by Chris Ryan
What would she say? Would she thank him for this? Would she even understand what was happening? His little sister was only nine years old when she died, but there was something in those big eyes of hers that made her seem older. Made her seem like she understood. Would she realize that her brother's actions – that the actions of everyone in their village – were on her account?
Would she let it happen?
Danny's lips narrowed. He was out of the refinery now, back on the main road. He should speed up. Get away from there as quickly as possible. But something was stopping him, and it wasn't just the storm. He drew a deep breath, then thumped the steering wheel again. The horn sounded, but there was no one there to hear it.
You must keep driving, he told himself. It is your duty to keep driving. Your duty to the village. Your duty to your grieving mother and father. Your duty to yourself. And most of all, your duty to Basheera.
Basheera.
He pictured her. She was such a happy little girl. So full of fun and full of love for everyone. He pictured her sitting there next to him, in the place where Angelo had sat with his hands tied behind his back. And in his mind she began to speak.
'It is not their fault, my brother,' she said softly, her childlike voice firm but kind. 'I do not want them to come to harm.'
Danny blinked. Basheera's voice had been quite clear, as though she really were sitting there next to him. Or at least her ghost.
He shook his head. It was the storm. The wind shrieking. It was making him uneasy, now that he was all alone. His mind was playing tricks on him. He pressed down on the accelerator.
The wind howled again, and with it came Basheera's voice once more.
'And what of the others?' she asked lightly. 'The others who will die.'
Danny's head shot round. There was only an empty seat next to him, but it had sounded for all the world like Basheera was there. As he took his eyes off the road, the car veered and he was forced to slam the brakes down and come to a screeching halt. He sat there for a moment, panting and sweating, as the wind outside continued to sing to him.
How like the wailing of a human voice it sounded. It was as though the very earth was lamenting what was about to happen.
Suddenly he could take it no more. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he opened the door of the car and jumped out. The rain stung him as it pelted into his face, and the door – blowing in the wind – almost knocked him over. But he kept his footing and looked up to the sky.
He shouted in a loud voice. A voice that made him hoarse. Had anyone been there on that deserted road to hear him, they would not have heard what he said above the wind. But it was a loud voice nevertheless.
'Do not lecture me!' he screamed in his own language. 'Do not lecture me, and do not disapprove! Do you think I woke this morning prepared to give my life lightly? This is for you, Basheera. Understand that. This is for you.'
Chapter Seventeen
Ben sat in the darkness. His muscles were frozen – not with cold, but with fear.
It was pitch black. There wasn't even a glimmer of light, so his night vision failed to alleviate the darkness. Inside the control room, the two of them were silent; but there was noise all around. The wind, for a start – it howled and shrieked like some demented banshee. The rain hammered down on the roof of the building. Ben hadn't seen what it was made of, but it sounded like corrugated iron – the water echoed as it hit, resonating like an immense drum. The noise of the rain came in fits and starts: loud first, then soft, then loud again. Ben pictured it being blown in erratic swirls by the wind.
And above everything else – above the dreadful sounds of the storm – there was the creaking of the refinery around them. It was as if the whole area was groaning from the battering of the elements. And it sounded like it was at breaking point. No wonder the place had been deserted, Ben thought to himself. Only a fool would stay here in these conditions.
'He's going to do it, isn't he?' Angelo interrupted Ben's morose thoughts. 'He's actually going to do it.' The Italian's voice was hushed, barely audible above the noise outside.
'Yeah,' Ben replied solemnly. 'Yeah, I think he is.'
A pause.
'You know what the stupid thing is?' Angelo asked.
'No. What?'
'I actually agree with Danny. I hate my dad's business. It's so . . .' He searched for the word. 'Greedy.'
Above them there was a sudden groan. Ben held his breath – it sounded like something was on the brink of collapsing. After a few seconds, though, it stopped, to be replaced once more by the sound of the hurricane.
'How long do you think we've got?' Angelo asked.
