Ghost Flight

44

They’d been three days on the Rio de los Dios – three days during which Jaeger had brooded over the next stage of their journey until it had driven him almost to distraction. Three days travelling due west on a river flowing at an average speed of six kilometres an hour: via the water, they’d covered a good 120 kilometres.

Jaeger was pleased with their progress. That kind of distance would have taken many times as long and proven many times more exhausting – not to mention fraught with danger – had they attempted it overland.

It was approaching mid-afternoon on the third day when he spotted what he was looking for: the Meeting of the Ways. Here the Rio de Los Dios was joined by a slightly smaller watercourse, the Rio Ouro – the Golden River. Whereas the Rio de los Dios was full of silty residues from the jungle, and dark brown – almost black – in colour, the Rio Ouro was golden-yellow, its waters being rich in sandy sediments swept down from the mountains.

Where the two converged, the colder, denser waters of the Rio Ouro proved reluctant to intermingle with those of its warmer, less dense cousin, hence what Jaeger could see ahead of him – a striking section of river where black and white ran side by side for a good kilometre or more, almost without mixing.

At the Meeting of the Ways, the smaller confluence – the Rio Ouro – would become subsumed into the Rio de los Dios. And at that moment, Jaeger and his team would be just three kilometres short of their must-stop position – for ahead lay an impassable barrier, the point where the river tumbled close to a thousand feet over the Devil’s Falls.

The journey thus far had taken them across a high plateau cloaked in jungle. Where the Rio de los Dios thundered over the falls marked the point at which the plateau was torn in two by a jagged fault line. The land to the west of there lay a thousand feet lower, forming an endless carpet of lowland rainforest.

Their end point – the mystery air wreck – lay some thirty kilometres onwards from the Devil’s Falls, in the midst of that lowland jungle.

Jaeger nosed his canoe ahead, his paddle dipping into the waters noiselessly and causing barely a ripple. As a former Royal Marines Commando, he was well at home on the water. He’d led the river leg, helping those behind navigate through the more treacherous shallows. He reflected upon their next move. Decisions now would prove critical.

The journey downriver had been relatively peaceful, at least compared to what had gone before. But he feared that with landfall approaching, this transitory period of stillness was about to come to an end.

He could detect a new threat resonating in the air now: a deep, throaty roar filled his ears, as if a hundred thousand wildebeest were thundering over an African plain in a massive stampede.

He glanced ahead.

On the horizon he could see a tower of rising mist – the spray thrown up by the Rio de los Dios as it cascaded over the edge of the rift, forming one of the world’s tallest and most dramatic waterfalls.

There was no way over the Devil’s Falls – that much had been obvious from studying the aerial photos. The only possible route ahead appeared to be a pathway of sorts leading down the escarpment, but that lay a good day’s march north of here. Jaeger’s plan was to leave the river shortly and to undertake the last stage of the journey – including the steep descent – on foot.

Skirting around the Devil’s Falls would take them a good distance out of their way, but there was no alternative as far as he could determine. He’d studied the terrain from every angle, and the path down the escarpment was the only way to proceed. As to who or what exactly had made that path – it remained a mystery.

It could be wild animals.

It could be Indians.

Or it could be that mystery force that was out there somewhere – armed, hostile and dangerous.