by Chris Ryan
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 streets, 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.’
About the Author
CHRIS RYAN joined the SAS in 1984 and has been involved in numerous operations with the Regiment. During the first Gulf War he was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq, three colleagues being killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. For this he was awarded the Military Medal. He wrote about his remarkable escape in The One Who Got Away (1995), which was also adapted for screen.
He left the SAS in 1994 and is now the author of many bestselling thrillers for adults, as well as the Alpha Force series for younger readers. His work in security takes him around the world and he has also appeared in a number of television series, including Hunting Chris Ryan, in which his escape and evasion skills were demonstrated to the max, and Pushed to the Limit, in which Chris put ordinary British families through a series of challenges. More recently, he appeared in Terror Alert on Sky TV, demonstrating his skills in a range of different scenarios.
Flash Flood is the first in a new series of adventures for younger readers.
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