Once on the landing, the armed men stripped the squad naked, their clothes, boots and goggles being spirited away back up the stairs. The leader found Banks’ satellite phone and examined it, but not as if curious in any way as to its function, and only for a few seconds before it too was taken away.
Two of them threw Banks unceremoniously into the first cell. He landed hard and had to tumble in a well-practiced roll to avoid breaking a collarbone on the rough stone floor. Buller came in, stumbling behind him. He heard a ruckus outside, then Wiggins shouting loud curses before a thud—the distinctive sound of wood against skull—brought a sudden silence.
“Wiggo just tried something daft. He’s down, but he’s alive, Cap,” Hynd shouted, then there was another short ruckus before silence fell again.
“Tell them to keep quiet,” Buller said at his side. “They leave us alone if we’re quiet. Mostly.”
“Radio silence until my order,” Banks shouted. No reply came back, but he didn’t expect one. The door shut, and they heard a bar get put in place on the outside. Footsteps on stone echoed away up the stairwell, then they were left in the quiet dark.
*
Banks waited until he was sure they were completely alone, then made a quick survey of the cell in the dark with his fingers. It was little more than a 10-foot square block, solid stone everywhere including floor and even the ceiling, which he could just touch by standing on tiptoe. Opposite the doorway, he came to a tall window open to the elements that looked out over nothing but more darkness, only the shimmer and dance of the stars overhead showing any light. The only sound was the cascade of water, louder here, from somewhere over to his right.
“You threw the phone from here?” he asked. “I’m surprised it didn’t just bounce off a rock and get bashed to buggery.”
“It was a Hail Mary, that’s for sure,” Buller said. “But you obviously got the message. Where’s the rest of the cavalry?”
“Next door,” Banks said dryly.
Buller laughed.
“You four losers are the sum total of the fucking rescue team? And you just laid down your guns and let them throw you in here with me? Well, that’s just fucking peachy.”
“Aye, and I saved you from getting your bollocks roasted in the process. You’re welcome,” Banks replied. “Pleased to meet you too.”
Buller didn’t reply, but went to sit cross-legged on the floor in the corner. All Banks saw of him was a paler shape among the shadows. Banks walked back across the small cell to the door and tried his weight against it. It creaked, but held firm. He knew he could probably force it open by putting a shoulder to it, but that would attract attention, and they no longer had the advantage of firepower. He didn’t fancy his chances naked and unarmed against a score or more men with knives and spears, no matter that he had the benefit of training.
“If I’d known you were going to be so fucking incompetent, I’d have asked for Gerald fucking Butler,” Buller said from the darkness.
“Aye, well, if I’d known you were going to be such a gobby wee shite, I’d have let you fucking burn upstairs and we wouldn’t be in this mess now.”
“People don’t talk to me like that.”
“Why is that then? Because you’re the son of a lord? In here, you’re just another bollock-naked arsehole with the rest of us poor fuckers. So tell me what I need to know to get out of here, or shut the fuck up. Either way’s fine by me.”
Banks hoped he hadn’t overdone it. If he read the man right, he’d get answers. Even if he had it wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d pissed off a peer of the realm, although he’d just earned himself a bollocking from the colonel if they ever got home.
It turned out he had indeed read the man right. Buller didn’t move from his seated position, but when he spoke again it was softly, with more than a hint of fear in it.
“I need to tell you about the snakes.”
*
“We’re in the Amazon jungle. Of course there’s going to be fucking snakes.”
“Are you going to listen, or are you going to take the piss?”
I’m perfectly capable of both at the same time.
He didn’t say it and bit his tongue. His man was still talking.
“I saw the first one at the same time I threw the phone out of the window,” Buller continued. Banks didn’t interrupt him. It wouldn’t change anything to tell the man that they’d seen something too, and he needed the information.
“First it was a man, and then it wasn’t,” Buller said, his voice little more than a whisper in the dark.
“The guy in the full head mask? Aye, I saw him upstairs. We both did.”
“No, he’s their priest—more than that, he’s some kind of shaman. But he’s a man, and real enough. I meant the ones who can turn. If the superstitions are right, they call themselves the Children of Boitata.”
“Now that name I have heard. It’s some local snake god, isn’t it?”
“And it’s more than superstition,” Buller whispered. “I’ve seen the Children change, man into snake into man again like something out of a film. But a film has never made me piss myself.”
“Stop havering, man,” Banks said, “and tell me something concrete I can use here.”
“I’m telling you what I know, what I’ve seen,” the sitting man said. “We’re in uncharted country here, and it belongs to the snakes.”
“Snakes or no snakes, my job is to get you home to your rich daddy, so tighten your sphincter man. I need you focused.”
“You don’t understand,” Buller said. “There’s no fucking point in being focused. We’re next.”
“Next for what?”
“You saw it upstairs,” Buller said. “You must have had a good look at the altar on the way in. They cut Jack Baillie open, and they made me watch.”
“Made you watch the cutting?”
“No,” Buller said, almost shouting. “I told you, you don’t understand. They cut him open. He was still alive, at least for long enough to watch as they dragged the guts out of him. Then they ripped out his heart. Then the snakes came, and they fed.”
