Above him, Raine emptied the remainder of his rifle clip on the phantom shadows beyond the wall, causing just enough of a distraction to allow him to vault into the hole. The rope took his weight, swinging as he quickly slid down it like a fireman’s pole-
The baton wrenched free of the wall above and he dropped like a stone, splashing into the fetid water below!
He broke the surface, gasping, retching, and immediately came nose to snout with something huge, something deadly, something-
That exploded in a gristly eruption of crocodile skull, brains and mashed up leathery skin.
The roar of weapons fire was accompanied by the inhuman war-cry of a terrified archaeologist as Benjamin King emptied one of the dead soldiers’ discarded rifles into the attacking crocodilian’s skull. It clicked to empty and Raine took that as his cue to scramble out of the pool and sidle up to King. The other beasts turned on their own fallen, thrashing about, ripping limbs and tearing flesh.
Raine and King backed right up to the corner again. He muttered his thanks as he knelt next to the body whose weapon King had lifted and plucked his night vision goggles off the corpse’s head.
“You won’t be needing these,” he commented and then donned them.
The chamber came to life, wrapping itself around him, physically unchanged since he had come down here the previous day to salvage the mysterious skeletal remains. Only this time, through the ghostly aura of the goggles, the green-tinted chamber was a cauldron of mashed body parts. The remains of the Chinese soldiers floated alongside the bloated hulks of giant crocodiles like so much flotsam and jetsam. The demonic, glowing white shapes of the Orinoco Crocodiles thrashed about, caught up in a feeding frenzy the likes of which made his stomach churn.
“Okay,” King said slowly, breathing deeply, still consumed by darkness. “What do we do now?”
Raine glanced about the chamber. Three individual cascades of water emptied from slots high up in the wall, tumbling down into the frothing pool. Some sort of drainage system, he guessed. The slots were too narrow for either of them to squeeze through, however, even if they could find a way up to them. With the rope now under not just water but dinosaurs-from-hell, there was no way to climb back up. Besides, looking up, he saw the Chinese soldiers tentatively circling the hole, NVGs peering down the length of their QBZ-95 assault rifles.
Another splash of water nearby drew his attention quickly back to the feeding crocs. It wouldn’t be long before their attention drifted from their current feast to something a little fresher. But it wasn’t one of the crocodiles that had caused the splash. Instead, it was the bloodied and torn remains of half a torso and three quarter’s of an arm.
“Ever heard of the expression, between a rock and a hard place, Benny?” he asked, creeping forward and leaning down to the floating remains. He kept a wary eye on the water but for now all the crocs were preoccupied.
“Yes, of course.”
Raine began stripping what he could out of what remained of the dead soldier’s torn combat webbing: a torch, a large knife, a Norinco M-77B handgun and three grenades.
“Well,” he replied. “We’re there.”
As if to punch home his point, a bullet sparked across the wall behind him. He dived out of the way just in time, just as his assailant switched his rifle from single shot to full auto. A hailstorm of bullets tore into the chamber, spitting through the water. Some embedded themselves in the crocodiles’ thick scales, inciting an even bigger frenzy. Others chattered across the walls, ripping out chips of stone and chunks of masonry.
Raine pushed King against the wall beneath the alcove where he had found the Moon Mask, just out of the shooter’s line of fire. A quick glance up confirmed that the shooter was adjusting his position. They wouldn’t just be sitting ducks. They would be ducks lying down sunbathing with their arms behind their heads and a bulls-eye painted on their chests!
Raine’s mind hurried through every possible scenario in the blink of an eye, but there was only really one option.
“Get in the water!”
“What!? Are you insane?” King protested, shielding his head from flying chips of stone. He could not see Raine grin and shrug.
“Yeah, a little.”
Then, before the archaeologist could argue further, Raine grabbed his elbow and dragged him forward, firing blindly and one handed at the hole above his head. He threw them both into the water just as three more Chinese troops took up positions and strafed the entire chamber with bullets.
12:
. . . Death Below
The Labyrinth,
Sarisariñama Tepui,
Venezuela,
The water was icy cold and putrid, stinging Benjamin King’s eyes as he squinted. Orange bursts of machine gun fire blazed above, muted by the water, distorted by the ripples . . . and, terrifyingly, revealing the silhouettes of the killing machines amidst which he now swam.
Panic rose in him. He broke the surface, gasped for air but felt something strong grasp his ankle and pull him back down.
In terror, he thrashed, kicking and punching through the water. His fist hit something hard and leathery. An enormous shape whipped away from him, a muscle-bound tail smacking into his chest like a sledge hammer. And still, whatever had hold of his ankle did not let go, but instead pulled him deeper into the churning pool of water, towards the far wall.
He dared to glance down and, fearing the sight of a crocodile’s jaw crunching through his lower leg, he was slightly relieved to see that it was only Nathan Raine.
The other man kicked with all his might, dragging King deeper. He didn’t understand why but then Raine clicked on the waterproof torch he had commandeered. The beam cut through the dark water and there, at the base of the wall, King saw a submerged tunnel, roughly five feet in diameter.
