Dark Island

by Matt James

  Babo had an eye again.

  “That’s not possible,” Ian said, shocked.

  “I know, right!” Nash said, a little too pumped. “Anyway, we figured that’s how the big one survived for so long. It ate the white algae and turned back time. It kept itself from dying.”

  Babo’s face soured. “There more to tell too.”

  “More?” Mack asked.

  “The Razambe live.”

  Ian stumbled away, holding his head. “No fucking way… Can’t be.”

  “The what now?” Sam asked.

  “The Ancestors?” Joe asked, translating the word from his native language into English.

  “Ian,” Nash said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “we found evidence that the wankers are still alive.” Nash dug into his pocket and handed Ian something. “Here. Take a look.”

  Ian accepted the offering and held it into the beam of Mack’s flashlight. He almost fainted at what he saw.

  “Is that Julius Caesar?” Sam asked, stepping closer.

  “Yep,” Ian replied, understanding the implications. “This coin is around two-thousand years old if my math is correct.” He looked into Mack’s worried face. “It means that the Ancestors are global and have visited the surface before.”

  “And this,” Babo added, holding out what Ian recognized as a black Motorola RAZR cell phone. He had one just like it over a decade ago. “We find this too.”

  The Razambe have been to the surface very recently.

  “That’s not all, Ian.”

  He looked up at Nash. “How can this not be all?”

  Nash wasn’t kidding. “Everything we found…was surrounded by the dead. The Ancestors killed everyone.” His eyes softened. “We found thousands of bodies, Ian… Thousands—people, animals.” Nash-the-mercenary sniffed back tears. “Kids too, Ian. Kids!”

  Ian didn’t know what to do. He just put his arm around Mack and squeezed. Apparently, the beings from below didn’t always stay below. It seemed that they occasionally like to pop up and take unsuspecting people—unsuspecting prey… He thought back to their expedition below and tried to remember everything he could. The one thing that never felt right was the two different living spaces.

  He called them the “warrior clan” and the “civilian clan.”

  Hmmm.

  “What is it?” Mack asked. She knew he was coming up with something.

  “The two different factions of people... Remember the detached living quarters?” Mack, Babo, and Nash all nodded. The rest of the team stayed silent and listened. “What if the warriors went to war against their less-violent neighbors? What if that’s what you two found down there were the warriors’ current stomping grounds.”

  “The gate!” Mack said, coming to a revelation. “It wasn’t just meant to keep the creatural dangers out. It was meant to keep a bloodthirsty clan of barbarians at bay as well.”

  “The graves around the bonfire,” Nash said, rubbing his forehead. “I bet they were the fallen of some great civil war or something. The survivors probably abandoned the city after erecting the wall.”

  “Sir?” Sam asked, speaking up for the first time in a while. “You’ve briefed us on some of this, well, the possibility of it anyway. My question is, what does it all mean?”

  She was right. The MPA had a clear directive: Hunt down and contain all threats that come from within the island nation. But what if those threats were human, or a type of human in the case of the Razambe? Ian couldn't know for sure that they were, indeed, man.

  Maybe the beings from below started out as beings from above? Aliens? At this point, nothing would surprise him.

  Taking a deep breath, he turned toward the tunnel entrance, shining his light into the dark void. He stepped forward before facing his trusted and loyal team. Holding his rifle at the low-ready, he spoke with confidence.

  “We’re going back in.” He looked at Babo and then Nash. “We have to confirm the existence of another, possibly warring race. There could be millions of them around the globe—billions even. We know the tunnel system is vast and deep…really deep.” He eyed Mack who nodded. “Stopping a few animals here and there means nothing if there is something worse down there itching to have a go with modern man.”

  He turned back toward the exit.

  “It’s them or us.”

  The finality sounded off, but if the people of topside-Earth were really in danger, then Ian, former Navy SEAL, was ready and highly trained to do what was needed to save as many of his fellow surface-dwellers as he could. He trusted Nash and Babo’s assessment of the vicious Ancestors. But Ian needed confirmation that the tribe A) still lives, and B) has as deadly of an agenda as the men believe.

  Ian didn’t know how many of his men would follow him, but he knew one thing was for sure. He was going back into the Dark Island. He was going on the hunt.

  Read on for a free sample of The Found World

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MATT JAMES is the bestselling author of over a dozen titles, including BEAUTIFUL DRAGONS, BLOOD AND SAND, THE CURSED PHARAOH, PLAGUE, and DEAD MOON. He’s also collaborated with David Wood in his celebrated Dane Maddock series, releasing three adventures (BERSERK, SKIN AND BONES, and VENOM). Known for his high-octane action, Matt also enjoys dabbling in some science fiction and horror. Regardless of the genre, he loves to move fast and have fun doing it. He resides in South Florida with his wife and two daughters, gobbling up the work of authors like Jeremy Robinson, James Rollins, Matthew Reilly, Andy McDermott, and David Wood.

