Moon Mask

by James Richardson

  Only the very best soldiers were selected from the other branches of the U.S. Special Forces – Delta Force, the Navy Seals, the Army Rangers – and, despite having previously been considered the best of the best, they spent over a year re-training. Required to possess at the very least a Bachelor’s degree, they were intelligent men and women with incredible levels of adaptability. It was the only unit whereby all members were required to be trained and proficient in all its branches: Air, Maritime, Ground and the Armour and Special Operations Branch. They were experts in the use of domestic and foreign firearms, weaponry, explosives. They were trained in elite hand-to-hand combat techniques, high-performance driving, flying, SCUBA, closed-circuit diving, freefall and parachuting. They were required to speak numerous foreign languages and survive extreme wilderness conditions, to be experts in tracking and in EMS medicine.

  But, most concerning for the guards assigned to the confinement of Nathan Raine, was that he had not only been taught, but had proven his efficiency in what the military termed SERE- Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape.

  ‘Escape’ being the optimal word for this particular prisoner.

  The architects were convinced that this cell could keep even someone of Raine’s talents confined but, the moment the door was opened, it was feared, he would be gone.

  His food was given to him through a slot in the seven-inch thick door and security cameras watched his every move inside his cell. Even now, with a presidential immunity agreement in his hand, Alexander Langley knew not to take the caged animal for granted.

  He knew this, because he had taught him everything he knew.

  He glanced at the screen above the door which displayed the CCTV image of the interior. He recognised Raine’s shape lying on the bed, his black hair ruffled, his intense blue eyes hidden beneath their lids.

  But he wasn’t sleeping, Langley knew.

  He was waiting.

  “Prisoner,” one of the guards boomed through an intercom into the room while another produced a set of heavy chains. Langley knew the procedure. A small slot in the foot of the door would allow the guards to chain the prisoner’s ankles to the concrete floor.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he told the man. “Just open the door.”

  “But-”

  “I’m here on the authority of the President of the United States, young man,” he told the guard in his usual firm but somehow calming voice. “Now, open the door.”

  The man, already informed that the prisoner was being released and therefore – hopefully - posed little flight risk, capitulated. Three keys, from three guards, undid the hard locks, while two electronic key cards from another two guards beeped against the scanner.

  The door creaked open and all five guards rushed into the room, bludgeons raised as they circled the bed.

  Raine had still not moved and for a second Langley feared it was a decoy. Then he saw the subtle rising of his chest.

  “Up, prisoner!” the lead guard bellowed with his considerable lungs. The figure on the bed, lying in darkness, illuminated only by the orange triangle of light filtering through the door, did not move. The guard barked at him again and finally got a response.

  Slowly, the prisoner reached out his arm, hand clenched into a fist, and then uncurled the middle finger.

  “Why, you piece of-”

  “That’ll be all,” Langley cut him off. “Leave us.” The guards hesitated but they had been given their orders. One by one, they filed out of the door.

  “We’ll be right outside, sir.” The words were not reassurance, Langley mused. They were little more than a finely concealed threat.

  Even now, there were those that still believed, like Jason Briggs, that, despite being shot in the knee and taken hostage by his former pupil, Alexander Langley had helped the prisoner escape three years ago. The accusations, though unfounded, had proved crippling to his career in the Agency.

  After having risen through the ranks of Delta Force and being recruited to SAD/SOG almost twenty years ago, he couldn’t go back to the ‘normal’ ranks of the military, despite holding the rank of General. Briggs had made it clear that his career in the Agency was finished but, as a former commander of the Special Operations Group, often referred to as the President’s Private Army, he had Harper’s ear. Once he had recovered from his injury, he had been posted to the U.N. Security Council.

  Nevertheless, suspicion of his involvement in Raine’s escape still rebounded through the halls of power.

  “Some lights would be helpful, gentlemen,” he called as the guards closed the door. An instant later a single bright bulb, burrowed into the ceiling and protected by an acrylic casing, preventing it from being ripped out and used as a weapon, flared into life.

  “Hello, Nathan.”

  Nathan Raine did not move on his metal cot. His eyes remained closed, uncaring. It was all show, Langley knew. He knew Nathan Raine probably better than any person alive. He knew that the detached demeanour he portrayed was nothing but a front, a barrier that had always prevented people getting close.

  But Langley had been close to him. Even now, after everything that had happened, everything that Raine had become, he couldn’t help but see the young man for what he was.

  The son he never had.

  “The silent treatment, Nathan?” he continued after a long pause. “I see three years in exile haven’t made you grow up very much.” Still nothing. “Have you nothing to say to me?”

  Another long pause, then, “How’s the knee?”

  “Oh,” Langley replied conversationally. “Not too bad. Still aches a little in cold weather.”

  “And Philippa?”