Ben thought about it. In the darkness, time meant very little. It could have been five minutes since the man had left them here; it could have been half an hour. On balance, he thought time had probably been passing slowly. 'I reckon we've been here about ten minutes. He said an hour, so . . .'
'So we've got fifty minutes to live,' Angelo stated dramatically.
His words had an immediate effect on Ben. He was suddenly filled with rage, with an absolute determination to get out of here. He stood up and started to pull at the rope with the full weight of his body. It did nothing, and he cursed.
'Cosa fai?' Angelo asked, clearly alerted by the sound of Ben moving. 'What are you doing?'
'Get up,' Ben said. 'Walk towards me. If we can get close enough, maybe we can undo each other.' Deep down he knew they weren't close enough. But they were desperate and anything was worth a try.
There was a scuffling sound as Angelo hurried to his feet. 'Where are you?' he asked.
'Here,' Ben announced as he stepped blindly in Angelo's direction. It only took a few paces, however, before he felt the pull of the rope and was unable to walk any further.
'It's no good,' Angelo announced. 'We're too far apart.'
Ben had to concede that it was true. 'There must be some way out,' he raged. 'There must be something we can do.' Backing up in the direction of the control bench, he groped in the dark as well as his bound hands could manage, hoping to find something sharp against which to slice the rope. But there was nothing.
Elsewhere in the room he could sense Angelo beginning to panic.
'It's no good,' the Italian wailed. 'We're going to die.' A brief moment of silence, and then: 'Do you think it will hurt, Ben? When the factory explodes, I mean. Do you think we will feel it?'
Ben felt the muscles in his face set into an expression of determination. 'We're not going to die,' he said from behind gritted teeth. 'We're going to get out of here somehow.' He tugged sharply at the rope yet again, but still nothing happened.
Angelo's voice became angry. 'What do you mean, we're going to get out of here? It's useless, Ben. Can't you see that? We've been lucky so far today, but this is it. There's nothing we can do! We might as well just sit here and wait for it to happen.'
And it was at just that moment that Ben's eyes were blinded.
He screwed his eyes closed and bowed his head as the pain of the sudden bright light subsided. Then, gingerly, he looked back towards where the light had come from. The door was open and standing there, illuminated from behind by the bright beams of a vehicle's headlamps, was a figure. For several seconds it did not move – it just stood there, a dark silhouette – and Ben felt a curious mixture of relief and fear. Then it stepped to one side, disappearing from Ben's vision.
'Help us!' Ben called. 'We're tied up. You have to . . .'
He stopped as the main lights flickered on.
It took a few seconds for his eyes to get used to the brightness, and a few more to make out the features of the man standing there.
He had tanned skin and dark hair that was dishevelled from being out in the wind and the rain. His clothes were soaked and he had an urgent, uncertain look in his brown eyes. He was looking not at Ben, but at Angelo, and he was breathing heavily.
'Danny,' the two of them whispered in unison.
Danny stood there, a
s though lost for words.
'Danny,' Ben urged. He felt like he was on the edge of a precipice – any minute now he could fall to his death. 'You've got to untie us. This place could blow any minute.'
Danny barely blinked.
'You've got to help us, Danny.' As he spoke, Ben struggled to free himself from the ropes, but of course it was useless.
Danny took three uncertain steps towards Angelo. When he finally spoke, his voice was strangled.
'You said you can speak to your father?' he asked.
Angelo nodded mutely.
'And what will you tell him?'
The Italian boy blinked and Ben held his breath. It was all up to Angelo now; all up to his dishevelled friend who only a second ago had been wailing with panic. Ben willed him to say the right thing – whatever that was.
'I will tell him,' Angelo replied, 'what has happened to me. I will tell him that I nearly died. And I will tell him that it is his fault and that if he does not stop doing the things that he is doing, he is no longer my father and I am no longer his son.'
Angelo stared at Danny, a wide-eyed, open stare that made it clear he meant what he said. Danny returned that gaze with a look that expressed a world of doubt and indecision.
