The Covenant of Genesis (2 page)

Muldoon looked up, surprise on his face as he registered the change in the landscape. The landslide had exposed a large opening in the side of the bluff, a deep cave. ‘Lucky you didn’t fall straight down into it. It’d probably have killed you.’ He held up a water bottle. ‘Here. Can you move?’

Mark gratefully took the bottle, swallowing several large mouthfuls, then gingerly moved his legs. ‘I think I’m okay. What about the computer?’

Muldoon held up the screen, which in addition to being cracked was no longer attached to the rest of the machine. ‘I don’t think the warranty’ll cover it.’

‘Damn,’ Mark sighed.

Muldoon helped him up. ‘Sure you’re okay?’

‘My knee hurts, but I think I’m fine apart from that.’

‘I dunno.’ Muldoon examined the back of his head. ‘You’ve got a big cut there, and if you were knocked out you might have a concussion. We could call for the chopper to come pick you up, get you to hospital in Salalah.’

‘I’m fine,’ Mark insisted, even as he spoke wondering why he wasn’t taking Muldoon up on his offer of an immediate trip out of the desert. ‘Can you see the rest of the laptop? I might be able to recover the data on the hard drive.’

Muldoon snorted, but turned to hunt for it. Mark looked the other way, towards the cave entrance. It was hard to believe that the relatively small explosive charge could have opened up such a large hole.

Unless the gap had been there all along . . .

That thought was brushed aside as he spotted the rest of the broken laptop just inside the cave entrance. ‘Here,’ he told Muldoon, limping towards it. It looked battered, but unless the hard drive had actually been smashed open it ought to be salvageable.

He crossed into the shadow of the cave and picked up the computer. Eyes adjusting to the low light, he examined the casing. It was more or less intact, dented but not actually broken. The experiment might not be a total loss after all.

Cheered slightly by the thought, Mark glanced deeper into the cave . . .

And was so surprised by what he saw that he dropped the laptop again.

 

Muldoon clapped Mark on the back. ‘Well, son, I had my doubts about you . . . but you’re gonna make us all very rich.’

‘Not quite how I planned, though,’ said Mark.

‘Doesn’t matter
how
a man gets rich, just that he does!’

Muldoon had joined him in the cave, and been equally stunned by what lay within - though he had recovered from his amazement rather more quickly, radioing the rest of the survey team to demand a rendezvous
right now
. One of the other men had a digital camera; once they too had overcome their astonishment and obtained photographic proof of their discovery, they returned to the camp to send the images back to Houston via satellite.

Mark couldn’t help thinking events were moving too fast for comfort. ‘I still think we should inform the Omanis.’

‘You kidding?’ said Muldoon. ‘First rule of working out here: never tell the Arabs about
anything
until the folks at home have okayed it. That’s why the company has all those high-powered lawyers - to make sure our claims are one hundred per cent watertight. And that’s just for oil. For
this
. . . Jesus, I don’t even know where to start. We’re gonna be famous, son!’ He laughed, then ducked into the tent housing the communications gear.

‘Maybe.’ Mark drank more water, not wanting to get his hopes up. For a start, he was sure that Braxoil would take full control of his discovery. The Omani government would certainly also lay claim to anything found within their borders.

But still, he couldn’t help fantasising about the potential fame and fortune . . .

He finished the water, then followed Muldoon into the tent. The survey team’s six other members were already inside, flicking through the digital photos on another laptop. Debate about exactly what they had found was still ongoing, but the overall consensus was much the same as Muldoon’s: it was going to make them all very rich.

‘Of course,’ said one of the men, a New Zealander called Lewis, ‘since it’s my camera, that means copyright on the photos is mine.’

‘Company time, company photos, fellas,’ said Muldoon.

‘Yeah, but personal camera,’ Lewis insisted.

‘Guess we’ll have to let the lawyers work that out.’

‘If anyone ever bothers getting back to us,’ said a laconic Welshman, Spence. ‘I mean, we sent the things three hours ago.’

‘What time is it in Houston?’ Mark asked.

Muldoon looked at his watch. ‘Huh. After ten in the morning. Still no reply?’

Lewis switched to the laptop’s email program. ‘Nothing yet.’

‘Check the satellite uplink,’ Mark suggested. ‘There might be a connection glitch.’