It suddenly made sense to him. For the crocodiles to have survived, they couldn’t have been isolated in the one chamber. They must have been coming and going through this tunnel. He also remembered seeing something emerge into the pool the previous day from somewhere else. Raine must have seen the tunnel through his night vision goggles but, despite having a destination, King was still far from happy. Nevertheless, he stopped resisting Raine and kicked with him and before he knew it, they were at the entrance.
Raine clicked off the torch, plunging King back into absolute darkness. He had never been more terrified, nor more reliant on someone else.
Raine guided him down. King’s eyes readjusted to the gloom, aided by the muzzle fire from above. He kicked towards the tunnel and was just about to enter it when Raine slammed him back into the wall. He resisted the automatic urge to gasp and felt a flare of anger pass through him until he saw the reason for Raine’s actions.
Through the flickering orange eruptions of light, he saw something emerge.
Something massive.
A long, black, serpentine body glided silently out of its lair, exuding a menacing, though agile grace. It had a girth of almost four feet, nearly filling the tunnel, but its length was even more colossal. Yard after yard, its great, undulating body spewed out into the pool and King watched, both awed and horrified as it shot towards the surface.
A melee of panic erupted among the crocodiles, their colossal shapes now dwarfed by the much larger serpent. They shot down through the water, darting like torpedoes into the tunnel, ignoring Raine and King. Above them, the giant snake finished off their meals, wrapping its immense bulk around the hulks of dead crocodiles and men alike. A final flash of gun fire from high above illuminated the water just enough for King to see a monstrous mouth, dislocated at the jaw, encompassing the upper torso of a bullet-riddled croc.
Then, with a severe tug, Raine pushed him into the tunnel.
UNESCO Base Camp,
Sarisariñama Tepui,
Venezuela,
“Then follow them!” Colonel Ming barked into his radio.
“But sir,” the soldier’s voice repli
ed. “There are crocodiles down there!”
“Well shoot them!”
“And . . .”
“And what?” he demanded, impatient. He was in no mood for this whimpering little boy on the other end of the radio. This ‘simple’ mission against a bunch of scientists had cost him over a dozen men so far and still their prize had not been secured. The soldier’s report about the thieves vanishing into a crocodile infested pool had only soured his already bleak mood.
“There is . . . something else down there,” the man said.
“Is it frightening?” Ming asked with mock sympathy.
“Well, sir, it is . . . I do not know what it is.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Mister.” His voice hardened. “It is nothing compared to the fear you should have of me if you don’t get down that fucking hole right now!”
A nervous pause was followed by a timid reply. “Yes sir.”
As the soldier signed off, Ming sighed and looked about himself. Rain continued to lash in horizontal slants across the smouldering camp, smoke and steam coiling up into the tumultuous clouds.
The Americans would arrive soon, he knew. Time was running out.
He opened a communications channel to the next highest ranking soldier on the summit. “Take command up here,” he told him as he hurried purposefully across the mountaintop to the sinkhole. “Purge the site. Kill all the scientists, burn the labs. I want no trace of this place left.”
He followed the well-trodden path through the jungle and emerged on the edge of the enormous green sinkhole, peering down into its depths.
It was time to take control of the situation.
The North Face,
Sarisariñama Tepui,
Venezuela,
The leader of the eight, black-clad men hung just below the summit of the tabletop mountain, listening into the Chinese transmission which his communication’s expert had managed to hijack.
He had been monitoring the transmission ever since the three helicopters had arrived, trying to keep track of the events above as they happened while urging his men to climb faster. He hadn’t expected the terrific explosion of one of the Chinese helicopters being destroyed, nor the eruptions of gunfire that followed. Nevertheless, the noises had not been unwelcome. The theft of the mask had given him more time to get his men to the summit. If it weren’t for the hapless thieves, the Chinese would most likely have gotten away with the prize by now.
Satisfied that his team was still in the running, he gave the order and the eight heavily armed commandoes swung up onto the mountain and headed towards the base camp.
The Labyrinth,
Sarisariñama Tepui,
Venezuela,
Nathan Raine’s lungs burned as he swam down the length of the tunnel, the night vision goggles cutting through the darkness. Small flecks of dirt and detritus, bright in the NVGs, drifted past like stars streaking past a spaceship.
The current was getting stronger the deeper into the tunnel they swam, propelling them faster with every second. He had noticed the current in the chamber when the dead Chinese soldier had bumped against the submerged platform and guessed that it had been created by the storm. The rain water draining into the chamber had caused the water level to rise. If the same had happened at the other end of this tunnel, he theorised it had broken over some sort of dam and created a flow of water from one end to the other.
If that was the case, there had to be another chamber somewhere ahead. That meant oxygen.
Right now, however, he was beginning to doubt his decision. The tunnel walls boxed them in on all sides. Glancing back to check on King every few seconds, he scanned the walls, floor and ceiling for any breaks, any air pockets but there was nothing but solid rock all around him.
