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
death will spook it away."
Kelly knew this wouldn't happen. These creatures had to be hundreds and hundreds of years old. Mates for life, the only pair of its kind sharing this ecosystem.
The ripples faded. The lake grew quiet again.
Everyone kept eyes fixed on the waters around them, holding their breath or wheezing tensely. Minutes stretched. The sun baked everyone.
"Where did it go?" Zane whispered, hovering beside his ashen colleague. Anna, soaked and terrified, just trembled.
"Maybe it did leave," Frank mumbled.
The trio of rafts, rudderless, slowly drifted alongside the bulk of the dead monster. Nate's boat was on the far side of the body. Kelly met his eye. He nodded, trying to convey calm assurance, but even the experienced jungle man looked scared. Behind him, the jaguar crouched beside its master, hackles raised.