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prepared for more turbulence.”
    She hastily kicked off her shoes and got up, scrabbling her way between the two passenger seats behind and into the back of the aircraft as fast as she could, yanking at the voluminous skirt of her dress, clutching tightly to anything within reach. Meanwhile the plane leaped and bounced as the storm did its unholy best to knock her off balance.
    Strange, she thought distantly, all this bucking wasn’t making her queasy now. Maybe having nerves at a fever pitch had something to do with that.
    Still the wind howled and shrieked around the little plane. Lightning crackled within the clouds, and the answering thunder pounded and banged them almost physically.
    In the luggage space behind the passenger seats, she saw a suitcase-sized container fitted to the bulkhead on a mounting. There were very similar items on the yachts of friends, and in her carefree life Noor had been miles from imagining she would ever actually need one.
    She knelt into the cloud of her dress and wrestled with the clasps holding the case in the cradle. She noted only distantly that the tip of one perfect peach-coloured fingernail snapped off in the process.
    â€œL IFE R AFT , 4 P ERSON . D O NOT INFLATE IN AN ENCLOSED SPACE .”
    Bari swore as the plane bucked again, and Noor fell against the seat and then the bulkhead as she dragged the case awkwardly off its mounting. It was heavy and hard and had a mind of its own, but with curses and tears she at last manoeuvred it to a position behind Bari’s seat. Two more fingernails tore in the process.
    The sweat of struggle was on Bari’s forehead, and his face was white with strain. A black curl fell over one eye. “Sit down,” he called. “We’ll break out of cloud soon and I may have to take it back up fast.”
    Fear rushed through her again at this stark statement of what she already knew—that they might be blindly flying towards a mountainside. Biting her lip, Noor struggled back into her seat and shoved her arms through the safety harness, clicking it home.
    Rain pounded the metal body of the plane, and the wind screamed around them, in an intensity of sound she’d never heard before. Thunder rolled all around. She felt the noise in her skin, in her body, as if sound itself embraced her, a physical thing.
    She picked up the mike again. “Mayday, Mayday, this is India Sierra—”
    Suddenly they were out of cloud, driving through rain so heavy there was scarcely any improvement in visibility. But below she could see water, and she let her breath out on a long silent sigh. Thank God, thank God. Alhamdolillah. She glanced at Bari, but she saw no emotion other than fierce concentration on his face.
    â€œBrace yourself,” he said briefly. The water looked choppy and unforgiving. Noor pushed her free hand against the control panel, pressed her stockinged feet against the floor.
    â€œThis is India Sierra Quebec two six, we are—”
    He slowed the engine, dropping lower, trying to gauge the height of the chop by what he knew of the sea as a sailor. It was rougher than he had hoped.
    The belly of the plane touched down with a hollow thump, and then another and another as they hit the waves. Bari wrestled to keep the plane from nose-diving, the muscles of his arms bulging with the effort. As he slowed to a standstill, a bigger swell grabbed the starboard wing. With a sharp, terrifying scream of metal the plane slewed around, bounced up, smacked down, pitched forward and then dropped back.

Four
    T he high scream stopped. The propellers stopped. The pounding rain increased in ferocity, but still it sounded like silence to the two in the cockpit. Bari slapped his harness open.
    â€œAre you hurt?” His voice was harsh.
    â€œNo,” Noor said faintly. The truth was she was so shocked that if she did have broken bones she wouldn’t have known.
    â€œThe hull is damaged,” Bari said, flinging open his