Michael led them farther down the trail until they reached a slight rise in the landscape. Annja could see that ground sloped downward after that and she could hear a river farther along.

“Here?” she asked.

Vic surveyed the area and nodded. “Yeah, I suppose this is as good as any. They won’t be able to see us and might get a little jumpy. They should rush over the lip where we’ll be waiting.”

Annja frowned. More death was not what she wanted to be dealing. She would much rather continue on their journey to get the hell out of the jungle. But that would have to wait.

Vic sighed. “Wish I had my rifle with me. I could take them all down before they even got close.”

Michael and Joey huddled around them. Joey drew his finger along the ground, teasing what looked like a beetle of some type. “Michael thinks there’s four of them behind us,” he said.

Annja glanced at him. “How did you know?”

Michael smiled. “You learn to read the signs. When we started out, I could tell there’d been a lot of activity in the area. Like someone had been all over the place, checking it out.”

“You think they were watching us when we got out of the tree?” she asked.

“No doubt.”

“Why not take us then?”

Vic shook his head. “They didn’t know which way we were going. In order to set a proper ambush, they’d need time to see where we were headed. They couldn’t just sit there and hop on us or they’d risk losing some of us back underground.”

“So,” Joey said, “they waited. And when they saw that we were headed east, they took up the pursuit.”

Annja frowned. “Still seems weird they didn’t just wait and shoot us back then.”

Michael wiped his brow. “Regardless, they’re on our tail now and we need to set up.”

Vic withdrew the kris knife he carried. “This is going to be close-quarters type stuff.”

Annja shrugged. “I’m getting more and more used to that.”

“I saw.”

Michael and Joey slid their knives out. Even with their respective injuries, they looked solemn.

Vic looked at each of them. “You guys seen combat before?”

They shrugged. “We’ve seen plenty of death.”

“Have you ever dealt it?”

“Once before the fight in the caves back there,” Joey said. “But we don’t need to go and revisit it. Let’s just say we’re both prepared to do whatever we need to do.”

“It’s going to be different from the caves,” Vic said. “We’re talking about springing an ambush. These guys won’t know what hit them. Shock and surprise are our best chance to survive.”

Joey nodded. “We know.”

“Hit hard and fast,” Vic said. “And don’t give any quarter. They wouldn’t for you.”

He glanced at Annja. “You all set?”

“Yeah.”

“What about your, uh, sword?” he asked, looking around.

Annja grinned. “I’ll be ready,” she said.

Vic nodded. “All right, let’s get into position.”

He moved them off the trail while Michael cut a few branches farther down to make it look as if they’d continued in that direction. They wanted to make sure the men pursuing them believed they hadn’t stopped.

Vic positioned Michael off to the left of the trail and Joey off to the right. “The goal,” he said, “is to do a sort of pincer move on them. As they come abreast, Annja and I will engage from the front. You two will swing in from behind and take them that way. Since we don’t have guns, there’s no danger of a cross fire.”

Annja looked at him. “We hit them in the front?”

Vic nodded. “Well, you’ve got that sword and all. Seems like a good idea to me.”

“Oh, sure.”

Vic and Annja positioned themselves just over the lip. Vic’s voice was a whisper. “As they come abreast, we’ll cut low. Aim for a killing stab or slash into the upper thighs. If you can get the femoral artery, all the better.”

Annja shuddered. “This is so premeditated.”

Vic nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

“I’m not used to this. I usually only fight when I have to. Killing isn’t something I set out to do on a daily basis.”

“Sometimes, we can’t help what destiny hands us. We just have to make the best of the situation as it unfolds,” he said.

“There’s a lot of truth in that,” Annja said.

“Find the silver lining in it.”

She glanced at him. His eyes were dark brown and lively. “Do you always find a silver lining?”

He smirked. “Sometimes it feels more like pewter.”

“This one of those times?”

He smiled. “I doubt it.”

Annja lay flat on her stomach, trying to quell her nerves. Vic lay next to her, his knees up slightly so he could spring up as the men came to them.

“How long?” Annja asked.

Vic shook his head. “Not much longer now. They’ll see the landscape change and hustle. That’s what we want.”

“You think Joey and Michael are okay?”

“We’ll find out.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” she said.

Vic shrugged. “You’re never sure until you see how people handle themselves in combat. They did great back in the caves, but that was self-defense, mostly. This is different. It’s almost a different mind-set.”

