“I asked him in Khmer where we were. He didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, ‘The Dog-God is here, and here he must remain.’ He seemed crazy as hell to me. I took a few more steps and asked him again where we were. Again he said, ‘The Dog-God is here, and here he must remain.’ I was close enough to get my first good look at it. I realized right away that this was what had caused that weird feeling when I first came up to the temple.
“I asked him what it was. He just shook his head. I bent down and looked at it close up and felt a surge of electricity run through my body. I tumbled back onto a line of bones. The old monk laughed his crazy laugh and said, ‘The Dog-God is here, and here he must remain.’ I hopped back to my feet and reached down to pick it up, and the old man’s arm shot out and grabbed my wrist. His fingers were long and skinny, and his nails were uncut. He had a hand like a vulture’s claw. He was so thin he couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, but his grip was so strong I couldn’t pull away. I tugged and tugged, but he wouldn’t let go, and I couldn’t break free. Finally, I shot him, and that did the trick.
“I scooped it up and put it in my backpack. Suddenly I knew exactly where I needed to go. It was guiding me. I climbed down off the temple and headed out into the jungle. It took a day-and-a-half of rough going before I stumbled on a FANK base that had a few American spooks there who helicoptered me back to friendly territory.
“At this point, it was still a secret that we were in Cambodia, which I guess they were hoping would stay a secret if they went easy on those of us who’d gotten banged up over there. They told me I could go home if I wanted, and I said, ‘Yes,’ without really thinking about it.
“A day later, I was flying in a troop transport over the Pacific Ocean, headed for Eielson Air Force Base, near Fairbanks. We ran into some bad weather. The engines conked out, and we went down. There were twenty-five other men on board, and they all died. Those who survived the crash just started dying all at once. One kid was talking to me and he died in the middle of a sentence. He just slid into the water and never came back up. But it kept me alive. The only problem was that I had to let go of it to stay afloat in that icy water. I floated there for three days.
“Finally a fishing trawler found me. The crew couldn’t believe I’d survived. I made the navigator give me the exact coordinates of where we were so I could go back for it some day. I spent the next thirty years combing the seabed in this area. I could sense it, just like I can now, but the ocean is a mighty big place. I’m telling you this story because I don’t have the patience to search for it again.”
“Okay,” Culann said. “So this thing is a god? How does it work? How come I’m still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you plan to do with it?”
The Captain glared at Culann.
“I’m just wondering,” Culann continued, “what it can do. I’m curious how you control it.”
The Captain scratched his cheek for a moment before answering, “I don’t know. I just know that I was able to find it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It’s only a matter of time before I figure it out.”
As Culann listened to this, he was of course aware that the Captain did not want the orb so that he could bring about world peace. The Captain’s naked lust for power, power he didn’t even understand, was frightening for Culann to witness up close. Culann realized that he had to stop the Captain, even if it meant sacrificing his own life, which wasn’t much of a sacrifice since Culann was pretty sure the Captain was going to kill him anyway. At the very least, Culann needed to keep from revealing the orb’s location, although he doubted he could hold out for very long once the Captain started torturing him.
He still had Williams’s gun, which was still covered by his t-shirt. Even after Culann had been shot, he hadn’t dared draw his own weapon. He had very little confidence in his ability to hit the Captain before getting riddled with bullets. But as long as the Captain killed him, then Culann wouldn’t tell where the orb is. He had nothing to lose, so he went for it.
10
It took one second for Culann to pull his t-shirt aside, draw Williams’s gun from the holster, take hasty aim at the Captain, and pull the trigger. But it was a second that seemed like a lifetime. Culann was conscious of the cold, hard feel of the gun butt, the almost delicate slenderness of the trigger, the spark of electricity when the bullet leapt from the barrel. He was simultaneously conscious of the Captain’s superhuman response.
The older man’s stern face registered no surprise. He calmly raised his own weapon and fired. Culann could even see the tough skin on the Captain’s finger fold as it squeezed the trigger. As Culann catalogued all of these details, his mind also imagined two worlds. In the first, Culann’s bullet found its mark. In this world, the fog swallowed Pyrite, and Culann lived out his days amongst the dogs, forever cut off from the human race, which would never know how close it had come to extinction or that an alcoholic sex offender was the key to its salvation. In the other world, Culann missed. The Captain tortured him until he revealed the orb’s location and then killed him. The Captain unleashed waves of death and destruction on the civilized world until it granted him absolute power. He withered like the Cambodian monk over the course of many lifetimes, all the while exercising dominion over the Earth from a throne of madness. This was what was at stake.
And then the second was over.
11
For a man who’d never fired a gun in his life, Culann had aimed remarkably well.
But not well enough. The bullet whizzed past the Captain’s head, just missing his right ear. It was obvious that the Captain had fired a gun many times in his life. His bullet caught Culann in the right hand, splintering his knuckles and causing him to fling his weapon away. It plunked into the water and was gone. The dogs, obscured by the mists, whined sharply from over Culann’s shoulder. He survived the exchange but was now unarmed and suffering incomprehensible pain. He couldn’t bring himself to look down at the mangled hand he cradled to his chest. It wouldn’t be long before he told the Captain where to find the orb.
“You’ve got more guts that I gave you credit for, greenhorn,” the Captain said.
“But in three seconds, you’re going to tell me where it is, or I’m going to destroy your kneecap.”
The Captain stood over Culann and pointed the gun straight down at his knee.
Culann shot the Captain a defiant glare and then rolled over to his belly. He started to drag himself forward on his elbows. The Captain shot him straight through the back of the left knee. The bullet shattered Culann’s kneecap and sank into the wooden plank of the pier. The dogs’ whines and whimpers grew to full barking, fifty dogs voicing their displeasure all at once. But none dared to crawl out of the fog and confront the ruthless human who now dominated Pyrite’s last man. The Captain dropped down and kneeled on the small of Culann’s back. He pressed the barrel of the gun to Culann’s spine.
“If you won’t sit still,” he said, “I’m going to have to make sure that you can’t move. You’ve got three seconds to tell me where it is before I turn you into a paraplegic.”
“One.”
Culann tried to focus on the howling of the dogs. Anything except the three throbbing wounds that screamed at his brain.
“Two.”
Culann could sense the dogs behind him, chomping and slavering, craving the Captain’s blood. But they were held back as if by invisible chains. The Captain was somehow restraining them.
“Time’s up,” the Captain said.
The collective savagery of the dogs overwhelmed Culann’s mind. They seemed to be trying to communicate with him. They couldn’t overcome the barrier the Captain had erected. But their insistent howling seemed to be telling Culann that he could.
“Kill him,” he whispered, and with that, the invisible chains snapped. Alphonse leapt forward latched his
