At Death's Window Read Online Free Page B

summer average than the winter; a factor which had probably saved this family their lives. The adult male – presumably the father – was waving with his free hand and holding a child with the other. The two other children were holding on to his legs.
    Shaw’s single eye scanned the seascape ahead. The big danger was
plow
– running the superstructure of the hovercraft into an oncoming wave. This could pitch them all forward violently and it would cut the speed drastically, possibly spinning
Flyer
off course. A touchdown was impossible, so he’d have to bring the hovercraft alongside and hold her position in moving water.
    He weaved through the oncoming waves, increasing the speed to twenty-eight knots, searching for that crucial moment when he could achieve a dynamic equilibrium, matching the forward thrust of the engines against the force of the floodwater funnelling into Overy Creek from the open sea.
    The two standing children had their heads pressed against their father’s leg, a free hand over exposed ears, trying to cut out the noise. Even with his flight helmet on Shaw could hear the high-pitched whine of the twin turbo-diesel engines. Increasing the power incrementally, he edged the hovercraft forward until he was ten feet from the family. Henderson joined crewmen Griffon and Cotteril at the rail, and they each reached out over the inflated sponsons to grab a child – the youngest last, straight from her father’s arms.
    As soon as his children were safe something cut out in Leo D’Asti’s nervous system: his right knee gave way, the leg folded, and he slipped into the current, so that Shaw was just able to glimpse his head as the body swept past on the port side. Despite the noise of the engines he heard the man call out as he slipped past on the port side: ‘Help me, please.’
    Shaw swung
Flyer
round in pursuit.
    There was a flash of lightning and an immediate thunderclap. The bolt shook the instrument panel and the intercom buzzed with static. Henderson brought the children into the cabin and strapped them quickly into a low steel bench with bucket seats. Shaw kept his eyes fixed on the man ahead in the water, swimming, his head ducking, arms floundering. His torso position was very upright so that his head was clear of the water, and Shaw guessed that his legs might be deadweights, dragging him down.
    Full throttle, with the wind behind, he reached thirty knots, telling Griffon and Cotteril to get a light rescue net to the side and to cast it when they were alongside. Shaw lost sight of the man’s bobbing head and then saw the net cast against the blue-black sky.
    ‘He’s missed it,’ Griffon said on the intercom.
    Henderson was on the prow, his boots up against Shaw’s windscreen, so he was able to lunge out with a rescue pole and hook. D’Asti surfaced once, thrust an arm out and caught the loop. With his safety harness attached to the forward rail, Henderson was able to lean out over the water, lifting D’Asti by the shoulder and swinging him over the sponson, where Cotteril and Griffon gathered him in.
    ‘Swimmer secure,’ said Henderson.
    They took him down the side and on to the rescue deck. In his side mirrors Shaw saw the man’s face: blue, stretched but unnaturally animated. He swung round in the pilot’s seat to face the children. ‘Your dad’s safe. See?’ All three twisted in their seats to look through the glass along the deck. Their father lay like the dying Nelson in the arms of Cotteril and Griffon, but they already had a bottle of water to his lips, which would revive him.
    Shaw took
Flyer
on an elliptical path towards the coastal dunes below Gun Hill and ran her up the slight incline of the beach, cutting the engine before the forward motion was spent, allowing the hovercraft to sink into its skirts. The silence, the knowledge that they were off the water, was like a magic spell on the D’Asti family.
    Within minutes they were all sitting together in a huddle with hot