Operation: Amazon

- 12 -

The squad seemed to have the hang of controlling the raft, and they made good time with the help of the current, but now the main thing worrying Banks wasn’t the river itself, but the baking sun above them, and their complete lack of protection from it. They had hours on the water ahead of them yet, and he already felt a vise-like grip around his skull, and a tightening of the skin across his shoulders. Heatstroke, and crippling sunburn, was an all too real threat.

The left bank of the river was in shadow and would stay that way now for the afternoon and evening to come, but that was 100 yards away across the strongest of the current — there was no certainty they could make it across without being toppled. When he saw a large inlet on the right side bank ahead, with a heavy overhang of canopy, he didn’t hesitate.

“Hang a right, Wiggo,” he shouted. “Over to the bank. Let’s get out of the sun and wait it out for a bit.”

Buller looked up at that, and for the first time Banks saw a worried look on the man’s face.

“It’ll be dark again before you know it,” he said. “We haven’t come far enough yet.”

“We’ll fry if we try to go any farther in this,” he replied.

“It might be worth the risk,” Buller said, but still wouldn’t look Banks in the eye. And although Buller was the mission, the squad needed to be strong and fit enough to see it through.

And for that, we need to find shade. Right now.

Wiggins didn’t hesitate, and steered them, hard and fast, toward the bank. Helped by a cross current at the mouth of the inlet, they got pushed inside, only to come up hard against the keel of a boat that was already berthed there.

As luck would have it, they had found their guide.

Giraldo was in no state to welcome them. When they clambered up into the boat, they found the guide in a cot under the makeshift tent that covered the rear end of the vessel. The man lay, staring into space, eyes wide open. At first, Banks thought he was dead and gone, but as he got closer, he saw the sweat at the man’s brow, and the slow, too slow, rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

“Giraldo?” Banks said, bending over the man. The guide’s eyes flickered, and, painfully slowly, he turned his head. He had tears, whether of pain or sorrow Banks could not tell, in his eyes when he spoke.

“I could not save Mr. Wilkes,” he whispered. “Then I waited, but you did not come. And I waited too long to do anything about this.”

He raised an arm, and Banks saw the two black holes three inches apart in the man’s upper arm. The skin around the wounds was already gray and necrotic.

“I am sorely bit, Captain,” the guide said and, as if that had used all his strength, he slumped back onto the cot, staring at the canvas above him.

“Wiggo, Cally, get us out of here. We need to get this man a doctor, right now.”

Buller spoke at his side.

“It’s too late for him,” the man said, with about as much emotion as if he was commenting on the weather. “I’ve seen the like before. He’ll be gone by nightfall.”

“Aye? Is that so?” Banks replied. “Well, maybe not. We can call in aerial support from the dredger. And if not, I’d prefer it if you shut the fuck up and let the man die in peace.”

“People don’t talk to me like that.”

“Aye, you’ve told me that already. And I just did, again. If you don’t like it, you can always fuck off for a swim.”

Despite the heat, Buller went to sit up the front of the boat, out from under the shade of the tent.

“If the wanker wants to fry, that’s fine by me,” Hynd said at Banks’ back.

“And me, Sarge,” Banks said, and bent again to check on Giraldo, but the guide had said what he needed to say, and had gone back to concentrating on staying alive.

“Hang in there, man,” Banks said. “We’ll get you home.”

Wiggins got the engine running at the first attempt, and minutes later they were out of the inlet and back on the river, pushing along as fast as they could manage, heading for the dredger.

McCally raided the boat’s stores, which were in a long box under the driver’s seat, and got a pot of coffee brewing on a tiny camp stove while he handed out some tough, dried fish. He held up a battered, almost full, pack of the black cigarettes.

“And I found his stash,” he said, gleefully. “Who needs a fag?”

Banks took control of the wheel. The rest of the squad smoked, drank coffee, and chewed fish jerky and all in all, Banks was starting to feel a lot better about life in general; they’d got their man, although he was indeed a wanker, and they were managing to beat a retreat in some comfort. All that was needed now was to get to the dredger, secure the place, and call in somebody to evacuate them post-haste.

The only source of worry for him was the fate of their guide.

“Wiggo?” The private looked up. “Spell me for a couple of minutes. I want to check on your pal on the cot.”

“Remind him he promised to get me tickets to Brazil’s next match, so he’d better not fucking die on me.”

Banks went to check on Giraldo, leaving Wiggins at the wheel. The bit man still stared, unseeing, at the tent above him. The gray skin around the bites had spread, tendrils, almost black, snaking up and around his upper arm toward his shoulder. His temperature was up, and heat came off him in waves, accompanied by an acrid odor and vinegary tang that was far too close to the snake smells Banks had encountered earlier.

“Can we get any more speed out of this jalopy?” he asked Wiggins.

“Not from the engine, Cap,” the private said. “But we can head farther out into the river and try to catch the main current? That would get the speed up.”

“Make it so,” Banks said. He brushed a pair of black flies from in front of his nose, but others replaced them almost immediately. He gave in to the inevitable and helped himself to one of the cigarettes. Now seemed as good a time as any to return to bad habits.

Wiggins was as good as his word, and found the fast current in the center of the river, after which they made much quicker progress. After 10 minutes or so, Buller realized the futility of sulking up front in the baking sun and moved to join the rest under the canopy of canvas, although he still would not look any of them in the eye.

Banks chewed on a second smoke as he sipped at the too strong, too bitter coffee McCally had brewed up. The cigarettes were unfiltered, and rough but strangely familiar to Banks, reminding his of the smell and taste of the full-tar, full-strength ones his granddad had smoked in the greenhouse while Banks helped with the growing of his tomatoes in the summers of childhood. The heat here was more brutal than those long ago days in Scotland, but he held tight to the memory, a guide to see him on his way home from this river.

He’d had enough of the coffee though. He poured the dregs from the tin cup over the side, and was about to flick the butt of the cigarette away when a hot hand gripped his wrist. He looked to his left, to see Giraldo trying to push himself off the cot.

Banks moved quickly to force the man back down, then fetched some water, which the guide swallowed down in two huge gulps.

“Smoke,” Giraldo said. Banks felt obliged to refuse, but the guide was insistent, so he lit another, and passed it over, placing it gently between the man’s lips.

“Obrigado,” the guide said quietly and sucked in a prodigious draw that would have had Banks choking.

“Try to rest,” Banks said. “I reckon we’ll be back at the dredger in a couple of hours, then we’ll get a chopper to lift you out.”

“You are a good man, Captain,” the guide said. “It is a pity your effort will be in vain. The black venom leaves no survivors — we all know that here on the river. I will go with the sun.”

“Don’t talk pish, man. Besides, you can’t go yet. Wiggo’s got a date at the next Brazil game, and you said you had a story to tell me.”

Giraldo laughed, then coughed so hard Banks thought he might expire on the spot, before recovering and smiling thinly.

“Ask Private Wiggins to take my boy to the match. And as for the story, I had best tell you,” he said. “For it is a tale you ought to know. But first, I must speak more of last night.”

“You don’t need to speak at all…” Banks started, but Giraldo stopped him.

“But I do. Mr. Wilkes deserves it from me, for I see he is not here, and that only means one thing. The Children of Boitata took him.”

It wasn’t a question, and Banks did not need to answer. He sat beside the man, passing him frequent sips of water, and let him speak.