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Day 7: Flirting with Danger

The engine noise jumps up a notch, becoming almost strangled as the plane swoops low and then pulls into a sharp climb.

 All eyes are fixed on it now, this invader into the evening’s proceedings. A murmur of worry passes through the crowd as the aircraft banks about, heading straight for us again.

 A side door opens, and something drops into the darkness.

 We gasp as we realise what it is.

A body.

CARACAS,

VENEZUELA

Zulia. Zulia. Zulia.

Far too much Zulia.

It’s not even a particularly nice cerveza. It’s just one of those pretty bland beers that taste divine in the sweltering climate of a foreign country, yet dull and tasteless if you were sitting in a British pub and comparing it to something pulled from a cask.

Yet Zulia, Zulia, Zulia was all I kept thinking as I sat in a lecture hall at the University of Caracas.

It was both a curse … and a promise.

A curse at the sync between the thumping in my temples and the amplified voices booming out of the lecture hall’s speakers, made worse by the copious amount of the swill I had drowned my sorrows in last night.

A promise that if I could power through the day of pre-expedition briefings, I would grace my tastebuds with the bland amber liquid once more.

Of course, in true UNESCO fashion, they’d turned a day of expedition briefings into something disguised as an academic symposium, complete with PowerPoints, guest speakers, coffee breaks and lunch spreads. As well, of course, as all the ‘networking opportunities’ such breaks dredge out of my darkest nightmares and thrust me into like an itchy woollen sweater.

The timetable looked like this:

0845 – coffee, cakes and mingling

0900 – Welcome by Professor Juliet McKinney (expedition leader), Director-General Joseph Barnes (UNESCO), Stefan Van Tam (Managing Director- Adventure channel).

0915 – Introduction to Sarisariñama: history, archaeology and geology – by Professor Juliet McKinney (expedition leader) – basically everything I’ve already outlined in my previous posts.

1000 – coffee and cake

1015 – The Archaeology of Sarisariñama: What we know now, what we’ll know by then – by Professor Juliet McKinney (expedition leader/chief archaeologist)

1115 – As above, not so below: Flora and fauna of the summit and sinkholes – by Professor Karl Jones

1200 – Sarisariñama Expedition: Aims, Dreams and Goals – by Professor Juliet McKinney (expedition leader)

1300 – lunch

1400 – What, Where and When: expedition plan and logistics – Professor (you guessed it!) Juliet McKinney (expedition leader and official glory seeker)

1500 – Fame and Fortune: expedition media management, social media rules and production aims – by (surprisingly not who you might have guessed, given the title) Michael Rhodes, Adventure Channel Executive Producer.

1545 – Afternoon tea

1600 – Jungle survival – by Sargento Raphael del Vega (a scarily short session considering everybody’s interest in the topic!)

1630 – Make way for the return of McKinney, I mean – Summing up / closing remarks – by Professor Primadonna McKinney

1700 – Q and A (really, just ten minutes?)

1710 – Drinks in the foyer (or, as I like to call it: a date with Zulia)

How I managed to make it to 10 am, let alone until my date with Zulia at ten past five, will remain one of the great mysteries of my life.

A mouth dryer than any desert, a head banging more than a Metallica tribute band, ears bleeding from listening to the self-aggrandisement of a Scottish Lara Croft wannabe, and skin-crawlingly mundane conversations over cheap filter coffee and little triangular sandwiches were the least of my discomfort, however.

Today, that reward goes to my barely-speaking-to-me girlfriend’s icy presence.

Sat next to me all day, Sid has exuded an aura of general pissed-off-with-me-ness (which I learned, during the afternoon tea break, was a holdover from last night’s argument about the green-eyed monster – which I was sure had been put to bed right around the time I had passed out!).

Apparently not.

And, to make matters worse, flirting with somebody else, just to give your girlfriend a taste of her own medicine, only adds to said girlfriend’s ire.

Especially if the woman you’re flirting with is the third wealthiest woman in the world!

That’s right.

I was flirting with Kira Sharpe.

