BooksBarbecue
Back Whistle
Chapters (73)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Part IAnnie
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Part IIHarry
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Part IIIAnnie
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Part IVHarry
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. Thirty-Five
  43. Thirty-Six
  44. Thirty-Seven
  45. Thirty-Eight
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Forty-Three
  51. Forty-Four
  52. Forty-Five
  53. Forty-Six
  54. Forty-Seven
  55. Forty-Eight
  56. Part VAnnie
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. Fifty-Two
  61. Fifty-Three
  62. Fifty-Four
  63. Fifty-Five
  64. Fifty-Six
  65. Fifty-Seven
  66. Fifty-Eight
  67. Fifty-Nine
  68. Sixty
  69. Sixty-One
  70. Acknowledgments
  71. About the Author
  72. Also by Linwood Barclay
  73. About the Publisher

She went back to the car and took a look at the map on the dashboard navigation screen. She moved it around with her fingers, looking for another way in. There were two other roads that led into Lucknow from the other side, and it would take a long time for her to get to them, only to find that they’d be padlocked, too.

Annie took a deep breath. She could think of only one way to get this done.

She didn’t want to set off the car’s airbags by hitting the gate with the front end of the car, so she did a three point-turn so that she was looking at the gate in her rearview mirror. She wanted to get a good run at it, so she drove forward about twenty yards, stopped, moved the gearshift from forward to reverse, grabbed hold of the steering wheel as firmly as she could with both hands, lining the car up with the center of the gate, took her foot off the brake, and tromped on the accelerator.

The car’s wheels squealed, the engine roared.

Gritting her teeth, preparing herself for the impact, Annie had the car doing at least thirty miles per hour by the time she hit the gate.

Her scream was drowned out by the sound of the chain snapping, the two halves of the gate swinging back and scraping along the pavement, the car’s bumper and tailgate taking a hit. For half a second, Annie wondered whether her insurance would cover this, and she almost laughed. She’d had her eyes locked on the mirror, but now she looked forward to a view of the buckled gate from the other side.

“Fucking-A,” she said to herself, hitting the brakes and bringing the car to a stop.

Any other time, she might have gotten out and had a look at the damage she’d done to her car, but right now she didn’t give a shit.

She turned the SUV around and headed into downtown Lucknow.

Fifty-Two

Annie was thinking, the cliché’s always It looked like something out of a movie. But damned if it didn’t look like something out of a movie.

She and John had watched a lot of movies and TV together, and end-of-the-world shows were a favorite. Films like Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, I Am Legend, The Road, television fare like The Walking Dead and The Last of Us. Empty streets, at least until the zombies came out from around a corner.

Who needed zombies? Annie thought. What had really happened here was scary enough.