The Babylon Thing

by Peter Ackers

45

  French Guiana, South America

  During the two days he had spent back at home while waiting for Marcellus’s team to pick him up, Jacky had honed his muscles some more in the training room of his old country house and had also decided to stock up on a few gadgets that he thought might come in handy for the journey ahead. These were stored in the pockets of his heavy-duty waistcoat. Until he knew for sure how fully he could trust Marcellus and Leo and the rest of them, he would keep at least a few secrets.

  Leaning back into his seat, he surveyed the interior of the fuselage, examining each face. Marcellus had insisted that the trip be used by everyone to brush up on the history and geography of French Guiana, but the man himself seemed to be the only one doing that. Jameson had read a little during the jet flight across the Atlantic, but had given up once they’d landed at Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana. Leo had skimmed through a couple of tour brochures only cursorily. Jacky had done his reading at home. The other man, picked up at Cayenne, was a guide who obviously didn’t need to study the country. He did, however, feel the need to scrutinise Leo’s long legs below her long shorts.

  For the hot weather he wore shin-high hiking boots with a wrap-around Velcro strap, same old green jeans and black T-shirt, now joined by a heavy-duty black outdoor waistcoat with numerous pockets. A pair of sunglasses hung out of one pocket.

  The waistcoat was necessary because of the pockets, but it was thick and, despite the wind rushing in through the open fuselage door, Jacky was hot enough that sweat glistened on his face. Everyone was sweating. Leo's leg flesh glistened. Jacky found himself looking at them, just like the guide, Ramun.

  “I think we’re here,” the pilot called back, barely heard over the sound of the rotor blades. Everyone moved towards the front of the fuselage, to stare out either the fuselage door or the cabin windscreen. “Looks like something’s going on down there,” he added.

  The river was technically the divide between the two countries of French Guiana and Brazil, right and left respectively on a map. You wouldn’t know it to look, though, because the terrain differed not one iota between them.

  The entire coast of the Guianas, almost 2000km worth, consisted of the Avicennia nitida species of mangrove. Sometimes just over a mile wide, this fringe was like a thick skin protecting the three countries, where nutrients carried from the Amazon has allowed the spawning of a heavy mass of life, mainly small fish and shrimps. Once this belt, this skin, has been penetrated, the land becomes barren and dry savannah and then a world of wet rainforest that sometimes sees an annual rainfall of 1500mm.

  If that sounded bad, Jacky knew it was paradise compared to the area that they were currently flying through. A fifty-mile wide section of super-humid forest on the north-east corner of the country, where even the mosquitoes get hot and sweaty. Humid, but continually battered by rains that can reach levels of 4000mm per year. The rains were coming now, just to prove a point.

  Almost as if they’d breached a membrane around the forest, there was hot sunshine and then suddenly a wall of water whose weight quickly forced the pilot to put his all into flying the helicopter.

  Through the downpour, the sight that the pilot had remarked upon was barely visible. Jacky could make out a section of forest in the process of being destroyed. Traces of smoke amongst the trees suggested the method was burning. The rains were making it hard for whoever was down there, though. Given the area and its rainy personality, Jacky doubted the knowledge and professionalism of the people cutting a swath of destruction below.

  As they closed on the area, Jacky saw three helicopters, military sorts, in the burned clearing. He was suddenly suspicious.

  “No markings on the choppers,” he called out over the sound of the rotors and the added noise of the rain. “Definitely not a mining company.”

  Leo moved to his side, devilishly close - he could smell her perfume over the smells of the land being sucked into the fuselage. “Government?”

  “This isn’t good land for trying to burn down rainforest. Fifty miles away there’s land that at least has a dry season.”

  “So what then?”

  Jacky shrugged.

  Marcellus had heard this conversation and he now pointed down at the site, asking the guide what was going on.”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Ramun replied, his accent thick and French. “But if they are burning, then it is not for profit from the wood. Perhaps it is for the building of a reserve or a farm.”

  Marcellus nodded, but Jacky just laughed. “Old MacDonald had a farm, and on that farm he had some fish.”

  “You are right, Mr. Jackson. Perhaps a road?”

  “A road to where?” Leo piped up.

  “Excavation,” Jameson said. Everyone looked. He was staring at a map. He raised his head and shouted: “Pilot, fly over, don’t stop, carry on past.”

