Day of the Predator Read online

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Praise for TimeRiders:

  ‘A thril er ful of spectacular e ects’ – Guardian

  ‘Insanely exciting, nail-biting stu ’ – Independent on Sunday

  ‘This is a novel that is as addictive as any computer game’

  – Waterstone’s Books Quarterly

  ‘Promises to be a big hit’ – Irish News

  ‘A thril ing adventure that hurtles across time and place at breakneck speed’ – Lovereading4kids.co.uk

  ‘Plenty of fast-paced action … this is a real page-turner’ –

  ‘Plenty of fast-paced action … this is a real page-turner’ –

  WriteAway.org.uk

  ‘A great read that wil appeal to both boys and girls …

  you’l nd this book addictive!’ – redhouse.co.uk

  ‘Contender for best science ction book of the year … an absolute winner’ – Flipside

  ALEX SCARROW used to be a graphic artist, then he decided to be a computer games designer. Final y, he grew up and became an author. He has writ en a number of successful thril ers and several screenplays, but it’s YA ction that has al owed him to real y have fun with the ideas and concepts he was playing around with when designing games.

  He lives in Norwich with his son, Jacob, his wife, Frances, and two very fat rats.

  Books by Alex Scarrow

  TimeRiders

  TimeRiders: Day of the Predator

  www.time-riders.co.uk

  ALEX SCARROW

  PUFFIN

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered O ces: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  pu nbooks.com

  First published 2010

  Copyright © Alex Scarrow, 2010

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-141-95106-5

  To Frances, Jacob, Max and Frodo – Field O ce, Norwich And as for you, dear reader, the fol owing message is encrypted for your eyes only:

  ER YKU CPVO IPJPBOD TK DONKDO TCES TCOJ YKU

  UJDOQSTPJD TCO EILKQTPJNO KR KJO WKQD –

  LPJDKQP

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1: 2026, Mumbai, India

  CHAPTER 2: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 3: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 4: 2015, Texas

  CHAPTER 5: 1906, San Francisco

  CHAPTER 6: 1906, San Francisco

  CHAPTER 7: 2015, Texas

  CHAPTER 8: 1906, San Francisco

  CHAPTER 9: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 10: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 11: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 12: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 13: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 14: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 15: 2015, Texas

  CHAPTER 16: 2015, Texas

  CHAPTER 17: 2015, Texas

  CHAPTER 18: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 19: 2015, Texas

  CHAPTER 20: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 23: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 24: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 25: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 26: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 27: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 28: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 29: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 30: Wednesday, 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 31: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 32: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 33: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 34: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 35: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 36: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 37: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 38: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 39: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 40: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 41: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 42: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 43: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 44: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 45: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 46: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 47: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 48: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 49: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 50: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 51: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53: 2 May 1941, Somervel County, Texas CHAPTER 54: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 55: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 56: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 57: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 58: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 59: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 60: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 61: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 62: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 63: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 64: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 65: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 66: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 67: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 68: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 69: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 70: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 71: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 72: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 73: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 74: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 75: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 76: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 77: 1941, Somervel County, Texas

  CHAPTER 78: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 79: 65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  CHAPTER 80: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 81: 2001, New York

  CHAPTER 1

  2026, Mumbai, India

  They’d heard the rumbling coming towards them down the echoing stairwel like a locomotive train. Then al of a sudden it was pitch black, the air thick with dust and smoke. Sal Vikram thought she was going to choke on the grit and particles of brick plaster she was sucking in through her nose, clogging her throat and the back of her mouth with a thick chalky paste.

  It felt like an eternity before it was clear enough to see the emergency wal light in the stairwel once more. By its dim amber light she could see the lower ight of stairs was completely blocked by rubble and
twisted metal spars. Above them, the stairwel they’d been clambering down only moments earlier was crushed by the col apsed oors above. She saw an extended arm emerging from the tangle of beams and crumbling breeze-blocks, an arm chalkwhite, perfectly stil , reaching down to her as if pleading to be held or shaken.

  ‘We’re trapped,’ whispered her mother.

  Sal looked to her, then to her father. He shook his head vigorously, dust cascading o his thin hair.

  ‘No! We are not! We dig!’ He looked at Sal. ‘That’s what we do, we dig. Right, Saleena?’

  we do, we dig. Right, Saleena?’

  She nodded mutely.

  He turned to the others trapped on the emergency stairwel along with them. ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘We must dig. We can’t wait for rescue …’ Her father could have said more, could have completed that sentence, could have said what they were al thinking – that if the skyscraper had col apsed down to this oor there was no reason why it wasn’t soon to fold in on itself al the way down. Sal looked around. She recognized faces despite them al being painted ghost-white with dust: Mr and Mrs Kumar from two apartments along; the Chaudhrys with their three young sons; Mr Joshipura, a business man like her father, but single … enjoyed a string of girlfriends. Tonight, presumably, he’d been on his own.

  And … another man, standing at the back of the stairwel , beneath the wal light. She didn’t recognize him.

  ‘If we move things, we may cause more of it to col apse!’ said Mrs Kumar.

  Sal’s mother placed a hand on her husband. ‘She is right, Hari.’

  Hari Vikram turned to look at them al . ‘Some of you are old enough to remember, yes? Remember what happened to the Americans in New York? Their twin towers?’

  Sal remembered the footage, something they’d been shown in history class. Both of those tal , magni cent buildings sliding down into the earth and disappearing among bil owing dark grey clouds.

  among bil owing dark grey clouds.