  This time it was Langley’s turn to hesitate, white hot pain searing at his heart anew. His voice was very controlled when he spoke next. “Philippa passed away eighteen months ago.”

  Raine opened his eyes, still the striking shade of blue that Langley remembered had almost shocked him when he had first met the cocky young pilot years ago.

  Slowly, he pushed himself up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Did he care? Langley wondered, trying to read him. How could he not? Philippa had thought just as much of Raine as Langley himself had. The son they could never have, because of the ovarian cancer which had ultimately claimed her.

  “The cancer flared up again,” he explained, “about two months after you escaped. She fought it. Hard.” His voice caught and he saw emotion in Raine’s eyes. “I was very proud of her.”

  Raine said nothing. What could he say?

  “She asked after you,” he continued, probing further, trying to find the man he had known. “Right until the day she died.”

  Langley could see the pain passing through the younger man’s face, tears threatening.

  “Even after . . ?” Raine tried to ask but couldn’t finish.

  Even after everything you did, you mean? “Until the day she died,” he repeated. He took a deep breath to clear his head. He wasn’t here to reminisce. In truth, he wasn’t sure why he had come all this way.

  Because he wouldn’t listen to anyone else, he told himself again.

  “Look Nathan, we don’t have a lot of time,” he said, all business. He pulled a sheet of paper out of the manila folder he carried and handed it to Raine. He took it reluctantly.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “It’s a pardon, Nathan,” he replied, his voice severe. It was the only way he could hold back the raw emotion he felt. It had been a tough three years- first Raine’s court-martial, the escape, three months in a hospital recovering from the gunshot wound, more months fighting to prove his own innocence. And then Philippa.

  He had thrown himself into his new work to bury the pain of it all. To make it feel like he was still making a difference.

  “A full pardon,” he explained. “Signed by the President.”

  Raine frowned, chuckled softly. “John
Harper is still the president, isn’t he?”

  “Two months into his second term.”

  Raine laughed out loud. “I don’t know what the bigger joke is. That the American public actually re-elected him, or that he signed this.” He threw the paperwork on the bed.

  “It’s no joke, Nathan.”

  “There isn’t a chance on earth that Harper would-”

  “We need your help,” he cut him off. “Your country needs your help.”

  “There’re plenty of other-”

  “Nadia Yashina explained to me about your seeming immunity to the effects of the tachyon radiation,” he said. He watched the other man intently. Despite trying to appear unconcerned and disinterested, Langley could tell that he was hanging on his every word.

  He briefly outlined the main points of the Russian scientist’s findings.

  In 2003, a Russian professor, working at Cleveland Bio labs, began work on a ‘cure’ for radiation sickness. Protein, produced in bacteria found in the intestine, showed signs of protecting cells from radiation.

  Tests on two groups of mice proved positive. Both groups were subjected to lethal doses of radiation. Those mice implanted with the harvested protein survived while those that did not all died. Similar tests were then carried out on monkeys, with the same results.

  Still waiting for FDA approval, the experimental medication, it was said, could have a dramatic impact on the modern world. Not only could cancer patients be subjected to higher doses of radiation, safely, but the face of warfare could be altered dramatically. The drug had the potential to alter the balance of power on the global stage and had therefore been kept secret until 2009.

  Human tests were still awaited.

  “It seems your intestine produces an unusually large amount of this protein,” Langley told Raine, “giving you an effective immunity to the effects of radiation . . . even tachyon radiation.”

  “The same goes for Ben King, I guess?” Raine asked.

  “That’s right. His immunity, Nadia guesses, has been passed down his genetic line from his Bouda ancestors. That’s why they were able to live in close proximity to the Moon Mask and their Oni or Great King was even able to touch it.”

  “The Xibalbans didn’t have that immunity,” Raine realised, “and so the mask devastated their population.”

  “As for your immunity?” Langley shrugged. “Maybe some of your ancestors also had it. Maybe it’s just a fluke.”

  “I still don’t understand. Why does any of this matter?”

  Langley explained to him about the U.N.-led operation that was being hastily put together.

  “There is every possibility that the team will come under attack again. If not by the Chinese, then by the unidentified soldiers you encountered.”

  Raine leaned his head back against the wall. His eyes flicked momentarily to the door and Langley could see that his mind was working on an escape plan. The moment he tried anything, the president’s deal would be off.

  “We need you to accompany Doctor King to retrieve the other pieces of the mask when he finds them.”

  “I still don’t get it. Benny and I may have an ‘immunity’ but Gibbs and his team have got NBCs-”

  “NBC suits are useless against tachyon radiation, Nate,” Langley put his cards on the table.

  That had been the problem which Nadia Yashina had explained to Langley, King and Sid in the suite at the U.N.

