that, had the man been facing the cliff wall where Max and Xavier were hiding, he would have seen them.
They listened as the helicopter noise receded and stopped echoing around the small cave. Finally, it went quiet. Now Max had to make a decision. They either stayed in the cave and waited a few hours, which meant they would be there all night, or they pushed back into the river and took their chances that the helicopter would not return.
Another five minutes, Max decided.
The tree-lined river edge blurred with speed, but Riga scanned everything. The helicopter had jigged ever so slightly to the left.
He pulled a headset and microphone off the bulkhead and spoke to the pilot: “What?”
“Nothing,” the pilot answered. “Bats. We must’ve spooked ’em.”
Riga thought for a moment. Maybe.
“Go back, half a click,” he ordered.
The pilot pulled the helicopter up, banking in a fast, curving turn, then dropped it down again to just above the river, going back downstream for half a kilometer. Riga peered ahead, looking for any caves that might give the boy refuge. There was nothing obvious, but then he saw the slab of low overhang and the dark shadows of water that reached under the rock face.
“See that overhang? Stand off that-I want to look.”
The cold air in the cave was welcoming at first, but now the water made Max shiver. Xavier still lay facedown as bats returned, seeking darkness. Then the unmistakable sound of the helicopter grew closer.
“Xavier. They’re coming back!”
They were trapped. The water merged into blackness a couple of meters farther in, but there the ceiling of the cave would be almost on top of the raft-certainly no room to stay on board.
“We have to get the raft farther in, right into this corner, as far as we can. You have to get into the water. Come on.”
Xavier shook his head. Going in the water was a fearful experience, but going into that inky darkness filled him with dread.
“You have to!” Max commanded, whispering as if his voice could be heard over the thundering racket of the helicopter that now hovered ten meters from the entrance. Then a searchlight danced beneath the overhang and lit the water.
Riga crouched low on the helicopter’s skids as the pilot controlled the powerful searchlight into the narrow slit.
“Lower!” Riga ordered.
“We’ll be in the water! There might be rotten trees and debris beneath the surface. We could get caught,” the pilot told him.
“Do it,” Riga said quietly.
Carefully the pilot lowered the helicopter so that Riga’s legs went below the surface. Now the killer could bend down and look into the cave. If the boys were in there, he would see them.
Reflections from the water skittered around the walls as the power from the whirring blades created a spray across the surface. The thundering noise was deafening. Xavier covered his ears and screamed again as another swarm of bats fled the sudden terror and scraped across his back, neck and head.
Max reached up, yanked him into the water, pulled him spluttering from beneath the surface and clamped one of the boy’s hands on to the raft. “Kick! We have to get in farther!”
Shocked and frightened, Xavier responded as Max took most of the weight of the raft, forcing himself to kick fiercely, ignoring the weight of his waterlogged cargo pants and boots.
Like a monster’s eye, the light sought them out, but Max and Xavier had managed to shove themselves right into the corner. Their heads were barely above the surface as the water whipped into their faces. Xavier was gasping; Max could barely open his eyes. Holding on to the raft with one hand, he reached out with his injured arm and grabbed the back of Xavier’s T-shirt, holding him up. “Hang on!” he yelled, but his voice was swallowed by the air-pummeling beat of the rotors.
Riga saw a swarm of bats escape the narrow gap. He stayed, eyes level, for another two minutes, knowing the pilot was struggling to keep the helicopter stable. The current was exerting pressure against the skids. Maybe they were pushing their luck. He didn’t want the helicopter to be pulled into the river. There was nothing beneath that slab of rock except bats.
“OK. Take her up,” he said.
The pilot eased the helicopter gently from the water and wished he had never been chosen for this journey.
The silence was as big a shock as the deafening noise. Their ears rang for a few moments, but then the darkness and still water settled over them. Max eased the raft out, still holding Xavier, until there was space for him to clamber back on board.
“OK? We made it,” Max said cheerfully, despite the inflammation in his shoulder stiffening the muscles.
Xavier seemed exhausted, but opened his eyes and nodded. “We made it,” he whispered. “Who were they?”
“I don’t know,” Max said. “Search and rescue, maybe Coast Guard. Maybe not.”
“Who else could it be?” Xavier said.
Max didn’t even want to think that it could be the people who’d been chasing him back in England. How could they know he was here? Right here, on this river, in this cave? He shook his head.
“We’ll give it another few minutes and then we go.”
“The bats will come back,” Xavier said.
“We’re the ones invading their home. How would you feel if you were fast asleep and some monsters came into your bedroom?
“Yeah, amigo, but when I go to sleep, I don’ hang upside down in my bed. Let’s get out of here.”
The current, like a gatekeeper, rushed across the cave’s opening, making it difficult to push free and have any degree of maneuverability. It would be like jumping into a slipstream; the river could whip them away onto boulders, which would shatter the raft. If they didn’t get a big enough push into the river, into the deeper, slower- moving water, Max couldn’t see how they could control those first few vital moments.
“Roll onto your back,” he told Xavier, “use your feet against the ceiling and push us out. I’ll shove from here. The moment we hit that current, you’ve got to get up and push us away with the pole. I’ll get aboard soon as I can. OK?”
Xavier nodded. He didn’t mind Max telling him what to do; it took away the responsibility that had always scared him.
“One, two, three-go!” Max yelled.
Xavier pedaled against the ceiling, giving the raft momentum.
They were clear. Max felt the tug of the current. He was now at the back of the raft and, instead of pushing, was now being pulled. His hands were slipping, the wood too wet to hold. He curled his fingers under the thin vine that held the raft together, still trying to use his body as a rudder to shape the raft’s passage. Xavier was doing the best he could, but Max could see he was already losing control; he did not have the intuitive skill to nurse it into the best part of the river. The current pushed Max’s body against the back of the raft, and he used it to help him clamber aboard.
“You OK?” he gasped.
Xavier nodded, pleased he could hand back the steering of the raft to Max. He shoved the pole toward him.
“That was great-well done, mate,” Max said reassuringly.
Xavier grinned. He could not remember the last time someone had said he’d done something well. “Yeah? I
