‘About a minute,’ said Trulli. Too long, Chase realised - the gunner might have been hit, but the driver was probably a good shot in his own right, and if he damaged the tilt-rotor they would be doomed.
‘You’ll have to pick us up on the move,’ he decided. ‘Lower a line from the winch. We’ll grab it and you can pull us up.’
‘You think that’s a good idea?’
‘No, but it’s the only one I’ve got!’
Ahead, the Bell descended, engines now in hover configuration, and Chase made out a black cable descending from one side. He looked back. A red slash rose above the edge of the cliff, the paracraft following it a moment later - and dropping amidst a huge cloud of blown spray, the parachute flapping away behind it. But the black vehicle didn’t hit the ground, instead gliding along less than a foot above it, the stubby wings trapping air beneath them and providing just enough lift to support it in wing-in-ground effect mode.
And without the drag of the fabric ’chute, the paracraft could go much faster.
‘We haven’t got time.’ The Covenant craft was rapidly gaining, and he had no idea how to make his own paracraft lift off and do the same. ‘Matt! We’ll come to you - just fly in a straight line and I’ll aim for the cable!’
The BA609 dropped to around a hundred feet and slowed, the cable skittering over the ground. Chase turned the paracraft towards it, checking the other controls for anything that might help. A black button turned out to be the release for the backup parachute, but that was no use to him now, as it would just act like a giant airbrake and slow them even more.
All or nothing. He lined the paracraft’s battered nose up with the tilt-rotor, seeing Trulli looking out of the door. ‘How close are they?’ he asked Sophia.
‘A hundred and fifty metres, less - they’re catching up very fast.’
‘Get into the front,’ he told her. ‘When I say, grab the line. Soon as you’ve got it, I’ll tell them to climb - they’ll pull you with them.’
‘What about you?’
‘Still working on that part!’
Sophia climbed back into the front seat. They were gaining rapidly on the tilt-rotor, which tipped forward to match their speed. The end of the cable was a hook, part of the winch system they had used to recover Trulli’s submersible. It bounced along the ice, kicking up chips with each impact. ‘Go up,’ Chase told Trulli. ‘About two feet.’
The Bell ascended slightly, the heavy hook rising with it until it was wavering in the wind just above the ground. Chase adjusted course to follow it, the freezing spray kicked up by the tilt-rotor slashing at his face. ‘Where are they?’
‘Fifty metres.’
The cable danced just ahead of the paracraft. ‘Get ready to grab it!’
The engine noise of the second paracraft changed sharply. A moment later there was an oddly muffled bang from behind. ‘What happened?’ Chase demanded, unable to risk looking away from the cable.
‘They just landed.’ The Covenant craft had dropped back on to the ice, the air cushion absorbing most of the impact. The gunner, face filled with pain, had nevertheless managed to prop his SIG on the windscreen, swinging it towards his target. ‘Eddie, he’s going to shoot at the plane!’
Chase said nothing, grimly urging the paracraft forward . . .
The hook clunked against fibreglass. Sophia grabbed the line and pulled it to her, shoving a foot into the hook.
A burst of gunfire. Two shots missed, the third clanging off the tilt-rotor’s fuselage. The gunner adjusted his aim—
‘Climb!’ Chase roared.
Larsson responded immediately, the Bell’s engines whining as he increased power. The cable snapped taut and whisked Sophia out of the paracraft.
The gunner’s finger tightened on the trigger—
Chase hit the black button and leapt from his seat, kicking down the steering column and clamping one outstretched hand round Sophia’s ankle as she soared away.
The paracraft’s reserve ’chute burst from the back of the hull. The backblast from the fan immediately snapped it open and it shot into the air, pulling the empty paracraft with it.
Chase’s last kick to the controls had moved the wing flaps to their limit, pitching the paracraft into a steep climb - too steep. It backflipped into a stall, falling back to earth . . .
On to the other paracraft.
Fibreglass shattered, shards tearing flesh, then the fuel tanks of both craft ruptured and exploded, scattering ragged hunks of burning debris across the pristine ice.
