The Covenant of Genesis (18 page)

She glared at him. ‘Oh, so I get sacrificed on the altar of public relations, do I?’

The other official spoke up. ‘When the investigation clears you, you’ll be reinstated, of course.’

‘
If
the investigation clears you,’ Rothschild countered.

‘I’m sure it’ll be completely impartial and unbiased,’ said Nina bitterly. She stood. ‘Well, if I’m suspended, there’s no point my hanging around here, is there?’

‘There is one more thing, Dr Wilde,’ Rothschild said. ‘The memory card, the one with the pictures of the artefact . . . what happened to it?’

‘It got wiped,’ Nina answered.

‘So there are no more pictures of the artefact?’

‘No.’

‘I see.’ Rothschild pursed her lips. ‘Let us hope that means an end to the violence, then.’

‘Yeah,’ said Nina. ‘Let us hope.’

She turned away and left the room, closing the door behind her . . . then reached up to feel the memory card, still in her jacket pocket.

Still filled with anger, Nina gathered her possessions from her office, slamming books and journals and mementos of her past adventures into a cardboard box.

She paused as she picked up one particular souvenir - a framed photograph of herself at the White House, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Victor Dalton for her part in saving New York from nuclear annihilation.

Dalton
. . .

Following the FBI’s examination of the room, the telephone had been replaced along with the broken window. Nina hesitated, then: ‘What the hell.’ She called Lola’s replacement and asked to be put through to the President.

‘Of . . . the United States?’ came the uncertain reply.

‘That’s the one.’

It was a long shot; Nina had no idea if Dalton were even currently in Washington, and was sure he had an infinite number of other concerns. But she figured that she was owed a favour - at the very least, he could return her call.

The response was not immediate, giving her time to finish collecting her belongings. But eventually, the phone rang. ‘Hello?’

‘Dr Wilde?’ said a woman. ‘Please hold for the President.’

Another pause, then a click of connection. ‘Dr Wilde,’ said an instantly recognisable voice.

‘Mr President,’ she replied. ‘Thank you for taking my call.’

‘No problem at all. I could hardly keep a true American hero waiting, could I?’ He chuckled. ‘What can I do for you?’

Nina wondered for a moment how best to address the subject, deciding to get straight to the point. ‘Mr President, it’s about the appointment of Maureen Rothschild as the new Director of the International Heritage Agency. I don’t believe she is the right person for the job, and I think that her suspension of myself and Eddie Chase is completely unwarranted.’

‘Your suspension.’ For some reason, Dalton seemed unsurprised at the news. Surely he couldn’t already know about it?

‘Yes, sir. In my opinion, she made the decision based solely on her personal dislike of me, without any consideration of the damage it would cause to the IHA’s operations and its global security mission.’ Nina had a more forceful - and ruder - version of her argument circling in her head, but thought the diplomatic edit should do the trick.

Or not. ‘Dr Wilde,’ said Dalton, disapproval evident in his tone, ‘are you aware that Professor Rothschild was appointed as IHA Director on my personal recommendation to the Senate committee and the UN?’

‘Uh, no sir, I was not,’ Nina answered, startled.

‘She has my total confidence and support, as well as that of the United Nations. Are you saying that support is misplaced?’

‘I, er . . . Yes, quite frankly, Mr President,’ she said, a shudder running through her as she realised she had just challenged the most powerful man on the planet.

‘Then,’ said Dalton, tone even harder, ‘we’ll have to disagree, Dr Wilde. Professor Rothschild has my full backing. If her decision inconveniences you—’

‘
Inconveniences?
’

‘—then that’s unfortunate. But as Director, she has full authority. If you have a problem with that, you should take it up through proper UN channels, rather than trying to take advantage of your past service to this country for personal gain.’

‘That - that’s not why I—’ Nina began, but Dalton cut her off.

‘We both know that’s
exactly
why you called me, Dr Wilde. Now, I appreciate everything you’ve done in the past for the United States - I would hardly have awarded you the Medal of Freedom otherwise - but that does
not
grant you a hotline to the Oval Office to solve your personal problems. Do I make myself clear?’ When Nina couldn’t find an answer immediately, he sternly added, ‘Dr Wilde? Am I clear?’

‘Yes, Mr President,’ Nina mumbled, chastised.

‘Good. Now, I have business to attend to. Goodbye, Dr Wilde.’

The phone clicked, leaving Nina trembling in anger and humiliation, feeling as though she’d just been punched in the gut.

 

Dalton put down the phone, then turned his chair towards the windows looking out over the White House’s rose garden, a small but satisfied smile on his lips.

Nina Wilde and her fiancé had made themselves his enemies four months earlier, without even knowing it, by destroying a secret weapon controlled by his black-ops agent Jack Mitchell. In the overall scheme of things they were very
minor
enemies, with no power to harm him in any way, but Dalton had still taken a certain pleasure in arranging for the vast apparatus of the United States government to bedevil their lives. Tax audits and overzealous immigration checks had been petty compared to depriving the couple of their jobs, however. The moment he’d learned about Nina’s enmity with Rothschild, he’d seen an opportunity for something more hard-hitting.

Now it was done, he could focus on more pressing matters - in which, like the proverbial bad penny, Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase had turned up. With them out of the way, that left the Covenant of Genesis.

His smile vanished at the mere thought of the organisation. Now
there
was a dangerous enemy - and one that even with his vast resources he couldn’t yet deal with, not without being destroyed himself. How they had obtained such politically - and personally - damaging knowledge he had no idea. But they had, and as their representative, an Israeli, had calmly explained, they would use it without hesitation if he did not agree to their . . .
request
.

And what a request. If the public ever learned what he had done to appease the Covenant, it would end his career more quickly than the release of any of the organisation’s other information about his dealings.

