Moon Mask

by James Richardson

  Parking the bikes on the side of the road, Bill led King and his guard towards the main entrance. His guard walked closely behind him, the silencer of his gun occasionally jabbing him in the kidneys as a reminder not to try anything stupid.

  Stepping into the hostel, King was struck by the heat and the sudden smell of cooking reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in close to twenty four hours.

  The main floor of the hostel was large and square, cluttered with numerous tables which were occupied by noisily chatting groups of people, mostly in their twenties or thirties but he noted a few older faces. All were backpackers, hikers or climbers and, despite himself, King found himself analysing each of them, searching for any potential allies.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Bill warned quietly, as though reading his thoughts. “Remember, one word to my man on my plane and your pretty little-”

  “I got the memo,” King shot back.

  Bill glowered for a moment longer before returning his gaze to the busy hostel. A stairway led from the centre of the floor, curling up to a balcony where more tables were arrayed around chunky computers and a scattering of beanbags. A door at the back of the ground floor led to a self-catering kitchen where the clatter of pots and pans echoed. Straight ahead there stood a wooden bar with a window behind it leading into a professional kitchen and King realised that was where the smell of cooking was coming from, Argentine waiters delivering sizzling plates to tired looking hikers back from a day on the mountain.

  Bill ignored all else and stepped up to the window of the main reception where a young woman greeted him with a wide smile.

  “Hola,” she said pleasantly.

  “I’d like to speak to Mister Adjo, please,” Bill requested curtly, assuming the Argentinean woman spoke English.

  “Can I help?” she asked, proving that she did indeed speak English.

  “Not unless you are called Mister Adjo.”

  Her smile still in place, the receptionist’s eyes nevertheless lost some of their warmth. “I’ll see if Mister Adjo is available,” she said, picking up an old fashioned telephone and speaking in quick Spanish into it. After several seconds she hung up and looked back at Bill. “Go to the top of the stairs then through the door directly in front of you. Mister Adjo will meet you there.”

  The three of them followed the receptionist’s instructions, winding their way through the crowds of backpackers. The overland trucks could carry twenty or so people each on an organised trip around South America but the hostel was heaving with many more independent travellers.

  At the top of the stairs they stepped across the balcony and through a doorway. A corridor in front of them led to the hostel’s many rooms but another door, marked with ‘No Entry. Staff only’ opened to their left and a man stepped through.

  “You Mister Adjo?” Bill asked.

  Dressed in a pair of black cargo trousers and a red fleece jumper, the forty three year old had pale olive skin, unlike the tepid white of most Argentines, and his dark eyes and narrow face smacked of Arabian descent, however distant.

  “That’s right,” he man nodded. “How can I-”

  He didn’t have time to finish the question as Bill suddenly slammed the muzzle of his pistol to Adjo’s temple and pushed the stunned man back through the door he had just exited before anyone else saw. King was ‘urged’ in behind him.

  “What is the meaning of this? Who are you people?” Adjo demanded.

  “Shut up, or I’ll shut you up,” Bill snarled.

  “I demand-”

  With a fierce jab, Bill slammed the butt of his gun against the side of Adjo’s face, almost knocking him over but he caught him and dragged him roughly up the set of stairs just inside the doorway, thrusting him out into an open plan living space at the top. An eruption of screams came from above and King rushed forward to see a woman, presumably Adjo’s wife, and two girls, no older than ten, scramble in horror away from the gunman.

  “Oh my god,” King gasped, realising that he was responsible for leading the gunman to their home.

  “Shut them up or I shoot them both!” Bill barked at the frantic woman. Adjo tried to scramble forward but Bill held tight. “Shut the little fuckers up now or-”

  Adjo’s wife quickly collected the girls together, clamping a hand over their mouths to silence then, talking soothingly despite the sheer terror on her face.

  “That’s better,” Bill sighed, then he tossed something to King who automatically caught it. It was a roll of duct tape. “Tie them up.” King didn’t move and so Bill levelled his gun towards the head of one of the girls. “Do it.”

