Operation: Amazon

- 3 -

The journey back took less than half the time and they only had to paddle enough to keep them in the fastest part of the current. Even then, the heat sapped what little strength they had left, and Banks was glad to glance up and see that they were on the last bend before the facility’s position.

Once they navigated the river bend, Banks looked toward the dredger, almost hoping to see their guide’s boat moored at the rear dock, but the whole operation sat as quiet and dead as it had been when they’d left. It would be some hours yet before they could realistically hope for the boat’s return.

“I hope Wilkes has saved us a beer,” Wiggins said. “I’m bloody gasping here.”

Banks shared the sentiment; his shoulders and arms felt heavy as stones and every breath was like breathing in steam; they were going to need the guide’s boat if they wanted to penetrate deeper upriver. And the finding of the phone had now made that a priority rather than a possibility, for Banks had already made a good guess as to its owner.

After docking, they walked quickly back to the living quarters where, to Banks’ surprise, they found Wilkes, still sober, and preparing a pot of fish stew in the mess area.

“We expected to find you pished on the floor,” Wiggins said.

“We’re not all Scotsmen. The whisky is back in the cupboard,” Wilkes replied with a wry grin. “I only had what you saw me take. Purely medicinal, I assure you.”

“Aye, well I might take some of that medicine myself later,” Banks replied. “But first, do you have any beer left?”

“Oh, we have plenty of that,” he replied. “We run out of fuel before we ever run out of beer.”

Wilkes went to a fridge and came out with a six-pack of beer that the squad took gratefully. Banks rubbed the cold bottle against his cheek as he took the zip-locked packet from inside his shirt and passed it across to Wilkes.

“Is this his?” he said. They both knew who Banks had referred to, and Wilkes nodded, suddenly agitated.

“He bought it new on his last trip home. It’s his pride and joy. You didn’t find him, did you? Tell me he’s not dead.”

Banks took the packet and handed it to McCally.

“We only found the phone,” he replied. “My corporal here will see what he can get from it. All we know is that it came down, in the plastic packet, from somewhere farther upstream.”

“Maybe it’s meant as a message,” Wilkes said eagerly.

“And maybe he lost it accidentally,” Banks replied. “Let’s not be jumping to any conclusions here. All we can say at the moment is that it came from upstream.”

“I got a couple of minutes of video off the phone’s card,” McCally said when he called them through to the office 10 minutes later. “I’ve hooked up the laptop, so gather round. But I warn you, it’s weird shite.”

They all gathered close as McCally started the recording running,

The video started up in darkness, then a face came into focus, lit only by whatever feeble light was coming from the camera screen, throwing pitch-black shadow around nostrils and eye sockets and giving the face the look of a bone-white skull.

“Is that Buller?” Banks said.

“Yep, that’s him,” Wilkes replied. “But what the hell is he playing at?”

McCally had the sound turned up to full volume, but even then they needed to bend in even closer to hear as the man spoke, barely more than a whisper. Terror was plain though, in every word of the Scotsman’s speech.

“I don’t know how long I’ve got, and I can only thank fuck I had a sample pouch in my pocket, so I’m going to send this out the window in a minute or so, and hope it gets to somebody that can do something about it.”

The man was clearly nervous, his eyes wide, blinking rapidly. The phone shook in his hand, and Banks was immediately reminded of a terrible shaky-cam horror movie that Wiggins and McCally made him sit through on a night off in Inverness.

Is this some kind of candid-camera con? If it’s somebody’s idea of a joke, they’re going to get a bullet up their arse.

Banks turned his attention fully to the screen as Buller continued.

“I have no idea where the fuck I am or how the fuck I got here. I went to sleep in my bed; and the dreams were delirious, fucked-up nonsense, so I assume I was drugged. I woke up here, feeling like a badger has shat in my mouth and with my head birling. ‘Here’ is somewhere high up; the air is fresh, cooler than down on the river, and I hear running water, a cascade, like a waterfall. I’m in some old stone building, Mayan at a guess, and as far as I can tell, I’m facing south. Now you know as much as I do. Just fucking come and get me. Please?”

The frightened face looked away from the screen, then back again.

“Shite, somebody’s coming.”

The view swung wildly, the soundtrack cracking and rustling, and then the picture went slightly opaque, as if being seen through smoke. Banks realized that the phone had now been placed inside the zip-lock bag. The voice started up again, even more muffled than previously.

“Here goes nothing. Out the window with you, and I hope to fuck you get somewhere. Come and get me. Please?”

At the last second, before the screen went dark and quiet, they caught a glimpse back into the room from which the phone had been thrown. McCally used the mouse to quickly stop the video, and clicked twice through the frames until they had the one with the best view of the room. They clearly saw the man who’d thrown the phone, standing at a tall open window in a stone wall. Behind him, deep in shadow and coming through a doorway, was — something — it didn’t look human, although the shadows were such that it was hard to tell much of anything. If Banks had to bet on it, he’d have said it was a snake, but given the size of the room and the distance from the camera, it was a snake that had a head more than a foot wide between the eyes.

Everyone around the laptop fell quiet, trying to take in what they’d seen. McCally showed no sign of moving the mouse to control the video, which was stuck showing that last frame.

“Is that it?” Banks asked the corporal.

“That’s all the video I could find,” McCally said. “But the phone’s a smart wee fucker. There’s a built-in GPS that’s been saving data on where the phone has been when it’s switched on. It’s not always had a signal, and it’s patchy at best, but there’s two points on the map that are clear enough, each being saved half a dozen times at least.” He went over to the large map and pointed. “One’s here, on the river where we are now. The other’s here.”

Banks went over to check the spot that McCally’s finger now covered. It was a high area of ground, in the highlands to the north, the same area that Wilkes had pointed out to him earlier.

The job had now definitely become a rescue mission.