Alone, either man was a formidable enemy. Together, Cain had no hope of defeating them. Not when he was armed only with his scaling knife while both of them had semiautomatic handguns. The only chance he had was to separate them; use their loyalty for each other against them. It was a weakness Cain immediately saw. Though they were fearless warriors, neither wanted to die or to lose his friend. Cain, on the other hand, had no such qualms. He was prepared to die to achieve his aims.
Both Joe Hunter and Jared Rington transcended the level of even the most hard-boiled soldier. Their training… no, their indoctrination… had seen to that. Maybe they were beyond the normal psychological and physiological responses to the death of a friend guaranteed to halt even the sturdiest warrior in his tracks. Perhaps, like Cain himself, they had reached that ultracognizant level where they could elevate themselves above the ken of mortal man, to?oat on the seas of chaos where the "natural" order of being meant that nothing was as it seemed. This was the realm in which Cain existed; what if these two had achieved the same level of consciousness? What if, after all these years, he had found worthy protagonists, contenders for his title of Prince of Chaos? He chuckled to himself. Careful that the sound didn't betray his hiding place. Not a chance.