Moon Mask (38 page)

“Lake,” he ordered. “Keep an eye out for that sneaky bastard out there!”

“Roger that.”

The Super Stallion thundered over the rooftops and the tiny figures of the three motorbikes came into view, two out ahead, one in hot pursuit. They raced down the now deserted harbour side at phenomenal speeds.

Sykes was faster.

Dipping the chopper’s nose, he charged like a raging bull, roaring fast, first over Raine, then sweeping above the targets, moving out ahead of them. He worked the joystick and the foot pedals, altered the chopper’s torque, increased the rotor blades pitch, and dropped the enormous flying machine towards the ground, yards in front of the fleeing bikes, cutting them off-

“Dave!”

Lake’s warning came a fraction of a second too late. He saw it too, the ghostly appearance of the WWII-era Black Cat appearing from nowhere directly in front of them, spewing forth a deadly missile, propelled upon a tail of fire, which slammed into the Super Stallion’s broadside.

In that last moment before death, he did the only thing he could think of to do.

He reached down and pulled on Kristina Lake’s ejection seat.

Raine
couldn’t believe his eyes as he tore across the waterfront, the needle on his bike’s speedometer straining.

In the sky directly in front of him,
Eagle Eye One
erupted in an all-engulfing ball of flame, swallowing the metal carcass of the giant airborne beast. He saw a shimmer in the sky as the black plane pulled up hard to avoid the hellish flames, for a moment silhouetting itself against the fiery destruction.

The two bikes carrying King and Sid squeezed beneath the hovering helicopter a split second before impact and now raced away beyond it. And in a heartbeat’s time, the hulk of the Super Stallion would plummet down to earth, blocking off Raine’s pursuit.

It was insane even for him, he knew. But he did it anyway.

Instead of slowing, he bent over the handlebars to offer less wind resistance, squeezed the bike between his knees and twisted the accelerator as far as it would go.

A hairsbreadth before the burning carcass of the giant helicopter smashed down onto the ground, Raine raced on under it. For an insane moment, he realised, he actually closed his eyes, but he nevertheless felt the incredible heat of the inferno blazing around him, heard the clang of metal striking stone, the pop of exploding gas tanks, followed by the whoosh of igniting jet fuel.

Only yards behind his back tyre, the wreckage smacked against the ground and sent up a billowing wall of heat which actually picked up his rear wheel and threatened to flip him over. Through luck more than skill, he maintained his balance and the wheel smacked back down, caught purchase on the ground and shot him forward, faster than ever.

Ahead, at the end of the water front, he saw the incredible sight of the old fashioned WWII-era Catalina Flying boat swoop in front of the bikes, its far-side wheel only half on the jetty, one wing out over the water, one wing millimetres away from the harbour side buildings.

Raine coaxed every last ounce of speed from his tortured bike.

The Black Cat’s rear loading ramp opened, scraping sparks as it hit the ground.

Raine flew towards his abducted friends.

The Black Cat slowed slightly.

The two fleeing bikes accelerated.

They bounded up the ramp and slammed into a safety net within the plane’s hold.

Raine gained on the slowing plane, racing only feet behind the now closing ramp. He saw the Team Leader inside, a smug expression upon his battered face.

And then the black plane accelerated, moving away from Raine’s bike.

It lifted off just as its forward wheels dropped off the end of the concrete jetty.

Raine didn’t slow, even with the end of the road literally in sight.

The plane took to the sky.

Raine hit the end of the jetty and both he and the bike, propelled by their phenomenal speed, took to the air also, sailing through it. He pushed off from the bike, arms outstretched, reaching desperately for the plane.

He fingers fell just short and with sickening realisation, Nathan Raine dropped down into the tranquil waters of the Caribbean while the enemy plane carrying Benjamin King and Alysya Siddiqa vanished into the blackness of the night sky.

30:

Tortured Souls

United Nations Headquarters,

New York City,

USA

“What
the hell went wrong?” Alexander Langley demanded over the communications link to Laurence Gibbs. He could hear the tension in the other man’s voice and a twisted part of him missed that post-action adrenaline come-down.

