Striking the water at such a speed, each drop of falling water felt like a needle striking his body, and then he felt the ground below him disappear.
Oh shit — I’ve just gone off a waterfall!
Sam forced his eyes to open and take in his position. He was free falling to the river, nearly forty feet below. Sam struck the water with his feet pointed down, in an attempt to break the surface tension.
Even so, it felt like striking concrete.
His disappeared deep under water.
Sam kicked hard with his legs to reach the surface in the white, frothy water. He’d done enough white water kayaking over the years to know that he’d landed on grade four or five rapids. His legs fought to keep his head above water, intermittently losing the battle as he dropped over another set of sharp river cataracts.
After the third one, the river settled in eddy. With the last strength in his reserves, Sam swam to the bank of the river and looked back toward the latest set of drop offs he’d just survived.
Just in time to catch Tom Bower scream, “Woohoo!” as he fell, too.
Sam watched as his friend casually swam toward him.
“You alive, Tom?”
“Yeah, I think so. Okay, so that’s gotta be included in the next ride at Disneyland!” Tom said.
“Sure — shall we include all the angry people with guns and grenades too?”
Tom looked around.
“I think we’ve lost them. If they do try and follow, I’m pretty certain they won’t be ready with their weapons.”
“Let’s not wait to find out.”
The river ran through a valley. Large trees lined the bank. Without any clue where they were, Sam knew instinctually they were at the start of a great river. But that didn’t help him locate themselves, because rivers ran in all directions around Kanchenjunga.
“Do you have any idea where we are?”
“It looks like we’ve reached the bottom of the mountain. Only, I wouldn’t have a clue which side we’re now on. Kangchenjunga is limited in the west by the Tamur River, in the north by the Lhonak Chu and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta River.”
“The only question is, which one?”
“Yeah, we’d better find out so we can get ourselves extracted from here.”
“And probably not be too vocal about it. Given our past number of friends in the area, I doubt there are too many people we can trust.”
“That’s great, but where shall we go from here?” Tom said. “We still have less than three weeks to rescue Billie and save the world.”
A well-worn path ran above the river’s waterline. “Shall we follow it?”
“It beats the hell out of taking our chances in those rapids without anything to help.”
Three hours later, the two had descended to another clearing, where the water settled into a sandy bank. A white-water raft was tied up to a tree on the sandy bank. The name on the raft was Tamur River Adventures.
Several tourists were gearing up, ready to take the challenge of the river.
“I guess that answers the question of where we are.”
“How about we take that?”
Sam looked at the tourists getting ready for their adventure.
“They’re going to be pissed, but I’d say our need is greater.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Dr. Swan stood on the bridge of the sports yacht.
Ahead of her, she could clearly see that the river’s cataracts looked navigable on an inflatable boat, such as a Zodiac, but would be impossible in such a large vessel as the Andre Sephora.
What kind of pirates am I involved with?
Edward Worthington and Billie shared a common goal out of necessity, but the man at the helm only served to remind her that she’d been kidnapped.
She said nothing.
Billie had chosen her course of action when she sent Sam Reilly to Siberia. She was on her own. Now she just had to trust that she had chosen the right villain.
In the distance, despite the clear blue sky, she heard the rumble of thunder. Jason noticed it, too. She studied his face. The man’s face, which ordinarily displayed his overconfidence in all things, especially women, now looked suddenly serious and focused. His eyes were watching the river as though something dramatic was about to change. He started to speak a prayer in another language, most likely his native Afrikaans.
Jason tapped at his throttle. The strain of concentration became obvious on his face, as he was judging the right time to perform a task.
The volume of the sound increased abruptly.
Jason turned the boat to the left and pushed the throttle to full. Billie gripped the side of the railing to stop herself being thrown off under the pressure. Edward took another deep puff from his cigar, and stood confidently using only his sturdy feet to balance him with the agility of a much younger man.
“What the hell is that?” Billie asked.
Jason smiled at her. “That, my dear lady, is the river flooding.”
“You blew up a dam?”
Jason laughed. “Nothing of the sort. I merely had a friend of mine open the emergency floodgates. It will close automatically in thirty minutes. By that time, the river will have risen enough to allow the Andre Sephora to reach the next level of the Congo.”
“Holy shit! Won’t that water hit us with the force of a tsunami?”
He brought the sports craft around in a giant arc until it faced the rapids head on once more. His grin more demonic and tyrannical than before, Jason pushed the throttle to full speed. The bow of the yacht quickly raised above the water as it began to skim across the top of the water. “It certainly will. At full speed, barely anything other than our water jets touch the water. If I’m right, we should be able to skim over the top of it.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then, we’re all dead.”
Billie held on tighter, and reminded herself what was at stake. In front of them, a wall of rumbling water raced toward them. The rapids could no longer be distinguished from the rest of the turbid river.
“Hold on everyone.” Jason held his breath. “Here we go!”
Billie forced herself to meet the collision with her eyes open. If she was on a one-way ticket to meet her maker, she didn’t want to be the last to know.
And then the Andre Sephora struck the wall of water.
The collision sent them high into the air, the way a boat jump would have. Jason touched the helm just lightly enough to maintain a perfectly straight direction. The water jets propelled them just above the frothy water, as though they were flying.
Less than a minute later, the water settled and the sports craft became more controllable in the water. Jason exhaled and then took a long, slow, deep breath in.
“Well everyone, I think we made it.”
“You could have given us a little more of a heads up that you were about to try and kill us!” Billie shouted.
Jason smiled. “Yes, I could have. But would it have made a difference? We still need to get further up the river.”
Billie ignored him and walked to the deck of the bow.
Soon, she noticed that the river was no longer traveling fast, and then it slowed completely. The emergency floodgates must have been closed again. Their intrepid skipper slowed the boat down to a crawl. Without the gate open, the height of the river quickly diminished, and their risk of striking a sandbar increased.
Traveling slowly into the much narrower river, Billie noticed the dense forest now threatened to swallow the banks with them inside. The sunlight all but disappeared as the surrounding canopies of the massive trees dwarfed their vessel.