“Wiggo,” he said. “Get a shift on. Time’s a wasting here.”
They hurried past the last tumbled building, pausing only long enough to make sure it was more of the same mixture of aged ruin and scattered gold, and met Hynd and McCally at the foot of the pyramid steps.
“All clear on your side, Sarge?” he asked.
“Aye,” Hynd replied. “But there’s enough gold to buy Aberdeen twice and still have change.”
“Same over here,” Banks replied. He tapped at his ear and spoke to the chopper captain. “All clear so far. We’re heading inside the pyramid to check that out so we might go dark. Watch our backs.”
“We’re right here and not going anywhere until you get back, Captain,” came the reply, then Banks led the squad, with Buller in the middle, up the steep stairs of the pyramid.
Like their first ascent, it proved to be hard going. Buller, not having the benefit of their military-grade fitness, struggled after the first few steps, and they were forced to keep a snail’s pace to cater for him.
“We shouldn’t even be going this way,” the businessman complained at the approximate halfway point of the climb, where he had to stop for a rest. “The gold seam’s down in the cave far below.”
“Securing the site means securing the whole site,” Banks replied. “Not only the shiny, expensive bits.”
“There’s naebody here. An idiot could see that.”
Wiggins stepped up close to the man.
“Are you calling the captain here an idiot?”
“That’s not what I meant…” Buller blustered. “I’m just saying…”
“And I’m just telling you. Last time. Shut the fuck up or you’ll get a skelp.”
Buller looked from Wiggins to Banks, and back to Wiggins. The private winked at him, and smiled.
“What’s it to be?”
Buller went back to climbing.
Banks waited on the top step for Buller to catch up. He tapped at his ear and spoke, looking down the length of the causeway to where the chopper sat quiet at the far end.
“Everything still okay down there?” he asked.
“All quiet, Captain. I think we’re the only ones here.”
“Let’s hope so,” he said. “Checking out now. Will check back in when I can.”
Buller heaved himself up the last step, stopped, and looked around.
“Well, you got us up here. Now what?”
“Now we go down through the dungeon we were held in before,” Banks said. “I need to make sure it’s empty. And it’ll get us to your cave soon enough. What has me worried is that those people, when they weren’t being bloody big snakes, must have lived somewhere, eaten somewhere, and we haven’t found that yet. I won’t be happy until then. So into the pyramid we go, to see what’s what.
“But first, I need to warn you. If nobody’s been here since the night before last, then your man Wilkes will be inside here. And it’s not pretty.”
Buller waved a hand as if pushing the words away.
“It won’t be anything I haven’t already seen. I told you before, they made me watch.”
“It’s your funeral,” Banks said.
“No. It’s Wilkes’. But he got paid well enough, so fuck him.”
“Nobody gets paid well enough for this,” Banks said, and led them into the altar room at the top of the pyramid.
Wilkes’ body was still splayed out on the altar. A swarm of bloated black flies crawled over it feasting in so thick a carpet that the body appeared to squirm in the throes of a fit.
“Well, that’s fucking disgusting,” Wiggins said.
Before Banks could counsel caution, the private stepped forward, and rolled the body off the altar. The swarm of flies rose lazily in the air and started to dissipate almost immediately. Wiggins went over to the wall and Banks saw that the cauldron of oil still sat there in the corner. Wiggins bent toward it, obviously intent on using the contents to burn the body. He didn’t get as far as lifting it, for the room echoed with the sound of rock grinding on rock. They had to step back as the altar stone slid across the floor, slowly with loud grinding and the crash and clatter of wood on wood somewhere under their feet.
Seconds later, they stood looking down into a dark hole below them. A run of stone steps led away, down into the darkness.
- 19 -
“I guess we’re back to the Indiana Jones shite then?” Wiggins said.
Banks leaned forward, switched on his gun light and waved the beam down the newly exposed steps. At the same time, he smelled something all too familiar. It wasn’t strong, but it was distinctive, the odor of vinegar and burnt oil.
“We don’t have time for stumbling around in the dark. We need to get to the fucking gold,” Buller protested again when Banks stepped down onto the first of the stairs, but the man went quiet when Wiggins prodded him in the back with his gun barrel. All five of them descended in step into the darkness below.
Banks took point, keeping his light steady ahead so that he could always see where he was putting his feet. It was even warmer here than it had been out in the heat of the day. It wasn’t humid, rather being a stifling dry heat that felt like he was breathing fire. The tang of oil and vinegar got stronger as they descended. After a few feet, they passed the mechanism that worked the pivot for moving the altar, a complex set of wooden gears, ropes, and pulleys that looked almost too rotten to be functional. Banks studied it only long enough to ensure there wouldn’t be a trap sprung at their back then continued the descent.
Even Buller knew well enough to keep quiet, and they went down in silence, into what was quickly becoming an oppressive heat and stench. Banks was considering retracing their steps in search of better air when he felt a breath of breeze in his face, and a cooler one at that. The sound of his footfalls, which had been dull slaps, now took on an echoing, wider quality, and as he suspected, they arrived at the bottom of the stairwell soon afterward, to be faced with a dark, open area ahead that his rifle light wasn’t quite powerful enough to penetrate.
There was another smell here too, even above the tang of vinegar and oil. It took Banks a few seconds to recognize it, as he hadn’t been expecting it here in the dark, but it too was unmistakable once identified. It was an almost meaty taste of human body sweat.
He pulled down the night vision goggles and switched them on.
He immediately wished he hadn’t.
They stood in the doorway of another square chamber, this one being the biggest so far. Like the others, this one was covered wall and ceiling with more of the carvings, the same size as the tiling they’d seen outside, although here they were done, not in gold, but in stone as ancient as that which made up the pyramid steps outside. And also unlike the buildings outside, this place was most definitely occupied.
The room was some 30 feet square. Bodies sat, backs straight, legs outstretched, all seated close to each other around all of the walls. There was a thin, whistling noise and Banks realized it was breathing, all of them, some 50 individuals at his best count, breathing in and out in unison.
They appeared to be a mixed population, old and young, man and woman, but all of them stark naked sitting there in the dark, breathing together and staring, wide-eyed into emptiness.
“What is it?” Buller whispered from behind him. “What can you see?”
Banks realized the man was the only one of them without the benefit of the night goggles. He stepped closer to the nearest wall and shone his light in the face of the nearest sitting figure. The woman, middle-aged and as pale as alabaster, didn’t so much as blink. Buller yelped in fear, the first sign of any emotion he’d shown, but Banks couldn’t really blame him for it.