“I guess you’re pretty familiar with that, huh?”

He nodded. “I have to be. My life depends on me getting that one shot, one kill. If I don’t, I might die.”

“How do you reconcile it? The premeditated thing.”

Vic lifted himself off the ground. “You try to make peace the best way you can. For some guys, it’s that whole good-versus-evil thing. They tell themselves if this guy lives or that guy gets away, he’ll kill lots more people.”

“Better the price of one than many?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“What about other guys?”

Vic took a deep breath. “Maybe they take the human factor out of it. It doesn’t become so much about killing a person—it’s more just a job. You track and stalk and line up the target. You squeeze the trigger and they drop dead. You go on your way.”

“It’s a little different from being an insurance salesman, though,” Annja said.

“Yeah, it is. But some guys can do that.”

“So you do that?”

Vic shook his head. “Me? No. My motivation’s a little bit different.”

Annja paused. “Want to tell me about it?”

“Now?”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re about to spring an ambush, that’s why.”

Annja shifted onto her side. “You’ll tell me later, then, okay?”

“Sure. Just as soon as you spill the beans about where the hell you got that sword.”

Annja grinned. “Speaking of which.” She closed her eyes and reached into the tall grass beside her. When she opened them, she pulled her hand back and the sword gleamed in her hands.

Vic blew out a breath. “It’s really quite beautiful.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ve got the advantage of reach with that.”

“Meaning what?”

Vic looked at his knife. “You go first.”

“Me?”

He smiled. “I’ll be right here.”

Annja started to say something but then stopped. With the sword, she’d be able to cut a wide swath and hopefully score some good hits before everyone else engaged. It made sense.

“All right.”

Vic quieted her and they waited in silence for something to happen.

Annja heard a crack.

Vic froze.

She raised her eyebrows. He nodded.

The men who stalked them were close.

Another twig snapped somewhere about twenty feet away. Annja felt her heart start hammering. If she’d said anything else, they might have heard her.

A low rustle sounded like a vine dragging over the material of a pant leg. Annja’s ears pricked up.

They were so close.

Sweat ran down her neck and she gripped the handle of her sword.

Vic’s eyes had gone to stone.

Annja found herself sucking in more oxygen.

And then something inside of her set her into motion. Annja came alive, lifting herself up into a crouch, swinging the sword for all she was worth.

The effect was instant chaos.

The two men in front of her saw her at the very last possible second. Their guns started to come up but Annja was already cutting into them, her sword blade slashing deep wounds in their upper thighs, across their groins and lower abdomens.

The air exploded as the men behind the front two opened fire. But it was undisciplined and the rounds went right into the backs of the front two men, who dropped dead even before the reality of the situation seemed to register.

Annja saw Vic moving beside her and in her peripheral vision she saw Joey and Michael come alive from the edges of the trail, closing their deadly noose on the two rear men.

Joey went low, driving his knife deep into the side of the man in front of him. Michael cut down into the neck of his target, slashing and tearing at the exposed muscles.

Vic finished off the two men in front, delivering deep thrusts to both of their hearts.

It was over in seconds.

Annja sniffed the air and could smell the stench of blood and cordite. The air still smoked from the rounds the men had fired off.

But the noise died as quickly as they did and soon enough, the jungle settled back down.

Annja surveyed the damage.

Four men dead before they knew what hit them.

Vic nodded. “Everyone okay?”

“I am,” Annja said.

Joey and Michael checked each other over. Michael looked as if he might have been bleeding a little from the sudden exertion that tore at his wounds. Joey looked as if his arm was bothering him.

But otherwise, they were okay.

Vic cut a nearby tube vine and helped himself to a long swallow of water. He gestured for Annja to do the same. “Store it up. We don’t have any time to hang around.”

Annja pointed at the four corpses. “What about them?”

Joey walked over and cut into a vine for himself. “Leave them. The jungle will take care of disposing of them.”

“They’d leave you there,” Michael said. “No sense doing any better by them.”

Annja drank from the tube vine. It felt weird just leaving the bodies behind. But Vic was right—they didn’t have any time to waste.

She knew that it was right to pay with four men dead than the thousands who would die if Agamemnon’s nuclear fantasy was allowed to play out on the streets of Manila.

She took a final swallow, looked one last time at the bodies of the men who would have killed them all, and then took off down the trail, following Vic.

Annja didn’t look back.