‘Bail or we’ll all drown!’ The tiny cockleshell of a rowing boat whirled out into the middle of the Great River. There was water everywhere – slopping over the sides, thundering down from the sky. The whole universe seemed to be made of liquid – and it was all swamping the boat at a terrifying rate. Another fork of lightning made everything bright for a second – just enough time for Anastasia to see how wide the river had suddenly become. How far from the shores they were already. How near their gunwales were to the heaving, boiling surface. For an instant she regretted her failure to blow her own brains out with the AK. Things seemed to be getting worse by the moment. A quick, clean quiet death might have had its attractions after all. Her scrabbling fingers kept skinning themselves against the AK in the bottom of the boat beside her. She tore a nail loose on an oar submerged beside it, then her hand became briefly entangled in the plastic bag. There was another oar and a grappling hook down there as well, she knew.
