Operation: Congo

- 7 -

The shit hit the fan for Banks and Wiggins almost as soon as the other three men had reached the balcony above the gate.

“Cover them, Wiggo,” Banks said but at the same time the throng of townspeople quickly surged to fill the space between them and the gate, effectively cutting off the escape route of the men above. Banks put two shots into the gate itself above the heads of the throng but all that got him was a barking roar in answer from the far side.

“What the fuck have they got in there?” Wiggins said. Banks had no answer for him.

The crowd inched closer to Banks and Wiggins’ position. They were a motley crew, some in western shirts and trousers, others in swaddles of cloth wrapped around like kilts, some wearing tall, brightly colored headgears of feathers, others with feathers seemingly implanted into the skin up and down the length of arms and legs. Almost all of them were dark-haired and pale-skinned, no darker than Banks himself. Several hundred of them, women and befeathered children among them, stood between them and the gate. He heard gunfire and looked up to see Hynd and the others descend on the other side.

The roaring of whatever was over there got louder.

“Any bright ideas, Cap?” Wiggins said at his side.

“Let’s try calling their bluff, shall we?” Banks replied, raised his weapon and took a step forward towards the throng. Almost as one the crowd matched his step and the next until there was only a matter of a few yards between them. More gunfire echoed from beyond the wall.

“Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it now, Cap,” Wiggins said.

Banks saw movement high on the wall, natives throwing spears down on the far side. He raised his weapon to aim then saw three men at the front of the crowd raise spears of their own in reply. They all stared at each other across the empty space.

I don’t want a bloodbath here.

He wasn’t given a choice. The three spear wielders readied themselves to throw.

“Fuck it,” Banks said and took two of them out in quick succession. Wiggins put a round in the head of the third then both of them had to back off fast as the throng surged forward, screaming a single roar that sounded far too similar to the barking they’d heard on the river earlier.

“Cap?” Wiggins said, and Banks heard the worry in the corporal’s voice.

“Keep backing off,” he replied. “These buggers aren’t giving up.”

He was forced to shoot another spear-carrier who threatened to skewer Wiggins, then was face to face with a pre-teen child, hair full of feathers, face full of rage and a long, serrated blade in her left hand, raised ready to strike. He couldn’t shoot so he reversed the rifle, clubbed the child on the side of the head as gently as he could manage yet still put her down, then turned to Wiggins.

“We’re getting nowhere here. Double-time, back along the trail. Let’s see if we can lose then in the night and double back ’round.”

He took to his heels, Wiggins by his side.

Behind him, the barking roars from the chasing crowd brought an answering response of more roars from the far side of the wall.

Their flight in the dark became a thing of nightmare; the only light was that provided by their rifle sight-lights dancing across the ground ahead of them. At every step, they expected ambush and all the while the roars of an angry mob followed them. But slowly at first then with more surety they outpaced the crowd and were soon running hard with the roars fading behind them.

After a time, Banks brought them to a halt.

“That’s enough of this running shit,” he said, waiting for the thud of his heartbeat in his ears to lessen. “See if we can find a trail that’ll take us north. We need to get back to that gate, and we need to do it fast.”

He didn’t have to add anything. Both of them knew that they hadn’t heard any gunfire since beginning their own flight. Either Hynd and the others had effected their escape… or they were in deep shit. The only way to find out was to go and look.

And that meant heading north through dense foliage in unknown terrain.

Still, it’s not as if we haven’t done it before.

Wiggins found a track, an animal trail, cloying mud underfoot but it took them in the general direction in which they wanted to go. Every so often, the foliage would become less dense, enough for them to get their bearings on the flickering red glow of the torches on the gate at the settlement.

It was as they approached the township again, under better cover than before, that Banks’ guts roiled and the hairs at the back of his neck stood up. He brought Wiggins to a halt and took them both quickly off the track, taking refuge in the dark where they stood, neither moving, deep in the shadows under a pair of dripping leaves that loomed over them like oversized umbrellas. Wiggins was about to speak, but Banks put a finger to his lips, calling for silence. His spidey-sense was tingling and he knew it well enough to trust it.

Once again, it hadn’t failed him. His fingers tightened around his rifle as he heard heavy steps sucking at the mud back along the way they’d come. Whatever it was, he smelled it before he saw it—an acrid, meaty odor and a faint hint of rotted meat coming with it. A beast lumbered along the track, passing within three yards of them but apparently oblivious to their presence. Banks didn’t know what surprised him the most; the fact that it appeared to be a dinosaur—a raptor, if he wasn’t mistaken—or the fact that it had a bridle and saddle and was being ridden by one of the townspeople sitting high on the beast’s shoulders. The feathers in the man’s hair glistened where their oils caught the reflected glare of the torches on the wall.

Neither Banks nor Wiggins moved for long seconds even after the sound of the beast’s passage moved away, heading towards the settlement.

“Fucking hell, Cap,” Wiggins said in a whisper.

“My thoughts exactly, Wiggo. But at least we ken that it’s not a giant bloody ostrich that we’ve been following. And it doesn’t change the fact that the sarge and the others are still on the other side of that wall. The head-on, balls-to-the-wall approach didnae work so we need to be quick and quiet as church mice—and it’s not just people we’ve got to worry about now.”

“Fucking Jurassic Park bollocks, that’s all we need.”

“Eyes on the prize, lad,” Banks replied. “If there’s one of those buggers on this side of yon gate, you’ve got to ken there’s going to be more on the other side.”

“Aye. And probably not house-trained either.”

They returned to the trail, taking it slowly, painfully so to Banks’ mind. The lack of gunfire—in fact, the now almost complete silence—had him on edge and his spidey-sense, although no longer setting his guts roiling, still told him that trouble wasn’t far away.

A strange calm had settled on the township. Men still patrolled the balcony above the gate and those guards were keeping the torches lit but there was now no sign of the angry crowd who had been chasing Banks and Wiggins minutes before. It was possible they were still out in the jungle but Banks had a feeling that the responsibility for the chase had been passed to the one riding the raptor—just as he somehow knew there was more than one rider out here in the night with them.

He put it to the back of his mind, remembering his own words.

Eyes on the prize, lad.

He turned his attention to the gate.

He had more time now to have a good look at what faced them but a prolonged examination didn’t add anything he didn’t already know; the only way up the wall was well guarded and the defenders were now ready for them. Having lost the element of surprise they had also, to Banks’ eye, lost any chance of getting the sarge and the others out quietly. He pulled Wiggins back deep into the foliage to where they could talk in whispers without fear of being overheard.

“I can’t see a way in,” he said.

“Me neither, Cap. Maybe further along, away from the town?”

Banks shook his head.

“If it was that easy, they wouldn’t have a gate in the first place. I’m guessing its sheer walls all the way.”

But now that the thought had been placed in his head, it was hard to shake it. If they could only get safely across to the other side, their chances of finding Hynd and the others would be greatly improved.

“Let’s try a couple of hundred yards east, away from the town,” he said. “Then we’ll see how easy it is to shimmy up and over, if at all. And if yon rider comes back, you have my permission to shoot first and ask questions later.”