  King didn’t need to be told twice. He hurried towards Adjo’s wife and daughters. “And don’t try to be a hero, Ben.”

  King felt sick as he tied the innocent woman and children’s hands and feet together and then, on Bill’s command, taped their mouths shut also. The words ‘I’m sorry’ escaped his lips but were met only by an angry glare from Adjo’s wife.

  “Good,” Bill said, pushing Adjo away from him. Tears streaked his face and his terrified, helpless expression shot to King’s heart. If anything happened to this family, he was to blame.

  “You have in your possession a map,” Bill said, his voice casual, relaxed. “A treasure map,” he added. “All I need is for you to give it to me, let my . . . expert, here,” he nodded in King’s direction, “verify it, then we’ll be on our way, with our sincere apologies for having disturbed you.”

  “A map?” Adjo choked, his voice raw. King could see the man’s entire body trembling but it was not fear for himself, but for his family. “I don’t know anything about a map-”

  Before he’d even finished his sentence there was a muted pop from the muzzle of Bill’s silencer, followed by an agonised squeal from Adjo’s wife as the bullet tore through her upper thigh. She writhed in agony, falling onto one side of the couch and knocking one of the girl’s to the floor.

  “You bastard, I’ll kill you!” Adjo leapt forward, ignoring the guard’s pistol which was levelled at his head. Bill’s pistol, planting itself firmly against the girl who remained sitting, froze him mid-step, however. As always, Bill moved coolly and casually, as though the whole affair was part of daily normality for him.

  “That was a warning shot, Mister Adjo,” he explained. “Now that you understand how serious I am, I’m sure that when I repeat my request, your answer will be much more satisfactory.”

  King saw the look of rage on Adjo’s face morph into desperation. He sobbed, wanting to pull himself forward to protect his family despite Bill’s guard’s gun. “Please,” he blubbered, breaking down. “Don’t hurt them. Please. Don’t hurt my family.”

  “I won’t hurt anyone, Mister Adjo, as long as you-”

  “I don’t have a map. I’ve never seen any treasure map-”

  Bill shrugged. Pulled the trigger-

  “Wait!” King’s voice exploded out with more authority than expected, halting Bill’s trigger finger. The girl squirmed away from him.

  “Something to add, Ben?”

  King took a moment to collect himself, fighting back an explosion of painful memories from that afternoon in Lagos.

  He didn’t doubt that Bill would have pulled the trigger and so had shouted out on reflex to stop him, but without something to show for his outburst the girl’s life would be only seconds longer. Her life, the lives of Adjo’s entire family was in his hands.

  “He doesn’t know where it is,” he argued meekly.

  “I’m simply jogging his memory.”

  “Look at him,” King demanded, pointing a finger at the man crumpled to his knees. Tears streamed down his face, mucus drooled from his nose, his breath came out in ragged breaths and his body visibly trembled. “Look at him,” he said again. “That’s not a man who is lying to you for the sake of a map. That’s a man who would do anything, anything, to protect his family.”

  Bill regarded the man and King noted
that there was no distain in his expression, no pity or contempt. It was as though Bill was a blank slate, totally devoid of all feeling. He had a mission, a purpose, and it didn’t matter who lived or died so long as he saw it through to its fruition.

  “What are you saying, Ben?” he asked. “That you’ve brought us to the wrong goddamned place? That you’ve led us on some wild goose chase to the cesspit of the earth? Because if that’s the case then it’s someone else who will be suffering the punishment.” He went to tap his radio earpiece.

  Sid.

  “No,” King cut him off. “The map’s here. But we’re talking about nearly three hundred years of history, Abubakar’s descendants moving around all over Patagonia.”

  “Abubakar?” Adjo repeated the word, grabbing Bill’s attention.

