gripped his ankles. He looked down wildly at the unspeakable thing that was gripping him and began frantically beating at the head that rose between the arms.
Giordino had followed Pitt, drifting down the river. The current had not been as strong as he'd expected upstream from the treasure island and he had been able to painfully drag himself into the shallows unnoticed. He had cursed his helplessness at not being physically able to assist Pitt in fighting off Amaru, but when Sarason unknowingly stepped within reach, Giordino made his move and snagged him.
He ignored the brutal blows to his head. He looked up at Sarason and spoke in a voice that was thick and deep. 'Greetings from hell, butthead.'
Sarason recovered quickly at the sight of Giordino and jerked one foot free to maintain his balance. Because Giordino made no attempt to rise to his feet, Sarason immediately perceived that his enemy was somehow badly injured from the hips down. He viciously kicked Giordino, hitting one thigh. He was rewarded by a sharp groan as Giordino's body jumped in a tormented spasm and he released Sarason's other ankle.
'From past experience,' Sarason said, regaining his composure, 'I should have known you'd be close by.'
He stared briefly at the derringer, knowing he had only one bullet left, but aware there were four or five automatic weapons lying nearby. Then he glanced at Pitt and Amaru who were locked in a death struggle. No need to waste the bullet on Pitt. The river had taken the deadly enemies in its grip and was relentlessly sweeping them downstream. If Pitt somehow survived and staggered from the water, Sarason had an arsenal to deal with him.
Sarason made his choice. He stooped down and aimed the gun's twin barrels between Giordino's eyes.
Loren threw herself at Sarason's back, flinging her arms around him, trying to stop him. Sarason broke her grip as if it were string and shoved her aside without so much as a glance.
She fell heavily on one of the weapons that had been cast aside, lifted it and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She didn't know enough about guns to remove the safety. She gave a weak yelp as Sarason reached over and cracked her on the head with the butt of the derringer.
Suddenly he spun around. Gunn, remarkably come to life, had tossed a river stone at Sarason that bounced off his hip with the feeble force of a weakly hit tennis ball.
Sarason shook his head in wonder at the fortitude and courage of people who resisted with such fervor. He almost felt sorry they would all have to die. He turned back to Giordino.
'It seems your reprieve was only temporary,' he said with a sneer, as he held the gun at arm's length straight at Giordino's face.
In spite of the agony of his broken legs and the specter of death staring him in the face, Giordino looked up at Sarason and grinned venomously. 'Screw you.'
The shot came like a blast from a cannon inside the cavern, followed by the thump sound of lead bursting through living flesh. Giordino's expression went blank as Sarason's eyes gazed at him with a strange confused look. Then Sarason turned and mechanically took two steps onto shore, slowly pitched forward and struck the stone floor in a lifeless heap.
Giordino couldn't believe he was still alive. He looked up and gaped at a little man, dressed like a ranch hand and casually holding a Winchester rifle, who walked into the circle of light.
'Who are you?' asked Giordino.
'Billy Yuma. I came to help my friend.'
Loren, a hand held against her bleeding head, stared at him. 'Friend?'
'The man called Pitt.'
At the mention of his name, Loren pushed herself to her feet and ran unsteadily to the river's edge. 'I don't see him!' she cried fearfully.
Giordino suddenly felt his heart squeeze. He shouted Pitt's name but his voice only echoed in the cavern. 'Oh, God, no,' he muttered fearfully. 'He's gone.'
Gunn grimaced as he sat up and peered downriver into the ominous blackness. Like the others who had calmly faced death only minutes before, he was stricken to find that his old friend had been carried away to his death. 'Maybe Dirk can swim back,' he said hopefully.
Giordino shook his head. 'He can't return. The current is too strong.'
'Where does the river go?' demanded Loren with rising panic.
Giordino pounded his fist in futility and despair against the solid rock. 'The Gulf. Dirk has been swept toward the Sea of Cortez a hundred kilometers away.'
Loren sagged to the limestone floor of the cavern, her hands covering her face as she unashamedly wept. 'He saved me only to die.'
Billy Yuma knelt beside Loren and gently patted her bare shoulder. 'If no one else can, perhaps God will help.'
Giordino was heartsick. No longer feeling his own injuries, he stared into the darkness, his eyes unseeing. 'A hundred kilometers,' he repeated slowly. 'Even God can't keep a man alive with a broken wrist, cracked ribs, and a bullet hole in the shoulder through a hundred kilometers of raging water in total darkness.'
After making everyone as comfortable as he could, Yuma hurried back up to the summit where he told his story. It shamed his relatives into entering the mountain. They fabricated stretchers out of material left by the army engineers and tenderly carried Gunn and Giordino from the river cavern up the passageway. An older man kindly offered a grateful Loren a blanket woven by his wife.
On Giordino's instructions, Gunn and his stretcher were strapped down in the narrow cargo compartment of the stolen NUMA helicopter abandoned by the Zolars. Loren climbed into the copilot's seat as Giordino, his face contorted in torment, was lifted and maneuvered behind the pilot's controls.
'We'll have to fly this eggbeater together,' Giordino told Loren as the pain in his legs subsided from sheer agony to a throbbing ache. 'You'll have to work the pedals that control the tail rotors.'
'I hope I can do it,' Loren replied nervously.
'Use a gentle touch with your bare feet and we'll be okay.'
Over the helicopter's radio, they alerted Sandecker, who was pacing Starger's office in the Customs Service headquarters, that they were on their way. Giordino and Loren expressed their gratitude to Billy Yuma, his family, and friends, and bid them a warm goodbye. Then Giordino started the turbine engine and let it warm for a minute while he scanned the instruments. With the cyclic stick in neutral, he eased the collective pitch stick to full down and curled the throttle as he gently pushed the stick forward. Then he turned to Loren.
'As soon as we begin to rise in the air, the torque effect will cause our tail to swing left and our nose to the right. Lightly press the left foot pedal to compensate.'
Loren nodded gamely. 'I'll do my best, but I wish I didn't have to do this.'
'We have no choice but to fly out. Rudi would be dead before he could be manhandled down the side of the mountain.'
The helicopter rose very slowly less than a meter off the ground. Giordino let it hang there while Loren learned the feel of the tail rotor control pedals. At first she had a tendency to over control, but she soon got the hang of it and nodded.
'I think I'm ready.'
'Then we're off,' acknowledged Giordino.
Twenty minutes later, working in unison, they made a perfect landing beside the Customs headquarters building in Calexico where Admiral Sandecker was standing beside a waiting ambulance, anxiously puffing a cigar.
In that first moment when Amaru forced him beneath the water and he could feel the jaws of the current surround his wrecked body, Pitt knew instantly that there was no returning to the treasure cavern. He was doubly trapped-- by a killer who hung on to him like a vise and a river determined to carry him to hell.
Even if both men had been uninjured, it would have been no contest. Cutthroat killer that he was, Amaru was no match for Pitt's experience underwater. Pitt took a deep breath before the river closed over his head, wrapped his good right arm around his chest to protect his fractured ribs and relaxed amid the pain without wasting his strength in fighting off his attacker.
Amazingly, he still kept his grip on the gun, although to fire it underwater would probably have shattered
