TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 Read online

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  First Interlude

  Part Two

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Second Interlude

  Part Three

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  And then …

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Scott K. Andrews is the author of three novels in Abaddon’s Afterblight Chronicles series – School’s Out, Operation Motherland and Children’s Crusade – which follow the adventures of a group of schoolchildren trying to rebuild society after a viral apocalypse. You can find Scott at www.scottandrews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottKAndrews, or on Facebook www.facebook.com/scottkandrews.

  TIMEBOMB

  Scott K. Andrews

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Scott K. Andrews 2014

  The right of Scott K. Andrews to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 444 75207 6

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  This book is for Kitty, who came up with the idea for the cover, and who is the bravest, cleverest, funniest, kindest daughter a father could wish for.

  Part One

  Four decisions and their immediate consequences

  1

  New York, America East, 2141

  It was only when she reached the top of the staircase and burst through the door on to the deserted roof that Jana decided to die.

  She’d died once before and it wasn’t so bad, but she’d hoped to avoid doing it again for a while.

  She scanned left and right, searching for some sliver of hope; a skylight, a fire escape, some form of cover, a discarded crowbar to use as a weapon. There was nothing. All she could see were the flat, featureless slabs of reconstituted rubber that formed the skyscraper’s top seal. At the far edge of the roof was a small concrete lip beyond which rose the skyline of New York, shimmering in the heat.

  The skyscraper was an old twentieth-century construction, forty storeys high. Once it had dominated the skyline, but now it was dwarfed by the looming organic skytowns that twined sinuously up into the cloud base.

  Even so, it was quiet on the roof. The noises of the city didn’t reach up here. Jana knew the membrane windows of the skytowns masked hives of furious activity, but here it felt tranquil and deserted.

  She was easily visible from a thousand offices. Should anyone glance down at the city for a second, they would be able to see Jana, hands on knees, gasping for breath, sweat-drenched, scared and alone in the middle of a flat, black roof. Would anyone spare her a second glance? She was standing at the heart of one of the most densely populated cities on Earth, but she felt entirely alone, just as she always did.

  A shout broke her reverie.

  ‘Up here, the roof!’

  Jana straightened and began to walk towards the edge. She felt a sudden calm at the certainty of what was about to happen. There was something liberating about having no choice.

  She actually smiled as she approached the edge and looked down at the city streets so far below. Traffic was backed up along Broadway again, but the cabs and buses flew serenely in their dedicated lanes, speeding above the general traffic, untroubled by the congestion at ground level.

  There in the middle distance she picked out the old stone buildings that ringed Central Park, the prosperous sector of town that she called home; a ghetto of lawyers, technocrats and bankers. Her mother would be there now, working on her speech for tonight’s big event.

  Jana wondered whether her mother would hear about her death in time to cancel. She imagined her standing on the podium in front of the serried ranks of cameras and dignitaries, mid-speech, as an aide walked on to the stage nervously and whispered in her ear. Jana saw her mother’s face crumple and blur, her knees weaken as she slumped forward against the lectern in shock.

  A nice thought, but it was more likely she’d show some of that famous stony-faced resolve.

  After all, she’d make sure that her daughter would only be dead for a month or so.

  ‘There she is.’

  Jana raised her head and glanced over her shoulder. Three young men had emerged on to the roof behind her. She turned to face them, the backs of her calves pressing against the cold concrete of the roof lip.

  She’d not had a good opportunity to study them during the pursuit. She’d never seen them before, but twenty minutes earlier they had leapt at her out of an alleyway and tried to bundle her into a waiting car. She had struggled free and run. A number of times she’d thought herself safe, but each time they’d caught up to her again. Now, trapped at the edge of a roof, there was nowhere left for her to run.

  The men all carried improvised weapons. The one on the left, with the scar on his cheek and the shock of bright red hair, brandished a thick metal bar. The one on the right, the short one, wielded a wide-blade knife. The middle one, the tall leader with the cold sneer on his thin lips, had a chain dangling from his left hand.

  ‘Who are you?’ Jana shouted. ‘What do you want?’

  They fanned out and began to walk towards her, panting with exertion after the long pursuit.

  ‘Remember our orders,’ said the leader to his mates. ‘She wants the head intact.’

  She’d been assuming they were a gang from the favelas, hunting for rich kids on a day trip to the big city, but this odd statement caused her to reconsider. Some mysterious woman wanted her head? She spent a second trying to make sense of this, but couldn’t, so dismissed it as a problem for later.

  Much later.

  When the three youths were within a few metres of her Jana grinned. The one with the scar paused, unsure how to respond, but the other two kept coming and he soon resumed his advance.

