Operation: Amazon

- 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.

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.”