The Covenant of Genesis (10 page)

His smile vanished as the RIB came about - and two men inside it raised Russian RPG-7 rocket launchers, aiming them at the
Pianosa
.

The first shot streaked across the water and hit one of the fuel barrels under the gangway. The explosion instantly consumed the others beside it, a huge ball of fire and filthy black smoke seething upwards. The heavy gangway broke loose, crashing aflame on to the burning dock and destroying several pontoon sections.

But the pirates weren’t finished.

The second RPG hit the ship at its waterline, blasting a foot-wide hole through the steel. The sea instantly rushed in, greedily filling every space it found within. A third detonation, from the other side of the
Pianosa
- the cruiser had also fired a rocket.

Holed in two places, no crew left alive to contain the flooding, the survey ship was doomed.

And Nina was still aboard.

The pirate leader pointed away from the stricken ship, to the northwest. The surviving speedboat turned and surged off in that direction, the RIB following. The deeper rumble of the cruiser’s engine rose as it joined the smaller boats in their escape.

Chase climbed on to what was left of the dock. It was now severed from the ship, slowly drifting away. ‘Nina!’ he shouted up at the
Pianosa
. ‘Nina, are you okay?’

She crawled to the edge of the deck, dishevelled hair fluttering in the wind, and looked down at him. ‘Eddie, God! Are you all right?’

‘More or less. Is anyone else alive up there?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Nina called back grimly. Toxic black smoke was belching from all the entrances to the superstructure.

Chase glanced at the waterline. The hole made by the RPG was now completely submerged, and dropping lower with increasing speed as the bow took on water. ‘The ship’s sinking - you’ve got to get off.’

‘How? The gangplank’s gone!’

‘Find a life jacket, then jump.’

She looked dismayed. ‘
Jump?
’

‘Might as well!’ He turned his attention to the overturned boat. ‘Bejo!’

Bejo surfaced beside the wreck. ‘Mr Eddie! You okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Chase told him, pointing at Nina. ‘Get ready to help her when she jumps in. Then bring her over here.’

‘I don’t want to jump in!’ Nina protested, donning a life jacket. ‘It’s too high!’

‘Well, if you wait a couple of minutes it’ll be at water level and you’ll just be able to
step
off, but I don’t think waiting’s a good idea!’ He indicated the flickers of flame escaping from the ship’s interior.

Nina reluctantly climbed over the railing. ‘Oh . . .
craaaap
!’ she shrieked as she closed her eyes and dropped into the sea. Bejo quickly reached her and raised her by the shoulders as she gasped and shook her head. He helped her to the dock.

Chase lifted his bedraggled fiancée from the water, then pulled Bejo out before starting for the other end of the dock. ‘Where are you going?’ Nina asked.

‘If the plane’s radio’s still working, we can send a distress call.’ He jogged to the battered Otter. There was an unpleasant moment when he had to push Ranauld’s shrapnel-torn corpse aside to reach the instrument panel, but he saw from the lights on its fascia that the radio was still active.

He reached for the hand-held microphone under the panel and switched the radio to VHF channel 16 - the international distress frequency. ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the research vessel
Pianosa
. . .’

 

The pirate leader looked down sharply as the speeding RIB’s radio crackled. It had been set to receive on channel 16, listening for any distress calls from the survey ship. None had come - destroying the vessel’s bridge and radio masts with the very first shot had seen to that.

But now a survivor was making a call - and worse, it was being answered. Someone aboard an Indonesian Coast Guard vessel was replying in halting English, asking for the ship’s location.

The plane
, he realised - it had only been damaged, not destroyed. Its radio was still intact.

No witnesses of the attack could be left alive. His employer had been very clear about that.

The speedboat was the fastest of their three remaining craft. He handed the RIB’s controls to one of his men and beckoned the speedboat closer. ‘There are still people alive!’ he shouted across to its three occupants. ‘Go back and kill them!’

The man at the speedboat’s outboard tugged the red bandanna from his face and gave him an eager, malevolent smile, then swung the vessel about.

 

‘Oh, bollocks,’ Chase muttered as he concluded the distress call - and saw one of the retreating boats making a hard turn.

