“Take ten, lads,” he said. “I need to suss out what’s what before we head on. Sarge, you’re with me.”
They crept forward to the very edge of the outcrop, lying on their bellies while Banks used his rifle’s scope to survey the scene. Hynd did the same at his side.
The town at the far end of the valley appeared to be fortified, thick walls of stone topped with wooden ramparts. From this distance, it looked to Banks’ eye that the stone structure was one of some great age, looking out of place here in the jungle. But there were ruins all over Africa, long lost to changing land use and climate. The surprising thing about these ones was the sheer number of people that could be seen in the vicinity; there looked to be a population of some thousands within the stone walls, a maze of buildings, some of stone, others the more common beehive huts. Beyond the town, the edge butted up against a rocky wall that delimited the edge of the huge circular basin. A heavy gate was built into the wall, stone pillars on either side supporting a pair of great wooden doors. Above the gate, a balcony overlooked the basin. A row of half a dozen X-shapes ran along the balcony and even from this distance, Banks clearly saw the pale figures hanging from each of the crosses.
He panned back, looking at the crowds of people milling around between the buildings, and his heart sank. He’d been hoping that they’d have to cope with maybe a dozen or so rebels to retrieve the captives.
We’ve got a whole town to go through.
They crept back to where the other squad members were and Banks brought them all up to speed.
“A frontal assault is out of the question. This is going to have to be a stealth job, and for that we’ll have to wait for the cover of darkness. Here’s as good a place as any to wait it out, so get comfy, lads. We’re here for a wee while.”
Davies found a sheltered spot where they could get the stove going with no fear of being discovered and soon had a brew of coffee going. Banks allowed them a smoke to go with it and was joined once more by Hynd as they each lit up.
“Any ideas yet what’s going on here, Cap?” the sergeant asked, keeping his voice low so that only the two of them could hear.
“Feeding time,” Banks replied. “But I’m buggered if I know what’s doing the eating. It feels like a ritual thing though, don’t you agree?”
“Aye. Religious, maybe? You ken how I hate all that kind of shite.”
“If we can get in and out quiet tonight, it won’t matter a jot.”
Neither said it, although they both knew getting in might be simple, getting freed hostages out of a crowded town then back through the terrain to the canoes and downriver was going to be a big ask, even with luck on their side.
“This could go south on us fast, Cap,” Hynd said. “Wiggo knows the score, but the younger lads…”
“…have been doing fine since they joined the squad. Don’t go mother hen on me here. We all know the score when we sign up—hell, you told me that yon night we got pished in the caravan in Norway. That wasnae that long ago, was it? You’re not going soft on me in your auld age, are you?”
He smiled but didn’t get one in reply. Something was bothering Hynd; they’d been friends too long for it to be easily hidden. But that same friendship meant that Banks knew when to speak and when to let it lie. Now was one of the latter times so he shut up and concentrated on his cigarette while looking down over the valley.
The sergeant’s mood still hadn’t improved by late afternoon. Banks joined him for another smoke on the ledge as they watched the sun start its journey down into the west.
Hynd was first to break the silence.
“I miss long, slow evenings, like back home,” he said softly. “Down here, it’s afternoon one minute, night time the next. It’s not natural.”
“You ready for your pipe and slippers, Sarge?” Banks asked but didn’t get the expected laugh in reply.
“Maybe I am, John. Maybe I am at that.”
The sadness in his old friend’s voice left Banks momentarily speechless and then it was too late to reply, for another noise broke the silence, the same loud barking they’d heard on the river. This time, he was able to pinpoint the source more accurately, for it had come from the large basin beyond the town, an insistent, almost rasping sound that was almost immediately answered by another, then another, until the air was full of the cacophony.
The last of the sun faded from the sky and flaming torches were lit throughout the fortified town, soon joining to form a procession winding through the buildings, making for the gate and the row of crucified figures above it.
It’s game time.
- 6 -
Once they got down off the ridge and onto a track that clearly would lead them to the town, Banks had the squad stow their packs under a recognizable tree and cover them with branches.
“Only take two clips of ammo each, lads, we’re going in fast and light. Leave the rest here; this is our backup plan. Everybody remember where we parked.”
