Silence.
Sam could hear the colobus’s hands and feet pattering away.
“They’re turning our way,” Sam whispered. “Get ready for a deep breath.”
Through the brush they watched as the Rinker’s bow came around until it was pointed directly at them. It began gliding forward, slowly closing the gap. The second man was now standing beside the driver, rifle braced on the windshield’s frame.
“Wait,” Sam rasped. “Wait . . .” When the Rinker was fifteen feet away he said, “Deep breath . . . under.”
They submerged together, each one clawing for handholds as they dragged themselves back first down the bank. When their feet sunk into the mud, they craned their necks back. On the surface, the Rinker’s bow was shoving its way into the brush pile. Sam and Remi heard muffled voices, then the cracking of branches. Leaves fluttered down and dotted the surface.
Finally, after nearly a minute, the Rinker’s propeller reversed and began churning. The boat began backing out. Sam and Remi waited until the bow swung around and the Rinker began moving away before resurfacing. They caught their breath and watched as the boat disappeared around the bend.
“They didn’t get him, did they?” Remi asked.
Sam turned and smiled at her. “That’s my girl. Animal lover until the end. No, he got away. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 17
SUKUTI ISLAND
“THERE!” REMI CALLED FROM THE BOW. “ALL STOP! BACK SLOW.”
With his view blocked by the mast, Sam throttled to neutral, let the dhow drift a bit, then reversed and eased backward around the knob of shoreline they’d been following.
“That’s good,” she called. “They’re about a mile ahead of us. Another ten minutes and they’ll make the turn north.”
Forty minutes earlier, after beaching their dhow in the cove, they’d wasted no time in getting under way. Sam and Remi hoped the Rinker was on a route that would take it along Sukuti’s southern coast and back to Okafor’s docks, as their planned approach would take them around the northern side of the island. They were anxious to reach the relative safety of the inlet that separated Little Sukuti from Big Sukuti—providing that, too, wasn’t on the Rinker’s route.
While a straight shot along the southern coast would have been the quickest route to the docks, it would also have left them exposed to any observant eyes and ears. By following the inlet north and shadowing the coast around to the western side, they would be invisible to anyone not standing atop the escarpment.
They sat in silence, watching the sun on its slow downward arc to the horizon, until finally Remi checked her watch and said, “Slow ahead.”
Sam started the engines and goosed the dhow’s throttle, easing them from behind cover. On the bow, Remi lay on her belly with the binoculars trained along the coast.
“They’re gone,” she said. “We’re clear.”
Sam shoved the throttle forward, and the dhow surged ahead. Another ten minutes passed. Remi called out: “There it is.”
Sam leaned sideways over the rail until he could see, a couple hundred yards away, the mouth of the inlet. No more than fifty feet wide, the channel looked as much like a tunnel as it did an inlet, its banks overgrown with jungle and trees arcing over the water to form an impenetrable canopy, save a patch of ten-foot-wide sky down the center.
Sam eased the dhow’s wheel to starboard. The bow came about.
Remi walked aft, ducked under the boom, and dropped to the deck beside Sam. “Jungle Cruise,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“The inlet. Remember the Disney World Jungle Cruise? That’s what this reminds me of.”
Sam chuckled. “My favorite ride as a kid.”
“Sam, it’s still your favorite ride.”
“True.”
Within minutes they’d closed to within a hundred yards of the inlet’s mouth. They felt the dhow shudder beneath their feet, and it leapt ahead, picking up five knots in as many seconds.
“Good call,” Remi said to her husband.