The Quiet Game

Only the center of the stream is smooth now, a black torrent rushing through the narrow canyon, throwing off a mist of silver froth and spray. The kayak hurtles down this black tunnel like it's on rails, but of course it's not. If the bow gets turned around, we could spin out of control and be smashed on a rock, or capsize and be pinned by an inescapable hydraulic.

"Lean right!" Stone yells.

The kayak's nose pulls left, then slingshots around a bend, its fabric skin scraping the rock wall with a resilient wail.

"Shit! They're covering the chute!"

It's difficult to judge distance in the dark, but about a hundred yards ahead of us, a pair of headlights slices downward and across the narrow river, bright as a bonfire in the dark. And where those lights wait, guns are waiting too.

"We can't make it past that!" I shout toward the stern. "We've got to get out!"

"Too late. We're in the canyon."

A jet of fear flushes through my system. I feel like a steer being driven into a slaughter chute. "We've got to get out of the kayak, then!"

"We can't run the chute without it."

I turn in disbelief, but all I see is Stone's solemn face as he expertly wields the paddle.

The current continues to accelerate as the river is forced into an ever narrowing channel. The lights are only seventy yards away now.

"They won't see us until we're right on top of them," Stone assures me. "We'll be moving so fast, they'll only have a couple of seconds to fire."

"What if they have automatic weapons?"

"We need suppressing fire. Can you handle a rifle?"

I don't bother to answer him. If we go through that chute in this kayak, we'll be cut to pieces by anyone sighting down the beams of those headlights.

"Cage? Are you listening?"

As the lights loom closer, a bowel-churning roar reverberates between the walls. One thing I remember my raft guide telling me-just before he broke his leg-was that some white-water guides train by floating rivers wearing only life vests. If they can do that in preparation for making a living, Stone and I can do it without vests to save our lives.

"I said, take this rifle!" he yells.

Without hesitation, I throw myself onto the right gunwale of the kayak and press down with all my weight. Stone screams like a madman, but I ignore him, leaning harder and farther forward until the first rush of water surges over the side.

"Stop it, you damn fool!"

And then it is done. The inflatable tube that forms the right gunwale digs beyond the point of no return, and the river pours into the boat, swamping us in seconds. The shock of the cold water steals my breath again, but I roll over the side and into the main current.

The kayak is still floating upright-if mostly submerged-but Stone won't be able to get it above water without my help. At last he heaves himself over the rear gunwale and into the river. As soon as he's clear, the inflatable rises in the water. With a powerful wrenching move I flip it upside down in the current. When I let go, the buoyant craft rights itself as though nothing had happened.

"You stupid son of a bitch!" Stone appears beside me like a man in the last stages of drowning, his eyes furious points of light in the darkness.

I don't reply. The water is driving toward the chute with the momentum of a locomotive, Stone and me and the kayak bobbing along in it like fishing corks. I've got to slow us down a little, put us a few seconds behind the kayak-

A sledgehammer blow to the chest stops me dead in the water. Purely out of instinct, I grab whatever hit me and reach out for Stone with my legs. An explosive grunt sounds beside me as Stone collides with the object, and I lock my legs around his waist.

It's a tree trunk. A trunk the width of a man's thigh and smooth as glass, wedged into a crack in the ledge from which it fell. The river is trying to rip Stone's body from between my knees, but I hold him fast. With a supreme effort, I flex my stomach muscles and pull him higher in the water.

"Grab the tree!" I gasp. "Grab the tree!"

He drapes one arm over it, loses his grip, then at last manages to get both arms over the trunk.

"Can you hold yourself?" I ask, my legs burning from exertion.

He nods weakly, his face white.

As soon as I relax my leg muscles, the river sweeps both our bodies up onto the surface, holding us in near-horizontal positions. Forty yards away, halogen headlights illuminate a thirty-foot stretch of the chute like searchlights.

"Boat! Boat!" screams a voice from the roar at the end of the little canyon. A voice from the lights.

The illuminated water in the chute churns into boiling chaos as hundreds of bullets shred its surface. The kayak materializes in the headlights as though by magic and instantly explodes into confetti that sails through the bluish beams like the remnants of a child's balloon.

"Christ," Stone coughs.

"Listen," I hiss in his ear, hoping my raft guide knew what he was talking about. "You go through feet first. On your back, feet first, okay? That cushions the rocks."