70
Shock blocks my breath.
Perched on this slippery chunk of stone, right over a waterfall, about to escape the jungle and Burma and a thousand deaths, breathing in this fog of mist and algae tinted with smoke, I didn’t expect to see Noah’s pale face bobbing fractions of an inch above the tumultuous current.
The only thing sustaining him is the bright orange life preserver, a heavy foam tube strapped to his chest and around the back of his neck. It’s scorched, as is his hair. Blisters mark the back of his right hand as it scrabbles at the slick rock.
My hand snatches for the handguns. Deke must have taken the silver automatic I took from Xi’s cooling corpse—can’t blame him for that, we’ll steal a mansion so we can get the damned thing framed and hang it above the fireplace. But the .38
