Twister Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Chris Ryan

  By the Same Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Location: Florida U.S.A.

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  About the Author

  Also Available:: Flash Flood

  Wildfire

  Outbreak

  Vortex

  The loudspeaker crackled into life.

  'Ladies and gentlemen,' an unfamiliar voice announced in an accent Ben did not recognize. 'I advise you all to remain very calm. This plane has been hijacked and is under my control. I will be giving you instructions very soon. In the meantime, be assured that if anyone tries to enter the cockpit or tamper with its door, they will immediately be shot.'

  With that the loudspeaker went dead.

  There was a brief moment of silence, and then the sound of panicked screams filled the aircraft.

  Praise for Chris Ryan:

  'Utterly convincing' The Times

  'Unremitting action' Carousel

  'Bone-crunching action . . .

  tough and fast-moving' Amazon

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  By Chris Ryan, and published by

  Random House:

  The Code Red Adventures

  FLASH FLOOD

  WILDFIRE

  OUTBREAK

  VORTEX

  TWISTER

  The Alpha Force Series

  SURVIVAL

  RAT-CATCHER

  DESERT PURSUIT

  HOSTAGE

  RED CENTRE

  HUNTED

  BLOOD MONEY

  FAULT LINE

  BLACK GOLD

  UNTOUCHABLE

  for adult readers:

  Non-fiction

  The One That Got Away

  Chris Ryan's SAS Fitness Book

  Chris Ryan's Ultimate Survival Guide

  Fiction

  Stand By, Stand By

  Zero Option

  The Kremlin Device

  Tenth Man Down

  The Hit List

  The Watchman

  Land of Fire

  Greed

  The Increment

  Blackout

  Ultimate Weapon

  Strike Back

  Firefight

  One Good Turn

  Adult Quick Read for World Book Day 2008

  www.chrisryanadventures.co.uk

  Twister

  CHRIS RYAN

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781407051055

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  TWISTER

  A RED FOX BOOK

  ISBN: 9781407051055

  Version 1.0

  First published in Great Britain by Doubleday,

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  A Random House Group Company

  Doubleday edition published 2008

  Red Fox edition published 2009

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Chris Ryan, 2008

  The right of Chris Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Set in Garamond by Falcon Oast Graphic Art Ltd.

  Red Fox Books are published by Random House Children's Books,

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

  www.chrisryanadventures.co.uk

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Location:

  Florida U.S.A.

  Prologue

  A small island in the Indian Ocean. Around midnight.

  The little girl's name was Basheera. In the island language it meant Bringer of Joy. But there was no joy in that small house tonight. Only sadness.

  Basheera lay on her bed, her frail body lit up by the dim electric light that hung from the ceiling. Her breathing was heavy and noisy, and her parents knew just what that meant. They sat on either side of her, each of them holding one of their daughter's hands. Neither of them said a word. There was nothing to do but wait.

  A blanket covered the lower part of Basheera's body. It was not there to keep her warm – it was a hot, humid night anyway – but because the adults could not bear to look at her legs. Those legs that they had watched grow strong since she was a baby, now bloodied and broken because of the men and their machines.

  She opened her eyes. Basheera's mother gasped. A miracle! But it soon became clear that although her eyes were open, they saw nothing, and they flickered shut again. Her mother put her free hand against the girl's forehead. It burned. The two adults cast worried glances at each other before returning to their silent vigil.

  When the men had come, with their diggers and their machines, everyone had known it meant trouble. Before long the bulldozers had moved in, clearing trees from the forest that was so precious to these villagers, and preparing to dig for the thing they spoke of as if it were the most precious substance on earth: oil.

  The children, of course, had been transfixed by the big machines, just as the grown-ups had been suspicious of them. Despite warnings from their parents and shouts from the men, they had played games around them. It had really been only a matter of time before an accident happened. It had just been a question of to whom.

  If it had been someone other than Basheera who had been caught under the heavy wheels of the bulldozer, her parents would have been sorrowful too. Theirs was a true community: they shared each other's happiness and they felt each other's pain. But when they had seen their daughter's body, damaged beyond repair, their anguish had overcome them. It could not have been put into words.

  The men responsible had washed their hands of it. It was Basheera's own fault, they said. She should not have been where she was. But all the villagers had known this was not true. Basheera had had every right to be there. It was the newcomers who had been trespassing.

