Authors: Matthew Reilly
To make matters worse, a torrent of water was gushing in through
the large hole in the windshield in front of him, splashing all
over his jeans, creating a deep sloshing puddle at his feet.
Walter Chambers began to hyperventilate. 'Oh my God!
Oh my God! Oh my God!” Behind Chambers, Race saw that Gaby Lopez
now had a deep bloody gash above her left eye.
She must have hit her head when the Humvee had impacted against the
chopper.
'We have to get out of here!' Lauren yelled.
'You think!' Race shouted, as a large silver fish with big
teeth was carried in through the windshield in front of him
and landed in his lap.
Just then there came a loud whump! from somewhere to
his left and Race was almost jolted out of his seat as the
whole Humvee rocked wildly sideways.
He turned and saw the enormous shape of a black caiman hovering at
the window beside him, staring in the
through the cracked glass, gazing hungrily at him!
'Oh, man,' he said.
Then he saw the massive reptile draw back from the
glass.
“Oh, man…”
'What? What?“ Walter Chambers said from beside him.
'It's going to ram us!' Race yelled as he hastily began climbing
over into the back seat. 'Move, Walter! Move now!'
Chambers immediately started to scramble over into the
back seat, too, just as the caiman outside surged forward. A split
second later, the driver's side window of the Humvee exploded
inwards in a spectacular shower of glass.
The sudden rain of glass was quickly followed by the massive scaly
body of the caiman as it slithered in through the window into the
front section of the Humvee, riding a wave of water as it cascaded
into the car.
The caiman rushed across the front seat of the Humvee, its giant
body taking up all of the tiny space. Race yanked his feet into the
back seat a nanosecond before its slashing jaws shot past
them.
Walter Chambers wasn't so lucky. He didn't get his legs out of the
way in time and the caiman smashed into them hard, driving them
into the passenger side door, pinning them there.
Chambers screamed. The caiman bucked and snorted as it tried to get
a better grip on him.
From the back seat, all Race could see was the creature's enormous
armoured back and its long plated tail, slashing viciously back and
forth.
Then, abruptly, violently—and so quickly that it made Race gasp in
horror—the giant caiman wrenched Chambers out through the window
through which it had come.
“Nooooo!' Chambers screamed as he disappeared out the
window and was taken under the surface outside.
Race exchanged a horrified look with Lauren.
'What are we going to do now!' she yelled.
How the hell should I know? he thought as he looked at the
situation around him.
The front seat of the vehicle was filling up with water fast,
causing the Humvee to tilt sharply to the left and drop lower in
the water.
'We've got to get out of here before this car sinks!' he yelled.
'Quickly! Open your window! We should be able to open them
now!'
Water began to flow over the front seat and into the back as Lauren
began to unwind her window. The car was higher over on her side,
and when at last she opened the window fully, she revealed only the
cold night air.
Then suddenly another giant caiman came surging in through the
driver's side window of the Humvee and
splashed down into the pool of water in the front half of the
vehicle.
“Go!” Race yelled. 'Get onto the roof!'
Lauren moved fast. In a second she was out of the Humvee, climbing
up onto its roof. The dazed Gaby went next—she shuffled quickly
across the back seat and reached out through the window. Lauren
immediately began to pull her out from up on the roof, while Race
pushed her from below.
The caiman in the driver's seat bucked and snorted, searching for
its prey.
Water was now rushing over the front seat in a thick steady stream.
It was almost waist-deep in the back.
Just then another caiman rammed into the rear-left win dow of the
Humvee, causing the entire vehicle to jolt. Race spun at the impact
and saw that the whole left-hand side of the Humvee was now
completely underwater!
Gaby Lopez was halfway out the right-side window.
Race was the last one left.
It was then, however, as he pushed on Gaby's feet, that he heard a
sickening metallic groan from somewhere within the Humvee.
Abruptly the whole car lurched dramatically to the right.
At first he thought it was another ramming from one of the caimans.
But it wasn't. No, this time the whole car had
shifted laterally. It was moving. Moving…
Downstream.
Oh, God, Race thought.
They were being carried downstream by the current of the
river!
'This is not happening,' he said.
At that moment there came another, more familiar jolt as one of the
caimans rammed the left-hand window again.
