Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [2]
Heads nodded. Everyone old enough remembered, but none of them stepped forward. As if to press the issue, a metal spar above creaked and slid, releasing a small avalanche of dust and debris down on to them.
‘If we just wait here … we die!’ shouted her father.
‘They will come!’ replied Mr Joshipura. ‘The firemen will soon –’
‘No. I’m afraid they won’t.’ She turned towards the voice. The old man she hadn’t recognized had finally said something. ‘I’m afraid they won’t come for you,’ he repeated, his voice softer this time. He sounded like a westerner, English or American. And, unlike everyone else, he wasn’t coated in dust. ‘They won’t have time. This building has less than three minutes before the support struts on the floor beneath us give way. Combined with the weight of the collapsed floors above, it’ll be enough for Palace Tower to go all the way down.’
He looked around at them, the wide eyes of the adults, the wider eyes of the children. ‘I’m truly sorry, but none of you are going to survive.’
The heat in the stairwell was increasing. A floor below, the flames had taken a firm hold, their heat softening the steel girders of the skyscraper. Deep groans rippled and echoed around them.
Hari Vikram studied the stranger for a moment; the fact that he was the only one not coated in a thick layer of chalky dust wasn’t wasted on him. ‘Wait! You are clean. How did you get in here? Is there another way through?’
The man shook his head. ‘No.’
‘But … you were not with us before the floor collapsed! There must be some way –’
‘I have only just arrived,’ replied the man, ‘and I must leave soon. We really don’t have much time.’
Sal’s mother stepped towards him. ‘Leave? How? Can you … can you help us?’
‘I can help only one of you.’ His eyes rested on Sal. ‘You … Saleena Vikram.’
Sal felt every pair of eyes in the stairwell settle on her.
‘Take my hand,’ said the man.
‘Who are you?’ asked her father.
‘I’m your daughter’s only way out. If she takes my hand … she lives. If she doesn’t, she will die along with the rest of you.’
One of the young boys began to cry. Sal knew him; she’d babysat the Chaudhry boys. He was nine and terrified, clutching his favourite soft toy – a one-eyed bear – tightly in both hands as if the bear was his ticket out.
Another deep moan from one of the skyscraper’s structural support bars echoed through the small space on the stairwell, like the mournful call of a dying whale, or the stress vibration of a sinking ship. The stale air around them, already hot, was becoming almost too painful to inhale.
‘We have just over two minutes,’ said the man. ‘The heat of the fire is causing the building’s framework to deform. Palace Tower will collapse, directly in on itself at first, then sideways into the mall below. Five thousand people will be dead a hundred and twenty seconds from now. And tomorrow the news will be all about the terrorists who caused this.’
‘Who … who are you?’ asked her father again.
The man – he looked old, perhaps in his fifties or sixties – stepped forward through the crowd, his hand extended towards Saleena. ‘We don’t have time. You have to take my hand,’ he said.
Her father blocked his path. ‘Who are you? H-how did you get through to us?’
The old man turned to him. ‘I’m sorry. There is no time. Just know that I arrived here … and I can leave just as easily.’
‘How?!’
‘How is unimportant … I simply can. And I can take just your daughter … only your daughter with me.’ The old man looked down at a watch on his wrist. ‘Now there really is little time left – a minute and a half.’
Sal watched her father’s taut face, his mind working with businesslike efficiency. No time for hows and whys. The flicker of fire was coming up from the blocked stairwell below them, sending dancing shadows through the dust-filled air.
Hari Vikram stepped aside. ‘Take her, then! You must take her!’
Sal looked up at the old man, frightened at his strangeness, reluctant to offer her hand to