A new sound, a dry metallic rattle. Chains scraped over each other, catching for a moment on the accumulated dirt of three millennia — then jerking free.
The brief pause gave Rivero enough respite to run farther along the passage… but not enough to clear it. Metal poles with savage hooks at their ends whipped out from the wall slots, lashing at him as he passed—
And tearing into his body.
13
‘Jay!’ Nina screamed as Rivero crashed to the floor, blood spurting from ragged wounds across his back. His camera skidded across the stones, spinning to a stop with its spotlight glaring back at his anguished face.
The hooked poles hit the limit of their movement with a clang, then swung back into their slots. Behind, the closing walls reversed direction and retreated to their original position. The stone slab rumbled back upwards until it was again flush with the rest of the floor. It stopped with an echoing crunch.
Eddie ran to join Nina, the couple dragging Rivero clear. He cried out in pain. ‘Oh my God!’ Lydia cried in horror as she saw the red trail behind him.
‘Get me some more fucking light!’ Eddie barked. Fisher hurriedly raised a torch as Nina snatched up the camera and shone its spot over its fallen owner. Rivero’s clothing had been ripped open. The Yorkshireman lifted away the bloody material to see the extent of his injuries. The cameraman’s lower back had been slashed in three places as if by a giant claw.
‘How bad is it?’ Nina asked fearfully.
‘It got him pretty deep here,’ he said of the largest wound. ‘The other two probably look worse than they are. I’m more worried about tetanus or some other infection. I dunno how rusty those hooks were, but we’re in the middle of the jungle as well. We’ve got to get him cleaned, closed and covered before any fucking bugs start making a meal of him.’
‘I thought there weren’t many insects here,’ said the stunned Howie, trying to overcome his shock by fixing on something mundane.
‘Only needs one fucking botfly to lay eggs in a wound and you’re in deep shit. Where’s the first-aid kit?’
‘I’ve got one.’ Nina shrugged off her pack.
‘I’ll get started. Someone shout to Fortune, tell him to radio the others and bring more rope. We might have to lift him out if he can’t climb.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Fisher. He ran back towards the entrance as Nina gave the medical kit to her husband.
‘Will he be okay?’ Lydia asked.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ Eddie told her. ‘I need some water.’ Nina put down the camera and passed him a canteen. He cleaned his hands as best he could, then carefully washed the wounds before unrolling a length of sterile gauze and laying it over the deepest laceration. Rivero gasped. ‘Jay, can you hear me?’
‘Yeah…’ the cameraman said, voice strained.
‘I can’t tell how deep you’ve been cut around your spine. Can you move your legs?’
Another gasp as Rivero shifted position, his toes scraping on the dusty floor. ‘Thank God,’ Nina said in relief.
Eddie nodded. ‘That’s something, at least. Fucking hell, that could have been really nasty if that trap’d worked a bit quicker.’
Fisher hurried back in. ‘They’re on their way.’
‘Good.’ He applied more gauze. ‘Normally I wouldn’t move you until you’ve been bandaged up,’ he told Rivero, ‘but I really don’t want to stay down here.’
‘No arguments from me,’ Rivero replied through clenched teeth.
Nina was not so sure. ‘I don’t think we’re in any immediate danger. Taking him up too soon might do more harm than good.’
‘No, I… I think we should get him outside too,’ said Fisher. ‘We came here to film you finding a lost city, not get caught in killer traps! I’ve got to put the crew’s safety first. As soon as we’re out, I’ll call for a medevac on the satphone.’
‘How long will that take?’ asked Ziff.
‘It’ll have to go via the company’s offices in LA, but I’d hope they can get a chopper to us pretty fast. I was once on a shoot where someone broke their leg in a fall, and he was airlifted out in less than ninety minutes.’
‘Where was that, though?’ Eddie asked.
‘The Arizona desert.’
The Yorkshireman shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the only chopper within two hundred miles is that mining company one in Butembo — and I bet they won’t be too keen on loaning it out.’
‘We’ve got to get him out of here, though,’ said Lydia. She swapped her sound gear for a torch.
Rivero moved again, trying to bring himself up. ‘No, stay still!’ Nina warned.
‘It’s… it’s okay,’ he rasped. ‘I wanna… get out of here. My camera, someone get the camera.’
‘Forget the fucking camera,’ Eddie snapped, but too late as Howie picked it up. ‘God. Archaeologists, photographers — you’re as bloody obsessive as each other!’
‘Wouldn’t be… here if we weren’t,’ said Rivero. With great effort, he levered himself to a kneeling position. ‘Ah! Jesus fuck, that hurts!’
‘What did you expect?’ complained Nina. ‘You just got slashed by a death trap.’ She glanced back at the passage. ‘Although…’
‘What is it?’ said Ziff, picking up on her change of tone from concern to curiosity.
Eddie heard it too. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. We’ve got an injured man here, and you’re already thinking about how to get past the trap that whacked him!’
‘I know what my priorities are, thank you,’ she said, annoyed. ‘It’s just that… it is a death trap. If you go forward, you get squashed when the walls close in — but if you turn back, the hooks get you. The only reason Jay wasn’t killed was because the mechanism was jammed by dirt and didn’t spring fast enough. If someone else tries it now, I expect they’d be torn apart.’
‘Saved by… bad housekeeping, then,’ Rivero said, attempting a smile as he tried to straighten. It faded almost instantly.
‘Just keep still,’ Eddie ordered. He examined the cameraman’s back.
‘Solomon’s inscription suggests that there is a way through, though,’ Nina pressed on, directing her light at the ancient Hebrew text. ‘It says, “Only the dead shall pass alive.” That’s got to be significant.’
‘Maybe it is, but it doesn’t matter, because we’re not going to try again,’ Eddie said with irritation. ‘Jay, I’m going to lift the gauze. It’ll probably hurt, so be ready for it.’
‘If it’s gonna hurt, any chance you could, you know, not do it?’ replied Rivero. The Englishman ignored him. ‘Ah, aah! Oh, you — you fucker! God damn.’
‘Sorry.’ Eddie gently replaced the bloodied gauze. ‘It hasn’t stopped yet, but it’s bleeding less than I thought it would be. I think it’s ’cause you’ve got a lot of fat down there.’
Fisher laughed, a release of nervous tension more than actual humour. ‘Wow, Jay. Who would’ve thought that all those burgers and burritos would end up saving your life?’
‘Ha ha ha,’ Rivero responded with an equal lack of amusement, before giving the director the finger. ‘Fuck you.’ This time, Fisher’s laugh was genuine.
‘He’ll be okay?’ Lydia asked hopefully.
‘He won’t bleed to death,’ Eddie told her. ‘Still needs treatment, though. Got to sterilise it, then he’ll need stitches, antibiotics, all of that. I can do it in the field, but it’d be a lot better to get him to a hospital and let the professionals handle it.’
Rivero nodded in agreement. ‘Yeah, yeah. I definitely want it done by a guy in a white coat rather than a guy in a leather jacket!’