Moon Mask

by James Richardson

Poldark Mine,

  Cornwall, England

  “Roger that,” Raine’s voice replied into King’s helmet speakers as he led the way around the sharp right hand bend in the tunnel and-

  Into a dead end.

  “What the hell?”

  “I think we took a wrong turn, Benny-boy,” Raine replied. His voice was as calm and level as ever, contradictory to King’s own rising concern. In the dark, damp, claustrophobic confines of the mine, his paranoia had only been growing worse. That, added to his rising excitement at finding Kha’um’s treasure, followed by the shock of the dead end, threatened to topple him.

  “Damn it!” he cursed angrily, pushing past Raine. Six feet ahead, right where the line on the map ended at the red gem affixed into the dagger’s hilt, right where the treasure should have been, there stood only a very solid looking wall.

  “Take it easy.”

  “Take it easy?” King snapped. “I’m stuck down here is this hell hole with . . . you, and you want me to take it easy?”

  “What’s going on, Raine?” Gibbs’ voice crackled into both their speakers.

  “Firstly,” Raine ignored the SOG operative, “you’re not stuck. The way back is as clear as it was on the way here, so long as your little tantrum doesn’t bring this whole place down on us. Secondly, what the hell do you mean, me? And thirdly,” he added before the archaeologist could reply, “I know where the treasure is.”

  This last statement brought King up short. “What?”

  “Raine, King, report.”

  “Stand-by,” Raine replied. Then he took King by the arm and turned him around to face the dead-end, running his light over the wall, down to the floor . . . where the shaft of light pierced the ground, dropping through the hole to a yawning chasm beyond. There, it hit something and flared back more brightly than ever.

  Gold.

  With that irritatingly smug look on his face, Raine didn’t say another word as he began un-looping the rope from his shoulders. He spent several minutes fixing two cams into a secure section of the wall and fed the rope through a series of karabiners until he had built a rig like he had done several times previously on their way down through the abandoned mine.

  “Okay, Benny,” he said when he was done. “Just like before, I’ll strap you up, then I’ll go first-”

  “No,” King cut him off. “I’ll go first.”

  The two men’s eyes locked for a moment and King saw that dangerous glint that he had seen before. It was as though Raine was secretly telling him that he knew he was onto him.

  “Alright,” he replied slowly. “Just like before, nice and slowly. We don’t want any accidents, do we?”

  RNAS Culdrose,

  England

  All eyes were now glued to the video streaming from Raine’s helmet as he squeezed down through the hole in the floor of the tunnel and shimmied his way through about ten feet of solid rock. For a moment all the screen showed was the jagged interior of the hole, then he squeezed out from below and hung above the cavern.

  The view from the camera was limited and it jumped about as Raine slid with militaristic ease down the rope. The beam from his torch, and that of King’s below, couldn’t pierce its way to the walls, giving the impression that the chamber was very large.

  “Benny, heads up,” he warned. Then Sid watched as he pulled himself to a stop part way down the rope and yanked something out of the webbing attached to the outside of his hazmat suit. A bright explosion sent the camera out of focus and Sid gasped in fright.

  “It’s only a light-stick,” Lake said. The female operative stood looking over her shoulder, as did Gibbs and O’Rourke.

  Sure enough, Raine threw the stick down into the darkness and it instantly chased away the gloom that had encompassed the cavern for centuries. But the eruption of light was even more brilliant than any of them had expected, for it was amplified by the chamber’s contents. It bounced off of surfaces, reflecting from one piece of gold to another in quick succession until, for just a moment before the light-stick started to die, the hoard of pirates treasure shone like the surface of the sun.

  Gasps of awe escaped from all the spectators’ lips, far more enraptured than the hordes of tourists watching the world famous Vulcan Bomber sweep through the sky, its booming engines masking the noise of the approaching footsteps.

  Their lapse of concentration was the SOG team’s undoing as Nadia Yashina appeared, as if out of nowhere, and clutched Sid around the throat, pressing her stolen handgun against her temple.

