Thunderbolt Wilbur Smith (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📖

buying children and sending them off to war. But I couldn’t. I barely had enough energy to sit upright, much less speak. I slumped sideways across Xander and more or less lost consciousness. I could still hear people talking but they were making less sense than the jolting of the SUV on the rough road. Before I passed out entirely, I heard just one word, repeated by the Leopard. ‘Exhaustion.’

55.

Next thing I knew, I was lying in bed staring at a strip light. It was buzzing, restful as a lazy honeybee on a summer afternoon. And someone was gently kneading the bones in my left hand. I turned to thank whoever it was and saw Mum.

Mum.

Mum?

‘Mum!’

I tried to hug her but something – a drip stuck in my right arm, it turned out – held me back. Mum leaned over me anyway, tears filling her eyes.

‘Amelia? Xander?’ My voice was papery.

‘They’re OK, Jack, don’t worry. You’re all going to be fine.’

‘My leg.’

I couldn’t feel it, which worried me for a second, but my knee jerked up towards me when I told it to, so it was still there.

‘Yes, the doctor spotted that. He’s given you antibiotics to kill the infection and pain medication. The drip’s just saline. You were all very dehydrated. What stung you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It doesn’t matter now. You’re in safe hands here.’

‘Where are we?’

‘Nairobi. You arrived late yesterday night.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

‘This was all my fault.’

‘Nonsense! Pete explained everything.’

‘But I insisted on the extra dive and I made us fall for the pirates’ fake … wait, Pete!’

‘Yes, Pete. He was in the water for six hours, but he knew which way to swim and he made it ashore, a feat he’s justifiably proud of.’

Tears were rolling down my cheeks now. Mum brushed them away with her fingertips. I stared up at her. To be together again, to feel her fingers on my face, was incredible. And Pete had made it to safety. The relief I felt about that, combined with the ferocity of my love for Mum in that moment, knocked the words out of me. I simply couldn’t speak. It didn’t matter. We sat together in silence for a while, letting everything sink in.

Eventually Mum said, ‘You’re safe now. Listen, I promised I’d tell Amelia and Xander when you woke up …’

She wasn’t gone long and she had no luck persuading Amelia to wait before coming to see me until I’d slept some more. Amelia simply barged into my room with an, ‘If he’s finally awake, he’s awake.’

Xander was close behind her, saying, ‘That’s a pretty obvious statement for you in particular to make.’

I’d pushed myself up into a sitting position. Washed and wearing clean clothes, both my friends looked newly minted in the bright hospital light. I’d grown used to them in General Sir’s hand-me-down rags. The funny thing was, dressed in their own stuff, it was now obvious how much they’d shrunk. Xander’s T-shirt looked like it was hung on a hanger. And Amelia’s cheekbones were knife-blades.

‘You gave us a bit of a scare back there, Jack,’ said Xander.

‘But that’s beside the point now,’ said Amelia. ‘My real beef is with why you didn’t tell us you’d been envenomated.’

‘By which you mean bitten,’ Xander said, ‘or stung.’

I shrugged. ‘You couldn’t have done anything to help, so what was the point?’

She gave a ‘humph’ but didn’t elaborate.

I turned back to Mum. ‘The ransom,’ I said. ‘We really didn’t want you to have to pay it.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I got the message.’

‘So, I’m sorry about that too,’ I said.

‘You needn’t be.’

‘Well, I am.’

Xander cut in. ‘No, she means you actually don’t need to worry about the ransom.’

‘Nobody does,’ Mum added. But I could tell she was just trying to be kind to me, and I couldn’t stop myself shaking my head.

Amelia spelled it out: ‘Because nobody paid a ransom, Jack.’

I sighed and shut my eyes: for Amelia to feel the need to lie to me she must have thought I was in an awful state.

‘You did brilliantly just to survive,’ Mum was saying. ‘The pirates, the camp; to make a run for it like that took guts. And it helped. With no armed resistance it made your rescue easier.’

I pushed myself up in the bed again. ‘Rescue?’

‘Even if I hadn’t got your “no ransom” message I’d have done everything I could to avoid paying one. It’s a matter of principle. As soon as Pete confirmed what had happened, I swung into action.’

Xander said, ‘Your mum sent that Leopard guy to get us out of there. Isn’t that right, Mrs Courtney?’

‘It is,’ she said. ‘We were going to try and extract you from the camp itself, once we tracked you down to it, but obviously that would have been much riskier. You made the job a lot easier by breaking out.’

What she was saying made little sense to me. I searched her face for an explanation. Was she lying, hoping to make me feel less guilty? That’s not Mum’s style, not her style at all. And yet. I realised I’d been holding my breath, and now let it out, literally deflating in front of her.

‘If you kids could give Jack and me a minute, I’d appreciate it,’ she said.

‘As in sixty seconds?’ said Amelia, only half joking.

‘Come on,’ said Xander, leading her out. ‘See you in a bit.’

‘Nobody paid a ransom,’ Mum repeated when they’d left. ‘I respected your wishes.’

‘Well, even if that’s true you still had to pay a damn mercenary,’ I muttered.

‘Jonny is no mercenary, Jack.’

‘Who’s Jonny? I’m talking about the Leopard.’

‘Leopard, Leopold, those are aliases. His name is Jonny Armfield. And he’s one of the good guys.’

The world was still a bit fuzzy, but I knew one thing for sure. ‘Actually,’ I muttered, ‘you’re dead wrong about that.’

‘He found you, didn’t he?’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’m grateful and everything. But that’s his specialty. Finding kids for money. Though mostly he sells them off as soldiers.’

‘No,’ said Mum.

‘I’ve seen him do it! He came to