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  Touchstone

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

  are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance

  to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Fictum Limited

  Published by arrangement with Simon & Schuster UK Limited

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  First Touchstone hardcover edition October 2011

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  Designed by Akasha Archer

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Crawford, Dean

  Covenant : a novel / Dean Crawford.—1st Touchstone hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Touchstone book.”

  1. Women archaeologists—Fiction. 2. Extraterrestrial beings—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3603.R3957C68 2011

  813'.6—dc22 2011011934

  ISBN 978-1-4516-2853-1

  ISBN 978-1-4516-2854-8 (ebook)

  For Emma

  And Azazel taught men to make swords and knives and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them …

  Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness; and make an opening in the desert … and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see the light …

  —The Book of Enoch

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Acknowledgments

  HAR BEN YA’IR

  NEGEV DESERT, ISRAEL

  AUGUST 22

  She’s out here somewhere.”

  Ahmed Khan had to shout above the hot wind tugging at his thick black hair as he wrestled an open-topped jeep across a desiccated landscape of thorn scrub and dusty riverbeds. Desert sand whipped past the windshield, stinging his eyes as it had those of his Bedouin forefathers for a thousand generations. To the west, the sun descended into a sea of molten metal.

  “Can you find her before dark?”

  Dr. Damon Sheviz sat in the passenger seat, a diminutive man with a feeble ponytail of white hair that twitched in the wind behind the collar of his tweed jacket. An associate of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the elderly academic was clearly unhappy in the merciless firmament of the Negev. Ahmed saw him glance nervously over his shoulder at a rifle in the rear of the jeep, there to guard against foxes, rogue ibex, and anything else unfriendly they might encounter.

  Ahmed did not reply, yanking the wheel of the jeep to one side as they climbed a steep escarpment peppered with thorn scrub. The engine growled as the wheels clawed ever upward through drifting sands until the jeep breached the top. Ahmed eased the vehicle to a stop and switched off the engine. A silence as deep as eternity descended around them as the Bedouin vaulted from his seat and walked to the other side of the ridge.

  The Jordan Rift Valley sliced across the wilderness ahead, an ancient seismic scar slashed by the tributaries of long-extinct rivers that snaked their way into the endless deserts. Ahmed sighed and squatted down. He lifted a fistful of dust from the earth and let it fall in the hot breeze as he looked at a pair of parallel tire tracks descending into the valley below.

  “Well?” Sheviz demanded, moving to stand alongside him.

  “I can, but time is not on our side and she has a head start.” He glanced at the sun as it bled into the trembling horizon. “This is a restricted area. We should not be here at all.”

  “I have no desire to travel the desert at night, Mr. Khan.”

  Ahmed slowly rose to his full height. “Then go, and peace be upon you. Ma’assalama.” He strode back to the jeep and leaped into the driver’s seat. Crunching the Rover into gear, he suppressed a smile as Sheviz skittered with the speed of a frightened hare and clambered in alongside him.

  The drive down into the shadows of the valley took another half an hour, Ahmed cautiously guiding the jeep into the shadow of a deep wadi before killing the engine once more. In the distance the shore of the Red
Sea glistened, overlooked in silent vigil by the fortress of Masada. Ahead, Ahmed could see a white vehicle loosely concealed by a thicket of thorn scrub.

  “That’s one of our jeeps,” Sheviz whispered.

  Ahmed grabbed his rifle as he climbed out of his seat, cocking the weapon and creeping forward in the fading light, the land around him already laced with long blue shadows and the sky above darkening swiftly. Behind him followed Sheviz, treading only where he trod and moving only when he moved.

  The Bedouin edged forward and caught sight of a small fire flickering in a clearing ahead. Beads of sweat trickled into his eyes. He brought his weapon to bear, one finger hovering on the trigger as his ears strained, but he heard no voices or footfalls as he lowered himself onto one knee at the edge of the thicket.

  The clearing was thirty feet across, ending in the ragged face of a shallow ridge of sedimentary rock that stretched away to his left. Scattered across the clearing were various devices including a portable satellite dish, vacuum hoses, and a laptop computer.