“Come on, Gaby!' he yelled at Lopez's feet as they dan gled inside
the right-hand window in front of him.
By this time, the caiman in the front seat seemed to have realised
where Race and the others were and it began to shuffle clumsily
backwards so that it could leap over into the back seat.
Race saw it move.
'GabyV
'Almost there…' Lopez called back.
“Hurry up!”
Then suddenly, Gaby's feet disappeared out the window and Lauren
yelled, 'She's clear, Will!' and Race leapt for the window, poked
his head out through it and saw Lauren and Gaby standing on the
roof above him.
The two women quickly reached down and grabbed his hands and hauled
him out of the car not a second before the caiman in the front seat
clambered over into the back and snapped angrily at his
outward-moving feet, missing them by millimetres.
Back in the village, Nash, Copeland and the six American soldiers
were all sitting—handcuffed—in the safety of the all- terrain
vehicle, watching the nightmare outside unfold, when suddenly the
sliding side door of their armoured vehicle was wrenched open from
the outside and a blast of rain and wind swirled into the interior
of the ATV.
Two soaking Germans hurried in through the door, their mudsoaked
feet clanging on the floor of the vehicle. They shut the great
steel door behind them and abruptly there was silence inside the
ATV once again.
Nash and the others just stared at their new companions.
A man and a woman.
Both were sopping wet, and both were completely cov ered in mud.
They wore civilian clothes—blue jeans and vhite T-shirts—but with a
twist: both wore black Gore-Tex holsters and compact Glock-18
pistols on their hips. They both also wore navy blue bulletproof
vests. Their appear ance screamed: undercover cops.
The man was burly, strong-looking and barrel-chested. The woman
small but athletic, with short peroxide-blonde hair.
The man didn't waste any time. He walked straight over to the
Americans and began unlocking their handcuffs.
'You're not prisoners anymore,' he said in English. 'We are all in
this together now. Come, we must save as many of the others as we
can.'
Race, Lauren and Lopez were standing—stranded-on the roof of the
Humvee, as the whole Humvee-Huey combina tion drifted awkwardly
downriver, caught in the current.
Just then Race saw the rickety wooden jetty about ten yards away
from them, downstream. It looked like they would float right by
it.
That was their chance.
The Humvee-Huey lurched again, sank lower in the water. At the
moment, the Humvee's roof was about a foot above the river's
surface, while the Huey's was a little higher. But for every yard
that the two vehicles moved
downriver, they both seemed to drop a couple of inches.
It was going to be close.
Very close.
They edged another yard downstream.
The caimans began to circle.
Eight yards to the jetty and water began to seep onto the roof of
the Humvee and under their feet. The three of them
stepped up onto the rotor housing of the Huey.
Five yards away.
Sinking fast.
From atop the Huey's rotor housing, Race looked out over the
floodlit village.
It was deserted now, the only movement the occasional feline shadow
that darted across the main street. There was no sign of human
lifel None at all.
It was then that Race noticed it.
The all-terrain vehicle was gone.
The eight-wheeled tank-like ATV that had been holding Nash,
Copeland and the Green Berets was nowhere to be seen.
Race spoke into his throat mike. 'Van Lewen! Where are you?'
“I'm here, Professor.'
'Where?'
'Couple of the Germans opened up the ATV and unlocked our cuffs.
We're doing a circuit of the village now, picking up anybody we can
find.”
187
“While you're at it, why don't you swing by the jetty in about
thirty seconds.”
“Ten-four, Professor. We'll be there.'
Three yards from the jetty, and the Humvee's roof went completely
under.
Race bit his lip.
Although they were now standing on the exposed rotor housing of the
Huey, they were still going to have to step
across the submerged Humvee's roof to get to the jetty.
'Come on, baby, stay afloat,' he said.
Two yards.
The Humvee's roof went six inches under.
One yard.
A whole foot under.
Lauren looped an arm underneath the dazed Gaby's shoulders.
'Okay, kids,' she said. 'Listen up. I'll take Gaby first.
Will,
you bring up the rear. Got it?'
'Got it.'
The Humvee-Huey came alongside the jetty.
As it did so, Lauren and Gaby leapt off the rotor housing of the
Huey and splashed down onto the submerged roof of the Humvee—their
legs dropping knee-deep into the water.
