RACE AMAZON: False Dawn (James Pace novels Book 1) (18 page)

The heat had risen intolerably as the morning wore on but was made bearable by rain that fell to earth in curtains.  As they walked, the constant drumming of the raindrops on the top of their poncho hoods became a familiar background sound.  They finally ground to a halt a mile further up the highway where the silent isolation was only broken by the splashing of the rain.  

They all stood on the hard, soaked centre, catching their respective breaths.  Then, just when Pace would have expected the rain to ease up, it began to hammer down more viciously than he could ever have imagined, accompanied by sudden crashes of thunder that came out of nowhere to shake the massive trees all around, lightning scorching across the narrow strip of grey sky above.  There was nothing to be done as the storm attacked except to stop the clock and set up the survival shelter, quickly produced from Hammond’s backpack.  

A marvel of design, it was manufactured along similar lines to the explosively impressive emergency life rafts carried by ships.  Unlike these, it didn’t burst open in an instant to be tossed onto a stormy sea however.  Instead, Hammond attached a small bottle of compressed air into a nipple in the base of the neatly folded, clear plastic package barely larger than a box of breakfast cereal.  He twisted the cylinder head and slowly, sedately almost, the little shelter rose up from the road until it hardened into the shape of a small igloo. 

Completely rigid within two minutes, with Pace snatching the chance to shoot some film of them using it for the first time, it was secured to the ground only by the weight of the people that hurriedly crammed inside.  The lip of the vertical entrance flap sat about two inches off the floor and the flap itself was tight enough to require a reasonable struggle to get through, sealing itself after each of them forced their way inside, leaving their packs and ponchos outside in the rain.

The shelter had been designed by a survival firm especially for the race.  Each team had one; the design provisionally called Lester (Life Enhance and Support Shelter).  The walls were thin and required only a small squirt of compressed air to fill them completely.  The material looked to him like ordinary plastic but apparently it possessed engineered qualities of strength and heat retention.  

The designers hadn’t given them much in the way of space and it was a tight squeeze for five people.  In fact, Pace was sure Cosmos’s frame filled the small shelter on its own.   But it was dry and the inflated walls proved to be good at insulating them from the noise of the rain.   The silence was deafening.

They hardly needed communicators in there, so he pushed the mouthpiece down past his chin so that the sound of his voice didn’t activate it.  The others followed his lead and then came the looks, the wide-eyed sensation of achievement and the easy smiles.

‘Twenty-four minutes left of the rest period,’ he told them quickly.  ‘Two minutes to deflate
Lester
and one minute to get going again.  That leaves twenty-one minutes to talk, rest and moan.’  He eyed his companions speculatively.  ‘So, who wants to go first?’

There was no sense pulling out the large camera from his pack, despite the manufacturer’s claim that it was totally waterproof.  It wasn’t worth the risk and there wasn’t the space.  He carried on with the MicroCam, panning around to get a few introductory shots before recording some snippets of conversation, laughter and pictures of rain and sweat dripping off smiling faces. 

The light was poor, dulled further by the opaque skin of the shelter, so Pace used a pocket torch held high in his other hand to lift the shots.  Sound was recorded with the pictures via the camera’s own microphone, which was amazingly good.  For a small camera, the technology was advanced enough that the tiny microphone could pick up a voice at twenty feet.  He didn’t try for any interviews.  All he needed was a flavour of their first stop.  

Conversation was broken by long periods of shuffling clothing and silent grins. Somewhere up ahead, Team One was pushing on through the rain and behind them, Team Three would be aboard their truck and hot on their heels.  Bottles of sport soft drinks were handed out and gratefully drained, followed by half a litre of pure water each.  Food was a quick munch on some high-energy biscuits but nobody was particularly hungry.  He didn’t even try one, he just drank and filmed.

The transmitter, sitting outside in its protective box at the bottom of his backpack, had all necessary leads poking out through specially cut holes in the pack.  In theory Pace would never need to get it out.  He had to stick his head back out into the rain to make a call, switching the set from internal team communications to external signal and talking through his headset.

The signal was clean and Doyle McEntire himself came on the other end, having finally arrived from Australia.  He confirmed that Team One had just checked in for a second time and were making good progress.  Team Three weren’t expected to make contact for some time to come but had set off without a hitch.  The questions, once edited, would be fed slowly to the media contingent back in Manaus, tantalisingly building the biggest effect possible to promote best coverage but that was all part of the game.  McEntire wished him luck and signed off. 

With spirits high they slipped on their backpacks and covered up again with ponchos.  They deflated Lester and started off up the wide road again. Pace was strong enough to move without any twinges but halfway through the next running phase it was a different story.  The rain still fell from the sky, although a little easier than before by then.  In the last hour and a half there’d been no sign at all that the clouds would lift.  