  “What is it?” Marcellus said.

  Jameson held up the map. “Why are we here, people? The prison. This is the area.”

  Jacky’s breath caught in his throat, as he was sure it did for all the others. They were here to search for the remains of a prison built and used before or around the official prison period of 1852-1947. It was hoped that clues found inside the ruins would shed light on exactly where in this country - the smallest in South America, yet bigger than England - a Babylonian king had long ago been laid to rest. This was a top secret project, known only to the people inside the helicopter, not including the pilot and the guide, yet here was physical proof, right below them in the flesh, that others knew, that others had the same plans. But who were they, and, more important, did it have anything to do with the beach massacre in Nova Scotia?

  Jacky felt a chill run through his that was part apprehension, and part fight.

  46

  The choppers flew over the site of activity and away, further down the river a couple of miles, and landed at the first clear spot on the west bank.

  “You said this prison is unofficial,” Marcellus said to Ramun.

  “That is correct, sir.”

  “Then who the hell are those people swarming all over it?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Ramun said meekly. As usual when things were out of his control, Marcellus got agitated.

  “What now?” Leo said.

  Jacky unhooked his seatbelt. “No point twenty of us traipsing all the way there only to have to come back. I’ll go. I’ll take a radio.”

  “Go where?” Marcellus demanded.

  “To the prison.”

  “Good idea,” Leo said, also getting out of her seat. “Me and Jacky will scope it out. And if he can keep his hands off me long enough, we’ll radio in what we find out. Could be nothing.”

  Jacky slid his sunglasses on and jumped out of the chopper, and Leo followed. “If we aren’t back in an hour, then don’t worry because it just means Jacky’s hands have got the better of me.”

  “You wish.”

  “I don’t like this,” Marcellus said. He unclasped his seatbelt; this prompted everyone else to do the same.

  Once out in the wet, everyone gathered. The soldiers, all wearing black, chatted amongst themselves, as did the pilots. Marcellus, Jameson and Leo conversed quietly by one of the choppers. Jacky took a moment to speak with Ramun. He asked him what Marcellus had meant about the prison. Unofficial.

  “This prison should not exist,” Ramun told him. "It was built using money applied for by the chief gaoler of a prison about twenty kilometres away. The money was for a large vegetable garden and irrigation system. Instead, he built another prison and kept it secret. It was a vile, monstrous place where often many convicts died. Underground. It closed in 1898 when the government found out about it. The gaoler was hung. They planned to reopen it, but the plan never came through. Rather than dismantle it, it was left to the jungle. Please, what does Mr. Marcellus want with this place? I am not supposed to know it exists. If anyone finds out -“

  “Don’t worry about that,” Jacky told him.
“I assume you’re being well-paid for this. Just worry about what to spend it on. Do you know any of the interior of the prison?”

  “A little. Two years ago I gave a brief tour to a pair of government representatives who -“

  “Draw me a map if you can,” he cut in. “Whatever you remember.”

  Ramun did, and soon afterwards Jacky was trekking along the riverbank, wearing his backpack and a baseball cap, with Leo by his side.

  “All this rain,” Leo moaned. “It’s like Wimbledon tennis fortnight. This is supposed to be a tropical country.”

  “These trees need the rain,” was all Jacky could think to say.

  Leo looked up. The tops of the trees created a thick canopy, but it stopped more light than it did rain. “I bet this place is full of wild monsters.”

  “Insects mostly. Snakes. A few small creatures.”

  “No gorillas? No elephants?”

  “Not here. Just spiders that carry enough venom to kill six gorillas or elephants.”

  “You think that scares me? I’d never die from a spider bite. I’d die of shock at the size of the sod first. How long is this going to take us to get there?”

  “Go back if you’re tired.”

  “So I can stand in the rain with a bunch of men? No thanks; you’re better company. Besides, you need me to lead the way when we run from the first spider we come across.”

  “You’re very considerate.”

  Half an hour later they’d crossed the three or four miles between the prison and the area where the choppers were cooling their engines. For the last hundred metres, Jacky and Leo moved slowly, warily, careful not to make a noise that might carry. There was enough noise coming from the site to cover any they might make, but it wouldn’t pay to take that risk.