Fortunately, he had at least been able to persuade the Covenant to let one of his operatives join them. One of his
best
operatives. A man who would find any possible opportunity to eliminate any threats to him . . . and maybe even shift the balance of power to where it belonged.

In his favour.

He turned back to his desk and picked up one particular phone. ‘Get me Michael Callum.’

 

The tall, granite-faced man, hair a bristling pure white, pushed a button on his secure cell phone to end the call. ‘That was the President,’ Callum told the other occupant of the luxurious Washington, DC hotel suite.

‘So I gathered,’ said Uziel Hammerstein, unimpressed, as he lit a cigar. Callum looked pointedly at the ‘no smoking’ sign by the door. The Israeli made a vaguely amused noise. ‘What, are you going to have me sent to Guantánamo for smoking?’

‘So what did your esteemed leader have to say?’ came an English-accented voice from the phone on the glass coffee table between the two men.

Callum frowned at the voice’s undisguised sarcasm. ‘You’ll be glad to know, Professor Ribbsley, that Nina Wilde is no longer a problem. She’s been fired, and the digital images of the tablet have been erased.’

‘Good,’ said Ribbsley. ‘I doubt she would have been able to translate any of the text, but once I knew I was looking at a navigational chart, it didn’t take long to work out where it led. She might have been able to do the same. Of course,’ he went on, his cutting tone returning, ‘if Hammerstein’s goon had done his job rather than letting her throw him out of a window . . .’

Hammerstein bared his teeth, the cigar clenched between them. ‘Careful, Professor. Just because we’ve agreed to your demands doesn’t mean I have to put up with any of your crap. Goldman wasn’t just a colleague, he was a friend.’

‘My condolences on your loss,’ said Ribbsley, in a deliberate monotone.

Callum regarded the Israeli coldly. ‘Your man shouldn’t even have been operating on our turf.’

Hammerstein leaned back in the leather armchair, blowing a smoke ring across the table at him. ‘The Covenant works wherever it has to, Callum. Our mission is more important than your politics.’ The white-haired man narrowed his eyes.

‘Speaking of your mission,’ said Ribbsley, ‘have the preparations started yet?’

‘Vogler is in Australia already,’ Hammerstein told him. ‘Zamal is on his way. Your flight is being arranged right now.’

‘First class, of course.’ Not a question: an expectation.

‘Yes, first class,’ said Hammerstein, sharing a contemptuous look with Callum.

‘Excellent. In that case, I’d better finish packing. See you down under, gentlemen.’

‘You shouldn’t have caved in to his demands,’ snapped Callum the moment the call ended.

‘We had no choice. We needed him to translate the tablet Vogler recovered from Indonesia - and we’ll need him to translate any new finds at the site.’

‘Even so, if it’d just been money he wanted, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Not even Ribbsley could be that greedy. But this . . .’

‘Ribbsley’s a man of very particular tastes. Unfortunately. Which is why we’re allowing you to act as . . . caretaker.’ A faint smile. ‘I assume Dalton has already authorised you to
take care
of things when the mission is completed.’ The Covenant leader stood. ‘I have to go. There’s a lot of work to do, and Australia is a very long flight away.’ He left the suite without any pleasantries of departure.

Callum stared at the door after it closed. Dalton had indeed granted him licence to take care of the problem of Ribbsley’s demands . . . and more besides. The Covenant had gone too far. This was a direct threat to the authority of the President of the United States, and had to be dealt with.

But subtly. The Covenant had enormous power behind it. He had to wait for the right opportunity, pick his moment, or the consequences could be ruinous.

When that moment came, though . . . he would be ready.

C
hase entered the apartment and flopped down on the couch. ‘Hi, honey, I’m home. Don’t I get a kiss hello?’

‘Thank God,’ said Nina, hurrying in from the kitchen and kissing him. ‘I think we’ve both got a lot of catching up to do.’

‘Yeah,’ Chase said, taking in her cuts and bruises with a concerned expression. ‘You want to go first?’

‘No, you,’ she said, sitting beside him. ‘Why the hell were you in
Cuba
?’

‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t getting another of those.’ He nodded at the Fidel Castro figurine on a shelf, a ceramic cigar-box holder now used to store loose change. ‘No, I had words with those pirates - Bejo’s fine, by the way - and saw some bloke paying them off.’

‘What about the tablet?’

‘He took it. And your laptop.’

‘Damn. So this guy, was he Cuban? Did you follow him there?’

‘No, I was taken - by a bunch of your guys.’

‘My guys?’

‘Yanks. Three goons dressed like Agent Smith. They stuck me on a plane to Guantánamo Bay.’

‘What?’ Nina gasped. ‘Why would they take you there?’

‘Because I know someone there. So do you. Sophia. She’s . . . she’s dead.’

‘Oh,’ was Nina’s only immediate response. She had absolutely no love for Chase’s ex-wife, but could tell that however stoic he seemed outwardly he was affected within. ‘What happened?’

‘She tried to escape and got shot. They wanted me to see the body. It was a mess.’

She put her arm round him. ‘Oh, Eddie, I’m sorry . . . Are you okay?’

He didn’t answer for a moment. ‘I’m . . . I don’t know,’ he admitted, shaking his head. ‘It’s weird. I couldn’t stop thinking about her on the flight back.’

Nina’s face twitched in disapproval, but she managed to keep it from Chase, barely. ‘In what way?’

‘I’m going to miss her, in some weird way. I didn’t think I would after everything she did, but . . .’ He sighed, to his surprise feeling a weight growing on his heart the more he spoke. ‘She didn’t use to be like that. Not when I first met her - hell, I wouldn’t have married her if she had been. And I know that she blamed me for some of how she turned out.’

‘That’s crazy,’ Nina told him firmly. ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’