Moon Mask (56 page)

“Ben, thank god,” Sid threw her arms around King’s neck and kissed him. He gently pushed her aside, throwing her a reassuring smile. He’d made it back up to the surface in time to see the base in a state of chaos, marines and military police running here, there and everywhere. He’d stripped out of his hazmat gear and allowed his escort to bring him to the O.C. where the rest of the team had relocated.

All around him, the room was in a state of chaos as men and women in military uniforms punched commands into computers or barked into satellite phones. A glance through the large windows on the southern wall confirmed that the Air Day was continuing unimpeded, the chaos smoothly covered up, but the activity within the O.C. told King otherwise.

“West escaped on a Russian plane,” Nadia informed him. She and Sid had been stood in the middle of the room, feeling very much in the way. Gibbs spoke animatedly into a telephone while O’Rourke and the others were liaising with the base staff.

“On a Russian plane?” King repeated. “So the Russian government are involved?”

Nadia’s face was grim. “So it would seem.”

King grimaced. “Nadia, I’m sorry-”

“Do not apologise.”

“Well, if it helps, I accused Nate of being the traitor too.”

The Russian woman shrugged. “It helps. A little.”

Then a thought occurred to King. He frowned. “Where is Nate?”

Airborne over Europe

The
Red Arrow thundered through the clouds, the sonic boom of its engines rippling out through the sky, turning the heads of people far below.

The Cornish Peninsula vanished from view in the blink of an eye as the world’s most famous display plane tore east across the southern coast of Britain. Far in the distance Raine could see the tiny speck of orange flame which represented the escaping Sukhoi Su-30. He kept his attention focussed on it, desperate not to lose sight of his prey.

Despite their global renown, Raine realised to his chagrin, the Red Arrows were a far cry from his technologically advanced prey. While the Sukhoi Su-30 was fitted with all the latest fighter jet mod-cons - sat-nav, radar and on-board computer – not to mention an extensive array of weaponry, the Red Arrow was essentially a tin can fitted with a huge engine. Basic compared to modern day warplanes, the Arrows’ fame came not so much from the planes themselves, but from the amazing flying abilities of their Royal Air Force pilots. The stunning displays they put on as world-wide ambassadors for the RAF elevated those men and women to be recognised as the best in the world. They had inspired men and women to become pilots for generations and Raine was no different. He could still remember the day he’d first seen them in action.
“Someday I’m gonna fly a Red Arrow,”
he remembered telling his grandfather who’d brought him and his brother on holiday to England.

Just look at me now, Gramps.

RNAS Culdrose,

Cornwall, England

“Understood,”
Gibbs finished barking into the phone then slammed it back onto its cradle. King approached him but he waved him off dismissively. “Not now, Doctor.”

“What’s going on,” the archaeologist ignored him, “What are we doing about the Moon Mask-”

“I said not now,” Gibbs snapped and turned his back on him.

Captain Robertson burst out of an adjoining office, looking flushed and red faced. He marched straight up to Gibbs. “I’ve just got off the blower to Downing Street. I’ve been ordered to pass operational command of the retrieval of your ‘cargo’ to U.N. Headquarters.” He didn’t look happy about it. “Just what the hell did your people find down there?”

Gibbs’ face was impassive but King had come to know him enough over the last few days to pick up on a concealed smugness. “That information is on a need to know basis, Captain.”

“And I’d say I damn well need to know,” Robertson shot back under his breath. King remained just within ear shot. “The safety of my base has just been compromised, my men have been killed and a British aeroplane has just been stolen from off of my bloody runway by a member of your team. I’d say I’ve earned the right to know.”

Gibbs slowly turned to look out the window. “I’m sure he’ll return it in one piece.”

King couldn’t help but laugh. “I doubt it.”

Airborne over Europe

G-Force
crushed Nathan Raine as he pushed the Red Arrow’s engines harder. The sleek plane ripped through the skies at phenomenal speeds, a red streak appearing for the blink of an eye against the azure summer sky before it vanished into the far distance.

