Operation: Congo

- 12 -

Hynd couldn’t wait any longer. It was still almost an hour before dawn would break but the night had been deathly quiet and he’d expected some noise if the cap and Wiggo were still free men. He was going to have to find them but his first priority was to get these people up and out of the crater and away onto the river as soon as possible.

“Wilko,” he said, turning to the young private who was sitting in the cave mouth nursing a mug of coffee. “Are you up for another spot of climbing? I need a path out of here and I need it yesterday.”

“Nae bother, sarge. Can I take the civilian with me? He helped no end yesterday.”

The WHO worker was already at Wilkins’ side.

“I’m game,” he said. “As long as your man takes the lead; he’s a better climber than I am.”

“Make it so,” Hynd said and stood aside as the two men left the cave. Once he heard them scrambling above him, he went back down the slope to the ledge above the clearing. Looking down, he had about enough light to make out the corpse of the raptor below him. There was movement down there in the dark. He chanced putting on his gun light and aimed down. Four pairs of eyes reflected back at him; a hyena pack taking advantage of the remains. Beyond that in a ring around the carcass as if waiting their turn danced a whole flock of vultures, heads bobbing, legs stomping in anticipation.

“The circle of life,” a voice said at his ear, nearly causing him to topple off the ledge. It was Debs and she’d got to his side as silent as a cat in the night.

“Bloody hell, lass,” Hynd said. “If you’d been the enemy, I’d be a goner. Where did you learn to creep around like that?”

“Natural sneakiness, I suppose, and three vicious big brothers that I learned to avoid. And thanks.”

“For what?”

“I haven’t been called a lass in many years,” she replied, smiling again.

Before Hynd could wonder if something was starting here, there was a louder movement in the foliage. He immediately switched off his light and tried to peer in the direction of the sound. Debs put a hand on his arm and a finger at his lips but he didn’t need to be told. Whatever was out there was heavier than a hyena and didn’t give a fuck if anybody heard it coming. From what he knew of this place, that probably meant another of the raptors.

That’s what he was prepared for so he almost dropped his rifle in surprise when a raptor did indeed break into the clearing. The reason for his shock was that this one was saddled and bridled and had a rider sitting tall on its shoulders, so tall that he wasn’t far below Hynd’s feet.

The rider’s eyes locked with his. Dawn was getting closer, giving enough light in the sky that they could clearly see each other. The raptor rider had got as much of a surprise as Hynd. They moved at the same time. Hynd reached for his rifle, the rider reached for a horn at his waist. Hynd was faster; he couldn’t allow an alarm to be raised and their position to be given away. It took three shots, one in the head for the rider and two in the skull of the raptor before it realized it was dead.

The hyena pack was moving back in even as Hynd led the woman back up the slope in the dark.

He spent the whole of the short climb back to the cave expecting calumny to be raised, but there were no answering shouts, no sound of any approach. If his shots had been heard, nobody appeared to have taken any note of them.

“What do we do now?” Debs whispered when they reached the cave mouth. “They know where we are.”

“I don’t think they do,” Hynd replied, calmly lighting a new cigarette for each of them. “Did you see the way he looked at me? He came upon us completely by accident. They don’t know we’ve made a climb. The cave here is well obscured from below and if anyone does turn up looking for yon rider, all they’re going to find is the dogs; they’re doing a better job of obscuring the evidence than I ever could. The plan stays the same. Wilkins will find us a way out and we’ll be gone with the sun. But I’ve got a bone to pick with you, lass.”

“What’s that?”

“You never told me yon beasties were domesticated.”

“I mentioned it last night, and you never took me up on it. I assumed you’d seen one for yourself. They use them as guards on the other side of the gate as well as in here. We saw several on the way in ourselves. Does it make a difference?”

“It might. It means we need to expect more intelligence in anything that comes against us if there’s a man driving.”

“From what I’ve seen, the things are pretty smart all on their own.”

“Maybe,” Hynd replied. “But no’ smart enough to avoid being domesticated in the first place.”

“Especially for something that’s supposed to be extinct. It doesn’t seem to have fazed you in the slightest though. I would have thought seeing a dinosaur would have thrown you; it gave all of us the screaming heebie-jeebies when we first saw one. So why not you?”

Hynd smiled thinly.

“There’s stories I could tell you, lass. Let’s just say that my wee pal Wiggo calls us fucking monster magnets and leave it at that for now. When we get out of here, you can buy me a pint and I’ll tell you some tales.”

“You’ve got a date, Sarge,” she said and touched his arm lightly before heading deeper into the cave.

Now he wasn’t wondering at all. Something was definitely starting here. Now all he had to do was make sure he got them all out of here so that he could find out where it might lead.

Like much else in Hynd’s experience in the service, his plan didn’t go the way he wanted it to. A small tumble of scree and pebbles from above was the first sign of Wilkins’ return. Hynd noted that there was already enough light to see the private’s grim expression when he turned up at the cave mouth.

“It’s a no-go, Sarge,” he said. “Your man here with me damn near got himself killed twice and he’s a bloody good climber. I might, just might, manage to get up over the top on my own but I wouldn’t want to try it without ropes. And there’s no way in hell we’re getting these people out that way. You and Davies would never make it never mind them.”

Davies spoke up from deeper in the cave.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence anyway, Wilko. It’s nice to be appreciated.”

“It’s not meant to be a slight,” the private replied. “Just stating a fact. It’s something even serious climbers would turn away from as too risky. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I hear you, lad,” Hynd replied. “I don’t have to like it but I hear you.”

“Where does that leave us, Sarge?” Davies said.

“Up shit creek again. We’re going to have to go back down to the jungle, make for the gate, and fight our way out.”

“We could wait here,” a voice from the back said. “You said there were more of you.”

“There are, but they’re no’ psychic,” Hynd replied. “They don’t know where we are, we don’t know where they are. The captain kens better than to be blundering about in the dark. My bet is that he’s somewhere around the gate waiting for us to head back that way.”

“How do you know that?” the same voice said from the darkness.

“Because it’s what I’d do. And the captain taught me most of what I know.”

He turned to Debs.

“Get your folk ready,” he said. “We move out in five minutes.”