Forbidden River

“You don’t mention on your website that you’re a woman. You don’t have a photo.” Because he was damn sure it would’ve given him extra incentive to book her, on top of her stellar reviews and safety record. “Was that deliberate?”

“I don’t say I’m a man, either. If people assume the wrong thing, that’s on them, not me. I don’t want my gender to help me or hold me back. I’ve had journalists wanting to make a big deal out of it. Even a publisher once, though she was more interested in...” She frowned. “I say no to everything. I don’t want to be the ‘plucky aviatrix keeping up with the big boys.’”

He got the feeling that’d happened before—and that it was the big boys who did the keeping up. They rose over a braided river, the shallow, bleached water in no hurry. The Awatapu’s lower reaches. Around him the chopper felt weightless, a mosquito next to the albatrosses he was used to.

“I guess what I’m asking,” he said, “is how a civilian pilot in probably the least gun-crazy country in the world knows her sniper rifles.”

“Nine years in the New Zealand air force.”

Ah. “Flying choppers?”

“Yep, though I started on transport craft—Orions, Hercules.”

“They’re still making those things?”

“The ones I flew were Vietnam relics. Of course I grew up with visions of racing Skyhawks, but by the time I enlisted they’d been sold.”

“You didn’t fly other jets?”

“We didn’t have any.”

“An air force without jets? You serious?”

“And our emblem is a kiwi, a flightless bird. Go figure.” She activated the radio. “I’m just going to call in.”

She spoke in clear, clipped shorthand. Phonetic call sign, position, altitude, direction, destination. Ahead, the last of the spring snow clung to the range’s shadowy folds, in denial about the blue dome that curved above.

“To be fair,” she said when she’d signed off, “all that Top Gun shit went out with the nineties. The future’s in drones, which doesn’t leave many options for real combat pilots. I’m not into that remote-control crap. If you don’t have the guts to go to a place you have no business blowing it up.”

“Where did you serve?”

“Samoa, the Philippines, hunting pirates in the Middle East... Took a bunch of scientists to Antarctica one summer. Mostly disaster relief and humanitarian missions, which is how it should be.”

“Word. Though they can cut you up as much as combat. Why did you leave?”

Silence. “We had a...family crisis. My koro—my grandfather—he’s lived in Wairoimata all his life, and he was struggling to get his head around it. And my brother and I needed to...get away. So we made a pact to come down here for a bit. Lie low, look out for Koro. Of course, Koro thinks it’s us who needed him. Didn’t mean to stay this long but it’s one of those places that sucks you in. Besides, now I have this monster to pay off.” She slid a hand across the top of the instrument panel. “So I’m here for a while, like it or not.”

He got the feeling she liked it okay. There was more to her story, but if she didn’t want to share, then all good. Who was he to pry? Happy families weren’t his thing, either, not anymore.

“I know a guy you might know,” he said. “Ex-legionnaire. Came to us from the New Zealand army.”

“Yeah, because I know everyone in this country. We all went to school together. Or is this more of a ‘You’re brown, he’s brown, so you must know each other’ kind of thing?”

“Hey, I’m just as brown as you.”

“So you should know better.”

He laughed. He was almost sad it was such a short flight.

Way below, the chopper’s long shadow flickered over green rock-strewn foothills, like some slimy black creature rolling and jerking over the land.

“Okay, Cowboy, what’s his name?” Tia asked, the words rushing out, like she’d been trying not to ask.

“Austin something. Austin Fale—Falelo...”

She quietly swore, a whisper in the headset. “Austin Faletolu. He used to date my brother. I hate that.”

“What, that he dated your brother?”

“No, that I know the random guy you’re talking about.”

“It happens a lot?”

“More than it should in a country this size.”

They fell silent, he in awe, as the landscape got wilder. Barely tamed farmland gave way to rainforest, and trees in turn succumbed to a desert of jagged rocks and brown tussock. Along the edge of the range, fresh landslides left plummeting scars of scoria. A country on the move, tossing and turning and refusing to settle into sleep.

Man, he felt alive. Anticipation churned in his stomach and his skin buzzed. Not a wired adrenaline, like the start of an operation, but a lightness, a freedom. Escape in T-minus ten.

“You have travel insurance, a will?” Tia asked.

Aaaand bubble burst.

