Once again Sean butted his jeep into the back of the other vehicle. It crushed in the tail-gate and slewed it half off the track.
Ramsey was struggling one-handed to hold it on the road. The back end was swinging wildly. Dust boiled out from the rear wheels in a cloud, half-blinding Sean. Isabella was screaming, and Nicky scrambled up and crouched on the rear seat. His face was white and terrified.
Another bend in the track flung the leading vehicle up on to the verge.
While Ramsey tried desperately to control it, Sean saw his chance and gunned his own jeep up alongside it. For a second they were racing side-by-side like a team in harness.
Ramsey Machado and Sean Courtney looked into'each other's eyes at a distance of six feet, and hatred flashed between them like a discharge of static electricity. It was a primeval emotion, a deep atavistic understanding as two dominant males met and recognized that one must kill the other.
Sean spun the wheel hard left and swerved into him, forcing his far wheels off the track. The hole of a palm tree wiped off the paintwork and smeared the metal down the length of the vehicle. Ramsey swerved back and hit Sean as hard.
Then Ramsey released his grip on Isabella and once again snatched the pistol from his naked lap and thrust it into Sean's face, reaching out between the speeding jeeps. Ramsey's face was a dark mask of fury and hatred.
Isabella threw herself sideways and grabbed the steering-wheel. As Ramsey fired she wrenched it over with all her strength. The bullet flew away into the night, and the jeep whipped into a murderous skid and plunged over the riverbank.
In the instant before it disappeared Sean saw both Isabella and Ramsey hurled head first against the windscreen, and from the back seat Nicky's small form was catapulted high into the darkness. Then he was past, braking hard, wrestling with the wheel as the jeep slewed into a broadside skid.
The moment he had her under control, Sean snapped the gear lever into reverse and roared backwards to the point where the other vehicle had disappeared.
Dust still hung in the air, and the earth at the crest of the bank was torn by the spinning tyres. Sean leapt from the driver's seat and ran to the top of the bank. The jeep was in the river below him. The headlights were still burning beneath the surface, like two drowned moons. She had capsized, and her rear wheels were spinning in a froth of white foam. Nicky's small crumpled body lay on the bank at the water's edge.
Sean launched himself down the bank. Sliding and slipping, he kept his footing like a cat and used his momentum to carry him out in a long clean racing dive. He hit the water flat like an Olympic racer.
He drove himself down deep. The headlights burnt through the murk, and his underwater vision was blurred and distorted. He reached the carcass of the submerged jeep and pulled himself down under it. The air in the rear fuel-tank was holding it just clear of the muddy bottom, and he wriggled into the opening.
Something pale loomed in front of him, and he reached out and touched a naked body. Quickly he ran his hands over it and touched large smooth breasts. He reached up and seized a handful of the long floating hair and dragged Isabella out from under the wreck.
He surfaced with her in his arms and found with relief that she was choking and gasping and struggling weakly. He dragged her to the bank. One of the Scouts had shown enough presence of mind to drive the jeep to the lip of the bank so that the beam of the headlights shone down and gave them light.
Isabella crawled naked and running with water to where Nicky lay and drew him into her lap. He began to struggle and kick.
'My father,' he wailed. 'Mi padrep Knee-deep in the mud, Sean peered down into the water. Water had flooded the engine of the jeep and stalled it, but the lights still burnt in the depths.
Swiftly he weighed the need for haste against his desire to find Ramsey Machado. He knew that reinforcements must even now be on the way from the guerrilla camp. They had only minutes in hand. He was about to turn away and go to help Isabella, to get her and the child up the bank, when he saw a flash of movement in the water. A shadow passed as though a shark had swum between him and the submerged headlights.
Bastard! he thought, and shouted to his men on the bank above him: 'Bring me my rifle.'
One of them came sliding down the bank. Before he could reach Sean and hand him the AKM, there was a swirl in the muddy water. It was far out in the river at the edge of the light, and Ramsey's head burst through.
