“So we’re going to need to choose a route and buy a ticket?” I asked.
Ben shook his head. “We need to avoid people as much as possible.”
I had already guessed what was on his mind as his eyes settled on a speedboat about fifteen feet away from us.
“Stealing?” I asked in a small voice.
“I don’t see what other choice we have right now.”
“So you know how to navigate the boat?” I asked.
“I’m used to navigating submarines. I can handle a boat,” he muttered. I slid off his back and watched as he looked quickly around the harbor, then leapt onto the boat. I motioned to follow, but he held up a hand.
“Just stay where you are and keep watch. Shout if you see someone coming.”
I did as he requested. It seemed to be a quiet evening on the harbor. There weren’t many people around at all, making my task an easy one.
About five minutes later the engine chortled and he returned, nodding in my direction.
“Okay. I’ve figured out how to get the boat to start without keys.”
He held out a hand, and I took it as he helped me onto the boat. He led me into the small cockpit in the center of the deck, and we both took a seat. Adjusting the controls, Ben began to navigate the boat backward. As soon as he had maneuvered out of the bay, he ramped up the speed. Soon we’d left the harbor and were moving toward the center of the wide river.
He kept the lights switched off as he looked up and down the river. There were a number of other boats on the water at this time of night. We had to be careful to avoid them because they could not see us.
We sailed north along the river for the next few hours, dodging any boats that passed our way, until the lights along the riverbank began to grow dimmer.
“We’re running out of fuel,” Ben said. “We’re going to have to head for land.”
Surrounding us on either side were tall marshes. Clearly we had traveled a good distance away from the city and were in some kind of suburb. Ben navigated the boat toward land and I gripped the sides of the boat as it hit the bank. As we both stepped out, I winced as mud filled my shoes.
He held my hand and we waded through the sludge until we reached a concrete road. There were no other boats nearby along the bank that we could see.
“We should start heading north by foot. It will be faster anyway. The boat was just to get us out of the city.” He inhaled deeply. “Definitely not as much human blood around here.”
“Good,” I muttered.
I decided that I wanted to run for a while, so we raced along the roads of the sleepy suburbs that passed nearest to the river. The chirp of crickets filled my ears, and the occasional roaring of a truck as it trundled by… and then, once we had entered the early hours of the morning, the sound of helicopters slicing the air above us.
Ben and I sped up, trying to keep out of the spotlights that the choppers were shining down, but they kept hovering nearby. I shot a panicked glance at Ben. Gripping my hand, he tugged on me sharply and pulled us into some bushes to our right. As he kept leading me forward, the shrubbery got thicker and thicker and the ground muddier. Ben removed the backpack from his back and hung it over a low-hanging tree branch, then pulled me into the river until I was chest deep.
“Take a deep breath,” he whispered.
I didn’t have time to draw in much breath before he pulled me under with him. I remained submerged for as long as I could before I was forced to resurface for oxygen. I ducked down quickly again afterward. We remained in the water for what felt like the next ten minutes, until the helicopters seemed to have passed.
We headed back to the bank, where Ben retrieved the backpack from the branch and continued running. As the first light of morning showed behind the horizon, we arrived at a harbor on the outskirts of a small town. Looking around, I was disappointed to see only cruise ships.
“What now?” I asked, looking nervously at the sky.
Ben eyed the huge ships.
“We have two options. Keep traveling by foot and hope we find another boat soon, before the sun rises… or buy tickets on one of these cruise ships.”
I stared at him, wondering if the last part was some kind of joke.
“You, on a cruise?”
He looked back at me. “Given the searches on the roads last night, I don’t think it’s a good idea to travel by land. But we need to keep moving.” He averted his eyes to the brightening sky. “Trust me when I say I feel crazy for suggesting this, but I think we’re going to be safer on one of those cruise ships, at least until tonight.” I gaped at him as he continued. “By my estimation, if we pass the day on a cruise ship along the Nile, of course it will go slow, but then we’ll only need one more night of traveling by foot—if that—and we’ll end up in Ismailia. There we’re sure to find a boat to take us down to the Red Sea, toward the Gulf of Aden, and hopefully as far as the Arabian Sea.”