  The villagers had rallied around. The chief had declared that all their resources should be directed towards saving the life of the little girl. They had tapped the deep-red sap of the dragon's blood tree – a well-known cure-all – to wash her damaged legs, but that had not
been enough. They had performed sacred rituals, but still Basheera had grown more and more ill. There had been talk of taking her to a hospital on the mainland, but she could not have been moved.

  And now it was clear that all anyone could do was pray for her soul, and curse the invaders who, in their greed, had caused this to happen.

  Basheera's last breath was long. It sounded as if her soul was escaping from her body. In the silence that followed, her mother started shaking her head, as if refusing to believe that her daughter had passed away. But the signs were all too obvious: she was no longer breathing, and her chest had stopped moving up and down.

  She had been dead for a full minute when her mother screamed. It was a pitiful sound, an inhuman shriek that echoed not just around their poor house, but around the whole village. Basheera's father gently let his daughter's hand fall, then hurried round to hug his wife, to give her some kind of comfort in that moment when there was no comfort to give.

  Everyone in the village knew what the scream meant, of course, and before long they were gathering outside the house. There was a painful silence as Basheera's father emerged, carrying his daughter's lifeless body in his arms.

  'This is what these people have done!' he roared in the language of the region. 'First they destroy our land, now they destroy our children! It must not continue!'

  The villagers muttered their agreement as Basheera's father turned towards the chief of the village. 'It is your responsibility,' he intoned. 'You are our chief. You must see to it that these invaders leave our land. Basheera's brother, he has spent much time in the West. He will do what is necessary to avenge his sister. And there are others too. Others in the village who will help. You know who they are.'

  The chief was a tall, gaunt man. His face was deeply lined and his eyes were dark. He nodded solemnly and the crowd grew silent to hear what he had to say in his deep, rich voice.

  'These men think we are stupid. They think we are savages. They do not understand that we choose to live like we always have. They do not understand that we are like a sleeping snake – quiet when left alone, but deadly when angered. I swear to you now, over the body of this dead child, that this will not continue.' He turned to Basheera's mother and father. 'They will suffer as you have suffered. I do not care if it costs all our money or all our lives. They will leave our land and never come back. That is my promise to you, as long as I am your chief.'

  His words resounded in the air, and they seemed to satisfy the assembled villagers, who voiced their approval before melting away into the night. Soon, only one of the crowd remained. He was a small man, but muscular. There was an angry scar along the left-hand side of his face and his eyes burned with a zealous fire. The chief looked at him seriously, pointed at him and then nodded. The scarred man nodded back and smiled. It was as though he had been chosen to do something, and that choice had made him glad.

  Without saying a word, the two of them left, and then there was no one remaining outside the house. No one except Basheera's mother and father, helplessly clutching the cold, still body of their little girl, knowing that their life would never, ever be the same again.

  Chapter One

  Many thousands of miles away. Two weeks later.

  It was the evenings that Ben Tracey liked most of all. The air would be full of the smell of wood smoke from the barbecue, and the red sun would be setting dreamily beyond the horizon, lighting up the flat sea with its warm glow.

  It had been a good holiday and Ben felt he had deserved it. His holidays had a funny habit of going wrong, so there had been something rather blissful about two weeks by a beach in the Cayman Islands. His friends back at school had been jealous when they had heard he was going to be sunning himself on Grand Cayman courtesy of an old family friend who lived out there; they'd been doubly jealous when they'd heard he'd be flying out by himself, without any parents to cramp his style.

  Ben couldn't help but smile at the thought of their faces when he had told them where he'd be staying. The house that Alec Ardler – an old teacher of his father's who always reminded Ben of pictures he'd seen of Albert Einstein – owned was ramshackle, but it was right on the beach. Open the gate at the bottom of the garden and you could walk straight out onto the fine golden sand. Beyond that was the sea, blue and clear like you normally only saw on postcards. It was the rainy season, which meant the beaches weren't as full as they might otherwise have been, but when the rain came it was in short, sharp bursts that cleared the air and made it all the more pleasant to be outside. The rest of the time, it was glorious sunshine.

  Ben had known Alec for as long as he could remember. They'd always got on well, but he hadn't seen the old man for years, so he would have been excited to receive the invitation to spend his half term with him even if Alec hadn't retired to the Cayman Islands. He must have been comfortably in his eighties, but he was surprisingly spry for his age, and his mind was as agile as his body. He was one of those grown-ups who refused to talk down to anyone. Ben liked that. He liked the way Alec left him to his own devices; he liked the way that when they met for their regular dinner of barbecued fish in the garden, he sounded genuinely interested in what Ben had to say. He was a bit odd at times, a bit intense, but over the course of the two weeks, Ben felt that he had renewed a good friendship. So much so that he had opened up to him about the events of the previous couple of years – the floods in London, the fires in Adelaide, the horrible events of the Congo. He'd been a bit more reticent about what had happened at the military base in the UK, but in general he had told Alec more about his adventures than anyone else.

