Peering carefully through the tent flap, he updated that map with the enemy’s most recent locations.
There were two guards outside the mess tent’s main entrance, their backs to him. Rain water flowed off their NBC suits. Silently, he closed the flap then made his way through the large tent to the far side. He peeled back the rear exit and pinpointed another two soldiers standing there.
“What’s going on?” one of the scientists asked, leaning up from where he lay. Raine ignored him and returned to Nadia’s side.
“Where’s the mask now?” he asked.
A moment’s hesitation washed over the woman’s face. “I hid it,” she replied.
“I guessed as much.”
“Where?” King asked, concerned for the mask’s safety.
“It is in my lab,” she said.
Raine frowned and peeled back the front entrance once more, just enough to peer more deeply into the small canvass village the expedition had erected. There were five more guards patrolling the perimeter of the camp but the rest of the black-clad figures were sweeping through the tents, systematically searching the labs while waving long wand-like devices around. Radiation detectors.
“It won’t be safe for long,” he said.
“I hid it inside a lead container in my lab and covered it with earth. Even if the soldiers have calibrated their scanners to detect tachyon radiation, the lead should shield it.”
Raine watched the end of an overturned workbench suddenly appear through the doorway of one of the labs. “They’re going to find it sooner or later.” He looked at his three companions. All trace of the mischievous, easy-go-lucky flyboy had vanished. The man in front of them now was focused and intense. “We need to keep it away from the Chinese until the U.S. special ops team gets here.”
“You mean the team you were trying to run away from not ten minutes ago?” King asked bitterly. Raine felt a pang of anger rush through him but fought it back down.
“What do you mean?” Sid asked.
Raine ignored her. “I could try to get it into the jungle. Hide it somewhere where it won’t be found.”
King laughed. “Or sell it to the highest bidder, more like.”
“Ben!” Sid hissed angrily.
Another stab of anger hit Raine but he turned his grimace into an ironic grin. “Still don’t trust me, Benny?”
Sid grasped King’s forearm and shot him an angry look before turning back to Raine. “Couldn’t you just fly it out?”
“Great idea,” he replied. King wouldn’t meet his gaze. “If someone hadn’t shot up my helicopter.”
Sid glared at her boyfriend. “You did what?”
“We can’t let the Americans have it,” Nadia cut in, more concerned with the immediate crisis than the men’s differences. “No one should have that sort of power. Not America, not China, not Russia.”
“I agree,” Raine said. “No one should have that sort of power.” He glanced at his companions each in turn. “But short of us trying to hide the mask for another gazillion years, I don’t see what we can do about it. Someone is going to get the mask. Either China or America.”
“And good-old-righteous America is obviously more deserving of such awesome power,” King snarled.
“No. But Nadia is right. No one should control that sort of power.” He paused to allow his emphasis to sink in. “No one nation should control the mask.” He shrugged. “But that’s just it. This is a UNESCO expedition, right?”
“Right.”
“And UNESCO is a United Nations organisation. The fact that Mister Nipple-inski lied to us means he knows the truth about the mask, and that means the U.N. knows all about it too.”
He had had enough involvement with the upper echelons of global diplomacy to understand everyone’s current position.
“I don’t doubt that the United States government would kill to get their hands on this technology,” he continued, knowing the literal truth behind his words. “But right now their hands are tied. They’d love for this to have been kept secret. They’d have sent in their SFs and taken the mask from under our noses. But we screwed that up for them by alerting UNESCO to our little medical crisis. Now, a dossier about tachyon radiation is sitting on some schmuck’s desk at the U.N. Security Council. The only way for the U.S. to come out of this without looking like a villain desperate to snatch the Moon Mask for their own greedy little purpose, is to come out of it looking like the noble hero. They’ll swoop in under the banner of the United Nations, snatch the mask out of the hands of the unscrupulous Chinese and hand it over to U.N. custody. They look like the good guys while the Chinese look like the villains.”
He paused, reading his companions faces. There was uncertainty there, fear. “Power in this world,” he concluded, “balances on the head of a pin. If what you say is correct, Nadia—”
“Which it is.”
“-then the Moon Mask has the potential to shift that balance dramatically one way or another. If China gets it, the face of global power will shift in their favour. They’ll have the ultimate weapon at their disposal. But if the American team gets it, unless they’re willing to stir up the world’s biggest shit-storm, it will be handed over to the U.N. The fate of the mask will be decided by a coalition of countries, not by one single power.”
Silence descended upon them all as Raine’s words sank in. He knew his logic was sound and, despite wanting to resist, he could see King’s face dawn with comprehension. He couldn’t argue.
“The Americans are still an hour away,” Sid pointed out.
“The Chinese will find the mask before then,” Nadia added.
“I need to get to it,” Raine said. “I’ll find somewhere to hide—”
“The tunnels,” King said. Raine glanced at him. He could still see the suspicion in the other man’s eyes but, for the moment, he had no choice but to trust him. “There are almost two miles of tunnels all criss-crossing and intersecting one another below out feet. If we can get to them—”
“We?” Raine asked.
“The Moon Mask is the ultimate realisation of everything I’ve worked for, everything my father worked for. Died for. You think I’m gonna let you run off and stick it on EBay or something?”
Sid’s face paled considerably. “You heard what Sanderson said. They’ll shoot anyone who—”
“I’ve got to do this, Sid,” King cut her off. Raine watched the exchange. It was like some form of telepathy, a silent conversation passing between the lovers’ eyes. After a moment, Sid stepped down.
“Just be careful,” she warned him.
“You just better keep up with me, Benny,” Raine added his own caution.
“I’ll be leaving you standing, flyboy,” he shot back testily before returning his attention to Sid. He thwarted any further objections with a kiss. “I’ll be fine,” he promised.
A look of grim determination set across Raine’s face. “What is it Elvis says, Benny: a little less conversation, a little more action, please?”
He pulled the skirt of the tent up and scanned the camp again, noting the soldiers’ most recent positions and determining the best route to take to Nadia’s lab. A line of shipping crates was dotted haphazardly near the back of the mess tent and would provide some cover from most of the guards except for the two at the tent’s rear entrance.
He dropped the skirt and stood, making his way towards the back of the tent, the three scientists in tow. “We’re going to need a distraction,” he told them.
“Like what?” Nadia asked.
Raine grinned lecherously at her. “You could always flash ‘em.”
Nadia scowled. “This isn’t some ridiculous Hollywood movie,” she said, “and not all men are as pathetic as you as to be distracted by breasts.”