Rotten Gods Read Online Free PDF Page B

communication. Vince, the first officer, pushes the VHF-R microphone selector switch on the ACP.
    Simon assumes the call is routine, but Vince’s forehead creases into a frown. Something is wrong. Vince is prone to the occasional overreaction, but not so obvious as this. A knot forms in Simon’s stomach while he waits for the call to conclude. ‘What’s going on?’
    Vince turns, shifting the mike to one side. ‘Just had a message from ATC. The Rabi al-Salah conference. Isabella’s a delegate, isn’t she?’
    â€˜Yes. She’s there.’
    â€˜There’s been some kind of terrorist attack. The conference centre’s locked down.’
    Simon’s hands freeze on the controls. ‘Jesus. They said the damn thing was impregnable.’
    â€˜Apparently not.’
    â€˜What happened?’
    â€˜They don’t know at this stage.’
    Isabella. Christ. Are you OK?
    Simon’s next thought is for the girls. Kelly, the nanny, will be with them, but at best they will be worried. Panicked even. Intense pain, searing hot, comes out of the blue and settles in his chest. He takes the wheel, scarcely breathing, barely in control.
    Â 
    When the plane stops rolling, Simon conducts the post-flight checks without thinking, waiting for the final straggler to leave his seat and get his hand luggage from the overhead locker, cursing how some passengers seem to think that lingering until last is a hallmark of experience. Finally, he takes his bag from a nook on the flight deck and hurries down the passenger tube.
    One of the stewards calls after him. ‘Sir, why are you taking your bag? Aren’t you coming back?’
    Simon hurries into the terminal, where a crowd has gathered below a wall-mounted LCD screen. Al-Jazeera news footage shows the Rabi al-Salah complex from the air; the heavy beat of a chopper and the voice of a journalist, who cannot hide a note of triumph coming through the speakers.
    â€˜The capitalist leaders of the West … forced to listen. Forced to eat the rations of the dispossessed; to live like refugees …’
    Watching for long enough to ascertain that so far there have been no deaths among the delegates, Simon moves on, through the colossal extravagance of Terminal Two, where silver columns and mirrored ceilings rear to impossible heights. With one hand he digs into his bag for his passport, opening it for the customs officers in their shemagh head cloths and spotlessly white kandoura, enduring their distracted, unsmiling gaze. Green uniformed police stand in tight little groups and passengers hurry past.
    Approaching the bank of monitors where they had planned to meet, he sees that Kelly and the girls are not there. Swearingunder his breath, he takes his phone from his pocket, one of the new credit card-thin Ubiks with IMS, holographic screen, and videophone capability. The icons change as he switches to the voicephone app and selects Isabella’s number from the address book. Her image appears on the screen in high-definition colour. There is no dial tone, only the message. ‘This is Isabella Thompson, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I am unable to take your call at the moment, but please leave a message …’
    â€˜Call me, it’s Simon,’ he says, then slips the phone into his jacket pocket. He finds it hard to leave the meeting place, lingering in case they arrive at the last minute, Hannah laughing, everything normal again. Each passing minute increases the worry that gnaws at him. He is on his way to the doors when he sees Vince and a steward hurrying towards him.
    â€˜Hey, Simon, what the hell are you doing? You can’t leave a flight halfway through. Think of the passengers, man …’
    Simon ignores him, moving out through the automatic doors. Beyond the pavement, and four lanes of bitumen, water cascades down stone, fringed with green