The God Particle (8 page)

He couldn’t imagine the size of the helicopter that was
capable of causing such vibrations, and then suddenly a distant memory came
flooding back to him, which made his heart beat faster and his mouth become
instantly dry. He had only ever experienced this sensation once before in his
life, when he was a young boy on holiday in Fethiye with his parents, but that
was enough to leave an indelible impression on his mind.

They had been staying at his great aunt’s house by the
coast, when she burst into his room in the middle of the night, shouting for
him and his sisters to get outside and stand away from any buildings. He must
have slept through the initial tremors but, by the time he’d reached the top of
the stairs, the whole house was shaking. He froze, not knowing what was going
on, but his mother appeared behind him, picked him up and carried him outside
to join the rest of the family on the beach. Several other households had
already congregated on the sands and were being joined by people running from
every direction, some crying, some screaming; but the majority just huddled in
groups, staring silently in the moonlight, as they watched the houses in front
of them crumble to a pile of rubble.

***

 ‘What’s that over there?’ Dawn was pointing to what looked
like a plume of smoke rising from a street just in front of them.

Devrim pushed the joystick forward and the helicopter
descended to get a better view.

‘It looks like a house has collapsed onto those cars,’ she
said, as the downdraft from the helicopter swirled the cloud around them. She
could see the half-demolished building, in the middle of a row of houses, and
just make out figures running into the street covered from head to foot in
dust.

‘Gas explosion? You’d better let the station know. That road
is going to be blocked all day,’ Devrim told her, hovering just above the
commotion.

‘Seb, it’s Dawn. Over,’ she spoke into her microphone and
waited for a response from the station.

‘Go ahead, Dawn. Over.’

‘We’ve got an incident on…’ She checked the map on her lap
for the street name.

She was trying to work out where they were, when Devrim’s
alarmed voice came over her headset.

‘Dawn, look!’

She looked down to see the whole terrace collapsing in on
itself, like a house of cards. The explosion took them both by surprise. The
shockwave hit their undercarriage a full second before they heard the boom,
propelling them higher into the air. Devrim gritted his teeth as he tried to
regain control, pulling back the joystick as far as it would go. The nose rose
sharply, but the turbos failed to deliver the thrust and they didn’t gain any
more height. Instinctively, he pushed the stick to the left and the helicopter
banked, just in time to avoid the huge fireball that had erupted. He pulled
back on the controls again and this time he was relieved to hear the pitch of
the engines change as they started to ascend.

***

Giyas was cold, tired and soaked through to the skin,
despite wearing an all-in-one weather-proof suit with several layers of clothes
underneath. He was just hauling in his third catch of the day when he heard the
sound of the explosion in the distance. His father must have heard it, too,
because he turned around to ask him what it was.

‘Another bomb, maybe?’ Giyas suggested.

They were constantly living under the threat of bomb attacks
from one or other of the extremist groups, so it came as no surprise to either
of them. Only the day before, a Kurdish terrorist had killed himself, a
policeman and injured several others, in an apparent suicide attack on a local
police station.

His father didn’t say a word; his thoughts were with the
innocent victims and their families. He shook his head and returned to the
wheelhouse to navigate the boat. Giyas was well aware of his father’s views on
the subject and would no doubt be hearing more of them over the dinner table
that evening. Being of Hungarian descent, he had had his history lessons from
his father from a very early age. He knew all about the Ottoman Turk invasion
of his country in 1541, and the subsequent deportations and massacres
throughout their 150-year rule before the Prince of Transylvania rescued them
from their subjugation. His father would always talk fondly of the ‘old
country’, of the traditions and cultural values of its people, despite never
having set foot on Hungarian soil himself.

Another meagre haul
, Giyas thought to himself as he
pulled in the last of the nets. His father turned around and Giyas could see
the disappointment in his sunken, aging eyes.

‘We’ll try the other side of the bridge. Maybe our luck will
change,’ his father shouted over his shoulder as he turned back to steer the
boat on a new course.

***

Hamil knew that he had to get outside and into open space,
which meant the Sultan Ahmet Park, located next to the museum, but first he had
to get down from the dais, which was starting to sway wildly backwards and
forwards as the tremors increased. He realised that there was no point in
trying to retrieve the fallen ladder; his only two options were to either jump
or try to scramble down the scaffolding. With time and fitness not on his side,
he chose the former.

He took off his overcoat and fell to his knees to eye the
drop; he reckoned that he could increase his chances of not sustaining an
injury by hanging onto the wooden planks by his fingertips and then letting
himself fall. He manoeuvred into position by turning his back on the nave and
lowering himself slowly over the side. He held onto the edge of the platform,
his knuckles white from the weight of his own body, his legs dangling in open
space. He could hear the sound of his own heart pumping blood through his veins
as his arms took the strain.

He was just about to let go, when he heard an ominous creaking
sound above him. He managed to turn his head and look up to see all the wrought
iron chandeliers swaying in unison, like some bizarre metronome. He could see
that the plaster around where they were fixed to the ceiling had cracked and
large pieces were starting to fall onto the marble floor below him.

He held his breath, closed his eyes and let himself drop.
The first chandelier smashed to the floor at exactly the same time he did and
with similar consequential damage. It had landed just three feet from where he
now lay, spraying him with shards of glass as it disintegrated. It was such a
loud crash that he almost hadn’t heard his own leg snapping. The pain shot
through his body instantly, causing him to let out an involuntary animalistic
shriek that echoed around the vast hall. His body shivered uncontrollably and
he started to perspire despite the wintry temperature.

***

They had passed under the First Bosphorus Bridge, which
spanned the continents of
Europe
and
Asia
, by the time
Giyas had secured the nets and joined his father in the cramped wheelhouse. The
spray from the waves lashed at the windows and the small windscreen wipers were
struggling to clear them sufficiently enough for them to see where they were
going.

