Strike of the Shark
Page 14
But he hadn’t asked to be here. He had been trying to escape. He was only here because this woman – whose life he was trying to save – hated him and wanted to kill him. And he hadn’t been stupid enough to drill for a highly unstable and explosive substance in the first place. This was so not his fault.
‘Get over yourself,’ he muttered, and put everything he could into heaving at the strut.
‘Beck!’ Farrell was crouching beside him, shouting over the sound of the explosions and the helicopter engines and the storm. ‘The helicopter is set to leave – right now! We have to go!’
‘Give me a hand with this!’ Beck shouted.
‘You’d need five men to lift that. Come on, we need to go!’
‘But . . .’ Never say die, Beck told himself furiously. He cast his eyes around hopelessly.
The helicopter! If they could get a chain, and tie one end to the strut and the other to the helicopter, then maybe the helicopter could lift it off . . .
Farrell grabbed his arm. ‘Bring James and come now!’ He looked coldly down at Abby. ‘No offence, lady.’
But then Abby grabbed James violently by the arm. ‘If this rig is going down, then we all go down!’ she shouted.
‘I’m not leaving James – or Abby! We are all getting out of here.’ Beck threw his entire strength into pushing against the strut. It wouldn’t budge.
He bellowed in frustration as he failed to shift it. ‘Aargh!’
And then, to his horror, he felt Farrell’s arms wrap around his chest and lift him bodily away.
‘No!’ he howled. He struggled and kicked as the captain heaved him across the platform, but Farrell was bigger and stronger than him. If he’d found any kind of purchase, he’d have been able to fight back, but Farrell held him up off the ground all the way. The captain threw him into the helicopter cabin and clambered in after him, all in one movement. Beck landed with a thud and immediately scrambled to his feet to leap back out – but then he heard the engines roar, and then the helicopter rapidly lifted away.
Beck fell back into the cabin. Now he was struggling against the helicopter’s acceleration, but again he flung himself towards the open door.
Farrell brought him down in a tackle. He landed half in, half out of the helicopter, with Farrell’s weight pinning his legs.
‘We’re done!’ the captain shouted. Beck could already see that it was true. They were ten metres up from the platform, and rising. He would break his neck, and that would be no help to anyone.
Farrell helped him slide back into the cabin and Beck picked himself up, glowering back at the captain and pushing away his helping hand. He crouched in the cabin door and looked back in despair at the rig.
Island Alpha was leaning over to one side, the ocean foaming white beneath it. Underwater eruptions threw clouds of steam up and over it, as if the sea was trying to hide the fact that the rig was slowly disintegrating. Cranes, cabins, girders peeled away and tumbled into the water. Then all at once the sea rose up, a massive cloud of boiling, billowing steam, and out of this an orange fireball erupted, engulfing the rig once and for all.
The shock wave struck the helicopter, and the aircraft lurched, spinning wildly as if about to fall out of the sky. Beck was hurled back into the cabin. By the time it had stabilized and he had got back to the door, there was no more Island Alpha, just gradually subsiding foam.
The sky beyond it was completely dark as the hurricane moved ever closer.
CHAPTER 41
‘Our staff are all experts who are fully aware of the dangers involved in their work. They are highly trained and capable of handling a situation like this. The evacuation of Island Alpha was a textbook procedure.’
The TV screen in Beck’s hotel room just showed an empty expanse of ocean. The sea was calm, the waves blue and sparkling.
Then the picture switched to an image of a man in a smart grey suit, standing outside a high-tech office building in downtown Miami. He had a circle of white hair around his otherwise bald head. His face was lean, his eyes narrow and shrewd. The caption read: EDWIN BLAKE.
Beck hated him on sight.
Blake was surrounded by a gaggle of reporters, but one in particular had his microphone in the man’s face.
‘But there was one casualty,’ the reporter said.
Blake paused, then nodded. ‘I have spoken to some of the survivors. They have all agreed that my daughter Abby sacrificed her life through her insistence on helping others first.’ He paused and drew in a breath that shuddered slightly.
It was a flawless fake performance of a man struggling with grief. Coming from anyone else, it would have taken Beck in completely. Knowing what he did about the founder of Lumos, he didn’t believe a word of it.
‘She was the most senior Lumos executive on board Island Alpha and her first thought was for everyone who worked for the company. It’s typical of the way she performed her job. She will be deeply missed . . .’
‘Can you dismiss the possibility of sabotage?’
‘By no means. We are considering all possibilities.’ Blake’s hawk-like eyes bored into the camera, and into Beck. Blake was addressing anyone watching the broadcast, but there was no doubt in Beck’s mind that he was speaking to just one person. ‘Obviously we will be co-operating fully with the American authorities in their investigation. But let me emphasize, if sabotage is proved to have occurred – if, for example, it turns out that someone hacked the computers that monitored the pressures inside the pipeline during a controlled eruption – then no stone will be left unturned in seeking out the perpetrator. No stone at all. There is nowhere to hide. It’s only a very small planet. We will find you and bring you to justice.’