  He saw a Jeep hidden amongst the trees, right in front of them, between them and the only overground section of the prison, a square, stone building that Ramun’s map had marked as “reception.” This was where new prisoners were logged in before being escorted down a set of steps leading to the cells. There were two men sat on the roof of the Jeep. They appeared to be playing cards. A rifle was laid next to each man, a pistol secured in a shoulder holster.

  “Guards,” Jacky said. He put his sunglasses away.“They aren’t parked in the clearing. The vehicle has been carefully driven into the thickness of the trees to be mostly concealed. These people might not care who sees from above, but they certainly don’t want anyone coming in from the ground. I’m betting there are other guards. Come on.”

  They moved away from the riverbank, deeper into the jungle. The further they got from the gap in the overhead canopy cut by the ageless river, the darker it seemed to get.

  They saw another Jeep. This time the guards were inside the vehicle, smoking. The distance between the two vehicles was about 150 metres. Jacky figured there’d be at least two other Jeeps, a minimum of four to create a perimeter around the prison.

  They positioned themselves halfway between the two Jeeps, where they could see neither, and moved forward, closer to the building that the guards were protecting. Jacky looked round at Leo and saw her crouched over slightly.

  “Think bending over will make you any less visible?”

  Leo thought, and stood up.

  They moved to the edge of the burned clearing. Jacky sat down by a tree, leaning into the dense growth at its foot. He tugged Leo down and pulled her close. Of course, she didn’t object.

  The edge of the large clearing was line with trees that had been roughly chopped down and broken up. They created a kind of low wall of jagged wood. The wood was blackened by fire. The ground beyond was charred and dotted with tree stumps. The stone building was smoke-blackened. The only things not dirtied by smoke were the three choppers and three Land Rovers. The smell of burning wood was still heavy in the air, but quickly being removed by the heavy rain.

  “Now what?”

  “We’re beyond the point where those guards can see us. I’m wondering who’s inside.”

  “You can’t be sure anyone is.”

  “The guards back there don’t look like they’re here to stay. They’re guarding the outside only while whoever’s in there does whatever he’s in there doing. And there's three choppers with nobody inside. You wait here.”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “Elsewhere.”

  He moved quick. Dashed across the clearing and past one of the three helicopters. Rushed from there to one of the Land Rovers. Whoever was running this show had the same kind of set-up as Marcellus had thrown together. Choppers carrying people and vehicles. And extra vehicles, locally rented or bought, probably. Marcellus had set it up in just a day or so; was this a rush-job too?

  There was a petrol generator near the building, Cables, probably for lights, ran from it across the ground and disappeared into the open doorway of the stone building, which was flat-roofed and square, the walls about fifteen feet long. It was hard to imagine a whole prison complex was obtainable by entering that small building.

  He rushed for the doorway of the stone building, dashed inside and hauled his pistol from an inside pocket of the padded waistcoat. The building was empty of life. The interior was brightly lit by an electric light hung on the wall, powered by the generator outside.

  The floor was bare stone, dusty. There was a dead bird in one corner. The door was an iron gate; perhaps the bird had entered through the bars to find shelter from the rain. There were four marks on the floor where, Jacky thought, a desk had long ago been bolted. The prisoner was brought in, probably signed something at the desk, and then marched down the steps in a hole near the far wall.

  Jacky approached that hole and peered down the steps. The cables from the generator trailed down the steps. There was another light hung on the wall a little way down, illuminating the stone shaft enough so Jacky could see a heavy iron door at the bottom. Some sixty feet underground. Just like Ramun had said.

  He descended the steps. Halfway down, there was a creak and the door at the bottom began to open. Voices filtered through.

  He turned, muttering to himself, “Always the bloody halfway point,” and ran back up. The light from up above was suddenly blocked; someone stood there.

  “Leo, go, move -“

  He stopped. A rifle was aimed at him. Not Leo then. The guard waved at him, a smarmy I-win grin on his face. After putting his pistol in a waistcoat pocket, Jacky waved back.

  "Any chance you're inbred and stupid enough to fall for the old looking-for-the-toilet excuse?"

  47

  Jacky woz ‘ere ’97, he scratched on the dirty wall with his finger.

