Mountains of the Moon Read online

  MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON

  A Nick Caine Adventure #8

  by

  K.T. TOMB

  Created by

  J.R. Rain & Aiden James

  Acclaim for the authors:

  “Gripping, adventurous, and romantic—J.R. Rain’s The Lost Ark is a breakneck thriller that traces the thread of history from Biblical stories to current-day headlines. Be prepared to lose sleep!”

  —James Rollins, international bestselling author of Bloodline

  “Aiden James has written a deeply psychological, gripping tale that keeps the readers hooked from page one.”

  —Bookfinds on The Forgotten Eden

  “J.R. Rain delivers a blend of action and wit that always entertains. Quick with the one-liners, but his characters are fully fleshed out (even the undead ones) and you’ll come back again and again.”

  —Scott Nicholson, bestselling author of The Red Church

  “The intense writing style of Aiden James kept my eyes glued to the story and the pages seemed to fly by at warp speed. Twists, turns, and surprises pop up at random times to keep the reader off balance. It all blends together to create one of the best stories I have read all year.”

  —Huntress Reviews for The Devil’s Paradise

  The Nick Caine Adventures

  by J.R. Rain and Aiden James

  1. Temple of the Jaguar

  2. Treasure of the Deep

  3. Pyramid of the Gods

  by Aiden James

  4. Curse of the Druids

  5. Secret of the Loch

  6. River of the Damned

  by K.T. Tomb

  7. Map of the Masons

  8. Mountains of the Moon

  9. Order of the Cyclops

  10. Labyrinth of the Minotaur

  11. Blade of the Ripper

  Mountains of the Moon

  Copyright © 2016 by J.R. Rain and Aiden James

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Reading Sample

  About the Author

  Mountains of the Moon

  Prologue

  “The days of exploration of Shackleton and Scott are long gone. Everything has been climbed, crossed, done. Now what we're exploring are the full boundaries of human endeavor. It's not physical - it's all in the head.” —Lewis Gordon Pugh

  So... now what?

  I felt a huge let down after Ishi and I risked our necks to get our hands on the stone tablet we’d come to know as The Map of the Masons. It was a five-sided stone slab bearing Hebrew and Arabic letters, which we’d retrieved from a maze of underground caverns hidden beneath San Andres Island in the Caribbean. Our interest in the mission was fueled by an agreement we’d made with William Spence. Namely, that our five-year contract with Project Golden Eye would be terminated, and my Tawankan partner and I would be free from bondage to the United States government.

  With one of the hottest women I’d ever met in my life as our guide and scuba-diving instructor, Ishi and I were determined to get the job done quickly. In spite of the fact that meddling with the Map meant trespassing on the Illuminati’s turf, it was a chance that seemed worth the risk. But even before we’d left the airport to meet our guide and start out on our quest, we were already being followed.

  With hostile agents closing in around us, we soon discovered that our cheerful, native guide was a good bit more than she appeared, especially after watching her make short work, with bare hands and feet, of our adversaries. Catalina Galvan had insisted we call her Cat, and eventually revealed Colombian Special Forces had trained her. Her specialty was infiltrating narco-terrorist groups hiding in the Colombian mountains, and assassinating their leaders. Spence had assigned her to us because she could serve the purpose of an undercover bodyguard as well as a guide.

  I’ll admit that I fell for her pretty hard. Hell, I was still reeling from the loss of Marie Da Vinci, and it didn’t hurt that Catalina seemed nuts about me too… at least, at first. We’d stumbled onto the key to finding the Map of the Masons that Captain Morgan—the pirate, not the beverage—had buried beneath San Andres. Actually, I found the key when I got laid out on my back by Agent Stone and saw it sketched out on the ceiling, but who’s keeping score on how the Universe delivered a moment of good fortune?

  We retrieved the stone tablet with Cat’s help, and holed up for the night at her personal hideout. In celebration of our success, I drank a little too much Captain Morgan… the beverage, not the pirate… and awakened to find that Cat had disappeared, along with the Map of the Masons. Not to mention, she left a neat little trail for agents Stone and Lacey to find us.

  In the end, we made it off of San Andres Island with our heads still attached,. However, we arrived back in Washington with nothing to show for our efforts. I remained mystified as to why Cat had run off with Ishi and my ticket to freedom, made worse when she and her near-twin sister greeted us at Spence’s West Virginia Mountains hideaway after having delivered the Map to our boss in our stead.

  I doubt this is what she meant when lying together in bed and telling me this was the ‘beginning of a beautiful relationship’.

  Not only were we not given any answers as to what the map meant or why Spence wanted it so badly, but all we had to show for the dangerous excursion was a pat on the back and an ‘atta boy’.

  Do I really need to explain how disinterested I was in continuing in the service of PGE? If not for the ever-present threat of spending the rest of our lives behind bars for our previous acts of ‘artifact pillaging’, as Spence likes to call it these days, I would’ve gladly told him to make a personal enema our of his hollow praise.

