He dragged the makeshift raft into the shallows and sat astride it, testing for strength. It took his weight comfortably, floating high on the water, just as he’d intended. That done, he figured he was ready.
He had little doubt that it could manage Narov’s weight.
He moored the craft and paused to filter some water. It was always smart to keep your bottles full, especially with the amount he was sweating. Using the Katadyn, he sucked up dirty brown river water via the intake tube, the filter jetting clear, crisp liquid into his bottle. He drank as much as he could before refilling both bottles.
He was just finishing when a fatigued voice cut through the clammy heat: fragile; tight with pain; hoarse with exhaustion.
‘Boring, stupid… and half crazy.’ Narov had come to, and she’d been watching him test his raft. She gestured to it weakly. ‘No way do you get me on that. It is time to accept the inevitable and go on alone.’
Jaeger ignored the remark. He placed the weapons to either side of the craft, facing forwards, then returned to Narov, squatting down before her.
‘Captain Narov, your carriage awaits.’ He gestured at the makeshift raft. He could feel his guts twisting with the thought of what lay ahead, but he did his best to suppress it. ‘I’m going to carry you down and place you aboard. It’s reasonably stable, but try not to thrash about. And don’t knock the weapons overboard.’
He smiled at her encouragingly, but she could barely respond.
‘Correction,’ she whispered. ‘Not half crazy: clinically insane. But as you see, I am in no fit state to argue.’
Jaeger lifted her up. ‘That’s my girl.’
Narov scowled. She was clearly too finished to think of a suitable retort.
Jaeger laid her gently across the raft, warning her to keep her long legs well tucked in. She curled up into a foetal position, the craft sinking a good six inches under her weight, but still most of it remained above the surface.
They were good to go.
Jaeger waded into deeper water, pushing the raft ahead of him, thick mud squelching underfoot. The water felt lukewarm and oily with sediment. Every now and then his boot encountered a lump of rotting vegetation – most likely a tree branch – embedded in the heavy silt. As he clambered over them, they threw up long lines of bubbles – gases from their decay rushing to the surface.
When the water was up to chest height, Jaeger kicked off. The current was stronger than he’d expected, and he didn’t doubt that they’d be carried fast downstream. But it was what lurked in the water that made him so keen to get the river crossing over with.
34
Jaeger kicked across the first open stretch of water, keeping both hands on the raft. Narov lay before him, curled into a ball, unmoving. It was crucial that he kept going straight and steady. If the raft were spun violently or became unbalanced, she would tumble off, and would be as good as dead in the water.
She was too far gone to fend for herself, or even to swim for it.
Jaeger’s eyes scanned the river to either side. He was almost level with the surface, giving him a weird, otherworldly perspective. He figured this was what it must be like to be one of the Rio de los Dios caimans, cruising the waters mostly submerged and hunting for their prey.
He searched to left and right, checking for any that might be heading their way.
He was twenty yards from the mudbank ahead when he sighted the first. It was the movement that drew his eye. He watched as it slithered into the river a good hundred yards or so upstream. Ungainly on land, the massive creature moved with a deadly grace and speed as it entered the water, and Jaeger felt every muscle tensing for the fight.
But instead of heading downstream, towards them, the caiman turned its snout northwards, nosing its way upriver for a good fifty yards or more. Then it climbed out on to a mudbank and went back to what it had been doing earlier – sunbathing.
Jaeger heaved a sigh of relief. That was one caiman that clearly wasn’t feeling hungry.
A few moments later he felt his boots touch the bottom. Wading now, he pushed the raft up on to the first patch of land – a stretch of boggy sediment a dozen feet across. He moved to the front of the craft, and began to haul it onwards, his limbs burning with the effort. With each step his legs sank up to the knees in the black, clinging mud.
Twice he lost his grip completely, falling on to his hands and knees and getting splattered all over in stinking filth. For a moment he was reminded of the swamp that he and Raff had hidden in on Bioko island. Difference was, there had been no giant caimans to contend with there.
By the time he reached the edge of the deeper water again, he was covered from head to toe in putrid black gunk and rotting matter, and his pulse was thumping like a machine gun with the exertion.
He figured there were two more shallow mudbanks that he couldn’t navigate his way around; that he’d be forced to cross. No doubt about it, he was going to be utterly finished by the time they reached the far side.
If they reached the far side.
He waded in again, pulling the raft after him, then resumed the prone position behind it. As he kicked out and propelled the craft towards the centre of the river, the current tugged at it more powerfully. Jaeger was forced to struggle with all his might to keep it balanced, his legs pumping to make any headway.
Downstream the water was shallower, but faster moving near the bank. Jaeger could see the river getting turbulent as it coursed over rocks that created a stretch of white water. He needed to get across before they were swept into those rapids.
The raft neared the second of the mudbanks. As it did so, Jaeger felt an unexpected touch. Something had brushed against his right arm. He glanced up, only to find that it was Narov’s hand. Her fingers reached out, curled around his, and she gave a faint squeeze.
He didn’t know quite what she was trying to tell him; reading this woman was nigh-on impossible. But maybe, just maybe, the ice queen was starting to melt a little.
‘I know what you are thinking.’ Her voice barely reached him, reduced to a half-whisper as it was by all the toxins burning through her system. ‘But I am not being intimate. I am trying to alert you. The first caiman – it is coming.’
Using his wrists to keep hold of the raft, Jaeger grabbed both weapons. He held them by their pistol grips, index fingers curled around the triggers, barrels menacing the water to left and right, his eyes scanning the surface.
‘Where?’ he hissed. ‘Which side?’
‘Eleven o’clock,’ Narov whispered. ‘More or less dead ahead. Forty feet. Closing fast.’
It was coming at them in his blind spot.
‘Hold tight,’ Jaeger yelled.
He released his grip on the weapon on his left, slipped free the knot that held the combat shotgun, grabbed it and dropped off the raft, diving beneath it, kicking hard with both legs. As he came up on the far side, he caught sight of a massive black snout knifing through the water towards him, a ribbed, scaly, armoured body snaking out behind it a good five metres or more.
It was a black caiman all right, and a real monster.
Jaeger levelled the weapon just as the caiman’s jaws yawned wide before him. He was staring down its very throat. There was no time to aim. He pulled the trigger at close to point-blank range, his left hand jerking the pump action backwards and ratcheting in another round, and another.