The shores of Great Britain were far behind him now. The blue expanse of the North Sea stretched out below. To the south the northern coastline of what he presumed was Germany streaked by. In his head he pictured the route he was taking- a straight line cutting across Northern Europe from Great Britain to the western boarder of Russia.

United Nations Headquarters,

New York City, USA

On
the huge wall mounted map in the TOC, two blinking dots represented the progress of West and Raine as they made their dash towards the domineering mass of Russia.

“Okay, we’ve got two squadrons of F-15 Eagles just taken off from Geilenkirchen.”

Instantly, on the wall map, another blinking dot appeared, about fifty miles from Cologne in Germany. The NATO Air Base in Germany was the only one of its kind in the world, a truly international military base with personnel from thirteen NATO countries. While two separate entities, the ultimate goal of the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation were one and the same: the maintaining of international peace and security. As such, the NATO commanders had been apprised of what had become known as the ‘Sarisariñama Incident’ and had been kept in the loop on the escalating situation with the Moon Mask. It hadn’t taken much persuading in Langley’s call to NATO’s Supreme Allied Atlantic Commander, to get him to authorise the interception of the Russian plane. The political fallouts and repercussions of a Russian plane being shot down by a U.N. requested NATO force were not something Langley relished being immersed in, but everyone knew the stakes. If the Moon Mask got into Russia, it wouldn’t be seen again. And Russia, the all-time-favourite enemy of the west, would have the power of a tachyon bomb at their disposal.

“Thank you,” Langley said, relaxing ever so slightly at the news of the interceptors launch. “Patch me through to Raine.” A second later, he got the go ahead. “Nate,” he said into the wireless headset he had been given.

“Alex?”
Raine’s voice came back, a little surprised.

“That’s right Nate. You can power down and return to Culdrose now. We’re tracking West’s plane and we’ve got two squadrons of F-15’s on intercept. Thanks for the good work up there.”

Airborne over Europe

“You’re
recalling me?” Raine asked.

He could still see the afterburner fire of the fleeing Russian plane. He grimaced as he pushed the Red Arrow to its maximum speed, hitting nearly eight hundred miles per hour. About 7 Gs pounded into him and it felt like his chest was going to implode and his eyeballs pop. Most people would have blacked out by now but, like all pilots trained to fly at such speeds, Raine had been taught how to tense his stomach muscles to prevent his blood from rushing into his legs, abandoning his heart and starving his brain. Pilots ordinarily wore anti-gravity suits pumped with pressurised air to prevent this, but he hadn’t exactly had the time to don one. It was an exhausting process, a mental and physical effort to keep his muscles tensed but he knew if he released for even an instant he would black out and die.

“That’s right, Nate. Get your ass back to safety.”

“But-”

Raine heard someone speak to Langley, something about a ‘problem’ before his old commander snapped at him. “That’s an order!” He cut the communications link.

United Nations Headquarters,

New York City, USA

“What’s
the problem?” Langley demanded from the young man who had interrupted him.

“Sir, NSA satellites have just picked up a large force of planes taking off from an airbase near Kaliningrad.”

Langley felt his heart skip a beat. A thousand shocked expressions threatened to tumble out of his mouth-
What? Are they insane? Are you sure? Where are they headed? Maybe it’s a coincidence. Are they really going to intercept West? Would they actually open fire on a NATO squadron?

Instead, reverting to his military training, he turned to face the large wall map, his eyes focussing in on the tiny coloured block which represented the Kaliningrad Oblast. A tiny area of not even six thousand square miles, the Oblast, Russia’s western most extremity, was totally cut off from her motherland by the boarders of Poland to the south, Lithuania to the north and east, and the Baltic Sea to the west.

“Model and number?” he ordered.

“Intel coming in now.” There was a long pause. Too long. “Speak to me,” he demanded.

“Sukhoi Su-35.”

“Dear god,” Langley whispered to himself. The Su-35, he knew, was one of Russia’s latest additions to her military hammer. Easily a match one on one with an F-15 Eagle, the Su-35 was armed to the teeth with 30mm cannons, R-73 air-to-air missiles and an array of laser guided rockets and bombs.

“How many?” he asked.

