Ghost Flight (20 page)

And then of course there were the killer spiders – and hostile tribes – to contend with.

Jaeger was reminded of all this as he weaved his way through the dense undergrowth, the ground slippery and treacherous underfoot. His nostrils were assailed by the heavy scent of dark, musty decay. The terrain was dropping away from him as they approached the Rio de los Dios. Soon they’d hit the northern bank of the river – at which point the fun and games would really begin.

The higher you climbed in the jungle the easier the terrain tended to get – for it was invariably drier underfoot and the vegetation thinner. But sooner or later the Rio de los Dios had to be crossed, and that meant dropping down into denser, boggier ground.

Jaeger took a moment to catch his breath and survey the route ahead.

Straight ahead lay a deep ravine, which no doubt drained water into the Rio de los Dios during the rains. It looked wet and marshy underfoot, the ground starved of any sunlight. The gully was thick with medium-sized trees, each boasting a crop of vicious spikes that protruded several inches or more from the trunk.

Jaeger knew those spine-covered trees well. The spikes weren’t poisonous, but that didn’t matter much. He’d fallen against one once, during a jungle training exercise. The tough wooden spines had pierced his arm in several places, the wounds quickly turning septic. Ever since, he’d called them the ‘bastard trees.’

Strung between those perilous trunks were thick vines, each armed with cruelly hooked thorns. Jaeger pulled out his compass and took a quick bearing. The ravine led due south, the way that he needed to go, but he figured it was best avoided.

Instead he took a bearing west, fixed his eyes on a tall, mature stand of hardwood trees and proceeded to head that way. He’d box his way around the ravine, then turn south a little further on, which should bring him directly to the river. Every twenty minutes he allowed himself to put Narov down, both for a breather and to grab a slug of water. But never longer than two minutes and then he was on his way again.

As he climbed, he shrugged Narov’s weight higher on to his shoulders. He wondered for an instant how she was holding up. She’d not said a single word since they’d set out. If she’d lost all consciousness, the river crossing would be next to impossible, and Jaeger would be forced to come up with a different plan of action.

Fifteen minutes later, he skidded down a shallow slope, coming to a stop at a solid-looking wall of vegetation. On the far side he could just make out a moving mass – the odd glint of sunlight flashing through to him.

Water. He was almost at the river.

Mature jungle – vegetation that had remained undisturbed for centuries – generally consisted of a high forest canopy, with relatively sparse growth on the forest floor. But where such virgin rainforest had been disturbed – like having a highway slashed through it, or here where a river carved into its depths – secondary vegetation would spring up in the clearings formed.

The Rio de los Dios cut a tunnel of sunlight through the jungle, and on either side it was a riot of dense, tangled bush. The vegetation that loomed before Jaeger was like a dark and impenetrable cliff face – high forest giants, fringed with smaller palm-like bushes, with tree ferns and vines reaching right to the forest floor. Next to impossible to negotiate with his load.

He turned east, following the riverbank until he hit the ravine that he’d boxed his way around. At the point where it plunged into the river, the terrain was largely swept clear of vegetation, leaving a tiny rocky beach no wider than your average English country lane.

It was enough. From there they could launch their river crossing – if Narov was still capable of making it.

He lifted her off his shoulders and lowered her to the ground. There was little sign of life, and for a horrible moment Jaeger feared that the spider toxins had claimed her as he’d carried her through the jungle. But when he felt for her pulse, he noticed the odd shiver and spasm ripple through her limbs, as the
Phoneutria
venom tried to work its way deeper into her system.

The shakes were nowhere near as bad as they’d been at first, so the antidote was clearly working. But still she seemed dead to all his attentions; comatose to the world. He lifted her head, supporting it with one hand as he tried to get some liquid into her. She gulped down a few mouthfuls, but still there was no sign of her opening her eyes.

Jaeger reached for his backpack and pulled out his GPS unit. He needed to check if it could see enough sky to acquire a usable signal. It bleeped once, twice, and thrice, as satellite icons flashed on to the screen. He checked their position, the grid provided by the GPS proving that his navigation had been bang on.

