Eye of the Storm
Authors: Mark Robson
Also by Mark Robson
The Devil’s Triangle
The Dragon Orb series
Firestorm
Shadow
Longfang
Aurora
Imperial Spy
Imperial Assassin
Imperial Traitor
For more information on Mark Robson
and news on upcoming books, visit:
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © 2012 Mark Robson
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Mark Robson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road
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WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-84738-980-0
eBook ISBN 978-1-84738-981-7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
www.simonandschuster.com.au
The target had seemed much bigger up close. Now, standing fifty metres away, Sam was surprised to see how tiny it looked. A warm knot of nervous excitement writhed in his
belly. He was holding a gun – a real-life deadly weapon. How many of his friends back home could say they’d fired a gun in the open like this? A few might have fired one on a range with
the army cadets, but not many.
He glanced across the valley towards the hulking skyline of the City of the Imperium and felt his shoulders tighten. It was impossible to ignore. There was an ominous and brooding atmosphere
surrounding it that pervaded the countryside for miles around, filling the air with an almost palpable tension.
Sam couldn’t help feeling that the great walls had hidden eyes that were watching his every move. Was he far enough away to be safe? The rifle was sure to be noisy. Would the sound draw
the attention of the inhabitants of the gigantic geodesic structure? He scanned the open ground around the city walls. There were no immediate signs of danger, but staying alert was essential
here.
It had only been two weeks since he and his friend Callum had fallen victim to the Devil’s Triangle and crossed into this strange parallel world, but even in that short time, Sam had
learned to keep a close eye on his surroundings. The Devil’s Triangle – most people knew it as the Bermuda Triangle, but Sam’s father, Matt, had been calling it the Devil’s
Triangle for as long as Sam could remember. Now it was hard to think of it by any other name.
Poor Dad,
he thought, picturing for a moment how frantic with worry his father would be by now.
Will I ever see him or Niamh again? I know he won’t give up looking for us,
because he’s not given up on Mum in nine years, but I don’t fancy his chances of finding me here.
‘Borrowing’ his dad’s boat without permission to go fishing that day with Callum while at their holiday home in the Florida Keys had seemed a good idea at the time, but Sam
could never have anticipated the danger his rebellious trip would land them in. There was little point in pinning his hopes on his father managing to come and rescue them. Given what he now knew of
how the Bermuda Triangle phenomenon caused crossings into this parallel world, the odds of any rescue party finding them were minuscule. If he and Callum were ever going to return home, it would be
down to them.
Everything Sam had learned since arriving in this odd world made the chances of finding a way home seem increasingly remote. There were many things here that seemed familiar: the sun, moon and
stars still in their well-known patterns, the blue sky, green plants and even some of the animals – but there were plenty of things he’d seen that he’d never have been able to
imagine in a million years. And even though this world appeared to exist in the same space as Earth, Sam knew that when it came to getting home, he was as good as a million light years away.
Here, velociraptors were the dominant species. Not the primeval, lizard-eat-lizard prehistoric dinosaurs that Sam had learned about in school, but highly evolved raptors that looked to Sam like
super-large scaly men with over-muscled legs, a residual tail stump and strangely distorted faces. The sharp teeth of a carnivore and the curved, blade-like central digit on each hand seemed to be
all that remained of the velociraptor shape Sam knew from films and TV shows.
Hunching his head behind the rear sight, Sam raised the rifle towards the target and tried to steady the barrel. After a few seconds, he realised that shooting was going to be much tougher than
Hollywood films made it seem. No matter how hard he tried, he could not seem to settle the front blade sight in a steady aim.
Sam could feel his muscles tightening as the weight of the rifle began to test his strength. If he didn’t fire soon, hitting the target would become impossible. He began to tremble with
the strain and then, for an instant, the sights seemed to settle on the target. Sam didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger, reeling backwards as the recoil hammered the butt of the rifle into
his shoulder. The explosive
CRACK
of the bullet as it left the chamber was deafening and Sam’s ears rang with the aftershock.
‘Ow!’ he complained, lowering the muzzle and rolling his shoulder to disperse the pain flowering there.
‘No, no, no!’ came a voice from behind him. ‘You’ll never hit anything like that! Remember – ammunition is precious, Sam. Our supplies are limited. We’re not
playing games here. You must make every shot count.’
Claire Cutler’s eyebrows were drawn together in a reproving frown.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ Sam muttered. ‘It’s so heavy. I just can’t hold it steady enough.’
‘Don’t depress me, big man,’ Callum pleaded in an overdramatic voice. ‘If you can’t do it, what chance will I have? I mean, I’m hardly Mr Universe, am
I?’
Callum Barnes pushed his Austin Powers lookalike glasses up his nose and struck a pose like a bodybuilder showing off his biceps. Sam burst out laughing and even Claire found she could not
maintain her stern face. Callum looked ridiculous. Despite being a couple of months older than Sam, he was a full head shorter and looked all skin and bone by comparison.
Sam was relieved to see that Callum hadn’t lost his sense of humour after all they had been through. He felt a momentary pang of guilt for having neglected his friend over the past couple
of days, choosing instead to spend hour after hour talking with his mother. There had been so much to catch up with after nine years apart, and to begin with, it had been hard to reconcile his
vague memories of the smiling, gentle mother he remembered with the tough, decisive woman standing in front of him now. Sam admired her immensely for what she had done, but couldn’t help
feeling secretly just a little disappointed that she did not appear to have made more of an effort to get home. She was his mother, but even though there had been several moments of tenderness in
the past few days, for much of the time he found it difficult to see past the tough outer shell of the rebel leader to the gentleness of the caring mother underneath.
What would Dad and Niamh make of this new Claire Cutler?
he had wondered.
And, perhaps more to the point – would they ever get a chance to meet her?
Callum had been patient and understanding, spending his time nosing about the rebel underground HQ and getting to know some of the others living there. Sam gave his friend an appreciative grin
and a pat on the back. It felt good to be out doing something together again.
‘Shooting a rifle accurately doesn’t require brute strength, Callum,’ Claire pointed out, giving him an encouraging smile. ‘It’s much more about
technique.’
‘But wouldn’t a pistol be better?’ Sam insisted. ‘That would be easier to hold.’
‘Unless you’re really skilled, a pistol is pretty useless beyond about ten metres,’ Claire told him firmly. ‘You don’t want to let a hostile raptor get that close
without having put several bullets into it. Don’t be fooled by the ridiculous things you saw in cop shows on TV back home. A rifle is a far better weapon for this place. Trust me. I
know.’
‘If you say so, Mrs . . . Claire,’ Callum said, looking as uncomfortable as ever about using her first name. ‘But I’ve never been good at physical stuff.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him. ‘I doubt that I’m much stronger than you, Callum, but I’ve learned to use the levers of my body to create a stable platform.
Combined with proper breath control, aiming becomes much easier. Think of it like an applied maths problem. Here – watch.’
Claire took the rifle from Sam, put her left arm through the sling strap and neatly twisted it once round her wrist before curling her fingers round the stock. Turning her body sideways on to
the target, she drew the butt of the rifle tightly into her right shoulder and held it pointing down at the ground for a moment. The boys watched as she took several deep breaths through her nose
– not gasping great gulps of air, but slow, deliberate inhalations. Thrusting her left hip out slightly, she raised the rifle and propped her left elbow on the shelf of her hip. Head cocked
behind the sights, she looked rock-steady as she took aim and . . .
BANG
!