‘I w-want to live!’
‘I must warn you… I’m not offering you your
Liam grabbed hold of the candelabra of a flickering wall light and pulled himself backwardsup the slanting passage, his feet finding the floor once more. A shuddering groan rippledaround them — deafening.
‘She’s dying, Liam. The
Liam looked up at the man, looking at his face for the first time: deep sad eyes surroundedby wrinkles of age. And then a thought occurred to him.
‘Are you… are y-you an a-angel?’
He smiled. ‘No. I’m just an old man.’ His hand remained steady,outstretched towards Liam. ‘I’d understand if you chose to stay and die. Noteveryone decides they want to come.’
Liam felt a shudder. The floor beneath his feet convulsed and the air around them was filledwith the shriek of tearing sheet metal, the pop of unbuckling seams, as deck after deck abovethem began to give way one after the other.
‘Here it is, Liam. We’ve arrived at decision time.’
Liam pulled himself forward, up out of the water, desperately reaching out for the oldman’s proffered hand. If there was time, if his mind wasn’t in a free fall ofpanic, he might have wondered who this man was, and how exactly he intended to save them both.Instead, right now, he could think only one thing.
The lights suddenly winked out, leaving them in complete darkness.
Liam flailed with his arm blindly. ‘Where’s your hand? Please! I don’t wantto drown!’
His fingers brushed the old man’s. The old man caught it and held on.
‘Say goodbye to your life, Liam,’ he shouted above the thunderous din of the shipsplitting in two.
The last sensation that Liam was aware of was the vibrating metal floor ofthe passageway beneath his feet giving way, and falling… falling through darkness.
CHAPTER 3
2001, New York
Liam jerked awake, his legs kicking out. His eyes still clamped shut, he felt with his hands- material, dry and warm covering him. It was quiet, almost silent, except for the softrustle of breathing next to him, and a distant muted rumble somewhere far above him. He knewthat he was mysteriously
He was on a bed or a cot. He opened his eyes to see an arched ceiling of crumbling bricksabove him, whitewashed long ago with paint that was now flaking off like dandruff. From thetop of the arched ceiling a single flickering light bulb dangled from a dusty flex ofcable.
He lifted himself up on to his elbows.
He was in a brick alcove, somewhere underground, perhaps. Beyond the pool of light comingfrom the bulb above, a damp concrete floor spread out from the alcove into darkness.
He sat up, feeling groggy and light-headed, and found himself looking across a gap of threefeet at a bunk bed. In the lower bunk, he could see a girl a few years older than him stirringin an uneasy sleep. He guessed she might be eighteen, perhaps nineteen. More a young womanthan a girl.
Her eyes rolled beneath the lids; her voice whimpered pathetically. Her legstwitched and kicked, making the bunk squeak and rattle with every lurched movement.
CHAPTER 4
2010, somewhere above America
Maddy Carter reached round awkwardly and hit the flush button. The toilet hissedwith a vicious suction and for a moment she wondered whether a person unlucky enough toaccidentally snag the button while still sitting on the seat might be sucked down the u-bendand blasted out at forty thousand feet to free fall amid a shower of turds.
Maddy cleaned herself up as best she could within the cramped confines of the toilet cubicle.She stared down at the last of the vomit swirling round the toilet basin and down the hole,feeling better now that the aeroplane meal was out rather than still churning in her gut.
She wiped her mouth dry with the back of her hand and checked in the mirror for any telltaleblobs of puke caught in her hair. A tall, gawky, pale-faced girl stared back at her; nerdyfreckles she hated so much dappled across her cheeks beneath the frames of her glasses. Herstrawberry-blonde hair dangled lifelessly to her skinny shoulders, on which hung a drab greyT-shirt with the Microsoft logo stitched on the front.
A geek-ette… something of an oddity; a female into messing around with circuit boards,tricking-up her PC, hacking her iPhone to give her free internet access… a girl-geek. Agirl-geek who got the
She unlocked the door, popped it open and stepped out. Her eyes glanced up the central aisleof the plane at a sea of headrests and the bobbing forms of several hundred heads.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and spun round to see an old man standing beside the bank oftoilet cubicles.
‘Uh? What?’ she said, removing small hissing headphones from her ears.
‘You’re Madelaine Carter from Boston. Booked into seat twenty-nine D.’
She stared at him, bemused. ‘What? You want to see my ticket or — ?’
‘I’m afraid you’ve got only a few minutes left to live.’
She felt her stomach lurch, getting ready to eject another torrent of half-digested food. Aphrase like ‘a few minutes left to live’ was the last thing a nervous flyer likeher needed to hear right now. It ranked alongside words like ‘terrorist’ and‘bomb’ as something one should never utter on a packed passenger planemid-flight.
The old man had the harried look of someone running late to catch a train.
‘In a few minutes everyone on this plane will be dead.’
She figured there were only two types of person who might say something like that: a completewhacko in need of medication or…
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, ‘you… you’re not at-terrorist?’
‘No. I’m here to rescue you, Madelaine,’ he spoke quietly, then cast aglance at the sea of heads either side of the aisle, ‘but only you, I’mafraid.’
She shook her head. ‘What?… Who? I… uh — ’ Her mouth wasflapping pointlessly.
‘There’s not much time.’ He looked at a wristwatch. ‘In about ninetyseconds a small explosive charge will detonate midway along the right side ofthe plane. The explosion will knock a hole through the fuselage, the plane will instantlydecompress and roll into a steep dive. Twenty seconds later the starboard wing will sheer off,filling the inside of the plane with aviation fuel, which will ignite.’ He sighed.‘The impact with the woodland below thirty-seven seconds later will kill those whohaven’t already been incinerated.’
