Lights Out Read online

  Copyright 2019 Amy Cross

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

  Kindle edition

  First published: January 2019

  Ten years ago they swore revenge on the man who killed their comrade. Finally, a violent solar storm is plunging the world into darkness and giving them their chance.

  When a solar storm knocks out all electricity for twelve hours, Cassie and Anders know that this might be their last opportunity to kill Michael Essien. Massively wealthy and surrounded by the strongest high-tech defense systems that money can buy, Essien lives at the top of a skyscraper in London. But the coming storm means that all his systems will be out of action for the night.

  Setting out to gain vengeance, Cassie and Anders know that time is against them. They mount a daring, high-risk assault on the skyscraper, pitting their wits against whatever defenses Essien can scramble together in time. For one night only, the playing field is leveled. Will Essien's luck hold, or will the notorious gun-runner finally pay the price for a murder he once commmited in the Middle East?

  Lights Out is a fast-moving thriller about vengeance, anger and – in more ways than one – power.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter TwentyOne

  Chapter TwentyTwo

  Chapter TwentyThree

  Chapter TwentyFour

  Chapter TwentyFive

  Chapter TwentySix

  Chapter TwentySeven

  Chapter TwentyEight

  Chapter TwentyNine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter ThirtyOne

  Chapter ThirtyTwo

  Chapter ThirtyThree

  Chapter ThirtyFour

  Chapter ThirtyFive

  Chapter ThirtySix

  Chapter ThirtySeven

  Chapter ThirtyEight

  Chapter ThirtyNine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Lights Out

  Prologue

  Dale Varnham Observatory, England - 1am

  “You don't mind taking the night-shift, Kenny, do you? You don't have any family. It's not disruptive. And you get double pay. So come on, be a good sport. Take the night-shift for me, just this once.”

  Sighing, he throws the ball once more against the wall, letting it bounce back before he catches it and swivels around on his office chair.

  “Yeah right,” he adds with a sigh, briefly glancing at the bank of monitors on the far wall. “Just 'cause I'm the only single one on the team, why do I have to be the one who always gets picked to sit here and stare at the screens while nothing happens?”

  He tosses the ball again, lets it bounce again, catches it again.

  “Maybe I should vacuum,” he reasons. “At least that'd be a productive use of my time. At least I'd actually be contributing.”

  He pauses, before setting the ball aside and getting to his feet. He starts making his way toward the broom closet, but then he takes a left turn and instead heads out into the corridor. Feeling a rumble in his belly, he goes to the bathroom and enters a cubicle, then he pulls his trousers down and takes a seat.

  “Productive, my ass,” he sighs. “Might as well try to crank one out.”

  He takes a folded magazine from his pocket and un-crumples it, and then he starts flicking through the pages. He looks at the review section in the back, then at some interviews, and finally he settles on a feature about some new horror movie that's coming out in the next a week or two. Even though he's not particularly interested, he starts reading the article anyway, figuring that at least it's something to do.

  Suddenly an alarm rings out from the control room, followed by a second and then by several more.

  “Seriously?” Kenny says, lowering the magazine.

  The alarms continue, and finally Kenny gets to his feet and pulls his trousers back up.

  “This had better not be some stupid false alert,” he says as he heads out of the cubicle and makes his way back toward the control room. As he walks, he stuffs the magazine back into his pocket. “I want to discover something this time. Something that gets me some credit, something that at least gets me in the footnotes of a journal article.” He rounds the corner and approaches the monitors. “Maybe someone can even name something after me some day.”

  Stopping, he looks up at the various data streams. He's ready for a disappointment but, as the alarms continue to ring, he feels a flutter in his heart as he spots the readings for a very large, very sudden solar storm that has been detected. He looks at some other screens, trying to search for some good news, but now the flutter is becoming a tightening fist of dread, and every screen he looks at only brings more and more bad news.

  “Oh,” he says finally, as all the color drains from his face. “Oh holy -”

  Chapter One

  8:03am

  Lancaster Gate, London – Several hours later

  Anders Holl unscrews the lid from the bottle of whiskey, before pouring a small drop into a shot glass. His hands are trembling, causing him to almost spill, but finally he sets the bottle back down. Then, as a car horn honks outside in the morning traffic, he takes the shot glass and shuffles over to the kitchen counter.

  He slides a plate of dog food over and then tilts the shot glass, letting the drops of whiskey fall into the meat.

  “There you go, Milo,” he says with a chuckle, before leaning down and placing the plate on the floor. “Let's get your upper lip stiffened for a good walk in the park, eh?”