He experienced no such thing now, however. Whereas Gibbs was currently standing on the waterfront in Port Royal surrounded by emergency vehicles, Langley had been beating back the wolves. The Jamaicans were demanding an explanation for the explosive events in Port Royal while ‘those in the know’ were demanding answers to the exact same question he had just asked Gibbs.

“What went wrong?”
Gibbs snapped.
“Someone must have sold us out!
”

Langley could understand that assumption. The operation in Jamaica had been top secret, known to only a handful of people. He had watched the entire event unfold from the safety of the U.N. Tactical Operations Centre (TOC), a state-of-the-art command facility located five stories beneath the Secretariat Building. It was laced with so much fancy, ultra-modern, state-of-the-art surveillance technology that Langley felt like he was standing on the set of a science-fiction movie. He remembered the first time he had seen a TOC, newly recruited from the Rangers to Delta Force. He had been awed then by the array of computers- boxy, bulky, beige-coloured machines with enormous monitors and tangled knots of spaghetti-like cables trailing to telephones and headsets. Archaic by today’s standards. Here, there wasn’t a cable in sight. The computers were waiver-thin, the keyboards nothing but fully customisable projections which somehow knew what non-existent key one was tapping. He felt like a dinosaur, reborn into the twenty-first century.

An NSA satellite had given him and his action group a real-time feed of the assault which had been projected onto a wall-spanning SMART screen. Dozens of other sleek-looking computers littered the dimly lit space, collating shared intelligence from all member states of the Security Council. He had purposely included service men and women from numerous countries into his action group to prove to the doubters in the council that the mission to find the Moon Mask was indeed a joint U.N. venture and hadn’t been hijacked by the United States. Nevertheless, no one on the team knew what it was the Special Forces team was after, referring to the Moon Mask at all times as ‘the package.’

“It was Raine,”
Gibbs said vehemently over the com-link.
“It was all part of his escape plan. Now he’s got King and the book he’ll find the rest of the package and sell it to the highest bidder.”

“Raine knew nothing about the mission’s destination or objective until you and King briefed him en-route. And you’ve restricted his access to all com equipment.”

In truth, that had been one of President Harper’s provisos in releasing Raine. He’d be a free man once the mission was completed. Until that time, however, he would have no access to communications technology of any kind, including mobile phones and computers. The only thing he was permitted was an isolated shortwave radio to keep in contact with the team. There was no way he could have gotten a message to the still unknown attackers.

“Besides,” he continued. “From what I saw, Raine did everything he could to stop those men.”

“All theatrical, sir. Staged to make his escape look convincing. He’s been in with these people from day one. How else do you explain the same soldiers that were in Venezuela showing up here?”

Langley was about to offer a further argument when he was interrupted by one of the TOC’s technicians. He handed him a data tablet. “Sir, we got a hit on one of the soldiers.”

Langley glanced at the profile. During the fighting the satellite they had been using had snapped a usable photograph of the hostiles’ leader. They had run it through watch lists from the NSA, CIA and FBI as well as Interpol. They’d got lucky.

Port Royal,

Jamaica,

Gibbs
scanned through the document which Langley had just uploaded to the laptop. He ignored the noise of the emergency sirens, the flashing blue and red lights, the sounds of screaming and crying emanating from the injured and bereaved party-goers. Several helicopters circled the town, some from story-hungry media outlets, and others from the Jamaican coastguard.

Acting under the authority of the United Nations Security Council, Gibbs had been allowed to isolate the survivors of his team on the jetty, leaving it to Langley to smooth it over with the Jamaican government. Only five minutes ago, Garcia and West had retrieved the two cases containing the piece of the Moon Mask and the Fake Mask from the remains of the helicopter. Built to withstand a nuclear blast, the black shells had suffered only minor grazing when the helicopter crashed to the ground. It had been easy enough to locate their transponder codes within the burning wreckage of the Super Stallion. David Sykes’ body on the other hand had been charred to a crisp.