They had heard the message.

Stranded on what was left of the pontoon dock, he, Nina and Bejo had nowhere to run. Even if they dived underwater, the pirates could just wait them out, taking shots when they surfaced for air. And they had no weapons.

Except . . .

‘What are you doing?’ Nina called as Chase clambered into the cockpit.

‘I’m going to meet them.’

‘You’re
what
?’

Chase didn’t answer, instead pushing Ranauld’s body out of the other side. ‘Sorry, Hervé,’ he said as the dead man splashed into the sea. He slid into the pilot’s seat and examined the instrument panel. Most of the dials and gauges were a mystery, but it didn’t matter. With half a wing missing, the Otter wouldn’t be flying anywhere. The only controls he needed were the rudder pedals and the throttle.

The latter, he knew from having watched Ranauld the previous day, was a large lever on the central console. He pushed it experimentally from the marked ‘Idle’ position. The engine note rose sharply, the fuselage vibrating as the propeller increased speed. A good start. He stretched back across the cockpit, untying the mooring rope, then shoved the throttle forward.

A cutting wind whipped through the broken windscreen, the engine’s roar driving into Chase’s skull like a drill. He ignored it, pushing one of the pedals to turn the Otter away from the dock. The plane began to pick up speed - and also to lurch, every small wave on the surface magnified as the floats ploughed through them.

He opened the throttle further. The amount of rudder control increased as the Otter went faster, but the aircraft was worryingly unstable. The wrecked port wing meant it wanted to turn right, the weight of the other wing pulling that side down. But if he applied too much left rudder to straighten out, the plane would tip over.

Sawing at the pedals with both feet in a precarious balancing act, he looked ahead. Through the propeller’s blur he saw the cruiser and the RIB retreating in the distance - and the speedboat coming at him.

More power. He couldn’t let the pirates get into range of the dock. The Otter smashed through the waves. Spray gushed through the hole in the fuselage, soaking him. He was doing thirty knots, and increasing.

The speedboat was approaching fast. One of the pirates stood up, gun ready. The driver changed course, turning to pass along the Otter’s port side.

The missing wing meant they had a closer approach. A better shot.

Chase turned straight at them. The plane began to tip over, a sickening slow-motion sensation as it approached the point of no return . . . then recovered as a wave impact pitched it back. The boat turned again, harder, the driver realising what he meant to do and trying to avoid the collision—

Chase ducked as the gunman fired. A burst of bullets clanked along the Otter’s nose and through the cockpit. One of the remaining pieces of windscreen shattered, sharp fragments whipped back at him by the wind.

Then the boat was past him.

Chase pushed down hard on the rudder pedal.

The plane tipped - but this time he wanted it to. The starboard wingtip sliced into the water. The sudden drag swung the whole aircraft round, much faster than with the rudder alone. Then the centrifugal force of the tight turn pushed the Otter back upright . . . and Chase straightened out, aiming directly at the speedboat as he jammed the throttle fully forward.

The engine noise became a scream, the blast from the propeller almost blinding him. But he could still see just enough to make out the speedboat almost side-on to him as the driver desperately tried to turn out of his way, but too late—

The gunman’s upper body instantly disappeared in a spray of red as the propeller hit him, his legs and abdomen remaining standing for a moment before the Otter’s floats crashed into the speedboat’s side and threw what was left of the body into the sea. Another man was clipped by the tips of the blades and flung over thirty feet into the air, an arc of blood tracing his path to a splashdown some distance away.

The driver barely managed to duck before the crash. The propeller scythed over him, missing by inches, but the force of the collision slammed his head against a seat.

Even braced for the impact, Chase was still thrown painfully against the control column. Clutching his bruised chest, he pulled back the throttle. The engine noise dropped to a low grumble.

He pushed himself up and looked outside. The speedboat was impaled on the Otter’s floats. He climbed out, finding a foothold on the float and edging along it to the plane’s nose. The propeller was still turning, so he jumped into the speedboat’s bow, then hunched down to pass underneath it. The pirate was sprawled across the stern, starting to recover—

‘Come in, number seven,’ said Chase, grabbing him and banging his head against the seat again. ‘Your time is up!’

