Thunderbolt

by Wilbur Smith

  Contents

  Title Page

  Priase for Cloudburst

  THE JACK COURTNEY ADVENTURES

  Dedication

  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.

  Epilogue

  About Wilbur Smith

  The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation

  Copyright

  Praise for Cloudburst

  ‘An exciting and realistic story, full of bandits, poachers and amazing wildlife … it keeps you turning the pages to the end’ – i newspaper

  ‘Unputdownable … Fast-moving adventure with heart and a message … Jack is as appealing a hero as Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider’ – LoveReading4Kids

  ‘You won’t be able to put it down’ – Angels & Urchins

  ‘Filled with so many twists and turns it will keep the reader guessing … Fans of Enid Blyton and Willard Price will enjoy Cloudburst, which takes these classics, injecting them with a modern influence’ – Reading Zone

  ‘An exciting and powerful story brimming with fast-paced action, unexpected twists and turns, an extraordinary backdrop and a cast of inspirational characters’ – Pam Norfolk

  ‘The Democratic Republic of Congo provides a colourful and vibrant backdrop for this exciting new children’s series’ – Natalie Xenso, CultureFly

  THE JACK COURTNEY ADVENTURES

  Cloudburst

  Thunderbolt

  Look out for the next Jack Courtney Adventure, Shockwave, coming in 2022

  For all our young readers and their families

  Wilbur Smith & Chris Wakling

  1.

  I was concentrating so hard on the beep-beep-beep of the metal detector probing the ocean bed beneath me that I didn’t notice the shark. The little green light in the middle of the detector’s circular head winked in time with the beeping which, underwater, sounded more like blip-blip-blip. I floated above it, breathing slowly. The mouthpiece tasted rubbery. Silver bubbles swam lazily above me in gentle bursts. If the detector sniffed out metal – a bottle top, the tag of a broken zip, or an old coin, say – the blips would come closer together and the winking would go mental. Though I’d only turned up rubbish all morning, the idea that Amelia or Xander – both of whom were in the water somewhere nearby, conducting their own searches – or I might actually find what we were looking for was compelling.

  Blip-blip-blip.

  Sand puffed up around the roving detector’s head as I swung it gently from side to side.

  Blip-blip-blip-blip-blip.

  I’d finned my way to the edge of a patch of sea grass and bobbed there for a moment, watching the green tips of the grass swaying in the current. A few metres beyond this underwater lawn the detector had picked up a metallic scent of some sort. I rooted about in a circle, sending up another billowing cloud of sand.

  This machine was set to search a diameter of about fifty centimetres. When the blip-blipping became a constant whine, I switched to the smaller wand dangling from a lanyard clipped to my Buoyancy Control Device. It searched with a more focused eye. As it homed in, the clicking sped up. Rather than beeping, this one clicked. It sounded a bit like an insistent dolphin.

  My fingers, magnified by the glass of my mask, sifted the sand carefully. Before I even saw it, they had closed around something small with a hole in its middle. I realised that – breaking the first rule of scuba diving – I was holding my breath. Lifting the item to inspect it, I heard the rush of bubbles as I let the breath go: not a wedding ring, as I’d hoped it might be, but the ring-pull off a drinks can.

  Rather than chuck litter back into the Indian Ocean, I slid it into my mesh bag and looked up to see where Amelia had got to. And that’s when I saw the shark, not thirty metres away, the colour and length of a torpedo, gliding towards me.

  The in and out of my breathing was suddenly very loud indeed, the column of bubbles above me thickening to a constant mass. The shark, drifting my way, looked utterly at ease, comically chilled in fact.

  Though I’d been diving a lot over the last few days, enough to get very comfortable underwater again, I suddenly felt as out of place as a football boot in a fridge. The shark slipped closer. With an almost imperceptible flick of its tail it veered to my left. But it didn’t get any further away. It was circling me. The unblinking dot of its nearside eye took me in. ‘What on earth are you doing down here?’ it seemed to say.

  Fair question.

  What was I doing there? There being ten metres underwater, weighed down with metal-detecting kit, just off the coast of Zanzibar.

  Searching for treasure, obviously.

  It was all Xander’s fault. When he heard Mum was planning a trip to Zanzibar, to help put what happened in the Congo behind us – as if anything ever could – he sent me a link to a company selling underwater metal detectors, telling me I should buy one.

  I sent him one word back: ‘Why?’

  In response he sent me another link, to – of all things – a wedding planner’s website. It was full of pictures of beaming brides dressed up like meringues cutting pointlessly elaborate cakes, while men wearing cheesy grins and shiny suits tried to look useful by leaning on the same knife.

  None the wiser, I re-sent Xander the same one-word question.

