The Covenant of Genesis

Sophia slowly regained consciousness - then jerked upright as she realised she was lying in a puddle of lukewarm water.

She woozily looked round, seeing that she was in one of the ice channels. The ruins of the bridge blocked it in one direction, while the other coiled towards the large building. She dimly remembered Chase shouting something about a grenade . . .

Chase. She had to find him - if only to get the gun from his corpse.

But she suspected he was still alive. That she hadn’t been found by now suggested that the Covenant troops had encountered more resistance than they’d bargained for from the Yorkshireman; she knew first-hand just how lethally efficient he could be.

Head throbbing, she sloshed along the icy passage. ‘Eddie?’ she called. ‘Can you hear me?’

He could - and he could also hear Hammerstein’s radio, sending a message that chilled him to the bone.

The Covenant had Nina.

Hammerstein had called for backup, which Zamal was providing, his men on the way - and Vogler had added that they had taken Nina prisoner. He made it clear that her fate rested in Hammerstein’s hands, the other two Covenant leaders disagreeing about whether she should live or die.

The Israeli didn’t sound in a merciful mood.

‘I just heard Blackwood calling for Chase,’ he snarled. Having exited the vent chamber by a different door, he was on the other side of an ice wall from Chase, close enough for the latter to hear every word. ‘I’m going to kill her, then kill him, and then I’ll decide what to do about Wilde.’

‘Wait until Zamal’s men get there,’ said Vogler. ‘We can’t afford to lose you too.’

‘I’m not waiting. I want that little shit dead.’

Chase almost shouted something mocking, but decided against it - if Hammerstein had any hand grenades, he could just lob them over the wall. Instead he hurried along the channel in what he hoped was Sophia’s direction, out in the cold blue of the cavern once more. Water splashed under his feet, a chill rain spattering down from the ceiling.

‘I hear him!’ Hammerstein shouted. ‘He’s close - I’m going after him!’

‘Hammerstein, wait—’ began Vogler, but the Israeli cut him off and started running.

Chase quickly realised they were on parallel courses, the channels they were following almost side by side. ‘Sophia!’ he yelled.

‘Eddie? Where are you?’

She wasn’t far away - but was she on the same path? ‘There’s only one of them left, but I don’t know if I can get to you before he does!’

The channel curved, taking him away from her. He could hear Hammerstein splashing along the other route - carrying on in a straight line. ‘Shit! Sophia, he’s gonna reach you first! Go back, try and hide!’

‘There’s nowhere to hide!’

‘You didn’t have to tell him that!’ Another curve took him back towards her, but not quickly enough. Ahead, the wall of ice thinned, becoming translucent. A shape rushed along beyond it. Sophia. She was in the other channel.

And Hammerstein was behind her.

Chase reached the stretch of glassy ice just as the Covenant leader charged past on the other side. He looked ahead. The two channels didn’t join up - if anything, they were diverging again, taking him further away from Sophia.

A ringing clang of metal - a crampon had come off one of Sophia’s boots. She gasped in pain as she splashed down in the slush.

Hammerstein slowed, stopped. Chase could just barely see him through the wall, a blurred shadow - raising a rifle.

Chase brought up his own gun, but the ice was too thick for a handgun bullet to penetrate. He glanced at the top of the wall. Too high, too slick to climb.

He looked higher.

Water was still dripping from the ceiling. Almost directly above, a large icicle channelled a constant stream from its tip . . .

On to the other side of the wall.

He snapped up the gun and fired.

Hammerstein was about to fire his own weapon when he heard the rapid crack of gunfire. He spun to see a shape through the ice - shooting straight up at the ceiling. His confusion made him hesitate for a moment before he brought the TAR-21 to bear on the new target.

The delay cost him his life.

The bullet-riddled icicle broke from the ceiling with a splintering crunch. Hammerstein looked up at the noise - and froze in fear as a ton of dense, ancient ice speared downwards. He broke out of his paralysis, throwing himself backwards—

Too late.

The icicle hit like a bomb, exploding in a spray of crystalline white - and liquid red. The shock of the impact shattered the wall, knocking Chase to the floor in a storm of broken ice.

Sophia recovered her crampon and came to him, boots crunching over a billion ice cubes and the gory remains of Hammerstein beneath them. ‘Eddie?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I think you got him.’

Chase jabbed a finger at the blood-stained heap of ice. ‘Stop! Hammerstein.’

Sophia groaned. ‘Your sense of humour survived intact, I see. Oh well.’ She regarded the jagged gap in the wall. One side was somewhat stepped, leading up to the surface of the ice filling the pit. ‘Think we can climb that?’

‘Definitely. But there’s more of them on the way - we need to get to that shaft.’

She lifted an eyebrow. ‘You’re not going after Nina?’

‘They’ve got her,’ he said, face emotionless. ‘But this isn’t over. One way or another, I’m going to fuck them up.’

‘The best way to do that is to find Eden before they do. Come on.’ She began to climb the ice.

Chase retrieved his gun and ejected the magazine. Empty, just one bullet left in the chamber. It would have to do. He replaced the mag and followed Sophia to the surface.

‘Hammerstein, come in.’ Vogler waited several seconds, but had no more response than on his previous attempts.

‘Y’know,’ said Nina, ‘I think Eddie’s put the hammer down.’

‘Shut up!’ barked Zamal. Vogler’s men had lowered a rope so he could climb up to the library. He drew his gun and pointed it at her head. ‘Where is Eden? Tell me!’

‘The hell I will,’ she said. ‘You’ll kill me either way - but at least this way you don’t get what you’re after.’

He ground the gun’s cold muzzle under her jaw. ‘You will talk, woman. And after you do, you’ll beg me to kill you.’

‘No one is going to kill her,’ said Vogler, standing beside Nina and staring hard at Zamal. After a moment the Arab backed away. ‘Not yet. The Triumvirate still has to vote.’

‘That’s going to be a tad difficult, isn’t it?’ said Ribbsley, striding through the endless stacks of the library towards them, Callum following. ‘Hammerstein’s obviously dead. That makes it one against one, and you’re deadlocked.’

‘Although,’ Callum said with evident reluctance, ‘keeping her alive might be a better option. For now.’

‘Why?’ Vogler asked. ‘What did you find?’

Ribbsley regarded Nina with an aggrieved expression. ‘We found the map. Unfortunately, part of it - the most vital part - has been destroyed. There was enough left to tell me that Eden is somewhere in eastern Africa . . . but I think we’d all come to that conclusion already.’