Moon Mask (74 page)

Kane’s face reddened with anger. “Are you suggesting we don’t even warn our people out there?”

“If we warn them, the world will know we could have taken preventive actions, recalled our ships to base, diffused the situation. We’ll be villainised as the antagonistic party. But what if there were,” he shrugged casually, “breakdowns in communications between intelligence agencies? Blame it on some mid-level staffer who failed to pass the satellite feed onto the correct department. There’d be an enquiry, a few forced resignations. You’d give a speech about how the real tragedy of this situation is that our troops weren’t warned of the impending danger and promise to shake up the Intelligence services.”

“This is ridiculous,” Kane barked.

“It worked after 9/11,” Briggs shrugged.

“We’re talking about people’s lives here. American sailors!”

“They’ll still have their own early warning systems. Radar and what-not. They’ll have time to mobilise a defence.”

“You can’t be serious!” Kane was on his feet and for a moment Harper thought he was going to physically lash out at Briggs. “You’re talking about sitting around and doing nothing while watching as hundreds, even thousands of American sailors die!”

“But that’s just the beauty of it, Mister President.” Briggs leaned back in the couch, his body evidently as comfortable as his conscience. He blanked Kane and looked directly at his Commander in Chief. “If all goes to plan, those lives will never have been lost in the first place.” His smile was shark like.

Harper swallowed hard, biting his lower lip. “I want to speak to Gibbs,” he said.

Kane frowned. “Sir-”

“Now, Mick!” he demanded, his eyes hard. His decision made.

Airborne over the Pacific

“Hold
for the President,”
a female voice said into Laurence Gibbs’ radio.

He sat in the hold of the MH-53 Sea Dragon helicopter as it thundered across the Pacific, closing in on its target. The faces of the few surviving members of his team were hard and serious. O’Rourke, Lake, Garcia and he were all that remained of the eight that set out with the four scientists over a week ago.

The operator connected the call and President John Harper’s voice came through his helmet mounted radio.

“Laurie,”
he greeted him. As the commander of the CIA’s number one SOG team, often referred to as ‘the president’s private guard’, he was used to taking orders directly from his C-in-C.

“Mister President,” Gibbs replied, wondering why he was calling. He had already spoken to the president to confirm the acquisition of the final missing piece of the mask and the eradication of Raine, King and Siddiqa. The president had been concerned about Nadia Yashina’s betrayal but Gibbs had assured him that the fake mask was of no concern.
Stupid bitch!

“What can I do for you, sir?” he asked.

“We have a situation developing with the Chinese, courtesy of Alex Langley.”

Gibbs felt a pang of anger hit him at the mention of that name. Raine’s former C.O. had ended up taking a leaf out of his student’s book and resorting to treason. Gibbs had been made aware of the situation while the team was in Germany but had kept the information to himself. Despite his irritation at Langley going directly to Raine to inform him of a possible traitor in the team, Gibbs was the point-man on this mission and there hadn’t been any further reason for another team member to speak to him.

“We’re not waiting ‘til morning. I’m escalating the time-line,”
the president explained.
“You have a go to proceed with Phoenix as soon as possible.”

Gibbs absorbed this information and his revised orders with his usual detached professionalism. “I understand, Mister President.”

There was a pause, then;
“Godspeed.”

The finality of the president’s farewell as the line clicked dead sent a shiver down Gibbs’ spine but his concerns were cut through by the voice of the navy pilot at the helicopter controls.

“I have a visual on our destination, sir.”

Gibbs pushed out of his seat and staggered up behind the cockpit, staring between the shoulders of the two pilots.

The sun was setting, its dying rays bursting through the gathering storm clouds to the west and turning the choppy waters of the Pacific to molten gold. But, silhouetted against it, tiny from this altitude and spread out in a two-mile wide defensive pattern around their destination, were the six ships of the task force. One, the furthest out, was by far the largest. The
USS George Washington.

In the centre of the defensive net another gun-metal grey ship bobbed on the swell. Gibbs gripped the back of the pilots’ chair as the chopper dropped in altitude and raced down towards that lonesome vessel, slowing into a hover as they prepared to touch down on the helipad on the ship’s stern.

