Buller’s mouth looked like it wanted to work, but Wiggins shook a finger in the man’s face.
“Nope. Just nope. Keep it zipped. One more word out of you and I really will put a bullet in you. That’s a promise, from one Scots bastard to another.”
*
The squad, with a silent Buller in the middle, moved out a minute later onto the track that wound around the hill. They’d headed down to the river the last time but now Banks led them upward, toward the ridge they could see up a steep slope ahead of them.
The track was so narrow they had to climb single file, and it was precipitous in the extreme in places, with a sheer drop to their right, 100 feet and more to the canopy of the rainforest below. Banks led, searching the ground ahead for tracks or any sign that someone might have recently passed this way. He was so intent that he almost didn’t notice when a sprinkle of dry earth fell on him from higher up. He reacted immediately, instinct kicking in, and looked up, his weapon already aimed along his line of sight. There was no target, only more dirt, now accompanied by pebbles and increasingly larger stones. The track underfoot trembled and bucked, threatening to throw them all down the cliff face.
“Earthquake!” he shouted, then had no time for words as the path lifted several inches and then fell back, leaving a sick emptiness in Banks’ stomach and a split second sensation of falling, then relief when his feet planted on solid—or nearly so—ground. He turned his head, and saw the squad hugging the rock face. Buller had almost taken the tumble off the edge, and Wiggins had him by an arm, pulling him back up onto the track to where he could at least get onto his hands and knees.
The tremor stopped as quickly as it started. Some more fine dirt fell in their hair, then everything went silent save for some surprised parakeets that circled overhead, squawked loudly for a few seconds then dropped to settle in their roosts, hidden in the canopy. Buller looked white-faced and wide-eyed, and trembled so badly he might have been in the throes of a fit.
“If you’re going to spew, don’t do it on my boots,” Wiggins said.
Buller got carefully to his feet.
“Thanks,” he said, but didn’t look Wiggins in the eye.
“Don’t mention it. Really, don’t mention it.”
Banks’ headset crackled and the pilot’s voice came over the com.
“Still there, Captain?”
“Aye, just about,” Banks replied. “All okay up there?”
“We were in a clear enough spot to be away from any trouble,” he replied. “Just as well you got out of the pyramid though. It looks like it has caved in at the top level.”
Banks had the sinking feeling in his gut again, but it wasn’t the earthquake that did it this time.
“Take off,” he said. “No questions, get in the air right now. And keep an eye on the pyramid. You might have an attack incoming.”
- 21 -
Banks set off up the path at a flat run, knowing that the squad would follow his lead. The track was rough and got steeper the closer he got to the top, so much so that he was breathing heavily and over-heating as he crested the ridge. He looked down the causeway, saw, and heard, the rotors of the chopper start up, then turned to face the pyramid.
The cube-shaped altar room that had sat on top of the structure had fallen inward on itself, the roof lying in two pieces on the steps some 10 feet below, and there was no sign of the altar itself. Banks’ heart fell again when he saw a large stone seeming to move of its own volition, and wasn’t surprised to see the head of one of the big snakes come up out of the rubble and taste the air. It fixed its gaze on the chopper, attracted either by the movement or the sound of the rotors. It pulled the whole length of its body up and out of the hole at the top of the pyramid and slithered down the steps.
A second snake followed it immediately afterward, and a third. The chopper still wasn’t up to full power and Banks saw that the snakes would be on it before it was ready to take off.
He ran down a slight incline and put himself between the first snake and the aircraft, already raising his weapon as he came to a stop. The snake wasn’t moving as fast as the ones they had faced on the dredger the night before. He had time to wonder whether the relative sluggishness might be due to it being daylight, then had to pay full attention as the creature was almost upon him, with two more right behind it, and at least six coming down the pyramid steps behind those.
The snake lunged, mouth opening and fangs dripping. Banks took two steps back, aimed and fired in one swift movement, three rounds down its gullet that dropped it like a stone. The other two came forward fast, but by that time McCally was at his side and between them they put the snakes down quickly and efficiently. Banks paused long enough to force his earplugs into place; the sound of gunfire and the rise of the rotor noise were already proving to be deafening.
Then it was all shooting and defending as a swarm of the snakes slithered down from the pyramid, seething and roiling in a mass that made it hard to distinguish one from another. Hynd and Wiggins joined in and the four men of the squad pumped bullets into the wriggling flesh. From the corner of his eye Banks saw the chopper lift up and away.
He motioned for the squad to start backing up.
“Let’s see if we can funnel these bastards the same way we did at the dredger,” he shouted and stepped backward toward the doorway of the nearest intact building. Buller was also already on the move to the same spot, backing off fast.
The rolling mass of snakes kept pace with them, leaving a trail of discarded skin, torn flesh, and gore in a slimy trail behind it. The air smelled of gunshot, warm vinegar, and oil. The squad kept firing and kept backing off toward the doorway.
The snakes kept coming.
