Angelo didn't argue. Together they climbed up into the rear of the pick-up. Their clothes were wet already, so it didn't matter that they found themselves sitting in cold water; but it still promised to be a bruising, uncomfortable ride.
'I'll go as fast as I can,' Danny shouted at them. 'If we're going to catch up with him I need to put my foot down. You'll have to hold on tightly.'
Ben looked around. There really didn't seem to be much they could hold onto.
'Do you know what he's driving?' Angelo asked.
Danny shook his head. 'The roads are clear, though. We'll just have to hope we can stop him.'
Suddenly a memory popped into Ben's head. He looked at Angelo. 'Just before he left us, do you remember him saying something about having to get hold of a vehicle?'
Angelo winced. 'I was a bit distracted…'
'He did,' Ben shouted. 'Danny, look for a big truck, like the ones we've seen here. That's what he'll be driving — I'm sure of it.'
Danny nodded and without another word disappeared into the front of the truck. The engine spluttered slightly, then started turning over. They moved off.
Ben could tell that Danny was having the same trouble he himself had encountered in keeping the vehicle straight in the wind. Their bodies banged painfully against the hard metal sides of the pick-up as the vehicle rocked from side to side and Ben found himself slipping and sliding on the wet surface. He clutched onto the edge of the truck. If they approached the mercenary, they'd have to duck down, but for now this would be OK. He saw that Angelo was doing the same thing, and the wind screamed in their ears as they clung grimly to the side of the truck.
Ben tried not to look at the dead body as they approached it again, but somehow he found his eyes glued to that grisly sight. As they passed, he wondered who the dead man was. Did he have a family? Children? Had he come to work that morning thinking that today would be just another day? He noticed that Angelo could not take his eyes off the dead man either. Surely his Italian friend's feelings were even more complicated than Ben's. This was his father's refinery; his father's workforce. The man lying dead on the ground had even less reason to be killed than Angelo. It was an uncomfortable thought.
Five people in Ben's immediate vicinity had died that day: the two pilots, the bodyguard, the hijacker and this guy. The body count was mounting and it was not lost on Ben that he and the other two people in the truck were the only ones who could stop it from getting any worse. He fixed that thought in his mind as the corpse disappeared into the distance.
The fence at the boundary of the oil refinery, which had held up to the winds when they arrived, was now flattened, and the remains of the barrier that Ben had smashed through had long since blown away in the wind. It was an alarming sight, of course, but somehow Ben felt a bit better crossing over the boundary of the refinery. If it blew up any time soon, they'd be dead in seconds, but at least they were getting away. He took a deep breath and looked out into the distance.
It all happened in a few seconds. The sky almost appeared to part — in truth it was just a momentary clearing of the cloud cover. The moon, bright and full, appeared. It lit them up brightly and Ben was half aware of its reflection on the water that had collected in the back of the truck. He blinked, then stared as the whole sky seemed suddenly to be illuminated. After the darkness and the rain it was an extraordinary sight. Like the sun coming up.
But it was not the moon itself that commanded Ben's attention.
It was something else.
It was impossible to tell how close it was or even, in the first instant, what it was. It towered in the distance: a great black funnel with a bulbous, mushroom-like top. How high up into the sky it reached, Ben could never have said, but it seemed to reach halfway up to heaven. It sent a chill through his blood, and yet he was transfixed by it: transfixed by the way it seemed to shimmy, snake-like, from side to side; transfixed by the absolute enormity and absolute terror of it; transfixed by the way it seemed to be moving at once infinitely slowly and impossibly quickly, a colossus of pent-up power, heading straight for them, ready to strike.
The very sight made his breath catch in his throat and he felt, for one horrible moment, as though he would be sick with fear.
'What is it?' he heard Angelo scream.
Ben couldn't take his eyes away from that awesome sight. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the moon retreated behind some fast-scudding clouds and Ben's vision was obscured once more. He turned to look at Angelo and uttered a single word.
'Tornado.'
And then, because he realized he had barely whispered it and that Angelo could never have heard what he said, he repeated himself.
'Tornado!'
The two friends looked at each other in horror. The words they had heard on the radio were ringing in Ben's ears: Hurricane Jasmine has spawned a severe tornado, category F3, currently approaching the south-eastern Florida area. It is fast-moving and extremely destructive. He had no idea what category F3 meant, but if what he had just seen was anything to go by, it meant something bad. The twister looked as if it could eat up the oil refinery and spew it out in seconds. Just imagine, he thought to himself, what it could do if the place were on fire…
He shook his head as though waking from a dream. Up until then he had forgotten all about the tornado. Not any more, though. The thing he had just seen was huge.
Terrifyingly huge.
He closed his eyes and pictured the geography of Florida. The Keys were to the south-east — exactly the direction in which the tornado was heading. The hurricane might be moving north, but now they had something different to contend with. Something bigger. Something more destructive.
Ben could hardly believe it was possible, but from what he had just seen, his day was about to get even worse.
Chapter Eighteen
The storm had thrown problems in his way, there had been no doubt about that. But it had made certain things easier too.
The fact that the refinery had been deserted, for instance, had been a definite advantage. No creeping around, no having to stay hidden, fewer bullets in fewer skulls. It wasn't that he minded killing people, but it definitely attracted attention and that would only have made things harder. And according to his original plan, depending on whether or not Danny had turned up with the boy, he would have had to wait until he had skulked out of the boundary of the refinery before carjacking a vehicle. It would have meant the police would have been on the lookout for him, of course, but that wouldn't have mattered. By the time the refinery had gone bang, they would have had bigger fish to fry than the problem of a stolen car.
The storms, however, had meant that he could take his pick of the vehicles inside the actual refinery. OK, they weren't likely to be zippy little sports cars but that didn't matter. As long as they got him away from the area, he was happy.
He had left the kids in the control room about five minutes ago and frankly he had been glad to see the back of them. Mouthy little fools. Arrogant. Stupid. Thinking they could stop him from doing his job with their silly little arguments and their pathetic pleas. The world would be a better place without them, he thought to himself as he scanned the surrounding area for something to drive.
It wasn't long before his eyes fell upon a suitable vehicle. It was an articulated lorry without its load — just the cab and nothing behind it. He nodded briefly to himself and then hurried through the rain to the driver's door. It felt good to climb inside out of the elements, even though his clothes were still sopping wet and he was chilled to the bone. He ignored all that, though. He carefully placed his bag on the passenger seat, then leaned to one side and ripped off the plastic plating that covered the area under the steering wheel. It only took him a minute or so to locate the two wires he needed to hotwire the truck, and seconds later the engine was turning over.