Driven by rage, she smashed the gun from Sophia’s hand before slamming a brutal blow into her face. Sophia shrieked in pain, the flash drive in her other hand dropping to the ground, but Nina was already striking again, and again, fists crunched tight like blocks of stone. Blood smeared her knuckles as Sophia staggered.
Nina pulled back her arm, winding up for a final punch, swinging—
Sophia caught it.
‘Whore!’ she hissed as she gripped Nina’s hand in both her own, twisting. A spear of agony shot through Nina’s wrist as the Englishwoman pulled her closer, wrenching harder as she raised an elbow, ready to smash it into the back of Nina’s arm to break it at the joint—
Nina struck first. One of Chase’s moves: crude, savage - but effective. Sophia’s nose broke with a snap of cartilage as Nina headbutted her, spraying both women with blood.
She tried to pull free, but Sophia still had a solid grip on her arm despite the pain. Gasping, Nina raked her fingernails at the other woman’s eyes.
Sophia jerked her head back - and kicked Nina hard in the stomach. Choking, Nina stumbled, the wound in her leg searing with resurgent pain. Sophia tried again to break her arm, but the kick had thrown her off balance, forcing her to let go to avoid falling.
But Nina was already past the point of no return. She fell heavily beside di Bonaventura. For a moment their eyes met, the Cardinal’s gaze full of pain and regret, before an almost infinitesimal relaxation of the tiny muscles around his eyes marked the moment when life became death. Di Bonaventura was about to find out if his beliefs were true.
Clutching her aching stomach, Nina got to her knees and looked up.
The gun was pointing at her head.
Sophia’s enraged face was behind it, rivulets of blood running from her nose. Her finger tightened on the trigger—
A terrifying roar made both women whirl.
Chase had staggered upright, one hand clutched to his bloodied chest. He launched himself at Sophia, tackling her as she fired again and slamming her back against the railings.
They toppled over them, and were gone.
Sophia’s piercing shriek of terror vanished beneath the waterfall’s rumble as she fell. Chase made no sound as he plunged into the darkness with her.
Nina stared at the railings in stunned disbelief before running to the spot and looking down. The waterfall was a silver streak in the moonlight, the lake at its base a pool of pure black speckled with froth. Of Chase and Sophia there was no sign.
‘Eddie!’ She couldn’t accept that he was gone, leaning out to look beneath the platform. He must have managed to grab its supports or a rocky outcropping as he fell, she told herself, was dangling just below her, saving himself at the last moment yet again . . .
But he wasn’t. There was nobody there.
She had lost him.
Nina stumbled away from the railing with a moan of despair, tripping and landing by the bag. She didn’t feel the pain of the fall, a far greater agony overpowering it.
Chase was dead.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, no, no . . .’ She couldn’t accept it. She wouldn’t. He couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible.
Click.
A mechanical noise: a gun’s hammer being cocked. Ribbsley had recovered, had found his gun, was pointing it at her with his bloodied face twisted by rage—
A hole exploded in his chest as a high-velocity bullet blew right through him in a bloody shower. The force of the impact sent the professor rolling over several times before coming to a stop, leaving a ragged red trail like a child’s hand painting.
Some fearful instinct made Nina grab the bag and clutch it to herself as she scrambled back against the railings. There was nobody in sight. Who had fired the shot?
And was she the next target?
She looked in panic across the valley. The distant lights of the village glowed below, but she couldn’t see any sign of the sniper . . .
A dazzling blue-white light pinned her from above. A helicopter - but she couldn’t hear any rotor noise, or see anything except the blinding spotlight as it approached.
‘Dr Wilde,’ said a man’s voice, American-accented but unfamiliar. It didn’t seem to be coming from the helicopter, but from all around her - or inside her head. ‘Do not move, remain still. I repeat, do not move, or you will be killed.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she whispered, frozen with fear. Some remaining rational part of her mind dredged an explanation from her memory: a few years earlier, an advertiser had experimented with a hypersonic loudspeaker in New York, only people standing in a small area able to hear the commercials it played while others just feet away heard nothing. She had even gone to experience it for herself. This was something similar, the helicopter’s occupants not wanting to rouse the entire valley.
