The Covenant of Genesis by Andy McDermott

lights.
    ‘Nobody lives on Mankun, not usually,’ Bejo told him. ‘Pirates use it sometimes. Not often, though - too far from shipping lanes.’
    ‘They came a fair old way to get to us, though.’ They were almost eighty miles from where the Pianosa had been attacked: a long run for the pirates to reach their base. But it meant less chance of anyone looking for them here.
    He picked up a pair of battered binoculars for a closer look. The lights resolved themselves into bulbs hung on a cluster of tumbledown wooden shacks on the shore of a small inlet. Beyond them rose damp, dark rainforest. The biggest of the structures extended out into the water, apparently a covered dock. There was a large boat inside. The motor cruiser? It was an expensive vessel - maybe the pirates planned to sell it.
    ‘Mr Eddie,’ Bejo said, voice tense. ‘Look left.’
    Chase panned the binoculars to find what had caught the young man’s eye. Almost invisible against the black water was a boat, a very faint light at its bow. The dim yellow glow picked out the outline of a seated man - and the glint of metal in his hand. A rifle.
    ‘They pretend to be fishing,’ said Bejo. ‘But they’re lookouts. They warn the other pirates if the police or the Coast Guard come - anyone else, they just kill.’
    Scanning left and right, Chase saw two more ‘fishermen’ lurking in the distance. Nobody could get within half a mile of the inlet without being spotted.
    Nobody in a boat, at least.
    He gave the binoculars to Bejo. ‘Okay,’ he said, picking up a sheathed knife, ‘wait here. I’ll signal you when it’s clear to row in.’
    ‘Good luck, Mr Eddie,’ Bejo whispered as Chase climbed into the water, barely making a splash.
     
    The pirate keeping watch from the small boat was not only bored, but frustrated. Every so often, he heard noises from the shore, whooping and cheering as his comrades celebrated the success of their mission. Sure, not everyone had come back from it, but it wasn’t as though the men were close friends. He barely knew the names of most of them, the entire operation having been put together literally overnight, its members hurriedly recruited from seemingly every desperate dive on the Sumatran islands. What he resented was being stuck out here on guard duty while the others drank and gorged and gambled. Latan had even rounded up some whores from somewhere. And here he was, bobbing half a kilometre away with nothing but a lamp and a Kalashnikov for company . . .
    A small sound brought his thoughts back to his job. It sounded like bubbles breaking the surface. A fish?
    Seeing no sign of any approaching boats, he leaned over to find the source. A couple of bubbles popped a handspan from the boat’s side. The pirate looked more closely, seeing a pale shape below the surface. A big fish. No need for a net; he could just reach in and grab it—
    It reached out and grabbed him .
    Chase’s hand locked round the man’s neck and dragged his face underwater to silence him as his other hand drove the knife deep into his neck with a chut . He kept hold as the pirate thrashed and wriggled . . . then went limp. The AK-47 splashed into the water, bumping against him as it sank. He waited a few seconds until he was sure the man was dead, then surfaced and climbed aboard.
    ‘Don’t rock the boat,’ he told the corpse. He looked out to sea, holding his hand in front of the lamp to signal Bejo.
     
    Ten minutes later, they were ashore.
    After rowing to meet Chase, Bejo had silently guided the little boat to make landfall a short distance from the rotting buildings, waiting in the water until they were certain there were no patrols on shore. There weren’t. That the pirates only had three men on watch in the boats showed they weren’t expecting trouble.
    They were wrong.
    Bejo pulled the boat ashore as Chase squeezed as much water as he could from his clothes. ‘What’s the plan, Mr Eddie?’
    ‘The plan is for you to stay here and