Moon Mask (34 page)

“Besides,” he added. “It was better than Gibbs’ alternative.”

He pushed the Humvee
back through the escalating ‘pirate party’ and continued down the highway back toward the mainland and the rendezvous point.

Nadia’s gaze finally peeled away from him. “I just hope that we got what we went for.”

Mrs
Marley sat shaking on the floor of her museum where she had collapsed after her confrontation with the attorney. Shards of shattered glass were scattered around the smashed window and the sulphurous, rotten egg smell of gunpowder permeated the air.

Could the attorney be right? she wondered for the thousandth time. Could Doctor King be telling the truth? Was she days, perhaps hours away from losing her home, her business, the legacy of the great people that had come before her?

Eyes gushing tears, all she could do was chuckle at the irony of her thoughts. To lose this place, this ball and chain that had dragged her down because of loyalty which her father had taught her. Loyalty to an oath once taken by a man or a woman who had lived hundreds of years before she had been born.

“Protect our family legacy,”
her father had told her every day of her life.
“Protect the memory of those that fought for our freedom,”
he had said on his death bed.
“But most importantly, protect the mask.”

The mask. The goddamn mask.

Her entire life she had been told the story of the Moon Mask. She had been told how she would be the next guardian of the Kernewek Diary. She knew the diary page for page, word for word. She alone in the world knew the secret of the Moon Mask and to honour a vow made centuries ago, she had forgone her own life, her own dreams, to protect it.

And now an end was in sight. If the lawyer told the truth then the responsibility, according to that very same oath, would at last fall to another.

Yet now she found, after a lifetime of resentment, allowing the memories of the past to become tarnished and forgotten, this building, a symbol of freedom, to fall into ruin, she did not wish to give up her charge.

Her ancestors had been strong. Now so would she.

The sun was beginning to set by the time she heaved her considerable bulk up off the floor and lumbered over to the stairs. Slowly she climbed them to the top floor where her tiny bedroom, as cluttered as the rest of the building, lay. She walked up to the filthy double bed upon which she spent most of her days staring at the ceiling contemplating a life that could have been. She heaved and slid it to one side.

In one of the floor boards there was a finger hole and, slotting her index into it, she lifted one board, then two others.

In the compartment within, she lifted out a large chest and, retrieving a heavy metal key from a chain between her drooping breasts, she unlocked it.

“That’s
it,” King breathed.

Along with Raine, Sid, Nadia and Gibbs, he huddled around West, the SOG operative assigned to communications. On a XGA Rugged laptop, encased in a chassis made of ballistic armour, designed to survive the extremities of military field work, they watched a live-streaming video being transmitted from the microscopic video camera which Raine had attached to Mrs Marley’s dress when he had pushed her away.

On the screen, Mrs Marley plucked a battered, leather bound book from within the chest and almost reverently opened the cover to the first page.

“There,” King snapped. “Pause it there.” West did so, freezing the image on the elegant scrawl of the first page.

He retrieved another book from his own satchel. The same one he had shown Raine five nights ago on the summit of Sarisariñama.

Emily Hamilton’s diary.

He opened it to the last page, mysteriously cut off three quarters of the way through the book, and held it up against the laptop screen.

The writing was an exact match.

Emily Hamilton and Amelia Kernewek were one and the same.

Just as Raine had planned, frightening the old woman had forced her to take them straight to the Kernewek diary.

And the diary would take them to the Moon Mask.

27:

Ambush

Off the coast of Jamaica

High
above the tiny Caribbean island of Jamaica, a full blanket of stars spread as far as the eye could see, reflecting in the mirror–like surface of the waters which sloshed gently against the island’s shores.

But despite the hundreds of people who still partied around the north western beaches, no one noticed the black plane that passed in front of the stars, its light absorbent paint making it all but invisible to the naked eye at night, its stealth technology hiding it from any obtrusive radar scans.