  Poldark Mine,

  Cornwall, England

  Benjamin King could hardly believe his eyes, even as he shielded them from the sudden glare as Raine’s light-stick reflected off the surfaces of all the gold.

  He had never seen so much. It was literally a king’s ransom, or, more accurately, a pharaoh’s!

  The treasures surrounding him made the tomb of Tutankhamen look like that of a peasant. Indeed, by ancient Egyptian standards, the boy-king had been a relatively minor ruler, coming to power shortly after the heretical rule of Akhenaton had brought near-ruin to the country.

  “Oh my god,” he gasped, staggering up an avenue of golden treasures to what dominated the space: an eight foot long sarcophagus, fashioned thousands of years ago out of pure gold. Unlike Tutankhamen’s, which had been fashioned into a representation of Osiris, holding the crook and flail, the traditional symbols of kingship, this giant coffin was fashioned into the shape of a baboon, an incarnation of Thoth- Scribe of the Gods. And, as King read the hieroglyphic name of the sarcophagus’ occupant, the association was not lost on him.

  “Imhotep.”

  Not a pharaoh after all, but someone even greater: a man whose tomb had been sought after by archaeologists and adventurers for hundreds of years.

  While not being a king, Imhotep had nevertheless been one of the greatest men of his day, in many ways surpassing the importance of the monarch for whom he had built the famous Step Pyramid at Saqqara, one of the oldest buildings in the world, predating even Giza. He had been a vizier, an architect, a scholar, a surgeon and, later, a demigod. As befitting his status, he had been buried with all the wealth of Egypt.

  Thoth, like Imhotep, was associated with the development of science, the creation of writing. He was the balance upon which the order of the universe depended, a defender of Ra, a learned god who brought the wonders of heaven to earth. To have been buried in a sarcophagus bearing the god’s image was perhaps the greatest honour that could have been bestowed on him.

  “This is incredible,” King whispered, more to himself than anyone else.

  Surrounding the sarcophagus were hundreds of golden items: gilded chairs and beds, pots and vases, spears and swords and shields, jewellery and canopic jars. Everywhere King looked there was gold, laid on the ground and hung on the outcroppings of the walls.

  Then the light-stick faded and drew the treasures of Imhotep back into the darkness.

  “Wow.” Raine said as he dropped to the ground beside him, startling him.

  “Yeah,” was all King could think of to say.

  “So where’s the mask?”

  King eyed his companion. “In a hurry?” he grunted but moved away before he could reply. He stepped up towards the large sarcophagus, the light of his head and hand torches bouncing back from it. Then he turned and slowly panned his beams around the chamber. It was a massive space, but there was nowhere in particular to hide the mask. His torch beams fell through the open mouth of another tunnel leading away from the chamber and he toyed with the idea that Kha’um had hidden his most prized treasure away from the rest of the booty but instead he brought the lights down to converge, once again, on the sarcophagus. “Could use a hand,” he said to Raine.

  Together, they grunted as they shifted the enormous weight of the coffin’s lid. It slid slowly to one side and King ordered Raine to be careful as it teetered off. Despite their best efforts, it still clanged loudly ag
ainst the floor, echoing throughout the cavernous space.

  And there, inside the hollow interior of the sarcophagus, lay the mummified remains of Imhotep. A man lost to history and even to legend, almost five thousand years old. His body was shrunken, the mummification techniques so close to the dawn of Egyptian history a far cry from those used millennia later on the great and famous rulers of the New Kingdom. Yet the body had indeed been preserved; the structure was still there, the linen bandages still wrapped around the withered limbs. But most impressive was the face- for it was not that of a man, but of a baboon. A golden baboon. Imhotep’s death mask.

  Only, there was a piece missing- the upper-most quadrant of the vaguely human shaped ape-face.

  “Benny,” Raine nodded towards the radiation wand O’Rourke had given him. The needle on it was going crazy.

  “The coffin was lined with lead,” King realised, running his hands along the interior. He felt breathless. “That’s how Kha’um transported the mask back from Egypt without his crew dying.”