*
Banks reached the door first and pushed Buller deeper into the gold-lined room. Banks’ plan was again the simplest one; funnel the snakes so that they could only attack one at a time, and pick them off. So far, the beasts, despite their obviously human origins, showed no signs of being intelligent enough to see the senselessness of their attack. Banks was also aware of the irony of the situation. These were the same things, albeit transformed, that he had refused to kill in the chamber under the pyramid. Now he was only too happy to see them put down to a violent death. He knew, from bitter experience, that the scene would be relived in the depths of night in the months, even years, to come. But for now, there was only the adrenaline rush, the shooting, and the death as snakes filled the doorway with the bullet-ridden bodies of their dead.
“I’m running low,” McCally shouted. “Stepping out.”
Banks was close to having the same issue himself. And the snakes kept coming, now having to push their way through and over the dead piling in the doorway. The noise in the enclosed space pounded and rang, vibrating through every bone in his body, the earplugs doing little to lessen the impact. His headphone buzzed, and the chopper pilot shouted. It was only one phrase, but it was enough to get Banks smiling.
“Fire in the hole.”
*
“Everybody down,” Banks shouted. He threw himself to the floor and was pleased to see that Buller at least had enough good sense to join them. At almost the same moment, the snakes piled beyond the doorway were blown to chunks of flesh, bone, and gore as the twin Gatling guns of the chopper made a strafing run along the causeway outside.
“Stay down. Coming back ‘round,” the pilot said at Banks’ ear. The floor shook, not earthquake this time but four explosions, almost simultaneous, and the doorway lit up in a brilliant flare of white, then yellow then red.
The sound echoed and rang for seconds afterward, then everything fell quiet save for the slightly distant sound of the chopper rotors. Banks’ headset buzzed again.
“All clear, Captain,” the pilot said. “For now, at least.”
Banks stood, somewhat groggy from the assault of sound and vibration. He put two bullets in the head of a snake on the doorway that was still squirming, trying to get at him, then stepped over it
, and out into a scene of carnage.
*
Dead snakes, or at least the few remaining pieces of them, lay strewn and scattered the length of the causeway. The main concentration of blasted flesh was around the doorway he’d left, but oozing, stinking, remains stretched from where Banks stood all the way to the steps of the pyramid. The stench was worse than anything he’d ever experienced, the tang of hot vinegar and oil setting his guts rolling and tumbling. When Hynd offered him a cigarette, he accepted it gratefully and let the smoke mask the worst of it.
“I don’t think any of these buggers will be changing back again,” Hynd said laconically.
“They’re going to be in a hell of a mess if they do,” Banks agreed.
The chopper made a pass overhead and Banks gave the pilot a wave of thanks.
“No problem, Captain,” the pilot said at his ear. “We are glad to be of help. Shall we come and get you?”
“Give me two minutes to check all’s clear,” Banks replied.
Banks had the squad make a tour of the causeway, checking that all of the snakes were indeed destroyed, although, given the carnage, it was obvious that the job had already been done.
“So, is the site secure enough for you yet?” Buller said, his sarcasm all too clear.
“Aye, it is,” Banks said. “We’ll be fucking off now. It’s all yours. We’ll take the lead chopper, and you can wait with the backup for your team to get here.”
“Wait. We didn’t bring any provisions. What will I eat?”
“Snake?” Banks said, and turned away before the temptation to punch the man really did get too much to bear.
*
He was about to call down the chopper to evacuate the squad when McCally called from the doorway where the dead snakes were already starting to rot down under the full heat of the day. The flesh bubbled and seethed, a disgusting hybrid mixture of snakeskin and human tissue, gray and red and black and oozing. Banks was glad he still had the cigarette at hand as he walked over.
“There’s something happening inside, Cap. You need to see this. It’s really fucking weird.”
“Weirder than fucking giant snake people who live in a pyramid?”
“You tell me, boss.”
Banks followed the corporal back into the cubical room. The walls appeared to be melting, the carvings losing their definition, turning smooth as the gold slid, like an over-application of fresh paint, down the walls in drips that became runnels that became rivulets. The two of them had to stand back as it started to drip from the ceiling. He hadn’t taken note of it before, but the floor was slightly concave, running to a small, almost unnoticeable hole in the center. The melted gold found its way down toward it, and a glowing river ran away to somewhere underground.
And the process was definitely accelerating.
- 21 -
“Out here, Cap,” Wiggins shouted. “What the fuck is this shite now?”
Out to one side of the building, the private had picked up one of the fallen gold tiles. What was left of it now ran through his fingers, dripping toward the ground.
“I only wanted a wee souvenir,” Wiggins said, as the last of the gold dripped and ran off his little finger. He showed Banks his hands. They were completely clean.
“It’s the same over here, Cap,” Hynd called out from the other side of the causeway. “It’s all running away, heading off somewhere under us.”
“It’s some fucking weird chemical reaction to those bloody bombs you dropped. It must be. If we lose this find, it’s your fucking fault. The seam. We need to check the seam,” Buller said and started to walk toward the cliff track. Wiggins stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“No fucking way,” the private said. “Besides, you didn’t ask nicely.”
“And we’re going nowhere except back to the chopper until we know what the fuck is going on here,” Banks added. He pressed his headset.
“Come and get us,” he said.
