nose, the pain slamming through his head. From his position on the floor, he saw his friend Tariq fly towards him.
The youth landed badly, his back smashing against the edge of a table a few metres away. Abu heard the young guy’s spine snap, a crisp, high-pitched crack cutting through the low rumble of sound coming from below. Tariq vomited blood as he fell forwards, his face smashing into the floor. His dead eyes stared straight at Abu.
The boy screamed but the sound was engulfed within the rising clamour from somewhere below. He felt a terrible panic well up into his throat and his stomach began to heave. He pushed his head down into the carpet and crawled further under the counter. He could hear all manner of things flying past and smashing around the store windows a few metres away.
A piercing scream cut through the air close by. Then came a horrific squelching sound. Turning his head away from where Tariq lay, Abu came face-to-face with a pink and red smudge of humanity, a face disfigured by some heavy flying object. A gasp of breath came from the distorted hole of a mouth and the person went limp.
The shaking and the roaring seemed to go on and on. Something heavy landed on the counter above Abu. It hit the surface with a crunch and glass cascaded over the edge and onto the floor. The boy tried to make himself as small as possible, curling up into a foetal ball.
Then as suddenly as they had started, the vibrations and the roaring stopped. And for a moment at least, the place seemed absurdly quiet. Abu waited for several minutes before he edged his way out from under the counter. Emerging from beneath its lip, he pulled himself to his feet.
The scene that met his eyes reminded him of the horror movie he had seen at a friend’s house when his parents were out. The huge glass window at the front of the shop had shattered into hundreds of thousands of cuboid pellets and formed a semicircle halfway across the store. Every shelf had collapsed, chairs and desks were upended and, across the floor, lay at least a dozen mangled computers, their white plastic cases riven, screens obliterated. And the bodies . . .
Abu could see one man was clearly dead. He had been ripped in two at the waist. Tariq lay still under the counter. Two more mangled forms were sprawled out in a huge patch of blood soaking into the carpet. A fine white powder hung in the air. Abu glanced up and saw that half the roof had been pulverised, the ceiling tiles shredded.
He could not move a muscle. He felt so completely paralysed with fear and shock, he imagined he would never be able to do anything ever again. His heart pounded and he felt a cold sweat break out that made his forehead numb. Then a terrible sound came up from his throat – a cry, a moan, a sigh all rolled into one. It was a sound he had never heard before and for a second he wondered at the fact that such a noise had come from him. Then he started to shake. He fell to his knees, his head lolling forwards to the floor. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his sobs muffled by the carpet.
He stayed in this position for at least a minute before a biting fear shot through him as he realised just how vulnerable he was, how much he wanted to survive, how much he did not want to end up like any of these people around him.
17
Base One, Tintara Island, 8.03 am local time
The whole team was gathered in the conference room. A large flat screen dominated one wall. It was lit up now with sparkling metal, flashes of silver and orange. The sound from the speakers was almost deafening. Mark Harrison, the leader of E-Force, was standing in front of the screen. To his left sat Maiko Buchanan, Stephanie Jacobs and Peter Sherringham, and to his right the two newest members of the team, Chloe Gavoine and Dimitri Godska.
Chloe had been a pilot with the French Air Force and a member of a very rare breed: a female French Foreign Legionnaire. She was tall, a fraction under 1.8 metres, big-boned and
The youth landed badly, his back smashing against the edge of a table a few metres away. Abu heard the young guy’s spine snap, a crisp, high-pitched crack cutting through the low rumble of sound coming from below. Tariq vomited blood as he fell forwards, his face smashing into the floor. His dead eyes stared straight at Abu.
The boy screamed but the sound was engulfed within the rising clamour from somewhere below. He felt a terrible panic well up into his throat and his stomach began to heave. He pushed his head down into the carpet and crawled further under the counter. He could hear all manner of things flying past and smashing around the store windows a few metres away.
A piercing scream cut through the air close by. Then came a horrific squelching sound. Turning his head away from where Tariq lay, Abu came face-to-face with a pink and red smudge of humanity, a face disfigured by some heavy flying object. A gasp of breath came from the distorted hole of a mouth and the person went limp.
The shaking and the roaring seemed to go on and on. Something heavy landed on the counter above Abu. It hit the surface with a crunch and glass cascaded over the edge and onto the floor. The boy tried to make himself as small as possible, curling up into a foetal ball.
Then as suddenly as they had started, the vibrations and the roaring stopped. And for a moment at least, the place seemed absurdly quiet. Abu waited for several minutes before he edged his way out from under the counter. Emerging from beneath its lip, he pulled himself to his feet.
The scene that met his eyes reminded him of the horror movie he had seen at a friend’s house when his parents were out. The huge glass window at the front of the shop had shattered into hundreds of thousands of cuboid pellets and formed a semicircle halfway across the store. Every shelf had collapsed, chairs and desks were upended and, across the floor, lay at least a dozen mangled computers, their white plastic cases riven, screens obliterated. And the bodies . . .
Abu could see one man was clearly dead. He had been ripped in two at the waist. Tariq lay still under the counter. Two more mangled forms were sprawled out in a huge patch of blood soaking into the carpet. A fine white powder hung in the air. Abu glanced up and saw that half the roof had been pulverised, the ceiling tiles shredded.
He could not move a muscle. He felt so completely paralysed with fear and shock, he imagined he would never be able to do anything ever again. His heart pounded and he felt a cold sweat break out that made his forehead numb. Then a terrible sound came up from his throat – a cry, a moan, a sigh all rolled into one. It was a sound he had never heard before and for a second he wondered at the fact that such a noise had come from him. Then he started to shake. He fell to his knees, his head lolling forwards to the floor. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his sobs muffled by the carpet.
He stayed in this position for at least a minute before a biting fear shot through him as he realised just how vulnerable he was, how much he wanted to survive, how much he did not want to end up like any of these people around him.
17
Base One, Tintara Island, 8.03 am local time
The whole team was gathered in the conference room. A large flat screen dominated one wall. It was lit up now with sparkling metal, flashes of silver and orange. The sound from the speakers was almost deafening. Mark Harrison, the leader of E-Force, was standing in front of the screen. To his left sat Maiko Buchanan, Stephanie Jacobs and Peter Sherringham, and to his right the two newest members of the team, Chloe Gavoine and Dimitri Godska.
Chloe had been a pilot with the French Air Force and a member of a very rare breed: a female French Foreign Legionnaire. She was tall, a fraction under 1.8 metres, big-boned and
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