Chase felt the heat of the explosion. He looked up, seeing Sophia clinging to the line, the underside of the tilt-rotor spinning above her. He tried to bring up his other hand to the hook, but in the gale from the rotors couldn’t quite reach. His other hand was slipping, inexorably losing its grip on Sophia’s boot. He looked pleadingly up at her . . .
She looked back, but her expression was one of annoyance. She pointed at the ground. Chase lowered his gaze - and saw he was hanging only a foot above the ice, Larsson having slowed and descended. Sheepishly, he let go of her foot and dropped. Sophia jumped down beside him. The tilt-rotor moved off, Trulli giving them a thumbs-up as it turned to land nearby.
‘All right,’ said Sophia, ‘can we go now?’
‘Yeah,’ Chase replied. ‘We need to get back to Australia . . . and then on to Africa.’
‘We’ve found the paracraft,’ said one of the remaining Covenant members over Vogler’s radio. ‘Both destroyed.’
‘What about Chase and Blackwood?’ Vogler asked.
‘No sign. But there are marks from landing gear nearby. They must have got away.’
Vogler’s normally impassive face revealed frustration. ‘Understood. Get back here. Out.’
‘Wow,’ Nina said. ‘Not your day, huh? That’s, what, eleven guys and two hovercraft?’
‘Luckily for you, Dr Wilde, we still have enough seats in the other paracraft for you. Otherwise this,’ he indicated the library around them, ‘would be your permanent residence. For as long as it remains, at least.’
She regarded him sourly. ‘You’re still going to destroy it?’
‘When we have what we need, yes.’ He glanced across the huge room. An impromptu production line had been set up, two of the Covenant troopers bringing over stacks of clay tablets that Ribbsley had decreed of interest, so that a third could take high-resolution photographs of them.
‘We shouldn’t take her at all,’ growled Zamal from nearby. ‘We should kill her right now.’
‘Not this again,’ Vogler sighed. ‘You know procedure.’
‘Procedure doesn’t count now Hammerstein is dead. And he would have voted to kill her as well.’
‘You don’t know that,’ he said. Nina was certain Zamal was correct, but decided it best to keep it to herself. ‘And I will not allow anyone to take action against her until the Triumvirate has reached a majority verdict.’
Zamal laughed sarcastically. ‘Which will be hard, since there are only the two of us left. Or were you thinking of granting a field promotion?’ He looked across at the three men working with the tablets - all Arabs. ‘One of my men, perhaps? I have three to your one. The odds are in my favour.’
Vogler shook his head. ‘I was thinking of someone we both trust, whose opinion we respect.’
Another harsh laugh. ‘Not Ribbsley, surely? Or Callum?’
‘The Cardinal.’
Zamal looked surprised. ‘The Cardinal? He is no longer a member of the Covenant.’
‘Nobody leaves the Covenant, Zamal. Not really. And I know you value his opinion. And trust him.’
‘I do,’ Zamal said with reluctance. ‘But since he was your mentor, I don’t think his decision will be unbiased.’
‘He’ll decide based on the facts. And I think he is just as likely to vote with you as with me. Until our Jewish comrades appoint a new member to the Triumvirate, this will be the fastest way to reach a decision. And since Chase and Blackwood have the location of Eden, w
e need to move fast.’ He looked at Nina. ‘You will come with us.’
‘So I get to stay alive, huh?’ she said.
His hard smile did not reassure her. ‘For now.’
30
Vatican City
It is the smallest independent state in the world, less than a quarter of a square mile in area. A city within a city, completely surrounded by the Italian capital of Rome. Yet for all that, it is also one of the most powerful states in the world, transcending boundaries of nationality and race and politics to hold influence over more than a billion people across the globe: the followers of the Roman Catholic Church.
Both Rome and Vatican City were places that Nina had long wanted to visit. But she had planned to do so as a tourist, not as a prisoner. And especially not with the threat of death hanging over her.
A threat that would be dismissed - or carried out - based upon the word of one man. A man she was about to meet.
