She frowned. She didn’t know anybody in Germany.
She signed for it, bid a cheery farewell to the courier, and then went back inside. She unwrapped the parcel and then gasped as she took out her treasured Kernewek Diary.
Happily, she flicked through the pages, reading a few paragraphs despite knowing them word for word, then went to a display case, unlocked it, and carefully laid the book inside, on display for all the world to see.
Then, smiling to herself, she packed away the vacuum cleaner, fiddled with the final few displays and went back to the door, flipping the sign to read ‘Open For Business’.
Benjamin King stood on the top of the cliff, looking out over the waters of the Pacific as the setting sun began to turn them to liquid gold. He held Sid’s engagement ring in his hand, clutching it tightly. Down in the secluded cove, the Black Cat was tethered to the sand, bobbing slightly on the gentle swell.
The storm had passed to reveal a beautifully clear day, but Raine and King had spent much of it patching up one another’s wounds. The most serious had been the knife wounds, but luckily both his and Raine’s had missed critical organs, muscles and bones. Resetting Raine’s nose had been less than enjoyable, especially when the former soldier had instinctively lashed out and almost broken his in the process!
They had arrived on the small island around midday and spent much of the afternoon listening to news reports about the supposed ‘accident’ out in the Pacific.
They were covering it up! After everything that had happened, America and China were pretending to be friends once more, working together to support each other in a time of mutual tragedy. Britain, Russia and numerous other countries had all offered their condolences and it seemed as if the whole world was willing to turn a blind eye to the entire ‘Moon Mask Crisis’.
But King could not.
His world had been turned upside down. His quest, his obsession with the Moon Mask was over, as was his father’s. He had not only been kicked out of academia but, after Raine contacted someone called ‘Rasta-Man’ who broke into Interpol databases, he knew he was now also a wanted man. Because of his and Raine’s involvement with the destruction of the Eldridge, they had been declared terrorists. Every law enforcement agency in the western world would be looking for them.
Benjamin King was now an exile, a fugitive. He quite literally had a price on his head. Wherever he went now, whatever he did, he would be hunted. His life, as he had known it, was over.
He peered over the edge of the cliff and, not for the first time in the two hours he had stood there, considered jumping.
The sun sank lower over the western horizon, sending out streamers of ruby light into the darkening sky. Behind him, the guttural roar of a motorbike found its way to his ears and he turned to see the distant plume of dust draw nearer.
Raine had taken the bike, the last of the Black Cat’s, fifteen miles to the small town to buy supplies. His speed, however, suggested that he had brought more than just supplies with him and, sure enough, about two miles behind the bike, obscured in a larger cloud of dust, thundered a small armada of police vehicles, their sirens wailing.
Raine skidded to a stop near him. “Benny,” he called. “Come on, we’ve got to go!”
King stared at him, unmoving.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got half the—”
“I’m not going,” he cut him off.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to turn myself in.”
“Are you insane?”
“I’m not like you, Nate!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Raine asked, irked. He looked behind at the advancing cloud of dust.
“We’re wanted men. Fugitives, outlaws. Where are we supposed to go? What are we supposed to do?”
“Well, for starters, we stay one step ahead of the law.” He glanced behind again.
“You mean run?”
“Run, skip, hop… whatever, if it’ll get you moving. Now come on!” he held his hand out in an attempt to drag his friend onto the back of the bike.
But King shook his head. “I remember what you told West, in the mine. About what it’s like to always be running. Always looking over your shoulder, wondering when they’re going to catch up with you. Running. Always running. And just when you get settled, you said,” he paused to catch a breath. Raine looked at him with concern. “Just when you think you’ve got it made and you can put what you’ve done behind you, something spooks you. Someone snooping around, asking too many questions about your past, who you are. And then you’re on the run again. Always running.”
Raine’s face was serious now too. He forgot about his pursuers for a moment and reflected on what he had said in the mine. How true the words were, he thought. He had thought, for one idiotic moment back during it all, that perhaps, just perhaps, he could stop running. But here he was again. Running from the government, from the law… running from his own pain.
Nadia’s final words repeated in his skull, just as they had been all day. “I… loved you.” Could it have been that he felt something for her too? Despite all that she had done, killing her had been one of the most painful decisions of his life. He had saved King’s soul, but only further condemned his own.
The police cars raced nearer. The sirens were loud now but Raine ignored them as he looked into King’s eyes. They held defeat.
“I don’t know how to run, Nate,” he admitted.
The police were almost upon them. Voices shouted at them in Japanese.
Maybe he was right, Raine thought. Maybe it would be easier to stop running, to turn himself in. Too many ghosts haunted him, former comrades, friends and lovers. Now Sid, Nadia, Rudy and Alex would join them. They would terrorise him in his sleep. Maybe the day would come to stop running. To lay his ghosts to rest.
But not today.
He held his hand out to his friend. “I’ll teach you how to run,” he vowed.
King hesitated a moment longer then, just as the police cars screeched to a stop around them, something clicked in his mind, a decision made. He vaulted onto the back of the bike. Raine gunned the throttle and shot through a narrow gap between the cars. Several of the officers fired at them but the bullets flew wide and, in a comical shambles, they struggled to pull their vehicles around and pursue the bike as it bounded down the steep slope to the cove below.
By the time the police made it to the beach, all they could do was watch as a Catalina Black Cat Flying Boat sliced through the waves, its engines rising up a pitch as it lifted out of the water and flew into the sunset.
“Oh man,” Raine grumbled when he realised what he had done.
“What?”
“I hate clichés!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Richardson works at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, where he is surrounded by inspirartion-inducing objects everyday. He is a keen traveler, having journeyed to over twenty countries in search of inspiration and settings for his novels.
Keep upto date with his latest news and release information at www.moonmask.webstarts.com or why not search for him on Facebook and Twitter.