  The cell was tiny. Seven feet high, two feet across, like a stone phonebooth. No phone, of course. If they hadn’t taken his backpack, he would never had fitted inside. The only light came from outside the cell, from the room above. When the small shutter in the door over his head was closed, like now, only the gap between door and frame allowed any light, barely enough so he could see his own hand in front of his face. He’d written on the wall almost blind.

  He could hear footsteps now, echoing as they came closer, down the steps. The guard with the gun had brought him here, aided by the two guards who’d come through the door at the bottom of the staircase. They’d forced him at gunpoint through that door and along a wide corridor lined with cells, nothing but cells whose doors were so close to each other those containment rooms must be smaller even than this one. At the end of that corridor, a trapdoor almost invisible in the floor, and a door in the far wall. There had been voices coming from beyond that door, but they hadn’t taken him there. Instead, through the trap and down another set of stone stairs. No lights had been placed down here, so one of the guards had picked one up and brought it. The stairs had led to what Ramun’s map called the Games Room. A square room with four doors, one in each wall. One that they’d just entered through, and three others. The floor was bizarre; a grid of wooden lines with a small metal trapdoor in each of the nin
e spaces. Jacky had instantly known what was meant for the area below each trapdoor: some unfortunate convict. But he cracked a joke about noughts and crosses. When one of the guards pulled open one of the trapdoors by a small metal ring, he had known that it was his turn to be a convict.

  He looked up as the fist-sized shutter in the trapdoor slid aside, pulled by - did his eyes deceive? - the paw of a tiger. A baby tiger. A cute baby tiger whose face was pressed close to the shutter, sniffing the air. The light was coming from behind it, so that the animal appeared as not much more than a silhouette. Still, there was enough detail for Jacky to recognise what the animal was, to realise that he might already be going stir-crazy. A baby tiger. A baby tiger had just opened the shutter and was peering down at him.

  “Hello, Jacky Jackson,” the tiger said in a high voice without moving its lips.

  Then the tiger was moved and he heard laughter from multiple sources. The trapdoor opened. Now he saw numerous human faces. One knelt, the others stood. The kneeler was a woman; the others were men. They all stared down. Jacky had the uncomfortable thought that all the guards were going to whip out their dicks and fill the cell with piss.

  The woman was tall and muscular, the definition in her arms highlighted by the fact that she wore a sleeveless tank top. She looked about forty, but carried it off well. She was completely bald, but her bronze tan and catwalk-worthy face more than made up for this physical defect. Or was it a defect? The image her baldness supplied was more intriguing, more powerful than if she had had hair.

  In her arms she held the baby tiger, one hand holding a paw, making it wave. The penny dropped for Jacky and he almost sighed with relief at knowing he still retained his sanity.

  “These tiny cells are called traps,” the woman said. Her voice, English, was feminine yet husky. It was the kind that could read bed-time stories and play the part of a cartoon troll equally well. “It is not because they trap people. A trap is where they keep a greyhound before it is let out to compete. I hope you have the stamina.”

  The trapdoor was slammed shut. Darkness reigned once more. But there were no sounds of people marching away.

  The trapdoor was yanked open again. “You’ll find that I enjoy inciting emotion in people. I enjoy testing them, provoking them. I enjoy games and tortures. I enjoy reading anticipation and fear and hope and hopelessness on their faces. I enjoy knowing that there is no God and no Heaven or Hell and thus no comebacks for all the tortures and evil that my black heart loves to bestow.” She waved at someone behind her. “Bring that light closer, I want to see his face.” The light was carried closer, held over the trap. Jacky’s face was illuminated; so was the woman’s. Despite his anger, Jacky had to admit that this stranger was beautiful. Somehow, that made this whole thing worse.

  “You are a pretty one. Look up at me. I want to read your face after I tell you this: I am going to kill you this day.”

  Jacky tried not to show emotion on his face, kept it stony still, but the woman seemed to enjoy what she read anyway. She giggled with delight, and that giggle was what really scared Jacky. It said this woman was a nutcase.

  “Oh boys, would you believe it? Jacky here didn’t believe me. Your self-belief is quite astounding.”

  “Invincibility does that to a person,” Jacky replied.