But who were they?
The light came closer. Nina could now feel the downdraught from the rotors, but still couldn’t hear any noise until it was almost upon her, when a low-frequency thrum filled the air. The light flicked off as the helicopter swept overhead and moved to land behind the cars, cutting off her escape route.
Not that she was planning to move. A strange numbness rolled through her body, as if something within her had switched off to escape the pain. She watched the helicopter almost with disinterest, noting that it was a very strange-looking aircraft, unlike any chopper she had seen before: a flat matt black with a sharply pointed, seemingly windowless nose and an odd rotor assembly within a ring that rose above the fuselage like a halo. Some kind of stealth prototype? Whatever. She didn’t care.
A hatch opened in the helicopter’s featureless side, several men in all-black combat gear jumping out and rapidly securing the area. Two more men, faces hidden behind black masks and night-vision goggles, advanced on her, silenced compact rifles flicking between her and the two bodies nearby. Once it was clear that neither Ribbsley nor di Bonaventura would be moving again, they came to a stop ten feet from Nina and fixed their guns on her, laser spots dancing over her chest.
Another man emerged from the helicopter. No mask, no camouflage; she saw he was wearing a suit and tie as he passed one of the lamps illuminating the platform, the light catching his face.
A face she knew well.
Victor Dalton. The President of the United States.
He stopped between the two men in black. ‘Dr Wilde, hello again. You probably won’t believe me, but I’m glad to see you.’
‘Go to hell,’ Nina growled.
‘No, really - I’ve been watching what was going on down here. I didn’t think you’d be the last person standing, but it’s worked out fairly well.’ He walked to the railing near where Chase and Sophia had fallen and picked up a small white object - Sophia’s flash drive. ‘I even heard Sophia say this was the only copy.’ He looked back at the helicopter. ‘It’s a hell of a machine, by the way. One of DARPA’s latest toys. Full array of surveillance gear, almost totally invisible to radar, and ninety per cent quieter than a normal chopper. Lucky for me it was in Germany for NATO evaluation, or my trip would have attracted a lot more attention - officially, I’m on vacation at my estate in Virginia. I wanted to keep this whole thing quiet.’ He took a step towards her. ‘Personal.’
Nina crawled away. ‘Stay back! What do you want?’
‘This, for one,’ he said, holding up the memory stick. ‘For another, what you’ve got in that case there. May I see it?’ She didn’t respond immediately; one of the soldiers flashed his laser sight over her face. ‘Don’t expect me to ask twice, Dr Wilde. For anything.’
Reluctantly, she opened it and took out a large plastic ziplock bag - inside which, still wrapped in the remains of its ancient shroud, was the skull. ‘Open it,’ ordered Dalton. ‘Let me see.’
‘Why do you want it?’ she demanded as she unfastened the seal and began to peel away the cloth.
Dalton didn’t answer at first, watching as she carefully removed the shroud. The skeletal face was revealed ben
eath. She turned it towards the President. To her surprise, he appeared visibly discomfited. ‘So, it’s true,’ he said. ‘The Covenant was right.’
‘Yeah, it’s true,’ said Nina. She got to her feet. Both soldiers tensed, rifles tracking her. A nod from Dalton and they eased off, slightly. ‘So why did you turn against them? And why did you destroy Eden?’
‘Because it was in Sudan. Do you really think I’d let a group of backwater barbarians lay claim to it? Especially when it would give the foundation of the Christian faith to the Muslims.’ He sneered in distaste. ‘Better no one has it than they do. As for the Covenant, every politician has skeletons in their closet, and the Covenant has taken advantage for decades. It was time that situation ended. I should thank you and Chase for that much, at least - between you, you’ve decapitated the entire organisation.’ He glanced at di Bonaventura. ‘There’ll be others to replace them, but right now the Covenant’s in total chaos. It’ll take a while for them to recover - and by then, it won’t matter.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You were making a deal with him,’ said Dalton. ‘Well, now you get to make that same deal with me. Only there won’t be any pussyfooting around, gradually preparing the world for the Veteres. As soon as the DNA analysis confirms what that thing really is, you’ll be back at the IHA announcing what you’ve discovered - a non-human race that was the basis of the Book of Genesis.’