CHAPTER TWO

CODY SHIFTED IN his seat. “Yeah, I got a will.” His father’s lawyers had insisted on a succession plan for the business, though if they were smart they’d skip him. “But you think any insurer’s gonna give a reasonable quote for this?” He could fund an evacuation anyway. Or the repatriation of his remains. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you’re well paid for the search and rescue.”

They cleared the seam of the range and turned south. The view switched to black and white, a rocky alpine plateau with fog filling the basins and dips. Farther into the mountains the ground snow thickened from tattered lace to a sheet to a blanket. In a valley between two craggy peaks spread a blue-tinted tongue of ice. The glacier. No sign of climbers.

He zipped his jacket higher. It was high-tech but lightweight, like most of the clothes he carried. Tia turned west and the sunlight bounced off the glacier, into his eyes. He shut them until the burn passed. Shame he wasn’t getting on the water until 0600. He needed to blast off the nerves in his belly. He felt a nudge on his thigh. Tia pointed down. Carving around massive boulders was a river of milky turquoise, so vivid it seemed to glow.

“Estupendo,” he whispered.

“Indeed. The Awatapu.”

“Hell. I thought the photos on the web were doctored.”

“Nope. Cool, eh?”

Tia followed the river’s winding path. Final approach to Nowhere. As the altitude dropped, rock and snow yielded to tussock and thick khaki scrub. The river narrowed into boulder-strewn white-water corridors, flared into blue pools lipped with beaches of ashen stones, narrowed, flared, narrowed, flared, growing faster and wilder as more streams washed in. Man, he wanted a piece of that.

Tia navigated down into a clearing beside a red-roofed hut along the river, blond tussock flattening under them. If he’d closed his eyes he wouldn’t have sensed the moment of contact. She radioed in as she shut down. He pulled off his headset. As the blades whined to a halt and the engine’s white noise ceased, silence washed in. She stared at the hut. Well, hut was ambitious. More of a shed with a couple small windows and a chimney. Under a corrugated tin awning, a gray dish towel slumped from a rope. Could’ve been there months. Tia screwed up her face as she removed her headset. No sign of any missing tourists.

He spent the next ten minutes trying to equalize his ears as he helped Tia stash the kayaks under the awning. He could be imagining the rush of water over stones, but the bell-like bird chatter was real. The biting stench of avgas lifted, leaving the scent of clean air and distant snow. No better perfume.

She nodded at a craggy white peak in the distance. A bird of prey was riding a thermal. “A cold front is blowing up from Antarctica. You should be out before it hits, but if the weather turns, ride it out in the hut or your tent and I’ll check on you when it clears.”

“Sure thing.” Like hell.

“Because that river’s going to get high and fast superquick.”

Even better. “Noted. Thanks.”

She sighed, like she knew he was a lost cause. “Camp well above the water level—it can change quickly this time of year. Your best launchpad is down that track.”

The “track” she pointed to was a slight gap between the prickly shrubs circling the clearing. “The river meanders for about a kilometer. Then you get your first challenge with a nasty, narrow little rapid. After that a big tributary joins and it really gets wild and pretty much stays that way. But the worst part, the part that makes it grade six, is the Auripo Falls, which you’ll reach about midday tomorrow. Eighteen-meter drop—that’s sixty feet to you—underwater whirlpool that’ll hold you forever—”

“Yeah, I’ve read up on it, asked around. You’ve kayaked this river?”

“God, no. Just rescued enough people to know where they get unstuck. Or rather, stuck. I know it mostly by air—and my brother runs canyoning trips in the lower reaches in summer.”

“Jumping off waterfalls? And you call me a risk taker?”

Almost a smile. “He’s very safety-conscious.”

“Like you.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“So your brother jumps off waterfalls—and throws other people off them—and you call him safety-conscious. And I put only my own life on the line, and I’m a risk taker.”

“He knows what he’s doing. But yeah, once was enough for me. I’m happy just being his taxi driver.”

“You canyoned? I thought you were scared of heights.”

“Not heights, just falling, as every human should be. And it confirmed I was right to be afraid.”

“So you just drop his victims to their fates instead?”

“I figure if you’re determined to kill yourself, you’ll find a way. It might as well benefit me.” Her tone dropped just on the side of teasing. She wiped her hands on her thighs, like she was absolving herself of responsibility. “Right. That’s me out.”