The pirate swiped an arm at Chase’s face. He responded with a crunching headbutt, breaking the Indonesian’s nose. The man screeched, spitting blood.

Chase pulled the pirate up by the bandanna round his neck. ‘You speak English?’ he demanded. He doubted the snarled reply was complimentary. ‘Let’s try that again,’ he said, hauling him round so that his head was within inches of the propeller’s buzzing tips. ‘Do? You? Speak?
English?
’

‘Yes!’ shrieked the pirate, eyes wide with terror. He tried to twist away, but Chase forced him closer.

‘Why did you attack us?’

‘Don’t know! Just a job!’

‘Who hired you?’

Despite his fear, the pirate remained silent. Chase frowned and pushed him into the propeller. Most of the man’s right ear disappeared with a meaty
thwat!
and a puff of blood. He screamed as Chase pulled him away.

‘Who hired you?’ Chase repeated, more forcefully. ‘You’ve only got one more ear, then after that it’s on to the softer bits.’ He glanced down for emphasis.

‘Don’t know!’ the pirate wailed. ‘Only Latan knows!’

‘Who’s Latan?’

‘Boss man, our boss!’

Chase remembered the ex-military man he’d seen leading the pirates. He looked for the retreating RIB. Like the cruiser, it was now just a dot in the distance, powering away at full speed. ‘Where’s he going?’

The pirate lashed out in an attempt to break free. Chase rammed a fist into the other man’s stomach, then grabbed him again.

‘Can you still ’ear me?’ said Chase as his prisoner, blood now running down both sides of his head, screamed again. ‘Where’s your base? Where’s Latan going?’

‘Mankun Island!
Mankun Island!
’

The name meant nothing to Chase, but he could tell from the desperation in the pirate’s voice that he was telling the truth. He pulled him away from the propeller and threw him down in the stern. ‘All right, Van Gogh,’ he growled, ‘stay there and shut up.’ He sat down, one foot on the moaning man’s chest as he tried to piece together what had happened. Whoever had hired this Latan to attack the expedition had been after something very specific, something so valuable - or such a threat - that everybody aboard the
Pianosa
had to be murdered to cover up the fact.

It had to be one of the artefacts Nina had found, but how could some old relic be worth so much carnage?

He saw the camera from Nina’s lab under the rear seat. Whatever it was they’d been after, maybe there was still a picture on the memory card . . .

Movement caught his attention and he snapped his head round, seeing the menacing fin of a shark briefly break the surface before slipping back under the waves. The blood in the water must have attracted it—

The pirate twisted out from under his foot, clawing for something behind his back as he took advantage of Chase’s momentary distraction. He sat up, clutching a pistol that had been hidden in his waistband.

Chase rolled backwards, sweeping a savage kick at the pirate. His heel smashed into his chin with tooth-snapping force. The pirate was thrown back, firing a shot wildly into the air as he toppled over the stern to splash into the sea.

Heart racing, Chase pulled himself upright to see the pirate surfacing. Blood streaming down his face, he flicked up the gun—

And was dragged under the water, so shockingly fast that the gun was already submerged again before he could pull the trigger. A plume of bloody froth belched up as the tiger shark which had just clamped its ferocious jaws round the pirate’s chest pulled its meal down into the depths.

Chase let out a startled half-laugh as he watched predator and prey disappear. He regained his breath, then hummed a few bars from the
Jaws
theme, looking back towards the half-sunken
Pianosa
and wondering how long it would take to get back to Nina with a smashed boat stuck to his plane.

After all, swimming was definitely an unsafe option.

‘
A
ttacked by pirates in the morning,’ said Nina, ‘and a twenty-eight-hour flight in the afternoon. I don’t know which is worse.’

The humour was forced; she was still horribly shaken. But in dealing first with the Coast Guard, then with officials from the Indonesian government after being airlifted to Jakarta, she had concealed her true feelings beneath a mask of officialdom. She was still the leader of the expedition, and she had a responsibility to give the authorities as clear and dispassionate an account of events as possible.