Moon Mask (54 page)

Sid’s earlier concerns over Nathan Raine suddenly resurfaced. She looked again at the laptop screen, saw Ben talking to Raine even though the audio was cut, and then-

As if on cue, static erupted on the laptop screen, cutting the image of her fiancée. “What’s going on?” she demanded of no one in particular.

“Raine, King, come in,” Gibbs called into his radio. Nadia looked on, still clamped in O’Rourke’s arms, her mind running through the scenario, analysing-

It hit her like a blow to the face. Something so obvious that none of them had noticed.

“Where’s West?”

Poldark Mine,

Cornwall, England

King
was a split second faster than Raine!

He swung the heavy case on its straps, planting it with a dull thud against the other man’s gun arm. The force of the impact sent Raine’s shot wide, the bullet ricocheting loudly through the chamber and the gun flying out of his hand. He landed on the floor, but the swing of the heavy case spun King off balance also and he fell too, hitting the ground hard.

If he hadn’t, he would have been dead.

Raine had seen it only a split second before, just as he was about to agree to let King take the case if he really wanted to. He was only trying to be helpful by offering to carry it after all! But from the corner of his eye he had seen the outline of the man sneaking through the murky darkness of the mine, Heckler and Koch HK416 raised, trigger finger tightening.

But Raine had been faster. He’d whipped his M1911 handgun out of the holster attached to his hip, lined up a definite kill shot, and fired.

Just as, for some crazy reason, King had slammed the full weight of the lead-line rucksack into him, knocking him to the ground and sending his gun skittering across the muddy floor
, the shot going wide. The attacker’s shot whistled through the air above King just as he fell down behind the cover of Imhotep’s sarcophagus.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Raine demanded angrily. He pushed King off of him but the archaeologist pushed back, slamming him down. He threw a punch at Raine’s head but the ex-soldier blocked it. “Ben!” he shouted.

“You’re working for the Russians, you bastard! You sold us out!” King rose to wrench his hand free and tried to deliver another blow. Evidently, he hadn’t realised there was a shooter in the tunnel and Raine quickly grasped the other man’s helmet and yanked him sharply down just as a volley of automatic gunfire strafed the side of the sarcophagus, whistling over the top of it.

“I’m not the traitor, you idiot!” Raine snarled, just as a face appeared over the lip of the golden coffin. “
He
is!”

King turned in his bulky suit and peered up at West.

“Oh.”

United Nations Headquarters,

New York City, USA

“Gibbs!”
Alexander Langley barked down the satellite phone. On the computer screen in front of him the video stream from Raine’s helmet had been replaced with static. “I have some information which you may find of interest.”

“Oh yeah?”
Gibbs’ voice replied. He sounded slightly out of breath.

“I believe you should relieve West of his duties temporarily. I’ve uncovered evidence which suggests a link to Moscow-”

“That’s great,”
Gibbs replied with a slather of sarcasm dripping off his tone.

RNAS Culdrose,

Cornwall, England

“Unfortunately
, it’s about thirty seconds too late,” Gibbs snapped as he completed the abseil down the mine shaft to the tunnels beneath.

“Too late?”
Langley’s voice repeated in his radio. Unlike Raine and King, Gibbs, O’Rourke and Lake weren’t kitted up in NBC suits and so were able to move more quickly down the slanted tunnel, moving deeper into the bowls of the earth. Above them, outside the sinkhole, a group of five Royal Marines had been sent by the base commander to watch over Nadia Yashina who, in Gibbs’ mind anyway, was still a suspect.

“We’ve lost contact with Raine and King. The video’s been jammed and so have all comms. And West is missing.” He regulated his breathing as he ran quickly alongside his team mates. The air down in the mine was thin and without hazmat suits, they could be breathing in any number of deadly gases.

“What do you mean, he’s missing?”
Langley demanded.

United Nations Headquarters,

New York City, USA

“The
base commander has initiated a base-wide search,”
Gibbs’ voice replied.
“We were distracted by the Russian woman.”

