Operation: Amazon

- 10 -

He’d only taken two steps when he realized Buller wasn’t following and that he had stepped down into the darkest of the shadows. By then it was too late, and his blood was up in any case. He yelled, a formless cry of frustration and rage, and swung the knife, fast, toward where he thought he’d seen movement. He was rewarded with hitting something solid, feeling the blade cut, and hot liquid splashing on his hand, bringing with it a far stronger, more acrid odor that stung at the back of his throat and caused his eyes to water. He fought off the urge to retreat and went one more step down, stabbing the knife ahead of him again and again, hitting soft warm flesh with every second or third thrust. Then he was merely stabbing at air, and he sensed rather than saw something huge and serpentine move away downward at speed. The air cleared somewhat, and the stench became at least bearable.

“Buller! Get that fucking light down here. I want to see what we’re facing.”

But when he turned to shout, he saw something else. He could see the men on the stairs above him, silhouetted where thin light penetrated through a window slit, and it was already getting brighter.

They’d seen out the night.

Dawn was coming.

He stood, waiting for the men to come down to him, looking down into the stairwell below him. It was now light enough to see the steps at his feet. They were coated with slimy fluid.

“Fucking hell, Cap,” Hynd said. “What have you got on your hand? It’s bloody minging.”

Banks looked at the knife, which dripped with the gray-green slime. The fluid coated his hand up to the wrist and over some of his forearm. It was sticky to the touch, and gave off the now recognizable acrid odor.

“Snake shite, at a guess,” he said and wiped blade and hand on the scrap of material serving as his kilt. As he looked down, he saw the slime on the steps at his feet, glistening, almost glowing, in the gloom, a trail leading away downward.

“I’ve wounded it, whatever the fuck it was. It came in from somewhere, and it’ll be going out somewhere. Come on, lads, let’s get the flock out of here. Mind your feet, the sarge is right — this stuff’s fucking worse than dog shite on Sauchihall Street.”

He turned again to Buller.

“And the next time I move in the dark, you fucking move with me, or I’ll leave you here. Got it?”

Buller tried to look Banks in the eye, but his gaze slid away, and the lamp trembled in his hand, causing the flame to flicker. When the man took a step down toward Banks and Hynd, the flame wavered.

“It wasn’t me,” Buller wailed, but Banks shushed him.

“There’s a draft here. Quickly now, follow me.”

Once again, he led them down. This time, they weren’t quite descending into darkness; thin sunlight filtered in through all the window-slits, and the green slime at their feet glistened, as if catching the rays and reflecting them back. Within a dozen steps, the passageway opened out into a wider, circular chamber. On the far side from where they stood, an open archway showed sunlight, streaming in from outside and falling across a naked body lying on the floor.

At some point in the trail from stairwell to doorway, the green slime turned red. When Banks walked over, and turned the body face up, it was a dead man’s face that looked up at him, a man who had bled out from deep knife wounds to chest and abdomen.

“What the fuck is this now?” Hynd said softly, looking down at the slime trail, then at the body.

“I’ll try to explain if we get time,” Banks replied. “But if you see any snakes, big or small, stab them first and ask questions later.”

He looked around for Buller. The man was over on the far side of the rocky chamber from the doorway, with the lamp lifted up toward the roughly hewn rock of the roof where it met the wall above his head.

“Time to go,” Banks said.

Buller didn’t reply at first, merely held the lamp higher above his head. When he did finally speak, it was in a whisper of awe. He pointed to a shinier patch of the wall above, a patch that glistened, more yellow, more golden, than the light from the lamp. It ran, in a vein as thick as a tree trunk, one with a huge network of branches, all across the roof of the chamber.

“Go? We can’t go, not now that we’ve found this. Do you know what this is?”

“It’s a distraction, that’s what it is. Now come on. We’re getting the fuck out of here, and we’re doing it right now.”

“You don’t understand,” Buller said. “This is a seam. It’s gold. It’s fucking millions of pounds worth of gold and probably the mother lode of everything we get from the river. We’ve only gone and found the bloody source.”

“Aye, very nice,” Banks replied. “But it’ll be no bloody use to man nor beast if you get eaten by a big fucking snake. Now move your arse, or we’ll go without you.”

