Jeremy Robinson - SecondWorld

After three quick breaths Miller peeked out from behind the right side of the tree, made a note of the man’s position, and ducked back just as the man fired. Sharp bits of pine bark stung Miller’s face and the sound of breaking glass filled the air as the deflected bullet shot through one of the cabin’s windows. Miller rolled out from the other side of the tree, took aim, and fired.

The round sailed over grass, then beach sand, and finally water before it struck the canoe just inches from the shooter’s leg. The proximity of the shot made the man flinch. The canoe rocked and the man had to brace himself to keep from tipping.

In that moment of lost balance, Miller made a dash for the dock. He ignored the second pine tree and continued forward. The downward slope of the yard allowed him to pick up speed quickly, but the grass ended at a four-foot drop-off to the beach, from which the floating dock extended out over the water.

The shooter found his balance just as Miller reached the wall and jumped. The shot passed just beneath Miller’s airborne body and pinged off the rock wall that rose from the beach to the yard.

Five shots, Miller thought just before he landed, rolled back to his feet, and began his sprint across the ten-foot beach and twenty-foot dock. He could cover the distance in two seconds, which he knew would be about the same amount of time a skilled shooter would need to reload.

His footfalls thudded loudly across the dock, scattering the fish hiding beneath it. As he reached the end of the dock, Miller saw the shooter raise his rifle. But there was no place to hide, so Miller did the only thing he could—he dove. And as he sailed through the air, he saw the man look down his sight, tracking Miller’s arc through the air. Miller raised the empty Glock at the man, and for just a moment the man flinched. When the assassin pulled the trigger, Miller’s body was already disappearing beneath the water.

The cold embrace of the lake water reinvigorated Miller. As a Navy SEAL, the water was his element. No matter how cold, violent, dark, or murky, Miller could not be topped in the water. Except by a tiger shark, Miller reminded himself. He pumped toward the canoe, angling himself deeper. He had no fear of being shot while under the water—most rounds would mushroom and break apart just feet from the surface—but he wanted his arrival to be a surprise.

After nearly a minute of swimming without a fresh breath, Miller saw the canoe’s hull outlined by the blue sky above. The man’s shimmering form could be seen, too. He stood in the boat, scanning the water with his rifle, no doubt hoping the afternoon sun would reveal Miller’s approach. Not only was Miller thirty feet down, skimming the bottom of the lake, but he was already behind the canoe.

With the burn in his chest just beginning, Miller planted his feet on the lake’s bottom, bent down, and pushed off hard. He shot toward the surface, kicking with his feet. Unhindered by wet clothing, he rose quickly and shot out of the water like a breaching whale.

Before the shooter could react, Miller reached around the man, took hold of the rifle on both sides, and held on as gravity pulled him back to the water. The man shouted something unintelligible, though it sounded German to Miller, and fell back into the water.

Miller held on tight, pinning the rifle against the man’s chest. Treading water with the man firmly in his grasp, he shouted, “Who are you?”

The man said nothing. Instead he roared and leaned forward; for a moment, his voice bubbled as his head entered the lake. Then he flung himself back. Miller tried to duck to the side, but his proximity to the man made dodging the blow impossible. The back of the man’s skull connected hard with Miller’s forehead.

The two men fell away from each other, both dazed by the impact.

He’s lucky he didn’t knock us both unconscious, Miller thought as he fought to regain his senses and find his target. When he found the man, Miller had only a moment to open his mouth and suck in a lungful of air. Then the man, who was much larger than Miller thought, reached his arms around Miller and squeezed him in a bear hug.

With his arms pinned to his sides, Miller couldn’t fight back, and as they slid beneath the water even a head butt would do little good as his movements would be slowed and the force dulled. When fighting underwater, brains always won over brute force. Of course, without a body to control, all the brains in the world wouldn’t be much help.

They sank quickly, weighed down by the man’s clothing and belt, which held pouches of spare clips, a handgun, and a sheathed knife. With his hands free, Miller could have used the man’s weapons against him, but now he could do nothing but push against the man’s muscular arms in a fight to keep the air in his lungs.

The man snarled at Miller with gritted teeth. His brown hair was cut short; his hazel eyes burned with hatred.

Miller stopped fighting and just returned the man’s stare.

I’ve got you now, asshole, Miller thought when the man grinned. Miller let his body go limp, feigning death.

The man’s grip loosened.

Miller blinked, erasing the man’s smile.

The shooter made a halfhearted attempt to crush Miller again, but all he managed to do was further deplete his own oxygen supply.

Miller smiled at the man.

In the fading light, Miller saw the man’s face go red with the realization that Miller had been drowning him.

The crushing force on Miller’s body fell away a moment later. The man kicked frantically for the surface, fighting against the weight that had pulled them both down, using up even more oxygen.

Miller casually reached up and held the man by the ankle. The man kicked violently.

The kicking became shaking.

And then he was dead.

With his lungs craving air, Miller swam up to the man and quickly checked his pockets. Finding nothing, he removed the man’s handgun—a semiautomatic 9mm Walther P38—once again a standard weapon for Germans in World War II. Miller then took the man’s knife and swam for the surface.

He drew in a loud, deep breath when the midday sun struck him. He leaned back, breathing hard, and thanked God there were no red flakes falling from the sky.

Yet, he thought, and climbed into the canoe.

Inside the canoe he found two fishing poles, neither of which held lures, two paddles, and a small notebook.

He flipped through the notebook. Sketches of Nazi symbols covered the pages, no doubt scrawled while waiting for his targets. He paused on a page that held a full-page sketch of the thunderbolt inside a Celtic cross that symbolized the joining of American neo-Nazism and Heinrich Himmler’s World War Two elite Schutzstaffel. The man had written ZweiteWelt beneath the drawing.

SecondWorld, Miller thought with a shake of his head. Outside of an all-powerful God, the idea of wiping the world clean of all life seemed impossible. Hell, the idea of a global flood supposedly caused by God had always struck him as crazy. But here he was, facing global genocide that would be caused by mankind. Of course, when the storm of oxidized iron receded and the air became breathable again, the world wouldn’t be repopulated by a handful of God’s chosen, it would be dominated by a worldwide Aryan race that defined “pure” in an entirely different way than the God of the Old Testament.

Miller turned the page and found a list of ten names. The first three had been crossed out and he didn’t recognize them. The fourth name was Huber’s. Miller mentally crossed him out and read the next three names, which had also been crossed out. Three names remained at the bottom, all written in a different color ink, mostly likely added recently.