“Who’s out of puff now, Cap?”
Banks smiled back.
“Just for that, you get to go first, Wiggo.”
They all turned toward the source of the flickering light. It was an open-arched entrance into 10 feet on a side cube that sat directly on the top of the pyramid. Three wall sconces, crude oil lamps, burned at eye height. They lit an altar that sat in the center of the room, and threw shadows across a passageway on the far side that appeared to lead away onto darkness.
A pale body lay on the altar, and Banks thought that their rescue was over before it really got started, but as he stepped in after Wiggins, he saw that it wasn’t the man they had seen on the video. It wasn’t Buller, but Wilkes had spoken of other men being taken, and Banks guessed this must be one of them, a beardless, thin chap, thinner still now due to his belly being open and his insides having been hollowed out. It hadn’t been done recently, for the blood was brown and crusted where it had run down the altar stone. The body was severely abused, in particular where the rib cage had been cracked and splayed. Banks didn’t look too closely, but that too appeared hollowed out, the body little more now than an empty shell where a man had been.
Somebody’s here all right. And they’ll pay for this butchery.
“What’s this now then?” Wiggins said. “Some kind of ancient torture shite?”
“Ritual, more like,” Hynd replied. “A sacrifice, I’d guess.”
“A sacrifice to what though?” Wiggins asked. “What kind of fucking god demands this kind of wet work as tribute?”
“Most kinds of fucking gods, in my experience,” Hynd replied and spat at the base of the altar. He turned to Banks.
“The guide might be right, you know? Our man might be dead already,” he said.
Banks was eyeing the dark corridor on the far side of the chamber. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes and stepped around the altar to the shadowed entranceway.
“Dead or alive, he’s coming back with us. I’ve had enough of this shite already. Let’s get this done. There’s beer back in the fridge on the dredger, and I’m getting awfy thirsty. Wiggo, you’re still up. Lead on.”
Wiggins led them into the dark.
They stood at the top of a long flight of stone stairs heading down. Banks visualized the pyramid and the hill in his mind, and realized this staircase must run down the far outside of a structure built on the edge of the hill.
And somewhere down there, I bet there’s a room, and a window, and our man.
All four of them wore the night goggles now, for there were no sconces on the walls here, no light source at all. Banks worried about the lack of resistance to their arrival. He expected to have met someone by now. But the corridor they descended into was narrow, and they had it covered front and rear. Any attack now was going to meet a rapid burst of fire from their rifles, enough to put anything short of an elephant down.
They descended fast, the steps taking them down in a steep, tight, spiral. They passed a window, little more than a slit in the rock at eye level, and heard the rush of water from outside again.
“We must be getting close,” Banks said softly. “Keep it tight, lads. It’s show time.”
One more flight of steps brought them to a landing with three roughly hewed doors on the outward side. Banks motioned, and McCally put his shoulder, hard, into the nearest one. The door fell in with a crash, and a pale figure on the ground under the window yelled in sudden fear and crawled quickly into the corner with his hands up, protecting his head. Banks saw his face before it was covered. It wasn’t Buller.
“We’re here to help,” McCally said, having to say it twice before the crouched, naked, man went quiet. The sudden lack of noise meant they could again hear the cascade outside, and the approach of running footsteps from somewhere above them.
“Wiggo, watch the stairs,” Banks said, and moved quickly to the middle door. Without being asked, Hynd went to the third one at the other end of the corridor. Banks counted down from three on his finger, then they both took out their door. Banks found a dead man, again not Buller, in the middle room.
“Got him!” Hynd shouted. By the time Banks got out to the corridor, Hynd had emerged with another naked man, one who could barely stand on his own and was having to be half-carried out of the cell. When he looked up, Banks recognized his face from the video message. McCally came out of the first room, half-carrying the first man who looked too weak to stand on his own. Somewhere above them, the sound of running feet on stone was getting closer.
“Up or down, Cap?” Hynd said.
Going back up meant a firefight, but they knew the way out; down was too much of an unknown.
“Up,” he said. “As fast as we can, and we go through anyone who gets in our way. Plugs in, lads. It’s going to get noisy in here.”
He addressed Hynd as all four of them shoved in the plastic plugs that protected their hearing from the worst of the impact of their shots.
“You and Cally bring these men as well as you can; Wiggo and I will plow the road.”
They headed for the stairs and reached then in time to see the first attacker’s lower body as he came down from above.
- 7 -
Wiggins stepped up first and raised his weapon. The man who came down at them either had no knowledge of rifles, or didn’t care, for he came on fast with a long knife raised above his head. Wiggins didn’t hesitate; he put two shots into the man’s head, and stepped quickly up and over the body as it fell at his feet. Despite the plugs, the noise was almost deafening, and seemed to echo around them for long seconds. The dead man slumped all the way to the foot of the staircase. Banks had to step up quickly himself to avoid the sudden flow of blood on the steps.
“Watch your footing,” he shouted back at the others, then went quickly after Wiggins who was already three steps up, and facing another attacker. This one was no more cautious than the first, although he was armed with a short spear that he stabbed toward Wiggins’ face. Wiggins put him down the same way he’d done the first and was once again already on his way upstairs as the dead man fell.
Banks climbed up at Wiggins’ back, weapon raised and ready to back the private up should help be needed. But the private was doing fine all on his own.
A third attacker went down as quickly as the first two, then all fell quiet above them; they climbed quickly up in almost dead silence except for the soft rush of tumbling water coming from out beyond the stairwell.
Banks noticed brighter light above. They were approaching the top of the stairs. He tapped Wiggins on the shoulder and motioned that they should remove their goggles. They stood still for several seconds, letting their eyes adjust to the dim light, the flickering yellow and gold coming from the oil lanterns in the altar room above. Behind them, Hynd and McCally helped the two naked men hobble up the stairs. The man McCally was helping had to be almost lifted up every step, but he had a look of grim determination on his face that Banks took as a good sign. He waited until they were all in close formation before tapping Wiggins on the shoulder again.
“Last push, up and out and then off and clear to the boat,” he whispered.
“Aye,” Wiggins replied equally quietly. “This Indiana Jones shite is no’ as much fun as it looks in the films.”
They headed up the last six steps.
“Off and clear” was a forlorn hope.
The altar room at the top of the stairwell was packed tight with natives, a small forest of spears and long knives waiting in the doorway. Even then Banks might have chosen to shoot their way out, but a tall figure, his head covered in a scaled headdress shaped like a striking snake’s head, stepped forward and poured fluid out of a large cauldron. The shimmer of oil rose in the air, and Banks tasted it, thick in his throat, even as it ran in a rivulet across the altar room floor and down the stairs at the squad’s feet.