“Nadia?”

“She escaped custody and attacked us.”
Gibbs was on the defensive. He could hear it in his voice.
“Once the situation was under control again, West had vanished.”

“He’s going after the Moon Mask,” Langley said needlessly.

“That’s our theory.”

Langley felt a slither of anger erupt. He slammed his palm on his desk, not for the first time feeling insignificant being trapped in his prison of bureaucracy rather than being out in the field with the team. He felt like dressing Gibbs down like a raw recruit for his incompetence but knew that now wasn’t the time.

“Are Raine and King armed?” he asked instead. There was a longer than necessary pause. “Gibbs? Are they armed?”

“Raine has a handgun.”

“A handgun?” he repeated incredulously. “That’s all you sent him down there with?”

“With respect, sir,”
Gibbs replied. Langley could hear the exertion in his voice.
“I didn’t foresee any need for more armament.”

“Damn you, Gibbs!” he cursed. “You know what’s at stake here. Raine was our insurance policy, to provide protection where your team can’t go. How’s he supposed to do that with nothing more than a handgun?”

Whatever Gibbs’ response was going to be, he ultimately decided to simply ignore the politician’s statement.
“We’re in pursuit of West now.”

“You better damn well hope that you can stop him, Gibbs. If the Russians get their hands on the mask-”

“There’s only one way West can get out of here, and that’s coming back through us. We’ll stop him.”

There was nothing more to say. Langley leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his face, rubbing his tired eyes. But Gibbs’ last comment remained in his mind, bouncing around for a few moments as though it was a petulant child seeking attention.

Surely West knew that the moment he vanished, he’d become a suspect, even if Langley hadn’t uncovered his links to Moscow. That information had come at the last possible moment, a favour pulled in with Jack Harman at the CIA. Convinced of Raine’s innocence, and Nadia’s for that matter, he had focussed his attention on the SOG team and Harman had discovered large deposits of money being dropped into an off-shore bank account in West’s name. The deposits had all been made in the last few days and had all originated from Moscow.

West was being paid a lot of money to betray his country and deliver the Moon Mask to the Russians. Which meant, he had to have a plan in place to escape.

He picked up his cell phone and punched in his pre-saved contact number for Jack Harman.

“Jack?” he said when his old friend answered. “I need another favour.”

Poldark Mine,

Cornwall, England

“I
can’t believe you actually thought I was the traitor!” Raine hissed at King. They both looked up at West whose semi-automatic was trained on Raine’s head.

It made sense, of course, Raine realised belatedly. As the team’s communications specialist, West had access to all the team’s computers and com equipment, allowing him to jam the video feed and the radio signals. More importantly, Raine guessed that he had rigged the laptop which Nadia had been using to collate and transmit everything the team had discovered and recorded as a data-burst, perhaps whenever she was logged in. Who better to implicate as a Russian mole than the only Russian member of the team?

“Sorry,” King replied through gritted teeth. “You were acting suspiciously-”

“Suspiciously?”

“I hate to break up this little domestic,” West cut in. “But, Doctor King, if you wouldn’t mind handing me the case, that would be terrific.”

“How much are they paying you, West?” Raine asked. “To betray your country?”

“
You
don’t lecture
me
on loyalty, Raine,” the man snapped, his Brooklyn accent strong.

Raine took a moment to study the man. “Actually, I think I’m the perfect person to lecture you,” he replied softly. West wasn’t wearing an NBC suit and Raine could see beads of perspiration running down his face and neck. “I know what it’s like to be branded a traitor. To be a fugitive. Living your life in exile. Always looking over your shoulder, wondering when they’re going to catch up with you. Running. Always running. And just when you get settled, when you think you’ve got it made and you can put what you’ve done behind you, something spooks you. Someone snooping around, asking too many questions about your past, who you are. And then you’re on the run again. Always running.”

A flash of indecisiveness flickered in West’s eyes. Then his face set again and twisted into a snarl. “I got legs,” he replied. “Running ain’t a problem.”

