No time left for second thoughts. Eddie opened fire, shots clanging against the helicopter’s fuselage. The pilot immediately increased power to gain height, the ladder yanking tight beneath the aircraft—
Pulling Brice out of the boat.
The slipstream spun him around as he was hauled upwards. Eddie kept shooting. Smoke coughed from one of the helicopter’s exhausts — but it continued climbing, angling away from the river to seek cover behind the jungle canopy.
Brice and his cargo went with it. Eddie switched targets, unleashing his remaining bullets at the swinging man in a last-ditch attempt to send him plunging to his death.
It failed. The final round cracked from the barrel, but the MI6 officer remained on the ladder as he swept over the trees. ‘Buggeration and fuckery!’ Eddie shouted, throwing down the empty gun. ‘The bastard’s got away!’
‘You hit the helicopter,’ said Nina. ‘It might not make it out of the jungle — or the Shamir might get too heavy for him and he’ll fall off.’
‘Yeah, he might. And I might fart angel dust, but it’s about as likely — oh, shit! Turn!’
She looked ahead — as the empty boat hit rocks on the lip of the falls and corkscrewed over the edge. A boom of disintegrating wood and fibreglass loud enough to be heard even over the water’s roar reached them a moment later. Nina jammed the outboard hard over—
The boat turned — but the swollen river’s current had caught them, sweeping it relentlessly towards the precipice. The stretch of bank where the expedition had refloated their vessels after hauling them uphill whipped past. ‘We won’t make it!’ she cried.
Eddie scrambled on to the bow. ‘Jump for those rocks!’ he said. Some boulders lay half submerged close to the bank. ‘If we land behind ’em, we’ll be out of the current!’
Nina unwillingly followed him. ‘They’re too far!’
‘We’ve got no choice! Now!’ He pulled her with him and leapt from the prow.
Nina’s cry was cut off as they hit the water and went under. She lost her grip on her husband’s hand. Blinded, she flailed back to the surface, gulping in air — only to choke as a wave hit her face.
The jungle whirled around her. She glimpsed the bank and swam towards it, more waves assaulting her. The boulders loomed ahead. Eddie had been right; the current’s grip was lessening. But she still had to reach them…
She struggled onwards, her waterlogged clothing and boots pulling her down. The river was still dragging her towards the falls. In the corner of her eye she saw the abandoned speedboat plunge over the precipice after Brice’s vessel.
She would soon follow it if she didn’t reach safety—
One foot banged against something. Was it just a large stone, or shallows? Nina couldn’t tell — but had to gamble that it was the latter. She thrust both feet downwards, probing for solid ground…
And finding it.
She thrust herself forward. The nearest rock was ten feet away. She swept her arms through the water to pull herself closer, six feet, three—
Her palm clapped against stone. She gripped it, pulling herself nearer. Where was Eddie?
‘Nina!’
He was behind her, being dragged inexorably towards the waterfall as frothing waves rolled over him. A few more seconds and he would be past the boulders, beyond any hope of escape—
He resurfaced, thrusting a hand out of the water—
She was there to catch it.
Their fingers hooked around each other. His weight threatened to tear her loose, but she kept her hold through sheer force of will, refusing to surrender him to nature. He swam closer, Nina hauling him in, until his feet finally touched down on the stony river bed.
He waded to the shore, Nina staggering after him. ‘God, that was a bit close,’ he gasped, slumping on the bank. She flopped down beside him, exhausted. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she replied with a half-hearted smile as she squeezed a waterlogged pocket. ‘I’m just glad I kept all my important paperwork in a sealed baggie!’
‘Might have to put my passport through a mangle,’ he said ruefully — then remembered that someone else would be leaving the Congo well before them. ‘Fucking Brice!’ he said, glaring after the departed helicopter. ‘He’s got the Shamir.’
‘But what’s he going to do with it?’
‘Won’t be anything good.’ Eddie stood, shaking off water. ‘You heard him talking about regime change and bringing down government buildings — and that was just off the top of his head.’
The distant thrum of an engine caught their attention. The other boat came into sight upriver. Eddie waved until he got a response. ‘They’ve seen us,’ he told Nina with relief.
‘Great,’ she said, trying to wring water from her clothes. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever have been so glad to leave somewhere.’ She saw his far from enthusiastic expression. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I just get the feeling we won’t have an easy time getting out of the country. We know enough to cause Brice some big problems. And not only him — the people who sent him too.’
Nina sighed. ‘Wonderful. Just what we need.’
They wrapped their arms around each other, waiting for the other survivors to arrive.
29
‘We should reach Nakola in half an hour,’ Eddie reported, checking a GPS unit. Rather than risk stopping to make camp, they had travelled through the night, he and Fortune trading shifts at the outboard. A misty dawn rose through the trees ahead.
Lydia, sitting sullenly on her own, snorted. ‘Yeah, and then it’s another day to the airport. If we don’t get stopped by the militia again. And if our buses are even still there!’
‘They will be there,’ said Fortune. ‘The people there know me, they will not let anything happen to them.’
‘Yeah, well, the guys at the lost city didn’t care about your reputation, did they?’
‘Hey, Lids, lay off,’ said Rivero tiredly. He had finally put down his camera, using Lydia’s laptop to back up the contents of its memory card to a solid-state hard drive. ‘It’s not his fault.’
‘Oh, I know exactly whose fault it is,’ she replied, glaring at Nina. ‘And for what? For a fucking television show! We rushed into this whole bloody thing just to satisfy your ego, Nina! And now people are dead!’
Nina’s patience had worn to its limit. ‘Shut up, Lydia. Just shut the hell up. You think I wanted any of this to happen? Do you think I would even have come here if I’d known it might?’
Lydia was unrepentant. ‘I think you’d go anywhere for a chance of finding some archaeological crap and getting your face in the news. And you don’t care who gets hurt along the way.’
‘If you think that’s what drives me,’ said the redhead, anger rising, ‘then you don’t know me at all.’
‘I don’t want to know you. I wish I never had. Even before you dragged us into this, you were a horrible person to work with — you’re rude, bossy, you don’t give a shit about anyone else’s feelings, and in all honesty?’ Lydia’s voice rose as she continued her tirade. ‘You’re not even that good a presenter! You’re stiff, and boring. But no, you’re famous, so the network has to have you. And look where that got us!’
Eddie gave her a warning look. ‘Think now’d be a good time to stop talking.’
‘Or what? You’ll throw me overboard?’
‘Don’t fucking tempt me.’
Lydia bridled, but said nothing more under his cold stare. Instead she made a sound of disgust and turned away. ‘Well, this is… jolly,’ muttered Rivero to break the uncomfortable silence.