He resisted the urge to breathe, falling back on his training. He could last at least another minute, he knew, having been taught to hold his breath for far longer than most people. But King was a different matter. Glancing behind, he saw panic on the other man’s face. His eyes were wide and a stream of bubbles flowed from his mouth and nose. Any second now and his reflexes would take over his rational mind and force him to suck in a lungful of water.
Death above, death below.
Something pounded against his back, slamming him down onto the floor of the tunnel. He rolled and looked up through the goggles. The water frothed and foamed above him, which meant that there was a break in the tunnel.
Without thinking, he grasped King and thrust them both up into the hole.
The thunderous roar of cascading water pounded down around them, struggling to push them back under but Raine braced himself and held King’s head above the surface. They both sucked in a desperate lungful of stale air.
“It’s okay, Benny, it’s okay!” Raine shouted at the archaeologist over the noise. Still in utter blackness, King could not see what he saw, not that that would have filled him with much hope.
They had emerged inside a narrow vertical shaft, barely three feet wide, its far end obscured high above. Water, most likely runoff from the torrential storm, cascaded down all its sides. Nevertheless, there was air and both men were hungry for it.
“Where are we?” King called between ragged breaths, shielding himself as best he could from the spray.
“I don’t-”
Something black and solid slammed into King’s legs and took them out from under him. He was dragged under and Raine reached out but was also pulled beneath the surface.
In a thrash of arms, legs, jaws and tails, the two men rolled over the top of the fleeing crocodile, its shape vanishing as it darted like a missile down the tube. Raine dragged them back into the vertical shaft and they both took in more air, coughing and spluttering.
“I don’t know where we are,” Raine admitted, amazed and more than a little relieved that the crocodiles were more concerned about saving their own skins than they were about supper. “But if ten foot long crocodiles are running away from something, then I suggest we follow them!” He grasped King’s shoulders to steady him, imagining how much more terrifying this experience must be blinded. “Take a deep breath!”
They both did, and then Raine guided King down into the tunnel and kicked into the current. The pull of the water grew stronger and within another sixty seconds they arrived at another vertical shaft, took another deep breath and then dived again.
Now, the current really took hold and it swept them forward and swirled them around a tight bend. Raine’s back impacted the wall. He scrambled with his hands to slow his movements but the skin of his fingertips tore against the stonework. The tunnel raced around him, a kaleidoscope of psychedelic greens and whites-
And then his head broke the surface. He took in a deep breath, expecting to go under once again but then realised they had emerged into a much larger chamber. A rocky beach straddled either side of the underground river into which the tunnel had spewed them but no safety lay there. Swimming with powerful strokes, the Orinoco Crocodiles swam to the beaches and scrambled onto them.
Through the NVGs, Raine saw dozens of the giant reptiles populating the shores.
“What’s happening?” King demanded.
“Just stay in the water,” he told him. “Let it take us.”
“Take us where?”
Raine turned his head to see if he could make out a destination. A roaring filled his ears and, the green glow of the goggles moving past the writhing shores of black armoured crocodiles, he saw-
“Oh . . . shit!” he shouted, a moment before they plummeted over the waterfall.
13:
The Place of Fear
The Labyrinth,
Sarisariñama Tepui,
Venezuela,
Colonel Ming hurried down the skull-lined corridor deep inside the heart of Sarisariñama, six men in tow. He came to a halt beside the soldier who had drawn the long straw and remained to guard the hole in the floor rather than follow the thieves.
“Report.”
“Lieutenant Xan led the rest of his team into the chamber, sir. There is a submerged tunnel which they proceeded down. I’ve not had any contact with them since.”
Ming peered over the edge of the hole, his night vision goggles piercing the gloom. The chamber below was empty, silent. There were no signs of his men, either dead or alive.
He pulled his NBC suit’s mask and headpiece back into place and connected it to the air-supply on his back. As well as protecting the wearer from nuclear, biological or chemical threats, the durable, self-contained units could be used underwater. He’d also had the foresight to bring fins from the choppers and he and his men now affixed them to their feet.
“We have one objective,” he addressed his team when they were ready to be lowered into the chamber. “Retrieve the mask, whatever the cost.”
UNESCO Base Camp,
Sarisariñama Tepui,
Venezuela,
Nadia knew something bad was about to happen when she saw the silhouettes of six men all converging on the mess tent.
They were coming to kill them all.
“Are you ready?” she asked Sid. Though still weakened from their exposure to the tachyon radiation, Sid and Nadia were still two of the strongest survivors. The radiation had affected different people at different levels, regardless of their exposure time to the Moon Mask. In a distant part of her brain, the scientist looked forward to analysing the varying effects on different individuals’ body chemistry. But first, they had to survive the Chinese soldiers sent to kill them.
“I guess,” Sid answered nervously. A handful of the other, stronger expedition members also nodded, knowing they had little choice but to fight. The alternative was to sit there and die. At least this way they had a chance.
Moon Mask Page 13