  Having been hung out to dry in a situation far beyond our control wasn’t the last straw in the enormous betrayal that had taken place, however. Ishi and I were given yet another assignment under the guise of “letting you guys chill” until our release from bondage could hopefully be arranged. If only our chilling locale was some place in the States….

  No, of course not. It might as well have been bum-fuck Egypt…. We were being sent to Mongolia, with none other than Cat and her sister. Of course, as is the usual case for these things, our trip to Mongolia was only a warm-up for something bigger, woven into yet another elaborate scheme.

  Our latest “official” PGE and Spence sponsored adventure… The “Mountains of the Moon”.

  Really?

  I’d read the legends and even sat in on a lecture of the subject during my parents’ time at Cairo University. Apparently, it’s based on a concept that has long fascinated archaeologists, cartologists and explorers to this day. Even with all the modern technology available, the source of the Nile eludes documentation. I remember one lecturer putting it a bit like this:

  “The source of the Nile River has been a matter of speculation
for thousands of years and throughout the history of cartography, the Mountains of the Moon has emerged as one of the most consistent and enduring apocryphal elements. Although the Mountains of the Moon, and two or three associated lakes, have been mapped by cartographers from the 14th to the early 19th century as the source of the Nile River, it has always been remarkable that this one feature was consistently thought of and placed on maps as being in the otherwise blank, unexplored or speculative interior of Africa.

  “It leaves us to wonder: From whence did this idea come?

  “Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, was probably the first to compile and record some of the various theories of the river’s origins that came up in his time. He noted that ancient Egyptians believed the Nile had its source in an eternal spring which were located within two great mountains to the south. From those mountains, one branch of the river was thought to flow north, dividing Egypt into the west and the east, while the other flowed south into Nubia and Ethiopia. The priests from whom Herodotus extracted this theory were from Sa el-Hagar, an ancient Egyptian town in the Western Nile Delta on the Canopic branch of the Nile. They believed the mountains laid somewhere between Thebes and Aswan, but even in those times, the Nile had already been explored well into Nubia and the theory already proven to be false.

  “Several other theories are mentioned in the Greek historian’s writings, one of which mentions it was believed by some that the annual inundation of the Nile River’s waters was caused by the seasonal melting of snowfall at its source. The Greek spurned this theory based upon the fact that the lands in the south which lie closer to the equator are quite hot, indeed the closer one travels toward that delineating mark the warmer the climate becomes. How then, it was asked, could there be snow in such a place? Despite being wholeheartedly dismissed by Herodotus, this theory is actually the closest one to the truth.”

  As duly noted in my previous journals, I’ve always been one who’s up for a challenge. But this one brings enough trepidation that both Ishi and I looked at each other with wide eyes that screamed, “Abort! Abort!”

  Admittedly, there’s something quite creepy and sinister about Spence’s increasingly dangerous missions, and it’s hard not to picture him as a rubber-masked sadist in his private moments. But to back out now? Well, that returns us to the prospect of getting acquainted with an equally sadistic prison bubba, which neither Ishi nor me are ready for any time soon.

  As Max Bialystock aptly said once, “we’re in too deep”.

  So, here’s hoping you’ll still be there when we come out of this alive… if we survive.

  Chapter One

  “For me, exploration is about that journey to the interior, into your own heart. I'm always wondering, how will I act at my moment of truth? Will I rise up and do what's right, even if every fiber of my being is telling me otherwise?” —Ann Bancroft

  We were at the intersection of “where the hell are we” and “who the hell cares.” Being completely honest, a shadow hovered over my entire demeanor during our stay in Mongolia. It had started back in “who the hell knows,” West Virginia, when I’d discovered that our beautiful Colombian scuba-instructor and guide on San Andres Island wasn’t exactly who I’d thought she was.

  In spite of Ishi’s admonitions against it, I’d fallen for her and hard; not my usual M.O. It made things awkward to have Cat and her sister accompanying Ishi and me to Mongolia. For the first time in my life, I avoided rather than give in to the allure of a stunningly beautiful woman. Besides being forced to work alongside Cat and her nearly identical sister, the item we were after held a great deal more irony, and perhaps a divine message hidden somewhere in it. Well, not in the dagger itself, but in the circumstances that went along with its existence and why it was of particular interest to our boss, William Spence and Project Golden Eye.

  The Xian Dagger, for lack of a better title, had disappeared after being used by a Xian princess to emasculate Genghis Khan—a wound from which he never recovered from. In a jointly funded expedition by the United States and Chinese governments, PGE had been tasked to recover this particular historical artifact from deep in the Mongolian mountains.

