They stayed in the water until they couldn’t stand the cold any longer. They pushed the boat – a petrified boatman lying motionless in the water-filled bottom of his vessel – around the island until Maier felt it safe enough to get out of the water. Once it got dark, the boatman agreed to return to the shore. There was no sign of the shooter.
Shaking, wet and cold, they rested in an abandoned farm hut before hitching a ride with a tourist group in the morning. The vacationers were somewhat excited at seeing an older Western man and a young Asian woman, both of them caked in mud, emerge on the side of the road and flag down their four-wheel drive. Maier spun them a story about being a journalist on the trail of illegal loggers with his fixer, having run into trouble in the forest.
Certain