‘They don’t call it a rain forest for nothing,’ he grumbled over the airwaves, to nobody in particular.

‘You can say that again,’ chipped in Ruby.

‘Oh, happy days,’ agreed Cosmos.  Despite their words, all three still wore easy smiles.

The late afternoon light practically dissolved beneath the relentless drudgery of his first tropical downpour and, as he snatched shots here and there, he was grateful for the camcorder’s total waterproofing.  The thunderstorm finally abated and at least they didn’t have to worry about being struck by lightning any longer.  When he thought the water must surely stop falling soon, it did something he could never have dreamed if he’d not been there to see for it himself.  Despite having been pouring for five hours solidly, despite the storm passing by, the rain actually grew heavier.
  

One moment they were jogging along, albeit splashing through inch-deep surface water now and the next somebody dropped an entire lake on top of them.  Pace floundered, partially through sheer surprise, and ended up skidding to an ungainly halt as water sliced into his eyes, blinding him.  His companions stumbled awkwardly about and instinctively everyone headed for the shelter of the trees at the roadside. 

Once safely beneath the protection of these mighty guardians, his senses returned.  He took the time to set up the broadcast camera on its lightweight, collapsible tripod and filmed the crashing wall of water for a full minute, respectfully reverent and feeling he was in an old Tarzan movie, where the hero looks out from behind the falling rush of a waterfall to spy on the unwelcome hunters.

Visibility dissolved about ten feet out onto the road and the surface water started to get much deeper, especially at the edges and they were soon all standing knee-deep in thick mud and foul water.  As a safety precaution, the group had already pre-agreed to follow their leader in the event of a problem so when Ruby had headed towards trees on the left, the rest had followed.  Nobody had strayed to the other side so they were all together.

They all regarded the wall of falling water in their own way, but all quietly.  Ruby studied it with a mixture of awe and interest, Cosmos with the eyes of someone who respected natural power and accepted the rain for what it was.  Pace looked through the dispassionate lens of the camera and kept his thoughts tuned to focus, white balance and smooth panning shots.  He shot some wonderfully atmospheric images, especially a close shot of Ruby’s face staring out thoughtfully into the deluge.  Her face, framed like all of them in an unflattering yellow hood, was a picture of tranquillity.  A moment later, he packed the camera and tripod away, adjusted his poncho and nodded he was ready to carry on. 

Running was out of the question so they moved off at walking pace.  They needed to stay as close to the edge to keep the worst of the torrent off.  The high canopy, stretching a little out over the  road,  gave  good  cover  but  wading  along  the road’s mired  edge  required  total vigilance and drained a massive amount of energy with every squelching trudge.

15

The next couple of hours were a real slog as they tried to keep to the outer edge of road surface. 

Darkness fell at some point too, so they navigated by the light of powerful hand torches, still sticking to the edge.  At around seven in the evening, the rain was rejoined by thunder.  The deep darkness all around was split again by the brilliance of a lightning show, which stabbed at the forest all around them with magnificent flashes that cracked with ionising fury.

Walking so close to the edge of the jungle at night made them all feel uneasy.  Ruby’s animal instincts craved the time to see a predator and be able to flee for her life; a hungry jaguar or giant serpent could easily be on her before she would spot it with her torch beam. 

Splashing through the water added to her concerns because she knew just how many dangerous creatures thrived in the Amazon’s murky waters.  It was obvious to her that the jungle on either side of them was actually one of the many flooded forest areas dotting the road’s route, so hungry creatures might be very close by. 

She didn’t share her concerns with anyone but quickly gave herself a headache straining her eyes to see both ahead and to the side, watching for danger.

By the time the storm passed and the rain finally eased to a light drizzle about two hours later, the road itself was waterlogged on both sides for three or four feet, leaving only a very narrow strip in the centre of the road still visible.  They all sloshed out into the centre of the road and picked up the speed, wading through nearly waist-high water and mud being a slow way to get anywhere.

The next rest stop was subdued and the production of the MicroCam inside their hi-tech igloo was met with indifference.  Pace knew he had to shoot some film because it would make for gritty television, highlighting the highs and lows of their days.  For five minutes he filmed, using the tiny camera’s own built-in light again, asking probing questions and ignoring the fatigue in his body as best he could.  

‘How are you feeling?’  Pace asked the Kenyan, speaking very clearly for the camera.

‘Same as you, I suspect.  Starting to feel it, but nothing that won’t wear off once my muscles get going again.’

‘We seem to be the victims of our first heavy storm.  How would you rate our progress so far?’

‘I think all of us are giving the best of ourselves.’  He waited for Cosmos to elaborate but he didn’t.  Instead, he began to make short work of a couple of energy biscuits and a bottle of fruit juice.  

