Over the top of the cliff's edge, a wall of flame shot half a mile out, and flumed three times that distance into the sky. Currents of rising air buffeted them, swirling eddies of fire moving with them. If it wasn't for the waterfall's insulation, they would've been fried on the stairs. But the waterfall was a mixed blessing. Its flow, shaken by the blast, cast vast amounts of water over them. But everyone held tight.
Soon bits of flaming debris began to tumble over the edge and down the fall. Luckily the swift current cast most of the large pieces of trunk and branch beyond their perch. But it was still terrifying to see entire trees, cracked and blown into the stream, tumble past, on fire.
As the heat welled up and away from them, Kostos yelled down. "Keep moving, but watch for falling debris:"
Nate crouched up. Everyone began to climb to their feet, dazed.
They had made it!
As the others started down, he reached for his father. "C'mon, Dad. Let's get out of here:"
With his father's hand held in his own, Nate felt the ground vibrate, a tremoring rumble. He instinctively knew this was bad. Oh, shit . . .
He dove atop his father, a scream on his lips. "Down! Everyone back down!"
The second explosion deafened them. Nate screamed from the pain. It blew with such force that he was sure the cliff would fall atop them.
From the mouth of the tunnel above, a jet of fire belched out, blasting into the fall of water. Scalding
steam rolled down over them.
Nate craned upward and watched a second belch of fire blow from the tunnel, then a third. Smaller flames shot out of tinier crevices in the cliff face all around, like a hundred flickering fiery tongues. All of them an eerie blue.
All the while, the ground continued to shake and rumble.
Nate kept his father pinned under him.
Rocks and dirt shattered outward. Entire uprooted trees shot like flaming missiles through the sky to crash down into the lower valley.
Then this too died down.
No one moved as smaller rocks tumbled past. Again the waterfall protected them, deflecting most of the debris, or reducing their speed to bruising rather than deadly velocities.
After several minutes, Nate raised his head enough to view the damage.
He spotted Kouwe a step above his father. The professor looked dazed and sickened. He stared back at Nate, face pale with shock. "Anna . . . when you yelled. . . I was too slow . . . the explosion . . . I couldn't catch her in time." His eyes flicked to the long tumble below. "She fell."
Nate closed his eyes. "Oh, God."
He heard mournful cries flow up around them. Anna had not been alone in falling to her death. Nate pushed to his knees. His father coughed and rolled onto his side, looking ashen.
After a time, the group crawled down the stairs, beaten, bloody, and in shock.
They gathered at the foot of the falls, bathed in cool spray. Three Banali tribesmen had also met their deaths on the stair.
"What was that second explosion?" Sergeant Kostos asked.
Nate remembered the strange blue flame. He asked for one of the canteens with the Yagga sap. He poured out a grape-sized drop and used Carrera's lighter to ignite it. A tall blue flame flared up from the dollop of sap. "Like copal," Nate said. "Combustible. The entire tree went up like a roman candle. Roots and all, I imagine, from the way the ground shook."
A deep mournful silence spread over the smaller camp.
Finally Carrera spoke. "What now?"
Nate answered, his voice fierce. "We make that bastard pay. For Manny, for Olin, for Anna, for all the Ban-ali tribespeople"
"They have guns," Sergeant Kostos said. "We have one Bailey. They outnumber us more than two to one."
"To hell with that." Nate kept his voice cold. "We have a card that trumps all that."
"What's that?" Kostos asked.
"They think we're dead."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Midnight Raid
1 1:48 PM.
AMAZON JUNGLE
Kelly's eyes still stung with tears. With her hands bound behind her back, she couldn't even wipe them away. She was secured to a stake under a leanto of woven palm leaves that deflected the gentle rain that now fell. The clouds had rolled in as full night had set, which had suited her kidnappers just fine. "The darker the better," Favre had exulted. They made good time and were now enveloped in thick jungle cover well south of the swamp.
But despite the darkness and the distance, the northern skies glowed a fiery red, as if the sun were trying to rise from that direction. The explosions that had lit up the night had been spectacular, shooting a fireball high into the sky, followed by a scattering of flaming debris.
The sight had burned all hope from her. The others were dead.
Favre had set a hard pace after that, sure that the government's helicopters would be winging to the fires posthaste. But so far the skies had remained clear. There was no whump-whumping of military air vehicles. Favre kept a constant watch on the skies. Nothing.
Maybe Olin's signal had never made it out. Or maybe the helicopters were still en route.