Counterpoint (33 page)

Flicking the torch on showed that the
ceiling above them had cracked, and water was pouring in through
numerous openings. The dust from the explosion had been quickly
damped down by the mist of water in the air.

Quickly they got to their feet and ran
to the overhang. It was gone, and the channel was blocked.

Scrambling down the rock fall into the
channel in the dim light was fraught with danger, but time was not
on their side. Water would soon rise above the blockage they had
caused, their way out would be gone.

By the time they reached the bottom of
the channel, they could see a faint light reflected off the wet
channel walls, it was coming in from the end of the tunnel. After
running about 10 metres, the tunnel turned about 20 degrees. They
headed on; in the distance was brilliant sunlight.

They emerged from the tunnel and stood
on the narrow ledge at the face of the waterfall. Even with the
bright light filtered through tons of water falling past them from
above, like a thick glass curtain, it took a while for their eyes
to fully adjust to the brilliance of the tropical sun.

About 3 metres below them was a long
ledge that led to the safety of the jungle at the side of the
waterfall. They had to get down there immediately or be swept away
off their ledge when the rapidly rising water breached the
blockage.

“Carla!” Shouted Max over the roar of
the cascading water. “We will lower you down the rope first, then
Matt, you go next.” Neither protested. Carla knew she had to keep
Matt under control with her gun. Matt knew he stood a chance of
escape down there with the girl. He didn’t care how Max was going
to get down on his own.

The two men lowered her down. She gave
a thumbs-up because the ledge was wide, running well back into the
cliff. Max tied one end of the rope around the middle of the
machine gun, so he had a good grip. Matt slid down the thin rope
expertly, his gloves taking the friction.

Max wedged the gun across the narrow
base of the tunnel under the fast-flowing water and hoped it would
hold as he slid down the rope. He removed his trouser pockets and
wrapped them around his hands as makeshift gloves.

As he eased himself over the ledge, a
loud rumble emanated from the tunnel, seconds later a torrent of
water poured out followed by stones, mud and boulders. He started
to descend, when the rope above went slack; a boulder had smashed
the gun free. Max dropped onto the smooth wet ledge on all fours,
teetering on the brink. A foot lashed out; Matt kicked him hard in
the side and Max fell into the wall of cascading water.

Matt turned slowly away from the water
and faced Carla. She moved quickly backwards a little way along the
ledge, towards the jungle. Dropping down on one knee she pulled out
her gun from her ankle holster, Matt’s grin diminished to a scowl
as he quickly reassessed his options.

The girl was quite unusual, if she
carried a gun she probably knew how to use it, but she was now all
alone, and without him and his men, she would never get out of the
jungle alive. She might get lucky and shoot him in the head, but
with such a small-calibre weapon, a hit in a limb would not stop
him. His body armour would protect his vital organs. If he could
close on her, no matter what her self-defence skills were, his
weight and strength would easily overpower her slight frame.

As he was thinking, she stood up,
suddenly swung the gun round behind her, aimed, fired a single
round and re aimed at a point between his eyes. All in two seconds.
The sudden and unexpected move caught him off guard, or he would
have jumped her. What did surprise him, because he had never seen
anyone do such a thing before, she shot the apple sized fruit out
of the paw of a monkey in a tree, 10 metres away. How could anyone
turn so quickly, select a spectacular target from a jungle
backdrop, aim and fire, hit it square on and re-aim at him all in a
couple of seconds? She was something else.

Carla, on the other hand, knew there
were trees close by and decided to demonstrate the devastating
effect of the special ammunition the gun fired. She hoped to hit a
substantial branch or trunk of a tree so the fragmenting
high-velocity bullet, could blow away a dinner-plate-size chunk of
bark. She never saw the monkey at all.

“You must have read my mind, you
cunning little bitch,” thought Matt. “Now, how do I get in
close?”

