The windscreen, which was facing into the centre of the road, had shattered; so had the passenger windows, and the door that he approached was dented and crumpled. When Ben crouched down to look into the upside-down vehicle he saw the mercenary. The man was a mess. His face was pierced with the broken glass, and blood oozed out of each one of those many wounds. He was still strapped into the seat, but his body had slumped so that his head was pressed up against the roof of the truck.
But most alarmingly of all, he was still conscious.
To one side of him, lying on the upturned roof of the truck, there was a black bag — a rucksack. The mercenary didn't even seem to have noticed Ben: he was focusing all his attention on retrieving that bag, which was just out of reach.
The detonator, Ben thought to himself. It's in there — it has to be!
He moved on pure instinct. Grabbing the handle to the door, he pulled it open with a mighty tug. Only then did the mercenary appear to become aware of Ben's arrival. He turned his head and looked at him with an expression of pure hatred that was all the more sinister for the fact that he was upside down. No words were spoken, but a kind of spiteful hiss came from the mercenary's lips before he turned his attention back to the rucksack. He seemed to stretch for it with all his might.
Ben plunged his arm into the cab of the truck, past the mercenary's head and towards the rucksack. He wasn't trying to grab it so much as push it out of the man's reach.
In the end, however, he managed neither.
At first he couldn't work out what the mercenary was doing, or why. He had grabbed Ben's arm and seemed to be sizing it up, as if feeling for something. And then he jerked his arms sharply.
It was only when Ben felt his bones snap that he finally understood what was happening.
The pain was indescribable. Ben let out a shriek of agony as he lost all control of the limb, and he offered no resistance at all as the mercenary pushed him out of the way. He fell heavily to the ground, then watched helplessly as the mercenary's fingers clasped the fabric of the bag. There was a look of triumph on the man's face: he plunged his hand into the bag and started to pull something out.
'NO!' Ben roared. He tried to push himself up, but the devastating pain in his broken arm stopped him from doing anything. 'Don't do it!' he yelled. 'Just don't do it!'
But the mercenary ignored him. He had it in his hands now, a small metal object no bigger than a mobile phone.
That was it. Ben stared in frozen horror, realizing there was nothing more he could do to stop what was going to happen.
He'd played his last card.
He had lost.
He opened his mouth to shout again, but the sound never left his throat, because just then he saw Angelo.
The Italian boy appeared on the other side of the truck. The mercenary hadn't clocked him — he was too busy clutching the detonator, gazing at it with a look of greedy elation as he prepared to activate it. But from his position on the wet ground Ben watched, heart in mouth, as his friend ripped the other door open and dived into the cab of the truck.
The mercenary was completely taken by surprise. He roared in anger and started to struggle, but it wasn't enough. Angelo's fingers curled round the detonator. He snapped it away and then wriggled back outside.
The man squirmed as he tried to release himself from the truck's seatbelt while Angelo sprinted round the front of the vehicle to Ben. 'L'ho preso!' he yelled. 'I've got it! I've got—'
He stopped and took one look at Ben.
'What's the matter?' he asked. Clearly Ben looked as bad as he felt.
'My arm!' Ben screamed over the noise of the waves and the wind. 'I think it's broken.' As he spoke, he felt himself being sprayed yet again with salty water; then he furrowed his brow. Angelo was looking out to sea and he had a strange look in his eyes.
'Ben,' he said quietly, 'move.' And then he shouted it, pulling Ben up by his good arm. 'Move, Ben! Now!' Ben felt himself being pulled to his feet, and as he did so he glanced out to sea. It was only then that he realized what Angelo had seen. For a split second it looked as if there was something rising out of the ocean — some huge, shapeless beast, like something out of a nightmare.
It was nothing of the sort, of course. It was the ocean itself, swelling hugely and hurling at them a titanic wave, the very size of which made Ben's eyes bulge.
Instinctively, he ran.
They managed to get as far as the pick-up. Ben threw himself to the floor and flung his good arm around one of the truck's tyres, squeezing and gripping onto it with all his might. He tucked his head down, took a deep breath, braced himself and closed his eyes. When the wave hit, he knew, it would carry with it all the force of the ocean.
He wasn't wrong.
It didn't feel like water thumping into his body. It felt like something solid. Instantly all the air was pumped out of him; on a reflex he tried to draw breath again — his lungs simply filled with water that was crashing over and around him. So it was that he had no breath in him to be able to scream, not even when the water smashed against his broken arm. The rushing in his ears was like an explosion. All he could do was hold onto that truck and hope — against all hope — that this wasn't the end.
It was with a sinking, sickening feeling that he felt the truck move. Not even that great hunk of iron could withstand the force of the angry sea — it slid towards the other side of the road and spun round so that Ben — blinded by the wave — could not tell where he was or in which direction he was pointing.
Any second now, he thought to himself, and I'll be pushed over into the sea. When that happened it wouldn't matter that he was clutching hold of the pickup; but he gripped it a little tighter, just in case.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the wave subsided. Ben was dizzy from lack of air. He felt himself coughing up salt water, and for a long moment it didn't even register with him that he was still on the road. He let go of the truck, wiped the water from his eyes and looked around.
The truck was still the right way up, but it had moved about twenty metres back the way they had come and towards the other side of the road. Ben looked back over towards the mercenary's truck. Then he blinked.
It was no longer there.
He squinted his eyes and looked around again. There was no doubt about it. The mercenary hadn't survived the impact of the wave. He was gone.
And then he realized something else. He was alone. The mercenary might have disappeared, but so had…
'Angelo!' he screamed. 'Angelo! Where are you?'
Ben stopped to listen for a response. There was none: just the sound of the storm and Ben's panicked breathing.
He spun around, doing his best to ignore the pain in his limp arm. His eyes were still smarting from the salt water; he squinted them as he peered into the darkness, desperately trying to see Angelo.
He couldn't. What he saw instead was something quite different.
The moon had appeared again, bright and full. And out to sea, in the distance — though not as far as the last time he had seen it — was the tornado. Ben blinked, transfixed for a few moments by that awesome, awful sight. There was no doubt about it. It was coming this way. How fast it was moving he couldn't tell, but the last place he wanted to be if that thing hit the Overseas Highway was here.
But what about Angelo? He couldn't leave until he was sure that his friend was…
The very thought made him shudder.
And as he shuddered, he heard a voice.
It was faint. Barely audible above all the other noise. But it was definitely a voice. Shouting. Ben made out a single word: 'Help!' He spun round again, trying to see where it was coming from.