Unbelievably they were outpacing the rebels thrashing their way through the thick jungle. One of the rebels realized their quarry was getting away and dashed out from the bush. As rear guard it was Rivers’s job to cover their backs. Every few moments he’d look over his shoulder. He saw the skinny African leap out of the jungle and start sprinting. Without breaking his pace, Rivers fired a quick burst. The rebel went down as if he’d been jerked by a string.
“Last one…,” Cieplicki panted, pausing to swallow the pre-vomit saliva that flooded his mouth. “Last one to the Jeep is a rotten egg.”
He retched and a trickle of bile dribbled down his chin onto his khaki bush shirt.
More of the rebels emerged from the jungle behind them, a phalanx of them coming on hard.
“Cap’t,” Rivers called out.
Unable to stop running because they knew they’d never start again, the three men slowed enough so they could lay down a blistering wall of autofire. The range was pretty extreme for firing from the hip, but one rebel spun to the ground when his shoulder was shattered by one of the 7.62-millimeter bullets and the others dove for cover.
The last part of the run was down a slight grade and the men let gravity work for them, their boots slapping the hard African ground with each rubbery step. Sykes had tears coursing down his cheeks as he ran those last couple hundred yards. It was the first time he’d cried since his grandmother died when he was twelve.
The Jeep was well hidden off the main road. Rivers didn’t bother pulling away the branches they’d used to camouflage the vehicle. He popped the rear door and turned to lower the backpack into the cargo hold. The shoulders of his T-shirt were sodden with blood from where the straps had chafed his skin.
Despite the agony, or maybe because of it, Sykes let Cieplicki unload his pack next. Rivers was already moving to the driver’s door. Cieplicki dumped his pack and just shoved Booker into the back of the four-wheel drive. He climbed in after his team leader and slammed the door.
As soon as everyone was in, Rivers gunned the Jeep’s engine, reversing out of the jungle just as three of the rebels reached the mud flats around the convergence of the swift Scilla and sluggish Chinko. They opened fire as soon as they saw the Cherokee emerge from the jungle. The rear window exploded, raining gem-sized chips of glass on Cieplicki and Sykes. Cieplicki was working on a large bundle in the cargo area, opening it flat and maneuvering the three packs onto its rubbery surface, while Sykes returned fire though the shattered window.
A bullet found a rear tire, blowing it flat. Rivers fought the steering wheel, not daring to slow but knowing that the tire would slough off the rim if he didn’t. “Talk to me back there.”
“I need a minute,” Bernie replied without pausing from his work.
“Shit!” Three more gunmen raced out of the jungle in front of the Jeep just as they started back down the road to Kivu. “You don’t have a minute.”
More automatic gunfire ravaged the Jeep, punching holes through the windshield, blowing off the passenger-side mirror, and puncturing the radiator, so steam billowed up from under the hood.
“We gotta do it now,” Rivers shouted. The steering wheel shook so hard he felt like he was holding an electric fence.
“Don’t wait for me!” Bernie cried.
“I’m not. Hold on!”
He cranked the wheel to the left, aiming for the broad river cutting though the jungle. The banks were about five feet above the level of the water, so he pressed the accelerator to the floor. The tired engine responded as if knowing it was going out in a blaze of glory.
The Jeep hit the bank, reared up, and shot over the water. It hit like a charging hippopotamus, a frothing swell of water surging over the windshield and a bow wave curving out to crash against the far bank. The SUV was caught in the slow current almost immediately, pirouetting in unseen eddies so it soon faced backward. It also started sinking.
“How’s it coming back there?” Paul asked as the water quickly filled the foot well.
“You could help by bailing,” Bernie said as he struggled to readjust the packs that had lurched forward when the Jeep slapped the water. Sykes helped him as best he could, but his back had so stiffened, now that he’d stopped running, that he could barely move.
Paul Rivers climbed over his seat and knelt on the rear bench, helping Cieplicki with the packs. The water was only an inch or so below the blown-out rear window. Once it found that inlet, the Jeep would sink like a stone.
“Any piranhas in these waters?” Bernie asked without looking up.
“That’s South America, dipshit. But they got crocodiles here the size of speedboats.”
A wave washed over the rear sill and in seconds the cargo space was flooded. The men braced themselves as Bernie lunged to open the rear door. Then the Jeep slid below the surface, leaving just a small ripple on the water.
The rebels on shore watched it vanish, and after a minute they began to cheer when none of the men surfaced. They’d been denied any spoils but were just as satisfied with the kill.
Thirty yards from where the Jeep disappeared, the water heaved upward unexpectedly and a huge set of jaws emerged from the river, a gaping red maw surrounded by daggerlike white teeth. The rebels pointed and shrank back as the rest of the flat, oval monster erupted from the depths. Then it seemed to spit out bodies. Three heads emerged next to the creature. First one, then another jumped onto the animal’s back. One of the men helped the third one mount the beast while the first man did something near its broad rump.
“Hurry,” Bernie said as he helped drag Sykes out of the water.
The three-man inflatable boat had been Mercer’s idea. He’d reasoned that since they were going to be along a river it might not be a bad idea if the roads were impassable. Sykes had bought it at an outfitters in Virginia, liking the model with the shark’s mouth painted on the bow, and paid extra to have it flown to Africa with them. They’d shoved it out the rear of the Jeep moments after it began to plummet to the bottom of the river. Cieplicki had waited as long as he dared to pull the lanyard that filled the rubber raft’s hull with compressed air, something they’d neglected to tell the airline about.
As Sykes rolled over the soft rail Paul Rivers wrestled with the five-horse outboard motor. He didn’t bother mounting it to the transom. As soon as he pulled the starter, he greased the throttle and held the whirling prop underwater. The overloaded inflatable didn’t exactly roar down the river but they picked up speed quick enough. The rebels on shore merely watched them vanish from view, not sure exactly what they saw.
“All together now,” Bernie called out merrily. “Row, row, row your boat…”
Despite the pain, Booker couldn’t help but laugh at Cieplicki’s antics.
Samarsskaya Mine, Southern Russia
The sun had burned away the morning mist that had filled the valley like a blanket of snow. A few birds fluttered around the tops of the nearby pine trees, and the cloudless sky seemed to arch forever.
Ludmilla and the other Russian scientist, whose name Mercer didn’t know, had salvaged a pair of radiation suits and some radiation detection gear from a crate that had survived the chopper crash, and using a handcart found on a small siding under the ore-loading hoppers, they had headed down the tracks to make certain none of the barrels had been breached by the train derailment.
Sasha Federov was resting while the pilot, Yuri, was inventorying their meager supplies.
As soon as Professor Ahmad had told Mercer the stele had been destroyed, he had gotten to his feet and begun to pace with his head bowed. He’d sent Booker and his team on a fool’s errand into one of the most dangerous places in the world. Book knew how to take care of himself, and Mercer wasn’t too worried about him, but the thought was heavy on his mind. What bothered him more, or at least in a different way, was the dead end he now faced.