NATHAN RAINE
Once described as ‘the best-of-the-best-of-the-best,’ Nathan Raine rose quickly through the ranks of the United States Air Force to achieve the rank of Major at an early age. Highly decorated in the Special Forces, Raine was quickly enlisted into the CIA’s paramilitary Special Operations Group, or SOG. Made up of only the very best of America’s Special Forces personnel, Raine was described as the best among them, earning him the position of leader of the SOG’s flagship team, carrying out the most delicate operations in the name of national security and often answering only to the President of the United States.
BENJAMIN KING
To this day, it remains a mystery as to why this highly decorated individual resorted to treason, turning against his team-mates, resulting in many of their deaths, and endangering the security of his country. After being found guilty of treason, he escaped from Lavenworth maximum security military prison and has been on the run ever since.
Roguish, with his icy blue eyes, mop of unruly black hair and constant five-o’clock shadow, Raine often finds himself under the attention of many amorous women, and unabashedly thrives on it. An expert pilot who flies recklessly simply for the exhilaration of it, he attributes his characteristics to his war-hero grandfather, Jack, while his relationship with his own father, before his conviction, has always been strained.
Almost the reverse of Raine’s cocky self-assuredness, Benjamin King is a mild-mannered archaeologist of Gambian descent. Following his grandfather’s service to the British Crown in World War Two, the King family was given British citizenship several years later and King and his sister were both born in London. His father, Reginald, however, insisted on teaching his children about their roots even as he investigated his own historical theory which suggested that the similarities in ancient world mythology stemmed from a single source: the mythical Bouda of Africa. As part of his research, the family relocated temporarily to Lagos, Nigeria but the endeavour was met with tragedy: King’s mother and sister were murdered during a political uprising by General Abuku, a fanatic who believed Reginald’s work could endorse his campaign of terror. The incident became a driving force behind both King and his father’s lives, fuelling their search for the Progenitor Race.
After graduating from Oxford, King’s promising career started to decline in line with his father’s as their theories were ridiculed. While the senior King became obsessed with finding the lost city of the Bouda, Benjamin focussed his search on the legendary Moon Mask, the central icon of the tribe’s mythology. But, finally having lost all credibility amongst his peers, he ultimately accepted his former professor, Marc Duval’s invitation to join an expedition to a newly discovered
ruin on the summit of one of Venezuela’s table-top mountains, at the same time turning down an offer to accompany his father on an exploration of central Africa. Several weeks later, Reginald’s team is classified as missing, presumed dead.
Fiercely loyal yet prone to deep obsession, even to the exclusion of those closest to him, King is a ‘gentle-giant;’ tall and muscular, with dark African skin and close-cropped hair. He sports a faded circular scar in the centre of his forehead from where he was held at gunpoint by General Abuku as a child, though the emotional scars run far deeper.
Fiercely loyal yet prone to deep obsession, even to the exclusion of those closest to him, King is a ‘gentle-giant;’ tall and muscular, with dark African skin and close-cropped hair. He sports a faded circular scar in the centre of his forehead from where he was held at gunpoint by General Abuku as a child, though the emotional scars run far deeper.
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