by Chris Ryan
Bel thought it sounded dubious: what were the chances that another Ben Tracey was wandering the capital today? But the form asked for plenty of details: her home address, date of birth, middle names; and the same for Ben. She filled it in, handed the palm pilot back and peered at the screen over the soldier’s shoulder.
‘So, have you got him?’
‘We can’t tell you that yet, ma’am, we have to hook up to the satellite. But as soon as we get back to the rescue centre we do a match for all the people we’ve picked up. We’ve matched a lot of people already.’
She stepped away and joined the stream of people starting the walk towards the Camden entrance. How long would she have to wait?
Ahead of her, a tall figure in a suit was getting directions from a soldier with a clipboard. He had sandy-coloured hair and a shirt with an open collar that revealed a healthy outdoor tan. Bel’s sharp eyes recognized him immediately from news pictures: David Atkinson, the Prime Minister of Canada. He had been down here all the time, in another part of the bunker.
She set off dodging through the crowd like a rugger player going for a try, crumpled purple sleeves pushed up purposefully.
Chapter Thirty-four
Ben and Eva heard the pounding of the helicopter outside but they’d stopped getting excited at the sound. So many had gone overhead already and hadn’t stopped for them. And anyway, it wasn’t as if they were a rescue priority. They were safe enough inside the building. And at least in their drysuits they were warm.
Whatever the building was, it was very old, and the room they were in was interesting to explore. The windows were stained glass, the curtains heavy velvet with gold embroidery. Gold candlesticks stood on a big stone mantelpiece. A big gilded mirror reflected the dull rainy sky outside.
Ben had hung one of the big, gold-embroidered curtains out of the window to attract rescuers’ attention. In the meantime, Eva was looking at some old books on the shelves while Ben was trying to get the zip undone on his drysuit. It was doing too good a job of keeping him warm now. He peered in the mirror, trying to get hold of the tag to ease it open.
He got the shock of his life when he saw, behind his reflection, the figure dangling on a rope in the window.
He whirled round. The helicopter outside must have stopped for them. A man was hanging there in an abseil harness, beckoning them to come outside.
Eva and Ben reached the window at the same time.
Their rescuer was a soldier in khaki fatigues and a khaki-painted helmet. He held out another sling.
Ben gestured to Eva to go first, and she stepped onto the window ledge. The soldier gave her the sling while he signalled to Ben to turn round so that he could grasp him around the middle with his legs; then he gave a thumbs-up signal to the winch operator waiting above.
As the winch pulled them up, Ben took a last look down at the dirty river water, the surface corrugated by the helicopter’s downdraught. The noise of the heli became louder and louder, and by the time they had been winched up into its belly, it was deafening.
The winchman waved Ben and Eva towards some seats at the front, where several people were already sitting huddled in foil survival blankets. Ben headed for an empty seat and the heli lurched, nearly depositing him in the lap of a pretty woman in a green helmet and a dark blue jumpsuit. He regained his balance and sat down heavily opposite her instead.
Eva was already sitting down. She nudged Ben and pointed at the logo on the pretty woman’s jumpsuit. It said CAPITAL RADIO FLYING EYE. Below that was embroidered a name: MEENA CHOHAN.
Meena caught Eva’s eye and gave them both a friendly smile. Eva leaned forward eagerly, trying to talk to her, but the noise through the open door reduced their conversation to sign language. Still, Ben found it amusing to see Eva impressed by something at last.
Meena handed Ben a Palm Pilot with a stylus. It was a register for the rescue authorities. He added his details and scrolled back through the previous entries. Judging by the number of names and addresses already there, the heli had picked up a lot of people during the course of the day. One of them had the same name as the Prime Minister. Ben pointed to it as he handed the Palm Pilot over to Eva. He was sceptical that it was really the Prime Minister, though; the joker had even given the home address as Downing Street.
Eva shrugged. So politicians didn’t faze her; she seemed a lot more impressed with Meena.