In bold letters etched into the gun-metal grey aft bulkhead, the ship’s name was emblazoned:
USS Eldridge.

54:

Blood in the Sky

Off the Coast of Yonaguni Island,

Japan

Raine
and King broke the surface and heaved in a great lung full of air. Unfortunately, the air was anything but the sweet tasting nectar they had both anticipated. Instead, it was cloying and laced with the acid taste of burning diesel. All around them fires crackled and popped as they consumed the slicks of oil which shone metallic on the heavy swell. All that remained of the boat.

All that remained of Sid.

Almost immediately upon surfacing, Benjamin King broke into sobs of tears, his breathing laboured. He choked on the burning fumes and coughed on sea water as he sank beneath the surface again. Raine held him afloat, giving him a moment. He could feel his body tremble as he held him beneath the arms. To have him drown now would have been a crying shame considering all that Rudy O’Rourke had done to save them.

The main tip-off had been his reference to the Sri Lanka mission, but Raine had been picking up on subtle hints as far back as the mission to the mine in Cornwall. In reality, Raine had known all along that the presidential pardon he had been given wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Sooner or later he knew that someone would come for him. He hadn’t, however, truly thought that Gibbs would murder three innocent scientists in cold blood, not to mention the U.S. marines.

But, while suiting up on the deck of the boat, Raine had been puzzled to find O’Rourke secretly placing bullet-proof vests on them.
“Kinda reminds you of that time in Sri Lanka, ay, Boss?”

Almost five years ago, on O’Rourke’s first mission on Raine’s team, they had infiltrated a group of pirates who had been holding an American diplomat hostage. But O’Rourke’s cover had been blown and Raine had been ordered to kill him. If he didn’t, his cover would have been blown too and the diplomat executed. During a mock confrontation with the soldier, Raine had managed to sneak a slab of metal under his shirt and then proceeded to shoot him. He’d fallen overboard and, despite being dazed and in pain, the young recruit had had the good sense to sink.

Now, just like Sri Lanka, knowing he had been ordered to execute Raine and the scientists, the now more experienced soldier had perfected Raine’s own deception, using bullet proof vests and sachets of fake blood. When the time came, Raine, King, Sid and Nadia would be shot and go overboard. Still in their diving equipment, they’d stay underwater until the boat left then swim for the island.

But it hadn’t gone quite according to plan.

“You knew.” King came to the conclusion just as the thoughts were running through Raine’s head. “You knew they were going to betray us yet you did nothing!” He thrashed out of Raine’s grip and began to go under.

Once they had been shot off the back of the boat, Raine had dragged King down to the seafloor as quickly as possible. The pain was excruciating. While the bullet proof vests had prevented the bullets from entering their bodies, the impact was still enough to knock a man unconscious from the pain. Both men now felt the bruises swelling on their chests from at least half a dozen impacts.

Above them, the two marines, not wearing bullet-proof vests, were torn apart by the sharks that zeroed in on their blood. But King was also covered in blood – Sid’s blood – and so Raine had quickly stripped the dazed man of any equipment with blood on it, including his buoyancy vest and rebreather system, as well as Raine’s own gloves.

Then they had sat in silence in the shelter of the Yonaguni Monument, sharing the single rebreather, passing it from one to the other. At first it was clumsy and King had been close to panic whenever Raine took the mask from him to get his own gulp of air. But, eventually, they’d found a rhythm, and that was how they remained for almost half an hour, until the boat had been obliterated and the sharks had finished their gruesome feast and moved on.

“Benny, calm down,” he told him now.

“No! I won’t calm down!” He splashed, his head going beneath the waves despite his kicking.

“Ben, you’re exhausted.” Raine grasped the other man’s arms and held him tight. With his own vest inflated he wouldn’t sink.

“You
knew
!” King cried, his face a mask of agony. “You just let them-”

“Rudy saved us,” Raine explained.

“
Us
but not Sid!”

“He tried.
I
tried.”