  The two Galvan sisters, Ishi, and myself had been sent to make the recovery. In truth, Ishi’s and my participation was largely influenced by the need to disappear from Western circulation in light of being placed on a Masonic Order or Illuminati hit list. Even so, we kept a watchful eye out for assassins that might’ve followed us to Asia, yet somehow we’d made it through most of our trip without signs of anyone following us. We soon reached the Gobi Desert, where our latest contact was supposed to meet us along the Chinese/Mongolian border east of Hami City; somewhere near the Qarliq Tagh Mountains in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. We’d had our sights focused on a particular set of mountains to our southwest for a couple of days, where it was difficult to tell if we had crossed the border into China or were still in Mongolia. It had always been my amused observation that in this region there wasn’t a wall or fence erected since no one gave a damn where one country ended and the other started.

  “What do you want to bet this is part of the plan to get rid of our asses?” I muttered to Ishi, as we settled in our tent for the night and crawled beneath the welcomed comfort of our thermally insulated sleeping bags. It was amazing how the same desert that tried to kill us with heat during the day tried to freeze us to death at night.

  “I’d rather be here than where the assassins can find us,” he responded, alluding to our belief that the remainder of our days among the living had likely become quite limited since we’d left the secret meeting with Spence in Panama City.

  “They can find us any time they want, Ish,” I said. “For all we know, Cat and Nat are on the Illuminati’s payroll.”

  We’d taken to calling Catalina and Natalia Galvan, the two Colombians that had accompanied us on our trip to Mongolia, by those nicknames, despite my aversion to being stuck with the pair. Both gals had been specially trained by the Colombian government to infiltrate narcotrafficking organizations and bring down their leadership, according to Cat. I’d seen some pretty impressive stuff out of her while we were in San Andres, so I’d bought that story. But the events that had taken place since we were hoodwinked out of recovering the Masons’ famous map inspired all sorts of doubt in my mind as to their true identity and loyalties. I vowed to steer clear of allowing Cat to draw me in again.

  Worse yet, she acted as if my coolness was no big deal to her, although she initially tried to explain her treachery to me, evidently feeling a little guilt for leading me on. But, admittedly, I wasn’t all that interested in hearing her excuses… Call me stubborn with an ax to grind—my usual way in dealing with betrayal.

  “Hell, the two of them might’ve been directed to bring us out here to die, leaving our dry bones to glisten in the desert sun,” I added, after a long pause.

  “I don’t know… they seem alright to me.”

  If it hadn’t been dark in the tent, Ishi would have seen my jaw drop. Ever the one to doubt a woman’s sincerity, I was shocked to hear those words come from the lips of my Tawankan partner. It made me wonder if Nat, who I’d seen him warming up to, had worn down his usual protectiveness. It was the last thing said between us before we both succumbed to our weariness.

  A terrible scream woke us both shortly after midnight. Ishi and I scrambled out of the tent, ready to attack whatever man or beast had invaded our sleeping camp. I arrived at the gal’s tent just in time to rescue a terrified Chinese man from Cat and Nat, who might’ve killed our ‘contact’ if I hadn’t stopped them.

  “You Nick Caine?” he asked, after I’d convinced the Galvan sisters to let the unarmed man explain his sudden presence in the wee hours of the morning. Badly frightened, his voice trembled as he kept his wary gaze trained mostly on the sisters.

  “Yep.”

  “Me,” he started, pointing to himself nervously. ”Me am, your contact.”

  After a series of questions an
d responses painstakingly muddled out of a combination of simplified English on my part and broken unsure words on his, the man identified himself as Bai Gen, the guy we’d been waiting for. It took a thorough review of his I.D. and a printed letter from Agent Spence before Cat and Nat were satisfied he was the real deal.

  “Glad you didn’t kill the man before grilling him,” I groused, focusing mostly on Cat. “We’d never have gotten out of this godforsaken place.”

  “He should have announced himself, instead of creeping around in the dark,” Cat countered.

  “Would you have preferred the guy, who barely speaks English, to announce his arrival in his native tongue or come here beating a drum or blowing on a trumpet?”

  My snide response aggravated her, I could tell, but she quickly recovered her composure and cheerful demeanor. The fact she could turn on a dime from gloominess to sunshine and roses made it difficult to get a read on her, reminding me again of why I hesitated to trust her.

  “How did you find us?” asked Ishi. “Did you get lost? Cat said you were supposed to be here days ago.”

  “I sorry so late,” Bai Gen replied, frowning. But then he suddenly smiled. “But I now know how this works. GPS, see? Shifu William tell me chip code to track.” He held up a smart phone that was even newer than the model that had been issued to Ishi and I by PGE.

  “Chip code?” In the same moment that I started asking the question, I already knew that our PGE issued cell phones were tracking devices as much as they were for our communication purposes. I wasn’t sure how I felt about someone outside of PGE’s domain having the tracking privilege.

  “Yes, you have chip. I track you today and tonight, and very easy to find you. I told three days ago to wait until you cross border.”