  Eventually he picked up the phone to explain. Zanzibar, with its white beaches, turquoise sea, cloudless skies and jaunty palm trees, is one of the most popular high-end honeymoon spots on Earth. Newlyweds pitch up there week in, week out, to celebrate getting hitched. Most of them jump in the sea at some point, wearing nothing but their swimming costumes, sun lotion, and their brand-new wedding rings.

  Though the sea there is relatively warm, it’s still sea, meaning the water is cold enough to cool you down. Cool anything and it will shrink a bit. A newlywed’s finger is no exception. If you’ve not worn a ring before, and many people – particularly men – haven’t before they get married, you’re likely to think one that fits correctly is too tight, so you buy one that’s a bit loose.

  Flap about in the cool sea and your brand-new, highly valuable wedding ring is liable to slip off and sink into the sand, lost forever. Unless you look for it with the right kit. Xander had heard of an American guy who found a bunch of wedding rings just off Waikiki beach in Hawaii. That’s also a popular honeymoon spot.

  The prosp
ect of spending a fortnight lying by the pool, trying not to think about what Dad had done to Mum and me in the DRC, wasn’t that tempting. I’d have gone diving anyway to escape my thoughts. Why not give Xander’s hare-brained suggestion a shot while I was at it?

  If it worked and I turned up something valuable, I could give the proceeds to Mum. Post-Dad, I knew she needed money more than she was letting on. Conservation is expensive work. Perhaps I could actually help out?

  Amelia had jumped at the idea. Knowing how much she likes swimming, and guilty at having dragged her through the Congo disaster, Mum invited her on this trip too.

  I was fine with that. She’s my oldest friend: we’ve known each other since our mothers gave birth to us, fourteen years ago now, in the same maternity ward. The bond between us had grown stronger since our time in the Congo, when Dad turned out to be a fraudulent crook and took off. She’s never had a relationship with her own father, and I could feel her sympathy for my loss. I was also fine with my newer friend Xander inviting himself along. Some people you just click with instantly, and he and I had seen eye to eye since the day we met at boarding school a year or so ago. He’d bought his own ticket, plus some ultra-high-end detecting kit. So far the only treasure we’d found – the ring-pull, the zipper, the green coin and something that looked like a bit of boat – was worthless – but, pre-shark, I was still feeling hopeful.

  Now, with the shark circling me, I’d settle for getting out of the sea alive.

  2.

  The shark was big. Even accounting for the magnifying effect of my mask, I reckoned it had to be a good three metres long. It swam around me lazily, its mouth hanging open just enough to show off a fearsome set of tapered teeth. Its back was a dirty brown colour with rust-coloured spots along its flanks and its underbelly was a pale grey. The bulk of the thing! I fought to steady myself. I was already pretty low on air, and I knew that panic-breathing would burn through what was left in my tank in no time.

  All animals are good at picking up on panic. Sharks, I imagine, are better at it than most. The last thing I wanted to do was broadcast the total helplessness I felt. So I simply floated there in front of the horrible predator, doing my best to return its blank stare.

  As I was mounting this impressive defence strategy, I registered a movement out of the corner of my eye. Something orange was approaching. Amelia wears an orange wetsuit. I knew the thing was her, but the thought didn’t make sense. Or rather the only way I could make it make sense was to conclude that she hadn’t seen the shark circling me. Xander, searching the seabed nearby, clearly hadn’t. But the thing was directly in Amelia’s line of sight. Why was she swimming straight towards it?

  I broke from my staring competition with the shark, a warning yell rising. The human voice-box is way less effective underwater. My shouting sounded pretty pathetic and didn’t halt Amelia’s progress. In desperation I waved my hands about – I was still holding the metal-detecting wand, it turned out – but although this at least prompted her to look my way, when we locked eyes – mine wide, hers smiling – she swam straight past me, cutting across to head the shark off.

  I couldn’t believe it. My heart was a fist in my throat. She didn’t flail or swipe at the shark as she approached, just swam cleanly in front of the monstrous fish as if she had right of way. The shark veered towards Xander to avoid her. He cottoned on and jerked upright, his panic apparent through his mask. For a desperate moment I thought the shark would turn and attack. But with another tail-flick it was suddenly thirty, fifty, a hundred metres away, a grey speck swallowed up by the endless blue.

  Amelia is a county swimmer. Despite the scuba gear and metal detector, she did a sort of underwater flip and was immediately heading back our way with long slow fin-strokes. I wanted to shout at her. Why on earth had she taken such a risk? But I’d already demonstrated the pointlessness of yelling underwater, so I gave the signal to surface instead.

  Since we weren’t that deep and hadn’t been down much more than twenty minutes we didn’t have to pause long on the way up in order to head off the bends. Even so, the delay cooled my temper. She’d taken a chance – an absurd gamble, in fact, swimming straight at it like that – but I couldn’t deny she’d done it to help me.