  Both the bodies she had examined, those of Pryce and Kha’um, displayed abnormalities in the skull, indicating the possible presence of brain tumours in the region of the Parietal Lobe. Both men, she surmised, had the same immunity that Raine and King shared, though Pryce’s was to a lesser extent. While the immunity had protected them to a degree, the extended physical contact with the mask, or numerous pieces of the original mask, had eventually taken their toll on them both.

  Tachyon radiation, it seemed, was even more dangerous than ionising, nuclear radiation. Running comparative tests on the bodies of some of the Chinese soldiers recovered from the site and the U.S. team, revealed that the tachyons had gone straight through their Nuclear, Biological and Chemical protective suits and attacked their bodies just like those of the scientists.

  Prolonged contact with the tachyon emitting metal, or even proximity to a large stash of the metal, as King suspected they would find in Kha’um’s ‘treasure hoard,’ could be deadly.

  Once they found the rest of the mask, the soldiers and anyone else not protected by their own quirky immunity would have to stay away.

  Which meant that Benjamin King, an archaeologist, would have to retrieve the mask on his own, possibly fending off enemy attacks in potentially dangerous surroundings.

  Tests had been hastily carried out on the members of the Special Forces team but none of them displayed the immunity. Nadia hypothesised that only one person in several thousand might harbour the high protein count needed to protect them. Use of the experimental drugs had been ruled out due to their lack of mass production and unknown side-effects on un-tested humans. And to vet all the personnel of United Nations soldiers would take days. The mission had already been delayed long enough, giving hostile forces time to mobilise.

  They needed to move quickly, Langley had argued to the president. But Doctor King needed protection. And there was only one man in the world who it was known had both the immunity and the ability to do so.

  Nathan Raine.

  “So, if I help find the Moon Mask,” Raine said carefully, glancing at the document he had thrown on the bed, “I walk free?”

  “That’s right, Nate. You’ll be a free man, let loose to start your life again. Here, at home in America rather than on the run, always looking over your shoulder, always wondering when the authorities are going to catch up with you.”

  Raine considered this. “You say Gibbs will be the team leader?”

  Laurence Gibbs, the commander of the CIA SOG team that had rescued the Sarisariñama Expedition had once been a member of Raine’s own team when he was team leader. He, along with Rudy O’Rourke, had been present on that fateful mission which had ended with the deaths of their colleagues at the hands of their commander. He knew that neither of the soldiers would take kindly to Raine’s inclusion on either the mission, or the presidential pardon he had been granted.

  Langley nodded.

  “He’s not gonna like it,” Raine said needlessly.

  “It’s not going to be a walk in the park, Nate,” he agreed. “But, when’s that ever stopped you from doing something?”

  Cautiously, as though it might turn around and bite him, Raine picked up the immunity deal and glanced through it. The presidential seal seemed to glare accusingly at him.

  “How do I know Harper won’t just rip this up once I’m done?”

  “You know how this works, Nate. Its all above board, signed and witnessed by the Attorney General. So long as you keep up your end of the bargain - you help the team, protect King and secure the mask - there is no going back on that agreement.”

  Raine’s eyes darted back to the door, thinking, analysing, watching the movements of the guards, retracing his route through the prison to the cell.

  If he tried to escape, Langley had little doubt that he would succeed. But then what? He would be a fugitive once more, and Benjamin King would be as good as dead. He might as well hand the Moon Mask over to an enemy state on a silver platter.

  “What do you say, Nathan?” he asked, cutting into his thoughts, refocusing his attention. He held out a hand to his former student. “One last mission, then you can finally stop running.”

  24:

  Camaraderie

  Sherman Army Airfield,

  Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,

  U.S.A.,

  Despite being situated in the middle of one of their bases, an agreement between the City of Leavenworth and the U.S. Army meant that Sherman Airfield was open to civilian air traffic at all times. A mixture of co
mmercial flights and DoD transports vied for the single runway and the services of the base’s refuelling teams, mechanics and aircraft accommodation.

  Off to one side of the airfield, however, one of the normally unrestricted taxiways had been temporally shut off to corporate and private use. A string of armed soldiers patrolled the perimeter, idly watching light aircraft take off into the blue Kansas sky.

  An open topped military jeep ploughed down the taxiway towards the hanger at the far end. Sat in the back of the vehicle, his ice-blue eyes hidden behind a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses, Nathan Raine watched the activity around him. He had missed it, he realised now. The adrenaline as he prepared for the next mission, the envious glances new recruits gave the enigmatic men who headed towards the black hanger that was beyond their security clearance. Most of all, he missed the camaraderie that could only be experienced by men and women who had fought alongside each other, that placed their lives in one another’s hands.

  With a screech, the jeep pulled up outside the hanger and, thanking the driver, Raine slapped him on the shoulder and jumped out without opening the door, hoisted his duffle over his shoulder and walked in through the massive bay doors.