The squad all stepped up onto the quay, awaiting orders. Banks pointed them toward the stone track leading into the jungle.
“Looks like we go that way,” he said. “Sarge, you take point. Wiggo, watch our backs. Move out.”
Hynd led them away toward the track. Banks had a last look back; the lamps of Giraldo’s boat were blinding bright in the night goggles, but he saw the man’s wave clear enough. He waved back, then followed Hynd and McCally into the jungle.
*
The goggles made the surrounding jungle appear even greener, almost luminescent. Foliage hemmed them in and it felt like walking inside a vast glistening tube, the intestine of a green fleshy giant. The humidity was stifling, and heavy with a dampness that made breathing a chore. Every step moved a film of sweat around under kit, and the eye goggles slid as moisture ran down his forehead from his hairline. Small animals scurried in the dark just out of sight, and overhead, parakeets fluttered noisily at their passing.
We might as well have rung the fucking doorbell.
Banks was glad when the track took a turn to the right and they climbed upward, out from under the canopy. The parakeets settled quickly back in their roosts and the night once again fell quiet save for the pad of their footsteps on the stone underfoot.
The path now made its way up the side of a rocky hill. The growth was less luxuriant here, and a light breeze, although warm, meant that the humidity fell to an almost acceptable level, and every so often they got a view back downward, to where the canopy seemed to stretch off endlessly. The river snaked away to their right, shimmering green and silver. The quay they’d left behind was hidden under the canopy, and Banks could only hope that it was a quiet enough spot that Giraldo and Wilkes would not need to use their emergency flares.
And with that, he put the boat and the other two men out of his mind; his focus now had to be on the path ahead, and the mission. He looked up instead of down. The path was climbing, slowly, around the outside of a long hill whose top was lost in the dark somewhere higher up.
They passed more stone workings as they climbed, more proof as to the antiquity of the builders. At first, it was only small rounded dwelling huts, long since collapsed into ruin and overgrown with moss, lichen, and vine, making them almost appear as natural aspects of the landscape rather than anything built by man. As they went higher, and after 10 minutes of strenuous climbing, the ruins became less sporadic. After a short, steeper set of worn steps, they passed through what had obviously been a gateway at one long lost time, and the path widened and flattened out, becoming more of a street, wending its way, still upward, through the tumbled ruins of an ancient town.
The rounded design of the dwellings was still evident here, but here they were more tightly packed together, almost butting right up against one another. The doorways were dark, in deep shadow, and the tumbled ruins jutted into the sky like shattered teeth. There was no sign of any life save a pair of pale doves that fluttered up and away in panic at their approach.
Once they were sure that the sudden flight of the birds hadn’t alerted anyone to their presence, McCally slowed to let Banks catch him, and spoke in a whisper.
“Who the fuck built all of this, Cap? I thought it was nowt but jungle around here?”
Banks had been thinking the same thing. His knowledge of ancient peoples was sketchy at best; he knew the names, Aztec, Inca, and one other.
“It’s probably Mayan, at a guess,” he said. “But don’t quote me on that, as I think we’ve fucked up enough already. Look around, Cally. This is bloody ancient. Nobody’s lived here for centuries. I think we’ve come to the wrong place. Our man’s not here.”
The next few minutes only seemed to harden Bank’s belief that they were on a wild goose chase. The path flattened out as they walked onto the hilltop, a plateau where the bulk of the town had been. Although the buildings were of a larger scale up here on the ridge, the whole site looked to be mostly a jumble of tumbled, overgrown ruin and Banks was losing hope. Then Hynd stopped abruptly and motioned them into cover behind a partially fallen wall before waving Banks forward.
“Light ahead, Cap,” the sergeant whispered when Banks joined him at the wall.
Banks lifted his goggles up onto his brow and chanced a quick look round the edge. There was just about enough light by the stars to give him a clear view. They were at one end of a long causeway that ran all the way along the ridge. Buildings lined either side of a main thoroughfare that must have been grand and monumental at one time, but was now mostly a tumble of ruins and crawling vines. The largest structure of note that still stood complete faced him at the far end of the ridge, some 100 yards away, a squat, stepped pyramid. The light Hynd had mentioned came from an entrance way atop the line of steps, a yellow-gold flickering that Hynd guessed must be firebrands or some kind of lantern.
And now they had stopped, he heard something that had not been audible earlier, having been masked by their footsteps. There was a rush of water in the distance, coming from the same direction as the pyramid. He remembered Buller’s video message, and the mention of a cascade and his hope rose again; perhaps they had come to the right spot after all.
He turned back to Hynd and spoke softly.
“Up the center of the main drag,” he said. “Two by two, eyes on each flank. You and Cally go first. If we make it that far without any fuss, we go up the steps and see where that light’s coming from. Everybody got it?”
The three other men replied in the affirmative.
Hynd and McCally moved them out.
