I’ve pulled the shades down tight so she won’t see me when she walks in. So she’ll be sure to turn away from me to switch on the light.
I will tell you that I hear her now, the slam of her car door, the crunch of gravel leading up to her door.
I will tell you that my Walther .45 has two bullets in it. Two.
I will tell you the door is opening.
I will tell you that finally and at last the dark no longer scares me, that there is a peace more comforting than anger.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Who do I say this to?
This I won’t tell you.
I won’t.
James Rollins
James Rollins’s Sandstorm (2003) and Map of Bones (2004), were departures from his usual work. His prior thrillers were all stand-alones, with a separate cast of characters. But in these two, Rollins introduced his first series with recurring characters. He pursued that course based on input from his readers and from personal desire. For years, fans had contacted him and asked questions about various cast members from his earlier thrillers. What became of Ashley and Ben’s baby after Subterranean (1999)? What is the next port of call for the crew of the Deep Fathom (2001)?
Eventually, Rollins came to realize that he wanted to know those answers, too. So he challenged himself to construct a series—something unique and distinct. He wanted to build a landscape of three-dimensional characters and create his own mythology of these people, to watch them grow over the course of the series, balancing personal lives and professional, some succeeding, some failing. Yet at the same time, Rollins refused to let go of his roots. Trained as a biologist with a degree in veterinary medicine, his new series, like his previous thrillers, folded scientific intrigue into stories of historical mystery. His new characters belong to Sigma Force, an elite team of ex-Special Forces soldiers retrained in scientific disciplines (what Rollins jokingly describes as “killer scientists who operate outside the rule of law”). Finally, from his background as a veterinarian, the occasional strange or exotic animal often plays a significant role in the plot.
And this short story is no exception.
Here, Rollins links his past to the present. He brings forward a minor character, one of his personal favorites, from his earlier stand-alone thriller Ice Hunt (2003). Joe Kowalski, a naval seaman, is best described as someone with the heart of a hero but lacking the brainpower to go with it. So how does Seaman Joe Kowalski end up being recruited by such an illustrious team as Sigma Force?
As they say…dumb luck is better than no luck at all.
Kowalski’s in Love
He wasn’t much to look at…even swinging upside down from a hog snare. Pug-nosed, razor-clipped muddy hair, a six-foot slab of beef hooked and hanging naked except for a pair of wet gray boxer shorts. His chest was crisscrossed with old scars, along with one jagged bloody scratch from collarbone to groin. His eyes shone wide and wild.
And with good reason.
Two minutes before, as Dr. Shay Rosauro unhitched her glidechute on the nearby beach, she had heard his cries in the jungle and come to investigate. She had approached in secret, moving silently, spying from a short distance away, cloaked in shadow and foliage.
“Back off, you furry bastard…!”
The man’s curses never stopped, a continual flow tinged with a growled Bronx accent. Plainly he was American. Like herself.
She checked her watch.
8:33 a.m.
The island would explode in twenty-seven minutes.
The man would die sooner.
The more immediate threat came from the island’s other inhabitants, drawn by the man’s shouts. The average adult mandrill baboon weighed over a hundred pounds, most of that muscle and teeth. They were usually found in Africa. Never on a jungle island off the coast of Brazil. The yellow radio collars suggested the pack were once the research subjects belonging to Professor Salazar, shipped to this remote island for his experimental trials. Mandrillus sphinx were also considered frugivorous, meaning their diet consisted of fruits and nuts.
But not always.
They were also known to be opportunistic carnivores.
One of the baboons stalked around the trapped man: a charcoal-furred male of the species with a broad red snout bordered on both sides by ridges of blue. Such coloration indicated the fellow was the dominant male of the group. Females and subordinate males, all a duller brown, had settled to rumps or hung from neighboring branches. One bystander yawned, exposing a set of three-inch-long eyeteeth and a muzzle full of ripping incisors.
The male sniffed at the prisoner. A meaty fist swung at the inquisitive baboon, missed, and whished through empty air.
The male baboon reared on its hind legs and howled, lips peeling back from its muzzle to expose the full length of its yellow fangs. An impressive and horrifying display. The other baboons edged closer.
Shay stepped into the clearing, drawing all eyes. She lifted her hand and pressed the button on her sonic device, nicknamed a shrieker. The siren blast from the device had the desired effect.
Baboons fled into the forest. The male leader bounded up, caught a low branch and swung into the cloaking darkness of the jungle.
The man, still spinning on the line, spotted her. “Hey…how about…?”
Shay already had a machete in her other hand. She jumped atop a boulder and severed the hemp rope with one swipe of her weapon.
The man fell hard, striking the soft loam and rolling to the side. Amid a new string of curses, he struggled with the snare around his ankle. He finally freed the knotted rope.
“Goddamn apes!”
“Baboons,” Shay corrected.
“What?”
“They’re baboons, not apes. They have stubby tails.”
“Whatever. All I saw were their big, goddamn teeth.”
As the man stood and brushed off his knees, Shay spotted a U.S. Navy anchor tattooed on his right bicep. Ex-military? Maybe he could prove handy. Shay checked the time.
8:35 a.m.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“My boat broke down.” His gaze traveled up and down her lithe form.
She was not unaccustomed to such attention from the male of her own species…even now, when she was unflatteringly dressed in green camouflage fatigues and sturdy boots. Her shoulder-length black hair had been efficiently bound behind her ears with a black bandanna, and in the tropical swelter, her skin glowed a dark mocha.
Caught staring, he glanced back toward the beach. “I swam here
