Ahead, at the end of the water front, he saw the incredible sight of the old fashioned WWII-era Catalina Flying boat swoop in front of the bikes, its far-side wheel only half on the jetty, one wing out over the water, one wing millimetres away from the harbour side buildings.
Raine coaxed every last ounce of speed from his tortured bike.
The Black Cat’s rear loading ramp opened, scraping sparks as it hit the ground.
Raine flew towards his abducted friends.
The Black Cat slowed slightly.
The two fleeing bikes accelerated.
They bounded up the ramp and slammed into a safety net within the plane’s hold.
Raine gained on the slowing plane, racing only feet behind the now closing ramp. He saw the Team Leader inside, a smug expression upon his battered face.
And then the black plane accelerated, moving away from Raine’s bike.
It lifted off just as its forward wheels dropped off the end of the concrete jetty.
Raine didn’t slow, even with the end of the road literally in sight.
The plane took to the sky.
Raine hit the end of the jetty and both he and the bike, propelled by their phenomenal speed, took to the air also, sailing through it. He pushed off from the bike, arms outstretched, reaching desperately for the plane.
He fingers fell just short and with sickening realisation, Nathan Raine dropped down into the tranquil waters of the Caribbean while the enemy plane carrying Benjamin King and Alysya Siddiqa vanished into the blackness of the night sky.
30:
Tortured Souls
“What the hell went wrong?” Alexander Langley demanded over the communications link to Laurence Gibbs. He could hear the tension in the other man’s voice and a twisted part of him missed that post-action adrenaline come-down.
He experienced no such thing now, however. Whereas Gibbs was currently standing on the waterfront in Port Royal surrounded by emergency vehicles, Langley had been beating back the wolves. The Jamaicans were demanding an explanation for the explosive events in Port Royal while ‘those in the know’ were demanding answers to the exact same question he had just asked Gibbs.
“What went wrong?” Gibbs snapped. “Someone must have sold us out!”
Langley could understand that assumption. The operation in Jamaica had been top secret, known to only a handful of people. He had watched the entire event unfold from the safety of the U.N. Tactical Operations Centre (TOC), a state-of-the-art command facility located five stories beneath the Secretariat Building. It was laced with so much fancy, ultra-modern, state-of-the-art surveillance technology that Langley felt like he was standing on the set of a science-fiction movie. He remembered the first time he had seen a TOC, newly recruited from the Rangers to Delta Force. He had been awed then by the array of computers — boxy, bulky, beige-coloured machines with enormous monitors and tangled knots of spaghetti-like cables trailing to telephones and headsets. Archaic by today’s standards. Here, there wasn’t a cable in sight. The computers were waiver-thin, the keyboards nothing but fully customisable projections which somehow knew what non-existent key one was tapping. He felt like a dinosaur, reborn into the twenty-first century.
An NSA satellite had given him and his action group a real-time feed of the assault which had been projected onto a wall-spanning SMART screen. Dozens of other sleek-looking computers littered the dimly lit space, collating shared intelligence from all member states of the Security Council. He had purposely included service men and women from numerous countries into his action group to prove to the doubters in the council that the mission to find the Moon Mask was indeed a joint U.N. venture and hadn’t been hijacked by the United States. Nevertheless, no one on the team knew what it was the Special Forces team was after, referring to the Moon Mask at all times as ‘the package.’
“It was Raine,” Gibbs said vehemently over the com-link. “It was all part of his escape plan. Now he’s got King and the book he’ll find the rest of the package and sell it to the highest bidder.”
“Raine knew nothing about the mission’s destination or objective until you and King briefed him en-route. And you’ve restricted his access to all com equipment.”
In truth, that had been one of President Harper’s provisos in releasing Raine. He’d be a free man once the mission was completed. Until that time, however, he would have no access to communications technology of any kind, including mobile phones and computers. The only thing he was permitted was an isolated shortwave radio to keep in contact with the team. There was no way he could have gotten a message to the still unknown attackers.
“Besides,” he continued. “From what I saw, Raine did everything he could to stop those men.”
“All theatrical, sir. Staged to make his escape look convincing. He’s been in with these people from day one. How else do you explain the same soldiers that were in Venezuela showing up here?”
Langley was about to offer a further argument when he was interrupted by one of the TOC’s technicians. He handed him a data tablet. “Sir, we got a hit on one of the soldiers.”
Langley glanced at the profile. During the fighting the satellite they had been using had snapped a usable photograph of the hostiles’ leader. They had run it through watch lists from the NSA, CIA and FBI as well as Interpol. They’d got lucky.
Gibbs scanned through the document which Langley had just uploaded to the laptop. He ignored the noise of the emergency sirens, the flashing blue and red lights, the sounds of screaming and crying emanating from the injured and bereaved party-goers. Several helicopters circled the town, some from story-hungry media outlets, and others from the Jamaican coastguard.
Acting under the authority of the United Nations Security Council, Gibbs had been allowed to isolate the survivors of his team on the jetty, leaving it to Langley to smooth it over with the Jamaican government. Only five minutes ago, Garcia and West had retrieved the two cases containing the piece of the Moon Mask and the Fake Mask from the remains of the helicopter. Built to withstand a nuclear blast, the black shells had suffered only minor grazing when the helicopter crashed to the ground. It had been easy enough to locate their transponder codes within the burning wreckage of the Super Stallion. David Sykes’ body on the other hand had been charred to a crisp.
Anger stirred in the pit of his stomach at the loss of his comrades. Nelson and Sykes were dead. Lake had ejected just in time but had sustained severe bruising upon landing. Garcia and O’Rourke had suffered burns and shrapnel wounds when the enemy had blown the museum’s north wall.
Pushing his thoughts about the sorry state of his team aside for the moment, he read the details on the man he recognised as the enemy team leader displayed on the laptop.
Captain William ‘Bill’ Willis had apparently served in the Australian SAS. Although his service record, as was to be expected, was unavailable, it was known that he was dishonourably discharged. Following that, he had been recruited by C.H. Logistics, a mercenary unit based in South Africa before branching out on his own. Now self-employed, he ran numerous mercenary operations, charging his clients disgustingly large sums of money for his services.
He knew that mercenaries were being used by world governments more and more each year, bringing much needed man power to the War on Terror. But Willis’ operation was small and did not come in to consult or even to add numbers as IED cannon fodder in Afghanistan. He was only called in when a particular job needed completing. In the sometimes seedy world of mercs, he was the best of the best, running a highly paid, highly trained ‘Delta Force’ of men for those that could afford it. No questions asked. He was brutal, but he got the job done.