Nina examined it. ‘That’s the word for “song”? Because it’s also what was painted on those bowls in the ice.’ She turned to the gramophone, putting her hands on the wheel. Ice ground and crunched - then cracked, the wheel rotating more or less freely. ‘These things were left here for a reason. I think we need to play them.’
By the time Trulli reached the tilt-rotor, the new arrivals were landing and collapsing their parachutes with well-practised skill. The Hercules in military livery had borne United States Air Force markings - but the men who emerged from it were not in American uniforms. The vehicles landing on pallets with them were not exactly standard US issue either: they looked like small hovercraft, glossy beetle-black bodywork bearing what appeared to be stubby, squared-off wings.
Five hovercraft in all, and about twenty men. Armed men.
He looked for the other expedition members. Rachel had initially hesitated before following him to the BA609, and was still clomping across the ice. Baker dutifully remained at the winch. Bandra, though, was moving to meet the paratroopers. ‘Oh, you stupid bastard,’ he moaned, before giving the walkie-talkie to Larsson. ‘I need you to hook that up to the radio - and get this thing started!’
Chase delved into his pack to produce a flare, igniting it and holding the two cylinders beside the sizzling red flame to melt the ice off them. In the small room the light was dazzling and the sulphurous burning smell almost overpowering, but it quickly did the job. Once the cylinders were clear, he used the same trick to remove the ice crusted over the needle and speaker cone before tossing the flare into the passage outside.
Nina turned the wheel again. ‘We’ll have to work it by hand. Hope we can get it to the right speed.’
‘The one you improvised wasn’t turning that fast,’ said Sophia, drying the cylinders and handing them to her.
Nina mounted the first cylinder, the one labelled ‘song of the prophet’, on the spindle, positioning the needle against the cylinder’s groove. ‘Okay. Here goes.’
She turned the wheel, spinning it at what she thought was roughly the right speed. An unpleasant scraping noise came from the copper cone. Chase winced. ‘Sounds like the greatest hits of Fingernails and Blackboard.’
‘Hold on.’ She adjusted the needle and spun the wheel again. This time, she got a result. A slurred, uneven voice came from the cone.
‘That must be the title,’ Sophia told her. ‘But you need to go faster.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Nina spun the wheel more quickly, waiting for the next words to emerge.
They didn’t. What came from the speaker was a chant.
‘“Song of the prophet”? You weren’t kidding,’ said Chase.
Nina kept the wheel turning. The music was a long, sustained note, distorted by the inevitable variations in speed of the turntable, but she imagined that, played as it had been intended, the singer would have maintained perfect pitch. The note rose an octave, then dropped two before rising again. Then it stopped. The whole was beautiful, yet somehow unsettling. ‘What was that?’ she said. Chase hummed the five-note theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. ‘Not that.’
‘A ritual chant, maybe,’ Sophia suggested.
‘Of their prophet. Maybe even by their prophet,’ realised Nina. ‘Give me the other cylinder.’
Back straight, head held high to show a confidence that was rapidly draining, Dr Bandra strode towards the parachutists. Both aircraft, having disgorged their cargo, were heading away towards the coast. Most of the newly arrived soldiers were engaged in removing the hovercraft from their pallets, but there was a group of five men who appeared to be in charge, standing apart from the others.
He slowed as he approached the apparent officers. All but one had rifles slung over their shoulders as well as holstered pistols. Increasingly nervous, he stopped before the group. ‘Good afternoon,’ he began, the words catching in his throat. He cleared it and continued more authoritatively, ‘I’m Dr Rohit Bandra of the United Nations Antarctic Research Agency, in charge of this expedition. I’ve been given no advance notice of any other activities - can you tell me what you’re doing here?’
To his anger, they didn’t even acknowledge him, most of them looking away as another soldier ran over to give a report. Only a white-haired man seemed to have any interest in his presence - and Bandra was already wishing that he didn’t, finding his unblinking gaze increasingly unnerving.
‘Look,’ he said, trying to catch the attention of the others, ‘I have authority here, as granted to me by the United Nations. So I insist that you tell me what’s going on. After all, ha, I’m sure you remember that the Antarctic Treaty prohibits military operations.’
