They careened around a tight bend in the river, the flow pushing them hard for the opposite shore, where a small cargo ship that had been headed upriver had been pushed into the riverbank, its stern thrust far out into the Congo. Juan slammed on full power to the thrusters, laterally shoving the Oregon as far to starboard as he could. The hull scraped against the coastal freighter with an ear-splitting shriek and then they were clear.

“That’s going to leave a mark,” Eric quipped even though he was awed by Juan’s handling of the vessel. He knew he wouldn’t have made the turn and avoided the ship.

With the river boiling all around them they were swept further downstream, carried along like a leaf in a gutter, barely able to control their course until Juan could eke more power out of her engines. Time and again he had to fight the river to keep the Oregon from grounding or plowing into the riverbank, each escape seemingly closer than the last. They did hit a shoal at one point, the ship decelerating hard as it gouged a furrow through the muddy riverbed. For a moment, Juan feared the freighter would grind to a halt again because the computer had shut off the pulse jet, but the current was strong enough to drag them over, and as soon as the bottom was free the ship picked up speed like a sprinter out of the blocks.

Despite the danger, or maybe because of it, Cabrillo found he was enjoying the challenge. It was a test of his skills and the capabilities of his ship against the vagaries of the raging flood — the epic struggle of man versus nature. He was the type of man who never backed away from anything because he knew his limitations and had yet to meet a situation he didn’t think he could handle. In others this trait would come off as cockiness. In Juan Cabrillo it was simply supreme confidence.

“Scouring action has cleared the second tube,” Max announced. “Just be gentle on her until I get a team into it to check for damage.”

Juan dialed up the second tube and immediately felt his ship respond. She was no longer sluggish coming about and he had to use the thrusters less and less. He checked their speed — twenty-eight knots over the bottom and eight through the water. He had more than enough speed to control the freighter, and now that they’d covered several miles the once-turbulent flow had started to even out. Colonel Abala’s forces were either dead on the river or left far behind and the two choppers he’d stolen had peeled off soon after the wave hit.

“Eric, I think you can take her from here on down to Boma.”

“Aye, Chairman,” Stone replied. “I have the helm.”

Juan sat back in his chair. Max Hanley placed a hand on his shoulder. “Hell of a piece of driving if I say so myself.”