Anticipating his move to risk a hit and
jump her, she fired at his heart. The impact threw him back as his
body armour absorbed the force. Before he could recover, she fired
again. He staggered further back and again she fired repeating the
process six times. Suddenly, before he could regain his balance,
she ran at him with a flying dropkick, sending him backwards and
smacking his thick skull against the rock face. Unconscious, Matt
slid down the rock face on to the ledge. Using Matt’s boot laces
she tied his hands to his ankles, behind his back. Only now could
she think about Max.

She ran carefully along the ledge
towards the jungle out from behind the curtain of water. She looked
down at the base of the waterfall at the white foam; surely, no one
could survive that. She watched the water flow out and followed the
river with her keen eyes. There! She saw something, like a body,
one moment on the surface, next lost below the white torrent.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw
movement in the jungle. It was Matt’s men. They were climbing down
the steep rock face to the river below. They had not seen her. Her
eyes moved back to the river and searched again for Max’s body. In
the calmer water, she saw it again; it looked like an arm had swung
up, like an exhausted swimmer doing a slow crawl stroke. There it
was again. As the water calmed down the body rolled over onto its
back and backstroked towards a sandy shallow, at the side of the
river.

Fear gripped her heart; Matt’s men
would see him at any moment now, especially if he collapsed
exhausted on the sand. She could only watch and hope he would find
safety. As soon as Max could touch bottom he clung to the lee side
of a large rock to rest.

From the moment he was kicked off the
ledge, his world became one of white and foaming water, spinning
and tossing him like a cork. After the plunging water turned and
spat him out of the base of the waterfall into the river, he was
teased and tormented with snatches of air as he was forced to the
surface, and plunged under it again.

The rocks had battered him hard, but
nothing had been broken. As the turbulent water calmed, he
struggled towards the smoother water at the side of the river. The
shallow sandy riverbed provided a good place to get to dry land,
but he needed to rest first. As his wits returned, he looked up at
the waterfall. He clearly saw Carla on the ledge, watching him, but
not moving.

Suddenly she moved back into the
shadows. A few moments later, he heard the sound of someone
slashing a way through the jungle, above the subdued roar of the
distant waterfall. He had to take cover, but where? All the rocks
were too low to provide any cover. He could not hide under water
long enough. He would be seen, if he dashed across the open sand to
the jungle.

Animals used this part of the river to
drink. As a result of a fight, disease or old age, a large rotting
carcass of a water buffalo lay on the sand; its stench was blowing
Max’s way.

Max crawled hopefully towards it. Just
the thick, tough hide remained, covering its ribs. Its soft
underbelly, ripped open by scavengers, foraging for the soft and
juicy innards. When they were consumed, the limbs and neck were
gnawed away.

Max slid closer. The sun beat down on
him relentlessly as it had done with the carcass for the last two
days. The smell of the putrefaction made Max start to vomit. To
counter this he grinned hard, apparently this stops the gagging
reflex, and it worked.

Max could hear voices now, he had to
get inside the carcass and hide. Taking a deep breath, he entered
the hanging flap of belly skin feet first. His legs sank into a
warm rancid soup of decomposed flesh. He could imagine the green
and brown maggot infested slime seeping into the open pores of his
skin carrying with it untold diseases and corruption to infect his
body. Instinctively he clenched his anus more tightly shut.

His shoulders and head, now passed into
the darkness of this sweltering hell. All the oxygen was depleted,
from his last deep breath. He had to take another breath now.

To his surprise, the vile stench was no
worse inside, his senses were overloaded.

He tensed even more as he heard voices
getting louder. What if they noticed the wet sand and drag marks
from his body as he had eased into the hiding place? Obviously they
were looking for human footprints in the sand churned by the
countless hoofs of watering beasts, but they found none. Someone
with an itchy trigger finger fired three rapid, silenced shots into
the back of the carcass. Two lodged in the thick mass of bone where
ribs and spine converged. The third passed through the top flank,
and out through the open belly, screaming through the air as it
ricocheted off a rock. Maggots rained down on Max from the bullet's
impact, fortunately, the bullets missed him.