  Sheviz pointed ahead. “She’s here, that’s the university’s equipment she—”

  The Bedouin clamped his hand across the academic’s mouth and glared at him. Sheviz obediently shuffled back out of sight.

  Ahmed crept into the camp and saw a discarded mug near the computer. He dipped a finger inside it, and a trace of residual dampness told him what he wanted to know. He moved down the rocky edifice toward where a soft glow illuminated the sedimentary rock.

  An unattended phosphorous lamp sat beside a large sheet of plastic concealing something in the sediment. Ahmed reached down and whipped the plastic sheet aside. He stared at that which lay before him, and then felt a superstitious awe creep like insects across his skin.

  Sheviz appeared next to him. “Oh my God.”

  Within the rocks was carved a tomb of immense antiquity, partially exposed by tools wielded in someone’s patient grasp, and in the tomb were bones. There was no question as to the age of the sediment in which they lay, the levels of strata as ancient as the hills where time had forged them.

  The remains bore testimony to an enormously powerful creature, the internment a cavity over eight feet long. The bones were huge, bearing the depressions of tissue anchoring points that suggested immense musculature. Broad hands were clasped neatly across a vast chest, long legs crossed at the ankle. The body was flat and level, perfectly supported within the sediment in which it had been interred.

  “Purposefully buried,” Sheviz said in wonder, kneeling before the excavation.

  “How old is it, sadiqi?” Ahmed asked the professor.

  “Not less than seven thousand years. It’s quite possibly—”

  The sound of boots crunched on the parched earth behind Ahmed and he whirled, swinging his rifle up to aim at the figure striding purposefully into the clearing. In the glow of the camp lights a tall blond woman dressed in khaki shorts, T-shirt, and bush hat came to an abrupt halt.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Sheviz stood and pulled his jacket neatly into place as Ahmed lowered the rifle.

  “I might ask you the same question, Lucy.”

  Dr. Lucy Morgan placed her balled fists on her hips. “Overtime. Who are you?”

  “Dr. Damon Sheviz. The university has demanded the return of this equipment,” he announced, “and your return to Jerusalem immediately.”

  “This equipment is on loan to my survey team.”

  “Indeed it is,” Sheviz said as he took a pace toward her. “And that survey was completed two days ago in Be’er Sheva. I was on the verge of reporting you missing to the authorities and the equipment stolen.”

  Lucy shrugged. “They don’t need any of this right now, anyway.”

  “And what are you doing with it, Dr. Morgan? You realize that this is theft, do you not? The university does not condone the use of its resources for personal projects.”

  “Perhaps they would if they knew anything about this,” Lucy snapped, and then glanced at the remains nearby.

  Ahmed watched Sheviz falter, following her gaze. The fastidious little man straightened his tie absentmindedly and cleared his throat.

  “How long ago did you find it?”

  “Three days ago. I’ve been back whenever I’ve had a chance.”

  Sheviz’s voice edged a tense octave higher. “Have you classified it?”

  Lucy gestured across the camp to her laptop. Sheviz leaped across to the device with the speed of a man half his age. The computer hummed into life, the blue screen lighting his features.

  Ahmed, bemused, moved to stand behind him.

  “Good God,” Sheviz uttered, reading from the screen. “Remains located south of Zin, Israel. Previous carbon-fourteen dating suggests specimen died approximately seven thousand years ago, confirmed by obsidian hydrationrim dating of accompanying detritus within strata.”

  Lucy joined them as Sheviz went on with increasing excitement.

  “Subject cranium fully intact. Postcranial structure present with mild erosive damage concurrent with recent exposure.”

  Ahmed looked at the bones, confused now by the unfamiliar terminology and the doctor’s excitement. “What’s so special about it?”

  A ghost of a smile touched Lucy’s lips. “It’s not human.”

  Ahmed Khan struggled to understand what Lucy Morgan had said.

  “The remains are completely unmineralized,” Sheviz gasped before Ahmed could speak. “They are not comparable to any known variant of Homo sapiens. Awaiting analysis from Field Museum, Chicago.”

  Ahmed shot a questioning glance at Lucy. “How can it not be human?”

  “Look at the chest structure, the cranium, the fused sternum.”