Raine laughed bitterly. “You don’t just
know
how to run,” he said. “It’s something you’ve got to learn.”

“Just give me the
fucking
case!” West shouted, erupting in anger.

Anger was a soldier’s worst enemy. It was a distraction, and Raine used that distraction to his advantage.

He moved, fast as lightning and knocked the gun barrel aside just as West opened fire. Bullets strafed along the walls behind them, banging and pinging from the golden treasures of the chamber.

“Ben, run!” Raine shouted.

West reached with his other hand to grasp King but he pulled away from him and darted towards the rope still dangling from the ceiling.

“No!” West screamed and tried to angle the rifle towards him. The bullets spewed out in a crescendo of deafening explosions. King dived out of their path, down into the tunnel from which West had appeared.

Raine dragged West forward, pulling him over the sarcophagus, disturbing the remains of Imhotep, and then head-butted him in the nose. Cartilage crunched under the impact and an explosion of blood spewed out. He grasped the gun and wrenched it out of West’s hands-

Just as a mass of solid gold slammed into his head with agonising force, throwing him backwards. Despite the protection from his helmet, the blow from the baboon-shaped death mask of Imhotep knocked him out cold.

West didn’t waste any time to finish off his opponent. Instead he wrenched his rifle free and spun around in pursuit of King.

United Nations Headquarters,

New York City, USA

Langley
watched the satellite feed which Jack Harman had linked him into. It hadn’t been easy getting him to give him access to the CIA’s network of spy satellites which didn’t actually exist, or so was the official line. But Langley knew about them from his days as a Special Operations Group operative. Nevertheless, admitting that they had satellites spying on British military establishments, despite the two nations’
special relationship,
wasn’t something either country would take lightly.

Regardless, Langley now looked at the satellite imagery on his computer screen taken around ten minutes ago. Clearly visible was the sinkhole and five people crowded around the command base they’d set up. Two minutes into the feed, however, as four of the humans- Gibbs, O’Rourke, Lake and Siddiqa- had been crowded around the computer watching the feed from Raine’s helmet, the fifth person- West- broke off from the group.

Langley watched him run quickly to the shelter of one of the nearby hangers where he slid around the back and then, quite by surprise, removed a manhole cover.

“Damn,” Langley whispered to himself.

He shut down the satellite image and quickly tapped away at the controls on his computer. Eventually he found what he was looking for in the CIA database. Schematics of the sewer system which ran beneath RNAS Culdrose.

Poldark Mine,

Cornwall, England

King
ran down the tunnel, virtually blind. The darkness of the mine was overwhelming, the torch beam on his helmet cutting only meters into the inky blackness. His breath, coming out rapidly, misted up the faceplate of his helmet and the internal filters weren’t designed to keep up with the exertion. His boots slipped on the wet ground and the walls and ceilings seemed closer than ever.

He had no idea where he was going but took some comfort from the fact that the angle of the floor was taking him higher rather than lower into the depths of the earth. Nevertheless, he knew he was running further into the latticework of tunnels and roughhewn passageways which for one reason or another had been abandoned centuries before.

“King!” West’s voice echoed down the corridor from behind. “Give me the case and I’ll let you live!”

King ignored him and continued his sprint. Ahead, part of the ceiling had caved in but a gap had been formed on the ground which looked just wide enough to squeeze through. With none of the caution he and Raine had displayed on their trek down here, he dropped to his belly and tried to wriggle inside but his helmet banged against barrier of earth.

“Damn,” he cursed, quickly ripping the helmet off. The air was stale and thin, filled with musty dampness which caught at the back of his throat. He pulled the torch from the helmet, having left his hand torch in the treasure chamber, and then burrowed into the hole.

It was tight, his broad shoulders rubbing along the walls and the ceiling pressing against his back, sharp stones digging in painfully. The ground beneath him was slick, a puddle half an inch deep which he had to put his face into in order to squeeze through. He pushed the case containing the Moon Mask in front of him but it obstructed the torch beam, preventing him from seeing how far he might have to claw his way through like this.