‘Yes, we will have justice,’ Beck murmured. He walked out onto the balcony while Blake continued with his performance.
‘I would like to emphasize that there was no environmental damage – Lumos takes its responsibilities towards our planet very seriously – and I can only repeat that this was a textbook procedure . . .’
‘Turn it off!’ Beck said quietly. He leaned on the balcony rail and looked out over Miami beach, and the sea beyond it.
A moment later, his Uncle Al came to join him at the balcony.
After the Sea Cloud was reported missing, Al had been on the first available flight to Florida. He and Beck must have set foot on American soil at almost the same time.
‘So, did James make it?’ Uncle Al said.
Beck grunted. ‘Maybe. I pray so.’
And he did. He would remember, for the rest of his life, the look of shock and betrayal on James’s face as Farrell had dragged Beck away.
If James was found alive, Beck would rejoice. If he turned up dead, or was never found at all, Beck would be distraught. He would feel he had betrayed him. He would be grieving not only for the boy who had died, but for the boy who had never lived – the decent, likeable, honest guy that James could have been.
He couldn’t grieve for Abby. He was sad about her death, because no one deserved to die like that. But he couldn’t grieve.
The helicopter pilot had given his version of events to the authorities when he landed at Miami. No one disputed it, not even Beck. The man was just hired to fly the machine; he had been about to depart for the mainland; he had picked up Farrell and Beck before Island Alpha collapsed and brought them with him.
Beck and Farrell had given the approximate location of the uninhabited island they had found to the US Coastguard. They were looking for it now, hoping to retrieve Steven’s body – if it was still there after the hurricane had passed through.
‘The taxi’s here,’ Al said.
Beck took one last look at the tropical scene in front of him. Bright sun. Palm trees. Sun, sea and sand. Men, women and children sunbathing or splashing in the waves. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
There was one more ordeal to face, and it started the moment the lift doors opened onto the lobby. Flash bulbs exploded in front of Beck’s face.
‘Do you have anything to add?’
‘What were your feelings when you saw the rig collapse . . .?’
Al pushed his way through the scrum of reporters. He used their suitcases as a battering ram and wasn’t too bothered about who he hit. Beck followed in the path that his uncle cleared. Both of them just muttered a curt ‘No comment.’
They had thought of commenting, plenty. Beck had a lot to say. But who would believe it? He was one boy.
He had talked to Farrell. The captain had already had a polite call from a Lumos lawyer. Smiling, not threatening at all, not saying anything that could be held against him, the lawyer had pointed out some hard truths. Farrell was a disgraced ship’s captain, already suspected of losing one ship through negligence, now with a second lost ship on his record. Lumos could – if it wanted – wreck his career for ever. Their lawyers and PR people could make sure that he would never, ever work again. He wouldn’t stand a chance against the kind of attack that their resources could buy.
Farrell was no coward. He was prepared to throw everything away, if he could join up with Beck and fight back.
Beck had told the captain that he had done his bit to hurt Lumos. This was no longer his fight.
But Beck wasn’t afraid of Lumos. They couldn’t hurt him like they could hurt Farrell. Lumos couldn’t hurt his career prospects. He intended to work for Green Force when he left school, and Lumos would have to deal with it.
As James had put it, back on the island: he was also going to join the ‘family firm’.
Their cases were stowed in the boot of the taxi. Beck and Al climbed into the back and pulled the doors shut.
‘Airport, please,’ Al said. The taxi pulled away from the mob behind it.
Neither of them spoke for a while. Then Al broke the silence.
‘We’ll be just in time for Christmas,’ he said. ‘I warn you I haven’t had much time for shopping. You’re looking at an empty stocking.’
Beck managed to give a tired smile. ‘Surprise me,’ he said, and settled back in his seat.
He was looking forward to Christmas. He would enjoy the normality of December in England. Let it be cold, let it be wet. He needed the break – he needed time to relax, and recharge, and regain his strength for the battle that was to come.
Blake’s last words still rang in his ears. Blake must already know that Beck was still alive. Lumos would come for him again.
But not if Beck came for them first.
EPILOGUE
The blunt tip of the stick skidded off the base plate again. The bedraggled, bruised boy screamed and flung it as far away as he could. There was no one but gulls to see or hear him.
‘How does he do it? How does he do it?’
Beck had made it look so simple. Dig the fire drill into the base plate. Spin it. Fire happened.
Every time James tried it, the drill just took on a life of its own.
But he was going to make it work. He forced himself to get to his feet and walk along the debris-strewn beach until he had found the stick again. Then he went back to the pile that would become a fire. Sobbing with frustration, and the pain of his cracked, blistered palms, he started again.
It might have been the same island they had landed on with the lifeboat. He honestly had no idea. Any recognizable features had been obliterated by the storm.
The helicopter had been whirring, screaming. Beck had been dragged away, and left James to die.
Beck had betrayed him. He had lied. He had let himself be saved and left him to die.
