We're about to be attacked!'
'From what?' Captain Waxman called from his raft, about fifty yards away. 'What did you see?'
As answer, something huge slid between Nate's boat and its neighbor, nudging both rafts and spinning them ever so slightly. Through the swamp's murk, the twin lines of tail ridges were readily evident as the beast slid sinuously past.
Nate was familiar with this behavior. It was called bumping. The kings of the caimans, the great blacks, were not carrion eaters. They liked to kill their own food. It was why drifting motionless could often protect someone from the predators. Often they would bump something that they considered a meal, testing to see if it would move.
They had just been bumped.
Distantly, the third raft suddenly bobbed and turned. The second caiman was also testing these strange intruders.
Nate yelled again, revising his initial plan. 'Don't move! No one paddle! You'll attract them to attack!'
Waxman reinforced his order. 'Do as he says! Weapon up. Grenades hot!'
Manny now crouched beside Nate, his voice hushed with awe. 'It had to be at least a hundred feet long, over three times larger than any known caiman.
Camera had her M-16 rifle in hand and was quickly fitting on her grenade launcher. 'No wonder Gerald Clark circled around the swamp:'
Okamoto finished prepping his rifle, kissed the crucifix around his neck, then nodded to Professor Kouwe. 'I pray you have another one of your magical powders up your sleeve:'
The shaman shook his head, eyes wide, unblinking. 'I pray you're all good shots:'
Okamoto glanced at Nate.
Nate explained, 'With their armored body plating, the only sure kill shot is the eye:'
'No, there's also through the upper palate,' Manny added, pointing a finger toward the roof of his mouth. 'But to take that shot, you'd have to be damn close:'
'Starboard side!' Camera barked, kneeling with her rifle on her shoulder.
A rippling line disturbed the flat waters, ominous and long.
'Don't take a shot unless you're sure,' Nate hissed, dropping beside her. 'You could provoke it. Only shoot if you've got a kill shot:'
With everyone dead quiet, Waxman heard Nate's warning. 'Listen to Dr. Rand. Shoot if you have a chance- but make it count!'
Rifles bristled around the periphery of each raft. Nate grabbed up his shotgun with one hand. They all waited, baking in the heat, sweat dripping into eyes, mouths drying. Around and around, the caimans circled, leaving no sign of their passage but ripples. Occasionally a raft would be bumped, tested.
'How long can they hold their breath?' Camera asked.
'Hours,' Nate said.
'Why aren't they attacking?' Okamoto asked.
Manny answered this question. 'They can't figure out what we are, if we're edible:'
The Asian Ranger looked sick. 'Let's hope they don't find out.'
The waiting stretched. The air seemed to grow thicker around them.
'What if we shot a grenade far from here?' Camera offered. 'As a distraction, something to draw them off.'
'I'm not sure it would help. It might just rile them up, get them snapping at anything that moves, like us:'
Zane spoke from the farthest raft, but his words easily reached Nate's boat. 'I say we strap some explosives to that jaguar and push it overboard. When one of the crocodiles goes for the cat, we trigger the bomb:'
Nate shuddered at this idea. Manny looked sick. But other eyes were glancing their way with contemplative expressions.
'Even if you succeeded in doing that, you'd only kill one of them,' Nate said. 'The other, clearly its mate, would go into a rampage and attack the rafts. Our best bet is to hope the pair lose interest in us and drift away, then we can paddle out of here:'
Waxman turned to Corporal Yamir, the demolition expert. 'In case the crocodiles don't get bored, let's be prepared to entertain them. Prime up a pair of the napalm bombs:'
The corporal nodded and turned to his pack.
Once again, the waiting game began. Time stretched.
Nate felt the raft tremble under his knees as one of the pair rubbed the underside of the logs with its thick tail. 'Hang on!'
Suddenly the raft bucked under them. The stern was tossed high in the air. The group clung like spiders to the bamboo. Loose packs rolled into the lake with distinct splashes. The raft crashed back to the water, jarring them all.
'Is everyone okay?' Nate yelled.
Murmurs of assent rose.
'I lost my rifle,' Okamoto said, his eyes angry.
'Better your gun than you,' Kouwe said dolefully.
Nate raised his voice. 'They're getting bolder!'
Okamoto reached out to one of their floating packs. 'My gear.'
Nate saw what he was doing. 'Corporal! Stop!'
Okamoto immediately froze. 'Shit . . :' He already had the strap of his rucksack in hand, half pulled out of the water.
'Leave it,' Nate said. 'Get away from the edge:'
The corporal released his pack with a slight splash and yanked his arm back.
But he moved too slowly.
The monster lunged up out of the depths, jaws open, water sluicing from its scales. It shot ten feet out of the swamp, a tower of armor plating and teeth as long as a man's forearm. The Ranger was pulled off his feet and shoved high into the air, screaming in shock and terror. The huge jaws clamped shut with an audible crunch of bones. Okamoto's scream changed in pitch to pain and disbelief. His body was shaken like a rag doll, legs flailing. Then the creature's bulk dropped back into the depths.
'Fire!' Waxman called.
Nate had been too stunned to move. Camera blazed with her M-16. Bullets peppered the underside of the giant, prehistoric caiman, but its yellowed belly scales were as hard as Kevlar. Even at almost point-blank range, it looked like little harm was done. Its weak points, the eyes, were hidden on the far side of its bulk.
Nate swung up his own shotgun, stretched his arm over Manny's head, and fired. A load of pellet sprayed through the empty air as the beast dropped out of range. A wasted, panicked shot.
The caiman was gone. Okamoto was gone.
Everyone was frozen in shock.
Nate's raft bobbed in the wake of the creature's passing. He stared out at the spot where the Ranger had vanished, Okamoto with his damn whistling. A red stain bubbled up from below.
Blood on the water . . . now the monsters know there's food here.
Kelly crouched with her brother in the center of their raft. Captain Waxman and Corporal Warczak knelt with their weapons ready. Yamir was finalizing his prep on two black bombs, each the size of a flat dinner plate with an electronic timer/receiver atop it. The demolitions expert leaned back. 'Done,' he said with a nod to his captain.
'Retrieve your weapon,' Waxman said. 'Be ready.'
Yamir picked up his M-16 rifle and took up watch on his side of the raft.
A splintering crash sounded behind them. Kelly swung around in time to see the third raft in their flotilla knocked high into the air, the same as Nate's raft had done a moment before. But this time, its occupants were not as lucky. Anna Fong, her grip broken, went flying, catapulted through the air by the sudden attack. The anthropologist struck the water at the same time the raft crashed back down. Zane and Olin had managed to cling to the raft, as had Sergeant Kostos and Corporal Graves.