Kira bloody Sharpe! The C.E.O. of Sharpe Enterprises. The woman behind the Mars Colonisation Programme. The owner of tech companies, media firms, and financial services. The woman who accidentally found the Sarisariñama ruins. The woman who owns ‘The Adventure Channel,’ the expedition’s most prominent corporate sponsor.

Of course, I didn’t realise I was flirting.

I didn’t mean to flirt.

Hell, I’m so bad at flirting that I imagine Kira Sharpe wouldn’t have noticed I was doing so if I’d had a post-it stuck to my head announcing the fact while regurgitating a clichéd pick-up line about death, heaven and angels.

Admittedly, she did fall into my life like some angel gliding down from heaven, in a more literal way than you might imagine.

Following the briefing/symposium, The Adventure Channel arranged a big, posh drinks reception and meal. It was held at a far more glamorous hotel than the Majestic.

I’m not sure how sensible putting on such a swaraj the night before sending fifty scientists on a five-day overland journey into the Amazon rainforest is.

But, as it reunited me with the only entity I’m on good terms with – Zulia – I didn’t argue.

Instead, I spent much of the evening perfecting my innate ability to tune out the meaningless small talk and stare intently at the bottom of my glass.

That is until a series of startled cries chorused through the crowd and drew my attention to the sky.

Sat in the open courtyard of the colonial-era hotel, the one pleasant thing about the evening had been the view of the starlit sky. The dusting of twinkling lights was broken only by the black curtain of the mountains encircling the city.

Now, however, a plane swept low over the hotel, startling us all from food and conversation.

It was only small, with a single propellor on either wing, but the noise was deafening so close above our heads.

Within a moment, it was gone. But the flyby had done its job. All eyes were glued to the plane as it banked about, sweeping around in an arc above the mountains, little more than a dot of light which grew larger, even as it gained altitude.

And then, as it was almost directly overhead once more, albeit higher than before, a rectangle of light erupted from within, a side door sliding open.

A figure emerged, dropping through the night sky, accompanied by a shared gasp from us onlookers below. But, only seconds after jumping from the plane, a parachute erupted. The canvas was decorated with a giant UNESCO logo, thus proving my hunch that this wasn’t some aerial assault by commandos on a group of archaeologists on the eve of a major expedition.

It was nothing but a publicity stunt.

As the plane flew away, the skydiver glided down to an expert landing on the raised plinth in the centre of the hotel’s courtyard, triggering an eruption of fireworks from the four corners and an enraptured round of applause. The band, until now so unobtrusive that I’d barely noticed them, exploded into life, pumping out some triumphant, jazzy number that only egged on a suddenly jubilant crowd.

Such jubilation reached its crescendo as the skydiver flung off the parachute, unzipped a flight suit and revealed an undeniably beautiful woman clad in what looked like motorcycle leathers. Her blue eyes scanned the crowd, her face the picture of perfection, framed by hair so lush and red as to seem like an escape attempt by her inner fire …

Yes, I’m beginning to understand why I pissed off Sid.

With the Adventure Channel film crew tracking her every movement, Kira Sharpe introduced herself (as though one of the wealthiest women in the world needed to). She regaled us with tales of the grit, drive and determination that had led her to power through the ‘man’s world’ of big business and gave us an account of her accidental discovery of the Sarisariñama ruins.

Initially swept up in the excitement of her grand entrance, I quickly grew bored of self-aggrandisement on a McKinney-level. I once again became preoccupied with the bottom of my bottle of Zulia. Before I knew it, the Irish entrepreneur had wished us well in our future endeavours to unravel the riddle she had found. The formal meal was over, and the gathering had broken into groups of people. They all went through the awkward motions of forcing themselves to make relationships with people you have no choice but to spend a great deal of time with over the coming months.

Sid was in her element, her easy laughter echoing across the courtyard. Nathan Raine, I noticed, flitted between groups with ease (why did that annoy me so much?!). Hell, even Nadia seemed to be making friends.

Having survived several engagements with strangers who, upon learning my name, either said ‘oh, you’re that guy with that crazy theory about the Origin of Civilisations’ or worse- ‘King? As in that guy who went missing in Africa last year? I thought you were dead?’ I decided it was time to leave. Seeing Sid laughing with a group of her new friends, I was tempted to get a taxi back to our hotel and leave her to it. But, as we are in the murder capital of the world, I figured that might not go down well.

