The Covenant of Genesis

In every other way, it was bad . . . because it meant they were here to kill every single person on the Pianosa.

The video feed from the remote jolted, then went black. The camera pod had been hit.

‘Dr Wilde!’ Nina looked round as Lincoln opened the lab door. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, but they’re shooting at the people on the dock! We’ve got to help them!’

‘We don’t have any weapons aboard,’ he told her grimly. ‘Come on, I’ve got to get you out of here.’

‘To where?’

Lincoln didn’t have an answer as he pulled her to the exit.

The Otter’s engine spluttered, the propeller blurring into motion. Chase saw Ranauld leaning from the cockpit door, desperately fumbling to untie the mooring rope. Bejo rose to a crouch, about to make a run for the aircraft.

A hissing roar from one of the boats, horribly familiar to Chase . . .

He shoved Bejo back down. ‘Duck!’

The Otter’s left wing exploded, hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Shrapnel tore through the plane’s aluminium skin. What few of the windows remained intact were splattered with Ranauld’s blood.

Chase opened his eyes. The Otter’s engine was still running, but fire was licking up its ravaged port side.

Another engine started up, an outboard. The other crewman on the pontoon dock had leapt into the Pianosa’s boat. He revved it to full power, turning as hard as he could to swing round the burning plane—

He barely got twenty feet. Another RPG lanced from the speedboat and hit his craft square in the side, flipping it over and reducing him to a red haze amidst a storm of splinters.

More bullets smashed into the boxes. Chase fumbled for the catches of his deep suit. ‘Get me out of this thing!’

The cruiser closed in, dropping another speedboat from its stern hoist into the water with a frothing smack. It leapt away from its parent vessel, heading round the survey ship’s stern.

The pirate manning the heavy machine gun on the cruiser’s bow took aim at the Pianosa’s superstructure, pulled the trigger—

Lincoln led Nina along a passageway, seeing another crewman ahead wielding a fire extinguisher. Black smoke billowed round him. ‘Shit!’ Lincoln said. ‘We’ll have to go back around—’

The crewman’s chest exploded in a spray of gore as a .50-calibre round tore through him.

The passageway echoed with a rapid-fire metallic bam-bam-bam as more thumb- sized bullets punched a line of holes straight through the hull and inner walls, searing across the corridor and ripping out again through the other side.

The holes got closer, advancing with frightening speed—

Nina dived to the deck. She tried to pull Lincoln down with her, but too late. A bullet hit his upper arm - and blew it off below the shoulder.

Chase and Bejo had managed to unlock the deep suit’s shoulder fastenings and some of the clips on its side when the sound of the machine gun reached them. Chase recognised the distinctive chugging booms immediately - a Browning M2, a weapon in service all over the world, practically unchanged for almost eighty years . . . because it was exceptionally good at ripping apart anything unlucky enough to appear in its sights.

‘Shit!’ he gasped as ragged holes burst open in the Pianosa’s superstructure. He clawed at the remaining clips on his suit - then looked round sharply at a sound from behind.

Another speedboat, rounding the ship’s stern. More pirates aboard it.

They saw him.

Nina screamed as splintered metal and scabbed paint showered her. More bullets slammed overhead . . . then stopped. The machine gun’s rattle paused, then resumed, now aimed at a different part of the ship.

She sat up, horrified by the sight before her. What was left of the dead man at the end of the corridor was mercifully obscured by smoke, but Lincoln was slumped against the wall at her feet. The white wall above him was stained with red, a lopsided hole at its centre where the bullet had continued on after inflicting its carnage. Nothing remained of his upper arm but a sickening stump of torn meat, streams of dark blood running down on to the deck.

‘Oh, Jesus . . .’ Ignoring the pain in her leg, she crouched beside him and checked his pulse. It was weak, irregular. ‘Can you hear me?’

Lincoln’s eyes fluttered open, struggling to focus. ‘What happened?’ he mumbled, trying to sit up.

Nina gently pushed him back. ‘Keep still. You’ve been shot. Don’t move.’

‘My arm hurts . . .’

She choked back a sob. He hadn’t yet realised what damage had been inflicted upon him. ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered, unsure what to do. There was a first aid kit in the lab, but she had no idea if it would be any use on a wound of this magnitude.

But it was his only chance of survival. ‘Don’t move,’ she repeated. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘Move!’ Chase shouted. ‘Get out of here!’

Bejo didn’t need further prompting. Arms outstretched, he dived from the dock.

The driver turned the speedboat, swinging broadside-on to Chase so all four of its passengers could aim their AKs at him. Still trapped inside his bulky deep suit, a bright yellow target lying helplessly on the edge of the dock, there was nowhere he could go . . .

Except down.

With a yell, he rolled into the sea.

He hit the water on his side, facing the pontoon. The air tanks in the suit’s back might give him some protection - unless the gunmen aimed at his head.

Water gushed in through the open collar, filling the casing. He started to sink.

Not fast enough.

The Kalashnikovs chattered. Bullets cracked off the dock above him, splashed into the sea behind. These pirates were as bad shots as their comrades in the other boats - but only one bullet needed to find its target.

He took a deep breath just before his head was pulled under the water. The suit was getting heavier by the moment, a weight dragging him down . . .

A bullet hit the back of the casing - and he was slammed against the float supporting the pontoon as the air tank ruptured, its pressurised contents spewing out in a churning rush. More bullets thwacked into the water around him.

He pushed himself away from the float. The escaping air forced him downwards, bubbles belching out of the collar past his face as he brought himself into a more upright position.

The pirates were still shooting, but now were just wasting ammo. Even a small depth of water was enough to stop a bullet. Spent rounds spiralled slowly downwards around him.

He reached for the last catches on the suit’s side. Once he got the body open, he could work the quick- releases for the sealing rings around his limbs. Then he could swim under the dock, get his breath back, and work out a plan of action.

The first catch clacked open. One more to go. He tried to hook his gloved finger under it.

He couldn’t.

Chase tried again, clawing harder at the catch. It felt as though it was bent. But he could prise it open with his diving knife . . .