The white-haired man’s stare didn’t waver. ‘We’re not military,’ he told Bandra . . . as he drew his pistol and shot him in the head.
The shot cracked across the plain, audible even over the rising noise of the tilt-rotor’s engines. ‘Shit!’ Trulli yelled, throwing the cabin door open. ‘Davo! Come on! Run!’
Baker stared as Bandra fell backwards, a slash of red spouting across the pristine white. It took a few seconds before his fight-or-flight instinct cut through his shock - by which time other soldiers were reacting to the unexpected gunfire, unslinging their rifles.
He started to run, weighed down by his heavy clothing. The soldiers were some two hundred metres from him - but the plane was almost as distant in the other direction. Rifle fire crackled across the gap.
‘David!’ cried Rachel. Trulli watched, appalled, as little geysers of ice spat up around the running man, a ragged pattern of bullet impacts.
The pattern rapidly tightened.
Baker stumbled. For a moment Trulli thought he had just lost his footing - then a puff of crimson spray burst through his padded coat. And another, blood gushing out as he crashed on to the ice, flailing to a stop at the head of a smeared trail of gore.
Rachel screamed. ‘Take off !’ yelled Trulli. ‘Go, go, go!’ The soldiers were already switching targets, directing their weapons at the tilt-rotor. Larsson pushed the throttle to full power.
A shot hit the tilt-rotor’s side. Rachel shrieked again. ‘Get down!’ Trulli told her, ducking in his seat. Another bullet struck somewhere behind him. His view of the soldiers was obscured by a whirlwind of ice crystals as the Bell finally fought free of the ground. Larsson immediately tilted the stick sideways to slide the aircraft away from the soldiers, turning as he gained height.
More gunfire, this time a rattling burst on automatic. Trulli looked back. One of the hovercraft was slithering across the ice on a roostertail of snow and ice. Two Covenant soldiers were aboard, one driving, the other in the front seat with a rifle, flame spitting from its muzzle as he fired again—
More bullets hit home, ripping into the aluminium fuselage and penetrating the cabin. Larsson yelped as one struck the back of his seat - but didn’t pierce the metal, the flattened round clanging to the floor. Other shots thunked round them, then the firing stopped as the aircraft transitioned to flight mode and sped out of range.
‘Are we damaged?’ Trulli asked. ‘Can we still fly?’
Larsson hurriedly checked the instruments. ‘I think so. But who were they? What the hell is going on?’
‘Tell you in a minute.’ Trulli turned his attention back to the walkie-talkie. ‘First, I’ve got to get this radio working!’
Zamal watched the tilt-rotor retreat into the distance. ‘They’re getting away!’ he yelled.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Callum told him, unconcerned. He looked at the hole in the ice. ‘We’ve still got Wilde and Chase trapped. And Blackwood.’
‘I want Sophia alive,’ Ribbsley said firmly. ‘If you want my help, that’s the deal.’
Vogler smiled sardonically. ‘Professor Ribbsley, do you know how far we are from the nearest ice station?’
He looked puzzled. ‘No?’
‘About two hundred kilometres,’ said Hammerstein, lighting a cigar.
‘Quite a walk,?
?? Vogler continued. ‘And since we only have enough seats in the paracraft to take us all back there,’ he gestured at one of the four-seater vehicles, ‘if we decided to bring Ms Blackwood with us, one person would have to give up his place and make that walk. And I assure you, that person will not be any of my men.’
‘Nor mine,’ said Hammerstein.
Zamal grinned. ‘Or mine.’
‘And I doubt Mr Callum will volunteer either. So, Professor, you may want to reconsider your position.’ Vogler gazed into the distance. ‘It really is quite a walk.’
Ribbsley turned away with an irritable, defeated growl. Vogler regarded him with brief amusement before calling to one of the soldiers. ‘Situation report!’
‘The paracraft are all ready, sir,’ the man replied.
‘And the ice-burners?’
The soldier indicated a pair of heavy objects the size and shape of oil drums, which were being lifted upright alongside two of the paracraft. ‘Ready to be moved into position.’