  His standard poodle Milo limps over on painful, arthritic legs and starts eating. His tail is wagging; he knows from experience that the food has lately begun to contain something soothing, something that takes the edge off the pain long enough for him to enjoy a wander around Hyde Park.

  “Good boy,” Anders says, leaning against the counter and trying to ignore the pain in his own joints, especially his hips. “Fuck all that shit the vet wanted you to take. I'm not filling you full of junk, not when a little dram'll do an even better job.”

  He heads back over to the counter, limping slightly, and puts the lid back on the bottle before setting it back into the cupboard. Then he goes to the cooker and grabs a frying pan, ready to make himself some breakfast. He and Milo have the same routine every day, getting on with things in their large, high-ceilinged apartment in one of London's wealthier parts. And then, as he reaches over to grab some eggs from the carton, Anders happens to glance at the TV screen that has been running silently in the far corner.

  He furrows his brow.

  There's some kind of big news story breaking. He can see the prime minister – a woman he personally despises thanks to an argument they once had at a drinks party – speaking at a press conference. Squinting slightly, he sees a red band along the bottom of the screen, with large white letters saying something about a solar wave.

  “What's this bollocks, eh?” he mutters, shuffling over to the kitchen table and grabbing the rem
ote control. He takes a moment to find the right button, and then he turns the volume up.

  Milo is just finished his breakfast, and still wagging his tail.

  “What I want to emphasize,” the prime minister is saying, as cameras flash constantly, “is that we have joined with other nations in preparing for this event. There is no reason for anybody to panic. All the scientific studies have confirmed that it will last less than twelve hours, and then everything will then get back to normal. This is not – I repeat, not – going to cause any long-term changes.”

  Outside the flat, someone yells something about the end of the world.

  Chapter Two

  8:25am

  Essien Tower, Central London

  “So what exactly is a solar wave,” the newsreader asks, his voice trembling slightly as if he's considering bolting from the studio and running home to his family, “and should we be concerned that one is going to hit the planet in about ten hours from now?”

  “Somebody talk to me,” Michael Essien says as he stands in the middle of the penthouse suite, staring at the screen. His dressing gown is untied, revealing a white singlet that covers the beginning – just the very faintest hint – of a gut that he's been fighting ever since he turned sixty. “Somebody tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  “I'm on the phone to someone in Vienna,” his assistant Randall replies, sitting on the sofa arm with a cellphone at his right ear. “I know someone at one of the top laboratories there. They're all still trying to figure it out themselves.”

  “What we're talking about here,” says a rattled-looking woman on the TV screen, “is actually a solar flare, rather than a wave, and a consequent solar storm. These are by no means particularly rare, and they've been studied extensively over the years. What makes this one different is that there has been a sustained period of activity that has released an unusually slow-moving, but very powerful solar storm that is heading directly toward us.”

  “And what does that mean in layman's terms?” the newsreader asks.

  “An ultraviolet band of -”

  “What does it mean for us?” the newsreader snaps, finally letting his panic show. “Are we all about to get fried in our seats?”

  “I don't like this,” Essien says darkly, still watching the screen. “I never heard of a solar flare or a solar storm until this morning, but now I hate the whole thing.”

  Behind him, Randall suddenly starts speaking in German. Essien turns and watches as his assistant talks into his phone, but he doesn't understand anything that he hears so far. After a moment, he turns and walks closer to the TV.

  “What we have to emphasize here,” the woman on the screen is saying, “is that the effects of the storm will be temporary. In this respect, we're very lucky. All proper precautions are going to be taken, to ensure that the storm passes without causing trouble. This time tomorrow, we'll all be sitting here, we'll all be fine, and we'll all be absolutely fit and healthy.”

  “I have a bad feeling,” Essien whispers.

  “You say that everything will be fine,” the newsreader says, sounding more concerned than ever, “but if that's the case, why are all these extraordinary measures having to be put in place? We're already getting reports of army vehicles on the motorways, of troop movements, of members of the government being rushed to secret underground locations. That doesn't sound as if people at the top are expecting everything to be fine.”

  “No,” Essien says, as Randall continues to speak on the phone in German, “it doesn't.”

  “Obviously precautions have to be taken,” the woman on the screen says, “due to an overabundance of caution. Any sensible government has to take a range of steps in order to protect not only the infrastructure of the country, but also any sensitive sites that might require electrical power. Then there's the civil safety aspect, which can't be ignored.”

  “What about nuclear reactors?” the newsreader asks. “What about nuclear bombs?”

