The Covenant of Genesis (9 page)

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 he swam.

The pirates had stopped shooting, finally realising their bullets couldn’t penetrate the water. But they were heading straight for him, picking out his shape through the shimmering waves.

The
Pianosa
’s keel was directly ahead, a dark, barnacle-crusted mass. If he went under it, he could surface for air - and if they followed him round the ship, he could double back and hopefully reach the dock before they caught up.

He swam deeper, passing beneath the survey ship.

 

Nina didn’t have time to return to her hiding place. All she could do was dart into the locker, hunching down and pulling the door almost shut.

The pirate entered the lab. It was the third man, the one who had been rebuffed by his leader. Nina watched through the crack of the door as he glanced furtively round the room, then picked up the underwater camera.

‘Thieving son of a bitch,’ Nina whispered. She waited for him to leave. But now that he had one valuable piece of equipment, the thought had entered his head that there might be others. His gaze darted calculatingly over the room’s contents.

He regarded the locker. Frowned. Nina knew why.

When he left the room, its door had been open.

Her hand groped through the cramped space, searching for anything among the loose items that she might be able to use as a weapon.

The pirate advanced on the locker. He gripped the handle, pulled it—

Nina blasted a spray of astringent powder into his eyes.

He shrieked and reeled back, clutching at his face with his free hand. His AK came up in the other. Nina leapt from the locker and slapped it aside. It fell from his hand - but the strap tangled round his arm. She couldn’t wrest it from him.

Instead she raced for the door. Behind her, the pirate shouted as he fumbled for his rifle.

Back up the passageway, reaching the storeroom, sparks still popping from the damaged wiring—

Running footsteps ahead. Another pirate was coming back.

She barged open the storeroom door. A cramped chamber, packed with stacked wooden crates and maintenance gear and large paint cans. A porthole on the opposite wall, two .50-calibre bullet holes flanking it.

The porthole was too small for her to fit through.

Trapped.

She slammed the door shut behind her and yanked a crate down to the deck, jamming it against the entrance.

But it wouldn’t hold them for long.

She looked back at the equipment. The twin cylindrical tanks of an oxy-acetylene torch were secured in a rack. But she didn’t know how to use it, or even light it.

Come on, think,
something
—

A metal box about the same size as the sonar case turned out to contain a piece of gear she couldn’t immediately identify, some sort of heavy-duty grinder or cutter. But simply hiding in the box wouldn’t save her—

The door banged against the crate. The pirates were outside.

 

Chase surfaced on the
Pianosa
’s port side. Not far away was another boat, a sleek cabin cruiser. The machine gun he’d heard earlier was mounted on its bow, another pirate manning it.

Sudden noise to his right. The speedboat rounded the
Pianosa
’s bow, its occupants shouting warnings to the men aboard the cruiser. The machine gunner immediately swung his weapon round.

Looking for him.

Chase didn’t wait to be seen, powering back under the surface, scraping against the barnacles.

He heard the chug of the .50-cal—

The huge bullets were even less effective at penetrating the water than the 7.62mm ammo of the AKs, smashing apart as they hit the surface. But the impacts alone slammed at Chase like miniature grenade explosions. Barely able to endure the assault on his eardrums, he swam back under the ship.

 

The two pirates didn’t risk shooting through the metal door for fear of ricochets. Instead, they kicked at it until the crate finally broke.

A strange smell was the first thing they noticed as they burst in. The second was a loud hiss. Both came from the same source: a pair of metal cylinders propped against an angle grinder.

The valves on both tanks had been fully opened, the red and green hoses whipping about like enraged snakes as the gases escaped, filling the room, reaching the corridor outside . . .

The electrical cables sparked.

And the acetylene gas, mixed with pure oxygen for maximum combustibility, ignited.

The fireball rushed back into the confined storeroom, instantly engulfing both men in flames as the gas canisters hurtled across the room on a jet of scorching blue fire. One of the pirates was smashed against the door jamb with bone-cracking force. His companion hit the wall across the corridor, the blunt ends of the cylinders crushing his sternum before spinning away like a monstrous Catherine wheel.