  “Okay,” Raine said sceptically. “But how did some dead Egyptian dude know about radiation . . . much less what materials can contain it?”

  King didn’t answer him. Instead, his eyes flicked down to the body contained within the coffin. Balanced upon his chest, broken off from the golden Death Mask, presumably by Kha’um, was the missing piece:

  Only it wasn’t alone. Beside it, kept safely inside the lead-line sarcophagus was a second piece, this one of the lower half of a jaw. The piece Kha’um took from Easter Island.

  Almost reverently, King reached out and plucked the two pieces of the Moon Mask from where they had laid since Kha’um had deposited them with their mummified keeper three centuries earlier.

  “You don’t believe in curses do you?” Raine asked suddenly, breaking the almost spiritual moment.

  “What?” King snapped. Raine shrugged.

  “Just, you know, the whole Lord Carnarvon dropping dead, while at the exact moment in England his favourite dog howled then keeled over as well . . .” he trailed off at King’s incredulous look. “What?”

  King shook his head and began taking the heavy, lead-line rucksack O’Rourke had given him off his shoulders. “I don’t know if I’m more surprised that you know about Lord Carnarvon or that you actually believe in the Curse of King Tut.”

  He unclasped the container and opened the lid. Inside, set within the protective padding, was the piece of the Moon Mask which they had found in Venezuela.

  “It’s just, you know,” Raine was saying. He callously picked up one of Imhotep’s arms as though it was a rag-doll. “I keep expecting him to suddenly sit bolt upright or something and say ‘boo!’” He said this last loudly in an obvious attempt to frighten King. Instead, the archaeologist snapped angrily.

  “Be careful! That’s a four and a half thousand year old mummy, not some . . . prop from a crappy Brendon Fraser movie!”

  “I thought it was quite good,” Raine mumbled, gently placing the arm back down. “Didn’t think much of the sequels though.”

  “Don’t you have anything better to be doing? Like checking in with Gibbs?”

  King thought he noticed a hesitant expression on the other man’s face, bringing back his earlier concerns which his excitement at finding the mask had assuaged. He tried to shrug off his misgivings as he pushed the two new pieces of the Moon Mask into the foam. It crunched beneath them, conforming to the pieces’ shapes and only then did King’s heart sink.

  “There’s a piece missing,” he said.

  Raine looked at him, serious again. “You said you thought the original Bouda piece wouldn’t be here. It wasn’t mentioned in the journal, right?”

  “That’s right. I figured that would be a different route of investigation to find the piece that Edward Pryce took from Kha’um originally. But, I mean there’s another piece missing.” He turned the case so that Raine could see:

  Sure enough, the three pieces of the mask made up only three fifths of a circle. The red-coloured piece of the mask from Xibalba, with its grotesque carvings, slotted almost perfectly with the piece that

  Kha’um had cut out of Imhotep’s baboon death mask. It was still gilded gold, but its edges betrayed the base metal’s true colour. The piece that had inspired the giant Moa statues of Easter Island also sat snuggly against the Xibalba section, but two significant gaps in the overall structure were revealed. One missing piece was the Bouda mask, but it hit King with gut wrenching realisation that he had no idea where the second missing piece could be.

  “Damn. So it’s not over yet,” Raine pointed out. “Gibbs, do you copy; over.” He was answered by static and King felt a shiver of dread snake down his spine. “Gibbs, this is Raine. Do you read me; over.” Again, only silence replied.

  King’s guard went up. There was a certain convenience in the timing of the communication cut-out which he didn’t like. “What’s going on?”

  Raine shrugged casually. “Beats me,” he replied, stepping around to King’s side of the ancient coffin. “Maybe we’re too deep.”

  “It was working a second ago,” King replied, the hint of an accusation in his voice.

  “What can I say, Benny? I’m not the com-specialist, that’s West’s job.”

  King stepped away from him, closed and sealed the rucksack. The tachyon emissions instantly dropped.