Once Ribbsley had all his photographs, the Covenant moved out, making a long and cold flight in the remaining paracraft. Their destination was the bleak Wilkins ice runway some forty miles from the Australian Casey research station, the only place for hundreds of miles able to support aircraft capable of crossing the Antarctic Ocean. Two Hercules transporters waited there, one of them taking Nina, the two surviving Covenant leaders, Ribbsley and Callum to Hobart on the Australian island of Tasmania, from where a jet carried them on the lengthy journey to Europe. It was night when, exhausted and jet-lagged, she was finally brought to the Vatican in an Audi Q7 SUV with blacked-out windows. Zamal and Callum flanked her, each holding a gun. The Audi passed through a side entrance, Nina catching the barest glimpse of the majesty of St Peter’s basilica before being driven to a nondescript building near the tiny city-state’s railway station.
The guns were put away, but Nina felt no less threatened as she was taken inside, Vogler leading the way. Men in dark suits stood guard within, with the same cold, hard faces as Vogler’s team at the frozen city. Former Swiss Guards, now tasked with a more secret objective. Was this the headquarters of the Covenant, right inside the Vatican itself ?
The building’s interior was elegant yet austere. This was a place of work, not worship. Though it was quiet, their footsteps echoing through the polished hallways, Nina got the sense that a lot went on behind each of the closed doors she passed. There was a feeling of power, understated yet undeniable.
Vogler took her up a flight of steps to a door at the end of a long hallway. He opened it. ‘Go inside.’ Nina hesitated, then steeled herself and went through. Vogler followed her, the others remaining outside.
The room was a mix of office and study, two walls lined with book-filled shelves and tall filing cabinets, high windows in the third giving a view of the dome of St Peter’s. The fourth wall was dominated by a beautiful marble fireplace, flames crackling gently in the grate. Before it were two armchairs of time-polished red leather.
An elderly man dressed in black sat in one of them, gazing into the fire. Vogler stood beside him, respectfully lowering his head. ‘Cardinale,’ he said. The man looked up, replying in Italian. Nina didn’t know the language well enough to understand what they were saying, but from their tone it was clear they knew each other well.
Vogler handed the old man the cylinder containing the recording of the song. He examined it, then carefully placed it on a small table and stood to face Nina, revealing that his clothes were the robes of a cardinal. There was something unusual about them, however, and it took a moment for her to realise what: they were devoid of any kind of colour or decoration, even a crucifix.
‘Dr Wilde,’ he said, gesturing to the empty armchair. ‘Please sit down.’
She eyed it suspiciously. ‘Not until I know what’s going on.’
He shrugged. ‘As you wish. I simply thought that after your long journey you might want to be comfortable. I hope you don’t mind if I sit.’ He lowered himself back into his chair, the leather creaking. ‘I am Jonas di Bonaventura, and I’m sure you have many questions. But the question that has brought you all this way is a simple one: should you live?’ He fixed her with a piercing, crystal-clear gaze that belonged on a much younger man.
‘You want me to answer that?’ Nina replied. ‘Because in that case: a big fat yes!’
Di Bonaventura smiled. ‘You live up to your reputation, Dr Wilde. Do, please, sit down. It will make my neck ache if I have to keep looking up at you.’ The smile darkened. ‘And you would not want that to affect my decision.’
Nina paused, then perched on the edge of the chair. Vogler moved to stand behind her - in a position, she realised, that would give him the easiest shot should he choose to draw his gun. ‘So,’ she said, trying not to let that intimidate her, ‘this is the headquarters of the Covenant of Genesis, huh?’
‘The Covenant has no headquarters,’ said di Bonaventura. ‘It does not even exist. Officially, at least. It is a shadow, a phantom, its work known only by a few.’
Nina looked through the windows towards the great floodlit dome of St Peter’s. ‘Including, you know . . . him? The man in the hat?’
