Alex knew that he wouldn’t be able to take much more.
It was only desperation—and pure luck—that had brought him this far. From the moment he had entered the white water, he had lost all sense of his center of gravity, which really meant that he had lost everything. He might as well have been a piece of driftwood, being swept no matter where. It wasn’t just that the kayak was the wrong shape. It wasn’t a kayak at all. It was a float ripped off a seaplane, and if Alex had decided, after all, to steal
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a coffin for the journey, he doubted he would have had any less control.
He tried to remember what Dr. Tanner had told him about the river. After the first rapids, it got worse. And then, a mile downstream, came something called the Bora Falls. Alex didn’t like the sound of that. He would have to find somewhere to come ashore and take his chances in the rain forest. He had already covered a certain amount of ground. With a bit of luck he might even have reached the edge of the floodplain on the other side. There had to be some civilization somewhere in the area; a ranger, a flying doctor, somebody! Somehow he would find them.
But there was still nowhere to land. The banks climbed steeply, with rocks forming an almost-permanent barrier.
When Alex looked up, the tops of the trees seemed a long way away. As wet as he was, Alex wasn’t cold. The rain forest throbbed with its own muddy heat. He was moving swiftly, still being swept along by the current. He was listening for the next stretch of rapids—but that wasn’t what he heard. Instead, it was the last thing he had expected.
A helicopter.
If he had still been in the rapids, he wouldn’t even have been able to hear the chatter of the blades, but right now he was in one of the straits, where the water was fast-moving but silent. Even so, he had to look up to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. Somehow it seemed unlikely, early in the morning, in the middle of an Australian rain
forest. But there it was. It was still a small speck, some distance behind, but drawing nearer with every second.
Alex’s first thought was that MI6 had finally arrived, almost when it was too late. He looked back a second time and felt his hopes shrivel and die. There was something mean and sinister about the helicopter, the way it was zeroing in on him like an insect about to sting. If MI6 were coming, they would have been here days ago.
No. This was something else. And it wasn’t on his side.
The helicopter was a Bell UH-1D, also known as a
“Huey,” one of the most famous flying machines in the world ever since the Americans had sent hundreds of them to Vietnam back in the sixties. Alex recognized the long, slim fuselage with the extended tail. The cargo door was open and there was a man sitting with his legs hanging out and some sort of weapon on his lap. It had to be nothing more than bad luck. Dr. Tanner couldn’t have called up support in the few minutes that Alex had been gone. The helicopter must have been on its way anyway, perhaps dropping off supplies, and Tanner had simply redirected it after him.
Alex had nowhere to hide. He was in the middle of the river, and he wasn’t moving fast enough to get away. At least the helicopter didn’t seem to be equipped with door guns, rocket launchers, or antitank missiles. And the man only had a rifle. That was good too. If it had been a machine gun, Alex would have had no chance at all. But even so, a half-decent marksman would be able to pick him off
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with no trouble. Suddenly Alex’s back and shoulders felt horribly exposed. He could almost feel the first bullet slamming into them.
He lowered his head toward the water, changing his center of gravity and tilting the float onto its side. His left shoulder was touching the water now as he lanced forward, pounding down with the paddle, heading for the nearest bank. It was a technique known as the low brace, and Alex hoped that as well as giving him extra momen- tum through the water, it would also present less of a target to the sniper above.
Something snapped against the surface inches from his head, and a microsecond later, he heard the discharge of the rifle. The bullet had reached him faster than its sound. Alex jerked upright again. Water dripped off the side of his face. But he had reached his destination, a clump of trees hanging over the river, forming a green tunnel for him to go through. At least he would be out of sight for the next few seconds.
The next stretch of white water was about fifty yards in front of him, directly ahead. The rapids had been his enemy, but now, in a strange way, they had become his friend. The churning water, the current spinning him, and the waves tossing him from side to side would make him more difficult to hit. But could he reach them? The helicopter was directly above. The leaves and branches were thrashing around madly, tearing themselves apart.
The downdraft was beating at the river, and the howl of the Huey’s engine was shattering the very air.
Alex emerged from the tunnel and dug down, using all the strength of his upper body and shoulders, propelling himself forward. There were two more shots. One of them hit the kayak, and Alex found himself staring at a hole, right in front of him. It had been fired at an angle, boring through the fiberglass and exiting just above the waterline. It must have missed his leg with barely an inch to spare.
Left and then right, two more power strokes and he was into the rapids. He hadn’t had time to pick a line—
or to form any strategy for surviving the next section. And this stretch was even worse than the first one had been, with faster water, a bigger slope, rocks that seemed purposely built to impale him or tear him in half.
Even the sniper seemed to hesitate, letting the river do its work for him. “
