Buller wasn’t paying attention. He was already walking away across the cavern, charting the course of the gold seam with a raised hand. Banks left him to it and went to the doorway before tapping at his ear again.
“Banks checking in,” he said. The Brazilian captain came back loud and clear in his ear.
“Glad to hear you safe and sound,” the pilot said. “Nothing to report up here; all quiet on the causeway.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way. We’ll be with you in 10 minutes. I want to check this outer track here. If we make it back okay, then you can go ahead and call in that medical team. Looks like the site is secure.”
“What about the fucking huge snakes, Cap?” Wiggins said when Banks stepped back into the cavern.
“If the theory is right, and they’re all infected people, then we’ve got them trapped down there in the dark under the pyramid. If any others turn up, you have my permission to shoot the fuck out of them. I’ve had about enough sneaking about in this place to do me for a while. Let’s do a reccy up the hill, then we can leave this wanker with his gold and get the fuck off this hill. Whatever happens next is his problem, not ours.”
“We need to get more people out here,” Buller said. “Geologists, engineers…”
“Doctors first, for those poor bastards we left down in the dark,” Hynd said.
“I told you, they can’t be helped.”
Wiggins stood up close to Buller again.
“And I told you to shut the fuck up. They’ll be helped. You might be a murdering fuckwit, but that’s not how we do things in this squad.”
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.