| |
The green hell seemed to go on forever, but no matter how long they toiled, their pursuers were always close, never more than a few hundred yards away. The gunmen clearly didn’t want word of their illicit presence to reach the authorities, and weren’t likely to settle for anything less than two bullet-riddled corpses.
They were moving down a gentle slope, which was good, but the area was thick with underbrush and they had to fight for every inch. Then, without any warning, the jungle opened up, like the sea parting in some kind of Biblical miracle. Jade heard Professor shout something—a warning—but before she could fully process the significance of anything she was seeing or hearing, the ground beneath her was abruptly no longer beneath her. She pitched forward, half-sliding, half-falling down a steep embankment toward the muddy water of the Rio Madre de Dios. She barely had time to draw a breath before plunging face first into the surprisingly chilly water.
She thrashed for a moment before righting herself, and as she rubbed the water from her eyes, she could feel the current dragging her along.
“Swim for it!”
Jade craned her head around and found Professor, just a few yards further upriver, swimming with powerful strokes toward the far shore. She also spotted their Rover, a distant speck on the road just above the opposite river bank, falling further away with each passing second, and realized that she needed to be doing the same. She reached out and began clawing and kicking through the water.
Several sharp reports sounded behind her and she heard the harsh crack of bullets splitting the air above her head, sizzling into the water all around. Jade ducked under the surface, both to conceal herself from the shooters and to use the water itself as a shield. High-velocity rounds, like the kind fired by the assault rifles the gunmen were using, shattered on impact with water.
She had seen it on Mythbusters, so it had to be true.
She swam underwater for several strokes, feeling much more in her element here than she had in the jungle, but after several seconds, the need to breathe forced her back to the surface. She raised her head cautiously, and saw that she was now a good hundred yards further downriver and more than halfway across. She could see the gunmen behind her, semi-distinct shapes against the verdant backdrop. They had stopped shooting. Jade guessed they had lost track of her, and knew that could change at any second, so she ducked under the surface again and kept swimming until her knees began dragging against the mud in the shallows at the far river bank.
She crawled up onto shore, staying low and moving slow, like a crocodile—
Are there crocodiles here?
The thought triggered a momentary panic. No, there weren’t crocodiles, but there were caimans—a smaller but no less dangerous reptilian predator—as well as snakes—and not just any snakes, but anacondas, the largest snakes on earth, some big enough to swallow a human child whole. Ravenous piranhas weren’t outside the realm of possibility either, but even deadlier were the threats too small to be seen with the naked eye; insidious flesh- and brain-eating protozoans and parasites.
“Jade!” Professor’s hissing voice brought her back to the moment. She turned to look for him, but saw only mud and reeds.
“Where are you?”
Something moved just a few yards away and she nearly screamed before realizing that the mud-covered creature coming toward her was Professor.
Totally Rambo, Jade thought.
“These guys can’t shoot for crap,” he whispered. “But we’re not out of their range yet, so stay low until you’re on solid ground. Then, when I give the signal, run like hell for the Rover.”
Crawling through the mud and running like hell didn’t sound like much fun to Jade, but the prospect of a quick motorized escape at the end was more than worth it. “Gotcha,” she replied.
“Then move.”
Jade started forward, trying to move slow and stealthy, but almost immediately sank up to her elbows in the thick mud.
“Crap,” she muttered. She tried to extricate herself, fighting the muck for every inch.
“Now,” Professor shouted. “Run for it!”
“Really?”
She gave up on slow and stealthy, and wrenched herself out of the mud, thrashing and stumbling forward. Professor was twenty yards ahead of her sprinting through the grass, practically floating over the mud flats.
The familiar crack of gunfire sounded again. Jade glanced back. She couldn’t make out the gunmen on the bank, but she did spot three... No, four shapes splashing in the water, halfway across the river.
Jeez, these guys are persistent, she thought.
A bullet creased the air just a few feet to her right, smacking into the mud with an audible hiss. That was all the motivation Jade needed. She launched herself forward, clawing at the mud until, mercifully, she felt something almost like solid ground underfoot.
Professor was now more than fifty yards ahead of her; halfway to the road and the waiting Rover. With his head start, he would at least be able to get the vehicle started so they could take off as soon as she reached it.
Almost unconsciously, she patted her pockets, checking to make sure that she didn’t have the keys.
That would suck.
But no, the keys weren’t in her pockets. Professor had driven last, so he almost certainly had the keys.
Unless he lost them while crawling around in the mud. That would really suck.
Suddenly, a thunderous cracking sound filled the air. The noise hit Jade like a slap. She had no idea what had caused it but knew it couldn’t be anything good, so she threw herself flat on the ground in a reflex of self-preservation. In the corner of her eye, she saw a bright pink-orange flame, like a signal flare but much faster, streaking over the tall grass at the river’s edge, streaking toward the—
There was another loud crack, harsher than a rifle report or even a peal of thunder, and a flash as the Rover transformed into a pillar of smoke and fire.