With gut wrenching dread, he stared up at the sky and realised that the thudding in his ears was not his own heartbeat… but the beating of propellers.
Ripping through the fabric of the storm, three black helicopters wheeled about above the summit. Sharks, circling for the kill.
“Shit!” Raine cursed and glared at King, a sudden urge to smash his face in getting swamped in the chaos of the moment. Lines rolled out of the choppers and black-clad soldiers began to descend on the mountain top.
There was no escape.
8:
Tachyon
In a whirl of dust and debris blown up by the three helicopters’ downdrafts, ten men from the chopper hovering nearest to the stricken Huey zipped down lines. Weapons raised, they immediately spread out — five of them hurrying off towards the science tents, two towards the mess tent and three running straight for Raine and King.
Shielding his eyes from the storm of spinning dust, rain and loose vegetation, Raine noticed that all the men wore unmarked, black NBC suits. Their faces were covered by breathing apparatus so that only their eyes could be seen. Through the gloom and the chaos of the drenching storm, they looked like escaped extras from a science fiction movie.
One of the soldiers shouted at them but Raine couldn’t make out the words above the roar of the choppers and the pounding of the raindrops. He gestured with his ear as the soldier stepped closer, his weapon levelled at his chest.
Could he have been recognised already?
“Both of you, come with us!” the soldier shouted again.
The helicopters moved away, scouting out landing sites so that the medical team could be dispatched now that the SFs had secured the vicinity. One by one, the enormous metal beasts began to touch down, remorselessly crushing the unique, often endemic vegetation of Sarisariñama without regard.
The soldier waved his rifle, a QBZ-95, Raine noted. “Move! Now!”
“Alright,” Raine raised his hands above his head.
“You too,” he snapped at King. Raine felt a small surge of relief flood through him. If the archaeologist was being treated the same way as him then it meant he hadn’t been singled out and identified. Yet.
At gun point, Raine and King were led across the table mountain’s summit, back down the slippery path to the mess tent. They were pushed less than gently inside.
“You’re early,” King pointed out to the soldier. “Not that your punctuality isn’t welcome, mind you.”
Raine had noticed that also. A.D. Nebrinski had said the team would be with them in around three hours. That was less than two hours ago. He also noticed something else.
“You haven’t identified yourself. Who the hell are you?”
There was a moment’s hesitation. It was fractional, but defiantly there.
“I am Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Sanderson, United States Special Forces,” the man said crisply.
Raine detected the merest hint of an accent hidden amongst the clipped, practiced American drawl. He glanced at the man’s weapon again; QBZ-95 assault rifle. And the helicopters were all Harbin Z-9s.
He glanced around the tent’s interior. The arrival of the American forces had stirred up a mixture of excitement and relief, but also a little fear. The soldiers’ masked faces were less than friendly and their demeanour was brusque, even to the very sick. In fact, he noticed that none of the medical staff had even entered yet.
“There are a lot of sick people here, Lieutenant-Colonel,” he said to Sanderson. “How’re you gonna get them all out in just three helicopters?”
Again there was a pause. Subtle, but there.
“Larger transport ships are on their way,” he replied.
King scanned the tent, noticing how anyone who was not in it was being marched in through the open flap. Several of the scientists who were only displaying minor symptoms had been attempting to pack up and secure several of the more important specimens they had collected over the months. They were being rounded up and herded together like cattle.
“Why are you treating us like criminals?” he demanded.
“It is important to assemble you all in one place so that we can set up a secure perimeter,” Sanderson replied. Then, without preamble, he raised his voice to address the entire tent.
“My name is Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Sanderson, United States Special Forces.” The muted chatter faded to silence as all eyes fell expectantly upon the soldier.
“As you are all aware, you have been infected with a highly contagious virus and you, this camp and this entire mountain have been officially quarantined under the authorisation of the World Health Organisation. Medical teams are on site and shall begin administering to the sick in short order, but in the meantime I must ask that you all remain here. Guards will be posted on all access points to this tent and anyone attempting to leave will be shot.”
His blunt statement received several horrified gasps from the gathered expedition. Without another word, Sanderson ducked back out of the opening and the flap was allowed to fall back into place.
“Ben!” Raine heard Sid call as the conversations in the tent tentatively started back up. She pushed her way through the milling throngs, disturbed from their sickbeds by the soldiers’ arrival, and ran to King’s side. He embraced her, kissed her head then moved her back to assess her health.
Her skin was deathly pale, Raine noted. Her eyes were yellow and blood-shot and the reddening on her hand had begun to blister.
“You should be resting,” King admonished her.
“I’m fine,” she shrugged him off and glanced at Raine. His crystal-blue eyes panned across the tent, scanning each person’s face in turn. Someone was missing.
“Where’s Nadia?”
“I don’t know,” Sid replied. “After our… discussion earlier, she left the mess tent. I’ve not seen her since.”
As if on cue, the tent flaps were suddenly flung open and Nadia was practically thrown inside.
“Where were you?” Sid asked as she hurried to her friend’s side.
Nadia’s hard eyes caught her face and expressed a sense of dread. She gestured them all into a corner away from the main congregation and dropped her voice. Her own illness was developing, Raine noticed, glancing at her blistering arm and sickly, pale face.
“They lied to us,” she whispered to them.
“What?” King asked. “Who?”
“The Americans, WHO, UNESCO, Assistant Director Nebrinski… and these men.”
“Whoa,” Raine said to slow her down. “What have they lied about, Nadia?”
Her eyes met his, serious and severe, yet somewhere in the sapphire orbs Raine could see the same fear that ran through them all.
“There is no virus,” she explained then glanced at King. “You were right all along, Ben. The Moon Mask is cursed.”
“What?” Sid was shocked. Nadia was the last person she had expected to get sucked into the saga of the mask.
“We are not suffering from a virus,” she subconsciously rubbed her arm. “We are suffering from the effects of radiation poisoning.”
That didn’t make any sense to Raine. “I thought you said you had scanned for radiation?”
“I did. There was none.”
“Then what—”
“After our discussion earlier, I recalibrated my equipment to scan for one particular type of radiation. I detected some and traced its source.” She looked significantly at King. “The piece of the Moon Mask, the smaller jaw section,” she clarified, “is composed entirely out of iridium.” She clarified further for the three blank stares. “At temperatures below 0.14 kelvins, iridium becomes a superconductor, which means it has virtually no electrical resistance. What is peculiar here, however, is that it is emitting tachyon radiation.”