Anger stirred in the pit of his stomach at the loss of his comrades. Nelson and Sykes were dead. Lake had ejected just in time but had sustained severe bruising upon landing. Garcia and O’Rourke had suffered burns and shrapnel wounds when the enemy had blown the museum’s north wall.

Pushing his thoughts about the sorry state of his team aside for the moment, he read the details on the man he recognised as the enemy team leader displayed on the laptop.

Captain William ‘Bill’ Willis had apparently served in the Australian SAS. Although his service record, as was to be expected, was unavailable, it was known that he was dishonourably discharged. Following that, he had been recruited by C.H. Logistics, a mercenary unit based in South Africa before branching out on his own. Now self-employed, he ran numerous mercenary operations, charging his clients disgustingly large sums of money for his services.

He knew that mercenaries were being used by world governments more and more each year, bringing much needed man power to the War on Terror. But Willis’ operation was small and did not come in to consult or even to add numbers as IED cannon fodder in Afghanistan. He was only called in when a particular job needed completing. In the sometimes seedy world of mercs, he was the best of the best, running a highly paid, highly trained ‘Delta Force’ of men for those that could afford it. No questions asked. He was brutal, but he got the job done.

Was Raine in league with this man?

It was possible. Raine had been similarly discredited and had been on the run for three years. But, much as he hated to admit it to himself, it didn’t quite fit. Langley was right. Raine had been denied access to all communication equipment. And other than his presence in both Venezuela and here, there was nothing else to link them together. Additionally, if Raine was earning the big bucks of Willis’ operation, then why had he been shunting supplies to and from a godforsaken mountain top in the middle of the jungle?

Of course, discovering that the soldiers who had attacked both the expedition in Venezuela and the mission here were mercenaries only opened an even bigger kettle of fish. Mercs didn’t work for themselves. Someone was paying them. But who? Someone else who was after the mask. It couldn’t be the Chinese as their own team had clashed with the mercenaries. The Brits maybe? Or the Russians?

He glanced at Nadia who stood by the water’s edge, peering worriedly into its inky depths but Langley’s voice cut into his thoughts, laced with its own concern.

“Any sign of Raine yet?”
he asked. Gibbs also peered down into the water where the hovering helicopter circled, its bright light searching for the traitor who had not been seen since he’d dived into it.

“Negative,” was his curt reply.

There was a pause, and then:
“Keep me informed.”

West cut the com link between the two men then followed his superior’s gaze. “He must be dead.”

Gibbs didn’t take his eyes from the water as he shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “That son of a bitch ain’t dead.”

Raine
found Mrs Marley, of all places, up on the roof of the Hand of Freedom Building. He knew that time was against him. Sooner or later, Gibbs would work out where he was. He was a good soldier, Raine knew, but he wouldn’t get the information they needed out of the old woman.

After watching the enemy plane fly off with King and Sid, he had swam to shore and made his way back to the battered museum. The emergency services hadn’t arrived yet and, with the book gone, the building was no longer of any interest to Gibbs and his men.

He approached the obese woman from behind, moving silently across the rooftop, skirting the ruins of air ducts and ventilation shafts. Still ten yards from her, though, she surprised him by addressing him without so much as turning around.

“You know, Mister Attorney,” she said, her heavily accented voice deep and husky. It held a sombre element to it that Raine hadn’t noticed before. “In the great earthquake of 1692, a church was swallowed by the sea.” She paused, staring off into the distance. The pitch black sky was softening in the east to a moody indigo and, her giant body silhouetted against it, Mrs Marley took on an almost ethereal presence. “They say that sometimes,” she continued, “you can hear the bell tolling from beneath the waves.”

Then she turned to face him and if she was surprised by the gun which he levelled at her chest, she did not show it.

“Can you hear the bell, Mister Raine?” she asked him pointedly.

Despite himself, Raine found himself straining to listen into the darkness. All he could hear, other than the gentle breaking of the surf, was the distant whine of emergency sirens.