“Last chance to talk me ’round.”

She raised her chin. “You want me to talk you around?”

“No.”

“Good. I could use another search and rescue contract to pay off the last one. Just make sure you die in a place I can easily spot from the air. And keep an eye out for those tourists. I don’t like the idea of them lying...” She rubbed her eyes, as if trying to erase a mental image.

“I’ll do that.”

“Get off the river well before dark each day. When the light drops you can’t see the snags.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That was a bit ‘no shit, Sherlock,’ wasn’t it?”

Man, she was so close to a real smile. If he just worked a little harder... “It’s nice that you care.”

“You have someone waiting for word of when you reach Wairoimata? Who can raise the alarm when you don’t show?”

“No, ma’am.”

Was she asking if he was single?

In your dreams, numbskull. Not that he was looking to hook up, but she’d be a fun vacation distraction.

“Got a mobile?” she said.

“Yep.”

“It won’t work until Wairoimata. You have my number—call me when you get out. If I don’t hear by Wednesday, I’ll start asking around.”

“Will do.”

“Got a distress beacon?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded to the kayak.

“A GPS one? Bought locally, not overseas?”

“Yep.”

“Keep it on you. It’s no use in your kayak if you get swept out. But don’t use it unless you’re dying. I don’t want to fight my way up here at midnight in a cyclone to find you twisted your ankle.”

“This happens?”

“Some people treat those things like Uber. If you can kayak out safely, do it. It’ll make a better war story to boast about later.”

“Noted.”

She gave a sharp nod and walked away. Security briefing over.

“Well, thanks,” he said.

Right. He checked his watch. A few hours before dark. He’d scout out the river, get sorted for the morning, then settle in with a freeze-dried dinner and his e-reader. He rubbed his belly. Food would fix that empty feeling. Damn, twenty minutes in her company and now he had to get reacquainted with solitude. Maybe when he called her from Wairoimata he’d ask her for a drink. Even a place that small had to have a watering hole.

“Hey, Cowboy,” she called.

He killed his smile and swiveled. She was leaning into the helicopter, writing something on a clipboard.

“You got insect repellent?”

“Don’t usually get bit. No malaria here, right?”

She looked up. “It’s not the mosquitoes you need to watch for. It’s the sandflies.”

“I need to watch out for a fly?”

“You’ll see.” She pulled a spray bottle from a bag on the rear seat and lobbed it. He caught it one-handed. “I’ll add it to the tab. Oh wait, you prepaid, didn’t you?”

“You didn’t give me a choice.”

“On the house, then. And watch out for wild pigs.”

“Pigs? For real? I fucking love this country. You’re saying the most dangerous wildlife out there is flies and pigs?” He was crossing into flirt territory, drawing this out as long as he could. He wasn’t even sure why.

She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. “Less Porky Pig and more a rhino crossed with a bull. I’ve seen boars up here twice your weight. There’s also stags but they won’t take you on unless you corner them. And chamois and tahr—wild goats—but the smell is the biggest danger there. At least they’re herbivores.”

“Unlike the sandflies?”

“Spoken like a guy who’s never stood beside a New Zealand river at dusk.” She pushed off the chopper. “And watch out for kea—big green parrots. Cheeky buggers. Don’t turn your back on your dinner.”

“Noted.” He stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his shorts. “Okay. Guess I’ll go look at this river of death, then.”

“Good luck.”

“I don’t intend luck to be a factor.”

She nodded, again with that almost-smile. He forced himself to turn and walk away. Seeing her again would be his reward for surviving this paddle.

Of the ten wildest kayaking runs in the world, he’d kayaked numbers ten, nine, eight, seven, six and five. How dangerous could one little forbidden river be?

* * *

TIA TURNED BACK to her flight log, resisting the temptation to watch Cody right up to the moment he pushed through the trees and disappeared. Yep, it’d be a damn shame for the world to lose a specimen like that—and it’d break her heart to locate that body. He was muscular but easy with it, like he spent as much time doing yoga as lifting weights, like his power wasn’t for show but function. A kayaker’s shoulders, a soldier’s athleticism, with the lived-in look of a guy who spent a lot of time outdoors.

She rapped her stubby fingernails on the clipboard. She’d give him until Wednesday night to call before hitting the phone. She didn’t need another death on her conscience.

