Chapter 33

 

 

11:03 p.m.

 

Calla hung over the edge of the waterfall her body jerking. She glimpsed down at the thunderous pour. With the ragged cliff suffused in foggy moonlight she glanced back at her sneering subjugators, angry tears coursing her face. There was no reason now to give him the manuscript, nor the carbonados. Like a fierce lioness whose young had been assaulted she launched herself at Mason, seizing his collar and jammed an elbow in the back of his neck.

He fell forward and thudded to wet path. Her fury then turned to Slate and, with one surge, she slugged him in the gut, propelling him to the ground. His grunted moans rang in her ears as he struggled to his knees coughing. Without assessing the damage she’d left behind she retrieved the fallen carbonados, placed them in her bag with the Deveron and glowered at her wide-eyed attackers, who stood analyzing her strength and resolve. Before she could pounce on them Mason sprang up, his physical robustness defying age and nature. Calla felt a blinding blow across her cheek, propelling her backward. She plunged to the moist ground and clenched her bruised face.

Mason strode forward and peered down at her, repulsion filling his eyes. He would kill her for the Deveron for sure. Calla held on tight to her ancient treasures. They were all she had left.

Knowing she would gamble her life for the Deveron Mason tugged harder at the bag and crushed his right foot on her hip for better grip. The motion tilted her to the side as her eyes registered the depth of the falls underneath her.

Mason spat on the soggy ground. “Now or never, Cress.”

She glanced up at him and then down at the maddened waters. “Never, lunatic. Never!”

In one decisive moment she hurled herself into nature’s fury.

 

 

 

 

Five Minutes Earlier…

Murchison Falls

 

 

The Toyota Ipsum parked near a baobab tree along the beaten path lined with full-size lush trees and flowering bushes. Eichel was certain he could trek the rest of the way. He’d come prepared, dressed in zip-off safari trousers, a long sleeve mosquito-repellent shirt, and hiking boots. He rocked backward and hid within the darkness of a tree, gripped with alarm.

 

Calla, Jack and a third man struggled against several assailants. He witnessed Mason fire a hunting rifle that spewed a bullet at the man he believed was Jack Kleve.

It took every reserve in Eichel to keep down. He’d almost given away his hideout.

Feeling like such a weakling for not getting involved in the struggle he reasoned that age wouldn’t allow. He stood frozen behind the thick-trunked kigelia-africana tree as Mason and his men terrorized the trio. He’s staggered forward. That’s when Mason raised his rifle and sent a bullet through Jack’s chest and tossed the third man over the falls. Mason then unleashed his rage on Cress. What man wrestles a woman?

That had been his cue to help a lady in peril. As courage crossed fear he progressed forward only to observe that she could certainly handle her own defense to greater effect than he ever could until she, too, plummeted over the rapids. His body stiffened as Mason and several men took their escape.

 

Three minutes passed. He peered over the trees’ rustling leaves. Three murders!

It was a whisper at best, inaudible to all but him. Eichel’s heart stood arrested in his throat. Unable to breathe he failed to make a decision and remained concealed by a boulder, yards from the cliff’s edge. He waited ten more minutes, before staggering to his feet. He crossed over to Jack’s lifeless frame and checked his pulse as he lay on the ground motionless, where Mason and his men had left him to die.

Eichel felt no pulse.

He knelt beside him and buried his head in his hands in defeat.

 “ARGH!”

A husky cough brought him back to the crime scene. Jack moaned, rubbing his bruised head as he coughed uncontrollably, gasping for air.

Eichel scrambled for a bottle of mineral water in his pack. He cradled Jack’s head and quenched his thirst with the cool water.

“Jack? Are you all right? That bullet went straight to your heart.”

“What happened?” Jack said.

Eichel couldn’t bring himself to tell him. “You were sh…shot. How did you—?”

Jack rattled his throbbing head and padded his chest. He ripped open his shirt revealing what Eichel recognized as a bulletproof vest.

Jack let out a short breath. “Nash told me to put this on. He was right.” He stopped, the mention of his friend triggering a recent memory. Jack sprang to his feet and scrambled to the edge of the cliff. One gaze at the deafening falls told Eichel Jack understood.

“They’re gone, Jack. I’m so sorry.”

Jack shot him a look of doubt.

“It’s true. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Jack spun round and seized Nash’s abandoned backpack and held it in angst.

“We need to get you some help,” Eichel said.

“What happened to them?”

Eichel glanced away. “Like I said, they’re gone. I’m so sorry, Jack. Mason killed them both. They went over. Down there.” He pointed to the drop down the boisterous waters.

Jack drove a fist in the backpack then stood erect. “Raimund, if you’re right? We’re out of time. Let’s go!”

 

 

 

 

11:36 p.m.

 

A weighty gush of water spurted over her free-falling body, adding to the speed of her descent to the crocodile and hippopotamus-infested Nile. For the second time in a week Calla was sent fluttering to her death. She surrendered her fate to her gifted mind. This time she took better control of her direction and speed and drew all the strength she could muster into her subconscious. She guided her fall to safety.

She had cheated death.

Twice.

Would there be a third time? She plunged arms out in a drowned out splash at the foot of East Africa’s deadliest falls. She landed into a well of rapids meters away from a watching crocodile that gawked with its jaw stretched in anticipation.

Gallons of water gushed in endless streams around her, driving her body further from land. Though she welcomed the freshness of the current as it beat against her body she tore against its force in a stable attempt to flee from jeopardy. The frigid water, mudded with murk, wrenched rapidly with powerful undercurrents, making it perilous for her unmatched muscles.

Her feet kicked the violent tide and it was then that she noticed the throbbing in her ankle. Shrieking with pain she tore her way against the speeding torrent, writhing to the bank of the river. Dragging her body to a hop, she slinked into a nearby bush, alone, with a drenched manuscript and two ancient carbonados from the galaxies burrowed in her bag. She trembled with the plummeting temperature and huddled in the shrubs clasping her knees for warmth. Her mind replayed Jack’s demise and Nash’s fall.

What do I do? What is this place? Plaguing thoughts circled round her petrified mind as Calla crept on her hands and knees attempting to peer into the distance, tortured with grief over losing more than just friendship. She was breathing but she’d lost her life. Surrounded by the hostile wilderness her ankle throbbed with each step. She couldn’t go on. It was the brutal landing. Calla searched for her cell phone in her waist pack. Soaked through and through it had stopped functioning. Her tears stung her drying face.

She clenched her fists, a decision that only reminded her that her body was arrested with agony from crown to foot. She had spotted a small village as the group had made its way up the hill. She searched her mind for a name, orientation. Nothing registered. Perhaps she could make it there if she followed the river but she couldn’t muster enough strength as she sat swathed with bruises. Numbness zapped her strength and she crumpled beneath the shrubberies, meters from the positioned crocodiles.