Free Wildfire by Chris Ryan Page A

systems safely.
    All eyes in the spectators’ stand were on the horses. No one noticed the deadly cinders that were blowing in from the golf course next door.
    At first a few flaming leaves flew over. They landed on the roof of the stand and on the piles of rubbish that had fallen out of the bins. The greasy papers from the nearby burger stall caught in seconds.
    The smoke reached the sensitive nostrils of the horses below, but they were already so upset that it made little difference.
    Some burning twigs blew as far as the car park. Many of the grooms had tied haynets to the horse-boxes for the horses to eat while they were beingrubbed down. The hay was dry and glowing embers set it alight in no time. The burning debris blew in easily through the open ramps. The horseboxes, already hot as ovens from the sun, were soon ablaze.
    In the spectator stand, the organizers were discussing whether the wind meant they should cancel the rest of the day’s racing. At first no one spotted the fires taking hold all around them.
    Out on the track, a big black yearling had had enough. It leaped into the air with a twisting buck. The jockey didn’t have a chance of staying in the saddle. He pitched straight over the horse’s shoulder. The loose horse now took off in a flat-out gallop away from the rattling gates. It crashed through the white rails as though they were matchwood.
    On the other side was a row of cars parked tightly together. The horse saw there was no gap, so it tried to jump a green Ford.
    It misjudged and landed on the car. The impact made a sickening noise. The horse crashed to the ground, twisted up onto its feet like a cat and carried on fleeing, sparks flying off its shoes.
    The car was a write-off. Its bonnet was crushed, itsroof staved in. Being hit by half a ton of horse travelling at 65 kph had the same result as a head-on collision with another car.
    While everyone’s eyes were on the galloping horse, the roof of the stand had reached flashpoint. Inside, a reporter from the Adelaide Herald heard part of the roof collapse behind him. He turned round and saw that the back of the stand had disappeared behind a pall of thick black smoke. Little tongues of orange flame were flickering all around him.
    ‘Fire!’ he screamed. ‘Get out! Get out!’
    The spectators could only run in one direction – under the white rails and onto the racecourse.
    Meanwhile the loose horse was heading towards the car park. Just then, one of the horseboxes exploded as the fire reached its fuel tank.
    The loose horse immediately whirled round and fled back towards the other horses, which were still milling around by the starting gates. When they saw the terror in its eyes, they panicked, and the jockeys lost all control of their mounts.
    There was only one way for the petrified horses to go: through the rattling gates.
    But because the race hadn’t yet started, the exit doors were bolted. The galloping horses crashed into the gates, pulling them right off their foundations.
    The spectators who had fled from the burning stands reached the grass and paused for breath. Behind them, the stand was a mass of flame.
    Too late they felt the ground shaking, as it does at the start of a race. Ten horses, imprisoned in the closed gates, were charging towards them.

Chapter Ten
     
    It was bad being on the ground, but it was just as bad being off it. The air was seething with thermals.
    So far, Ben’s first experience of flying had been the kind that would put most people off for life. Since they’d taken off from the vineyard it had been like riding a rollercoaster – an extreme rollercoaster that didn’t even stop to let you get your breath.
    Kelly didn’t stop for breath either. She yelled instructions relentlessly:
    ‘More throttle!’
    ‘Stick right!’
    ‘Stick up!’
    ‘Stick up now, Ben, now !’
    He didn’t think, he just did what he was told. It was like they were one creature. She was the brains and he was the body.
    A body