A gust swept through the tussock. The nor’wester, picking up ahead of the front. She’d take the downriver route home in case any bodies had been spat out. Or, hope above hope, she found four live ones waving up from the swing bridge above Auripo Falls. She rubbed the back of her neck, staring blankly into the scrub. The disappearances had been gnawing at her since the day it became obvious the Danes weren’t going to arrive at Wairoimata. One missing person wasn’t unusual, even two. But four? She’d flown the river from glacier to sea, back and forth a dozen times, in case she’d missed some hazard that might explain things—a fallen tree, a crumbling cliff, a fresh rockfall.

She straightened, the tiny leaves on the trees coming into sharp focus. Something was out of place. She scanned the clearing. There, on a cluster of stones at the tree line, a twisted gray-brown clump. Damn. She crossed to it.

Yep, a kiwi. Mauled, bloody, decomposing. A big adult with a transmitter on its leg. Breeding stock. Would’ve been raised in captivity until it was big enough to defend itself. She crossed the clearing to the hut’s stoat trap—one of hundreds she’d dropped into the forest this spring, for Koro’s trapper mates. Another reason she wouldn’t turn a profit this year.

The wooden box was on its side, bait untouched. Whatever knocked it over hadn’t got in through the small wire tunnel, so not a rat or stoat. Possums didn’t tear kiwi apart like that. It must have struck since the trappers had swept through on their fortnightly checks. She searched the ground.

There—animal shit. Dog? She swore. How the hell had a dog got up here? One feral dog could wipe out a hundred kiwi—the forest’s entire population. She walked back to the bird, pulled out her phone and snapped photos for the rangers. They’d want to get here quick. If she left soon, she could bring them up before sunset.

Something rustled in the trees behind the chopper. Not a bird, something solid. She straightened. Nothing but tui warbling and trilling, and the rush of the river. Cody, probably. Sheesh, she was jumpy. The only person he was a danger to was himself. There was no stopping adrenaline junkies with an obsession. She’d played dumb earlier, but of course she’d Googled him when he’d emailed her to book, seeing as it was so reckless to kayak the Awatapu solo. He’d competed in the extreme kayaking world champs with his brother—and if he was also a soldier, that was good enough for her. The profile of him she’d found was a decade old and hadn’t mentioned the legion, but there were other hits she hadn’t clicked on. They’d mostly been about some San Antonio software empire his family owned, and she couldn’t care less about that.

The branches of a tall rata swayed. A kereru pigeon had swooped in, the sun catching the emerald of its breast, its weight bowing the branch as it twisted to eat berries.

A legionnaire, eh? What better way to stick it to your wealthy parents than run away to the legion? And she knew all about sticking it to your parents.

She was no sucker for a guy in uniform, but he’d look hot in khakis, with those broad shoulders tapering down to that tight arse, his sleeves rolled up over corded muscle, a serious slant to his jaw. Camo paint. Dirt. Sweat. Oh yeah.

She inhaled—and gagged on a filthy scent. Hell. That wasn’t the kiwi. She’d transported enough bodies to know that smell. Something big and fleshy, and very dead. A pig? She swiveled, checking the leaves on the taller trees. The breeze had turned west. Please, please, please let it be a pig. She unzipped her jacket and pulled her T-shirt over her nose and mouth, her legs working robotically, nerves bringing her focus and hearing into high relief.

She shoved through the scrub, branches scratching her hands and slapping her face. The low drone of blowflies, a lot of them. Her cheeks prickled. After a few minutes, she saw it, a flash of orange on the ground. Not a pig. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She pushed into a small clearing beside a boulder, her heart thumping.

Yep, a body. Curled up, sheltered under the overhang of the rock like it was hiding—that’s why she hadn’t spotted it from the air. The jacket. She remembered that jacket. Orange, with blue stripes. The Danish guy. Fuck it to hell.

CHAPTER THREE

TIA EXHALED IN a rush. Don’t breathe through your nose and you won’t throw up.

The guy had died this close to where she’d dropped him off? Maybe he and his girlfriend got into trouble downriver and he hiked back up to find help. But why not use their emergency beacons? Tia had insisted they each carry one. She crouched and nudged his jacket pockets. In one, a boxy shape. She carefully unzipped it. The beacon, still sealed.

