Moon Mask (64 page)

“Come on, Nadia, would you have acted any differently?” he demanded. “I was given Intel that someone on the team was leaking information to the Russians. As the only Russian on the team you were automatically the prime suspect.”

“You jumped to conclusions!”

“They are Russians, you are Russian,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Yes, I jumped to a conclusion.”

“Yet anyone who knows me would have known that I would
never
do
anything
for Russia!” She spat on the floor, such vehemence she felt at being associated with her country of birth. “I would never do anything for the country that executed my father!”

“That’s just the thing Nadia,” Raine shot back. “Nobody
does
know you! You never let anybody get close enough to know you!”

She put her hands on her hips and stared back at him, her beautiful features contorted by anger. Her long hair was loose and fell in waves over her smooth shoulders, visible through the narrow straps of a black vest-top which clung to her frame. Raine himself was similarly attired in a black T-shirt and cargo-pants.

“You want to know me, Nate?” she said, her tone shifting to one of angry suspicion. “You want to know what makes me tick? What makes me the way that I am? The Ice Queen?” She scoffed, her lips twisted in hate but Raine realised it wasn’t hate directed at him anymore. “You want to hear all about how I was a perfectly normal young lady once, working with my father, one of the greatest minds in all of Russia, to create and harness the power of the tachyon?” Her gaze seemed to drift off into her distant past and Raine allowed her to follow her thoughts wherever they were going to lead.

“It was to be the greatest discovery of mankind,” she said. “A source of unlimited power, a way to save the fossil fuels, the natural resources of this planet. You want to hear about how
my government
wanted to harness this power and turn it into a bomb?” she demanded. “About how my father, not just the greatest man but the
bravest,
” her voice cracked, her face twitched with emotion which she ordinarily did not reveal. “You want to hear about the night they came for him? The way the soldiers broke into our house? My father destroyed all the research we had spent years compiling so that he didn’t become another ‘destroyer of worlds’.”

Voicing the memories was too much for her. The dam, holding back half a lifetime of pent-up emotions, finally cracked. A racking sob erupted from her mouth and tears, the first shed since that terrible night, began to stream from her eyes. Unabashed. Unashamedly.

“You want to hear about how, as punishment, they tied him to a chair and stripped me naked!?”

“Nadia, I-” Raine tried to cut in, suddenly feeling exposed, as though he was trespassing into a part of her mind, a part of her soul which he wasn’t allowed to see. But the distraught woman couldn’t hear him now. She lived once again in that moment.

“You want to hear about how, after beating me and burning me with their cigarettes, they made my father watch as they raped me?! And not just one of them, but all of them!” Her voice was hoarse, trembling. Her entire body shook. “One by one. And all my father could do was sit there and watch and plead with them to stop.” She coughed suddenly, her throat raw.

Is this the first time she’s ever spoken about this?
Raine wondered.

“You want to hear about how, after witnessing all this, they shot my father between the eyes? You know how that looks, Nathan!” she accused. “You’ve shot men between the eyes before. You’ve assassinated nameless, faceless individuals, for no good reason other than ‘simply following orders! You know how the skull erupts, bursting apart like a melon dropped from a height! Well that is the last image I have of my father! Every time I think of him, I picture that moment!”

“Nadia,” he tried to say again but in truth he had no idea what he could say. Truly now, his pathetic apology did seem pitiful. His accusation was greater and shot far deeper than he could ever have imagined.

“They left me then, alone in the house, lying in a pool of blood- some mine, some my fathers. Our neighbours found us the next day. The authorities blamed it on
militants!
They accused my father of selling his tachyon technology to Abdul Madzhid, the leader of
Shariat Jamaat, a militant organisation fighting for Dagestan’s independence. They said that he was trying to double cross everyone and Madzhid killed him for it. They called him a traitor! But it wasn’t militants that killed him. It was the soldiers of the Motherland! Of great and powerful Russia!” Then her gaze shifted back to Raine, her eyes smouldering. “And then
you
come along and accuse me of helping them?!” She practically screamed the words at him. “I would
never
help them! Never! Even if all of Russian was in flames I would not lift a
finger
to help them!” She fought for control again.