“Looks like two squadrons, sir. Around thirty planes in all.”

So it was a one-on-one round to the death. “Take into account the top speeds of all the aircraft- West’s, ours and Russia’s- their current positions, and super-impose their trajectories on the map,” he ordered.

Moments later, CGI animation lit up the plasma screen display. Langley watched in horror as three lines drew menacingly away from the three dots that represented West’s plane, the NATO forces and the Russian interceptors. They cut across the map like a surgeon’s knife slicing through the flesh of the earth until they collided in one spot high above the nodule of land sticking up from the top of Germany: Denmark.

In eight minutes all three forces would collide.

And if the diplomats couldn’t put out the resulting wildfires, all hell would be loosed upon earth, the Moon Mask be damned.

Airborne over Europe

High
in the air above Northern Europe, sixty four planes tore through the skies, racing towards an apocalyptic collision. Thirty F-15 Eagles, manned by multi-national crews from thirteen different countries hurtled towards thirty two Russian Sukhoi Su-35s, all with their sights set on one Sukhoi Su-30, carrying one Russian pilot, an American defector, and a case containing a simple piece of metal, moulded by an ancient culture into a shape resembling the human face. It was in itself unambiguous enough. Yet, even before its secrets had been cracked and the power of the tachyon harnessed, its mere existence threatened to plunge humanity into a potential world war.

The only man who had the ability to stop it realised so as the update was fed to him from the other side of the globe. If the fleeing aircraft could be knocked out of the sky before the two opposing task forces of warplanes intercepted one another, then maybe a catastrophe could be averted.

But that same pilot flew a plane without any weapons, designed to perform aerial acrobatics to swoon crowds of spectators, not to engage a heavily armed fighter jet- and that was if he could even catch up with it. His engines were already being pushed harder than safety limits recommended to keep within visual range of the fleeing plane, and his body was already being pummelled by gravitational forces the likes of which it wasn’t designed to withstand.

Nevertheless, coaxing just a little more out of the screaming engines, Nathan Raine pushed faster; the G-force crushed his lungs and pounded his skull, the engines burned furiously, and the Red Arrow began to close the gap.

United Nations Headquarters,

New York City, USA

“What
the hell are you playing at, Sergei?” Langley demanded into the telephone receiver.

“I should ask you the same thing, Mister Ambassador,”
his old sparring partner, Sergei Dityatev, replied, his ire equal to Langley’s own.

Just about everyone who was anyone was involved in the escalating crisis now. The U.S. and Russian Presidents were currently embattled in a teleconference; the UN Security Council was being hastily assembled; the NATO Supreme Commanders, the British Prime Minister, even the Chinese Premier, were all hurriedly rushing to their respective defence departments even while they hurled accusations of foul plan and treachery at one another. The delicate tapestry of world-wide politics was slowly starting to pull apart. But even within the UN and NATO alliance, no one could decide what action should be taken, nor who could authorise it. In a matter of minutes, the Supreme NATO Commander had threatened to recall the force sent to intercept the Moon Mask rather than sanction a hastily and un-thought-out aerial battle with Russian forces. Wars just didn’t happen this fast! There were discussions and hearings and meetings; there were votes, there were sanctions, there were diplomatic pressures. One didn’t just go to war in the space of less than an hour.

Yet the seriousness of the danger posed by the Moon Mask could not be ignored. NATO and the UN couldn’t just go to war on a whim. Yet neither could they allow control of the tachyon technology to disappear into the depths of Russia.

“Order your planes back, Sergei,” Langley urged forcefully.

“Hah!”
the Russian Ambassador to the UN laughed. He had snuck out of the Secretariat Building sometime over the last hour and returned to his embassy.
“Our planes are there as a direct response of your actions. You have sent
thirty
of your warplanes to shoot down
one
Russian jet that has done nothing wrong!”

“Nothing wrong?”

“Nothing wrong!”
Langley could hear the fury and the mock-indignation in the ambassador’s voice.
“That plane has an authorised flight plan to travel from Britain to Russia. It was in Britain by invitation, to take part in some fly over or display or some such. It was a guest.”