Giraldo brought them in directly at the rear, but even then they failed to avoid a misty spray of slurry that coated the boat, the squad and all their kit in a thin film of slimy mud that stank of rot and decay.
“I was right about the shite,” Wiggins muttered as they came alongside a makeshift docking area.
They stepped quickly up and out of the boat, heaving their kit up onto the dredger’s deck, where they were finally, thankfully, in an area clear of falling slurry, although Banks still tasted it in his throat.
A burly man came out of the cube, barrel-chested and squat, as brown as old mahogany in arms, face and legs, his shorts and shirt dark with slurry-muck, the only points of brightness being his blue eyes and the white of his teeth when he smiled.
He made straight for Banks and held out a hand.
“Captain Banks, I presume?” he said, his accent English, southern, and sounding strangely out of place here on the equatorial river.
“You’re Buller?” Banks asked, and the man’s smile faded quickly.
“No, I’m Joe the foreman, Joe Wilkes,” he replied. “Buller’s not here; and I need to talk to you about that. But not out here. Come inside; I have coffee and something to eat waiting.”
As he turned away and Banks motioned the squad to follow him, six men, as mucky as Wilkes, but most definitely locals, walked quickly across the deck, passed the squad, and started talking, nearly shouting, to Giraldo. It was all in Portuguese, and too fast for Banks to catch any of it, but he recognized the look on the men’s faces well enough; fear and he were old friends.
At the same time, one of the machines fell quiet around them and the wide arcs of slurry sputtered and died in a spatter of mud on the water.
“Get back to work,” Wilkes said. “I didn’t say you could stop.”
The men around Giraldo ignored the Englishman, and kept up their worried flow of chat with the guide.
“I said get back to work,” Wilkes said, louder, but again he was ignored. “You see what I’m dealing with?” he said to Banks, looking for an ally. Banks wasn’t about to give him one just yet. There was more going on here than met the eye. Hynd had noted it too, but Banks stopped any questions with a finger to his lips, and turned back to follow Wilkes.
And hopefully get some answers.
The interior office Wilkes led them to inside the cube proved to be remarkably clean and cool, with a large air-conditioning unit by the only window to thank for the fresher air. They dropped their kit bags on the floor. Banks wiped at the thin slurry on his trousers, but only succeeded in spreading it around.
“The muck never really washes off,” the foreman said apologetically, “but we do what we can to make ourselves comfortable. Beer or coffee?”
The squad was unanimous, and although there were nominally on duty, beer sounded exactly what Banks needed to get the taste of slurry from his mouth. When Wilkes disappeared down the corridor, then came back and handed out the bottles, it was cold, almost icy to the touch, hissed on opening, and it went down so fast it barely touched his throat.
It did the job he’d asked of it though, but he refused a second for him, and for the squad when Wilkes offered more
“Maybe later. But for now, tell me why Buller isn’t here to meet us.”
Wilkes lit up a smoke before answering, a cigar as thick as his thumb that took three matches to get going.
“The boss isn’t here, and I don’t know where he is,” the foreman said. “He went last night, the same way as the others, quiet, in the night. This whole operation is fucked royally if you can’t find him and get him back.”
Banks saw that the big man was running on fumes, kept going by beer, smoke, and bravado in the face of something that had him terrified.
And if he’s that worried, maybe I should be too.
“You’d better tell us the whole story,” Banks said.
“In that case, I’ll need another beer, and you’ll need some grub. Through here.”
He led them to a small refectory area, no more than a 10 by 10-foot square room lined with refrigerators and cupboards, with a low ceiling and a basic kitchen setup along the outside wall. It didn’t have air conditioning, and the open windows let in heat, flies, and the rancid stench of the slurry. But the bread, meats, and cheeses on offer made up for any discomfort.
While the squad ate, Banks got a cup of strong coffee that tasted like it had been sitting for hours and sipped at it, and sat at a long trestle while he listened to Wilkes’ story.
“Buller and I go back years,” he started. “My first job out of University was working for his father in the Congo. Buller was on that rig as an assistant to the main boss man, but it was clear he was getting groomed for bigger things, so I hitched my wagon to his, and soon we both moved up the ranks. We were after oil that time in Africa but a river is a river, even a bloody big one like this, and we ironed out most of the kinks in the production process both there in the Congo then later in Jakarta, where it was silver we were after. Then Buller’s old man got wind of small-scale prospectors making good money up here in the jungle and knew there was a fortune to be had if the operation could be scaled up properly. We started planning two years ago, then came the job of getting all the gear shipped up river and assembled.
“We’ve been dredging on the river for six months now,” Wilkes continued. “At first, it all went like clockwork; we dredged, we sifted, and we found the gold we knew was lying there waiting to be brought up. The local lads on the team made more money than they’d see in years of fishing. We got to send pounds of gold back to be sold in the U.K. at an enormous markup. We’re far enough away from the tree-huggers that nobody gives a fuck about any mess we might make, and the boss and his dad were happy as Larry.
“Things only changed when we came round that last bend and into this stretch of water. The local lads got twitchy, and although nothing was said to me, I would catch them in groups, muttering to each other, and it became obvious that they would stay near the center of the deck whenever they could, as if afraid of something in the water. And trying to get any of them to do anything after dark got to be near impossible, no matter how much I shouted, or how much money the boss offered them. Every minute of every day felt like we were on the edge of a full-blown mutiny.
“Then people started to disappear.”
The big man stopped, and chewed at his cigar, his gaze taking on a far-away stare, the memory almost overwhelming him before he pulled himself together enough to continue.
“Jack Baillie was first to go — a Scots lad like you, field geologist and in charge of finding the best spots to dredge. He was a good laugh, a good chess opponent, and he was generally well liked by the local lads, for he kept up with them even when they were drinking their homemade rum.
“Then, one morning, he just wasn’t there. There was no noise, no alarm. We got up for breakfast and he wasn’t here. I went out in a boat, up and down the banks in case he’d maybe done something daft like gone for a swim after a drink, but there was no sign of any disturbance on either side, and no evidence of violence of any kind.
“There was a lot of nervous chatter among the men, but the boss offered double time pay for a few days if they’d allow it to be declared an accidental drowning. Money talks, even here in the fucking middle of nowhere, and nobody disagreed with Buller, and we went back to work.
“The second man went three nights later.