“Now, do you know me Nathan?” she asked quietly. “Now do you see who I am? Does it give you pleasure to know that you have cracked the Ice Queen?”

“No, of course-”

“Is that what you came here for?” she demanded. “To see my scars! Huh? Well here they are, Nate! Take a good look! Here is your proof that I’m not working for the Russians! Right here!” She ripped her vest top up over her head and stood there topless before him!

Scarring her perfect figure, where once virgin-pure, smooth skin had been, were dozens of angry scars. Knife wounds, some of them, but most, he realised, were small and circular: the legacy of burning cigarette-ends searing into her flesh; her back, her rib cage, her stomach and breasts.

“Sexy, aren’t I?” She asked sarcastically. The anger seemed to subside slightly in her but it only swelled in Raine. His own thoughts turned dark, his own memories consuming him. He had seen acts of brutality the likes of which Nadia had survived. He had seen soldiers,
U.S.
soldiers, run amok through houses and villages, consumed in bloodlust, perpetuating an orgy of murder, mayhem and rape. He had been in the midst of it all. It had sickened him then, and it sickened him now. But what sickened him even more was that he had allowed it to happen, he had allowed the perpetrators to get away with it.

“As they violated me,” she said tightly, totally uncaring about her state of undress, “I shut myself off. I disengaged my emotions. I became hard, cold.” She sneered at him. “Your
Ice Queen
was born.”

What could he say? Tell her about his own past, his own demons? Tell her about the monsters that kept him awake at night, the screams that still echoed in his head, the faces that haunted his dreams? Words were meaningless he knew.

Instead, slowly, he removed his own t-shirt and stood bare-chested before her. Her eyes roamed his body, but not focussing on the firmness of the muscle or his well-toned abdomen. Instead, she focussed on the hideous scars that marked his chest also- slashes, tears, burns and bullet-wounds. A living testament to a lifetime of violence.

“I have scars too,” he said, his voice low, husky, wrought with emotion.

Slowly, gently, they stepped together, as though pulled by the magnetism of the revelation of their pain, the imperfections inflicted upon their otherwise flawless bodies. Both were coldly calculating, shut off from their emotions, devoid of feeling to the outside world. Nadia hid her pain behind a mask of cold detachment; Raine hid his behind a veil of cool indifference. But now, for tonight, without uttering another word, they both conceded to reveal their scars to one another. Scars that ran far deeper than the flesh.

With a terrified quiver, her lips brushed his. He let her take control, somehow aware that this was the first time in a very long time for her. They were like opposites driven by the same source. She had broken away from human contact; he had immersed himself in it, finding brief moments of salvation in the delights of the female flesh.

Carefully, he moved his hands onto her hips. He felt a tremble quake through her, a desire to let go perhaps, but she didn’t. She pressed her lips more firmly against his. He traced his finger up the curve of her back, the sensation sending an entirely new tremble through her body. She felt the touch flare in her belly, a sudden yearning, a longing.

She reached out and closed the door, blocking out the midnight sky, then took his hand and led him to the bed.

“Nadia,” his voice whispered. “We don’t have to-”

“Shh,” she placed a finger on his lips then removed it and replaced it with her own lips. They were still gentle, soft and probing and Raine felt that closeness excite him in a way he hadn’t experienced for so long. He had become so used to heated, animalistic passion, like that night with Lake, that he had forgotten the intensity of such intimacy. “No more words,” she whispered.

Then, as promised, without another word, they proceeded to undress each other, hands probing, lips tasting. They fell onto the bed, their naked bodies wrapping around one another, consuming one another.

For one night at least, their pain was forgotten; their scars were healed, and the two casualties of the brutality of the world, at last, found peace.

King
awoke to the scarlet haze of predawn. His body was soaked in a cold sweat and the lingering sentiments of a bad dream toyed with his mind, vague images, faces obscured by the mist of slumber, hidden just beyond reach. But the first thing he thought about was his dead father and he knew that was a lingering tendril of the dream.

Despite only a few hours of disturbed rest, he felt reinvigorated, alive at last following the tedium of the last two days since he and Raine had found Kha’um’s stash.