‘If it gets much rougher, we’ll have to call it a day,’ his
father said, peering through the smeared glass.

Giyas pulled on the green woollen hat his grandmother had
knitted him and went out on deck to see if he could get a better view, but he
couldn’t. Looking back at the suspension bridge, he could see the headlights of
the commuters on their way to work. A distant rumbling could be heard over the
boat’s engines as they strained to cope with the pitching sea.
Thunder
,
he thought. They would definitely be returning to port early.

Another wave smashed over the side, drenching him again. He
was past caring now, as he didn’t think he could get any wetter. He wiped the
salt water out of his eyes and stared back at the cars. The bridge appeared to
wobble, almost imperceptibly; Giyas knew from experience that the sea could
play tricks on your eyes. He watched intently, another wobble, this time more
pronounced. The sound of the thunder grew louder. Vehicles were slowing down; a
lorry at the front braked, which concertinaed through the line of traffic
causing a jam in the middle. He could see motorists switching their hazard
lights on as they joined the orderly queue.

Then, suddenly, a shudder travelled from one side of the
bridge to the other, like a concrete Mexican wave. The bridge started to
oscillate up and down, slowly at first, but then seemed to gain momentum. The
majority of the cars on the bridge were now stationary; some motorists had
abandoned their vehicles and were running to the relative safety of the shores.

Giyas wanted to run to tell his father, but his feet were
rooted firmly to the spot, his eyes transfixed on the bridge as the undulations
grew more and more violent, throwing cars, buses and trucks high into the air
as though they were toys, and landing on the terrified pedestrians as they
tried to flee. Then, one of the central suspension cables snapped, like an
overstretched rubber band, followed by another, then another and another, in
quick succession. The oscillations turned into a violent torsional twisting
motion, like a demonic skipping rope, hurling vehicles and their passengers off
the side of the bridge.

As the cables failed, one by one, two gaping fissures
appeared at either end of the structure, which spread rapidly along the full
width of the road; Giyas could see slabs of concrete falling from underneath
the bridge in their wake. And then, with an almighty crack, which could be
heard well above the sound of the raging sea and the rumbling of the earthquake,
the whole middle section fractured, plummeting some two hundred feet into the
Bosphorus, creating a thirty-foot wave as it disappeared into the murky depths,
taking with it the remaining vehicles, their contents and anyone unfortunate
enough not to have made it to the sides.

The wall of water came crashing towards the small fishing
vessel releasing Giyas from his spell. He turned to warn his father but, as he
did so, the first wave knocked him off his feet and slammed him hard onto the
deck, winding him. As he lay there, trying to catch his breath, he could see
his father in the wheelhouse struggling to retain control. The second, larger
wave engulfed the boat, capsizing it. Giyas tried desperately to cling onto the
nets, but the force of the water ripped them out of his grip and tossed him
into the freezing sea.

Giyas struggled to the surface but there was no sign of the
boat or his father. He trod water as the waves pounded down on him, hoping that
his father had somehow managed to survive, but he knew in his heart of hearts
that it was unlikely. He would only be able to last, himself, a few minutes in
these conditions, a combination of the exertion he had to put in just to stay
afloat and the extreme cold that would soon deplete his energy reserves.

Then, bobbing up and down in the swell, he spotted one of
the fishing buoys that had been hanging over the side of the boat. He swam over
to it and managed to reach out and grasp the rope it was tethered to before
being swamped by another wave. This time, he was determined not to let go. As
the water receded, he quickly pulled the float towards him and wrapped his arms
tightly around it. The relief was instant; his newfound buoyancy meant that he
could save his energy as he didn’t have to fight against the troughs and peaks.

He knew his chances of being rescued were slim; some of his
best friends had perished in milder weather conditions than these, but as long
as he could stay afloat he still had a fighting chance. His toes were the first
to go numb, then his fingers, then his legs. He recognised the symptoms
immediately and clung tighter to the buoy. He was so tired and couldn’t keep
his eyes open.

He wasn’t afraid to die, he just felt sorry for his mother.
He could picture her being told by the harbourmaster. She would get a knock on
the door in the early evening after the boat had failed to return to port. She
would have a headscarf on and be wearing an apron, having spent the afternoon
preparing a steaming hot stew, ready for when her men returned. She would open
the door and be surprised to see the portly frame of Mr Levent standing there,
head bowed, cap in hand. He’d look up at her with sad, bloodshot eyes and she’d
know that he’d been crying. She would ask him in… that was the last thought
Giyas Macar had before he succumbed to hypothermia, slipping gently below the
waves to join his father.

***

Hamil had managed to avoid most of the falling debris as he
made his way across the marble floor towards the nearest side entrance. A large
piece of masonry had landed on his damaged leg, which must have made him black
out because he woke up covered in rubble. Not knowing how long he’d been out
for, he shook his head to clear the fuzziness and a cloud of dust from his hair
made him cough.

He raised himself onto his good knee, then transferred all
his weight onto his outstretched arms before pulling himself forward, whilst
dragging his broken leg behind him. He’d invented the technique after twice
trying to stand on his good leg and hop, but both attempts had ended after just
one jump, the ground shaking so much that it was impossible for him to keep his
balance, and both times he’d landed awkwardly on his fracture, making him cry
out. So, while the hand-pull method was excruciatingly painful (his palms and
knees were encrusted with blood and dirt from cuts he’d sustained from the
shattered glass of the chandeliers that now littered the floor) and exhausting,
it was the lesser of the two evils.

He knew that nobody was coming to rescue him - his
cleaners would have their own problems to deal with, if the earthquake was as
bad as he suspected. Therefore, the only hope he had was to make it outside and
put his trust in a passing Samaritan to take him to safety.