Nina regarded him with growing suspicion. ‘So . . . what’s the catch?’
‘Catch number one is that if you don’t agree, you die right here and we find someone else to do it. But we’d prefer it to be you; you’ve got the credibility.’
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘Catch number two,’ he went on, ignoring her question, ‘is that in making that announcement, you’ll become the most hated person on the planet.’
Some of her old defiance returned. ‘What, even more than the President of the United States?’
A brief smirk. ‘Presidents are hated for political reasons. With you, it’ll be personal. You’ll be telling billions of people that their deeply held beliefs are wrong, that the basis of their entire religion is false, and you can prove it. They won’t like that.’
‘If I can prove it . . .’ Nina began, before realising where he was heading.
‘There are people who believe the earth was created in 4004 BC, that fossils are fakes put there by God to test their faith, that there were dinosaurs aboard Noah’s Ark, that they can talk to ghosts, that a UFO crashed in Roswell. It doesn’t matter what “proof ” you show them otherwise: they have their beliefs, and they won’t change them. These are the people who will consider the revelation of the Veteres as a personal attack on their faith. Not just in America, but all over the world.’
‘And what does that gain you?’ she asked. ‘Sounds like you want to stir up the Danish cartoon riots, times a thousand.’
‘More than that. We want to stir up the entire world. Religion against science. Religion against religion. Believers against atheists. Individual countries against the United Nations. And the outside world against the United States. And you, as a scientist, a part of the UN, an American, will be the lightning rod for it all.’
‘I don’t think I like your deal,’ Nina said quietly.
‘You don’t have a choice. Either you do what we say, or you die.’
‘But why?’ Nina cried, the numbness swept away by a resurgence of emotion. ‘This is insane! Why would you want to turn the world against America?’
‘To protect it!’ said Dalton, a flash of fervour in his eyes. ‘There are too many people pulling in too many different directions, and in the end they’re going to tear the country apart. But this will splinter the outside world - and bring America together. The silent majority will finally speak with one voice. A God-fearing, American, Christian voice. Not Catholic, not Jewish, and certainly not Muslim.’
‘Last I heard, Catholics are Christians.’
‘Who give their loyalty to Rome, not their country. It’s time America was unified against threats from inside and out. One voice, one God, one people.’
‘You actually have the arrogance to say you speak for every Christian in America?’ Nina held up the skull. ‘And you think all that will happen just because of this? You think the American people are that frightened and gullible?’
Dalton looked smug. ‘The people believe whatever they’re told because they have faith in something else - the system. They want - they need to believe it works, that their faith is justified. So what the leaders say, the followers accept.’
‘Because it’s easier and safer than having their beliefs challenged, huh?’ said Nina. ‘Well, you know what I put my faith in? I put my faith in the people. To be better than that.’
‘You’re going to be sorely disappointed, Dr Wilde.’ He took another step towards her. ‘But enough philosophical discussion. You’re either with me or against me. And believe me, you don’t want to be against me.’
‘I sure as hell don’t want to be with you.’
‘Your choice.’ He nodded at the soldiers. Their rifles came back up, laser spots rock-steady over her heart.
She whipped out one arm and held the skull over the edge of the platform. The shroud fell away into the spray below. ‘If I drop this, you’ve got nothing. No proof of the Veteres, so no way to set the world on fire.’
Dalton shook his head. ‘I’ll be in exactly the same place as before. The Covenant’s been crippled, and I’ve got Sophia’s recording. And what I’ve told you will happen, will happen, one way or another. This was just an unexpected bonus, a way we can advance our timescale.’
‘There’s that “we” again,’ Nina said. ‘Who are “we”?’