“What the hell happened, mate?” The silence sucked up her whisper.

He had to have died of exposure, hypothermia, at least a week ago. She’d better radio in, get him in a body bag, load him. Cody could help—he’d be used to dealing with death. Once the body’s smell was contained she’d have a better chance of figuring out if another one lay around here.

“Let’s get you started on the journey home, eh?”

She blinked her eyes clear. A few meters away, a broken branch hung from a leatherwood bush. She stood, brushing her knees. A mobile phone lay in the grass. He’d crashed through, desperate? And then what—collapsed? She did a slow three-sixty, pulling back her hair. The roof of the hut was visible. He couldn’t have been lost. But then, people with hypothermia didn’t always think straight.

A tragedy and a mystery. His phone was dead—no surprise there. She followed his trail through the scrub back as far as it was obvious. A lot of broken branches. Her nape prickled. Something else was wrong. She stopped, biting her lip. What wasn’t she seeing? A kereru swooshed overhead—the fat one from the hut. She laid her hand over her heart, willing it to slow, and forced herself to focus on her environment. Her brother, Tane, teased her about her “premonitions,” but he’d long ago learned to pay attention. The number of times they’d saved his arse... It wasn’t anything spooky, as he liked to claim, just her brain taking a while to catch up with her senses, her subconscious registering alerts before her conscious did—hearing or seeing or smelling something out of place a few seconds before it became obvious.

Yes, there—a rusty smear on a brushy branch at chest height. Blood. More than you’d expect from the usual forest cuts and scratches. She walked faster. More blood. Now she knew what to look for, it was everywhere—on leaves, branches, the ground. She bit the side of her cheek as she returned to the body. Nothing visible on his back.

She crouched, taking a closer look. Chunks of flesh had been ripped from his thighs and calves. The dog? A hawk? Pressing her lips together, she grabbed the guy’s shoulder and gently rolled him. A swarm of trapped flies flew up, their fat, furry bodies pelting her mouth. She swiped at them, her stomach lurching. Hold it together, for his sake.

Yep, a big, dark bloodstain on the chest of his torn jacket. Through the tear, a gaping wound. On the leaf litter and grass underneath him a bloodstain had spread into an oval, the liquid long since seeped away. Dogs and hawks didn’t puncture a man’s chest. They might have come by after death. Was he knocked down and gored by a boar? Attacked by a stag? She lowered him and stroked his shoulder. Death would have come quickly, if not quietly.

Forget the body bag. This was beyond her job description. She’d radio it in, leave Cody with the body and go for the cops. It was probably an accident or animal attack but that wasn’t her call.

She dragged her feet to the chopper. No sign of Cody but at least he was near. Suddenly the isolation wasn’t so friendly. She reached the pilot’s door and froze, her instinct pricking again. Oh God, what now? A pair of fantails flashed and dived beside the hut. The tea towel snapped in the breeze, making her flinch. Nothing amiss, so why did she have the urge to run? Maybe she was just strung out. A dead body could do that.

Her ab muscles tightened. Fuck it. Better to be paranoid than dead. She sucked in a breath and took off for the hut, her sneakers flicking up stones.

Crack. An echoing gunshot, from behind her. Shit. She upped her speed. A hunter, thinking she was wildlife?

“Stop shooting!” she yelled. “Identify your target!”

Another pop, the clank of a bullet hitting metal, the shot reverberating. The chopper. Potshots from a rifle. A hollow smack, a thump, and something flicked her hair.

Jesus. She clutched her head, the hut bouncing around in her vision. Her hair was hot but no wound. A third crack, another thump, and the hut’s front window shattered. The shooter couldn’t have her confused with wildlife—he’d have stopped by now. He was hunting her. She veered off course and plunged thigh-high into tussock beside the hut as a bullet punctured its front wall, a meter away. She rounded the back of the building and pushed her spine against the cold wall, chest heaving. A half-second gap between the sonic boom and the thump, so he was maybe four hundred meters away, elevated—any closer, she’d be dead. Holy shit. What now?

A burst of fire this time, spraying the other side of the hut, shattering glass, pinging into tin. Automatic fire. Not your standard hunting rifle. Hosing the place because he’d lost line of sight?

She couldn’t stay here. Too obvious. And a matter of time before a bullet went right through the hut.