- 6 -
The road was paved underfoot, six-foot square gray slabs, some cracked with age but for the most part in good enough condition to drive a cart along should it be required, although there was no sign that anyone had done so for many years. Banks watched the shadows amid the ruins, expecting an attack at any moment. None came. The only sound was once again the pad of their footsteps on stone, accompanied by the soft rush of water running away in the distance. He kept his goggles on his forehead. The sky was a shimmering blanket of stars overhead, with no moon to dim its brilliance, and with that, and the flickering light atop the pyramid showing them the way, there was more than enough light for their purposes.
They reached the base of the pyramid without anyone taking notice of them and looked up. The steps were each a foot or more high, and the structure was larger than it had looked from the other end of the causeway, stretching high above then toward the field of stars. Banks saw Wiggins eyeing the climb warily.
“Up you go, Wiggo,” he said. “Let’s see how far you get before you run out of puff.”
“That’s what the sarge’s wife says too,” the man replied and was climbing up and away before Hynd got a chance to reply. Banks let McCally and Hynd go ahead and brought up the rear as they headed up the steps.
*
It proved to be hard work and despite the fact it was cooler now than under the height of the sun, Banks still had a new film of sweat under his suit before they were even halfway to the top. At least here in the fresher air they were spared the worst of the biting insects and, as they rose higher, he got some idea as to why the pyramid and surrounding complex had been built where it was. The high vantage gave them a view over an endless swathe of forest, and the river, dark as pitch with highlights picked out by reflected stars, a vast snake slithering far below them.
When he stopped to draw a breath, he heard the cascade again, louder now, closer, off to his right on the far side of the pyramid somewhere. But there were no windows on this face of the structure. If their rescue were to be successful, they’d have to venture inside to find the man they’d come for. Banks felt the old tingle of anticipation rise in him, and after boating, canoeing and hiking all this way, he was about ready for any action that might come his way.
He turned and looked up the steps to where the flickering yellow light called them forward. The other three were already four steps higher, so Banks put some effort into it to catch up
, and felt the strain in his calves. By the time he reached the top, one step behind the others, he was sweating again, and breathing heavily. Wiggins laughed.
“Who’s out of puff now, Cap?”
Banks smiled back.
“Just for that, you get to go first, Wiggo.”
*
They all turned toward the source of the flickering light. It was an open-arched entrance into 10 feet on a side cube that sat directly on the top of the pyramid. Three wall sconces, crude oil lamps, burned at eye height. They lit an altar that sat in the center of the room, and threw shadows across a passageway on the far side that appeared to lead away onto darkness.
A pale body lay on the altar, and Banks thought that their rescue was over before it really got started, but as he stepped in after Wiggins, he saw that it wasn’t the man they had seen on the video. It wasn’t Buller, but Wilkes had spoken of other men being taken, and Banks guessed this must be one of them, a beardless, thin chap, thinner still now due to his belly being open and his insides having been hollowed out. It hadn’t been done recently, for the blood was brown and crusted where it had run down the altar stone. The body was severely abused, in particular where the rib cage had been cracked and splayed. Banks didn’t look too closely, but that too appeared hollowed out, the body little more now than an empty shell where a man had been.
Somebody’s here all right. And they’ll pay for this butchery.
“What’s this now then?” Wiggins said. “Some kind of ancient torture shite?”
“Ritual, more like,” Hynd replied. “A sacrifice, I’d guess.”
“A sacrifice to what though?” Wiggins asked. “What kind of fucking god demands this kind of wet work as tribute?”
“Most kinds of fucking gods, in my experience,” Hynd replied and spat at the base of the altar. He turned to Banks.
“The guide might be right, you know? Our man might be dead already,” he said.
Banks was eyeing the dark corridor on the far side of the chamber. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes and stepped around the altar to the shadowed entranceway.
“Dead or alive, he’s coming back with us. I’ve had enough of this shite already. Let’s get this done. There’s beer back in the fridge on the dredger, and I’m getting awfy thirsty. Wiggo, you’re still up. Lead on.”
Wiggins led them into the dark.
*
They stood at the top of a long flight of stone stairs heading down. Banks visualized the pyramid and the hill in his mind, and realized this staircase must run down the far outside of a structure built on the edge of the hill.
And somewhere down there, I bet there’s a room, and a window, and our man.
All four of them wore the night goggles now, for there were no sconces on the walls here, no light source at all. Banks worried about the lack of resistance to their arrival. He expected to have met someone by now. But the corridor they descended into was narrow, and they had it covered front and rear. Any attack now was going to meet a rapid burst of fire from their rifles, enough to put anything short of an elephant down.
They descended fast, the steps taking them down in a steep, tight, spiral. They passed a window, little more than a slit in the rock at eye level, and heard the rush of water from outside again.
“We must be getting close,” Banks said softly. “Keep it tight, lads. It’s show time.”
One more flight of steps brought them to a landing with three roughly hewed doors on the outward side. Banks motioned, and McCally put his shoulder, hard, into the nearest one. The door fell in with a crash, and a pale figure on the ground under the window yelled in sudden fear and crawled quickly into the corner with his hands up, protecting his head. Banks saw his face before it was covered. It wasn’t Buller.
“We’re here to help,” McCally said, having to say it twice before the crouched, naked, man went quiet. The sudden lack of noise meant they could again hear the cascade outside, and the approach of running footsteps from somewhere above them.
