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  She ran, her heart thundering in her chest, her ears roaring, the blank rock walls rushing by, never changing. She felt as if she were caught in a maze without end.

  Oh, God. Rick. Ben. The despair was almost paralyzing.

  Ben bumped into Pepe and almost shot him before he recognized him in the deep grayness of dawn. “The senhora,” he hissed, grabbing the little Indian by the shoulder. “What happened to her?”

  “She ran,” Pepe said politely. “Into the long black hole.”

  “Good man. I’m going after her. Take care of yourself, Pepe.”

  Pepe nodded. “We will wait, senhor. When the evil ones are gone, we will leave this place and return to Manaus. You must find the senhora.”

  “I will,” Ben said grimly, and made for the tunnel. He knew Kates was still behind him, and Dutra was still in the camp, laughing as he fired at any imagined movement around him. Ben focused all of his attention on finding Jillian.

  Jillian’s lungs were burning like fire, and her chest felt as if it would explode when she finally plunged out of the tunnel. She fell against the huge boulder that kept the entrance hidden, gasping for breath. Birds, startled by her crashing exit, rose skyward calling their alarm.

  It was dawn, the first dim gray seeping through the foliage. Higher up, it would be much brighter, but down on the forest floor it was perpetual twilight. She used the flashlight to find her way around the boulder and out into the open. She was breathing too hard to tell if anyone was following her, but she had to assume someone was. She had to find a hiding place, fast, because she was too breathless to continue. Disregarding the danger, she crawled into the thick foliage and went limp, exhausted by terror.

  “Goddammit, what do you mean they got away?” Kates shrieked. “Lewis has the goddamn diamond! He could be anywhere in this damn place, but he’s probably already on his way back to Manaus, laughing every step of the way!”

  “I can catch him,” Dutra said, his small head lowered like a bull about to charge. His mean eyes seemed to glow red.

  “Yeah, sure,” Kates sneered. “He’s probably waiting right outside the far end of the tunnel, waiting for us to step out. He can pick us off without half trying. We’re trapped in here, goddam—No, wait. Sherwood said there’s another tunnel. They found it in the temple. We can get out.”

  “Yes,” Dutra said, that strange smile showing his wolfish incisors again.

  Kates gave the camp a disgusted look. “All you had to do was shoot them when they came out of their tents, but you fucked that up too. You only got two of them. Do you know how many we’ll have to hunt down?”

  Dutra shrugged, then lifted his pistol and calmly put a bullet in the middle of Kates’s forehead. Kates collapsed, his feet twitching momentarily before stilling forever. “Bastard,” Dutra said, and spat on Kates’s body. “I will find Lewis faster without you.”

  Ignoring the three bodies as if they didn’t exist, Dutra calmly began gathering supplies. He had let Lewis have his own way for weeks, but now his time of waiting was over. He would hunt the bastard down, kill him and take his rock, and then have fun with the woman before killing her, too. Kates had been a fool to think that he could ever rule Dutra, and Lewis would learn the same lesson. Lewis thought he was ignorant in the jungle, but he would find that this was not so. Dutra would track him down like an animal, and there would be no escape, for he knew where the bastard was going. All he had to do was get there first, and wait for him.

  Ben plunged out of the tunnel, the handkerchief-wrapped diamond tucked safely inside his shirt and his pistol in his hand. That had been a nightmare trip he didn’t want to repeat, accomplished in total darkness, for he had dropped the flashlight when Kates first jumped him. Sweat dripped from his forehead, and ran into his eyes. It had taken all his concentration to stay on his feet as he ran down those wide, shallow steps, and to keep from panicking at the sensation of being buried alive. Only the knowledge that Jillian had entered the tunnel kept him going.

  The morning light that greeted him was like heaven; until he saw it, he’d had no idea how tight his nerves were stretched, and what a relief it would be to see daylight again. He edged around the boulder, out from under the thick latticework of limbs and vines, and the light became brighter, sunshine dappling the forest.

  There was no sign of Jillian.

  When they first reached the Stone City he had taken the precaution of slipping out during the night and hiding a pack of provisions at the outside entrance of the tunnel. Now he dragged his pack out of its hiding place, slipped the diamond into a pocket where it would be adequately protected, then swiftly lifted the burden to his back and buckled it in place. She couldn’t be too far ahead, but if he didn’t find her pretty soon, she would probably disappear into the jungle without a trace. His chest felt as if there were a tight band around it, continually pulling tighter. He had to find her.

  Someone had come out of the tunnel. Jillian froze, not daring to lift her head for fear the movement would give her away. She lay with her cheek pressed to the ground, her eyes closed, her blood thundering loudly in her ears. She tried to hold her breath, to calm her pulse, so she could better track the person’s movements by sound. Insects rustled in the moist humus beneath her ear, and her fingers dug into the dirt.

  It might be Ben. The thought crept into her consciousness. The terror that he had been killed by that first shot had been so great, so paralyzing, that she had barely been able to think. But Ben was tough, and supremely capable; he knew that they would have to get through the tunnel ahead of Kates and Dutra. She had to take the chance of moving, just to see.

  Cautiously, inch by inch, she lifted her head and moved a leaf out of the way. She still couldn’t see anything. The sound began moving away from her.

  Desperately she sat up and crawled halfway out of her hiding place. A set of broad shoulders burdened by a backpack was disappearing into the foliage, broad shoulders topped by a head with very dark, too-long hair curling over the shirt collar.

  Relief shot through her, relief so sharp that it was almost as debilitating as the terror had been. She sank to the ground. “Ben!”

  She couldn’t put much force in her voice, but he heard her, or heard something, for he stopped and whirled, ducking into concealment. She grabbed her flashlight and struggled to her feet. “Ben!”

  He stepped back into view and was beside her with three long strides, crushing her in his arms, his head bent down to hers with his cheek resting on top of her head. She clung to him, tears burning her eyes, the feel of his hard body safe and whole against hers so sublime that she never wanted to let him go. For an hour of hell in the dawn, she hadn’t known if he lived or not, and the pain of it had been crushing. She had lost Rick; she didn’t know what she would have done if anything had happened to Ben, too.

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “Rick’s dead,” she said in a choked voice against his chest. “Dutra shot him. I saw it.”

  He stroked her hair. Personally he didn’t feel that Sherwood was any great loss, but hell, he’d been Jillian’s brother. “I’m sorry.” He began urging her forward. “Come on, sweetheart, we can’t stay here. We have to move, and move fast.”

  She went, but her mind was beginning to work again. “Why can’t we stay here and ambush them when they come out the tunnel?” As soon as she said it, she remembered the other tunnel. “No. We don’t know which way they’ll come out, do we?”

  “I’d bet on the other tunnel, since we don’t know where it exits the bowl. It would be safest. They’ll have to work their way around, but they need to come back here so they can retrace the way we came. We need to take advantage of what time we have to put as much distance between us as we can.”

  “But what about Jorge and the others?”

  “Pepe said they would hide, and wait until Dutra and Kates left. Then they’ll make their way back to the river. They’re experienced in the jungle,