  Ahmed looked again at the remains and a tingling sensation rippled through his nerves. The skull cap was elongated as though stretched to double the height of a human cranium, the eye sockets were cavernous and shaped like giant teardrops, and the vast plain of the chest was a sheet of fused bone, only the base of the ribs visible, protruding from the spinal column still buried in the rocks.

  “Cranial capacity, three thousand cubic centimeters,” Sheviz whispered, shaking his head. “A bigger brain than ours.”

  Homo sapiens—modern man—had been believed for millennia to be the only intelligent species of life in the universe. Now, Lucy’s discovery had extinguished that fallacy as brutally and instantly as man’s first fires had banished the darkness and the beasts of the night. Here were the remains of an unknown species, immensely powerful in stature and yet seven thousand years old. Bigger. Stronger. Smarter.

  “In the name of Allah, what is it then?” Ahmed asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” Lucy said. “We need the measurements I’ve made to be examined and I need this specimen out of the ground and back in Jerusalem. Whatever it is, it didn’t evolve on this planet.”

  The Bedouin glanced at the blackened void above, now shimmering with legions of stars.

  “We should leave the camp. It’s dangerous to be out here at night.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Sheviz whispered reverentially, ignoring him. “This is going to change everything, rewrite the history books. We’re never going to look at ourselves the same way again.”

  “We’re never going to look at anything again if we’re arrested by Israel,” Ahmed pointed out patiently. “We should return to Be’er Sheva and maybe come back tomorrow.”

  “No way,” Lucy snapped. “We need to complete the excavation. Do you understand what this is? It shouldn’t be here.”

  “Neither should we. You’re digging in a restricted military area.”

  “This is more important than Israel’s damned restrictions.”

  Ahmed struggled for words.

  “Those remains have been here for seven thousand years; they’re not going to get up and run off any time soon.”

  “This could be the most important scientific discovery of all time,” Lucy s
aid.

  “Perhaps, sadiqati, but I don’t want to be the next set of bones you dig up out here. Your camp lights are visible for miles. How long do you think it will be before Israeli soldiers notice them, or maybe even insurgents from across the Sinai?”

  Before Ahmed could stop her, Lucy reached out and slid his rifle from his shoulder.

  “Fine, we’ll see you back in Be’er Sheva in two days if you’re worried about guerrillas or a prison cell.”

  Ahmed hadn’t expected such a thinly veiled challenge to both his authority as a guide and his courage as a man. He straightened his posture a little.

  “As you say, I would not make a big deal out of nothing.”

  Lucy tilted her head in acknowledgment. “Neither would we.”

  Ahmed sighed heavily, shaking his head.

  “I’ll radio the university from the jeep and tell them that you are safe.” He gestured to the rifle. “Six rounds. I’ll come back with supplies in the morning. Ma’assalama.”

  Ahmed turned and strode away into the darkness, pursued by Lucy’s mysterious words. It’s not human. A profound thought crossed Ahmed’s mind. We are not alone in the universe. It occurred to him that the remains could be worth a fortune. He was attempting to calculate how much when a scream shattered the silence of the night behind him.

  Ahmed whirled. “Lucy?”

  The air burst out of Ahmed’s lungs as the weight of a man slammed into him and he fell hard to the unforgiving earth. He rolled onto his back and lashed out with one foot toward the silhouette of a man against the starlight above, slamming him hard in the groin. The man gagged and staggered backward as Ahmed scrambled to his feet.

  The Bedouin lunged toward his attacker, but before he could reach him something heavy cracked across the back of his head and plunged him into a deep and silent blackness.

  COOK COUNTY JAIL

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  AUGUST 24

  The pain woke him.

  He lay motionless as a throbbing began to grind around the interior of his skull. His eyes ached as though needles were being driven into his retina, bolts of nausea churning through his stomach to the labored rhythm of his heart.

  Open your damned eyes.

  A white wall, defaced by the remedial scrawlings of occupants gouged into the brickwork over countless decades. The creeping odors of stale food, sweat, and unflushed latrines caressed his senses as they reluctantly reconnected themselves, revealing forgotten aches and injuries. He breathed a long and weary sigh and tried to free fall back into the dreamy oblivion of sleep.