.

A new picture rolled through his brain, slow motion. A scene of him flying parallel to the ground, hurling his knife sidearm.

The steel flashing through the air while he was still airborne.

Bet you were surprised, huh, boy? And here you thought you were going to plug me with a bullet or two. A faint smile drifted across Shannon’s lips.

Sula . . .

Then the image was gone, leaving only black sky in his eyes. He pulled his head back and blinked. He scrambled across the small clearing and soundlessly leapt over its rim. He ran around the boulders, staying low to the ground. The guard stood with his back to him, bent over cupped hands, a rifle slung on his right shoulder. The outline of a knife hung loosely at his hip.

The man turned his back to the wind, facing Shannon, his head still bowed to his hands. Shannon held his breath. A flame flashed once unsuccessfully, lighting the guard’s browned lips pursed around a fresh cigarette. He would later wonder what could have possibly possessed him to go then, so suddenly, with hardly a thought. But Shannon went then, just before another flame lit the man’s face.

He sprinted on his toes, directly toward the glowing face, knowing the light would blind the man momentarily, knowing the wind carried away what little sound he made. He covered the twenty yards in the time it took the guard to light his cigarette and draw deep once, with his head tilted back.

Carrying his full momentum at the man, Shannon slammed his left palm under the raised chin and snatched the man’s knife from its sheath in one abrupt motion. He lunged forward after the back-pedaling man, stepped into the reeling body, flipped the blade in his hand, and jerked it across the exposed neck before the man had gathered his senses for a cry.

He hadn’t planned the steps to the attack—he’d simply seen the opportunity and gone. Blood flowed from the guard’s jugular, spilling to the stone. The dangling cigarette momentarily lit the man’s bulging eyes and then tumbled from his lips. The guard crumpled in a heap and then flopped to his back, his boots twitching between Shannon’s spread legs.

What’s happened to you, man? You’re a sicko.

Yeah, a sicko.

Shannon reached for the man’s rifle, wrenched it free, snatched an extra clip from his belt, and ran for a large boulder ten meters to his right. He slid to his knees, panting.

No sounds of pursuit carried in the night. He quickly checked the weapon in his hands, found a round chambered, and snapped the firing selection to single shot. It was an AK-47; he’d fired a thousand rounds through one like it down on the range. From long distances the weapon could only scatter hopeful fire, but within a couple hundred meters, Shannon could place a slug wherever he wanted.