Sam tilted his head backward. An upside-down Rivera was sitting ten feet up the black-sand beach. “Damn,” Sam muttered. “I’ll give you this much, Rivera, you’re one tough bastard.”
Sam forced himself up onto his elbows, then sat upright with Remi’s help. He turned around. Rivera was in tough shape; his nose was broken, one of his eyes swollen shut, and his lower lip was split. The gun in his right hand was held in a rock-steady grip, however.
Rivera said, “And you’re too clever for your own good. As soon as you’re feeling better I’m going to kill you and your wife.”
“I may have tried to kill you, but I didn’t lie about this place. I could still be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
“Fine. I’ll kill you both, then find the entrance myself. The island isn’t that big.”
“It doesn’t look big now, but once you get into that jungle it’ll suddenly get a lot bigger. It would take you months to find it.”
“And how long for you?”
Sam checked his watch. “Eight hours from the time we get into the caldera.”
“Why that number?”
“Just a guess.”
“Are you stalling for time?”
“That’s part of it. Also, we want to find Chicomoztoc as much as you do. Maybe more. We’ve just got a different motive than you do.”
“I’ll give you four hours.”
Rivera stood up.
Remi helped Sam to his feet. He leaned on her as though dizzy. “Headache,” he said loudly, then whispered in Remi’s ear: “I had a gun.”
She smiled. “You did. I have it now.”
“Waistband?”
“Yes.”
“If you get a chance, shoot him.”
“Gladly.”
“I’ll try to distract him.”
HAVING TOUGHENED THEMSELVES over the past few weeks, first on Madagascar, then on Pulau Legundi, Sam and Remi found the hike up the island’s forested slope relatively easy. Rivera, however, was struggling. His broken nose forced him to breathe through his mouth, and he was now limping. Still, his years as a soldier were shining through. He kept pace with them, keeping ten feet between them and his gun.
At last they reached the top. Below them, the caldera’s slopes dropped a hundred feet to the valley floor. The bowl shape, having acted as a rain funnel for centuries, had caused the trees and vegetation to grow faster than their cousins on the exterior.
“What now?” asked Rivera.
Sam turned around in a circle, orienting himself. “My compass was in the plane, so I have to estimate this . . .” Sam walked to the right, picking his way through the trees for another fifty feet, then stopped. “It should be right about here.”
“Here?”
“Below us.”
“Explain.”
“Right after which you shoot us. No thank you.”
Rivera’s mouth tightened in a thin line. His eyes never leaving Sam’s, Rivera shifted his gun slightly right and pulled the trigger. The bullet punched through Remi’s left leg. She screamed and collapsed. Rivera shifted the gun back onto Sam, stopping him in midstep.