  'Regular little harbinger of doom, aren't you, matey?' the old man had said. Ben just grimaced ruefully.

  And now the holiday was nearly at an end. Just a couple more days and he would be flying back to England. Back to school and the dreary surroundings of his everyday life. He wasn't much looking forward to it and as he sat outside with Alec that evening, nursing a glass of chilled mango juice, he sighed heavily.

  'Penny for your thoughts?' Alec asked quietly. He had a habit of using old-fashioned phrases like that.

  Ben smiled. 'Oh, I don't know,' he said. 'Just thinking about going home.'

  The dying embers of the wood crackled on the barbecue, and Alec nodded. 'Got a taste for the good life, eh? Don't blame you. Still, your parents will be looking forward to seeing you.'

  'Yeah, I know, it's just—' Ben stopped talking and looked at Alec curiously. 'What's the matter?' he asked.

  Alec's brow was furrowed. He was looking past Ben and out to sea. Ben followed his gaze and immediately saw what had grabbed his friend's attention. It was the sky. Minutes ago it had been like it always was at this time of the evening, flecked with pinks and oranges from the sun. But not now. Above them the sky was still clear, but now it was impossible to make out the horizon. In the distance the sea looked dark grey and seemed to merge into the sky, which was suddenly full of huge, bubbling clouds. It was as though they were being surrounded.

  The two of them fell silent as they watched this peculiar weather formation. When Alec spoke, it was almost under his breath. 'I've been here a long time,' he said. 'I've never seen anything quite like that. Amazing thing, nature. Always got a surprise up its sleeve.'

  'Looks to me like a storm is coming.'

  Alec turned his head to look straight at Ben. There was something piercing in his eyes. 'Oh,' he said, 'a storm is coming all right. A storm is always coming. From everything you've told me, you should know that better than most. It's just a question of when.'

  Ben blinked, unsure how to reply. It was such a strange thing to say. He had the feeling that Alec was talking about something other than the weather, but he didn't know what.

  A chill descended and Ben shivered slightly. Alec stood up promptly. 'Come on,' he said. 'It's cold. If you're supposed to go diving with Angelo early tomorrow we should hit the hay.'

  Ben nodded, relieved that the weird moment seemed to have passed. He stood up too a
nd made his way indoors; though as he did so he couldn't help but notice that Alec lingered slightly, looking out to sea with an unknowable expression on his face. 'It won't last,' the old man said almost to himself. 'Be right as rain in the morning.'

  Darkness fell, but the two men in the beaten-up old Ford parked fifty metres down the road had no plans to go home. They had sat there all day, all the night before and for several days and nights previously. They took it in turns to sleep and ate sparingly from their stash of food, only leaving the car to find somewhere to use for a toilet. They were both dark-skinned but one of them – the one who sat in the driver's seat – was a lot smaller than the other, and had a deep scar down the left-hand side of his face. It was his turn to keep watch now. He did so intently while his partner slept, keeping his gaze fixed on the ornate villa beyond.

  They had already staked the place out, of course, when they first arrived. They knew that if anyone left for a period of time they would do so by car. And as this was the only road that led to the house, they could be sure of knowing when that happened.

  Just so long as they kept watching. Kept vigilant. Kept their minds on the job in hand.

  He looked at his watch. Eight p.m. Changeover time. He nudged his partner, whose eyes opened immediately. To look at him you'd think he had never been asleep.

  'Your watch,' he said in a language that was never heard in this part of the world.

  His partner nodded. 'Anything?' he asked.

  The man shook his head. 'Nothing. Not yet. There will be, though. They can't stay in there for ever. Don't lose your concentration.'

  With that the man closed his eyes and almost instantly fell asleep.

  Ben slept fitfully. It wasn't the heat of the night or the mosquitoes that kept him awake. It was the constant visions of bubbling skies and black seas that seemed to drift through his dreams. He woke up the next morning feeling like he had hardly slept at all, but as he opened the shutters of his bedroom and looked out over the dawn sunrise, he was happy to see that the sky was as clear as it had ever been.