The Covenant of Genesis

She froze as a man emerged from the smoke, a red bandanna pulled up over his nose and mouth. He had a rifle in his hands, pointing it at Lincoln. He warily advanced, stopping a few feet from the injured crewman, and shouted back over his shoulder.

Nina remained still, terrified that he might spot her but unable to look away. The pirate shouted again. More men appeared through the smoke. One of them, clearly the leader, kicked Lincoln’s leg, shouting in Indonesian. The wounded man looked painfully up at the new arrival, who shouted again.

Finally, Lincoln spoke.

‘Fuck . . . you.’

The briefest flicker of anger crossing his face, the pirate leader shot Lincoln in the forehead with his AK. The back of his skull burst open, dark gore sluicing down the wall behind him.

Nina clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out. Move, she told herself. Run! But her legs remained frozen, pinned to the spot by fear.

The pirate was about to step over the corpse when something caught his attention. He crouched, lifting something from the bloodied floor.

The piece of gauze.

He regarded it for a moment, then looked up, eyes filled with the realisation that someone else was still alive.

Now Nina ran.

The ravaged corridor blurred past her as she hunted for a hiding place. She reached the storeroom, the damaged cables still crackling on the wall outside it - then continued past it. She didn’t know what was in the storeroom, but she did know that her lab contained somewhere she could hide.

Whether she would be safe there was another matter.

His breath recovered, Chase looked through the hole again. The only pirate he could see was standing beside the RIB’s mooring behind the empty speedboat with his AK-47 slung casually over one shoulder. The rumble of the other speedboat’s engine echoed off the ship’s side, still searching for him and Bejo - but in the wrong place, on the far side of the dock’s long arm.

‘Wait here,’ he said, then swam under the rear of the upturned boat. He surfaced slowly, only his eyes and nose exposed as he scanned the rest of the dock. The body of one of the Indonesian crewmen was sprawled halfway along it - but there were no more pirates in sight. He looked at the floatplane. The fire had mostly burned itself out, a few patches of spilled fuel still alight on the water below the wrecked wing. Its engine was still running.

He slipped back inside the boat. ‘I’m going to get to the plane,’ he told Bejo, ‘see if the radio’s still working. If I can contact the Coast Guard, they’ll get someone out here to help us.’

‘It could take hours for them to get here, Mr Eddie,’ Bejo warned.

‘I’m not sitting under this fucking thing until those arseholes leave. Not while Nina’s still inside the ship.’ He prepared to dive. ‘You wait in here, though. No point both of us risking our lives.’

Bejo gave him a nervous look. ‘Good luck, Mr Eddie. Try not to die, hey?’

‘That’s part of the plan. Actually, that’s the whole plan.’ Chase submerged once more.

He swam the short distance to the side of the dock. Surfacing between two of the pontoon sections, he checked on his enemies. The RIB driver’s back was now to him as he looked up at the Pianosa, and the speedboat had moved away to lurk near the ship’s stern.

Now or never.

Chase pulled himself out of the water, lying flat on the decking close to the dead crewman. Scattered all about him was the expedition’s diving gear. He crawled along the dock. The boxes and crates would keep him hidden from the men in the speedboat for at least part of the way, meaning he only had to worry about the boatman. The pirate was still facing away, now swinging his Kalashnikov half-heartedly from its strap. Amateur, Chase thought with disdain, but it would only take one shout from him to raise the alarm . . .

He passed the plane’s tail. No more cover, but he had barely ten feet to go to reach the cockpit. He looked round the last crate for the speedboat. It was moving slowly away from him, a couple of men standing and peering into the water to each side, guns ready.

If he moved quickly enough, he could make it before anyone saw him.

One last glance back at the boatman—

He was staring right at Chase. His expression was almost quizzical, as if he was wondering why there were now two bodies lying on the dock when there had only been one before . . . until his brain finally registered that one of them had just moved.

He fumbled with his AK.

Caught in the open, Chase was about to dive back into the water when he saw something lying nearby.

His speargun.

He snatched it up as the pirate brought his rifle to bear—

Chase fired first. The spear lanced down the length of the dock - and hit the pirate square in the chest, the Magnum round at its head blowing a fist-sized hole in his ribcage.

The dead man slumped backwards. But the pirates in the speedboat had heard the noise.

Chase dropped the empty speargun and dived back into the water as they started shooting.

The pirate leader kicked open the lab door, sweeping his gun from side to side before stepping inside.

Nina watched through the narrow slit of her hiding place. More men entered the lab behind him. For a moment, it was as if he was staring right at her. Then he moved out of sight, whispering something in his native language.

The only reason he would have to whisper was if he thought there was a danger of being overheard. He knew she was in here. She froze, not even daring to breathe.

The leader stepped slowly round the table, boots crunching on broken glass as he headed for the storage cabinet in one corner. Finger on his AK’s trigger, he reached out, gripped the locker’s handle . . . and yanked it open, aiming his gun inside—

A small wave of items clattered to the floor at his feet. The locker contained nothing but archaeological kit, tools used to examine and clean artefacts recovered from the sea. One of the pirates giggled.

The leader glared at him, immediately silencing the laugh, then gave an order. All but two of his men left the room to continue the hunt.

The leader, however, moved back to the table. He had found what he was looking for.

Nina’s laptop, the expedition’s cameras . . . and the clay tablet.

He brushed the broken pieces of the magnifying lens off the latter and picked it up, giving the strange text a cursory glance before shoving it into a large satchel. Then he turned his attention to the computer, unfolding a scrap of paper and reading the list on it.

Crunched up painfully inside the sonar array’s case, the device itself now propped against one wall, Nina struggled to see what he was doing. He seemed to be looking for particular files. He tapped on the keyboard, performing a search, then smiled as it came up with a result. He slammed the laptop closed and picked it up, then pointed at the SLR camera. The pirate in the red bandanna took it. The third man asked a question, gesturing hopefully at something out of Nina’s sight, but the leader just crumpled the paper in his fist and issued a command. His men turned and left the room. With a last look round the lab, the leader followed them, Nina’s laptop under his arm.

Nina waited several seconds before opening the lid slightly. The pirates’ footsteps had faded, but even so she held on a little longer before climbing stiffly out. She looked at the table.

That was why they had come here, why they had killed everyone? To steal the clay tablet?

She was about to go to the door when a sound from outside startled her.

One of the pirates was coming back.

Chase heard the speedboat getting closer, the thrum of its outboard a menacing animal growl behind him as