Flash Flood by Chris Ryan Page B

legs flailed about, trying to find something to cling to. Anything to avoid being swept along by the current like another piece of flotsam.
    A big shape surged past. He didn’t know what it was but something made him pull himself towards it in a strong front crawl. The current held him back as though it had anchored his feet.
    No , thought Ben. I’m not giving up. He put everyounce of his remaining strength into swimming towards whatever it was. As he approached it, he could make out red metallic paint … a chrome bar. It was the top of a car with a roof rack.
    That gave him the extra focus he needed. He looked at the bright metal roof rack and imagined his hands grasping it. Just a few more strokes and he would have something to hold onto again. The effort was agonizing, but still he pulled himself forward. Slowly the bar came closer. He reached out and his fingers brushed against it. Nearly. But then he felt the current threatening to sweep him away. He grabbed at the roof rack like a man trying to catch a trapeze bar.
    Then he felt solid metal under his fingers. He’d done it. He took hold with his other hand and pulled himself forward, hand over hand. Only when he felt something solid under his body did he stop.
    That’s it, he thought, and closed his eyes. Now I can let the water take me where it wants again.
    After a few moments he looked around. The water was becoming shallower. Now he could see more ofthe roof of the car. Ahead there were more buildings, grand-looking, covered in white stucco like wedding cake. And the dark shiny surface of wet tarmac. He’d reached the edge of the flooded area.
    Ben rolled off the car and into the water. It was up to his waist and he struggled to keep his feet. But he fixed his eyes on those white wedding-cake buildings and half ran, half swam towards them.
    Finally he reached dry land and collapsed gratefully onto the tarmac. He had never felt so exhausted in his life.
    A six-seater twin-engined Piper Seneca in dark blue livery with white logos glided across the sky. One thousand feet up and doing a hundred and thirty knots, the Flying Eye was cruising much lower than passenger jets. That was the first thing that Meena Chohan had noticed when she had taken over as Capital Radio’s traffic reporter. If you came into London on a passenger jet, the city looked like a charming toy, jewelled with lights. If you came in on the Flying Eye you saw a bigger, grubbier London.
    Today, looking out over the city was a shock all over again. Meena had never seen anything so forbidding. The sky was the colour of dark dishwater. The flooded area was an inky slick through the familiar city. Not one light shone. When the water poured in, it had extinguished all the office lights, traffic lights, car lights and shop signs, and left everything in darkness. There weren’t even any orange and blue flashing lights from emergency vehicles.
    The darkness had even leaked out to the dry areas. But here at least there were cars: red brake lights and bright headlights trying to escape the capital on grid-locked roads. It was a ghostly sight.
    Meena unbuckled her seatbelt and reached behind her. She unzipped her bag and pulled her phone out, then put it up to her eye.
    Mike Rogers, the pilot, looked at her disbelievingly. ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘Take us down closer.’
    ‘Are you mad? We should be getting back.’
    Meena had started her career as a journalist on a local paper. She had hung around outside hospitals, court rooms and pubs, alert for the tiny event thatwould turn into the big story, the scoop that she could sell to the nationals. Old habits died hard. She turned and gave Mike her most pleading look with her deep brown eyes. ‘Please, Mike. Nobody else will get pictures like this. It’s a historic moment.’
    ‘They’re not going to come out anyway, taken with a phone.’
    Meena had the viewfinder to her eye as she leaned out of the open window into the rain. ‘This isn’t just a