  “That’s right,” King said, cutting in before Bill threw a new tirade of threats at him. He came around from the sofa and crouched down to the other man’s level. “Abubakar was your ancestor. From Egypt.”

  The man’s eyes went wide. “Egypt?” His brow creased. “But how? That is not possible.”

  “It is possible, Mister Adjo. Abubakar settled in Patagonia in 1713, fell in love, married and had a child. But before he settled in these parts, your ancestor was . . .” he feared saying it, feeling the inklings of a bond forming between him and Adjo which threatened to collapse at the incredulity of his next word. “A pirate.”

  “A pirate?”

  “That’s right,” he replied before the other man had time to fully process what he had just been told. “And he had a map - well, part of a map really - which I’m guessing he handed down to his son, who passed it onto his son, and so on, and so on, right up until you.”

  Adjo shook his head. “I have never seen this map which you speak of.”

  “But you did recognise the name Abubakar, didn’t you Mister Adjo?” King felt Bill’s impatience mounting as Adjo nodded.

  “It is a word, scratched into the chest.”

  “Chest?” That got Bill’s attention. Nothing like a good old pirate cliché to enrapture the uneducated morons of the military world, King thought.

  Adjo nodded again, more vigorously. “There is a chest. A very old chest, made out of wood. It was my father’s, and his father’s before him. It has been in the family for many years, many generations. And, scratched into the inside lid of it there is a word- Abubakar. My father said he never knew what it meant.”

  “Where is it?” Bill demanded.

  Adjo glanced nervously at him. “It is in the attic,” he explained, then shrugged. “We use it to store blankets.”

  “Show me,” King said.

  “There is nothing in it. There never has been. It was empty when my father gave it to me. There certainly is no map.”

  King’s heart sank. If he didn’t find the map then Adjo’s family would be butchered, and so would Sid. Maybe there would be something, some clue as to the map’s fate. “Show me anyway,” he said, glancing at Bill for permission. He nodded to his guard.

  “Go with them. And Ben-”

  “I know,” he said, rising to his full height, “Don’t try anything.”

  With a significant glance at his family, worriedly taking in the crimson pool of blood from his wife’s gunshot wound, Adjo led the way through the apartment to where he retrieved a wooden ladder. He leaned it against one wall in the corridor leading to the bedrooms then climbed up to remove the hatch in the ceiling. Bill’s guard ordered him back down and then proceeded up first while Bill covered them, then Adjo and King ascended after him.

  The attic space was surprisingly large but low and the frigid Patagonia air had crept in so that King could see his own breath escape his mouth in clouds of vapour. Keeping low to avoid the diagonal beams of the building’s roof, Adjo led the way through mounds of discarded items- rolls of carpets, rarely used suitcases, bags of clothes and boxes of toys. In one corner there sat a bulky television set, the faux-wood sticker peeling off.

  “Here,” Adjo said. He cleared some of the junk out of the way to reveal an old wooden chest. It was almost stereotypically pirate-esque, about a meter long, half a meter wide and the same again as deep. Its lid rose into an elongated dome and metal strips strengthened the corners. The wood was dark and laced with scratches and gouges, making it look worn and most certainly well travelled.

  King crouched down beside Adjo while he opened the lid and threw out the blankets and clothes within in a hurry. Their guard kept his silenced pistol aimed at them.

  “There,” Adjo said and he pointed at the inside of the lid, low down near to the rusted hinge. King studied the marking. It was faint and looked like it had been purposely gouged into the wood with a knife.

  “Abubakar.” As he read the name he felt a momentary sense of awe come over him. This was the private treasure chest of someone who had become one of Kha’um’s closest allies. It was yet another physical connection to that fantastical world of buried treasure and epic adventures he had read about in Emily’s diary.

  He shrugged it off. This wasn’t the time. Even as one part of his mind instantly got to work trying to work out the chest’s connection to the map, the other part was trying to figure someway out of this mess. He knew that once the map had been discovered Bill would kill Adjo and his family. He couldn’t let them talk to the authorities until they were out of harm’s way. Yet if King acted against them then he would order Sid’s execution.