  “We’d better get out of here though. If we’re out of contact with them and these ceilings come down on us or something, we’re screwed. Give me the case, I’ll go up first then help to pull you up.” He reached for the case but King pulled away.

  “No!” he snapped.

  “What the hell?” A sudden flash of anger twisted Raine’s face. His treachery revealed, quick as a flash he whipped out his gun and fired!

  40:

  Follow the Arrows

  RNAS Culdrose,

  Cornwall, England

  “You’ve got to listen to me,” Nadia demanded. She ignored the fact that there were three guns pointing squarely at her head. It seemed that Sid’s life wasn’t worth all that much to these soldiers as one squeeze of her trigger and the young woman would be dead. But that wasn’t Nadia’s intention.

  “Listen to me,” she pleaded, struggling to keep Sid in her grasp. “Ben is in danger.”

  “What?” Sid whispered.

  Nadia glanced at the three soldiers. “Now that I have your attention, I am going to lower my gun,” she told them clearly. “Then you can arrest me again, or shoot me or whatever it is you intend to do to me. But first you must hear me out.”

  Sure to her word, the Russian woman slowly stepped away from Sid, releasing her while lowering her gun.

  “Put it on the ground,” Gibbs ordered and she obeyed, crouching to place the weapon delicately on the grass. On the laptop screen set up on the edge of the mine shaft, she noticed the video feed, which displayed Raine and King inside a chamber filled with gold, while overhead a display team from Saudi Arabia in propeller planes twisted and spun through the summer haze.

  “Take her,” Gibbs ordered and instantly O’Rourke and Lake were upon her. She did not resist.

  “Wait,” Sid snapped at the soldiers. She stepped up close to Nadia, even as her hands were bound by O’Rourke. “What do you mean, Ben’s in danger?”

  Nadia studied her friend closely, sorrow in her eyes. “I know I have no evidence at present to prove my innocence,” she said. “So very well. Treat me as guilty. But do not let that blind you, for I am not guilty.” She glanced at Gibbs, beseeching reason from the man of action. “Consider this. I am safely in your custody, unable to do any harm. But my concern right now is not for my name, my reputation or my freedom. It is for the safety of Doctor King and the success of this mission. I am not the traitor,” she looked again at her friend and she could see she was getting through. “Which means the real traitor is still among us. It could be anyone. Anyone except you and Ben.”

  Si
d’s earlier concerns over Nathan Raine suddenly resurfaced. She looked again at the laptop screen, saw Ben talking to Raine even though the audio was cut, and then-

  As if on cue, static erupted on the laptop screen, cutting the image of her fiancée. “What’s going on?” she demanded of no one in particular.

  “Raine, King, come in,” Gibbs called into his radio. Nadia looked on, still clamped in O’Rourke’s arms, her mind running through the scenario, analysing-

  It hit her like a blow to the face. Something so obvious that none of them had noticed.

  “Where’s West?”

  Poldark Mine,

  Cornwall, England

  King was a split second faster than Raine!

  He swung the heavy case on its straps, planting it with a dull thud against the other man’s gun arm. The force of the impact sent Raine’s shot wide, the bullet ricocheting loudly through the chamber and the gun flying out of his hand. He landed on the floor, but the swing of the heavy case spun King off balance also and he fell too, hitting the ground hard.

  If he hadn’t, he would have been dead.

  Raine had seen it only a split second before, just as he was about to agree to let King take the case if he really wanted to. He was only trying to be helpful by offering to carry it after all! But from the corner of his eye he had seen the outline of the man sneaking through the murky darkness of the mine, Heckler and Koch HK416 raised, trigger finger tightening.

  But Raine had been faster. He’d whipped his M1911 handgun out of the holster attached to his hip, lined up a definite kill shot, and fired.

  Just as, for some crazy reason, King had slammed the full weight of the lead-line rucksack into him, knocking him to the ground and sending his gun skittering across the muddy floor, the shot going wide. The attacker’s shot whistled through the air above King just as he fell down behind the cover of Imhotep’s sarcophagus.