  Matt is an enormous MCU and STAR WARS fan too—an all-around DISNEY nut, for that matter. He and his family have annual passes to Walt Disney World, frequenting Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom the most.

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  PRAISE FOR “THE HANK BOYD ADVENTURES”

  “BLOOD AND SAND takes readers on a spellbindingly treacherous journey that also manages to have fun along the way!”

  —Rick Chesler, bestselling author of HOTEL MEGALODON

  “The Hank Boyd series has been added to my must-read list!”

  —J.M. LeDuc, bestselling author of SIN

  “The next Hank Boyd Adventure can’t come soon enough!”

  —David McAfee, bestselling author of 33 A.D

  PRAISE FOR “BERSERK”

  “What should you expect when you mix adventure, complex and humorous characters, ancient science fiction plot with contemporary consequences, magic weapons, and scary monsters? A great story!”

  —C.K. Phillips, bestselling author of

  COMES THE AWAKENING

  PRAISE FOR “PLAGUE”

  "PLAGUE erupts from the pages in a steroid-filled tornado of terror and shock!"

  —SUSPENSE MAGAZINE

  “PLAGUE is filled with action, monsters, and our new favorite hero, Logan Reed. Need a cup of coffee and the next book!”

  —THE MR. CAFFEINE SHOW

  "PLAGUE is a monstrously thrilling read!"

  —John Sneeden, bestselling author of THE SIGNAL

  PRAISE FOR “EVOLVE”

  "A rip-roaring action/adventure that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go, with compelling characters who will stop at nothing to protect one another. Looking forward to the next installment!"

  —Richard Bard, bestselling author of BRAINRUSH

  PRAISE FOR “DEAD MOON”

  “DEAD MOON is a high-octane thrill ride filled with action, suspense, sadness, and of course, monsters! An amazing read!”

  —Zach Cole, author of KAIJU EPOCH

  Copyright © 2018 Matt James

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior wri
tten permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The right of Matt James to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  THE FOUND WORLD

  The man sitting alone at the center of the middle bench seat of the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter barely looked out either window at the jungle foliage as they landed a few hundred feet from the clearing made for the carnival. Six heavily muscled commandos in tactical gear sat three across on the bench in front of him and the one behind. Up front sat the pilot and the also-heavily muscled commander of the paramilitary troop. The man’s name was not Lathrop, but that is what he went by when on assignment. The mercenaries were under his nominal command, but they were not under his employ. The people he worked for had contracted these “soldiers,” much to his dislike. The fact that they were paid by the same entity didn’t mean he had to sit next to the beasts, however.

  If Lathrop had been given his druthers, it would have been himself and the pilot in a much less ostentatious mode of travel. His tasseled attaché, which matched the tassels on his pair of Bolviant Verrocchios, was his weapon of choice. It was loaded with ammunition—contracts and legal papers that served as modern letters of marque, enough to take down entire governments if his employer wished. But not just ammunition: within the galuchat attaché case were untraceable bearer bonds each worth millions of dollars and pre-signed deeds to properties in Dubai and Tokyo worth even more. It contained carrots as well as sticks.

  Lathrop had once been asked by a contracted assassin why he didn’t simply take a few for himself and disappear. Lathrop laughed and told him that owning every single piece of property in Hong Kong wouldn’t be worth losing his life, which would be lost horribly, once his employer found him again. And—make no mistake, he told the assassin, who was erased from existence once his mission was completed just for asking the question—his employer would find him again in short order.

  Just like they had found Brett Russell, the man he had come to see. This man used to work for Lathrop’s own employer before he uncovered a shocking truth, but then went underground, promising to exact retribution one day. This didn’t bother the Organization; one man, or an army of them, or even a nation full of oath-sworn revengers couldn’t do any real damage to those pulling the world’s strings.

  What did bother them was losing a man of Brett Russell’s talents. He once liberated an entire mining village while simultaneously fighting what the Organization believed was an actual living Spinosaurus in the depths of the Congo rainforest. He was the perfect candidate to help them secure an asset so valuable that made the entire contents of Lathrop’s galuchet case look like bag of glass marbles. The Organization would have him hand over the attaché in a second if Brett Russell would accept it for the job.

  But they knew he wouldn’t. All the wealth in the world meant nothing to a man wanting only revenge. So, the man not really named Lathrop would offer him revenge.

  He allowed the commandos to exit one side and come around to slide open the door on the other side for the others to get out. He stood on the soft dirt, the heels of his astronomically expensive buffalo-hide shoes sinking half an inch or so. They would need to be discarded after this adventure, he thought, but others would be waiting for him when he stopped in New York on his way back to Geneva. It would amuse him to have his man drop the old pair of $2,000 shows into a box at the Goodwill. Maybe he’d see a hobo wearing them next time he was in the city and chuckle to himself that the bum could have bought himself a car to live in.

  A small beetle almost immediately alit upon the right lapel of his bespoke Ermenegildo Zegna suit, which made Lathrop very nearly smile; the bug had good taste. He swept it off and looked at the spectacle drawing cheers and excited gasps from the loose crowd of farmers and their lead-poisoned children. He believed he was near the “city” of Ipixuna in Brazil, a settlement of about 17,000 and one of the most difficult to reach anywhere in the Amazon rainforest, which was saying something.