For a moment he stole a glance at the river, contemplating the crossing that lay before them. It was a good five hundred yards across, maybe more. The dark, sluggish water was interrupted here and there by slender mudbanks, which barely broke the surface.

Worse still, on one or two of them Jaeger spotted what he’d most feared to find here: the sleek forms of giant lizard-like creatures, sunning themselves in the mid-morning heat.

The beasts before them were the largest predators the Amazon had to offer. Crocodiles.

Or more accurately, this being South America – caimans.

33

The black caiman –
Melanosuchus niger
– can grow to five metres in length, and weigh anything up to 400 kilos, so more than five times a man’s bodyweight. Immensely powerful, and with skin as thick as a rhino, they have no natural predators.

Hardly surprising, Jaeger reflected. He’d once heard the animal described as ‘a croc on steroids’, and they really didn’t come any bigger or more aggressive. Note to self, Jaeger thought: be wary.

Still, he reminded himself that the black caiman had relatively poor eyesight, mostly adapted for hunting in the dark. They could barely see underwater, and especially not in rivers as silt-laden as this one. They had to get their heads above the surface to attack – and that meant they made themselves visible.

More commonly, they used their sense of smell to guide them to their prey. For a moment, Jaeger checked where Narov had nicked him with her blade as he’d tried to parry her knife thrusts during their crazed freefall. The wound had long ago stopped bleeding, but it would be best to keep it out of the water.

In the absence of any alternative plan, he pressed on with the only one he had. He opened his rucksack and pulled out the canoe flotation bags. He emptied out the pack’s remaining contents and divided them between the two liners, so the weight was shared evenly.

Next he placed one of the liners inside his pack, inflated it, and closed it, folding the seal over twice and clipping it tight on to itself, before inflating and sealing shut the second liner.

Using the fastenings on his pack, he proceeded to strap it and the canoe liner together. He then took his and Narov’s weapons and tied a longish length of paracord to each, attaching the loose ends to the two corners of his makeshift flotation device with quick-release knots.

That way, if either weapon fell in, he’d be able to retrieve it again.

Next he selected a thick bamboo from a grove that grew near the water’s edge. He felled it with his machete, and cut the trunk into five-foot lengths. Using the sharp blade, he split two lengths of the bamboo in half, to make four cross poles. He then placed four lengths of whole bamboo in a row, lashed the cross struts to these with paracord, and tied it all together to make a simple frame, which in turn was roped to the flotation bags.

He dragged the makeshift raft into the shallows and sat astride it, testing for strength. It took his weight comfortably, floating high on the water, just as he’d intended. That done, he figured he was ready.

He had little doubt that it could manage Narov’s weight.

He moored the craft and paused to filter some water. It was always smart to keep your bottles full, especially with the amount he was sweating. Using the Katadyn, he sucked up dirty brown river water via the intake tube, the filter jetting clear, crisp liquid into his bottle. He drank as much as he could before refilling both bottles.

He was just finishing when a fatigued voice cut through the clammy heat: fragile; tight with pain; hoarse with exhaustion.

‘Boring, stupid . . . and half crazy.’ Narov had come to, and she’d been watching him test his raft. She gestured to it weakly. ‘No way do you get me on that. It is time to accept the inevitable and go on alone.’

Jaeger ignored the remark. He placed the weapons to either side of the craft, facing forwards, then returned to Narov, squatting down before her.

‘Captain Narov, your carriage awaits.’ He gestured at the makeshift raft. He could feel his guts twisting with the thought of what lay ahead, but he did his best to suppress it. ‘I’m going to carry you down and place you aboard. It’s reasonably stable, but try not to thrash about. And don’t knock the weapons overboard.’

He smiled at her encouragingly, but she could barely respond.

‘Correction,’ she whispered. ‘Not half crazy:
clinically insane.
But as you see, I am in no fit state to argue.’

Jaeger lifted her up. ‘That’s my girl.’

Narov scowled. She was clearly too finished to think of a suitable retort.