His voice dropped to a sob as he repeated what he’d said a minute before.
“We’re next.”
- 8 -
Buller’s sobbing told Banks that the conversation was over, for now. That was probably for the best, for Banks could make little sense of what the man had been trying to explain. All Banks knew was that somewhere down the line he’d miscalculated the situation, and lost control of it. It was time to take it back, or at least make a start in that direction.
First up was to get their kit back from wherever it had been taken. The only way to do that was to get out of the cell quietly. And there was only the one exit that wasn’t being watched.
He stepped quickly over to the window and leaned out. The wall was vertical both above and below, and stretched away on either side. He had a fair idea of how far they had descended from the top, but had no idea how far the structure might extend, or how far it was down to the canopy or river far below. He heard the cascade again, louder now. When he leaned out farther he felt spray, wet on his cheeks. That was going to make any attempt at a climb even trickier. He ran his hands over the stone where he could reach it. It was rough and eroded; plenty of finger and toeholds, but wet meant slippery.
Buller spoke softly.
“There’s no way out that way. It’s a 200-foot vertical drop,” he said.
“Thank fuck for that,” Banks replied. “I thought for a minute it was going to be fucking dangerous.”
“You can’t seriously be considering going out there?”
“Not considering, no. I’ve already made my mind up. If anybody comes looking for me, tell them I snapped and jumped.”
Without waiting for a reply, he stepped up onto the window ledge, turned to face inward, then reached for a handhold he hoped was there. His fingers found what his eyes couldn’t see, and he gripped, stepped, and reached with his othe
r hand with the easy movements of a practiced climber.
The only way to do this was to act as if it was little more than a practice exercise. He visualized it as a wall in a gymnasium, where the only fall would be a short, non-fatal one, for to think of anything else would lead to doubt, and that would be a killer on such an ascent.
He’d climbed solo and unfettered before, free ascents of rock faces in the Cairngorms and Snowdonia, but this was a first—naked and already damp with spray from the cascade off to his left. His toes went in the place his fingers had been, his right hand went up, searched, found another hold, and pulled. He was getting into the rhythm of it now, allowing himself to lean away and not hug the wall, trusting his muscle memory and strength to keep him on the move upward. He considered dropping down to one of the other windows, to alert the others to his plan, but changing direction now would be risky; so upward it would be, fast enough to keep ahead of the worry.
His eyes had adjusted to the night completely now. The rock in front of him glistened where the stars danced in the fine drops of spray. Off to his right, the shimmering snake of the river seemed to writhe and squirm and now that he was higher he saw, to his left, the long silver cascade of a thin waterfall, some 30 yards away, tumbling noisily down into the darkness.
He reached for another grip as the sky blazed orange and red and the soft hiss, then thump, of an exploding flare lit up the wall in a blinding flash. For a bad second, he thought he might slip, but his toehold held, and he was able to reach and pull, and regain his momentum as gunshots rang out loud from somewhere far below him. Giraldo and Wilkes were in trouble, but there was nothing he could do to help them and seconds later, the flare had fallen away into darkness and the night fell silent again. He could only hope that the guide had managed to affect an escape.
He turned his attention back to the climb.
*
He moved as quickly as he could allow himself to without taking undue risks. His arms felt the strain now, the ache settling in his muscles, but he refused to acknowledge that, or the pain from flayed skin on fingers and toes. His knuckles also bled, from where he’d had to ram his fist into one particular hold to take his weight as he scrambled. But more than anything else, he felt alive, and realized he was grinning widely even as he hauled himself inch by inch up the wet wall.
He lost track of time. There was only the rhythm of hand and toehold, the wall and the movement. He was surprised to finally reach up and find not a hold, but a ledge. He hauled himself up onto the very top of the structure, on the roof of the cube that sat on top of what he’d thought to be a pyramid, but was obviously only stepped on the other three sides. The wall he had climbed fell away sheer below him, and now that he had the benefit of the height, he saw that it was a single face, all the way down to where it butted against the canopy far below.
He noted too that he was now above the source of the torrent, which was below him to his right where he stood on the ledge. The rush of water was still the only sound in the clear night air. Looking over the edge, he could only see the darkness of the jungle, and the silver of the shimmering snake of the river. He turned and made his way across the roof of the altar room, creeping slowly forward to get a view over the village, hoping that all would be quiet and that he might get a chance to search for their kit.
That hope was dashed almost immediately. He had got far enough across the roof to see down the length of the main causeway along the ridge of the hill and saw, at the far end, the flicker of approaching firebrands. He got down on his belly, feeling cold wet stone along the length of his body, and kept low. He shuffled as far back as he could while maintaining a line of sight, and could only watch as a crowd of 20 came toward the pyramid. Banks’ heart sank when he saw that they had Wilkes with them, the big man being half-pushed, half-carried in a stumbling, limping walk.