  To the Organization, however, nothing was terribly difficult to reach. To get Lathrop and the troops to the spot outside Ipixuna, the 12-seat S-76 was dropped out of an enormous Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo plane, having first been loaded onto an automated Chase XCG-20 glider, which descended to and leveled off at 5,000 feet, at which time it was slowed to stalling speed. At that moment, a radio signal was sent to set off the bay door’s explosive bolts, which blew off the hatch and allowed the Sikorsky to slide out, its rotors already in motion. The glider crashed somewhere nearby and the helicopter flew the thirty miles or so to the target location, this godforsaken bit of swampland where the idiot carnival was set up to entrance the dullards hired to destroy their own habitat. The Organization had no hand in that, but Lathrop thought it sounded like something they would do if it suited them.

  Some 200 feet ahead was a dome made from chain-link fencing, the onlookers gathering around its perimeter. The two dozen spectators turned and glanced briefly at the sight of a massive helicopter unloading black-clad soldiers carrying assault weapons and a polished white man wearing intentionally incongruous city clothing, but then turned back. Whatever was inside the 200-foot diameter of that fenced dome must have been compelling, indeed. Lathrop knew what was inside the dome: Brett Russell. God knew what he was doing, but it was enough to make sustenance farmers walk away from their crops in the middle of a spring day perfect for planting.

  The dome itself had been erected in such a way that some jungle trees were almost entirely within it, full of weird rainforest creatures that Lathrop, frankly, could do without ever encountering. He spent his days in Geneva, one of the most civilized places in the entire world. His friend the beetle had been a novelty; one just didn’t encounter insects where he conducted Organization business. That said, a poisonous monkey or spitting lizard would be more than a novelty and would constitute something entirely unwelcome on or near his person. He might have to ask one of the commandos to remove it for destruction, and he preferred not to ask anything of the thugs if it could be avoided.

  When Lathrop finally made it to the fence, the farmers parting more in suspicion than awe at his appearance at the dome, he saw what they were all gaping at: inside was the man whom he knew to be Brett Russell. There weren’t going to be a lot of Caucasians this deep into the jungle, making it easier to identify the man he was looking for—this was fortunate for Lathrop, because the man inside the caged area was almost unrecognizable as the man in the photograph he had been given by the Organization. The Russell in the picture had been a man in the field locating and, when necessary, fighting cryptids that usually turned out to be “only” giant bears, undiscovered killer condor-like birds, and that dinosaur in Congo: lots of muscle and hard as hell. But what Brett Russell was now made the old Russell look like an agoraphobic accountant. Lathrop had never met the actor they called “The Rock,” but he imagined Russell looked like what The Rock was 5’ 11” instead of his ridiculous 6’ 5” and had earned his muscles by fighting man-eating monsters instead of lifting free weights with personal trainers.

  Russell’s muscles, as impressive as they looked, weren’t for show—they couldn’t be. This was because inside the dome, standing in the waist-deep brown water of the inlet dug to drain from the main river a hundred feet, the man was wrestling with—Lathrop literally had to blink a few times to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing—a black caiman crocodile. It wasn’t the 16-foot monster that full-grown adults were, but the adolescent was at least 10 feet long, bigger than most man-eaters in the world already. It was huge and Russell could barely keep his gigantic arm around its neck as it thrashed and tried to take him apart.

  L
athrop’s mouth actually dropped open, and he looked at the farmers on either side of him for confirmation that he was seeing what he was seeing. But they didn’t look away from Russell being thrown around as the caiman tried to fling him off and escape through a submerged gate in the fence that led back to the river. (There was a man, probably the fight organizer, squatting just outside the fence with his hand on a handle for the gate; he must have been the one who would let the monster back into the river once the fight was over, one way or another. This told Lathrop that Russell didn’t intend to kill the animal, which agreed with the dossier he had read on his target.)

  The black caiman may have been trying instead to fling him off and then kill him, which it could do easily if it could get Russell got in front of his giant maw. Alligators and crocodiles, Lathrop knew, worked to tire out their prey by spinning and thrashing; if Russell got too tired to hold on, it would be the end of him.

  It seemed impossible that this wasn’t the first time the man had fought for a few Brazilian reals … but it also seemed highly unlikely it was the first time, since it looked like he was the one who was getting his enemy too tired to fight and not the other way around.

  As Lathrop looked closer, he could see that Russell had anchored himself onto the caiman’s back with a strap, so it wasn’t quite as impossible as it looked. It still looked completely impossible to him, but maybe not so ridiculous as to be entirely unbelievable. Russell had his arm under the strap and this helped him get his flesh raked open by the spines on the giant animal’s hide. He also had black sleeves, really long black gloves, almost all the way up his arms that, Lathrop was sure, kept him from being sliced open by the rough skin of his enemy.