The tall figure took one of the oil lamp sconces from the wall and held it high while looking Banks directly in the eye. He didn’t need to speak; the threat was clear enough. All he had to do was drop the lamp and the floor, the steps, and Banks’ squad would instantly be engulfed in a raging wall of flame. It was not a death Banks chose for himself or for those in his charge.
“Cap?” Wiggins asked, looking for orders.
“Guns on the floor, lads, and step up and out. We can’t win this here. Let’s live to fight another day.”
“Cap?” Wiggins said again. Banks knew that the private would prefer to go down swinging if he was going down.
“Stand down, Wiggo. That’s an order. If not for me, then for these two poor bastards we rescued. Do you want to see them burn?”
When Banks stepped out into the altar room and dropped his gun, Wiggins was doing the same at his side.
“Just let us go and there won’t be any trouble,” Banks said, but the leader of the crowd gathered against them showed no sign of understanding. He motioned, a series of complicated hand signals, and three of them moved forward to quickly gather up the dropped rifles. Hynd and McCally were likewise quickly disarmed.
“You’re getting yourself into big trouble here,” Buller said behind Banks. “These men are soldiers. More will come. Let us go, and I won’t press charges.”
Wiggins laughed at that.
“I don’t think these lads give a fuck about the Polis.”
Things moved fast in the next few minutes. The squad and the two naked men were bundled back down the steps to the cells, their way lit only by flaming torches carried by their guards. The bodies they’d left behind on the way up were quickly dragged off into the dark, and although Banks tried to pick his way down carefully, he still felt the slide and slip of fresh blood under his soles as they descended.
Once on the landing, the armed men stripped the squad naked, their clothes, boots and goggles being spirited away back up the stairs. The leader found Banks’ satellite phone and examined it, but not as if curious in any way as to its function, and only for a few seconds before it too was taken away.
Two of them threw Banks unceremoniously into the first cell. He landed hard and had to tumble in a well-practiced roll to avoid breaking a collarbone on the rough stone floor. Buller came in, stumbling behind him. He heard a ruckus outside, then Wiggins shouting loud curses before a thud — the distinctive sound of wood against skull — brought a sudden silence.
“Wiggo just tried something daft. He’s down, but he’s alive, Cap,” Hynd shouted, then there was another short ruckus before silence fell again.
“Tell them to keep quiet,” Buller said at his side. “They leave us alone if we’re quiet. Mostly.”
“Radio silence until my order,” Banks shouted. No reply came back, but he didn’t expect one. The door shut, and they heard a bar get put in place on the outside. Footsteps on stone echoed away up the stairwell, then they were left in the quiet dark.
Banks waited until he was sure they were completely alone, then made a quick survey of the cell in the dark with his fingers. It was little more than a 10-foot square block, solid stone everywhere including floor and even the ceiling, which he could just touch by standing on tiptoe. Opposite the doorway, he came to a tall window open to the elements that looked out over nothing but more darkness, only the shimmer and dance of the stars overhead showing any light. The only sound was the cascade of water, louder here, from somewhere over to his right.
“You threw the phone from here?” he asked. “I’m surprised it didn’t just bounce off a rock and get bashed to buggery.”
“It was a Hail Mary, that’s for sure,” Buller said. “But you obviously got the message. Where’s the rest of the cavalry?”
“Next door,” Banks said dryly.
Buller laughed.
“You four losers are the sum total of the fucking rescue team? And you just laid down your guns and let them throw you in here with me? Well, that’s just fucking peachy.”
“Aye, and I saved you from getting your bollocks roasted in the process. You’re welcome,” Banks replied. “Pleased to meet you too.”
Buller didn’t reply, but went to sit cross-legged on the floor in the corner. All Banks saw of him was a paler shape among the shadows. Banks walked back across the small cell to the door and tried his weight against it. It creaked, but held firm. He knew he could probably force it open by putting a shoulder to it, but that would attract attention, and they no longer had the advantage of firepower. He didn’t fancy his chances naked and unarmed against a score or more men with knives and spears, no matter that he had the benefit of training.
“If I’d known you were going to be so fucking incompetent, I’d have asked for Gerald fucking Butler,” Buller said from the darkness.
“Aye, well, if I’d known you were going to be such a gobby wee shite, I’d have let you fucking burn upstairs and we wouldn’t be in this mess now.”
“People don’t talk to me like that.”
“Why is that then? Because you’re the son of a lord? In here, you’re just another bollock-naked arsehole with the rest of us poor fuckers. So tell me what I need to know to get out of here, or shut the fuck up. Either way’s fine by me.”
Banks hoped he hadn’t overdone it. If he read the man right, he’d get answers. Even if he had it wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d pissed off a peer of the realm, although he’d just earned himself a bollocking from the colonel if they ever got home.
It turned out he had indeed read the man right. Buller didn’t move from his seated position, but when he spoke again it was softly, with more than a hint of fear in it.
“I need to tell you about the snakes.”
“We’re in the Amazon jungle. Of course there’s going to be fucking snakes.”
“Are you going to listen, or are you going to take the piss?”
I’m perfectly capable of both at the same time.
He didn’t say it and bit his tongue. His man was still talking.
“I saw the first one at the same time I threw the phone out of the window,” Buller continued. Banks didn’t interrupt him. It wouldn’t change anything to tell the man that they’d seen something too, and he needed the information.
“First it was a man, and then it wasn’t,” Buller said, his voice little more than a whisper in the dark.
“The guy in the full head mask? Aye, I saw him upstairs. We both did.”
“No, he’s their priest — more than that, he’s some kind of shaman. But he’s a man, and real enough. I meant the ones who can turn. If the superstitions are right, they call themselves the Children of Boitata.”
“Now that name I have heard. It’s some local snake god, isn’t it?”
“And it’s more than superstition,” Buller whispered. “I’ve seen the Children change, man into snake into man again like something out of a film. But a film has never made me piss myself.”
“Stop havering, man,” Banks said, “and tell me something concrete I can use here.”
“I’m telling you what I know, what I’ve seen,” the sitting man said. “We’re in uncharted country here, and it belongs to the snakes.”
“Snakes or no snakes, my job is to get you home to your rich daddy, so tighten your sphincter man. I need you focused.”
“You don’t understand,” Buller said. “There’s no fucking point in being focused. We’re next.”