*
Banks looked through the approaching crowd in vain for their guide, but there was no sign of Giraldo. Yet again he could only hope that the man had, somehow, made an escape. But for now, he only had eyes for Wilkes. There had obviously been a fight. The man bled from his nose, and a scalp wound above his left eye that had left the whole of that side of his shirt wet and red. There was also something wrong with his right leg, giving him a pronounced limp that was almost a slump, forcing his captors to push and shove him roughly to keep him in a straight line.
Banks checked for weapons. The villagers carried more of the long knives and spears he had seen earlier but there was no sign of the squad’s rifles, or Wilkes’ handgun. Banks hoped that it was the case that the villagers had no concept of modern weaponry and had simply discarded the guns, and that the kit would be stashed somewhere in the structure below him. But there was no way to get at it immediately. The small procession was already making its way up the pyramid steps, with Wilkes being poked and prodded ever more roughly as he faltered on the climb.
Banks stayed hidden. He was naked, weaponless, and any attempt at heroic rescue would only lead to a quick death under the knives and spears. He had to crawl backward as the oncoming crowd approached to avoid giving away his position, and wasn’t far enough forward to see anything once they pushed Wilkes ahead of them into the cubic room below.
He didn’t have to see to have a good idea what was going on. The screams started almost immediately and having already seen a body on the altar earlier, Banks could see all too clearly in his minds’ eye the atrocities that were now being inflicted on the big man. Once again, he had almost overwhelming urge to intervene, to leap down and throw himself into the fray. But he’d been trained better than that, well enough for sense to override instinct, and he lay there, still and quiet as Wilkes’ screams turned to frantic, animalistic howling that was, thankfully, not long lived.
Another noise replaced the screams, a slithering, moist, wetness that Banks thought must be what remained of Wilkes being hollowed out like the earlier man. Then he smelled it, an acrid odor in the air, like hot oil and vinegar. It was accompanied by more slithering, louder now, a sound that so perplexed Banks that he had to crawl forward several inches to sate his curiosity.
He looked down to the entrance of the room below him in time to see the first of them emerge. It was a snake, a huge, rainbow-hued thing some fifteen feet in length, and as thick as a man’s thigh at its thickest point. It slid down the pyramid steps and away into the night while Banks was still trying to process what he’d seen. There was no hope of considering it a hallucination. In short order, another, then another, then more of the massive snakes slid and slithered out of the room below, off down the steps and scattered into the shadows in the ruins.
He counted 20 of them.
- 9 -
Banks waited. He kept an eye on the steps and the shadows in the ruins, but the snakes had effectively disappeared. The only sound was the soft tumble of water from the cascade off to the side of the pyramid, and the only light showing was the yellow-gold flicker from the lamps that still burned in the chamber below him. He lay there feeling sweat cool on his body, noticing that the acrid oily odor was fading fast. After 10 minutes, he felt safe enough to creep to the lip of the roof. He lowered himself down to the top step of the pyramid to one side of the doorway so that he wouldn’t frame himself in the light from inside. He kept a close eye on the shadowed ruins below, ready to flee at the first hint of snake activity, and sidled sideward, backing into the altar room.
He’d already known he’d see it, but the sight of poor Wilkes splayed out, still wet, on the altar, dead eyes staring accusingly, shook Banks to the core. He averted his gaze and made a quick circuit of the room, looking for their kit and weapons. All he found was clothing and blades discarded in random piles on the floor by the natives.
Snakes have no need for clothes. Snakes have no hands to carry a knife in.
He laughed, then caught himself before any sound escaped. A manic madness fluttered in his head, a need to be off and away from this place where nothing made much of any sense.
He turned for one more look at the body on the altar, trying not to think about the blood trails that led off and away down the pyramid steps. Poor Wilkes was beyond any help.
But the squad needs me.
That single thought was enough to get him moving. He put on a kilt-like piece of cloth that he was able to tie at his waist, and although it barely covered the essentials, he felt somehow less vulnerable for wearing it. Another look round confirmed that their kit was nowhere in the room, so he gathered up as much loose clothing, and as many blades, as he could safely carry into a bundle under his left arm. With his free hand, he carefully took down one of the oil lamps and carried it ahead of him as he headed for the stairs.
*
Buller was still sitting cross-legged on the floor and looked up in astonishment when Banks entered the cell two minutes later.
“Are you ready to be rescued yet or are you still to feert to move?” Banks asked. Buller got, somewhat unsteadily, to his feet.
“I thought for sure you’d fallen. You’ve been gone for hours.”
Banks passed him a loincloth and left him to figure out how to put it on while he went and opened the other two doors. Hynd, McCally, and Wiggins were all up and awake. Wiggins had an egg-shaped bruise at his left temple, but seemed little the worse for the bump on the head earlier. Banks passed them each a cloth.
The other man they’d found earlier was slumped against a wall in the third cell, and McCally stopped Banks from stepping over to him.
“He died a couple of hours back, Cap,” the corporal said. “Went in his sleep with no pain, which I think must have been a blessing for him. Dehydration or starvation, it’s hard to tell what got him first. He was delirious for a wee bit before sleep got him. Some shite about snakes or something.”
Operation Amazon Page 5