  “Immortality is quite relevant to your situation here, you may later discover. And mine. And your new friend Theodore Marcellus. And your ex-friend Leona.” She looked close, again trying to read Jacky’s face, this time in response to her mention of Leo.

  At first her point was lost on Jacky, because all he could think of was that name. Leona. He hadn’t known before now that that was her name. Leo because of her star sign, she’d said.

  Then it dawned on him. Ex-friend. A lump rose in his throat.

  “Ex?” he croaked.

  The woman giggled again. “Oh Leona, he cares for you.”

  Jacky was puzzled. “She isn’t dead?”

  “Dear no. I meant ex-friend because -“ she reached back and pulled someone closer, and that someone was Leo, and she wasn’t being restrained, and didn't look stressed “- I doubt she’ll remain in your good books after this treachery.”

  At least Leo did seem truthful when she said, “I’m sorry, Jacky.”

  48

  “The plot thickens,” Jacky snarled. “I can't keep up. Any more fucking surprises, Santa Claus?”

  The woman seemed to think about this, one long black fingernail touching her bottom lip. “Try this.” She waved at somebody beyond Jacky’s line of sight. A man he recognised entered stage left.

  Jacky laughed. “This is turning into a soap opera. Hello, James.”

  “Hello Werewolf,” James Boyle replied, giving a little wave.

  “I guess right now it’s about time I really, really regret sticking my pork sword up your bird’s cunt.”

  James’s head jerked back slightly, as if the words had physical force. He considered what his ex-friend had said and seemed to think of a response. Presently, he spat into the hole, right into Jacky’s hair and face. The woman waved him away, but James was already turning and moving away, laughing.

  “This is a tale of deception and adventure unlike any you’ve embarked upon before, Jacky,” the woman said. “Lucky for you I feel there are many more chapters to be read on your face. It means you get to live a little longer.”

  Jacky looked at Leo. “Please tell me you did this for your ill child. Or blackmail. That I can accept. Please tell me it wasn’t for plain old profit.”

  Leo did look hurt, he saw.

  “Oh it was of course profit.” answered the bald woman. “It always is. Be it money for her, eternal life for others, adrenaline for you. We’re all here to earn. Yes, your own profit is the rush, the kick. That is why you came. That is why you so readily believed everything told you by Theodore.”

  Jacky reacted.

  “Oh I love your face, Jacky,” the woman giggled. “I could play with it all day.”

  “Are you saying he lied to me?” Jacky asked, now feeling deflated. How much of anything was true? This was beginning to seem like some bad, bad dream.

  “A picture tells a thousand words. An expression shows a thousand pictures. Beautiful. Yes, Jacky, a lie. Theodore Marcellus seeks the same out of this as I do. You have no idea who I am, of course. Please ask.”

  Lack of co-operation might mean lack of answers, Jacky knew. So he played along.

  “I am Gabrielle,” the woman answered. “In response to disliking my family’s history, I have eradicated the surname. So it is just Gabrielle. Trace back my family tree and you will find, sitting on a rotted branch, Henry Wren.”

  Jacky dropped his head. How much worse was this going to get? A descendent of Wren now. Two generations of two families, both sticking it to him.

  “Look at me, you have to look at me. Look at me or I will kill you now.” Softly spoken, yet full of venom.

  Jacky looked up.

  “I don’t know what you think you know about Lawrence Marcellus or Henry Wren. Just know this: they were both bad men and Lawrence Marcellus tried to kill Henry Wren. The Marcellus family is evil and it is an hereditary disease. He did not want to share the Babylonian king’s true treasure.”

  “What is this treasure, and why all the secrecy? You and Theodore Marcellus both seem too rich to want simple money.”

  “The Empire of Babylon should have become immortal. That was the plan. A brainless servant ruined everything. My family should have become immortal many generations ago, but again a brainless servant ruined everything. But now it will very much happen.”

  “What do you mean by immortal? I don’t understand.”

  “I know: your face tells me that. Oh, the contrast between us. Both beautiful people-"

  "Don't forget 'modest'."

  "- yet our destinies are so vastly separated. I am going to live forever. I will see today’s children old and withered and in the grave. I will see crumble buildings tha
t are just now rough sketches. I will watch the sun go super-nova and kill the earth. And after that . . . well, I do like surprises.”

  “And me?”

  “Oh, you have about an hour to live.”