Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(68)

After six minutes of running, he activated the screen on his watch to check his position with regard to the stream. In the end, it turned out to be unnecessary. The water from recent rains had swollen it to the point that it had washed out part of the road. Rapp slid down an embankment into the muddy creek, alternating between it and the banks, depending on which maximized his speed. After about a hundred yards he heard the distant whine of the dirt bikes starting up. The timer on his watch read eight minutes and four seconds. Frankly, a minute longer than Rapp had figured. Apparently, that was what passed for honor among thieves.

If they weren’t complete morons, it would take only about three minutes before they found the place where he’d ducked into the jungle. At the pace he’d set, his footprints were clearly visible, though it would be impossible to determine whether he’d headed upstream or downstream. Best bet, the dirt bikers would radio it in and split up to chase. The dogs would be put in vehicles and driven to the place where Rapp had abandoned the road. So call it another five before he had an organized chase coming up behind him.

Not surprisingly, the microscopic topographical map hadn’t provided a very accurate picture of the terrain. Instead of narrowing into a tiny scar cut through the jungle, the stream kept getting wider, deeper, and more powerful. Cascades that were half waterfall and half mudslide fed it from the canyon walls, making it increasingly hard for Rapp to keep his footing.

Overhead, the clouds were building, but at a pace that was slower than he’d hoped. The rain he was counting on to save his ass from the dogs seemed a long way off.

When the pack become audible again, they were going nuts. The question now was, would their handlers try to keep them under control or would they let them run?

The answer came about a minute later when the sound of their barking suddenly diminished. They were no longer straining against their handlers. They were loose.

The jungle at the edges of the now thirty-foot-wide river was too dense for a human to move through, but the dogs would manage it pretty well. Rapp abandoned the shallow water on the right bank and went for the deeper center. He selected a thick, leafy tree from the floating debris and tangled himself it in. A branch behind his head kept his nose and mouth out of the water while the rest of him floated along beneath the surface.

Because he’d traveled mostly in the water, the dogs wouldn’t have much to work with. They’d have to move along both banks, trying to pick up a scent. As long as the river kept moving and he stayed submerged, he’d probably be all right.

Probably.

After an hour of floating along at a less than thrilling three or four knots, the situation started to deteriorate. On the positive side, his femur wasn’t yet a dog toy. On the negative side, it was potentially a few seconds from becoming one.

There were two pit bulls on the east bank, staying roughly even with him. They seemed to sense that their prey was close but hadn’t yet focused on the tree he was hidden beneath. A Doberman was on the opposite bank, hanging a bit farther back with its handler alongside. Two soldiers were visible in the shallow water to the west, scanning the dense jungle around them with assault rifles gripped tight.

One got a call on his radio and he spoke into it for a few seconds. His words were unintelligible, but his tone and gestures weren’t hard to decipher. They figured Rapp was in the river because the dogs couldn’t pick up his scent, but they had no idea where. The response was also audible, a static-ridden jumble of anger and frustration from Carlos Esparza. He wouldn’t be too worried yet, but he’d be looking up at the same darkening clouds as Rapp was.

? ? ?

When the clouds finally opened up, they did so with no warning at all. One minute Rapp was floating along with an overheated Rottweiler swimming about ten yards in front of him and the next he was fighting to breathe as water came at him from every direction.

The shouts of the soldiers were swallowed by the downpour, as were their outlines. Shots rang out but it was impossible to know if they thought they’d spotted a target or were just using the sound to locate each other. The Rottweiler, again proving its intelligence, made a beeline for the nearest land bank as the river began to swell.

Rapp stayed put, struggling against a current that kept pushing him under. He was finally forced to unhook his feet from the trunk and let them dangle in the deepening water. His head was still among the tree’s leafy branches, but now high enough to get a few breaths between waves crashing over him.

From the impact of the stationary objects he was colliding with, he could tell that the speed of the water had picked up significantly. He held on, knowing that he was leaving his pursuers well behind. Soon, though, it became too dangerous. The water was filling with larger, more jagged debris, and the current was becoming impossible to fight. Ahead, the channel narrowed enough to give him a shot at reaching the east bank.

Despite his having a gift for swimming that had helped him win the Iron Man in his youth, the fifteen-foot trip turned out to be harder than it looked. He took a few good hits from deadfall, one particularly large tree sending him to the bottom and dragging him across the rocks for almost a minute.

When he finally came up, he found himself only a few yards from the edge of the jungle. A few hard strokes put him in range of a partially submerged tree and he managed to use it to pull himself to safety. After crawling onto the muddy bank, he lay there vomiting what felt like a tanker truck full of muddy water. Finally, he pulled himself beneath a bush, using the leaves to protect himself from the pounding rain while he got his breathing under control.