Lewis toggled to another program. ‘That explains it. No connection.’

Mark raised a puzzled eyebrow. ‘Wait,
no
connection? You didn’t log off, did you?’

‘You kidding? Soon as we get an answer, I want to read it!’

‘Weird. As long as we’re logged into the Braxoil network, we should be getting
something
. Here, let me . . .’

Lewis gave up his seat to the computer scientist. After a minute Mark leaned back, more puzzled than ever. ‘Everything’s fine at our end; we’re still transmitting. But we’re not getting anything back. Either the satellite’s down, which is pretty unlikely . . . or someone at the other end’s blocked us.’

Muldoon frowned. ‘What do you mean, blocked us?’

‘I mean, cancelled our access. Nothing we’re sending’s getting through, and nobody can send anything to us.’

‘The hell they can’t.’ Muldoon picked up the satellite phone’s handset. He entered a number, listened for several seconds, then jabbed with increasing anger at the buttons. ‘Not a goddamn thing!’

‘Try the radio,’ suggested an American, Brightstone. ‘Call Salalah. The guys there can patch us through to Houston.’

Muldoon nodded and moved to the radio, donning a pair of headphones. He switched the set on - and yanked off the headphones with a startled yelp, making everyone jump. ‘
Jesus!
’

‘What?’ Mark asked, worried.

‘Beats the hell out of me. Listen.’ He unplugged the headphones. An electronic squeal came from the radio’s speaker, the unearthly sound making Mark’s skin crawl.

‘Oh, shit,’ said Spence quietly. Everyone turned to him.

‘You know what it is?’ Mark asked.

‘I used to be in the Royal Signals. That’s a jammer.’

Muldoon’s eyes widened. ‘
What?
’

‘Electronic warfare. Someone’s cutting us off.’

That prompted a minor panic, until Muldoon shouted everyone down. ‘You’re sure about this, Spence?’

The Welshman nodded. ‘It’s airborne. The pitch is changing too fast for it to be on the ground.’

There was a sudden rush for the door, the eight men spreading out to squint into the achingly blue sky. ‘I see something!’ yelled Brightstone, pointing north. Mark saw a tiny grey speck in the far distance. ‘Is that what’s jamming us?’

‘Where are the binocs?’ Muldoon asked. ‘Someone—’

An ear-splitting roar hit them from nowhere. Mark had just enough time to see a pair of sleek, sand-brown shapes rush at him before the two aircraft shot less than a hundred feet overhead, sand whirling round the men in their barely subsonic slipstream. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the two planes had shrunk to dots, peeling off in different directions.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Muldoon yelled.

Spence stared after the retreating aircraft. ‘Tornados! Those were Saudi Tornados!’

‘But we’re forty miles from the border!’

‘I tell you, they were Saudi!’ They watched as the two fighters came about. One them appeared to be turning back towards the camp. The other . . .

Mark realised where it was heading. ‘The cave!’ he cried, pointing at the distant bluff. ‘It’s going for the cave!’

Even as he spoke, something detached from the fighter, two dark objects falling away. Then another, and another, arcing down at the bluff—

The hillside was obliterated, the explosions so closely spaced that they seemed to have been caused by a single giant bomb.

‘Jesus!’ someone shouted behind Mark as a churning black cloud swelled cancerously across the face of the bluff. The sound of the bombs hit them, shaking the ground even from over a mile away.

The Tornado banked sharply north, afterburners flaring to blast it back into Saudi airspace at Mach 2.

Mark whirled to find it.

He didn’t have to look far. It was coming straight at him, bombs falling from its wings—

The encampment vanished from the earth in a storm of fire and shrapnel.

 

Black smoke was still coiling from the bluff the next morning.

The four thousand-pound bombs dropped by the Saudi Tornado ADV had caused a good part of the hillside to collapse into the cave beneath it. But the opening remained, a dark hole rendered more sinister by the soot streaking the surrounding rock.

Men stood round it.

Though they were all armed and in desert battle fatigues, none wore the insignia of any military force. In fact, they wore no insignia at all. Despite the identical dress, however, there were divisions within the team. Whether by order or by instinct, the soldiers had formed into three distinct groups, touching at their edges but never quite mixing: oil and water beneath the desert sun.