  Smoothly, without taking her eyes off her would-be murderers, Jana stepped up and back on to the thin ledge. The leader stopped dead and put his arms out to indicate that his friends should stop too. They did so.

  The leader cocked his head to one side, curious, sizing up Jana’s resolve. He looked uncertain. He had thought he was in control
here, but now it seemed that his cornered prey had seized the initiative.

  Finally, he spoke.

  ‘You haven’t got the guts,’ he said.

  So Jana smiled, spread her arms wide, closed her eyes, and leaned back into space.

  She felt her feet leave the concrete and the wind buffet her back, roaring in her ears. Her stomach felt hollow and her senses told her she was cutting through the updraughts of the city that was rushing to meet her.

  But she didn’t hit the ground for a hundred and twenty-eight years.

  Cornwall, England, 1640

  Theodora Predennick failed to stifle a yawn. She wasn’t accustomed to rising so early. Being dressed and busy in the pre-dawn gloom felt unnatural. All her life, summer and winter, she had been woken by the first rays of the rising sun, and had retired to bed as the skies above her village turned black.

  Her grandmother had warned her about the things that walked abroad after dark: goblins, werewolves, fair folk, and girls with wickedness in their hearts. Good girls were safely tucked up behind stout wooden doors come sunset. Dora had always been a good girl.

  Her new dress pinched at her ribs. She adjusted the wretched thing to try and reduce the chafing as she worked the lump of dough on the table before her, kneading and pounding the mixture into submission.

  The logs on the huge kitchen hearthstones crackled and spat as the damp bark was scorched away. The newly dried wood began to catch alight, billowing fresh smoke up the chimney and casting a warm glow that lightened the gloom.

  When Dora was satisfied that the dough was ready she set it by the fireplace in a cloth-lined wicker basket so it could rise in the spreading warmth. It was time to light the fire beneath the baking oven.

  She had just lifted the iron tongs, intending to prise a log from the main fire and use it to spark the smaller one, when she paused. Had she heard something?

  No. Not at this hour. The master was still abed and cook wasn’t likely to rise for some time. She’d only been working at Sweetclover Hall for a week, but she already had a good sense of the daily rhythm. At this time she was invariably the only person awake. She must have imagined it.

  She leaned forward, the heat licking at her skin. She prised the tongs open and grasped a burning log in the metal jaws.

  Once more she froze. There it was again. She was sure she’d heard it this time. She bit her lip nervously. What to do?

  The horizons of Dora’s life were not wide. She had travelled beyond the borders of her village only twice. Once, when she was five, to visit her paternal grandfather as he lay dying in a neighbouring village, three miles to the south. The only other time had been last week, when she’d left home to enter service here.

  She hadn’t wanted to leave. She had begged her father to change his mind, but he stood firm. Dora was fourteen now, a grown woman, he said. It was time she made her way in the world. Did she want to stay stuck in Pendarn tending goats for the rest of her life?

  Dora had wanted to do exactly that, but her parents wouldn’t hear of it. They’d secured her a position as scullery maid at the big house and she was to start immediately.

  Who knew, with some dedication and luck she might be cook herself one day, her mother had told her. Imagine that, a Predennick cook at the big house! Her mother’s breast had swelled with anticipated pride as she waved her tearful daughter goodbye.

  Everything that Dora had experienced since then – every sight, sound, smell, texture and taste – had been fresh and new. Some people would have responded with excitement at the novelty, but not Dora. She longed for the comfort of familiarity and the safe, reassuring sameness of the life she had left behind. She was not curious about much of anything.

  And yet, perhaps all the newness had inspired her; perhaps she was becoming confident of her ability to cope with the unexpected; perhaps she was just foolish. But as she stood in front of the fire, straining to hear what she was sure was the moan of pain drifting through the dark, deserted corridors, she made an uncharacteristic decision.

  She lit a candle, and decided to investigate.

  Cornwall, England, 2014

  Kazik Cecka was cold, wet, tired and hungry when he finally decided to stop running and find somewhere to rest.

  The cloudless night was full-moon bright, the raindrops picked out in flashes of silver, and the air was fresh with the first chill of autumn. Kaz pulled his tattered jacket tight and considered his options.

  He was miles from the nearest town, in open countryside. He could see a copse of trees on the other side of the field, a dark interruption in a horizon which stretched away as far as the eye could see; undulations of ploughed fields and pasture.

  He had hoped that by now he would see the welcoming orange glow of a small town or village, but there was nothing; if there was a town nearby, the clear skies and full moon were swamping its light pollution and keeping its location a secret.