And then he stepped forward.
'Turn round,' he told Angelo.
The Italian boy did as he was told. Ben watched as Danny started to untie the knot that bound him. Within seconds Angelo was uncoiling himself and Danny was working on Ben's ropes. 'We've got to stop this happening,' Ben said before he was even free. 'Danny, do you know where the bomb is? He said he had a detonator, but if we can get the explosives away from the refinery . . .'
He was untied now, so he spun round to uncoil himself.
Danny was ashen-faced and Ben noticed that his hands were shaking. 'I'm sorry,' Danny started to say. 'You tried to stop me, but I wouldn't listen . . .'
Ben took a deep breath, stepped over to Danny and held him by the shoulders. 'Forget about it,' he told the man sincerely. 'It's water under the bridge and we've got other things to concentrate on. The explosives, Danny. Do you know where they are?'
Danny shook his head. 'All I know,' he replied, 'is that there's more than one of them.'
'More than one? How many?'
'I don't know.' As he spoke, the tower above them creaked ominously once more.
'We need to get out of here, Ben,' Angelo said urgently. He was already halfway to the door.
Ben felt as if untying the rope had freed his mind as well as his body. All the possible scenarios seemed to be flashing through his head. 'We don't know how much time we've got,' he announced quickly. 'This place is massive – without knowing where the devices are, we'll never find them in time.' He looked at the others. 'Get to the truck!' he yelled. 'The mercenary said he had a remote detonator. The only way we can stop the refinery from blowing is by catching up with him and getting hold of the detonator.'
They were all moving towards the door now, but Angelo looked at Ben as if he was mad. 'But we don't know where he is!' he shouted.
'Yes we do,' Ben yelled as they ran outside into the rain.
Angelo looked at him in confusion. 'Where?'
'The Keys. He told Danny to head for the Keys, remember? The Florida Keys – it's a series of long, thin islands to the south of here.'
'Ben's right,' Danny barked. 'He'll definitely be heading south. We need to hurry.'
Instinctively, Ben ran round to the driver's side of the car; as he did so, he heard Danny shouting.
'No, Ben,' he yelled. 'I need to drive.'
'Why?'
'Think about it. If we catch up with him, we'll need to get him to stop. He'll only do that if he thinks it's just me in the truck.'
Ben narrowed his eyes slightly. He still didn't quite trust Danny, but he had to agree that he was right: the mercenary wasn't simply going to pull over just because Ben and Angelo were asking him nicely. He looked at the back of the pick-up. It was swimming with water and the rear guard was rattling ominously in the wind. It didn't look like the most luxurious way to travel. In fact, it would be positively dangerous – exposed to the elements they would be at risk from the flying debris and whatever else the storm hurled at them.
'We could travel in the front and just keep our heads down,' Angelo suggested.
Ben thought about it. 'No,' he decided finally. 'I don't think so. If the pick-up comes to a stop, we need to be properly out of sight. The back of the truck's the only real option.'
Angelo didn't argue. Together they climbed up into the rear of the pick-up. Their clothes were wet already, so it didn't matter that they found themselves sitting in cold water; but it still promised to be a bruising, uncomfortable ride.
'I'll go as fast as I can,' Danny shouted at them. 'If we're going to catch up with him I need to put my foot down. You'll have to hold on tightly.'
Ben looked around. There really didn't seem to be much they could hold onto.
'Do you know what he's driving?' Angelo asked.
Danny shook his head. 'The roads are clear, though. We'll just have to hope we can stop him.'
Suddenly a memory popped into Ben's head. He looked at Angelo. 'Just before he left us, do you remember him saying something about having to get hold of a vehicle?'
Angelo winced. 'I was a bit distracted . . .'
'He did,' Ben shouted. 'Danny, look for a big truck, like the ones we've seen here. That's what he'll be driving – I'm sure of it.'
Danny nodded and without another word disappeared into the front of the truck. The engine spluttered slightly, then started turning over. They moved off.