Ben, on the other hand, was impressed with the controls of the heli. The pilot, who had the name Dorek painted in white lettering on the back of his helmet, was bringing it down to a hover again. Ben was fascinated by his constant, gentle adjustments with the central stick, as though the heli was a living thing. Suddenly he realized how much he would like, himself, to learn to fly one day.
Behind the seats, the winch crew were set to go out again. The soldier standing by the winch checked the cable, then gave a thumbs-up. His partner gave a last check to his abseil harness and jumped smartly out of the door.
Ben looked out of the tiny window by his seat. The winch crew were targeting a roof terrace littered with hospital trolleys, beside an L-shaped building. A handful of people were sitting on the trolleys huddled under blankets, as though they were the last stragglers of a much bigger evacuation.
It was just a stone’s throw from the ArBonCo Centre. How funny, thought Ben. I can’t seem to keep away from the place.
Meena was tapping him on the shoulder. He turned round and she passed him the Palm Pilot again. Ben saw that, on the screen, his name was flashing: someone was looking for him. A Dr Bel Kelland, now at the Camden centre.
Ben stayed looking at the name for a few minutes, a smile on his face. His mum was safe.
More survivors were reeled in. The winchman made sure they were well inside the cabin and away from the door before taking the harness off. When they had all been picked up, his partner slid the doors shut and gave the pilot the signal that they were secure. As Dorek took the heli higher and away downriver, Ben took a last look down at the ArBonCo building, surrounded by water. Smoke curled gently out of the lower floors but the upper floors looked intact. Perhaps he could have stayed in there the whole time after all. There were many times that day when he’d wished he had.
He still had the Palm Pilot in his hands. He looked at the message next to his name and smiled wryly. Camden. He needn’t have bothered trying to get to Charing Cross after all.
An evacuee with black spiky hair sat down in the seat beside him. He passed her the Palm Pilot and watched as she entered her name.
He had seen that name before. That morning, a lifetime ago, on the label of a suitcase. Ben looked at her face properly.
‘Vicky?’ he said. ‘Vicky James?’
With the door closed, the heli was quieter and it was possible to talk. ‘I’m Ben. We met at Waterloo this morning.’
Vicky’s face lit up as recognition dawned. She flung her arms around Ben and hugged him tight. She smelled of antiseptic, of hospitals and dirty water.
Eva looked on, bemused.
Vicky passed the Palm Pilot to another evacuee and sat back. She ran a hand through her hair, making it stick up even more, and let out a long sigh. ‘Boy, am I glad today’s over.’
Her mood was catching. Meena and Ben nodded slowly.
Even Eva looked relieved – a little. She said ruefully: ‘I only came down to do a bit of shopping for my diving holiday.’
In moments the other three were roaring with laughter.
Meena was the first to recover. ‘Looks like your holiday started early.’ She wiped a tear from her eye.
Vicky looked at Ben for a moment, then launched herself at him for another hug. ‘I can’t believe it’s you.’
With his face muffled in the two fleeces she was wearing, Ben struggled to breathe. But he hugged her back. It was so good to see her. Perhaps it was because he’d seen so many other people who hadn’t been so lucky. On the Embankment, in the ArBonCo offices, in the London Eye, in the river, in the street
s, in the Tube station. His odyssey to get here must have taken him past hundreds of people who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, randomly taken by the water. Now, finally, one of the faces in the crowd had beaten the odds.
‘Sorry,’ said Vicky, sitting back and composing herself. ‘I’m probably embarrassing you.’ She put her hand out for a high-five. ‘Hey, we made it.’
First Meena high-fived her; then, quietly, Eva. Finally Ben met her proffered hand enthusiastically. ‘Yeah,’ he grinned. ‘We made it.’