  But even if he somehow found Abubakar’s part of the map, he doubted he and Sid would live much longer. He had read the Kernewek Diary cover to cover and, while it had led him to Patagonia in pursuit of Abubakar, he had no idea how to find Emily’s part of the map. His and Sid’s lives were worth only the value of the information King provided their kidnappers.

  “So where’s the map?” their guard demanded, surprising King. Not only was it the first thing he had heard the man speak, but it had been said in a strong Welsh accent.

  “I told you,” Adjo said innocently. “There is no map.”

  The mercenary’s face twisted angrily but King cut in before he could speak. “When your father gave you the chest, was there anything else with it?”

  Adjo was exasperated. “No. Nothing. No map, no-”

  “It’s okay,” King placed a calming hand on the man’s shoulder. Adjo sighed, rolling back on his haunches. “It’s got to be here somewhere,” he mumbled under his breath. In fact, the rational part of his mind knew it could be anywhere in the world right now, separated from the chest years, even centuries ago. In fact, there was no proof that it had ever been contained within the chest. After all, what self-respecting pirate would keep a map to buried treasure inside his own treasure chest? Yet something told King he was close.

  He checked all the surfaces of the chest, running his finger along all the scratches and the gouges, searching for any pattern, any sense of logic that might reveal directions scrawled into the wood. Turning it on its side he checked the bottom, and then the domed lid before finally slamming it closed in frustration.

  Something clanked inside it.

  King’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I thought you emptied it.”

  “I did,” Adjo replied, opening the chest again to reveal its empty interior. King took the lid from him and slammed it closed again. Once more, something shifted inside. It was subtle, barely noticeable in fact. Was he clutching at straws?

  “Is everything alright up there?” Bill’s voice crackled through the Welshman’s radio.

  “Fine, boss. Just the Doc making a hullabaloo,” he replied. “Looks like another dead-end to me.”

  “Well tell King that he has three minutes until my next check in. I’d better see some progress by then or else his girlfriend’s gonna start losing fingers.”

  King ignored the man’s threats. He opened the lid again and then shook it on its hinges. The rattle was definitely coming from inside the dome of the lid. The underside of it was nailed shut.
“I need something to prise this open with,” he told Adjo.

  “I have a toolbox,” Adjo said, rising to his feet. The merc whipped his pistol up and Adjo held up his hands, startled by the aggression. “I have screwdriver,” he explained.

  The guard considered this before nodding. “Slowly,” he warned, trailing him with his gun as he scrambled to a metal box lodged against the old TV. Adjo returned a moment later with a flat headed screwdriver and handed it to King.

  King instantly pictured himself driving the screwdriver savagely at their guard but the mercenary had obviously considered that too.

  “My gun is aimed squarely at your head,” he told him. “Get any ideas and you’ll have a bullet pass straight through that genius brain of yours. Just do what you’ve got to do then put the screwdriver on the floor and slide it back to me.”

  King glanced at the brute’s reflection in the TV screen. Sure enough, the pistol was right where he’d said it would be. Even Raine wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to attack the man with the screwdriver before getting up close and personal with a bullet. Instead, he used the flat head for its original purpose, sliding it between the inside of the lid and its frame. The wood splintered as he levered it along its length until finally it wrenched free, falling into his hands. Within the cavity of the domed lid he saw something glisten.

  “Alright, Doc. Do like I said,” Bill’s lackey reminded him.

  And like that, the next few seconds all clicked together for Benjamin King.

  He cautiously placed the screwdriver on the floor and slowly slid it back, subtly keeping his eyes on the TV in the corner. In the reflection, he saw the guard, gun still aimed at his head, crouch down to the retrieve the potential weapon. He kept his back straight, his weapon poised, but the immediate threat of using the screwdriver to attack him had passed.

  He flicked his eyes down to the screwdriver.

  King made his move!