Carefully, he moved his hands onto her hips. He felt a tremble quake through her, a desire to let go perhaps, but she didn’t. She pressed her lips more firmly against his. He traced his finger up the curve of her back, the sensation sending an entirely new tremble through her body. She felt the touch flare in her belly, a sudden yearning, a longing.
She reached out and closed the door, blocking out the midnight sky, then took his hand and led him to the bed.
“Nadia,” his voice whispered. “We don’t have to—”
“Shh,” she placed a finger on his lips then removed it and replaced it with her own lips. They were still gentle, soft and probing and Raine felt that closeness excite him in a way he hadn’t experienced for so long. He had become so used to heated, animalistic passion, like that night with Lake, that he had forgotten the intensity of such intimacy. “No more words,” she whispered.
Then, as promised, without another word, they proceeded to undress each other, hands probing, lips tasting. They fell onto the bed, their naked bodies wrapping around one another, consuming one another.
For one night at least, their pain was forgotten; their scars were healed, and the two casualties of the brutality of the world, at last, found peace.
King awoke to the scarlet haze of predawn. His body was soaked in a cold sweat and the lingering sentiments of a bad dream toyed with his mind, vague images, faces obscured by the mist of slumber, hidden just beyond reach. But the first thing he thought about was his dead father and he knew that was a lingering tendril of the dream.
Despite only a few hours of disturbed rest, he felt reinvigorated, alive at last following the tedium of the last two days since he and Raine had found Kha’um’s stash.
He felt he had purpose again, as though whatever it was that had occurred in his dreams had helped him to come to a decision. One, he realised, that he had already come to but hadn’t quite been ready to embrace.
Slipping stealthily out of bed, trying not to disturb Sid who lay wrapped up in the sheet beside him, he pulled on his cargo trousers, t-shirt, socks and shoes but, just as he was about to open the door, he turned back to the bed. Carefully leaning over, he kissed Sid gently on her head then looked at her serene, beautiful features.
“Don’t hate me,” he pleaded to her sleeping form, then he slipped out of the room and made his way across the base. The sun had not yet risen but it did cast a molten glow amidst the eastern clouds. Bird song sang from the trees and a cool breeze brought out goose bumps on his arms but he ignored it all as he headed directly towards the dull grey building block in which the base’s bio-hazard lab was situated. He flashed the ID card he had been issued at the two NATO soldiers which stood guard by the entrance then stepped into the long sterile corridor, retracing his steps to the hazmat lab.
Following the retrieval of the Moon Mask from the wreckage of West’s plane, it had been brought here and surrounded by NATO troops. The only people allowed into the building, as per the agreement Langley had made with the NATO commanders, was the U.N. scientists and SOG team.
Rudy O’Rourke and Garcia sat on plastic chairs outside the entrance to the hazardous materials lab. The team had been taking it in turns to guard the mask since it had been brought here.
“Hey Doc,” O’Rourke greeted him. Following the events of the past days, King no longer felt like an outsider but was beginning to detect a sense of camaraderie from the Special Forces unit. “Early bird gets the worm, huh?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he explained. “Something’s been bugging me about something I noticed on the mask yesterday.” Due to his ‘immunity,’ King had been the only person allowed to examine the mask. Covered head-to-toe in a hazmat suit, he had spent several hours the previous morning poring over all the pieces of the mask, as well as the ‘fake’ mask in hopes they might reveal a clue as to the final piece’s location. “I wanted to get in there and take a look.”
O’Rourke winced a little. “You know I’m not supposed to let anyone in there without Gibbs’ direct authorisation.”
“He gave me his authorisation yesterday, remember,” he replied innocently. O’Rourke still wasn’t convinced so King added; “Call him then, he’s only going to say yes anyway, but probably be grouchy about being woken.”
O’Rourke sighed. “Go on,” he said reluctantly. This was the only egress to and from the sealed lab and a security screen was affixed to the opposite wall of the corridor. “I’ll help you suit up.”
Several minutes later, after O’Rourke had checked all the seals on King’s hazmat suit, he opened the decontamination unit’s door and King stepped in. As the door was sealed behind him, a blast of mist hissed out of the unit’s vents and cleaned his suit. Once the process was complete, a red light on the opposite door turned green and King pushed into the hazmat lab.
Utilitarian, the room was airtight and its reinforced walls were lined with lead. Designed precisely for the purpose of containing any hazardous material, it was the only place on the base where the tachyons couldn’t escape and do any harm. Nevertheless, as an added precaution, the mask had been left sealed inside a new lead-line case on a workbench in the centre of the room.
King proceeded to unclip the case and open it. Staring back at him were the three pieces of the Moon Mask forming a broken circle. They were lodge securely in the case’s foam padding which held them together in their nearly-complete state. One by one, he plucked each piece of the mask out, turned it over then lay it back down, pushing it firmly into the padding so that the inside of the mask faced upwards.
Then, hesitating for only a second, he reached up and ripped his hazmat suit’s hood from off of his head. The blast of the lab’s air was cool and refreshing.
Almost immediately, as he had expected, O’Rourke’s voice echoed through the lab’s speakers: “Doc, what the hell are you doing?! Put your hood back on!”
But King knew the soldier wouldn’t barge into the lab until he had donned his own suit. By that time, it would be too late.
Reaching tentatively into the case, King clutched the edges of the foam innards and carefully peeled it out. It had effectively ‘glued’ the three pieces together and he raised the entire conglomeration to his face. He took a deep breath. Closed his eyes. Then settled the mask onto his face.
Instantly, he felt a wave of nausea sweep through him and he staggered, reaching out with a hand to steady himself against the worktop. But the worktop was not there! Instead, there was the wooden wheel of a ship, then the stone altar of a temple, a metal bulkhead, a brick wall, and then nothing, and he fell forwards, tumbling into an abyss of emptiness. He felt his eyes searing as though they were on fire. He felt his brain swell within his skull and throb like a pulsating star. Images flashed before his eyes, a thousand faces, a thousand landscapes, some he knew, others which were as alien to him as another world.
Then, unable to control the searing agony, Benjamin King dropped to the ground and screamed.
The screaming didn’t stop for hours.
47:
The Philadelphia Experiment
“Okay, okay, I’m coming already!” Rasta-Man-872 shouted to whoever it was that was incessantly pounding his door bell.
Of course, any preconceptions of Rasta-Man-872 being of African origins went out the window the moment one took a look at the ultra-skinny five-foot-one mousy-looking man whose skin was as pale as a polar-bear’s hide. The ambiguous dreadlocks which went down to the middle of his back and the brightly coloured clothes he wore looked ridiculous on him but Rasta Man didn’t care. He often said that he was a black man trapped inside a white man’s body. His walls were adorned with posters of Bob Marley, ultraviolet lights cultivated his crop of marihuana and when he talked he tried to put a Jamaican inflection into his boyish voice.