‘As I said, there are leaders and there are followers.’
‘So which are you?’
That seemed to sting him, his superior expression turning to irritation. ‘I warned you I won’t ask twice, Dr Wilde. Face it: you’ve lost everything. Your job, your fiancé . . . Do you want to lose your life as well?’
The laser points moved up to her face. She closed her eyes - and just for a moment saw Chase, smiling at her from the darkness. Everything they had shared over the past three years flowed through her mind: the adventures, laughter and tears, exhilaration and fears, the highs and lows of the roller coaster ride that had been their relationship. And through it all, the love underpinning it all. Whatever differences they had, in the end he had always been there for her. A friend, a lover . . .
A guide.
She knew what she had to do. What he would do.
Nina opened her eyes, and met Dalton’s. Her gaze was unwavering, resolute. Fearless.
For the briefest moment, his eyes flickered with the realisation of failure.
She opened her fingers.
The skull dropped into the void. There was a faint crack as it hit a protruding rock and shattered, the fragments caught by the wind and vanishing into the empty waters.
Nobody moved. The soldiers still had their guns fixed on Nina, who stared unblinkingly at Dalton. He looked back, until finally turning away with a small grunt almost of amusement. A gesture, and the two men lowered their weapons.
‘Well?’ Nina demanded, breathing heavily.
One of the soldiers turned questioningly to Dalton. ‘Sir?’
‘Leave her,’ said Dalton. He met Nina’s eyes again. ‘You’ve got nothing, Nina. No concrete proof, just a few photographs - and they’ll be debunked as fakes, I can guarantee that. The news networks will make you a laughing stock before you even open your mouth. You’ll just be another crank, a has-been who had her moment - then went off the rails.’ The smug smirk returned. ‘Living with that will be worse than killing you.’
‘This isn’t over,’ Nina insisted.
‘Oh, it is.’ He spoke to the nearest soldier. ‘Get rid of these bodies and clean up.’
‘And her?’ the man asked.
‘Like I said, leave her.’ H
e started towards the helicopter, before delivering a parting shot over his shoulder. ‘There’s a two-seat F-15 waiting for me in Germany - I’ll be back in Virginia before breakfast. As for you . . . I wouldn’t be in any rush to get home. You won’t enjoy the reception. Goodbye, Dr Wilde.’
He disappeared into the black helicopter’s red-lit interior. The soldiers quickly scooped the two corpses into body bags, one man using a high-pressure spray of some pungent chemical to disperse the blood. The guns were retrieved, even the leather case and ziplock bag taken away. The whole process took barely two minutes before the last soldier boarded the chopper, which left the ground before the hatch had even fully closed. The aircraft swung over Nina’s head, blasting her with a hot wind before being swallowed by the dark sky, the thud of its rotors fading within moments.
She stared after it, left alone.
Completely alone. Dalton was right. She had nothing. No proof.
No Chase.
Slumping against the railing, she began to weep.
Epilogue
New York City
Nina blankly watched the endless bustle of Manhattan passing the coffee shop’s window with a feeling of complete disconnection. Even though she was surrounded by crowds, she was isolated, alone. Hollow.
It was now three weeks since she faced Dalton at the waterfall, two weeks and six days since she had endured a hostile interrogation at JFK and an unpleasant confrontation with a press pack of mocking jackals as she emerged from the gate, all prepped with questions about her suspension - now permanent - and the deaths she had caused and her crazy theories that were an insult to every decent American. Dalton’s people had done their job well, a pre-emptive smearing to make her look a fool, a dangerous crank, a joke.
She didn’t care. About anything. Nothing mattered any more.
The media interest died down quickly, simply because she had nothing to say. Cable news pundits still reviled her every so often, but the mainstream media had moved on. Disgraced scientists were less of a draw than drunken actors or pregnant singers or the contestants in the latest talent show. It had been two days since anyone had recognised, or insulted, her in the street. Dr Nina Wilde was old news. Forgotten.
The Covenant of Genesis Page 49