Vogler made a faint sound in his throat, enough to indicate his displeasure at her disrespect. Di Bonaventura, however, merely leaned back in his chair. ‘Of course not. That is our firmest rule - he must never know. That would make His Holiness a hypocrite, and that cannot, must not, be allowed to happen. What we do, we do in secret. I am a cardinale in pectore, a secret cardinal - but not in the way most people would use the term, even His Holiness. Popes are chosen from the ranks of the cardinals, but simply by knowing of the existence of the Covenant I am disqualified from ever being nominated. I am, you might say, an agent of the Church, just as governments and corporations have their agents who work to protect them. And keep their secrets.’
‘Like the secret of the Veteres. Yeah, I know all about them,’ she said, catching a slight upward twitch of the cardinal’s white eyebrows.
He smiled again. ‘You do? I think not.’
‘Well, let’s see now,’ said Nina. ‘They date back to well over a hundred and thirty thousand years ago, they expanded across the world all the way from Africa to the Antarctic, they built cities that wouldn’t be equalled in scale for over a hundred millennia, they had a complex written language, a numerical system that would be adopted by the Atlanteans, they worshipped a single god . . . and something else too, what was it?’ She pretended to search her memory. ‘Oh, and they came from a little place called the Garden of Eden, that was it,’ she finished. ‘I think that about covers it.’
Di Bonaventura regarded her silently . . . and then, to her growing dismay, laughed long and hard. It wasn’t sarcastic, or mocking - he was genuinely amused, in the same way that a parent might be at a display by a precocious child. ‘My apologies, Dr Wilde,’ he finally said, still smiling broadly. ‘You do indeed know a great deal about the Veteres, some of which, yes, the Covenant did not. So I congratulate you on that. But despite everything you have learned, there is one thing you have not - the secret of the Veteres themselves!’
‘What?’ Nina demanded, realising that he had just effortlessly manipulated her into revealing part of her hand - the limits of her knowledge. ‘What secret?’
Di Bonaventura merely smiled again, infuriating her. ‘None of what you have discovered matters to the Covenant. If that were all it was, the Covenant would not even need to exist.’
‘So what’s the secret?’ He said nothing. ‘Okay then, it’s something you think is such a threat to the Abrahamic religions that all knowledge of it has to be suppressed and all evidence destroyed. Am I right?’
He nodded. ‘Go on.’
It struck Nina that if she did deduce the truth, she could be signing her own death warrant. But something drove her on: she had to know. ‘But it’s not just that this civilisation existed long before Abraham. There’s something about it that contradicts Genesis - that can be proved to contradict Genesis,’ she realised. ‘That’s the t
hreat, isn’t it? And you know what it is.’
‘But do you, Dr Wilde? Do you have that knowledge?’
‘Why?’ She glanced at Vogler. ‘Are you going to have him shoot me if I do?’
Di Bonaventura chuckled. ‘Certainly not in here - the carpet would have to be cleaned.’ He regarded her with another intense look. ‘And perhaps not at all. But that depends on you.’
‘So if I give you the right answer, you might not kill me?’
‘It is not the answer that matters, but the beliefs that lead to it.’
‘Thanks for that, Yoda,’ she scoffed, before frowning in thought. ‘So what could contradict Genesis so much that the Covenant would kill to stop it becoming known? Genesis has been contradicted by science often enough in the past, in everything from geology to zoology to astrophysics, but you didn’t send out commandos to assassinate Stephen Hawking. So it must be something huge . . .’ She tailed off. ‘It’s . . . it’s not aliens, is it?’
A long silence, only broken by the snapping of the fire. Then: ‘Of course it’s not aliens!’ said di Bonaventura, somewhere between mirth and disbelief that she could entertain such a ridiculous suggestion. ‘And I thought you were a serious scientist. Aliens!’
‘Hey!’ Nina protested. ‘I am a serious scientist! I found out more about the Veteres in two weeks than that jerk Ribbsley did in fifteen years, or however long he’s been working for you. How long has the Covenant been around, anyway?’
Di Bonaventura was still amused. ‘Subtlety is not one of your investigative tools, is it, Dr Wilde?’
‘And it’s not one of the Covenant’s methods, either. So how long? If you’re going to kill me anyway, there’s no harm in telling me.’
‘And if I decide to let you live?’
‘Then you need me for something, and I might be more inclined to co-operate if you give me something in return.’