Silhouetted by the flare, the man was a mere outline. Sam placed the Webley’s front sight on the center point between the man’s shoulders.
“Turn, damn you . . .” While both he and Remi had taken lives before, neither enjoyed the feeling. Necessary or not, it was an ugly thing. “Turn . . .” Sam murmured.
From the main entrance a voice called, “Rakotomalala!”
The man spun around, paused a moment, then sprinted toward the entrance. Sam lowered the Webley and let out a deep breath.
He and Remi waited until they heard the interruption of the waterfall again, then Sam got up and picked his way to the entrance and through to the grotto. He crawled back between the boulders and inched his head through the cascade until he could see the lagoon. So panicked was the group that none of its members had bothered with the boulders, had rather chosen to swim back. They were just now reaching the beach. Gesticulating wildly and shouting, they related the crocodile story to the head honcho, who glared at them for a few moments, then barked an order. The men gathered Sam and Remi’s packs, and the group marched away in single file, heading downriver.
Sam watched until they disappeared around the bend, then waited another five minutes for good measure. He returned to Remi. “They’ve moved on.”
“How can we be sure?”
“We can’t, but we either move on now or wait for nightfall, and I’m not keen on staying. We’ve pushed our luck far enough with our reptilian hosts.”
Remi glanced toward the right-hand tunnel. The crocodiles had settled slightly, but the hissing and the overlapping thwap of tails told Sam and Remi the group was far from calm.
“Might be better to make a break now,” Remi conceded.
Something moved on the ramp, and slowly the elongated snout moved from the shadows. The mouth opened slowly, then closed, and the snout retreated back into darkness.
“Definitely better to make a break now,” Remi said.
CHAPTER 33
MADAGASCAR, INDIAN OCEAN
THEY TOOK THEIR TIME ON THE WAY OUT, PAUSING FIRST IN THE grotto, then repeating Sam’s peek through the cascade before sliding on their bellies through the boulders and into the lagoon. They stroked across to the beach and climbed from the water. While Remi wrung the water from her hair, Sam took off his boots and drained them.
Leaning forward, her head tilted to one side, Remi murmured to Sam, “There’s someone waving at us.”
“Where?”
Remi pointed with her eyes toward what looked like a pile of undergrowth from which was jutting a hand and forearm. The hand was holding a Webley Model Mark VI. It gesticulated wildly as though trying to warn them away.
Sam put his hand on the butt of the Webley in his waistband.
Crack!
A bullet thumped into the sand between his legs.
Sam froze, as did Remi, her hands still tangled in her hair. At the pile of undergrowth, the Kid’s arm slowly withdrew into cover.
“Guess they doubled back,” Remi observed.
“Seems so. Did you happen to read the manners and etiquette section of the Madagascar guide?”
“I thought you did that.”
“Skimmed it.”
Slowly Sam raised his hands above his head and turned around. Remi did the same. Predictably, standing above the waterfall atop the lion’s head were the six rebels. Standing near the ledge, arms akimbo, the leader called down, “No move! Understand, no move!”
Sam nodded, called back, “No move.”
UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYE of the lone sniper atop the lion’s head, the other five rebels made their way down via some unseen trail in the rocks. Soon they were standing in a semicircle around Sam and Remi. The leader stepped forward, scrutinized Sam’s eyes, then glanced over and gave Remi a foot-to-head once-over. The leader reached out, plucked the Webley from Sam’s waistband, then lifted it up for examination.
“Good gun,” he proclaimed in his broken English.