Jaeger laid her gently across the
raft, warning her to keep her long legs well tucked in. She curled up into a foetal position, the craft sinking a good six inches under her weight, but still most of it remained above the surface.

They were good to go.

Jaeger waded into deeper water, pushing the raft ahead of him, thick mud squelching underfoot. The water felt lukewarm and oily with sediment. Every now and then his boot encountered a lump of rotting vegetation – most likely a tree branch – embedded in the heavy silt. As he clambered over them, they threw up long lines of bubbles – gases from their decay rushing to the surface.

When the water was up to chest height, Jaeger kicked off. The current was stronger than he’d expected, and he didn’t doubt that they’d be carried fast downstream. But it was what lurked in the water that made him so keen to get the river crossing over with.

34

Jaeger kicked across the first open stretch of water, keeping both hands on the raft. Narov lay before him, curled into a ball, unmoving. It was crucial that he kept going straight and steady. If the raft were spun violently or became unbalanced, she would tumble off, and would be as good as dead in the water.

She was too far gone to fend for herself, or even to swim for it.

Jaeger’s eyes scanned the river to either side. He was almost level with the surface, giving him a weird, otherworldly perspective. He figured this was what it must be like to be one of the Rio de los Dios caimans, cruising the waters mostly submerged and hunting for their prey.

He searched to left and right, checking for any that might be heading their way.

He was twenty yards from the mudbank ahead when he sighted the first. It was the movement that drew his eye. He watched as it slithered into the river a good hundred yards or so upstream. Ungainly on land, the massive creature moved with a deadly grace and speed as it entered the water, and Jaeger felt every muscle tensing for the fight.

But instead of heading downstream, towards them, the caiman turned its snout northwards, nosing its way upriver for a good fifty yards or more. Then it climbed out on to a mudbank and went back to what it had been doing earlier – sunbathing.

Jaeger heaved a sigh of relief. That was one caiman that clearly wasn’t feeling hungry.

A few moments later he felt his boots touch the bottom. Wading now, he pushed the raft up on to the first patch of land – a stretch of boggy sediment a dozen feet across. He moved to the front of the craft, and began to haul it onwards, his limbs burning with the effort. With each step his legs sank up to the knees in the black, clinging mud.

Twice he lost his grip completely, falling on to his hands and knees and getting splattered all over in stinking filth. For a moment he was reminded of the swamp that he and Raff had hidden in on Bioko island. Difference was, there had been no giant caimans to contend with there.

By the time he reached the edge of the deeper water again, he was covered from head to toe in putrid black gunk and rotting matter, and his pulse was thumping like a machine gun with the exertion.

He figured there were two more shallow mudbanks that he couldn’t navigate his way around; that he’d be forced to cross. No doubt about it, he was going to be utterly finished by the time they reached the far side.

If they reached the far side.

He waded in again, pulling the raft after him, then resumed the prone position behind it. As he kicked out and propelled the craft towards the centre of the river, the current tugged at it more powerfully. Jaeger was forced to struggle with all his might to keep it balanced, his legs pumping to make any headway.

Downstream the water was shallower, but faster moving near the bank. Jaeger could see the river getting turbulent as it coursed over rocks that created a stretch of white water. He needed to get across before they were swept into those rapids.

The raft neared the second of the mudbanks. As it did so, Jaeger felt an unexpected touch. Something had brushed against his right arm. He glanced up, only to find that it was Narov’s hand. Her fingers reached out, curled around his, and she gave a faint squeeze.

He didn’t know quite what she was trying to tell him; reading this woman was nigh-on impossible. But maybe, just maybe, the ice queen was starting to melt a little.

‘I know what you are thinking.’ Her voice barely reached him, reduced to a half-whisper as it was by all the toxins burning through her system. ‘But I am not being intimate. I am trying to alert you. The first caiman – it is coming.’

Using his wrists to keep hold of the raft, Jaeger grabbed both weapons. He held them by their pistol grips, index fingers curled around the triggers, barrels menacing the water to left and right, his eyes scanning the surface.