52
The apartment building was rapidly filling with smoke. The horseshoe-shaped block next door had gone up in flames with sobering speed a short time earlier. David and Chapman had still been readying themselves to head back out onto the death-filled streets when an explosion had reduced half of the neighbouring block to rubble, forcing their hand. Their building had been damaged in the blast and was beginning to burn, the flames devouring the contents of individual apartments with an unstoppable voracity. St Katharine’s Docks was crumbling around them.
David held on to the back of Chapman’s belt as they descended into the smoke-filled gloom. They’d taken a fire escape at the far end of the building, Chapman feeling his way along with one hand, his machete gripped tight in the other. Bot