‘Then let us begin.’ Vogler faced the other Covenant leaders.
‘Hammerstein, take your squad down the shaft there,’ he said, nodding at the winch. ‘Zamal, get your men to set up the first ice-burner over the centre of the lake and proceed from there. My team will take the second to the southern end. Mr Callum, Professor Ribbsley, come with me.’ He took his rifle from his shoulder, pulling back the charging handle to load the first round. ‘Dr Wilde’s search is over.’
The second cylinder was on the spindle. ‘All right,’ said Nina, ‘let’s see what this one has to say.’
‘What was it called again?’ asked Chase.
‘“The path from . . .” whatever that name is,’ Sophia said, pointing at the unknown word on the inscription, then moving her finger to the starting point of the map. ‘Presumably this place in Africa.’
Nina turned the wheel. An ancient voice echoed from the speaker cone, reciting the cylinder’s title. ‘We’ll take a look after we’ve played—’ She stopped as she heard what it said.
Chase and Sophia were equally dumbfounded. Though the language was strange, one word stood out clearly from the others. A name.
A name they all knew.
Nina stopped the wheel. Chase jabbed a finger at the cone. ‘Did that just say what I think it said?’
‘Play it again!’ Sophia ordered, but Nina didn’t need any prompting, already moving the needle back to its starting position. She spun the wheel again.
Again, the unfamiliar words emerged from the speaker . . . followed by one they couldn’t mistake.
Eden.
‘“The path from Eden”?’ Chase almost shouted. ‘Are you telling me these buggers came from the Garden of fucking Eden?’
‘It can’t be,’ Sophia protested, even as Nina reset the needle once more. ‘The Garden of Eden is pure myth!’
‘So was Atlantis,’ Nina reminded her as the ancient recording played again.
Eden. The same word. Unmistakable. Undeniable.
‘That’s the Covenant’s secret,’ said Nina, stunned. ‘The Covenant of Genesis . . . they took their name from the agreement, the covenant, between the three religions to protect Genesis, to protect Eden, and make sure nobody ever finds it.’
‘Why?’ Chase asked, mystified. ‘If they say, “Hey, look, we found the actual factual Garden of Eden!” wouldn’t that prove they were right all along?’
‘Not if scientific analysis confirmed that what was written in Genesis is wrong. The story told in Genesis is the foundation stone of all three religions - kick it out, and they’re all weakened. They can’t allow that to happen.’
Sophia surveyed the map. ‘So do they know where Eden is?’
‘They can’t, otherwise they would have dealt with it already.’ She raised her hands to take in the room and its contents. ‘But they don’t have any of this. We do, and the Covenant don’t know where we are - so we can find Eden first!’
Chase was about to say something when his walkie-talkie squawked. ‘Matt? That you?’ The only response was a stuttering electronic screech. ‘Walls must be too thick for the signal to get through,’ he said, ducking back through the passageway. ‘I’ll try it out here.’
He emerged in the ice-blocked hallway, where the red flare was still fizzing away. Trulli’s voice became clearer, though still heavily distorted. ‘Nina! Eddie! If you can hear me, for Christ’s sake answer!’
‘I’m here, Matt,’ said Chase. ‘What’s up?’
‘Eddie! Oh, thank God! Listen, they’re here, the Covenant! They killed Davo and Dr Bandra!’
Chase was silent for a moment. ‘Oh, arse,’ he finally said.
‘Eddie! Did you hear me?’
‘Yeah, I heard you. Where are you?’
‘We’re in the plane. Listen, you’ve got to get out of there!’
‘No shit, Sherlock,’ muttered Chase as the women scrabbled through the passage, Nina clutching the cylinder containing the song. ‘Nina, you know you just said that the Covenant don’t know where we are?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Guess what?’
Nina’s face fell. ‘You gotta be kidding me!’
‘Matt,’ he said into the radio, ‘we need to find another way back to the winch.’ He paused. ‘They’re at the winch, aren’t they?’
‘Yeah,’ came the crackling reply.