The voices moved into the distance
again.

Sweat streamed from his body and ran
down his bare skin, along with maggots to add to the slime he lay
in.

After what seemed an eternity of some
10 minutes, Max cautiously eased out into the fresh air. He lay and
listened but could not hear anyone. They could still be close by,
of course, but not talking, so he lay there for a while longer.

Plucking up courage, he made his move
and peered about him as he slipped completely out of the carcase,
onto the damp sand. The clean water was tempting, would he ever be
clean again? The risk of being seen was too great. He made a low
dash for the cover of the dense jungle. He was fortunate to find
the freshly cut trail the men had made, down from the waterfall, so
he quickly made his way up to Carla. She had watched what had
happened from the shadows of the ledge and planned to intercept Max
as he got close. As he reached the tree Carla had shot at, gunfire
broke out below. The men were being chased by Pygmies. The men’s
guns scythed through the group of 20 men, leaving them squirming
and bleeding along the river’s edge. Other Pygmies maintained their
cover in the jungle, and when the last echoes of gunfire died away,
below the roar of the waterfall, arrows and spears rain down on the
mercenaries. Their bodies bristled with the thin projectiles and
the men brushed them off with ease.

Instead of running for cover or firing
back they just stood there for a few seconds, like they were
waiting for something. Then one by one they sank to the ground
slowly, like tired old men and lay still. The natives cautiously
eased out of the jungle and stood over their victims. Seeing the
gunmen were unresponsive the natives stripped the bodies and
carried them off into the jungle. Max and Carla looked at each
other and decided to make their way down to where the men fell. If
the men were still alive, perhaps there was a way of freeing
them.

Carla spotted an arrow and picked it
up. Max looked at it. The thin straight shaft had a long, sharp
thorn for a point. The thorn could easily be pulled out of the end
of the valuable, reusable shaft. Looking closely, Max could see the
point was stained with crushed vegetable juices. “Something like
Curare I expect,” he said to Carla. “There is no way of saving the
men now, ” he said and explained why.

“Why do you think they stripped the
bodies and carried them away?” Asked Carla, suspecting the
answer.

“I think they will be spit roasted or
stewed! Bonn apatite!” Exclaimed Max.

Carla gave a little shudder at the
thought of someone turning and basting a human body over an open
fire, possibly eyeing up the tastiest cuts.

“We had better get out of here,”
muttered Max, “We have our own problems to deal with.”

On the way back to the waterfall, they
discussed their options.

“First priority is to find a way home,
preferably taking Matt with us. By the way, what have you done with
him?”

“Oh, he’s probably a bit tied up at the
moment,” she grinned. “Wanted to jump my bones, couldn’t cope with
my rejection and crashed out; still he has probably come to his
senses by now!” Max smiled faintly back; he knew Matt was probably
regretting his misjudgment of Carla.

They reached the waterfall and walked
along a ledge, back to Matt. He was red in the face with fury when
he saw them. Not only was the old fool back, but with his bitch, as
well.

Max walked over to Matt and looked down
at him, laid on his side like a longbow with his hands tied to his
ankles. There was no point speaking above the roar of water, and
they both knew they hated each other. Max kicked him hard in his
unprotected stomach and shouted, “Now there’s a good reason to want
to kill me if you ever get the chance!” He then proceeded to wash
off as much of the dried-on putrefied animal flesh as he could.

Carla checked Matt’s bonds; they were
fine, so she and Max made their way cautiously back to camp. They
planned to deal with any guards and make off with their boats back
to civilisation. If they were able, they would go back for Matt and
take him with them to stand trial with his employer.

It was still early morning, but the sun
was scorching hot, already. Fortunately, the cover of the jungle
offered some protection.

Close to the camp, they approached the
river through the jungle; it was slow going, trying to avoid making
a noise in the dense undergrowth.

Suddenly they heard voices. They could
make out four men guarding two powerful launches. The men were well
spread out and had good cover, so surprise would be tricky.