The team moved to comply then Hynd brought up the rear again as Banks led them at the double onto the wide trail that led down the center of the valley towards the far end and their destination. The flickering light from the blazing torches showed them the way although at the front the captain had turned on his sight light on his rifle to mark the trail immediately in front of his feet. The rest of the squad padded along silently in his wake.
Hynd still couldn’t shake his feeling that they were heading directly into serious trouble. It was more than just roil and tumble in his gut—he understood pre-battle nerves only too well. This was something else, a heavy, almost overwhelming sense of impending dread that had been with him since their first encounter with the barking noise on the river, as if the sound itself bore physically down on him. The last time he’d felt anything like it had been back in Iraq at the start of the century.
And what a shitstorm that turned out to be.
But there was nothing he could do about it—it wasn’t as if he was going to turn on his heels and run. He tried to use it to his advantage, a heightened sense of watchfulness in the face of danger. So what if he expected an attack at any second? It wasn’t a bad way to keep alive in spots like this.
Ahead of them, the fires of the town burned even brighter in the night sky and a wailing howl rose from the township, too high and pure to be a human voice—Hynd suspected it was some kind of flute, maybe a horn. The sound carried all around the valley in the still night air…and was answered in kind by more barking, rasping calls from the other side of the gated doorway.
What the fuck have they got in there?
As the barking got louder still, so too did the sense of doom grow in his head.
“Cap,” he said, just loud enough for the squad to hear and not caring that he was breaking protocol. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”
Banks brought the squad to a halt and came back to speak to Hynd.
“What’s up, Sarge? Your guts playing up again? Aye, and so are mine. But this is a rescue mission—it’s what we do. If you’ve got any bright ideas, I’m all ears.”
“I suppose taking off and nuking the site from orbit isn’t an option?” Hynd replied with a thin smile.
“Maybe later…first we need to get the WHO folks out if we can. But if you’re not up for it, stay here and watch our backs and we’ll talk about it later?”
Hynd knew that Banks was giving him an out that only a friend would offer. He answered, in kind, as a friend.
“And see you get all the action? Fuck that. Lead on, Cap, and ignore me—I’m just getting to be a daft auld git. I’ll be fine.”
“Like always,” Banks said, and they clasped hands on each other’s forearms before Banks turned and led the squad ahead again.
The short stop hadn’t improved Hynd’s mood any—he was still cowed under an umbrella of doom and now he had embarrassed himself into the bargain.
They continued at double-time along an ever-widening trail, making swift progress as the mud here h
ad been tramped down hard and baked underfoot. Up ahead, the rasping barking, the howl of the horn, and the waving, burning firebrands merged into a cacophony of noise and wash of color that was now joined by a rhythmic beat of hands clapping and stomping of feet. There was a definite sense of something building towards a crescendo.
Banks at the front raised the pace until they were almost running, the huts mere dark shadows to either side of them as they went through an empty town but even then they arrived at the wall too late. The balcony and the crucified captives along with it were being lowered down on the far side of the great doors. Three men on each side operated huge wooden winches on either side of the gate and ropes squealed as the balcony descended. At the same time, the chanting from the crowd rose to a frenzy, only two words now, ones that Hynd had heard before.
Mokele-Mbembe. Mokele-Mbembe.
Something answered on the other side of the wall, a barking roar stronger than any before. Someone screamed high and loud beyond the gate.
“Fuck this for a game of sodjers,” Banks shouted. He raised his rifle muzzle upwards and sent three shots into the air. The echoes rang loud and long around the cleared area in front of the door. The crowd as one turned at the sound.
“Good. Now that I’ve got your attention, fetch those people back up, right now,” Banks shouted and to punctuate the point aimed his weapon at the men operating the right-hand side winch. Hynd raised his own rifle to cover those on the left but none of the men on the winches showed any sign of moving.
Another barking roar came from the far side of the door, followed immediately by high screaming.
“Sarge, take Wilkins and Davies up top—see what you can do to get that rig back up there. Wiggo and I will cover you from down here.”
Hynd motioned to the two younger men and they followed him towards the great door even as an angry-looking crowd formed a semi-circle around where Banks and Wiggo stood, holding them off. A rudimentary set of wooden steps led up each side of the great door, the surface smoothed by many years—possibly centuries—of wear. Hynd took them fast, trusting the other two to follow, expecting an attack from above with every step upward.
