The Jungle

depleting oxygen supplies and the punishing assault of water roaring at them.

Cabrillo went to that place where he could ignore his surroundings, the same mental haven he’d sought when he’d been waterboarded. It worked for only a few seconds because, unlike then, drowning now was a real likelihood. The cage rattled and shook, but it could have just been from the water pummeling it and not the motion of it rising from the depths. Juan then got the panic-inducing idea that the shaft would fill with water faster than the lift took them to the surface.

He could feel MacD struggling next to him as he ran out of air. He tried to calm him by wrapping an arm around his shoulder, but that only made him redouble his efforts, and he pushed Cabrillo away. Juan was moments from going into full-flight panic himself as his body used up the last of his life-giving oxygen.

The sound of the water pouring down on them suddenly changed, becoming sharper and louder. At first Juan didn’t understand what this meant, but then it dawned on him. They’d pulled free from it and were ascending the waterfall. He bent so that he was facing downward, using his head and neck as a shield, and took a breath. He took in water too, but he managed to fill his lungs. He anchored himself by grabbing the ceiling and forced MacD into the same position. He pounded on his back, once, twice, a third time, and suddenly Lawless was choking and gasping for air.

The elevator rose at a snail’s pace, fighting the water the entire time, but rise it did.

“Good job with the rope back there,” Juan muttered when he was able to talk.

“Can’t lose the boss on the first day,” Lawless said, managing a cocky lopsided grin. “And if you happen to be keeping score, that’s three you owe me.”

Fifteen minutes later, soaking, shivering, and looking like drowned rats, the two made it to the exit to find Max and the others huddled around a small fire they’d built with the boards that had kept the mine separate from the fort.

“About damned time,” Max said in a gruff tone to hide his relief. “You get the stones?”

“Not sure yet,” Juan replied. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“What about Bahar?”

“Killed by his own men.”

“And Smith?”

“Him, I killed.”

“All right, then I say we get the hell out of here before the French realize we stole one of their rivers.”

EPILOGUE

SOLEIL CROISSARD HAD LEFT THE OREGON BY THE TIME the team made it back. Juan would have liked to have gotten to know her better but understood her need to distance herself from the nightmare that had been the past few weeks. He wouldn’t have minded a little distance himself. This had been perhaps the toughest assignment the Corporation had ever taken on, not that they’d really understood that the events since Pakistan were all linked together, at least until the very end.

Standing under the needle spray of his shower, Cabrillo recognized that Bahar had made his plan unnecessarily convoluted. He had trusted computer simulations and projections rather than instinct and experience, the two qualities he lacked but that Juan and his people had in abundance. That mistake had cost him. Fatally.

He was just toweling off when the phone on his desk began to ring. He tied the towel around his waist and hopped from the bathroom into his cabin. Ruddy light from the setting sun made the woodwork screens that divided the space glow. He suspected the caller would be Langston Overholt. They’d already spoken a couple of times since Cabrillo and the others had emerged from the old fortress, but they still had a lot of ground to cover.

Juan still hadn’t told him he had the crystals, and wasn’t yet sure how he was going to handle that particular problem.

He picked up the heavy handset and said, “Hello.”

“I told you earlier that I know the work that you do. I just wanted to say that I am still out here and that I will continue to follow your exploits with interest.”

The line died. For a moment so did Cabrillo. The caller had been the quantum computer. Somehow it still existed in cyberspace.