Ben could tell that Danny was having the same trouble he himself had encountered in keeping the vehicle straight in the wind. Their bodies banged painfully against the hard metal sides of the pick-up as the vehicle rocked from side to side and Ben found himself slipping and sliding on the wet surface. He clutched onto the edge of the truck. If they approached the mercenary, they'd have to duck down, but for now this would be OK. He saw that Angelo was doing the same thing, and the wind screamed in their ears as they clung grimly to the side of the truck.
Ben tried not to look at the dead body as they approached it again, but somehow he found his eyes glued to that grisly sight. As they passed, he wondered who the dead man was. Did he have a family? Children? Had he come to work that morning thinking that today would be just another day? He noticed that Angelo could not take his eyes off the dead man either. Surely his Italian friend's feelings were even more complicated than Ben's. This was his father's refinery; his father's workforce. The man lying dead on the ground had even less reason to be killed than Angelo. It was an uncomfortable thought.
Five people in Ben's immediate vicinity had died that day: the two pilots, the bodyguard, the hijacker and this guy. The body count was mounting and it was not lost on Ben that he and the other two people in the truck were the only ones who could stop it from getting any worse. He fixed that thought in his mind as the corpse disappeared into the distance.
The fence at the boundary of the oil refinery, which had held up to the winds when they arrived, was now flattened, and the remains of the barrier that Ben had smashed through had long since blown away in the wind. It was an alarming sight, of course, but somehow Ben felt a bit better crossing over the boundary of the refinery. If it blew up any time soon, they'd be dead in seconds, but at least they were getting away. He took a deep breath and looked out into the distance.
It all happened in a few seconds. The sky almost appeared to part – in truth it was just a momentary clearing of the cloud cover. The moon, bright and full, appeared. It lit them up brightly and Ben was half aware of its reflection on the water that had collected in the back of the truck. He blinked, then stared as the whole sky seemed suddenly to be illuminated. After the darkness and the rain it was an extraordinary sight. Like the sun coming up.
But it was not the moon itself that commanded Ben's attention.
It was
something else.
It was impossible to tell how close it was or even, in the first instant, what it was. It towered in the distance: a great black funnel with a bulbous, mushroom-like top. How high up into the sky it reached, Ben could never have said, but it seemed to reach halfway up to heaven. It sent a chill through his blood, and yet he was transfixed by it: transfixed by the way it seemed to shimmy, snake-like, from side to side; transfixed by the absolute enormity and absolute terror of it; transfixed by the way it seemed to be moving at once infinitely slowly and impossibly quickly, a colossus of pent-up power, heading straight for them, ready to strike.
The very sight made his breath catch in his throat and he felt, for one horrible moment, as though he would be sick with fear.
'What is it?' he heard Angelo scream.
Ben couldn't take his eyes away from that awesome sight. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the moon retreated behind some fast-scudding clouds and Ben's vision was obscured once more. He turned to look at Angelo and uttered a single word.
'Tornado.'
And then, because he realized he had barely whispered it and that Angelo could never have heard what he said, he repeated himself.
'Tornado!'
The two friends looked at each other in horror. The words they had heard on the radio were ringing in Ben's ears: Hurricane Jasmine has spawned a severe tornado, category F3, currently approaching the south-eastern Florida area. It is fast-moving and extremely destructive. He had no idea what category F3 meant, but if what he had just seen was anything to go by, it meant something bad. The twister looked as if it could eat up the oil refinery and spew it out in seconds. Just imagine, he thought to himself, what it could do if the place were on fire . . .
He shook his head as though waking from a dream. Up until then he had forgotten all about the tornado. Not any more, though. The thing he had just seen was huge.
Terrifyingly huge.
He closed his eyes and pictured the geography of Florida. The Keys were to the south-east – exactly the direction in which the tornado was heading. The hurricane might be moving north, but now they had something different to contend with. Something bigger. Something more destructive.