"They reached the end of the path without incident, and crept onto the first of the islands. Here, the sky was momentarily clear, the moon shining down on them like a huge, weathered circle of bone. Against that glow, the trees grew dark and thick to all sides. Serap thought he could hear a strange whirring sound beneath the normal sounds of seeping water, insects, frogs, and the occasional fruit bat."

"He held up his arm, a sign for everyone to stop. He needed to filter out the incidental noise of their movement. A snap, like three branches cracking one after another, came from behind them and Serap whirled around. Tout did the same, both of them holding AK-47s at the ready. Their men, confused, stared at them from eyes hidden by shadow. Nothing seemed wrong."

"Until from the back of the line, a steaming bag of blood and bones fell forward into the second-to-last man, and that man screamed as Toht said in a calm voice, "Now we are nine". "Cover!" Serap shouted, stealth no longer an option, pulled the pin on a grenade, and sent it arcing into the darkness well beyond the dead man. He hit the ground beside Tout. The men under their command dove to the sides, hugged the earth. It was an old trick. If the enemy created chaos, add to the chaos to confuse him."

"The grenade exploded in a sudden flash of light, dirt and water strafing them. Serap looked up in the afterglow and his blood went cold when he saw a huge figure of white and gray moving across the limbs of a large tree to the left side of the path. Then the darkness took it. "Get off the path!" Serap ordered, and they all scrambled to their feet. A blue light erupted from the trees before any of them had taken more than a step. Two men were blown apart in front of Serap."

""Aim for the trees!" Tout shouted, but now their men, disoriented, were running in all directions. The enemy's chaos had won over their own. A couple of them fired out into the darkness, but only Tout, kneeling, behind some light cover, was laying down fire in an intelligent way. More blue flashes slammed into the path, into the island, into the men, spraying blood and flesh everywhere. The screaming of the wounded rose as the island became cross lit with the staccato burst of the AK-47s and the silent beam of the enemy's weapon."

"Serap got a hand on one soldier, pulled him back just as the blue flash came and vaporized his head, leaving a stump of neck. The man fell away into the darkness as Serap followed Tout to cover behind a thick tree. They watched as the blue light sought out the last three of their men, left a smoldering crater where once had been legs. Obliterated a torso. Sent a mans jaw rocketing out if his mouth."

"Use that damn browning machine gun brother," Tout said. Serap pulled it off his shoulder, and then both of them aimed for the blue flashing light until Serap's arm ached and the machine gun was so hot he had to let it drop. He picked up his AK-47 again. The clearing was quiet. The remains of their men lay glistening in the kill zone on the path. The machine gun had so decimated the trees in front of it that now the moonlight seeped through the tattered, shattered branches and the holes in the leaves, creating strange patterns on the ground. Nothing moved. There were no more blue flashes."

""What was it?" Serap whispered, turning to his brother. Tout had three red dots on his forehead. A universal sign. Serap stared at Tout helplessly. Tout stared back and knew. "Goodbye brother," he said in a faraway voice. Tout's head vanished into a red mist. His body toppled, fell into Seraps arms. No time for horror or fear. The old calm slid over Serap and the old instincts, and he ran. Quick. Decisive. Sure. For the embankment on the far edge of the island, tossing the AK-47, giving everything he had to reaching the water."

"Hearing the blue the blue flash raking through the underbrush behind him. Serap felt a surge of adrenaline as he dove into the muddy, thick water. He was going to survive. He was going to make it. Then, puzzlement as the water turned to sharp teeth and crushing jaws across his torso, ribs cracking as he thrashed, and only after the pain from the gashes registering in his brain. The confused thought: "It can swim too?" Followed by the oddly distanced, oddly amused recognition, just before his body began to shut down from the shock and the irreversible agony: "Pol Pot." pg.56, 57, 58 Chaoter 8