If you enjoyed this book, you’ll also enjoy the Alpha Force series by Chris Ryan. Turn over to read an extract from the first title in the series, Survival …
Extract from Alpha Force: Survival
Copyright © Chris Ryan, 2002
Red Fox
0 009 43924 7
978 0 009 43924 0
SOMEWHERE IN THE
INDONESIAN ARCHIPELAGO
It only takes an instant to die …
As he struggled to swim away from the huge wave that towered over him, Alex began to hear his father’s voice in his head, patiently explaining the survival skills he had learned in the SAS. It was oddly comforting to listen to that calm, quiet voice and Alex found the strength to push himself on through the turbulent water, even though his muscles were almost useless with exhaustion.
It only takes an instant to die, continued his father’s voice. The way to survive is to make sure you never reach that instant. Are you listening, Alex? You need to understand how an accident happens. Most people think it explodes without warning - blam! Like a firework. But you look more closely at that accident and what do you see … ?
‘A fuse …’ croaked Alex, forcing himself to take a few more strokes before floundering to a stop. ‘There’s always a fuse …’
He blinked the stinging seawater from his eyes and looked over his shoulder to see whether he was clear of the breaking wave. He groaned. All that effort and he had hardly moved. It was as though he had been treading water. The wave still towered over him, even higher now. It was a solid slab of black water, except at the top where there was a frayed edge of white foam. The wave had reached its crest and was beginning to curl over. In a few seconds, the whole weight of that wall of water would crash down on top of him.
Alex stopped swimming. He knew he was fighting a losing battle. Instead, he concentrated on breathing, topping up his system with as much oxygen as he could before the wave hit. He felt himself being tugged backwards as the surrounding water was sucked into the base of the breaking wave. Forcing his burning lungs to take in one more deep breath, he turned and dived down under the surface for a second before the breaker crashed down on top of him.
Even under the water, Alex was overwhelmed by the impact. The breaker slammed him down and knocked all the air out of him with a casual efficiency that reminded him of his mother kneading dough. As he tumbled lazily through the water, drifting on the edge of consciousness, Alex thought about his mother making bread half a world away in the kitchen he had been so keen to leave. He thought of how sad she would be if he did not return from this trip and suddenly he was fully awake again.
He began to struggle against the current, which was still rolling him over and over, pulling him nearer and nearer to the reef where the boat had broken in two. If he was dragged across the razor-sharp coral, his skin would be torn to ribbons. How close was he? There was a roaring in his ears which could be breaking surf. Alex forced his eyes open, but it was so dark under the water, he could not tell which way was up. He redoubled his efforts to swim against the current until he felt as though his chest was about to burst open. His movements became weaker, the roaring in his ears grew louder and sparks of multi-coloured light began to dance behind his eyes, but he kept going and, suddenly, the current let him go. He broke the surface and pulled whooping breaths of air into his lungs.
Clearing his eyes, he peered about him. The moon was up and, in its pale light, he could just see the dark, jagged outline of the island he was trying to reach. He turned in the water and saw white surf breaking on the reef behind him. It was still too close for comfort and another huge wave was beginning to build. Gritting his teeth, Alex started to swim again, scanning the water for any sign of the rest of A-Watch.
He spotted Amber first, way ahead of him. She had nearly reached the island and was swimming strongly. Behind Amber, but still in the quieter waters of the lagoon, two more heads bobbed close together in the water. Paulo and Li, thought Alex, guessing that Paulo would not leave Li’s side if he could help it. But where was Hex? Alex felt a chill run through him as he remembered that Hex, the fifth member of A-Watch, had been even nearer to the reef before the wave hit.
Despite the next breaker building behind him, Alex slowed and turned to scan the surface for Hex. He half-expected to see a body, floating face down in a spreading circle of blood, but there was nothing. Then he caught a movement over to his left. There was Hex, ahead of him now, and swimming steadily towards the island. He must have managed to surf in on the back of the wave that had swallowed Alex.
Satisfied, Alex put the others out of his mind and concentrated on swimming as hard as he could. This time he was nearly clear of the breaker when it crashed. Once more, he dived to survive the impact, then swam against the current that was pulling him backwards. He felt a surge of elation as he broke surface again. He was going to make it! Then something slammed into the back of his head with bone-shattering force. Instinctively, he flung his left arm up to protect his head and was caught in a grip which instantly tightened, biting into the flesh of his wrist. As he began to spiral down into the water, trailing blood, Alex heard his father’s voice again.