No attack came. The six men still stood at the winches, seeming unconcerned by Hynd’s arrival. They all wore thick kilts wrapped at their waists, the material being leather-like but also glistening in colors no cow or deer hide had ever possessed. Hynd pointed his weapon at the exposed belly of the nearest man.
“Bring it up. Bring it back up right now.”
The man showed no sign of understanding. Instead of moving to operate the winch, he merely pointed down beyond the door, just as another barking roar echoed around them. The scream, when it came, was close now.
“Watch them,” Hynd said to Davies and Wilkins and moved to the top of the door so he could look down. The balcony had been lowered in a single unit all the way to the ground where six figures still hung on the X-shaped frames. The flickering flames from the torches on the wall sent dark shadows dancing on a forest canopy but there was something else there too, something that moved in a two-legged loping walk, head held high. It was only when a thick tail lashed the greenery that Hynd realized what he was looking at.
A dinosaur—a raptor some eight feet tall—walked out of the jungle and came forward towards the hanging captives. Even in the darkness, its colors seemed to swim in the flickering light and as it closed to where the captives hung, Hynd saw it was not skin that rippled, but a soft sheen of multicolored feathers. He had no time to consider the how or why of an impossible beast in this situation for it came on fast, head bobbing and legs pumping, its gaze fixed on a promised meal.
The raptor roared.
The captives screamed.
Hynd looked for an easy way to go to the captive’s defense but saw no way to bring them up quickly; the winch was protected by natives and getting them out the way was going to take time they didn’t have. The raptor roared again. Hynd fired two shots towards it, but the distance was still too great and he’d shot too hastily. The beast didn’t even flinch and kept coming on.
We’ll have to go down there.
The thought and action followed each other.
“After me, lads,” he said, shouldered his weapon, and went down over the wall, lowering himself first then dropping and rolling with the landing in one smooth action so that he was standing, weapon raised and facing the raptor as it roared again and came on like a train.
Wilkins was beside him two seconds later with Davies right behind both of them, so that all three stood in a line between the approaching beast and the hanging captives.
“Let’s show this fucker how we do things in Scotland,” Hynd said, raised his weapon, and fired three quick shots aiming for the largest target—the broad chest below the long neck of the raptor. At first, he thought he’d missed again but there was a darker patch among the feathers where he’d blown out a wound. The beast barely slowed though, still coming on and roaring even louder. The night was suddenly full of noise and confusion; gunfire and roaring, captives screaming, and more distant gunfire from the other side of the wall where Hynd guessed that the captain had problems of his own.
Davies and Wilkins each put tight groups of three into the beast’s chest. Even then it didn’t stop, as if its nervous system wasn’t able to process the fact it should already be lying down and dead. Hynd moved to meet it head-on, stood his ground in the face of a final defiant roar and a stench of rotting meat from its breath, and put two rounds down its throat. It finally realized its fate was sealed and fell with a ground-shaking thud at his feet.
Hynd put another round in the skull to make sure before turning to the younger men. The six captives had gone quiet, wide-eyed and staring at the dead thing on the ground.
“Get these folks down, lads,” he said. “Quick as you like. I’ll keep an eye open.”
Although quiet had descended for the moment on this side of the wall, the echo of gunfire still rose from the other side, accompanied by loud yelling and screaming. Davies and Wilkins were slowly getting the captives free from the binding ropes but two of the men collapsed to the ground immediately, as if their legs wouldn’t hold them. Hynd searched on both sides of the gate for a ladder, a rope, anything to get them back up top. As his gaze went up towards the balcony above, he caught a quick movement from the corner of his eye. He stepped nimbly aside as a spear thudded into the ground where he’d been standing. Another spear struck and stuck into the wood of one of the crossbeams a second after Wilkins had got the last woman free.
More spears hit the ground around them, only dumb luck and cover of dark shadows saving them from injury.
And dumb luck never holds.
“Fall back away from the wall, lads,” Hynd said. “We’re sitting ducks here.”
As the younger men led the captives out into the clearing, Davies having to take the weight of one of the men on his shoulder, there was more movement in the foliage to their north. A barking roar echoed across the clearing.
Three more answered it from deep under the canopy.
- 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 t
han 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.
Operation Congo (S-Squad Book 9) Page 3