‘Buggeration and fuckery!’ Another moment of thought. ‘Okay, then the only other way out’s through the drainage shaft - if it hasn’t frozen up. If we get out, I’ll radio you so you can pick us up. But if you don’t hear anything from us in . . .’ he looked at his watch, ‘in the next hour, then get the fuck out of here, because I don’t think we’ll be coming.’
‘We’ll land and wait for you,’ Trulli assured him. ‘Good luck.’
‘Thanks.’ Chase lowered the radio. ‘Okay, we need another way back down to the ground - but first things first,’ he said as an idea struck him, crouching and hurrying back through the passage.
‘What are you doing?’ Nina asked, pocketing the cylinder and following him.
‘Give me your camera. Quick.’ She extracted it from its pouch and handed it to him. He took several pictures of the African section of the map.
Sophia entered. ‘What is it?’
‘We’re the only people who’ve seen this, right?’ he said, closing the camera’s cover and stuffing it into one of his inside pockets.
‘Yeah?’ said Nina.
‘So nobody else ever will.’ He raised the pickaxe - and smashed it repeatedly against the wall, obliterating the markings.
‘Eddie!’ Nina cried, horrified. ‘What are you doing?’ She tried to pull the axe from his hand.
‘No,’ Sophia said, ‘he’s right. We can’t let the Covenant find this.’
Chase kept bashing at the wall until the African end of the map was nothing more than shattered fragments on the floor, then ground them to powder beneath his boot. ‘Don’t think they’ll get much from that.’ He went back to the passageway. ‘Okay, now we need to find another way to the shaft - and we’ve got fifty-eight minutes to do it!’
25
Even through his sunglasses, Vogler had to squint to counter the glare of sunlight on snow as he looked across the ice field. In the distance he picked out Hammerstein and his team descending the winch line, and two hundred metres closer Zamal’s men moved one of the black drums into position.
His own soldiers had done the same with the second. ‘The ice-burner is ready, sir,’ a man informed him.
‘Then start it. Everyone, move back.’
The rest of the team, plus Ribbsley and Callum, retreated as the soldier inserted a long glass tube containing an amber liquid into an opening on the drum’s top. Once it was in place, he pushed a button and quickly moved away. A faint crack came from within the heavy drum as a small explosive charge shattered the glass.
‘Is that it?’ Ribbsley asked, unimpressed. ‘With something called an ice-burner, I was expecting jets o
f flame.’
‘Just wait,’ Vogler told him. Seconds passed . . . then the drum shifted, settling deeper into the surface layer of snow. Water pooled round its base.
Then bubbled, and boiled.
Steam swirled from the ground as the drum sank into the ice. Hot water gushed from the hole, displaced by the ice-burner’s weight, and the hiss of escaping steam became a roar as the metal began to glow red-hot. Across the plain, a spewing plume of vapour shot up as Zamal’s ice-burner disappeared into the frozen surface.
‘Exothermic reaction,’ said Vogler to the now somewhat more impressed Ribbsley. ‘Two chemicals that produce an enormous amount of heat when mixed. Some sort of thermate derivative - I don’t know what, chemistry is not my field, but I’ve been told the reaction will last long enough to melt through up to fifty metres of ice.’ The drum dropped below the surface, steam and spray spitting out of the hole.
‘How long will it take?’ Ribbsley asked.
‘Five minutes, perhaps less. As soon as it breaks through, we will secure ropes and climb down. Will you be able to manage?’
The professor gave him a scathing look. ‘If I can manage a parachute drop, I can handle a rope climb.’
‘Good. Then get ready.’
Nina, Chase and Sophia split up, hurriedly searching the unexplored areas of the library for other exits. Nina moved through the western side of the huge room, before long making a promising discovery. ‘Eddie!’ she called. ‘I found another way out!’
Sophia was first to arrive. ‘There’s a doorway,’ Nina told her. ‘It’s frozen up, but I can see light on the other side.’ The azure glow of ice-filtered daylight was visible round the edges of the wood and metal door.
Chase reached them. ‘What’ve we got?’
‘A door,’ Sophia said. ‘Of the closed variety, inevitably.’
‘I don’t think it’s frozen solid like that gate,’ said Nina, ‘but I can’t get it open.’ She tugged at the ice-caked handle. The door rattled, but didn’t move.