Уильям Мейкл - Operation - Amazon

The goggles made the surrounding jungle appear even greener, almost luminescent. Foliage hemmed them in and it felt like walking inside a vast glistening tube, the intestine of a green fleshy giant. The humidity was stifling, and heavy with a dampness that made breathing a chore. Every step moved a film of sweat around under kit, and the eye goggles slid as moisture ran down his forehead from his hairline. Small animals scurried in the dark just out of sight, and overhead, parakeets fluttered noisily at their passing.

We might as well have rung the fucking doorbell.

Banks was glad when the track took a turn to the right and they climbed upward, out from under the canopy. The parakeets settled quickly back in their roosts and the night once again fell quiet save for the pad of their footsteps on the stone underfoot.

The path now made its way up the side of a rocky hill. The growth was less luxuriant here, and a light breeze, although warm, meant that the humidity fell to an almost acceptable level, and every so often they got a view back downward, to where the canopy seemed to stretch off endlessly. The river snaked away to their right, shimmering green and silver. The quay they’d left behind was hidden under the canopy, and Banks could only hope that it was a quiet enough spot that Giraldo and Wilkes would not need to use their emergency flares.

And with that, he put the boat and the other two men out of his mind; his focus now had to be on the path ahead, and the mission. He looked up instead of down. The path was climbing, slowly, around the outside of a long hill whose top was lost in the dark somewhere higher up.

They passed more stone workings as they climbed, more proof as to the antiquity of the builders. At first, it was only small rounded dwelling huts, long since collapsed into ruin and overgrown with moss, lichen, and vine, making them almost appear as natural aspects of the landscape rather than anything built by man. As they went higher, and after 10 minutes of strenuous climbing, the ruins became less sporadic. After a short, steeper set of worn steps, they passed through what had obviously been a gateway at one long lost time, and the path widened and flattened out, becoming more of a street, wending its way, still upward, through the tumbled ruins of an ancient town.

The rounded design of the dwellings was still evident here, but here they were more tightly packed together, almost butting right up against one another. The doorways were dark, in deep shadow, and the tumbled ruins jutted into the sky like shattered teeth. There was no sign of any life save a pair of pale doves that fluttered up and away in panic at their approach.

Once they were sure that the sudden flight of the birds hadn’t alerted anyone to their presence, McCally slowed to let Banks catch him, and spoke in a whisper.

“Who the fuck built all of this, Cap? I thought it was nowt but jungle around here?”

Banks had been thinking the same thing. His knowledge of ancient peoples was sketchy at best; he knew the names, Aztec, Inca, and one other.

“It’s probably Mayan, at a guess,” he said. “But don’t quote me on that, as I think we’ve fucked up enough already. Look around, Cally. This is bloody ancient. Nobody’s lived here for centuries. I think we’ve come to the wrong place. Our man’s not here.”

The next few minutes only seemed to harden Bank’s belief that they were on a wild goose chase. The path flattened out as they walked onto the hilltop, a plateau where the bulk of the town had been. Although the buildings were of a larger scale up here on the ridge, the whole site looked to be mostly a jumble of tumbled, overgrown ruin and Banks was losing hope. Then Hynd stopped abruptly and motioned them into cover behind a partially fallen wall before waving Banks forward.

“Light ahead, Cap,” the sergeant whispered when Banks joined him at the wall.

Banks lifted his goggles up onto his brow and chanced a quick look round the edge. There was just about enough light by the stars to give him a clear view. They were at one end of a long causeway that ran all the way along the ridge. Buildings lined either side of a main thoroughfare that must have been grand and monumental at one time, but was now mostly a tumble of ruins and crawling vines. The largest structure of note that still stood complete faced him at the far end of the ridge, some 100 yards away, a squat, stepped pyramid. The light Hynd had mentioned came from an entrance way atop the line of steps, a yellow-gold flickering that Hynd guessed must be firebrands or some kind of lantern.

And now they had stopped, he heard something that had not been audible earlier, having been masked by their footsteps. There was a rush of water in the distance, coming from the same direction as the pyramid. He remembered Buller’s video message, and the mention of a cascade and his hope rose again; perhaps they had come to the right spot after all.

He turned back to Hynd and spoke softly.

“Up the center of the main drag,” he said. “Two by two, eyes on each flank. You and Cally go first. If we make it that far without any fuss, we go up the steps and see where that light’s coming from. Everybody got it?”

The three other men replied in the affirmative.

Hynd and McCally moved them out.

The road was paved underfoot, six-foot square gray slabs, some cracked with age but for the most part in good enough condition to drive a cart along should it be required, although there was no sign that anyone had done so for many years. Banks watched the shadows amid the ruins, expecting an attack at any moment. None came. The only sound was once again the pad of their footsteps on stone, accompanied by the soft rush of water running away in the distance. He kept his goggles on his forehead. The sky was a shimmering blanket of stars overhead, with no moon to dim its brilliance, and with that, and the flickering light atop the pyramid showing them the way, there was more than enough light for their purposes.

They reached the base of the pyramid without anyone taking notice of them and looked up. The steps were each a foot or more high, and the structure was larger than it had looked from the other end of the causeway, stretching high above then toward the field of stars. Banks saw Wiggins eyeing the climb warily.

“Up you go, Wiggo,” he said. “Let’s see how far you get before you run out of puff.”

“That’s what the sarge’s wife says too,” the man replied and was climbing up and away before Hynd got a chance to reply. Banks let McCally and Hynd go ahead and brought up the rear as they headed up the steps.

It proved to be hard work and despite the fact it was cooler now than under the height of the sun, Banks still had a new film of sweat under his suit before they were even halfway to the top. At least here in the fresher air they were spared the worst of the biting insects and, as they rose higher, he got some idea as to why the pyramid and surrounding complex had been built where it was. The high vantage gave them a view over an endless swathe of forest, and the river, dark as pitch with highlights picked out by reflected stars, a vast snake slithering far below them.

When he stopped to draw a breath, he heard the cascade again, louder now, closer, off to his right on the far side of the pyramid somewhere. But there were no windows on this face of the structure. If their rescue were to be successful, they’d have to venture inside to find the man they’d come for. Banks felt the old tingle of anticipation rise in him, and after boating, canoeing and hiking all this way, he was about ready for any action that might come his way.

He turned and looked up the steps to where the flickering yellow light called them forward. The other three were already four steps higher, so Banks put some effort into it to catch up, and felt the strain in his calves. By the time he reached the top, one step behind the others, he was sweating again, and breathing heavily. Wiggins laughed.