Yet this plane was no Next Generation Stealth Fighter. In fact it wasn’t even equipped with jet engines, but relied on two traditional propeller engines outfitted with state of the art silencers. Its body wasn’t the curvaceous, sleek wannabe star of a new sci-fi blockbuster like the famous B2 bomber, but was in fact the somewhat ungainly frame of a WWII-era Catalina “Black Cat” Amphibious Flying Boat. Outfitted with new technology, it was designed to function as an operational command base for an elite force of soldiers.

There was no insignia upon the plane, no flag, no name. These soldiers belonged to no country.

The Catalina Flying Boat touched down in the waters of the Caribbean, two miles off shore, and pushed through the gentle swell towards the Jamaican coast. Pitch black, with no running lights, it was as invisible in the water as it was in the sky, even as it circled the Palisadoes and deposited eight black-clad soldiers - two abreast on four black motorbikes - upon the spit of land connecting Port Royal to the mainland.

The
Hand of Freedom building was dark.

Only a single light shone dimly through the upstairs bedroom window and shortly before midnight that was extinguished. The only light now came from the stars.

Benjamin King ran low and fast, struggling to make sense of the alien world he saw through the Night Vision Goggles attached to his face. A sickly green pall enveloped everything he looked at, including the two figures of O’Rourke and Garcia as they flanked him to either side.

It was a low risk mission, the highest threat coming from a two hundred year old musket, but nevertheless his two escorts treated the assault on the museum as though they were invading Saddam Hussein’s palace.

Crossing the courtyard, they hit the wall, backs to it, O’Rourke with a SCAR Assault Rifle and Garcia with a Heckler & Koch HK416 held at the ready. Garcia silently picked the lock and the three man team slipped into the museum.

Raine
watched the team’s progress on the screen of the XGA Rugged Laptop. Its screen set to night-mode, the image gave off very little light so as not to give away his position as he lay in the boughs of a tree to the west of the museum. West worked the controls while Gibbs, Sid and Nadia looked over his shoulder, all clad in black Kevlar armour. Nelson and Murray held sniper positions somewhere around the building, while Sykes and Lake circled the island high above.

He still seethed from another confrontation with Gibbs. He had insisted on accompanying King into the building, declaring that his purpose on this mission was to protect King and help him retrieve the Moon Mask. Since they knew the mask was not present here, Gibbs had argued, his presence was not necessary. He had even tried to confine him to the helicopter but when the heated debate grew overly confrontational, Rudy O’Rourke had stepped in and negotiated this compromise. Raine was allowed to be an observer while O’Rourke took full responsibility for the archaeologist’s welfare.

Raine hated sitting out on the action but he had very little choice. All he could do now was lie in the brittle grass in the grounds of the museum and watch the transmission from King’s NVGs on the laptop screen.

Stopping
just inside the courtyard of Fort Charles, leaving the motorbikes with four of his men, the Team Leader led his other three men the rest of the way on foot, moving fast and low.

The strangely shaped building came into view.

The Team Leader ordered the attack to begin.

King
followed O’Rourke up the rickety wooden steps. Despite the mission’s low risk rating, he nevertheless felt his pulse racing, adrenaline pumping through him, his own breathing echoing in his skull.

O’Rourke reached the top step and held up a hand in what the archaeologist guessed was military-language for “halt.”

King obeyed and watched O’Rourke pick his way stealthily over the strewn historical bric-a-brac which littered the floor. The African-American’s athletic form appeared as a dark silhouette through the eerie glow of his N.V.G.s.

Sid
watched the screen with apprehension, her own heart beating as fast as King’s as she watched her boyfriend move through the dark museum.

“He shouldn’t be in there,” she whispered, more to herself than any of the others. “That woman’s insane. Ben’s not a soldier.”

A reassuring hand squeezed her shoulder, followed by the scarily serious voice of the normally cavalier Nathan Raine. “Benny knows how to handle himself in a fight.”

There was something in the man’s tone that scared Sid. Something certain. Despite Gibbs’ reassurances, she knew, Raine believed that a fight was inevitable.

