galley as she sped towards the whirlpool's boiling waters. For one sickening moment, it appeared that the Mouth of Hell would swallow them whole but as the Discovery entered the whirlpool centrifugal forces pushed her to the outer lip, then threw her into the waterfall, where she was deluged. The jolt threw Ross to the floor, smashing his left hand. The pain was excruciating as he scrabbled to his feet. From their wide-eyed expressions he could tell that the others were as terrified as he was. To his surprise, Mendoza's eyes were closed and he was crossing himself. Even Sister Chantal looked frightened. Then everything darkened and he braced himself for the impact.
It never came.
Instead the sound fell away, became muffled, as if someone had closed a door. He moved to the deck. They were no longer under the waterfall but in a tunnel inside the cliff. The river evidently didn't end in the whirlpool and the cliff face, but continued into the rock. He guessed that this area of the jungle was riddled with subterranean rivers, the lower ones fed by the whirlpool.
As if on Charon's ferry to the underworld, they travelled down the dark waterway. No one spoke. Ross's main fear was that the river would descend deeper and spill them into an abyss.
They emerged, eventually, into a small pool. When Ross looked back he saw they had come through a ridge of rock that curved round on both sides as far as he could see, resembling the edge of a large crater. The contours were disguised beneath trees and thick foliage but from this angle its shape was clear. Ahead, a narrow stream meandered into the jungle.
'Let me see your hand,' Hackett said. Ross winced as the doctor felt it. 'Looks like you've fractured your wrist. It's nastier than it looks and could take a while to heal.' He went to his cabin and returned with a black medical bag. 'Ideally, you'd have an X-ray to find out if you need surgery and then we'd put it in plaster, but that's not an option here. If I put it in a tight bandage and you limit the use of the hand, it should be okay for now.'
'Senor Hackett,' said a voice from the wheelhouse.
'What is it, Juarez?'
'The radio's not working. I can't find anything wrong with it but it's dead. Probably got damaged back there.'
Hackett was bandaging Ross's hand and wrist. 'A buggered radio means we're stuck out here with no means of communicating with the outside world. We're on our own. Be grateful you haven't broken a leg.'
Zeb was studying Falcon's directions and a copy of the Voynich translation. 'We've got to carry on down that stream, but even I can see it's too narrow for the Discovery.'
Ross pointed to her two dinghies, each about eight feet long. 'How about those?'
Hackett nodded. 'Three to a boat. And whatever we need to take with us.' He turned to Juarez and Mendoza. 'Why don't you two get them down and start transferring supplies and equipment? Take the guns and machetes, too.'
'I'll help,' said Zeb.
Sister Chantal was sitting in the galley, eyes closed. Ross rested his good hand on her shoulder. 'You okay?'
She opened her eyes, focused on him and smiled. 'Yes,' she said. 'I'm fine.' He studied her anxiously. Falcon's directions were even more cryptic from this point.
For the next hour and a half they transferred all they needed from the Discovery to the two dinghies. Ross, Sister Chantal and Hackett would travel in one boat, Mendoza, Zeb and Juarez in the second. Finally, as they were boarding, Hackett returned to the Discovery. He had a key in his hand.
'What are you doing?' asked Mendoza. 'You've already battened down the hatches and locked the doors.'
Hackett inserted the key in a black box by the wheelhouse and turned it. 'Arming the alarm.'
Zeb laughed and Ross couldn't restrain a smile. Hackett had been so stoic in handling the attack by the bandits and negotiating the Mouth of Hell that Ross had almost forgotten his obsessive habits. Genuine crises seemed not to faze the Englishman, but minor concerns elicited disproportionate anxiety.
Zeb got into her boat. 'Nigel, I can understand you closing her up to keep out animals, but an alarm? Who the fuck's going to steal her out here?'
'You can't be too careful,' said Hackett. He sounded hurt.
'But who the hell's going to hear the alarm out here?' said Zeb.
'It's a deterrent, and it's my boat,' he said.
Zeb returned to her notes and the Voynich translation. 'Our guiding priest warns us that this waterway is filled with dragon-like creatures.'
'Crocodiles,' said Sister Chantal.
'Makes sense,' said Hackett calmly.
'Shit,' said Zeb.
'Juarez, you know about Amazon crocodiles,' said Hackett. 'They shouldn't trouble us in the boats, should they?'
'No,' said Juarez, with reassuring confidence, as the two boats set out in convoy. Then, after a pause: 'But we must be careful if there are many of them.'
Ross shifted uncomfortably on the small seat. The wooden planks that formed the boat's hull seemed thin and insubstantial. 'How many crocodiles might there be in an infested river?'
'Two or three,' said Juarez.
Ross relaxed a little.
'Hundred,' clarified Hackett.
38
In idle moments Zeb found herself comparing Nigel Hackett with Osvaldo Mendoza and discovering, to her surprise – and concern – that the quirky Englishman intrigued her. Hackett was infuriating and a right royal pain in the ass, but undeniably interesting. How could he worry about the Discovery's being stolen in the middle of the jungle but row calmly down a narrow river infested with crocodiles?
Zeb wasn't calm, far from it. Not much scared her and she revered Mother Nature in all her diversity, but she hated crocodiles. Even more than snakes. And snakes scared the crap out of her. After the first few miles, though, she stopped counting the crocodiles. There were too many.
And it was getting dark.
She wasn't sure whether she preferred being able to see the beasts in all their hideous glory or just their shapes in the dusk. As night fell, the stars were reflected in the dark water and Zeb would have been lost in the beauty of the place, had it not been for the glassy eyes that broke the surface like twin periscopes, glowing ruby- red in the reflection of her torch. They remained motionless, but her light stirred up a hollow grunt. There were many such pairs of eyes and, as the boats passed them, the warning grunt arose. Zeb could barely see her companions and no one spoke. It was as though she was alone in the velvet dark.
Gradually, Zeb grew aware of light above and behind her. Over the jagged horizon of trees an orange disc appeared. She knew it was the moon but it felt like sunrise on another planet. As the stars dimmed, the water turned silver, and she became acutely aware that she was the alien in the unfamiliar environment.
In the half-light, she heard Juarez's voice, hushed but clear: 'Every crocodile has a different eye colour. Green and orange are common. This is the black caiman. Its eyes are clear but they look red because the light reflects off their blood vessels.'
Silence fell, only to be broken by another grunt. This time when Zeb moved her torch she saw that it had come from Juarez, crouched in the front of the boat. He was answered by a grunt from near the shore. 'I have confused them,' he whispered. 'They don't know if we're intruders or one of them.'
The river fell silent again.
Then Zeb heard a deeper grunt directly behind her. She twisted away, rocking the boat, and aimed her light in its direction, revealing a pair of eyes wider apart than any she had seen, red lights mounted on the end of a thick black log. If the distance between them was proportional to the size of the animal the creature had to be