  “There are systems in place to protect these sites,” the woman explains. “Every year, government agencies draw up plans for dealing with all number of unusual and unlikely events. There are redundancies built into every system. I can understand why people might be panicking, but it's very important to listen to what experts are saying. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

  “Except that there'll be no electricity for several hours,” the newsreader replies. “No batteries, even. Nothing electrical will work for almost half a day. We'll effectively be plunged back into the stone age for a night.”

  “I don't like the sound of that,” Essien says, before turning as he hears Randall ending the phone call. “Talk to me. Tell me what's happening.”

  He waits, but he can see the fear on his assistant's face

  “Okay, get my plane ready,” Essien says as the people on the TV screen continues to talk. “I want to move to a more secure location. Now!”

  Chapter Three

  8:50am

  “Because you never need to worry about a thing,” Anders sings in the jolliest, happiest, most care-free voice as he carries Milo out to the car. “Daddy's going to make sure that everything's okay.”

  He opens the car's rear door and slides Milo onto the seat. The dog immediately turns and wags his tail at his master. The whiskey is kicking in and he feels ready for his morning walk.

  “We're going for a drive,” Anders sings jauntily, as he makes jazz hands in a further attempt to calm Milo down, “and we're going to... stay alive!”

  Milo tilts his head slightly.

  “There's no reason to worry,” Anders sings. “Not when you're cute and furry. Now watch your tail and paws, as I close this heavy car door.”

  He swings the door shut, just as a voice screams in the distance.

  “We're all gonna die!” a guy yells raising his fists at cars that race past along Bayswater Road. “Don't you get it? We're all gonna fucking die!”

  Looking down, Anders sees Milo staring up at him from the back seat of the car.

  “Don't listen to the idiot,” he tells his dog. “He was probably shouting the same thing yesterday. And he'll be shouting it tomorrow as well.”

  “Mr. Holl!” a voice calls out. “Mr. Holl, did you hear?”

  Sighing, Anders turns just in time to see his neighbor Caroline – or rather, the Duchess of Cornford – hurrying down the steps from her townhouse. He's used to her seeking him out every time she's worried about something, but he'd been hoping that this morning he might get away before she caught up to him. No such luck.

  “Have you heard the news on the radio?” she asks, her face filled with shock as she reaches him. “Part of the sun has exploded! It's headed right for us!”

  “It's just a solar storm,” he replies with a smile, the same smile he used to make Milo stop worrying. “All electrical items will stop working for about nine hours, starting at six tonight, but then everything will come back to normal in the morning. We all just have to ride out one night without power. Think of it as an extended power cut.”

  “What's a solar storm?” she asks.

  “It's to do with Earth's magnetosphere getting disturbed,” Anders explains. “There's a kind of compression that occurs when the solar wind's magnetic field hits Earth's magnetic field. Then you get more energy in the magnetosphere, which has a series of knock-on effects that -”

  “Will my kettle still work?”

  “Not for about nine hours.”

  “What about my fridge?”

  “Again, not for about nine hours.”

  “But I'll have lights, won't I?”

  “No lights.”

  “So I'll have to use a torch?”

  “I don't think those will work either.”

  “But it runs on batteries!”

  “Batteries are out too.”

  “Oh.”

  “And in the morning,” he continues, “we can stand here and laugh about it all.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “
I know so.” He puts a hand on each of her shoulders. “Would I lie to you?”

  She opens her mouth to ask another question, but then she hesitates for a moment.

  “What about my pacemaker?” she asks finally.

  “I...”

  Anders pauses, not quite knowing what to say.

  “That will be alright,” he says finally, forcing a smile despite the flicker of concern in his chest. “Go and watch the news, see if they mention anything about that. But you should be absolutely fine.”

  “I've never known anything like this to happen,” she replies. “I'm eighty-three next June, you know. Eighty-three and I've lived through an awful lot, but never anything like bits of the sun coming flying at us. I hope it doesn't become a regular thing.”

  “It won't,” Anders tells her. “And your heart... Your heart will be fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I -”

  Before he can finish, Anders hears Milo barking in the back of the car.

  “I think he wants his walk,” Caroline says. “How's his arthritis doing? Have you tried the whiskey thing I told you about?”

  “Works like a magic trick.”

  “I told you,” she says with a smile. “I used to use the same trick on my husband. Even right to the end, a shot of whiskey in his breakfast cereal meant he could get a round of golf finished in the mornings. And dogs are basically the same as humans, aren't they? Well, the same as husbands, anyway.”

  “Take care,” Anders tells her, “and ride tonight out. It'll be dark, but apart from that there's no need to worry. The power will go off around six, so just be ready. Do you have everything you need?”

  “I suppose we survived worse in the war,” she says. “At least there won't be German planes bombing us all night. And we won't have to go down and sleep in the Tube stations.”