  As soon as we were all safely bobbing on the surface, however, she laughed and said, ‘Your faces!’ and the anger boiled up within me again.

  To buy time, I whistled at Pete in the dive boat. It was anchored in the near distance. We’d drifted along the shore and weren’t due up for another few minutes. Attentive as ever, he heard me, pinpointed us and returned my wave.

  ‘My face?’ I said. ‘You’re lucky you’ve still got one!’

  ‘The size of the thing,’ said Xander, awed.

  ‘Sand tiger shark,’ Amelia said by way of explanation.

  The words ‘tiger’ and ‘shark’ more than outweighed plain old ‘sand’ for me. I told Amelia so.

  ‘They’re no relation to actual tiger sharks. I wouldn’t have told one of them where to go. Sand tigers are harmless. Unless you’re a very small fish, or something already dead.’

  ‘How could you be sure?’ Xander asked. He knows Amelia pretty well, but not as well as I do. Challenging her knowledge rarely turns out well.

  She narrowed her eyes and said, ‘Well, a sand tiger is brown on top and yellowy-grey underneath, which I imagine you spotted. It also has a flattened, conical snout and its mouth extends back beyond its eyes, which are small. The big teeth you saw are smooth, not serrated. You’d have to have been a bit braver to notice that, and swum as close to it as I got. Those teeth are for hooking up smaller fish rather than ripping out lumps of whale. But it wouldn’t have been hunting, not now. They’re nocturnal feeders.’

  ‘You were confident enough about all that to risk annoying it?’ Xander muttered.

  ‘Er, yes.’

  I tried not to smile.

  ‘Look, it was obviously discombobulating you. I just wanted to –’

  ‘She means it was freaking me out,’ I explained to Xander.

  The noise of the approaching boat rose over our conversation. It’s pretty loud. Pete Saunders, the guy Mum hired to help us out with our underwater treasure hunt, is rightly proud of it. Pete’s an ex squaddie – British army – turned dive instructor and he bought the boat new after selling up at home and moving here, to Zanzibar. It’s worth ten times the shack he rents. I know because he told me so. The boat, called Thunderbolt, is Pete’s thing. He has a shaven head and wears huge wraparound sunglasses day and night, and looks a bit like a boiled egg felt-tipped with a superhero mask as a result. He takes his job – getting his clients to dive sites, helping with the equipment, and generally keeping us safe – dead seriously.

  ‘You’re up nine minutes early. Everything all right?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  I could see the thought going through Amelia’s head: everything hadn’t been all right, because we – or I – had been spooked by a shark, but now we’d surfaced without incident, so nothing bad had happened, so I was technically correct. She kept her mouth shut, and because of that I had to come clean.

  ‘Truth is, we met a pretty big shark down there. It rattled me. But Amelia shooed it away.’

  ‘Basking shark?’ Pete asked her.

  ‘Sand tiger,’ she explained.

  Helping me out of my buoyancy vest, Pete patted me on the shoulder. ‘I’m not surprised it shook you up. They look the real deal. But sharks – any of them – very rarely attack. It’s the stingrays you want to keep onside. They’re more dangerous.’

  Xander looked sceptical.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Pete. ‘But even then, the chances of an unprovoked attack are infinitesimal. Anyway, how’d you get on before the interruption?’

  I explained our slim pickings.

  ‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘There’s always this afternoon. I’ve got a good feeling about it.’

  ‘A good feeling?’ said Amelia. ‘Based on what, exactly?
’

  I was busy stowing our used tanks, Velcro-strapping them into the rack in the hold. Over my shoulder I said, ‘Don’t worry, Pete – no need to answer that.’

  ‘I wasn’t about to.’ He’d only known Amelia a couple of days but had already got the measure of her unique brand of literal genius.

  ‘I can’t make you,’ said Amelia, her voice deadpan.

  Pete’s sunglasses glinted darkly against the ocean glare as he busied himself wiping down the boat’s controls. Once he’d done that he said, ‘Lunch then. Your mum’s waiting for us back at base.’

  ‘Good, I’m hungry,’ I said.

  Pete nudged the throttles forward gently and Thunderbolt’s twin Yamaha outboards bit the turquoise water. The back of the boat dipped as the prow rose. Where there had been turquoise stillness all around us, brilliant white-water now boiled in our wake.

  I knew – because Pete had proudly told me before I’d been in the boat ten minutes – that each of those outboards was capable of producing 350 horsepower. Between them they could propel us upwards of seventy miles an hour. But Pete was restrained today, barely pushing above idle as we cruised back up the coast towards Ras Nungwi and the swanky resort Mum had decided to treat us to.

  I stood beside him at the wheel, one hand gripping the central console. ‘Very tranquil,’ I said, and sensing he’d need little encouragement, added, ‘but don’t be shy of letting rip.’