Chris Ryan - Outbreak

'Take him to the holding area I told you about,' he commanded, still failing to catch Abele's eye. 'Make sure there is someone watching over him all the time.'

Abele spat at him once more.

'And if he tries to escape,' Suliman continued in a deadpan voice, 'put a bullet in his skull.'

'They came this way.'

Suliman's men looked at each other. One of them was taller than the other, and his face had a pale scar reaching from his forehead to the top of his cheek. The other smaller man was distinguished by crooked yellow teeth that seemed precariously pegged into a set of red, sore-looking gums. 'Look here,' the taller man continued, pointing at where the foliage had been forced back to allow someone passage through. He pulled a small compass out of the pocket of his sleeveless shirt and checked his bearings. 'It looks like they're heading back to Udok.' He nodded with satisfaction. 'They'll have to cross the river, and the only place it's safe to do that is where it passes to the north of the village. If we don't catch up with them beforehand, we can deal with the idiots there.'

The smaller man sneered before pulling a water bottle out from his belt and taking a sparing glug. 'They're probably dead already,' he observed nonchalantly when he had finished. 'Only a fool would come into the forest without a gun.'

His colleague didn't respond.

'Come on,' the smaller man urged his friend. 'You know what they say about the forests north of the village. You don't want to find yourself there any more than I do. We should just return to the road, ambush a car and get back. Tell Suliman we killed them – he'll never know.'

His colleague seemed to consider that for a moment, but then shook his head in disagreement. As he did so, both men heard a low-pitched grunt. They looked sharply at each other, then simultaneously slung their Kalashnikovs round so that they were pointing in front of them; then they manoeuvred themselves to stand with their backs facing each other.

They heard the noise again, and movement in the trees beyond them.

'This way,' the taller man whispered. They walked side by side, stealthily, until it became apparent to them what was making the noise.

A gorilla sat, squat and alone, among the bushes a few metres away from them. It was not a silverback like the one Ben and Halima had encountered, but a young female, and she did not appear to be paying them any attention whatsoever. She reached out one of her arms and lazily plucked a handful of leaves from the surrounding greenery, then stuffed them in her mouth and started to chew, her hairy face gurning rather comically as she did so.

The eyes of the taller man narrowed. 'You want to see why I'm not scared of the forest?' he asked. 'It's because I have a gun, which makes me the strongest.' He licked his lips, then raised the rifle and took aim.

The gorilla looked up at him, but of course she had no idea what was happening.

When the man fired, it was as if someone had shaken the very roots of the trees. Birds screeched and flew away, and the aftermath of the shockwaves through the forest lasted long after the sound of the gun had ebbed away. As the frenzy of movement died, however, one sound remained. The gorilla had been knocked onto her back, a red welt on her left shoulder indicating the entry point of the ghastly wound that had just been inflicted upon her. She was making a series of pitiful yelps, as she clumsily tried to use her right hand to brush away the pain that she did not understand. It only took thirty seconds or so, however, for her energy to be depleted, and now she lay on the ground, her long arms listless beside her, her eyes flickering as she slowly began to bleed to death.

'You can't leave it like that,' the smaller man said. 'It's even more dangerous when it's injured.'

The tall man shrugged, then took aim again. The second bullet hit the gorilla in the head, and she lay still. He nodded with satisfaction that the danger they had encountered had been eliminated. 'Come on,' he told his colleague. 'We can't be far behind them.'

He turned and left the body of the gorilla, the smaller man following reluctantly behind.

'What was that?'

Ben and Halima had both stopped in their tracks at the sound of the loud bang echoing through the forest. Ben found himself breathing heavily. 'It sounded like a gun.'

'Suliman's men?' Halima asked.

Ben nodded. 'Probably. Whoever it was, I don't think we want to bump into them. We need to keep moving.'

They upped their pace, both of them casting the occasional nervous look behind them.

As the day wore on and the two friends grew more tired, the trees became thicker, the foliage denser and greener. It was impossible to move silently through such terrain and Ben found himself becoming accustomed to the swishing sound as the leaves brushed past his ears, and the occasional crunch as dead wood broke underfoot. Soon, however, he became aware of something else. A different sound. 'Stop a minute,' he said to Halima. They stood still, then smiled at each other as they both realized that it was the sound of running water. And it was close.

Their pace quickened, the prospect of quenching their thirst giving them a new energy. Suddenly they burst through the edge of the trees to find themselves on a wide river bank. Ben blinked as his eyes got used to the sudden light after the relative darkness under the rainforest canopy, his thirst forcing him to ignore everything around him other than the river ahead. The river itself was wide – too wide to cross, certainly – and fast-moving. Wild with thirst, Ben ran to the water's edge and bent down to scoop it up in his hands.

'Wait!' he heard Halima calling behind him.

Ben spun round to look at her. She was gesturing at him to walk back towards her; perplexed, he did as he was told. Suddenly he heard a sound behind him, and without knowing why he jumped away, further towards Halima. ' Attention! ' she shouted, lapsing momentarily into French. 'Be careful!'

When he finally turned round to see what it was, he was very glad indeed that he had got out of the way.

Half in the water, half out, was a crocodile. It was small, perhaps only half-grown, but even without seeing its whole body Ben could tell that it was at least as long as him, if not longer. It lay there, dead still. Ben's heart stopped, and he found himself paralysed by the terrifying presence of the lizard-like creature, which seemed to be grinning at him, staring with lifeless, flat eyes. Slowly, and without making any sudden movements, Halima bent down and picked up a long branch from the ground. She held it out towards the croc. 'If it attacks,' she whispered, 'we must go for the eyes. Or deep into the back of its throat, if that is what it comes to. They say that will make the jaws open.'

'They say ?'

'Few people survive an attack from a crocodile.' Halima's voice was taut and tense. 'At least not from a full-grown one. This one is young. Maybe it is not so sure of itself. We are lucky.'

Ben didn't feel very lucky. He saw one of the crocodile's front claws moving slowly.

'The adults will not be far behind.' Halima scanned down the length of the river. A few hundred metres away, it curved to the right, but before it did so Ben could see with a squint that there was a herd of animals drinking from the waterside. From this distance Ben couldn't see what they were, but they looked from here not unlike young horses. 'See,' Halima stated. 'They come to drink where it is safe. We need to get there.'

They stepped slowly backwards along the river bank, Halima still keeping the branch outstretched towards the crocodile. Once they were a good ten metres away, and much to Ben's relief, the reptile twisted its body round and disappeared smoothly below the water. There was something about the way it moved that filled Ben with revulsion, and he found himself praying that they would not encounter another of those terrifying and deadly beasts. He glanced glumly across the water: there was no way of knowing what it was hiding.