The fireball dispersed. Nina flung open the box and jumped up, one arm covering her face to protect it from the dancing fires as she stumbled over the dead pirates. Looking right, she saw the flaming gas cylinders still whirling on the deck.

No way out that way. She went left, passing Lincoln’s body before braving the smoke to find a way into the open.

 

Head ringing, Chase surfaced once more. He was back by the floating dock. The speedboat was still on the other side of the ship - but it wouldn’t take long to reverse its course.

He pulled himself up, about to run to the nearby gangway - when he realised that there were men about to come down it. The pirates were leaving the ship.

All he could do was dive back into the sea and hope they hadn’t seen him.

That hope barely lasted a second. AK fire kicked up the water above him. He swam deeper, already hearing the speedboat coming back.

N
ina’s eyes were watering from the smoke, but she finally saw daylight ahead. But she could also hear gunfire, and shouting. She held in a cough as she cautiously looked outside.

Several men were on the starboard side of the main deck, some clomping down the gangway to the dock, others firing at the water. The pirate leader shouted a command. His men stopped shooting and hurried after their fellows. The leader was the last to go, casting a satisfied look at the smoking superstructure before following them to the dock.

Nina emerged, moving in a crouch towards the empty port-side boat hoist. When she was sure the pirates had gone, she stood.

Big mistake.

A shout came from her left. She whirled to see a motor yacht off the port bow, a man in its bridge pointing at her - and another pirate whipping round a huge machine gun.

‘Shit!’ She threw herself to the deck, scrambling towards the starboard side as the gun opened up—

The hammer-blow clangs of bullets pounding into the side of the hull and up through the decking were almost deafening. Debris showered her as machinery and deck fittings were torn apart. A hole the size of her fist exploded through the painted floor just a foot from her head, another bullet striking a thick metal cross-beam beneath the deck with a piercing bang. She screamed and moved faster towards the starboard hoist, the boat in it rocking and jolting as bullets peppered its hull.

The firing stopped. Maybe the gunner thought she was dead, or had run out of ammo. Nina didn’t care, feeling only relief as she reached the starboard side of the deck.

It didn’t last. From there, she had an elevated view of the dock. The floatplane at its far end had lost most of one wing; the
Pianosa
’s other boat had capsized, debris floating around it. Two bodies lay on the dock - one was a member of the ship’s crew, but the other was unfamiliar; one of the pirates, a spear protruding from a bloody hole in his chest.

Eddie
, she thought. He was the only member of the expedition who could have fired such a shot. Was he still alive - and if so, where was he?

The other pirates provided an answer. Some of the men on the dock started shooting into the water, quickly joined by more in a speedboat. Dozens of little waterspouts shot upwards where the bullets hit. The leader shouted again, sounding annoyed. The pirates stopped shooting - but there was no sign of anyone below the waves.

The pirate leader climbed into the larger of the two moored powerboats, the others splitting up to board the vessels. Engines started. They were leaving.

From her vantage point, Nina already knew they weren’t simply going to sail away. The RIB had rocket launchers aboard, the bulbous dark green warheads already loaded.

They hadn’t come just to rob the ship. They were going to sink it, remove all trace of the expedition.

One of the men in the smaller powerboat, almost directly below, looked up - and saw her. He shouted something, raising his gun—

Nina jerked back. The hoist controls were just a few feet away. Above, the bullet-pocked boat was hanging out over the ship’s side, still swaying . . .

She waited for the swinging boat to reach the furthest point of its arc - and kicked the hoist’s emergency release lever.

The boat plunged downwards with a rattle of chains. The pirates barely had time to scream before over half a ton of steel and wood and fibreglass hit, crushing them flat inside their own boat. Blood spurted over the dock.

The men in the two remaining boats gaped at the sight. Only their leader, at the RIB’s controls, was immediately able to overcome his shock, gunning the engine to curve his boat sharply away from the
Pianosa
.

Chase surfaced under the longer leg of the dock, seeing the RIB moving off. The other moored pirate craft, he saw with surprise, had become the bottom slice of a boat sandwich, its occupants reduced to a glutinous red jam.

‘Nice work,’ he muttered, looking up to see who had been responsible - and filling with relieved delight at the sight of a very familiar face peering over the deck.