She turned her head to look up at him but his blue eyes would not meet hers. Instead they focussed beyond the laptop screen, out into the darkness of the Hand of Freedom building. A flock of sea birds took flight, wings flapping noisily into the night sky, the sound seeming to echo in the otherwise unnatural silence.

She felt Raine’s body go rigid beside her, eyes sharp and intense.

“What?” she dared to ask him.

Raine’s voice was flat. Matter-of-fact.

“Something’s wrong.”

Peering
through the infrared scope of an M14 Sniper Rifle, the interior of the upper floor appeared in crisp focus to SOG operative Nelson. Through it he saw O’Rourke moving across the landing towards the master bedroom. He saw the civilian scientist, Benjamin King, follow cautiously behind. He saw Garcia sweeping behind him, watching their six.

What he did not see, however, was the black-clad soldier sneaking up behind him.

If the radio call had come through a split second earlier it might have alerted Nelson to the danger. Gibbs’ voice, however, only came over his com at the exact same moment as the black carbon dagger blade slit his throat.

“Nelson,”
Gibbs hissed over the radio.
“What’s your status?”

The
silence spoke words.

Raine’s eyes glared accusingly at Gibbs.

In the seconds after his bold prediction of doom, he had argued with Gibbs, demanding he check in with the two snipers he had positioned around the museum. Gibbs had protested for no reason other than because it galled him to be taking advice from the traitor. He couldn’t, however, give a good enough reason not to and so made the call.

He had grinned almost triumphantly as Murray checked in.

His grin faded at Nelson’s silence.

“Shit!” Raine swore, sensing the trap springing. How he knew it was beyond him. To some it might have seemed as though he was gifted with some sixth sense. But he knew it was nothing more than instinct, honed by years of training, coupled with the ever increasing sense of paranoia which had only strengthened since going on the run.

“Get them out of there!” he ordered Gibbs. Then, before anyone else could do or say anything, he was on the move, darting out across the courtyard towards the museum, ignoring Gibbs’ angry curse.

“Possible
bogey,”
Gibbs’ voice startled King as it erupted into his ear.
“Retrieve the book and evac. Discretion is no longer a goal.”

“Copy,” O’Rourke responded instantly and all at once the slow-motion effect that had encompassed King burst forward with startling speed.

O’Rourke instantly shifted from his stealthy progress across the first floor landing and ran towards the closed door of the master bedroom. He slammed his foot against it and it burst inwards. He swung in, training his rifle on-

“Nothing,” he said in momentary confusion.

“What?” King came up behind him, peering in at an empty room, and the un-slept in bed. “Where’s Mrs Marley?”

“I’m right here,
mon
,” Mrs Marley’s gruff, heavily accented voice came from the shadows across the landing. King swung to face her and didn’t even have time to shout as the obese Jamaican woman levelled her two-hundred year old British infantry musket at him and fired!

“Ben!”
Sid screamed at the screen as she saw the gun blast, from Ben’s point of view. It was as though she was living his last moment of life with him,
as
him.

She practically felt the thunderous jolt of the musket blast slam into his chest, throwing him backwards and over the landing railing. She saw the world spin, the chasm of the jumbled museum spinning around and around, the glass display case rushing up to meet him.

It shattered in a tremendous explosion of glass as King’s limp form smashed through it.

“Shut the hell up!” Gibbs snapped at her. Her outburst had surely given away their position but the woman did not care. Like Raine before her, she charged out from hiding and ran towards the building.

Even as King plummeted to his death, O’Rourke and Garcia shook off their surprise and levelled their weapons on the insane Jamaican. But they didn’t have a second to contemplate pulling their triggers as, at that moment, the entire north wall of the building exploded in an eruption of fire and debris, consuming the two soldiers and Mrs Marley.

Through the fiery breech, four black-clad soldiers swung into the building. “Fan out,” the Team Leader ordered, surveying the destruction. “Find the diary.”