“How?! How did you-”

“I tried to get out of the water with them. So long as the four of us stayed together and kept our bullet-proof vests on I knew we’d be safe. I didn’t know Nadia was going to-” He cut himself off, overcome by anger. Betrayal. But now wasn’t the time. “Benny, we’ve got to swim to land. It’s not far-”

“Leave me!” King broke from his grip again. The hollowness in his eyes, in his voice, was painful to witness. “I don’t want to go to land,” he sobbed, fresh tears falling. He trod water slowly and began to sink. “I can’t leave her, Nate.”

“Ben, I-”

“Just go!” he spat. “Go! Leave me!”

“I’m not leaving you!” Raine snapped determinedly. “I know what you’re going through-”

“You don’t have a clue what I going through!” He dropped below the water then kicked up again, coughing and choking. Raine grasped him and held him steady as he gagged.

Raine’s voice was quiet, gentle. More sincere than King had ever heard it. “I
do
know what you’re going through,” he said again. “I know what it’s like to . . .” His voice cracked. Raw with emotion. “To lose the woman you love . . . to be betrayed by those closest to you.” Tears finally swelled in his eyes, memories he had long fought to suppress resurfacing. Haunting him again. As they had done for three and a half years.

“And I also know that the pain and the anger that you’re feeling right now, it isn’t going to go away like some people will tell you. But I also know that Sid-” his voice broke again. He felt her loss too. He had forced King beneath an overhang in the underwater monument when he saw Sid’s body roll into the water. The image of her beautiful form, her beautiful soul, being torn apart piece by piece, was one more demon he would carry until his death.

“Sid wouldn’t want you to give up,” he said firmly, forcing control of his emotions. “She’d want you to
live
Ben.
Live
!” He looked the other man in the eyes. There was a bond there now. A bond of camaraderie. Of friendship. Of brotherhood. “I’m not leaving you,” he said again. “So if you want to just float here until we can’t take it anymore and we sink below the waves and drown, then fine.” He pulled the dump on his vest and the air rushed out, dropping him lower in the water. He kicked but he too felt exhausted and he began to sink.

“Do you know how many times I’ve held a gun against my head?” he asked, surprising even himself with his honesty. “In my mouth? You’re doing me a favour actually. Helping me to do what I’m too big a coward to do by myself.”

“What are you doing, Nate?” King asked weakly.

“I’m not leaving you,” Raine answered. He stopped kicking. Stopped struggling. He leaned his head back. Closed his eyes. Felt the whimpering heat of the setting sun lick his face. The sky was as red as the bloodied water had been thirty minutes before.

He let his natural buoyancy keep him a float for a few moments. There was something soothing, peaceful even about the feeling of his body sinking beneath the waves. Maybe his demons wouldn’t find him there, lost in the blue abyss for the rest of eternity. It was more than he deserved after all.

Just as the water began to slide up over his mouth and then his nose, he felt King grasp him and hold him afloat. Slightly disappointed, he slowly opened his eyes and studied his friend. No more words were needed. Instead, they both nodded their agreement, their silent pact to continue to struggle, to live. Then he re-inflated his vest, took hold of King again and began to kick towards the shore.

The sun had almost completely set now, casting the sky a twilight purple, turning the water to silky velvet. But then, silhouetted against the dying, blood-red rays, a plane came into view. It sank through the sky towards them, the buzz of its propellers growing louder, until its jet-black prow struck the waves and sent up a plume of froth. The swell from the touch-down tossed Raine and King about like flotsam and jetsam but despite their distress they both recognised the vessel instantly.

The black Catalina Flying Boat.

For an instant they began paddling faster through the water towards shore but the black prow came towards them, slicing cleanly through the waves. Knowing escape was futile, Raine and King stopped swimming and bobbed on the swell, looking up as the Black Cat came alongside them and its side door opened.

Former Sergeant Bill Willis crouched in the opening, dressed in black. He leaned forward and extended a hand. “Here,” he called to them. “Take my hand.”

“No chance!” Raine shot back. “We’re not going anywhere with you!”

“Nathan, stop being a child and get out of the shark infested waters.”