The Covenant of Genesis

He threw himself to the left, Sophia to the right as the sled fishtailed over the edge, crashing down on the frozen ground ten feet below. Chase hit a pile of broken wood, twisting round and bending his legs to absorb the impact. The wood shattered along with its prison of ice, pieces flying everywhere as he came to a stop at the very edge of the drop.

Sophia wasn’t so lucky.

With nothing to stop her, she screamed as she careered over the edge—

One hand caught a knobbly chunk of ice. She jolted to a stop . . . and the ice cracked. Clawing for a hold that wasn’t there, she fell, tumbling down a rocky slope.

Chase booted away the wood and looked down. Sophia lay below him, clutching her side. He hurriedly descended the little cliff, jumping the last few feet to land beside her.

‘Sophia! You okay?’ he asked. They had ended up fairly close to the hypogeum; he looked towards the road for any sign of the Covenant. Nothing yet, but it wouldn’t take them long to track them down . . .

‘Don’t know.’ She tried to sit up. ‘Oh, God, that hurts!’

Short of opening her coat and feeling for broken bones, Chase had no way to know whether she was actually injured or just badly bruised - and no time, either. ‘You’ve got to get up. They’ll be coming.’

‘I don’t think I can.’ Chase stood; through the pain, her expression became genuinely frightened. ‘Eddie, don’t leave me, please!’

‘I wasn’t going to.’ He held out both hands. ‘I’m just going to pull you up. It’ll hurt, but . . . well, a bullet’ll hurt more. Ready?’

She winced as she took his hands in hers. ‘Okay.’

‘On three - one, two, three!’

He pulled her upright. She let out a stifled gasp, holding her right side. Chase moved round to her left and supported her. ‘Got you. Come on.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Good question.’ A shaft of light from the hole above cut through the air, the winch line still hanging from it, but even if Sophia could climb they would never reach the icy ceiling before being shot at. It would have to be the drainage shaft, then, but that presented another problem - it was straight, a perfect channel for bullets. Was there a faster way through it?

His gaze fell on the overturned sledge - but the idea that was forming was blown away by a shout. They had been seen. A man on the road waved to his comrades, then ran across the hard ground towards them.

He couldn’t climb back up the slope while supporting Sophia. Instead, they headed as quickly as they could towards the hypogeum.

Nina curled up tighter, trying to squeeze as deep into the shadows as she could. The gunfire from outside had stopped, and she had overheard fragments of messages over the walkie-talkie of one of the men above; the frustration in Zamal’s voice suggested that Chase and Sophia had got away, at least temporarily.

But that didn’t help her. She couldn’t even think about looking for a way down until the Covenant team left - and, if anything, more of them seemed to be arriving. She heard a faint crunch of glass overhead: someone else coming through the window. He spoke in German, and she recognised the voice - Vogler. She knew enough of the language to tell that their efforts to find something had been unsuccessful - then felt a cold shock at the sound of her own name.

They were looking for her.

Ribbsley’s voice echoed across the shaft. ‘What are you doing over there? We need to search the library - let Zamal and Hammerstein go after them!’

‘Only Chase and Blackwood got out of the temple,’ said Vogler, switching to English to address the professor. ‘But I am looking at three sets of footprints. Either Dr Wilde doubled back into the library . . . or she is still in here.’

Fear rose in Nina as a flashlight beam lanced down, barely missing her hiding place. ‘She did not fall to the ground,’ Vogler continued, the beam playing over the broken counterpoise. ‘But part of the statue did. I wonder . . .’

Nina heard ice cracking as he stepped right to the edge of the statue’s shoulders, pieces falling past her. The torch beam slowly scanned across the giant figure’s chest, down to its waist, creeping closer to her as Vogler leaned out further . . .

It touched her leg.

She tried to shrink away, but there was no more room.

‘There you are.’

She let out a terrified breath as more pieces of ice fell past: Vogler moving across to the statue’s outstretched arm. For a moment she held on to the hope that he might slip and fall just as she had, but he kept his footing, sliding down to brace himself in the crook of the elbow. He looked across at her. ‘You do not look comfortable there, Dr Wilde.’

‘How about we swap places?’ she said, trying to mask her terror.

Footsteps echoed through the temple below: Zamal and his men entering. He looked up at the statue, impressed despite himself, before noticing Vogler. ‘What are you doing up there?’

‘I thought you were going after Chase and Blackwood,’ Vogler said.

‘The Jew and his men are closer. They—’ Zamal stopped as he realised Vogler was not the only person on the statue. ‘You found her!’

‘Yes, I did. And maybe we would have found Chase and Blackwood as well if you had gone to help Hammerstein.’

Zamal ignored the rebuke. ‘What are you waiting for? Kill her!’

‘Yes,’ said Ribbsley, coming through the window. ‘If you’ve found her, then what’s the delay?’ A bitter tone: ‘You certainly didn’t hesitate to say you’d kill Sophia.’

Vogler gave him a stern look. ‘Perhaps I am not in a hurry to kill an unarmed and helpless woman.’

‘Then perhaps,’ Zamal sneered, ‘you are in the wrong profession.’ He raised his rifle. ‘If you do not, I will.’

‘Very well,’ said Vogler, shaking his head. He unslung his rifle. ‘I am sorry, Dr Wilde. Unlike certain members of the Covenant, I do not take any joy in this. But it has to be done.’

‘You murder people just to protect your secret,’ Nina said accusingly. ‘I don’t think God would approve.’

‘We are a necessary evil,’ Vogler replied, almost sorrowful. ‘We accept the burden of our sins - and will be held accountable for them in time.’ He raised the weapon.

‘It’s a hell of a secret, though, isn’t it?’ The words came out more rapidly as Nina’s fear rose, but she refused to surrender to it. ‘The secret of Eden!’

Vogler froze. Below, Zamal stared up at her in surprise.

‘Oh, yeah!’ she shouted, sensing that something had changed. ‘Yeah, I know what your secret is! Whaddya think of that, huh? I know you’re looking for the Garden of Eden!’

There was silence in the temple for a moment. Then Ribbsley spoke, voice tinged with mocking sarcasm. ‘Oh dear, Dr Wilde. Oh dear, oh dear. That was about the worst possible thing you could have said. Now they have to kill you.’

‘Oh.’ Nina’s faint sense of hope melted away to nothing as she saw Vogler’s expression, which confirmed Ribbsley’s words. ‘Well, that . . . sucks.’

He took aim—

‘But I know how to find the Garden of Eden!’ she cried as she shut her eyes tightly, expecting the only response to be a gunshot, searing pain, then nothing . . .

Silence.

She cautiously opened one eye to see Vogler, still aiming the gun at her, but now looking thoughtful.

‘Just shoot her!’ Zamal shouted.

‘Wait,’ Vogler ordered. He fixed Nina with an intense gaze - watching for any hint of deceit. ‘Explain.’

Her mouth had gone dry. ‘There’s - there’s a map,’ she said. ‘Up there, past the library. It shows the history of the Veteres, how they expanded across the world. But it won’t help you find Eden. We destroyed that part of it.’