‘Hang on TIGHT!’ Richard bellowed at Ivan’s shoulder, and was rewarded by feeling the muscles crushed against his cheek tense. He strained every muscle in his arms and legs as though trying to crush the life out of the man he was endeavouring to rescue. The rope holding them fell off the trunk and they were pitched down towards the roaring water as the tree itself tumbled away behind them. Richard saw the last of it pitch-poling over the edge like a caber tossed by a giant as he span helplessly, his toecaps seemingly just above the writhing waters. The rope slammed sideways as well as downwards and this time it was Ivan’s turn to cushion his companion as they hit the rock wall of the gorge. But the stone had been hollowed out by the relentless water. There was enough of an overhang to ease the impact and no sooner had they hit than they were swinging out again and soaring upwards as Abiye’s team stopped playing slow motion tug of war and went for the world speed record instead.
As they came up to the lip of the overhang, there were suddenly arms reaching down, hands grasping them, pulling them up to safety. Richard was content to be pulled over the grassy edge like a broken puppet and to lie gasping on the ground for a moment or two, simply glad to be alive. And it seemed that everyone else was happy to let him do this, for they were all grouped round Ivan. After a while, Richard lifted his hands to his waist and began to pull the knot apart. When the rope was free, he sat up and found Ivan up on one elbow, looking at him with a battered grin. The Russian looked terrible. He had clearly been badly beaten. The grin was simian — through split and swollen lips — and gap-toothed. He had been shot — just above the right hip, and just above the right ear, if nowhere else — though neither wound looked all that serious. ‘You look like shit,’ he said to Richard, his words slurred. And Richard realized with some surprise that he could hear. The wild rush of water had quietened.
‘You look pretty crappy yourself.’ He grinned. ‘But it’s good to see you too. What’s going on up there?’
‘Give me a moment to catch my breath,’ answered Ivan, ‘and I’ll show you. It only took me five minutes or so to get down here, should be a quick stroll back up. As long as the wound in my side holds out.’ As Anastasia registered this, she gestured to Ado and Esan, who vanished into the jungle.
‘But they’ll be expecting us,’ said Abiye, clearly worried.
‘I doubt it,’ said Ivan. ‘As far as I know they have no idea you’re coming. And they’ve got to reckon I’m dead. I mean, how in hell’s name could anyone have survived that?’ He gestured at the easing spate of the river.
They formed into a straggling line and Ivan led the way, but Abiye and Oshodi soon joined him, forced at last to use their matchets and leave a trail. And not without reason. The jungle on either side was so dense that neither the soldiers nor the Amazons felt too keen to wander off and disappear into it as they had done with the secondary forest on the slopes below the city. It was as though they had really entered Ngoboi’s realm now, and the deadly god lurked in every shadow, behind every tree, ready to weave his fatal magic — some of which the two youngsters were carrying when they returned. Both had handfuls and mouthfuls of medicinal herbs, which their teeth had crushed into thick poultices. These they packed on to the wound in Ivan’s side, binding them in place with ribbon-thin lengths of creeper.
Richard was a little slower to move off than the rest. He was soaking. His boots were full of water. He wanted to empty them and ease his clothing or it would start to chafe before it was dry. Besides, there was his gun to check and his little backpack to collect. So it was that he found himself, unusually, at the rear of the column. And there, equally unusually, was Anastasia.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘For what?’ he asked gently.
‘For pulling me across and for pulling that big ox up. He is too macho to say it himself, but he knows you saved his life. As I know you saved mine.’
‘I was in the right place at the right time,’ he said. ‘Anyone who cared about you would have done the same.’
‘Ah. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Who else is there who cares for us?’
Lake
Richard and Anastasia quickly worked their way back up towards the front of the column. And it remained a column behind the three men hacking their way through the undergrowth. For this, at last, was the jungle proper. The trees were all as tall as the lone lookout tree on the far bank, and as the fallen giant that had carried them over here. The canopies above roofed vast shadowy spaces hung with ivies, creepers and lianas, studded with parasitic orchids as red as vampires’ blood. The huge areas between were floored with bushes the size of tanks and man-high ferns, dripping with condensation as the heat went past forty degrees and the humidity past one hundred per cent. Distances became vague with wavering heat-haze and with mists as grey as the webs of massive spiders. The wind seemed to echo as though in restless caverns and there was everywhere a stirring of mysterious, invisible life. Or something other than life. Sinister, threatening, unearthly, inimical to humanity. Ngoboi’s realm, filled with his lethal magic.
Richard and Anastasia arrived at the head of the column just in time to hear the details of what was going on at the lake. ‘We walked straight into a trap,’ Ivan said shortly. ‘It was embarrassing. We thought we were chasing Odem and the makeshift Army of Christ and there we were suddenly surrounded by General Bala Ngama and half the regular army of Congo Libre. With a good deal of their air support command in back-up, once the trap was sprung.’
‘Why didn’t they kill you?’ asked Abiye, awed.
‘Two reasons,’ shrugged Ivan. ‘One: they wanted us as labour. That lake is a dangerous mother. Han Wuhan’s Chinese workers are dying like flies and terrified of the place. But the other reason was your father, Nastia. He fronted them all off. Said did they know who he was? More importantly, did they know what he was worth? Which is why it turned out to be important that President Fola had sent the renegade Minister Ngama to oversee the project. Made him a general if you can believe it! Because the answer was YES! Ngama knew exactly what your father was worth, down to the last kopek. He was doing business with him right up to the moment President Chaka sacked him.’
‘So he let you live and put you to work,’ said Richard. ‘That was lucky.’
‘You could say that.’ Ivan shot Richard a thoughtful look. ‘There’s something bad about that lake. The Chinese workers, engineers and what-have-you are all falling sick. Some of them are dying. It was the sight of one of them going over the dam that gave me the idea for my own escape attempt. This end of the lake is dammed, as you know. The floods damaged the system, so the Chinese engineers tried to fix it at first. Then, when they discovered they didn’t have the equipment or the time so they started blowing the system up in series, letting the water out in a succession of surges like the one I came down on. Reducing the water level while they use choppers to get rid of the water hyacinth — choppers with grabs that heave it up and drop it into the jungle.’