They took two sloshing strides forward before Lauren tIarew Gaby up
onto the jetty. Then she leapt up onto it her- sell pulling her
feet up just as two massive crocodilian shapes lunged through the
water behind her, snapping their jaws ferociously.
'Will! Come on!' she called from the jetty.
Race readied himself to jump down onto the submerged roof of the
Humvee. He couldn't imagine how it must have looked—him, in his
jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap standing atop a submerged Army
helicopter in the middle of a caiman-infested Amazonian
river.
How the hell did I get into this? he thought.
Then, without warning, the whole Humvee-Huey con traption lurched
dramatically, dropped another foot in the water.
Race lost his balance, almost fell off, but recovered quickly. Then
he looked up to see that things had just gotten seriously
worse.
The Humvee's roof was now at least three feet underwater.
Even if he could jump onto it, his mobility would be shot.
The caimans would get him for sure.
The Huey's situation wasn't much better.
Even though he was standing on the chopper's rotor hous ing, it,
too, was now submerged underneath an inch of water.
Race looked frantically about himself—saw that the only part of the
Huey still above the water were its two rotor blades.
He glanced quickly over at the jetty and saw the ATV skid to a stop
at its base—saw the sliding door on the big eight-wheeler's side
whip open to reveal Van Lewen and Scott inside it—saw Lauren drag
Gaby over toward it.
Lauren yelled over her shoulder. 'Will! Come on! Jump!'
The Huey lurched again and Race's sneakers went fully under the
surface.
He looked at the sinking chopper around him, looked at
its rotor blades hovering above the surface.
The rotor blades.., he thought.
Maybe he could…
No.
He'd be too heavy, they'd sag underneath his weight.
He spun back round to look at the jetty. Three large caimans now
hovered, half-submerged, in the water between
him and the old wooden wharf.
Maybe…
Race quickly reached out and grabbed hold of one of the rotor
blades. Then he heaved on it as hard as he could, turn ing the
thirty-foot blade around on its pivot
The sunken Huey was still drifting slowly downstream with the
current.
The rotor blade came round, its forward tip almost touch ing the
jetty, so that it now looked like a narrow bridge stretched out low
over the river, connecting the Huey to the wharf.
The Huey rocked again, sank another two inches, just as an enormous
black shape exploded out of the water next to Race and on a reflex
he spread his legs as far apart as he could and the caiman shot
right through them—brushing against the
insides of his calves—and off the other side of the Huey.
That was too close[ his mind screamed. Move!
Race took a final look up at his passage to freedom—the rotor
blade, a plank of steel ten inches wide, hanging a foot
above the surface of the river•
Do it!
And so he did.
Race jumped up onto the rotor blade and ran out across its
length.
Three steps forward and he saw the jetty twenty feet in front of
him. The jetty, safety, salvation—
—halfway across and he felt the rotor blade sag beneath him, and
lower itself toward the waterline and—
—come to rest on the backs of the three caimans in the water
between the helicopter and the jetty!
Race danced across the narrow bridge, now supported by the bodies
of the three caimans!
He reached the end of the rotor blade at a full stride and •
launched himself off it, diving through the air, slamming
chest-first into the edge of the jetty.
Get your feet out of the water! his mind screamed as he felt his
feet splash down into the inky black liquid beneath him.
He quickly yanked his feet up out of the water and rolled up onto
the safety of the jetty.
He swallowed, breathless. He couldn't believe it.
He was—
“Professor! Come on!' Van Lewen's tinny voice yelled sud denly in
his ear.
Race looked up immediately and saw the ATV parked at the end of the
jetty, its sliding side door open.
Just then, however, some movement above the ATV caught his eye and
he glanced up just in time to see one of
the massive black cats leap clear over the all-terrain vehicle with
its claws extended and its jaws bared wide.
The giant animal landed on the jetty barely five feet in front of
him. It just stood there before him, crouching low, its ears pinned
back, its lips curling, its muscles tensing for the final
pounce…
And then suddenly the rickety jetty fell away beneath it.
There was no creak. No warning sound.
The old wooden jetty just gave way beneath the cat and with a
bewildered screech the big black creature dropped into the water
beneath it.