  Sighing, he decided that the copse offered his best chance of shelter. He trudged across the field, avoiding the sleeping cows. At least he was wearing the new Gore-Tex boots his father had bought for him before their fight, so his feet were warm and dry. Unlike the rest of him.

  This was not the adventure he had been hoping for when he’d run away from home.

  Not for the first time he replayed the afternoon’s events in his head, questioning his actions, wishing that just this once he’d managed to keep his cool and not shoot his mouth off. But even as he chided himself for his temper he found his pulse quickening and the sense of injustice and anger rising inside him again.

  It wasn’t fair. He’d worked hard in the orchards all day, every day. He’d allowed himself to be exploited and abused, and had never complained about the hours, the accommodation, the flea-ridden mattress and the harsh, cheap vodka. To then find that his wages were docked to pay for the food he was given, food not fit to serve to pigs and which could only have cost a fraction of what the farmer was taking from his pay packet to cover it … it was too much for him to bear.

  A week’s worth of beaten-down resentment, simmering anger and carefully nurtured scorn had burst out of him in a furious tirade directed at his employer. The farmer had shrugged and smiled the condescending smile of someone confronted by a powerless underling. It was that smug grin that had finally pushed Kaz too far.

  He wouldn’t deny that he’d enjoyed holding the farmer down in the mud and forcing the pigswill down his throat, but he had to admit that it wasn’t the best choice he’d ever made. He’d been run off the farm at the barrel of a shotgun.

  Now here he was, far from home, nowhere to sleep, no money in his pocket, and no passport; that had been confiscated by the farmer when he’d arrived in Cornwall ten days ago.

  It was fake anyway. His father had the real one in safekeeping. The man who’d organised the whole thing, a minor gangster in the small Polish town Kaz called home, had provided him with a new identity to get him into the UK. It would have taken three months’ work to pay off that debt.

  He stopped walking as a terrible thought occurred to him. The gangster would reclaim that money somehow. If he stayed on the run, there was a good chance he would go after his father, adding whatever rate of interest he chose.

  Kaz cursed his own selfishess as he realised that it wasn’t just himself that he’d let down. As angry as he was with his father, he didn’t wish him any harm. But what could he do about it now? He dismissed the thought. He’d worry about that tomorrow.

  He jogged to the edge of the trees, trying to get his blood pumping. An English boy might have worried about spending the night outside in such weather, but Kaz had spent many winters in parts of the world where the temperature regularly sat below zero for months at a time. He was unconcerned by the idea of a slight frost.

  As soon as he walked under the canopy of the trees, he noticed the copse was not what it seemed. Once through the first layer of trees he found himself in the ruins of a formal garden. In the shadows he could just make out the ghost
ly impressions of old walkways winding between wildly overgrown hedges which loomed over him in the darkness. A crumbling stone statue stood forlorn in the basin of a long-dry fountain, wreathed in ivy. And rising above it all, the three turrets of an old mansion.

  Kaz pushed through the thick undergrowth until he saw a glint of metal in the darkness ahead. He stepped forward cautiously and was confronted by a tall chain-link fence that weaved in between the brambly hedges.

  He peered through the fence and was able to make out the silhouette of the house beyond the perimeter. It was huge and old, but it appeared derelict. Had it not been for the shiny new fence he’d have thought the house long forgotten.

  Nonetheless, an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere was too big a stroke of good fortune to ignore. He was about to start climbing the fence when he noticed a gap at ground level where the wire had broken apart. He could fit through there, easy.

  Had he not been so cold, tired and preoccupied by his earlier actions, he might have paused to wonder why a brand-new fence had a hole in it; he might have examined the hole more closely and noticed that the links had been cut deliberately; he might have wondered whether the hole was in fact an invitation, or a trap.

  But he didn’t.

  He slithered through the opening and approached the moonlit house thinking only of dryness and sleep.

  The man in the security centre nudged the joystick, guiding the CCTV camera to follow the boy’s progress towards the building.

  He’d been sat in the Portakabin for months waiting for the boy to arrive, and he almost couldn’t believe the moment was finally here. He felt a rush of adrenaline and shifted nervously in his seat. He’d waited a long time for this.

  The boy had no idea at all what was waiting for him inside those walls. The security guard did, and felt sorry for him. He knew what it meant, what it would cost, and who would die if he let the boy set foot in that house.

  He could still change his mind. He could pick up his torch and run out after the boy, scare him away. Or, perhaps, give him shelter, share a cup of coffee, send him on his way at dawn. He could do that. He could change everything.