The Covenant of Genesis

It wasn’t there.

All his gear was still on the surface.

He forced back panic, pushing his fingertip harder against the catch. Still unable to get any purchase, he sank further into the depths.

4

Another fusillade of gunfire tore through the ship as Nina limped towards the lab. She shrieked, dropping flat beside a storeroom door as more holes exploded in the walls. Electrical sparks crackled angrily from a severed cable overhead.

The firing ceased. Nina held her breath, expecting it to resume at any moment, but nothing happened. The gunner had swept the length of each of the Pianosa’s decks. Either he thought he’d killed everybody aboard . . .

Or the next phase of the attack was about to begin.

Chase still couldn’t get any purchase on the damaged clip. Caught unprepared, with no time to get any extra oxygen into his system, his body was rapidly burning through the limited amount of air in his lungs.

The punctured tank ran dry. He kicked, trying to slow his descent, but without air to provide buoyancy the deep suit was nothing but dead weight.

His leg muscles were cramping, lactic acid building up as the oxygen in his blood dwindled. He spasmed, the involuntary movement forcing air from his lungs.

He was about to drown—

Something thumped against him. He looked round - and saw Bejo. His hand scrabbled against the side of the suit, fingernails pushing under the damaged metal . . .

The clip opened.

The deep suit’s front unlatched, the last pockets of air inside it gushing upwards. Chase immediately tugged at the release for the seal on his left shoulder as Bejo did the same on the right. He desperately shrugged his arms free as the young Indonesian pulled at the rings round his thighs to unlock them. The deep suit was still hauling him down like an anchor.

One leg loose.

Fire searing his lungs, head pounding . . .

The other seal was released. Bejo grabbed him and kicked upwards as the suit dropped away, tearing off one of Chase’s flippers.

He was clear - but he still had to reach the surface.

Where the pirates were waiting.

Holes had been blown through the lab’s walls, the metal peeled back like the skin of a half-eaten orange. Some of Nina’s equipment had been destroyed, the magnifying lens over the clay tablet shattered. But she ignored it, instead searching for the first aid kit - Lincoln’s only hope of survival.

She found the green box in a cabinet. No time to check if it contained anything useful, and no point either. Either it did, or the maimed crewman would die. Clutching the box, she hurried back along the corridor.

She heard shouting.

Inside the ship.

The pounding of blood in Chase’s head felt almost like physical blows, blackness roiling in from the edges of his vision as the shimmering waves on the surface drew tantalisingly closer, closer . . .

He breached the surface, taking in clean, fresh air in tremendous whooping gasps. Bejo burst from the water beside him. Chase’s vision cleared - to reveal the speedboat bobbing less than twenty feet away. The men inside it spotted the gasping figures, expressions of surprise rapidly changing to anger.

‘Not again!’ Chase wheezed as he pulled Bejo back underwater, bullets churning the surface around them.

‘Mr Lincoln!’ Nina called. The smoke in the passageway had thickened, making her cough. ‘Can you hear me?’

A faint moan reached her. She limped to where she had left him. The pool of blood had spread, little rivulets winding along the deck.

She put down the first aid kit and opened it. There were several rolls of bandages and a packet containing sterile gauze inside: at least she might be able to stop the bleeding. There didn’t appear to be any painkillers, though.

‘I’m going to put on a bandage,’ she told Lincoln as she tore open the packet. ‘I’ll be as gentle as I can, but it might hurt.’

‘Can’t get . . . any worse . . .’ he said in a strained whisper, eyes closed.

Hesitantly, Nina brought the piece of gauze to the wound. A nub of bone was visible amid the torn muscle, blood dripping from it. She fought past her fear and revulsion and pressed the pad against his arm. Lincoln let out a strangled screech.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she gasped. The gauze was already soaked, and she could feel blood on her palm. Keeping it in place, she groped with her other hand for one of the rolls of bandage. ‘I’m going to—’

Someone cried out through the smoke, a panicked plea - which was cut off by a crackle of gunfire. Nina flinched. The shots were close by.

Lincoln forced his eyes open. ‘Go.’

‘But I can’t leave—’

‘Go!’ He pushed her back. The blood-sodden gauze fell into the crimson pool.

Nina regarded him helplessly, then stood. More voices came through the smoke. Closer.

She gave him one final, fearful look, then turned and ran.

The firing had stopped, but Chase and Bejo stayed underwater, swimming some ten feet beneath the surface.

They passed under the pontoon dock. They could have surfaced between its floats for air, under the cover of the deck - but the pirates would expect them to do just that, and be watching. Instead, they kept swimming along the length of the survey ship. Debris floated above them, smashed pieces of—

The Pianosa’s boat.

The wrecked craft was inverted, smoke wafting from the edge of the hole where the RPG had blasted it. But its wood and fibreglass hull was still afloat, the curved keel above the water.

Chase surfaced inside the upturned boat. Bejo popped up next to him. ‘You okay?’ Chase asked. The young man nodded, panting for breath. ‘Thanks.’ He squeezed Bejo’s shoulder in gratitude.

Engine noise. He looked through the hole to see that the first speedboat had already pulled up at the dock beside the gangway up to the main deck. Behind it, the RIB was coming to a standstill.

Its occupants jumped on to the dock. Chase assessed the pirates in a flash: dirty, scruffy, the wiry, slightly pot-bellied build of men used to intense bursts of adrenalin-fuelled physical exertion, followed by celebratory excess.

But there was one man who stood out: taller, harder-faced, conspicuously lacking the cheap gold chains the others wore. Not all the pirates were amateurs; Chase could tell simply from the way the man held his AK - sideways on its strap across his stomach, the barrel pointed down out of harm’s way - that he had received proper military training in the past. The group’s leader.

He barked an order, then quickly ascended the gangway, his entourage following.

Nina peered round the corner of the passageway, looking back towards Lincoln. She couldn’t just turn her back and abandon him. Maybe their attackers would see he posed no threat and leave him alone, in which case she might be able to return and help . . .