The intersection point of all three groups was marked by a trio of men, all watching the sky to the south. Even without rank insignia, it was obvious they were the leaders, experience evident in every line on their faces. One was an Arab wearing a black military-style beret, a dark moustache forming a hard line above his mouth. The others were both Caucasian, but even so the differences in their backgrounds were clear at a glance. The younger, a tanned, black-haired man with a cigar jammed in the corner of his mouth, was Jewish; the oldest of the three had thinning blond hair and eyes of as intense a blue as the sky.

The blond man raised a pair of binoculars. ‘Here he comes,’ he said in English.

The Arab frowned. ‘About time. But I don’t see why we need him at all. Our airstrike destroyed the site - bury it and be done.’

‘The Triumvirate voted, two to one. Majority rules. You know that.’

The Arab’s expressive face clearly revealed his displeasure at the decision, but he nodded. The blond man turned back to watch the approaching helicopter.

It landed beside the choppers that had brought the soldiers to the site. Visible in the cockpit were two people: a man in his early forties wearing a pristine white suit, and a young woman in sunglasses.

‘What is this?’ snarled the Arab on seeing her. ‘He was supposed to come alone!’

The blond man’s face briefly betrayed exasperation at the new arrival’s indiscretion. ‘I’ll handle it,’ he said. They waited as the suited man emerged from the helicopter and strolled towards them. At least his passenger was remaining in the cockpit.

They wouldn’t have to kill her.

Once clear of the rotor blades, the pilot donned a white Panama hat, then approached the trio, smiling broadly. ‘Ah, Jonas!’ he said to the blond man. ‘Jonas di Bonaventura, as I live and breathe. Marvellous to see you again.’ Though his accent seemed at first a precise upper-class English, there was a faintly guttural undercurrent that revealed his Rhodesian origins.

‘Gabriel,’ replied di Bonaventura as they shook hands. ‘You flew here yourself ?’

‘As you know, I prefer to be in control.’

They shared a small laugh, then di Bonaventura looked pointedly towards the helicopter. ‘I see you brought a . . . guest. That was not something we were expecting.’

‘A life without surprises would be terribly dull.’ He smiled over his shoulder; the woman smiled back. ‘She’s a former student of mine. Her father hired me to take her on a tour of various African anthropological sites. We were in Sudan when I got your call for my help.’

‘You shouldn’t have brought her here,’ said the Arab, scowling.

A Cheshire cat smirk spread across the new arrival’s face. ‘Oh, I couldn’t leave her behind. She gives me much more than just money.’ It took a moment for the Arab to get his meaning; when he did, he looked disgusted. ‘So, Jonas, are you going to introduce me to your compatriots?’

‘Gabriel,’ said di Bonaventura, indicating the Arab, ‘this is Husam al Din Zamal, formerly of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate.’ He nodded at the cigar-smoking man. ‘And Uziel Hammerstein, previously of Mossad.’

The suited man raised a faintly mocking eyebrow. ‘A Saudi spy working with an Israeli spy? To say nothing of
your
background, Jonas. The Covenant of Genesis really does make for strange bedfellows.’

Di Bonaventura ignored the comment. ‘Husam, Uziel,’ he went on, ‘this is Professor Gabriel Ribbsley from Cambridge University in England.’

The men shook hands. ‘And don’t forget,’ added Ribbsley, chest swelling smugly, ‘the world’s leading authority in ancient languages. Whatever that amateur Philby in New York might think. And as for Tsen-Hu in Beijing . . . hah!’ He looked past Zamal and Hammerstein at the cave mouth, voice becoming more businesslike. ‘Which is why you need me here, I imagine. So, what have you found?’

Hammerstein spoke first, voice low as if to keep what he was about to say a secret even from the wind. ‘Our friends in the American NSA alerted us to a photo intercept from an oil company survey team. Their computers had performed a routine analysis of the images - and identified the language of the Ancients.’

‘Oh, please,’ said Ribbsley mockingly. ‘You’re still calling them that? How tediously prosaic. I use “Veteres” myself - I’m sure Jonas can appreciate at least the Latin.’

Hammerstein drew impatiently on his cigar. ‘As soon as we realised what they had found, we arranged for a computer virus to be introduced through an NSA back door into the company’s servers to erase the photos, then locked out the survey team’s satellite link to isolate them. After that—’