“Wiggo, watch the stairs,” Banks said, and moved quickly to the middle door. Without being asked, Hynd went to the third one at the other end of the corridor. Banks counted down from three on his finger, then they both took out their door. Banks found a dead man, again not Buller, in the middle room.
“Got him!” Hynd shouted. By the time Banks got out to the corridor, Hynd had emerged with another naked man, one who could barely stand on his own and was having to be half-carried out of the cell. When he looked up, Banks recognized his face from the video message. McCally came out of the first room, half-carrying the first man who looked too weak to stand on his own. Somewhere above them, the sound of running feet on stone was getting closer.
“Up or down, Cap?” Hynd said.
Going back up meant a firefight, but they knew the way out; down was too much of an unknown.
“Up,” he said. “As fast as we can, and we go through anyone who gets in our way. Plugs in, lads. It’s going to get noisy in here.”
He addressed Hynd as all four of them shoved in the plastic plugs that protected their hearing from the worst of the impact of their shots.
“You and Cally bring these men as well as you can; Wiggo and I will plow the road.”
They headed for the stairs and reached then in time to see the first attacker’s lower body as he came down from above.
- 7 -
Wiggins stepped up first and raised his weapon. The man who came down at them either had no knowledge of rifles, or didn’t care, for he came on fast with a long knife raised above his head. Wiggins didn’t hesitate; he put two shots into the man’s head, and stepped quickly up and over the body as it fell at his feet. Despite the plugs, the noise was almost deafening, and seemed to echo around them for long seconds. The dead man slumped all the way to the foot of the staircase. Banks had to step up quickly himself to avoid the sudden flow of blood on the steps.
“Watch your footing,” he shouted back at the others, then went quickly after Wiggins who was already three steps up, and facing another attacker. This one was no more cautious than the first, although he was armed with a short spear that he stabbed toward Wiggins’ face. Wiggins put him down the same way he’d done the first and was once again already on his way upstairs as the dead man fell.
Banks climbed up at Wiggins’ back, weapon raised and ready to back the private up should help be needed. But the private was doing fine all on his own.
A third attacker went down as quickly as the first two, then all fell quiet above them; they climbed quickly up in almost dead silence except for the soft rush of tumbling water coming from out beyond the stairwell.
Banks noticed brighter light above. They were approaching the top of the stairs. He tapped Wiggins on the shoulder and motioned that they should remove their goggles. They stood still for several seconds, letting their eyes adjust to the dim light, the flickering yellow and gold coming from the oil lanterns in the altar room above. Behind them, Hynd and McCally helped the two naked men hobble up the stairs. The man McCally was helping had to be almost lifted up every step, but he had a look of grim determination on his face that Banks took as a good sign. He waited until they were all in close formation before tapping Wiggins on the shoulder again.
“Last push, up and out and then off and clear to the boat,” he whispered.
“Aye,” Wiggins replied equally quietly. “This Indiana Jones shite is no’ as much fun as it looks in the films.”
They headed up the last six steps.
“Off and clear” was a forlorn hope.
*
The altar room at the top of the stairwell was packed tight with natives, a small forest of spears and long knives waiting in the doorway. Even then Banks might have chosen to shoot their way out, but a tall figure, his head covered in a scaled headdress shaped like a striking snake’s head, stepped forward and poured fluid out of a large cauldron. The shimmer of oil rose in the air, and Banks tasted it, thick in his throat, even as it ran in a rivulet
across the altar room floor and down the stairs at the squad’s feet.
The tall figure took one of the oil lamp sconces from the wall and held it high while looking Banks directly in the eye. He didn’t need to speak; the threat was clear enough. All he had to do was drop the lamp and the floor, the steps, and Banks’ squad would instantly be engulfed in a raging wall of flame. It was not a death Banks chose for himself or for those in his charge.
“Cap?” Wiggins asked, looking for orders.
“Guns on the floor, lads, and step up and out. We can’t win this here. Let’s live to fight another day.”
“Cap?” Wiggins said again. Banks knew that the private would prefer to go down swinging if he was going down.
“Stand down, Wiggo. That’s an order. If not for me, then for these two poor bastards we rescued. Do you want to see them burn?”
When Banks stepped out into the altar room and dropped his gun, Wiggins was doing the same at his side.
*
“Just let us go and there won’t be any trouble,” Banks said, but the leader of the crowd gathered against them showed no sign of understanding. He motioned, a series of complicated hand signals, and three of them moved forward to quickly gather up the dropped rifles. Hynd and McCally were likewise quickly disarmed.
“You’re getting yourself into big trouble here,” Buller said behind Banks. “These men are soldiers. More will come. Let us go, and I won’t press charges.”
Wiggins laughed at that.
“I don’t think these lads give a fuck about the Polis.”
Things moved fast in the next few minutes. The squad and the two naked men were bundled back down the steps to the cells, their way lit only by flaming torches carried by their guards. The bodies they’d left behind on the way up were quickly dragged off into the dark, and although Banks tried to pick his way down carefully, he still felt the slide and slip of fresh blood under his soles as they descended.
Operation Amazon Page 4