Pace turned his attentions to Ruby, who sat hunched in a ball, reading a map.  Well, it was a map of sorts.  One thing the race suppliers had done for all the teams was to equip them with simple gadgets that might help them cope.  Paper maps, being large and subject to falling apart in humid climates, were no good in the rainforest so what they used was something far better.

It was a simple device made of lightweight plastic and, in its flattened form, was no larger than a credit card.  A clever piece of design, it expanded into a pyramid-like framework.  At the apex to the pyramid sat a mounted plastic lens.  Small plastic map cards, shrunk to about one-twentieth of their actual size, slipped into the bottom of the frame.  By looking down, through the lens, these waterproof cards were magnified to the eye and read as clearly as a large, full-sized map.  Computer aids, GPS devices and the like, were not allowed in the race.

Ruby was engrossed through the little lens as he focused the camera on her and let the picture of dedication tell itself.  She must have sensed the camera on her because she twitched away from the map-reader and shot a sardonic smile directly into the lens.  Then she laughed and swore at him for filming when she wasn’t ready.

‘That’s all part of the job,’ he defended reproachfully, panning the hand camera around.  

The drizzling rain could be faintly heard outside and he knew the camera’s sensitive microphone would pick it up well enough.  The atmosphere on the edit would be dark and powerful. 

‘Are you still with us, Mr Cameraman?’ Hammond’s question jerked his thoughts back to the present.

‘This seems a good place to be at the moment,’ he shot back

‘Thinking about your lady, eh?’ Attia’s smile froze into a look of abject horror as he realised what he’d just said. 'James, I’m terribly sorry.  Please forgive me.’

‘It’s okay, it isn’t a problem.’

‘No, it isn’t okay.’

‘Why didn’t you ask me that one?’ interrupted Ruby quickly, sensing the need for a quick shift of attention.  ‘Don’t I get to worry about the love of my life?’

‘Sorry,’ stumbled Attia, grateful for the lifeline.  ‘You are right, I know.  So, how is Sasha?  Did she get down here in time for the start?  I didn’t see her.’

‘She was here but she couldn’t stay.  She had to fly back a couple of days ago.  I’m hoping to sweet talk James into arranging a phone link-up with her soon.’

‘There!’ barked Cosmos suddenly, finishing his drink.  ‘You are a man with great power and I bet you didn’t even know.’

Putting the tiny camera away in its belt-pouch, he checked his stopwatch and notified everyone of the remaining time.  The routine would become boring, especially as they grew increasingly tired.   He had to force himself to be strict right from the start as any mistake on his part could lead to their team being disqualified.  To that end, he made sure they set off again, back out into a soft drizzle, in good time.

The night passed in arduous fashion as they stuck to their routine and ate up the miles on an increasingly swampy road.  Several times they had to duck back under the shelter of the huge trees that edged the road; ancient Brazil nut trees, towering leguminous trees and jara palms amongst them.  When the rain increased in anger, their speed would drop to a crawl as they half-walked, half-waded through the darkness, stabbing the way ahead with torch beams.

Occasionally they would stumble across dead trees that had fallen partially across the road, bringing down several neighbours; such was the lattice of lianas and creepers linking the canopy together.  Brightly coloured bracket fungi covered the dead wood, decomposing it with the help of the ever-present termites and ants.

His body shivered with exhaustion by midnight and only the cooling night air and rain stopped him from collapsing in a heap.  The final rest period of the first twenty-four hour cycle was set for six-thirty in the morning, when they would have three and a half hours to actually sleep.  Pace was determined to make it. 

The brief rest periods throughout the night seemed to grow shorter and shorter but he knew they weren’t, and at each one they crammed energy biscuits down their throats; hydrating themselves with litres of water and isotonic fruit drinks.  

Conversation over the headsets kept them amused throughout the night.  They took it in turns to tell a story, or talk about a part of our own lives, to fill the emptiness of the night.  Cosmos turned out to be a man of great wit and his observations on life were hilarious at times, which all helped to keep legs pumping and the team moving forward.  

Deliberately shunning some hilarious military stories out of a sense of propriety, Pace regaled them with a story from his hospital experience.  They all particularly loved him telling of the time he’d gone into a patient’s room; an eighty-five year old maniacal woman called Josie, one morning to find that she’d climbed on top of her wardrobe and was sitting there, stark naked as she often preferred to be, singing
Row, Row, Row Your Boat
.  It had taken a long time to coax her back down and in the end she only agreed when he’d sung a duet of
Roll out the Barre
l with her.