Every accident has a fuse, son. There’s always a fuse.
Alex watched with a sort of dazed curiosity as a thin rope of his own blood twisted away from him towards the surface. That must be the fuse, he thought. In the few seconds left to him before he lost consciousness, Alex imagined the fuse stretching across the sea and back in time to twenty-four hours earlier, when they had all still been aboard the Phoenix. That was when it had all started. That final Watch Duty, when the fuse was lit …
CHAPTER ONE
Alex knelt on the fore-deck of the Phoenix as she cut a graceful path through the clear, blue water. The Phoenix was a beautiful ship; a newly-built replica of a three-mastered schooner with white sails that curved like wings in the breeze. She was a week into her maiden voyage, sailing east across the Java Sea. To the south, the island of Java made a jagged scribble on the horizon and all around them clusters of smaller Indonesian islands dotted the water. The late-afternoon sun touched everything with a soft, golden glow.
Alex had no time to gaze at the view. He was concentrating on polishing the brass fittings of the deck rail to a high shine. His back ached and his chest and arms were beaded with sweat in the humid heat of the day, but, for the first time since the voyage began, he was happy. A-Watch were nearly at the end of their latest Watch Duty and, for once, nothing had gone wrong. Heather, their Watch leader, had been determined to have a good Watch. She had set them their tasks and then spent the whole four hours circling the deck, watching them coldly like a small, blue-eyed shark.
Alex glanced at the other four members of A-Watch. Amber and Hex were both hunched over a big, metal cookpot, preparing vegetables. They were working in a sullen silence and trading hostile looks, but at least they weren’t fighting. Li was up in the rigging, clambering and balancing high above the deck with the confidence of an expert climber. Alex was not sure how much work Li was doing up there, but he supposed anything was better than the total lack of interest she had shown so far. Paulo was swabbing the deck. He had started off well, but now he was absent-mindedly pushing his mop back and forth over one very clean patch of deck while he gazed up at Li, hypnotized by her slim legs and the swing of her silky black hair.
‘Paulo!’
Paulo jumped. Heather was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at hi
m. He swallowed, then tried one of his trademark heart-melting smiles. The smile turned to a look of horror as Heather stalked across the deck towards him, her eyes like chips of ice. Grabbing the mop, Paulo moved off, swabbing at high speed and sending water flying everywhere. Alex grinned as he turned back to his polishing. Heather was tiny but very scary. She was in her mid-twenties, he guessed, which made her barely ten years older than the five members of her Watch, but she had started work aboard sail-training ships like the Phoenix at sixteen and she was as hard as nails.
Alex gave the brasswork one last swipe and straightened up, rubbing his aching back. He caught the tiniest nod of approval from Heather and grinned again. This trip might just start working out after all.
‘Not bad,’ said Heather, looking around the deck. ‘Not good,’ she scowled, folding her arms. ‘But – it’s a start. Now, listen up. B-Watch’ll be relieving us here any minute, so let’s get this deck ship-shape for them. Paulo and Alex, stow away your cleaning stuff. Hex and Amber, carry that cookpot down to the galley. Together! Li, enough of the circus act. Come down and take a bow. I’m off to write up the Watch log.’
Heather walked away and Alex breathed a sigh of relief. The Watch was over and nothing had gone wrong. He was beginning to think there might be some hope for A-Watch. He was mistaken.
As soon as Heather was out of sight, Hex dropped his side of the cookpot.
‘Hey!’ yelled Amber, jumping out of the way as water slopped onto the deck.
Hex ignored her. Pulling his palmtop from the pouch at his belt, he flipped it open and sat down with his back against the mast. His fingers keyed the air and he stared at the screen with a hungry look on his face as he waited for the machine to wake up.
Amber’s dark eyes flashed as she glared down at Hex. ‘Look at you,’ she spat. ‘Junkie hacker. Can’t you cope with real life?’