Havana Storm (Dirk Pitt 23)

Dirk looked at his sister.

“It would seem,” he said with a grimace, “that we’ve reached the end of the line.”

30

Summer gazed at the loose sandals they both wore, dreading a sprint through the jungle. Hearing the roar of the approaching pickup, she reached for the door handle. “We better get going.”

Instead, Dirk put the car in gear and drove forward. “Wait,” he said, looping the car around the dead end. He angled toward the wide, shallow river and stopped at its gravel bank.

“What are you doing?” Summer asked.

“That’s Dunn’s River.”

The rusty sign down the road had registered in Dirk’s mind. He knew that one of the major tourist attractions in Jamaica was Dunn’s River Falls, a terraced waterfall that visitors enjoyed climbing by linking arms in large groups. It explained the bevy of buses below.

“Let’s get across the river,” he said. “We can hike down the other side and hop a tour bus at the bottom.”

Too late, an engine roared and the pickup came flying over the crest. The truck was traveling much too fast—on a collision course with the Volkswagen. Dirk punched the accelerator, driving off the bank and into the river.

The truck just slipped by the VW as the driver mashed on the brakes and slid to a stop in front of a mature mango tree.

Inside the Beetle, Dirk kept the accelerator down and continued across the river. The bed was relatively flat and shallow, and the car easily bounded toward the opposite side.

“Don’t these things float?” Summer asked.

“You’re thinking of the original Beetle,” Dirk said. “I don’t know about the new models. Nor do I want to find out.”

They had slogged about thirty feet across the river when they heard a splash behind them. To Summer’s dismay, she saw the pickup truck follow them into the river. Another pop sounded behind them, and Dirk heard a whistling an instant before the dashboard disintegrated in front of him.

“We’re not going to beat them across,” Summer said, her voice tightening.

Dirk came to the same conclusion. He hadn’t counted on the pickup following them. With its lower clearance, the VW would bog down or stall sooner than the truck. Glancing in the mirror, he yelled at Summer to hang on, then turned downriver.

They had entered the river above the head of the falls and it was only a short distance to the first rocky terrace—about a three-foot drop to a small pool. With the Beetle’s drive wheels still finding traction, he centered the car with the falls and drove off the edge.

The front wheels struck an inclined rock that pitched the car’s nose up and the car landed in the pond nearly upright. The impact sent a wave splashing over the falls beyond.

Though the water nearly covered the wheels, the Volkswagen kept running, and Dirk steered it forward. He and Summer looked back to see the pickup truck hesitate at the top of the falls, then follow them.

“They’re crazy,” Summer shouted over the water’s roar.

Dirk shook his head. “Guess we need to be crazier.”

He coaxed the VW across the pond to the next falls. Unlike the first, it was a continuous descent of nearly seventy feet that angled down a series of terraced ledges. Dirk checked to ensure his sister was safely buckled in, then aligned the Beetle and drove over the edge.

The initial plunge was the sharpest, a ten-foot drop onto a narrow terrace. The VW landed nose-first, crunching the front end, but bounced up and forward. The air bags deployed with a puff of white smoke as the car skipped over the next ledge.

The Beetle bounded like a hopping frog down a long series of inclines and ledges. A group of tourists watched in shock as it tumbled past them. It caromed from one boulder to another, its tires bursting and suspension imploding, yet it remained upright. Momentum carried the VW down a long, slick rock, where it slid thirty feet through a rush of water.

Dirk and Summer’s wild ride ended at a final set of steeply terraced falls. The battered Beetle descended the incline amid a screech of metal. Striking the bottom terrace, it did a slow forward flip, splashing wheels-up into a large pool.

The inverted car floated peacefully for a moment—and then sank from view.

A nearby Jamaican tour guide abandoned his clients and waded toward the steam and bubbles that marked the VW’s resting place. He froze as something under the water grazed his shin. Then the tall, lithe figure of Summer emerged, clutching a red journal. A second later, Dirk popped to the surface a few yards away and swam to his sister.

The Jamaican gasped. “You both alive? It’s a miracle.”

“The miracle is called an air bag,” Dirk said. “You okay, sis?”