With far too much Zulia running through my system, I had just started making my way across the courtyard to tell her it was time to leave when a hand grasped my forearm.

“Doctor King?”

It took a fraction of a second too long to note the singsong Irish lilt.

If I was flirting with Kira Sharpe (though the jury is still out on that), it has nothing to do with the fact that she is beautiful. Or rich. Or powerful.

If I did flirt, it’s because she was interested in me, in my theories about the past. That’s something even Sid cannot claim to be – she supported my work on the Moon Mask, Black Death and Progenitor Theory, for sure. She heard out my arguments. She defended me publicly. But, in truth, she did nothing but tolerate my ‘outlandish’ ideas. And she is happy that I have agreed to shelve them in favour of this expedition.

Kira Sharpe, however, seemed fascinated.

Genuinely fascinated.

She had sought me out of a group of academics to do nothing more than chat about a view on the origins of civilisation that doesn’t conform to the orthodox theories of mainstream academia.

She had read mine and my father’s papers. She had even been keeping up to date with this blog. Instead of anger at some of the less helpful comments I made about her in a previous post, especially describing her as a wannabe-Bond-villain, she laughed about it.

We sat for over an hour chatting, laughing, and joking.

That’s not something I’m easily prone to do with strangers, and I guess that’s what triggered Sid’s jealousy. But something about the Irishwoman put me at ease (though my friend Zulia might have helped with that). And, there was indeed a moment that Sid seems to have noticed and upon which she has fixated. A moment when my eyes locked onto Kira Sharpe’s, both of us intense. But it had nothing to do with sexual chemistry – it was to do with the Moon Mask. That thing I cannot deny is always in my head. That I think about at all times. Even now. Even when I have agreed to drop it.

For a moment, that moment Sid noticed, Kira Sharpe asked what it would take for me to reignite my search for the Moon Mask.

I held my breath.

Was she suggesting something?

Offering something?

Was she offering to help me? To plough wads of cash into my research? To provide me with the tools, equipment and personnel needed to find it and everything it represents?

I’ll never know.

Because, at that moment, that idiot Nathan Raine appeared, greeting me as Benny, kissing – yes kissing! – Kira Sharpe on the cheek as though lifelong friends. In fairness, they evidently knew each other – she had asked to see him, in fact.

Then, taking her leave of me, she hooked an arm through Raine’s and headed off into the hotel interior.

Towards her room?

Okay, I’ll admit to a flash of jealously there!

Now, after returning to our room at the Majestic and engaging in the second blazing argument in as many nights with Sid, I sit looking at the street-lamp-lit concrete forest around us. And, while Sid lies sleeping, I lie updating this post . . . and thinking.

Thinking about Kira Sharpe.

Thinking about the Moon Mask. About what I am giving up to be here.

What would it take to reignite my search for the Moon Mask?

If I’m honest, I’ve never stopped looking.

I don’t think I ever will.

And it is that, not Kira Sharpe, that Sid is jealous of.

The third wheel that has always been in our relationship.

The Moon Mask. 

Benjamin King

My name is Dr Benjamin King, and I am an archaeologist working on the UNESCO Sarisariñama Expedition. Join me on my epic journey to one of the most remote places on the planet – a tabletop mountain towering above the Venezuelan rainforest. This will be my home for six months as my colleagues and I attempt to unravel the mystery of the ancient ruins that lie buried within an enormous sinkhole. Not only do I blog updates about the project, but also the trials and tribulations of life in the jungle. Something tells me that the danger of the jungle’s predators is nothing compared to the perils of being trapped with the same group of people for the next six months! Don’t miss out on a single moment of this extraordinary adventure - follow me on social media @benking1209 Benjamin King is also the fictional hero of the action-packed adventure series ‘The Xibalba Saga’ by James Richardson. Read it now https://amzn.to/3dD9wZW Stay up to date on new releases and exclusive free content at www.moonmask.net and @worldofmoonmask

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