The Trans-Amazonian Highway was a trunk route.  Although it was in a poor state of repair in many areas, making passage almost impossible, it would never alone have proved enough of a challenge to the competitors.  With television bids, ratings and money high on the organiser’s list, every section of the race also had an added challenge to be overcome.  At certain points the teams had to navigate off the main route and conquer the challenge before being allowed to move on to the next section. 

The exciting part, especially for him as official camera operator, was that the challenges were only marked on their map cards as challenges A, B and C.  None of them had any idea what lay in store until they got there.  

At a little after five in the morning it was still dark.    Ruby’s studious torch-lit scrutiny of the map card told her they were nearing the first challenge marker and, ten minutes of fast walking later, she raised a hand and called the team to a halt.  Almost at the same moment, the rain died.  Mists of water vapour swathed the shadowy forest edges to create an eerie, alien landscape, half lit by the bobbing beams of the torches.  The lack of rain should have been a relief but it actually felt disconcerting; the restless, hot air suddenly stilled. 

If Ruby hadn’t known to look for a track, she would never have guessed one existed.  The distance between the huge tree trunks that walled the roadside averaged fifteen feet, with little in the way of floor scrub except for a carpet of dead leaves, mosses and lichens.  A thick tangle of lianas and trailing sucker plants hung in curtains between the trees, tying them together with knotted vegetation and preventing torchlight from penetrating very far into the rain forest.  

She spotted the marker she sought after a few minutes careful study with her torch while the rest of them took a moment's rest.   The marker was nailed at head height to a tree; a red plastic circle centred with a yellow spot.  They gathered around it and noted the letter A staring back at them from its yellow centre; it was clearly the marker to their first challenge.

Just behind the huge tree, as they skirted its trunk of some twenty-foot diameter, a distinct jungle path could be seen, leading off into the gloom.

As if taking pity on the wretched group that she had hammered all night, Mother Nature cleared the ever-present clouds with a sudden breeze, transforming the strip of sky above them into a meandering channel awash with brilliant stars.  The sudden change lit up the road as if somebody had switched on streetlights.

Pace took a few moments to set up the broadcast camera, even going so far as to erect the tripod.  He set it to film a wide shot of the whole scene and left it running for a while as he re-joined the others.  

‘Have a look at what’s next,’ Ruby said, handing the map device around.  They each looked through the tiny lens while someone else flashed a torch onto the map card in the base.  When it was his turn, Pace took a good look at where they were and where they had to go.  He mentally measured off distances in line with the scale and decided they had to move into the jungle for about ten kilometres to reach the challenge point; marked with a blue triangle.  Squinting hard, it looked as if they had to stop at some form of river tributary. The challenge marker appeared to sit smack bang on top of a marked waterway. 

‘So?’ Pace spoke more to get a sound level on the camera than for anyone’s benefit and tried to keep from panting too hard.  ‘Who gets to lead the way?’

‘Looks perilous,’ commented Attia lightly, taking the chance to pull out some more water bottles from his pack and pass them out.  He popped the cap and drained half a litre without pausing for breath.

‘Hardly,’ Ruby quipped back at the doctor.  ‘Now, hanging by your fingertips four thousand feet up the side of a mountain, that’s real peril.’

‘Stupidity, don’t you mean,’ grinned Cosmos.

Another voice cut in.  ‘You should try sharing a piece of ocean with a bloody great shark if you really want to know danger.’

Pace was pleased that the camera would be picking up this wonderful exchange.  ‘It sounds like we’re playing a game of my danger is bigger than your danger’.

‘Never swum with a shark,’ admitted Ruby.  ‘It sounds like something to be avoided.’

‘It wasn’t intentional, believe me,’ explained Hammond.  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared of anything before, or since.  One minute there was clear water, the next one huge shark; a tiger.  It happened while I was diving the wreck of the
Saracen
about eighteen months ago now.

‘Saracen?’  This might be interesting, Pace thought.  ‘What’s that?’ 

‘An old American submarine, Second World War vintage.  Lost her entire conning tower to Japanese depth charges out in the Pacific in 1944.  I took some holiday owed to me from the company and joined a commercial crew that tried to salvage her.   My way of relaxing, you understand.’

‘You’re still here, so the shark must have gone hungry.’ 

‘No,’ he frowned and shook his head.  ‘It had a go at getting me but missed by a whisker, thank God.  I managed to twist behind the protection of the submarine’s propeller just in time.  It was so close its tail knocked my mask off.’ 

He looked genuinely deflated as his thoughts took him back to the moment. 

‘My diving buddy wasn’t so lucky; he was swimming in open water, a few feet out from the hull.’  He shook the image from his mind and sighed.  ‘United States Navy ended up taking over the show after that and I headed back to my desk.’

Cosmos and Attia stood chatting together, as did Ruby and Hammond, as Pace packed up the camera.  Then he did something stupid; on the spur of the moment.