That was an idle threat, and they both knew it, but Buller finally saw sense, and moved away toward the doorway. When they reached the body, Banks took the lamp. There was only a dribble of oil left in it. He tipped the lamp until the flame ran over the fuel then poured the oil, flaming as it fell, into the dead man’s mouth.

“Just in case,” he said.

Thick black smoke rose from the gullet. Banks waited long enough to ensure the body wasn’t about to slither to life, then he turned and walked quickly to the open archway to avoid the smell of burning flesh.

The archway led out onto a rocky track that ran along the base of the structure they had exited. Looking up, Banks saw the vertical tower looming high over them. Going left, the path headed in an upward slope, back up toward the high ridge of the hillside above them. Going right, it led gently downward toward the cascading torrent that could now be clearly seen and heard some 30 yards away.

Banks considered back going up to the pyramid complex. Now that it was daylight, they might have a chance of finding and recovering their kit and more importantly, weaponry. But Buller was the priority here, and now they had their man out of captivity so close to the river, it would be folly to put him back in harm’s way so soon. He didn’t hesitate and took the downward path, hoping to reach the riverside quay, and hoping against hope that Giraldo had somehow evaded the attention of the natives when Wilkes had been taken. If not, and both their guide and boat were gone, they were in for a long walk — and swim — back down river to the dredger, and he didn’t want to think of how long that might take them.

First things first, and one step at a time.

He headed down the slope toward the cascade, and the squad, with Wiggins pushing Buller along none too gently, followed at his back.

Spray from the waterfall coated the track, making the rock underfoot slippery. When Banks licked his lips, he noted how fresh and cool the water was, and realized how dry his throat and mouth had become.

I’ve been neglecting the basics.

He stepped forward to where a small stream ran between the stones and cupped his hands to take a drink.

When he stood back, he felt better than he had for a while, and reminded himself to keep a closer eye on their water intake; dehydration would kill them as fast as anything else in this heat.

“Drink up, lads. We’re going to need to keep hydrated. And we might not get too many chances.”

He watched the track while the others drank. The sun beat hard from a clear sky. Heat rose from the rocks in waves. The day was warming up fast.

“Keep moving,” he said. “Fast as you can, lads. There’ll at least be shade under the canopy and down at the riverside.”

“How about a pub, Cap?” Wiggins said. “I could murder a pint of lager.”

“You and me both, lad,” Banks replied. “But if it’ll get you to move your arse, remember, there’s beer in the fridge back on the dredger. If we all get back there in one piece, the first round is on me.”

The banter, even if somewhat forced, seemed to perk the squad up, and they moved out as a unit, with Buller sandwiched in the middle, heading under a rocky overhang that took them beneath the cascade itself, into a narrow natural cave. The roar of the water was almost deafening here, but it was cooler, and Banks let the squad stand in the fresher air for a minute before moving them out and down again. The combined effects of drinking the colder water and standing here in the shade cleared Banks’ head of a fog the heat had been bringing on, and he was moving faster and with more purpose when he led them back out onto the downward side of the trail.

The track continued to wind downward. They were now well below the base of the tower, with bare, unworked rock butting up close to the track on their right and a sheer drop of 30 feet or more to their left. When Banks looked over, he saw they were closing on the top area of forest canopy, and several minutes later they had descended into the dense, lush, vegetation of the forest. Almost immediately the humidity level rose and it felt like walking in a sauna. The insect population took note of them again, and this time nobody had any cigarettes with which to dispel the biting swarms. They ploughed downhill as fast as they could manage, looking for escape, or even respite.

The trail narrowed, then narrowed again, the green of the jungle encroaching on both sides as they descended away from the rocky hill toward the river. Soon Banks, in the lead, had to resort to hacking and slashing with the heavy knife to clear the way ahead. The only solace he drew was that it looked like they were the first to have come this way for quite some time.

It proved to be hard going under the humidity and after a few minutes, he had to step back and let Hynd take the lead with the hacking.

“Do you know what the fuck you’re doing?” Buller asked.

Banks resisted another almost overwhelming urge to punch the man out, and answered calmly.

“Saving your arse,” he said and turned his back before the temptation got too great to ignore.

“It’s getting thinner ahead, Cap,” Hynd said. “I think we’re nearly through.”

He motioned Banks forward for a look. They had arrived at the river and were about to emerge at one end of the stone quay they’d left the night before. The docking area beneath the run of steps sat quiet and empty; their boat and guide was nowhere to be seen.