“I will be right there, Captain,” came the reply from the chopper. It swooped in at the other end of the causeway from the pyramid. Banks was watching its approach when the ground beneath him took a lurch, a bigger tremor even than the one they’d faced on the cliff path. The remains of the building nearest them collapsed in on itself as the whole causeway rippled from one end to the other, a wave almost a foot high traveling up the whole length toward the pyramid steps. When the wave hit, the pyramid fell in. The whole structure fell away with a roar and crash of falling masonry, tumbling backward off the ridge and down the cliff, joining the cascade of the waterfall in a fall into the river far below.
The chopper closed in on them but the ground was still bucking and heaving; there was no chance of it making a touchdown. The cabin door slid open, and the co-pilot stood there, letting down a short rope ladder.
“S-Squad, we are leaving,” Banks shouted to make himself heard above the din of the chopper’s rotors. “Wiggo, get the wanker onto that bird, one way or another. Don’t take no for an answer.”
He was looking at the chopper, so he didn’t see the start of what happened next. He only had the sarge’s shocked gaze to tell him that there was still more trouble incoming.
*
He turned to see a huge hole in the hill where the pyramid had been seconds before. The sides, a melee of tumbling worked stone, tree roots, and loose dirt, kept falling inward. The causeway trembled and shook again, almost knocking Banks off his feet, and partially turning him around in the process. The whole ridge on the hilltop bucked and heaved again, and another of the squat buildings tumbled into ruin.
“Wiggo,” he shouted, seeing that Buller still hadn’t moved. “I told you. Get that fucker into the chopper. We’re leaving.”
The private finally moved, dragging a still complaining Buller under the whirling rotors toward the door and the hanging ladder. Even then Buller turned back, tried to push away, shouting something that Banks didn’t hear. Wiggins put a quick end to it by knocking the man hard on the back of the head with the butt of his weapon, then helping the co-pilot to haul a now slumped and sluggish Buller up and into the cabin. Wiggins turned and gave Banks a thumbs-up.
Banks looked around, trying to find Hynd and McCally. Both men were stood still, staring at the remains of the pyramid.
And at the impossible thing dragging itself up and out of the rubble.
*
To call it a snake would be to deny the magnificence, the majesty of it. The head came up first, even bigger than the cube of the altar room had been on the self-same spot minutes earlier. Two golden eyes, the slits in each pupil fully as big as a man, stared down the causeway directly at the chopper. The mouth opened, showing brilliant white fangs and a flickering tongue that tasted the air as if eager for feeding. The body that rose up below the head was thicker still, 10, thickening to 15, feet wide. It glistened, gold and green and blue and yellow where the sun hit the shimmering scales.
It kept coming out of the hole to wrap around the remains of the pyramid, each slithering coil causing the hilltop ridge to buck. Ground fell in, as if a void had been created underneath them. One of the few remaining buildings to Bank’s right tumbled, not into a hole, but over the edge of the cliff, that was itself eroding rapidly, as if the whole hill might be in the process of coming apart.
McCally raised his weapon, but Banks called out to him.
“Leave it, Cally. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need a bigger gun. Get to the chopper!”
McCally and Hynd moved to obey, leaving only Banks standing between the snake and the aircraft, which was side on to the beast, not in any position to defend itself against an attack. But for now, the snake was still in the process of pulling itself up and out of the ground, the great coils now entirely obscuring the foundations of the pyramid below it. Banks was more worried about the hill disappearing completely. He struggled to keep his footing as the paved causeway dropped several feet, throwing worked stone and rubble into the air.
“Time to go
, Captain,” the chopper pilot shouted in his headset. Banks turned, saw that McCally and Hynd were up and inside the chopper, then had to make a grab for the ladder as a hole formed at his feet. He managed to get one hand on the bottom rung, and looked down to see the whole hilltop collapse below him, a swirling cloud of dry dust almost immediately obscuring the view.
McCally and Hynd hauled him aboard as the chopper rose, inches ahead of the dust cloud. Banks was still looking down when the snake’s head came up, impossibly fast toward them, and snapped its jaws shut only feet below them. A purple tongue, 12 feet and more long, slid out and tasted, almost tickled, the chopper’s landing rails. Banks got his rifle unslung and sent three rounds into the fleshiest part of it, causing the tongue to draw away. The chopper kept rising, clear of the roil and tumble of dust, circling ever higher above what remained of the hill and temple complex, all of which was now little more than a collapsed pile of stone and dirt little higher than the high canopy of the surrounding jungle.
The snake moved through the rubble, its enormous girth and weight demolishing what little was left even further. It seemed to have lost all interest in them now, and was focused on removing all trace of the temple complex from the face of the earth.
“The gold,” Buller wailed.
“Should I fire, Captain?” the pilot said at Banks’ ear. “We’ve got enough to give it a fright if nothing else, maybe even enough to take it down.”
“Negative,” Banks replied. “Get us out of here. I think we’ve done enough damage for one day.”
“My gold,” Buller wailed again, as the snake ground down the last of the hill, and with a surge and whoosh of water, the river ran in to wash away what little was left of the hill and temple complex. There was a new bend in the waterway as the chopper took them away downstream, and not a sign that anything else had ever been there.
Operation Amazon Page 11
