Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- 2046
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- About the Author
The investigation will reveal the jet descended from fifteen thousand feet to five thousand and finally down to two thousand feet as it thundered towards the capital. It will detail that the alarms sounded within Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, who all received the alerts and tried desperately to make contact with the aircraft they all assumed was plummeting from the sky.
His gloves are tight. Carefully chosen to prevent transference of DNA but to be tight enough and thin enough for him to feel every ridge and bump of her flesh. Her own gloves are not that carefully chosen and simply taken from the boxes in the first aid room. You do what it takes to protect your family. You do what it takes to get by in this world. He will not hurt her, as any injury will show, so she pulls the gloves on and finally lets the utter distaste show on her face, but that only feeds his perception of power gained. He nods at her shirt. An order given without words required. She complies, glaring at him balefully while working to open the buttons, her movements not hesitant now but forceful and determined. Courage in the face of adversity.
The air traffic controllers fail to make contact and, as dictated by protocol, they send an emergency message to the police, fire and ambulance services of Greater London as they work to track the likely impact point of the jet they still believe is coming down for a crash landing. When the final destination shows Downing Street to be the likely crash site the only response left is to alert the RAF, who scramble their own rapid-response fighter jets.
Her shirt is undone. The sports bra showing clearly. He touches himself with an almost drunk look on his face, which flushes red from the lust surging through his body. He takes a square packet from his pocket, bites the corner open and pulls out the condom, which he fits with shaking hands and eyes that cling to the sight of her.
He nods again, another order given, and she stands almost to attention, grips the bottom of her sports bra and tugs it up to show her breasts. He gasps with lust and steps closer, a fumbling glove-covered hand reaching out to grab and squeeze. She glares at him, unmoving, unflinching, uncowering.
The rapid-response fighter planes, as fast, as modern, as agile and as capable as they are, cannot bend time and space and still have to rely on human beings running from mess rooms to climb into cockpits that have to be sealed while they press physical buttons and prepare for take-off. It takes only a moment but every second delayed sees the incoming jet holding that flight path as the pilot scans the ground ahead for the target premises.