  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 smal avalanche of dust and debris down on to them.

  ‘If we just wait here … we die!’ shouted her father.

  ‘They wil come!’ replied Mr Joshipura. ‘The remen wil soon –’

  ‘No. I’m afraid they won’t.’ She turned towards the voice. The old man she hadn’t recognized had nal y 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 oor beneath us give way. Combined with the weight of the col apsed oors above, it’l be enough for Palace Tower to go al 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 stairwel was increasing. A oor below, the ames had taken a rm 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?’

  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 oor col apsed!

  There must be some way –’

  ‘I have only just arrived,’ replied the man, ‘and I must leave soon. We real y 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 stairwel set le 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 wil 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 terri ed, 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 smal space on the stairwel , like the mournful cal 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 re is causing the building’s framework to deform. Palace Tower wil col apse, directly in on itself at deform. Palace Tower wil col apse, directly in on itself at rst, then sideways into the mal below. Five thousand people wil be dead a hundred and twenty seconds from now. And tomorrow the news wil be al about the terrorists who caused this.’

  ‘Who … who are you?’ asked her father again. The man – he looked old, perhaps in his fties 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 real y is lit le time left – a minute and a half.’

  Sal watched her father’s taut face, his mind working with businesslike e ciency. No time for hows and whys. The icker of re was coming up from the blocked stairwel below them, sending dancing shadows through the dust-l ed 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 o er her hand to him. Not that she strangeness, reluctant to o er her hand to him. Not that she believed in anything beyond this world, not Hindu gods, not angels or demons … but he seemed not of this world somehow. An apparition. A ghost.

  Her father angrily snatched at her hand. ‘Saleena! You must go with him!’

  She looked at her father, her mother. ‘Why c-can’t we al go?’

  The old man shook his head. ‘Only you, Saleena. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why?’ She realized tears were streaming down her cheeks, tracing dark tracks on her chalky face.

  ‘You’re special,’ said the old man, ‘that is why.’

  ‘Please, you must take my boys too!’ cal ed out Mrs Chaudhry.

  The old man turned to her. ‘I can’t. I wish I could … but I can’t.’

  ‘Pleeease! They’re so young. Younger than this girl!

  They have their whole lives –’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s not my choice. I can only take Saleena.’

  Sal felt her father’s hands on her shoulders. He pushed her roughly forward towards the stranger. ‘You take her!

  You take her now!’

  ‘Dadda! No!’

  ‘You take her now!’

  ‘No! Not –’

  They heard a deep rumble and felt the oor trembling beneath their feet.

  ‘We have only seconds,’ said the old man. ‘Hurry!’

  ‘We have only seconds,’ said the old man. ‘Hurry!’

  ‘SALEENA!’ her father screamed. ‘YOU GO!’

  ‘Dadda!’ she cried. She turned to her mum. ‘Please! I can’t!’

  The old man stretched forward and grasped hold of her hand. He pul ed her towards him, but she found herself instinctively squirming and twisting her hand to es
cape his tight grip. ‘No!’ she screamed.

  The deep rumbling increased in volume, the oor shuddering, and cascades of dust and grit l ed the air around them, tumbling down from above.

  ‘This is it!’ the old man said. ‘Time has come! Saleena

  … I can save your life if you come with me!’

  She looked at him. It seemed madness that he could, but, somehow, she believed him. ‘Your parents want this too.’ His eyes, so intense, so old.

  ‘Yes!’ yel ed her father above the growing roar. ‘Please!

  Take her NOW!’

  Beside his smal frame, her mother was screaming, stretching out her hands to hold her one last time. Her father grabbed her, held her back. ‘No, my love! She must go!’Mrs Chaudhry pushed her boys at the old man. ‘Please!

  Take their hands too! Take their hands –’

  The oor shook beneath their feet, lurching to one side. Sal suddenly felt light-headed, as if she was free fal ing. This is it, it’s fal ing!

  Then the oor suddenly fractured beneath their feet, revealing an ocean of churning, roiling ames, like gazing revealing an ocean of churning, roiling ames, like gazing down into Hel itself. And the last thing she recal ed was seeing that one-eyed bear tumbling down through a large split in the stairwel ’s oor into the re below.

  CHAPTER 2

  2001, New York

  Sal sat upright in her bunk – gasping for breath, feeling her cheeks wet with tears.

  The nightmare again.

  It was quiet and stil in the archway. She could hear Maddy snoring on the bunk below, and Liam whimpering nonsensical words in his soft Irish accent as he stirred restlessly on the bunk opposite.

  A muted lamp glowed softly from across the archway, lighting their wooden dinner table and the odd assortment of old armchairs around it. LEDs blinked among the bank of computer equipment across the way, hard drives whirring. One of the monitors remained on; she could see the computer system was doing a routine defrag and datale tidying. It never slept. Not it … not any more – the computer wasn’t IT any more. It was Bob.

  Unable to go back to sleep, she clambered o the top bunk. Maddy twitched in her sleep, and Liam also seemed to be unset led. Maybe they too were reliving their last moments: Liam’s sinking Titanic, Maddy’s doomed airliner. The nightmares came al too often.

  She tiptoed across the archway, barefoot on the cold She tiptoed across the archway, barefoot on the cold concrete oor, and sat down in one of the swivel chairs, tucking her feet under her and sit ing on them for warmth. She grabbed the mouse and opened a dialogue box. Her ngernails clacked softly on the keyboard.