James, weeping, had been throwing all his strength at the strut that pinned his mother down. And then he had seen the man – another member of Island Alpha’s crew, making one final check of the rig before heading for the lifepods. He had done to James what Farrell had done to Beck – picked him up and carried him off. Except that James had been screaming for his mother all the way.
The man had thrown him into a lifepod and had been about to climb in when the rig blew. James was pretty sure he had been knocked out by the blast. He had a vague memory of noise, and pain. At the heart of the explosion, he must have rattled around inside the pod like a pea in a shell. But it was a very different piece of technology to the lifeboat that had carried them away from the Sea Cloud. Its tough plastic shell had sealed up automatically when it detached from Island Alpha and the explosion hadn’t cracked it.
James hadn’t died.
Although part of him had. The part that could feel joy, and laughter, and love – had died on Island Alpha.
And when he woke up, he’d found the lifepod beached on the island. It was still there, further down the beach. Bright orange, so no one could miss it. Packed full of survival rations, so James wouldn’t starve. He knew someone would come for him eventually.
But James wasn’t going to rely on anyone else from now on. He would survive on his own skills. Hence the fire. He had to do it. He had to learn how. He had to be strong and tough to follow what he now knew was the path of his life, fuelled by the core of hatred that burned inside him like a nuclear reactor.
He would survive. He would have his revenge. Somehow.
BEAR’S SURVIVAL TIPS
NAVIGATING BY THE STARS
Navigating by the stars – astronavigation – is one of the oldest navigation methods known to man. It can certainly be a very in-depth study, but a small amount of knowledge can be a big help if you’re navigating at night because you can use the stars to determine direction. Which stars you use depends on which hemisphere you’re in.
The northern hemisphere
In the northern hemisphere, the most useful star is the North Star (Polaris). If you walk towards this star, you will always be heading north; and from that you can work out the other directions.
Contrary to popular myth, the North Star isn’t the brightest star in the sky. It is, however, easy to locate if you learn to recognize three constellations: Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper), Ursa Major (the Big Dipper or the Plough) and Cassiopeia.
The North Star is the final star in the handle of the saucepan shape of Ursa Minor (below).
However, it is not always possible to see Ursa Minor. If this is the case, you need to look for Ursa Major and Cassiopeia (below).
If you draw a straight line from the two stars at the end of Ursa Major’s ‘bowl’, you will come to Polaris. It is about four times the length between the last two stars of Ursa Major along the same line of direction. Cassiopeia looks like a wonky W or M on its side. If you follow a line straight out from the centre star of Cassiopeia, you’ll reach Polaris. It’s about halfway between the two constellations.
The southern hemisphere
Polaris can’t be seen from most of the southern hemisphere, so there you need to use a different constellation, the Southern Cross. This will help you work out which way is south.
Imagine extending the long axis of the Southern Cross to five times its length. From this imaginary point in the sky, follow a vertical line down towards the earth. The direction from where you are to that point on the ground will be south.
About the Author
BEAR GRYLLS is one of the world’s most famous adventurers. After spending three years in the SAS he set off to explore the globe in search of even bigger challenges. He has climbed Mount Everest, crossed the Sahara Desert and circumnavigated Britain on a jet-ski. His TV shows have been seen by more than 1.2 billion viewers in more than 150 countries. In 2009, Bear became Chief Scout to the Scouting Association. He lives in London and Wales with his wife Shara and their three sons: Jesse, Marmaduke and Huckleberry.
GOLD OF THE GODS
Location: The Colombian Jungle
Dangers: Snakes; sharks; howler monkeys
Beck travels to Colombia in search of the legendary City of Gold. Could a mysterious amulet provide the key to uncovering a secret that was thought to be lost for ever?
WAY OF THE WOLF
Loc
ation: The Alaskan Mountains
Dangers: Snow storms; wolves; white-water rapids
After his plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness, Beck has to stave off hunger and the cold as he treks through the frozen mountains in search of help.
SANDS OF THE SCORPION
Location: The Sahara Desert
Dangers: Diamond smugglers; heatstroke; scorpions
Beck is forced into the Sahara Desert to escape a gang of diamond smugglers. Can he survive the heat and evade the smugglers as he makes his way back to safety?
TRACKS OF THE TIGER
Location: The Indonesian Wilderness
Dangers: Volcanoes; tigers; orang-utans
When a volcanic eruption strands him in the jungles of Indonesia, Beck must test his survival skills against red-hot lava, a gang of illegal loggers, and the tigers that are on his trail . . .
CLAWS OF THE CROCODILE
Location: The Australian Outback
Dangers: Flash floods; salt-water crocodiles; deadly radiation
Beck heads to the Outback in search of the truth about the plane crash that killed his parents. But somebody wants the secret to remain hidden – and they will kill to protect it.
STRIKE OF THE SHARK
Location: The Caribbean Sea
Dangers: Tiger sharks; dehydration; hurricanes
When Beck is ship-wrecked in the open seas, he needs all of his survival skills to save a small group of passengers. But he soon discovers that the sinking was no accident . . .
MISSION SURVIVAL: STRIKE OF THE SHARK
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 15763 1