Crocodile Tears - Anthony Horowitz [118]
At the very last second, Alex let go of the ladder with one hand, his whole body swinging around as if on a hinge. He stretched out with his free hand and caught the spear in midair, then, using all the strength in his shoulder, swung himself back again. At the same time, he lunged upward. He had grabbed hold of the spear at the very bottom end. The beaten metal tip sliced into Njenga’s leg, just above the ankle. Njenga screamed and toppled sideways.
Then the bomb went off.
Alex felt the entire ladder jerk violently. He was almost thrown off—and would have been if he hadn’t been expecting the shock wave and prepared for it by wrapping himself around the metalwork, clinging on with his arms and his legs. He felt himself being slammed away from the wall of the dam and cried out as a ball of flame rushed past his back and shoulders, shooting into the air. But he was still there. The ladder had held. He hadn’t been thrown off.
Njenga was less fortunate. Shocked and in pain, with blood pouring out of the wound in his leg, he was caught off balance and plummeted down. He managed one twist in midair before dashing onto the rocks below.
And instantly he was gone. Alex must have positioned the bomb perfectly. It had completely smashed the bottom outlet valve and ruptured the other valve too. It was as if the two biggest taps in the world had been turned on simultaneously. The water didn’t just rush out—it erupted with such force that it seemed to obliterate the entire landscape—the rocks, the vegetation, and, of course, the three Kikuyus who had been standing in its path. They were simply washed away, smashed out of existence by a thundering white locomotive that roared over them, taking them with it.
How many thousands of gallons of water were being released by the second? It was impossible to say. The water didn’t even look like water. It was more like smoke or steam—only more solid. Alex saw a huge tree uprooted as if it were no more than a weed, a boulder pushed effortlessly aside. And then the flood reached up for him. He felt the spray whipping into the back of his legs, and looking down, he saw that almost all the ladder had been ripped away, that the twisted metal ended just a few rungs beneath his feet. If he stayed here for a minute more, he too would be sucked into the vortex and obliterated.
Once again he began to climb. The sound of the water was pounding in his ears, deafening him, and he remembered the huge lake that the Simba Dam had been containing and wondered how much longer the curving wall could hold it. The lake was a monster that had been given its first taste of freedom. This one torrent might not be enough. It would demand more.
Alex was soaked from the spray. He was blistered by the sun. He was close to exhaustion. Yet somehow he dragged himself up to the platform where Njenga had been standing and then onto the last ladder that led to the top. He didn’t dare look back. He could still hear an incredible, explosive pounding, the sound of the third day when God created the oceans. Surely it must have been like this. And he knew that very soon, the river that he had created would reach the wheat field. Every last stalk would be drowned. Maybe the water would even reach the Simba River Camp and destroy that too. He liked the idea of McCain disappearing in a swirl of mud and stones and broken trees. It was nothing less than he deserved.
He reached the top of the ladder and rolled over a low wall with a road on the other side. Dripping wet, gasping for breath, he knelt for a moment, taking stock of his surroundings.
The track that he had followed from the wheat field rose up past one of the slipways and continued over the lip of the dam, where it became a bridge, a dead straight line that crossed from one side to the other. That was where he was now. He had climbed over one hundred feet. The ground, with the churning water,