Fault Line by Chris Ryan

carefully on the desk.
    Felipe gasped. For a moment he just sat there, looking at the golden object on the black material, the white cotton wool poking through on the underside. Then he reached for it with both hands, lifting it on the T-shirt, as if he didn’t want to touch the object itself.
    ‘Hey, it looks rather cool, doesn’t it?’ said Paulo. He’d forgotten how impressive it was.
    ‘Is it all right?’ said Amber to Felipe.
    Felipe seemed to come to from a dream. ‘Have you any idea how rare this is?’ He slowly turned it over, letting the black material fall away as he inspected the back of the mask. He picked up an eye glass to examine it more closely.
    ‘How do you know my uncle?’ said Amber.
    ‘John Middleton? He’s had connections with the museum for a few years.’
    ‘Like what?’ said Amber. She knew he had a lot of powerful friends but it wasn’t often that she came across one in the flesh.
    ‘Oh I don’t know. It was in the days before they gave me this desk job.’
    A phone rang. Felipe pushed papers around the desk and uncovered the receiver. He lifted it. ‘Yes?’ He still wore the black-rimmed eyeglass. With his heavy black Hispanic brows it made him look deranged. ‘They’re here already. Good. We’ll be right out.’ He opened his eye wide and dropped the eyeglass onto the papers. ‘Are you guys ready to go on TV?’

12 C ELEBRITIES
    Felipe led them into a further gallery. They were expecting to see the TV crew – but what took them completely by surprise was the looming skeleton of a dinosaur. The huge gallery was home to a tyrannosaurus rex. The bones were dark brown, the skull, ribcage and forelimbs looming above them like struts in the nave of a cathedral. The bones of the spine snaked down and away to the back of the room like a rollercoaster track. In the distance, behind the dinosaur, the wall had been painted with a prehistoric jungle scene, punctuated by plaster sculptures of smaller dinosaurs.
    ‘Come on, they need you over there.’ A woman with cropped red hair and a museum official badge on her jacket was trying to move them on. Felipe was already a little further down the gallery, watching a man with a shoulder-mounted camera film a glamorously groomed woman in front of a three-metre-high stone carving.
    Alpha Force went closer. They weren’t the only audience. A small group of schoolchildren and teachers were watching her as she talked into a microphone and looked earnestly into the camera.
    ‘I’m here in the capital at the National Museum, to hear how five backpackers made the archaeological find of the century.’
    The five friends looked at each other. The find of the century?
    Alex muttered, ‘No wonder Felipe had to put a suit on.’
    Li looked at their ripped, stained clothes. ‘Damn, should we have dressed up?’
    The glamorous woman finished her piece and the cameraman gave her a thumbs up. She turned to Felipe, who had been adjusting his tie over and over again. He only stopped because she grabbed his hand and shook it briskly. ‘Felipe, nice to meet you. I’m Carmela Hernandez, Channel Five News, Great Belize TV. Are these the heroes?’
    Carmela didn’t wait for a reply. She had already decided how to stage-manage the situation. She took Amber by the shoulders, put her decisively in front, and set Paulo and Li on either side. ‘If you two get as close behind the others as possible,’ she said to Alex and Hex. ‘No sneaking out of the side of the picture.’
    Alex and Hex exchanged a look. They were trapped. No ambush could have been more professional. Sneaking out of the side was exactly what they’d had in mind. Alex felt himself blushing to his roots and Hex looked down at his boots; they were caked in jungle mud.
    Carmela positioned herself beside Paulo. ‘Right, stay where you are and I’ll just ask you a few questions.’ She nodded at the cameraman. ‘Ready to roll?’
    The cameraman gave her a thumbs up. Carmela thrust her