“They continued on to Easter Island and found another piece of the Moon Mask which they stole from the island’s inhabitants and returned to their ‘treasure island.’ Now, the mask was almost complete. He had two pieces, he knew that Pryce’s benefactor had another, the Bouda piece, and planned to steal it from him. But there was still a final piece to be found. Again, he wore one of the masks, though whether it was the Egyptian or Easter Island piece I do not know, and saw where the final piece of it was. But when he described it to his crew — an underground city filled to the brim with human skulls and skeletons and ruled by hellish demons — they said he had described Davy Jones Locker. The pirate hell.”
Raine was taken aback by Mrs Marley’s description, picturing Xibalba in his head. But how could Kha’um have known that before he went there? Then again, Mrs Marley had said the book was more of a memoir than a diary, written when Emily Hamilton was an old lady. She must have escaped and written her own description instead of Kha’um’s exact words.
But that theory went out the window with Mrs Marley’s next words.
“Emily and Abubakar refused to accompany him, as did many of the crew.”
Then how could she have described his vision so accurately? he wondered.
“In a heated argument,” the Jamaican went on, “Emily accused Kha’um of being obsessed by his hunt for the mask. It had clouded his judgement and sent him to the brink of madness. And, to literally go into the jaws of hell itself, was beyond even that madness. And so they parted ways. Kha’um vowed to return, but he never did. Emily and Abubakar waited for almost two years before finally giving up hope of seeing him again. Pryce was rumoured to have followed Kha’um into ‘the Locker’ but whether that is true or not is a mystery.”
Raine had an urge to tell her all that he knew, to complete the unfinished story for her. He knew how the story of Kha’um and the Hand of Freedom had ended, at least to a point. He had seen ‘Davy Jones Locker’. He had seen the mortal remains of Edward Pryce and the Black Death himself.
Mrs Marley drew in a deep breath. She was not melancholy, like he might have expected. Instead, it seemed that she was relishing the opportunity to pass the burden of her family secret onto someone else.
“Emily took her fortune— some of the wealth they hadn’t buried on their Treasure Island— and changed her identity, founding this museum and starting a campaign for the freedom of slaves. She took a Negro husband — causing quite a stir — and died happy, asking her children only one thing. That they protect the location of the two pieces of the Moon Mask she had helped to find. For they hid a menace, she believed, a terror waiting to be unleashed upon the world. And, as I say, I have honestly never found her piece of the treasure map. But,” she added, “she does say that Abubakar returned to that land of frozen sand which he loved so much. And that’s probably where his map is. Somewhere in Patagonia.”
Raine grimaced. “Bit of a wide area to search,” he said.
Mrs Marley shrugged. “It’s the best I can do. If you want the map, you’ll have to find a way to narrow it down.”
Raine considered that for a moment. Patagonia was an immense area, covering over six hundred thousand miles of the southern-most region of South America. To narrow down Abubakar’s destination would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Not to mention that there were no guarantees that the region was his final destination. For all he knew, the Egyptian might have diverted his travels, or perished, along with the map, en route.
Nevertheless, he knew that King would be reading the diary right now. He would find a way to narrow down the search and, with Sid used as leverage, he’d have little choice but to reveal that information to his captors.
If King worked it out, then he’d have to as well.
He heard the distant whump of helicopter blades growing louder and turned to look across at the activity by the harbour front. One of the Jamaican Coastguard choppers had landed briefly but had now taken to the air again and turned towards the ruined museum. No doubt, by order of the U.N. Security Council, it had been lent to Gibbs and the survivors of his team.
It would take only seconds to travel the short distance.
“Mrs Marley,” Raine said urgently, shifting his intense eyes back to her. “We’re out of time. Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all?”
The old woman laughed. It wasn’t the same bitter cackle of before but carried with it a certain weariness. “You’re out of time?” she repeated as the chopper, a Bell 407, swung into a hover over the rooftop. A spear of light shot down and the aircraft’s side door slid open. Raine didn’t have to look to know that at least a couple of assault rifles were trained on his back.
“Stay where you are,” Gibbs’ voice boomed, amplified by the chopper’s speakers. “Do not move or we will shoot you!”
Raine had no intention of moving. He kept his eyes fixed on the Jamaican, straining to hear above the din as the helicopter lowered to the rooftop. His hair and clothes whipped wildly around him in the chopper’s backwash.
“There’s never enough time, is there, Mister Raine,” Mrs Marley said to him, seemingly oblivious to the chopper. “It’s a predator. It stalks us, hunts us our entire lives. And yet, complain as we do about there not being enough hours in the day, we do nothing but waste it! Until we run out of it. Until we hold a dying lover in our arms, wishing forever that we could turn back the clock, say what we didn’t say, do what we didn’t do.” Raine felt a pang of pain shoot through him as the old woman’s words dredged up bitter memories of a life wasted.
“But the Moon Mask can change all that,” she continued, both of them oblivious to the soldiers pouring out of the chopper and running towards them. The wind whirled like a hurricane, the noise thundered through his skull, but all Raine could focus on was the old woman’s words.
“Kha’um believed that the Moon Mask could control time,” she told him. “If he could harness its power, he could go back and save his wife and his son. But that would have given him the power over life and death and who was he to say who lived and who died, or even who does or does not exist! To control the Moon Mask is to control the power of god, and no man should have that power. You hear me, mon?” she reached up and grasped a chubby hand onto his shoulder.
“Hell, Raine!” Gibbs gasped as he halted beside him. Garcia and West stopped behind him, guns pointed at his head. “What the hell did you do to her?”
But Mrs Marley ignored the blood on her brightly coloured dress and even the gun totting soldiers around her. She stared fiercely at Raine, the very man who had tortured her only moments ago.
“That is why my family was entrusted to protect the mask,” she concluded. “And now, I pass that burden to you. Promise me, Mister Raine. Promise me that you’ll let no man take the power of god.”
He nodded weakly, stunned by her words. In some ways it seemed preposterous. Did she truly believe the legend about the mask’s abilities? Either way, her words were true. The power of the Moon Mask, the power of a tachyon bomb, was comparable to the power of god and she was right. No one man, nor nation, should control it.
“Promise me!” she demanded.
“I promise,” he said, and then she released him and lay back, gazing towards the east where the sun began to rise. She chuckled softly to herself.
“A new day,” she whispered.
Raine stood and turned towards the waiting chopper. Garcia and West kept their weapons on him but held their fire.
“This woman needs medical attention,” he told Gibbs.
“I’ll have an ambulance pick her up,” he replied tersely as they clambered into the belly of the waiting helicopter, hovering a meter above the weakened rooftop. “We’re heading to a U.S. Navy vessel to—”