He felt he had purpose again, as though whatever it was that had occurred in his dreams had helped him to come to a decision. One, he realised, that he had already come to but hadn’t quite been ready to embrace.

Slipping stealthily out of bed, trying not to disturb Sid who lay wrapped up in the sheet beside him, he pulled on his cargo trousers, t-shirt, socks and shoes but, just as he was about to open the door, he turned back to the bed. Carefully leaning over, he kissed Sid gently on her head then looked at her serene, beautiful features.

“Don’t hate me,” he pleaded to her sleeping form, then he slipped out of the room and made his way across the base. The sun had not yet risen but it did cast a molten glow amidst the eastern clouds. Bird song sang from the trees and a cool breeze brought out goose bumps on his arms but he ignored it all as he headed directly towards the dull grey building block in which the base’s bio-hazard lab was situated. He flashed the ID card he had been issued at the two NATO soldiers which stood guard by the entrance then stepped into the long sterile corridor, retracing his steps to the hazmat lab.

Following the retrieval of the Moon Mask from the wreckage of West’s plane, it had been brought here and surrounded by NATO troops. The only people allowed into the building, as per the agreement Langley had made with the NATO commanders, was the U.N. scientists and SOG team.

Rudy O’Rourke and Garcia sat on plastic chairs outside the entrance to the hazardous materials lab. The team had been taking it in turns to guard the mask since it had been brought here.

“Hey Doc,” O’Rourke greeted him. Following the events of the past days, King no longer felt like an outsider but was beginning to detect a sense of camaraderie from the Special Forces unit. “Early bird gets the worm, huh?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he explained. “Something’s been bugging me about something I noticed on the mask yesterday.” Due to his ‘immunity,’ King had been the only person allowed to examine the mask. Covered head-to-toe in a hazmat suit, he had spent several hours the previous morning poring over all the pieces of the mask, as well as the ‘fake’ mask in hopes they might reveal a clue as to the final piece’s location. “I wanted to get in there and take a look.”

O’Rourke winced a little. “You know I’m not supposed to let anyone in there without Gibbs’ direct authorisation.”

“He gave me his authorisation yesterday, remember,” he replied innocently. O’Rourke still wasn’t convinced so King added; “Call him then, he’s only going to say yes anyway, but probably be grouchy about being woken.”

O’Rourke sighed. “Go on,” he said reluctantly. This was the only egress to and from the sealed lab and a security screen was affixed to the opposite wall of the corridor. “I’ll help you suit up.”

Several minutes later, after O’Rourke had checked all the seals on King’s hazmat suit, he opened the decontamination unit’s door and King stepped in. As the door was sealed behind him, a blast of mist hissed out of the unit’s vents and cleaned his suit. Once the process was complete, a red light on the opposite door turned green and King pushed into the hazmat lab.

Utilitarian, the room was airtight and its reinforced walls were lined with lead. Designed precisely for the purpose of containing any hazardous material, it was the only place on the base where the tachyons couldn’t escape and do any harm. Nevertheless, as an added precaution, the mask had been left sealed inside a new lead-line case on a workbench in the centre of the room.

King proceeded to unclip the case and open it. Staring back at him were the three pieces of the Moon Mask forming a broken circle. They were lodge securely in the case’s foam padding which held them together in their nearly-complete state. One by one, he plucked each piece of the mask out, turned it over then lay it back down, pushing it firmly into the padding so that the
inside
of the mask faced upwards.

Then, hesitating for only a second, he reached up and ripped his hazmat suit’s hood from off of his head. The blast of the lab’s air was cool and refreshing.

Almost immediately, as he had expected, O’Rourke’s voice echoed through the lab’s speakers: “Doc, what the hell are you doing?! Put your hood back on!”

But King knew the soldier wouldn’t barge into the lab until he had donned his own suit. By that time, it would be too late.

Reaching tentatively into the case, King clutched the edges of the foam innards and carefully peeled it out. It had effectively ‘glued’ the three pieces together and he raised the entire conglomeration to his face. He took a deep breath. Closed his eyes. Then settled the mask onto his face.