'Get himp roared Sean. 'Nail the bastard!' Ramsey's hair was slicked down over his eyes, and water streamed down his face as he gasped wildly for air. One of the Scouts on the bank fired a short burst, and the bullets flickered a spray of water from the surface around Ramsey's head. Ramsey drew another breath, and ducked under. For a moment his bare feet showed above the surface, kicking in the air, and then he was gone.
'Bastard! Bastardv Sean swore, and snatched his own AKM from the hands of his Scout as the man reached him. He fired a long angry frustrated burst into the river, and the bullets chopped up a patch of dancing froth on the spot where Ramsey had disappeared.
Then he checked his fury and waited for Ramsey's head to show again, but the tide was ripping downstream carrying everything with it. Out there were dark and twisted mangroves behind which Ramsey could shelter, and beyond the beams of the headlights the waters were dark and obscure.
After another minute he knew he had lost him. He had to let him go. He crushed down his frustration and his hatred and turned back to Isabella.
She was wet and smeared with mud. The edge of the windscreen had opened a cut in her hairline, and a trickle of blood diluted by river-water was spreading down her face.
Sean shrugged out of his sodden jersey and helped her into it.
As she thrust her arms through the sleeves she gasped: 'What happened to Ramsey?
'The bastard gapped it.' Sean hauled her to her feet. 'Time is wasting.
We're out of here.' Nicky broke from his mother's grip and darted to the edge of the water.
'My father - I will not. leave my father.'
Scan -grabbed him by one arm. 'Come on, Nicky.' Nicholas whirled and sank his small white teeth into Sean's wrist.
'You little swine.' Sean clouted him open-handed across the side of his head, almost knocking him off his feet. 'No more of your little dago tricks, matey.' He picked him up, kicking and fighting, and slung him over his shoulder.
'I will not go. I want to stay with mi padre.' Sean grabbed Isabella's hand and, carrying Nicky easily, he pulled her up the bank. There were other figures around the jeep, and for a moment Sean did not recognize them. He dropped Isabella's hand and lifted the AKM by the pistol grip.
'Hold it, Sean,' Esau Gondele cautioned him as he ran forward.
'Where did you spring from?' 'You almost ran into our ambush,' Esau told him. 'You were just one second away from getting an RPG rocket up your backside. We are back there.' He pointed up the track.
'Where are your boats?' 'Two hundred yards up-river.' 'Pull your men out - we'll hitch a ride back with you.' He broke off and cocked his head.
'Douse those fights,' Esau Gondele snapped at one of his men. He leant into the parked jeep and hit the switch. The headlights faded.
In the darkness they stood listening.
'Trucks coming fast from the direction of the airstrip.' They all heard them clearly in the stillness.
'More gooks,' Esau agreed.
'Take us to the boats,' Sean ordered. 'Tout de suite - and the tooter the sweeter.' They ran in a group, keeping to the track. A hundred yards along, Esau Gondele whistled, the sharp double flute of a night-flying dikkop, one of the Scouts' recognitionsignals. The whistle was repeated from the darkness just ahead, and Sean stumbled over the dead palm trunks that they had dragged across the track as a road-block.
'Come on,' Esau Gondele called them off the track. 'The boats are this way.' As he spoke they saw the moving headlights through the trees ahead. A convoy of vehicles was speeding down the track towards them from the direction of the airstrip.
Nicholas was still kicking and struggling in Sean's grip, and Isabella was trying desperately to reassure him.
'It will be all right, Nicky darling. These people are our friends. They are taking us home to a safe place.' 'This is my home - I want my father. They killed Adra. I hate them! I hate you! I hate themv he screamed in Spanish.
Sean shook him violently. 'One more peep out of you, my old China, and I'll knock your cocky little head right off your shoulders.' 'This way.'Esau Gondele led them at a run away from the road-block. Within fifty yards they reached the riverbank where the boats were moored.
Sean glanced back and saw the convoy of trucks come rumbling around a bend in the road. The beams of their headlights swept overhead, but they were hidden from them by the angle of the riverbank. In the lights Sean saw that the back of each truck was crowded with armed men.
Sean lifted Isabella into the nearest inflatable boat, and she tripped on the wet folds of the jersey that hung around her legs and sprawled in the
