The epic adventure begins . . . Cloudburst is the first book in the Jack Courtney adventure series, for a whole new generation of fans! A brand new Wilbur Smith series for young readers, starring fourteen-year-old Jack Courtney. Jack Courtney has lived in the UK his whole life. But this summer his parents are traveling to the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a gorilla conference, and they've promised to take Jack and his friends with them. When his parents go missing in the rain forest, abducted by mercenaries, nobody seems to have any answers. Jack is pretty sure that it's got something to do with the nearby tantalum mines, but he needs to prove it. Along with Amelia and Xander, Jack must brave the jungle to save his parents. Standing in his way is a member of his own family—Caleb Courtney. There are western gorillas, forest elephants, and hippos. But there are also bandits, mercenaries, and poachers. The three friends will need their wits about them if they are not only to save Jack's parents, but their own lives too. Wilbur Smith is a worldwide phenomenon. His readership has built up over fifty-five years of writing. Born in Central Africa in 1933, Wilbur became a full-time writer in 1964 following the success of When the Lion Feeds , and has since published over forty global bestsellers, including the Courtney Series, the Ballantyne Series, the Egyptian Series, the Hector Cross Series, and many successful standalone novels, all meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. I was asleep when the airliner hit turbulence. It must have dropped a hundred metres in half a second. The swooping up-rush launched my stomach into my chest and my head grazed the ceiling before my bum slammed back into the seat. I opened my eyes as an electronic warning bell started pinging above us. The ‘fasten seat belts’ light came on. ‘Bit late for that,’ I said to Amelia beside me. ‘I never unbuckle mine,’ she explained, showing me the snug clasp before returning to whatever she was doing on her phone. Reprogramming it, probably. ‘Of course you don’t,’ I said, just as the plane bounced hard again. Mum craned round from the seat in front. ‘You OK, Jack? Amelia?’ ‘Just fine . . . Why wouldn’t we be?’ we said over the top of one another. The co-pilot’s voice oozed out of the speaker, full of reassurance: ‘Ladies and gentleman, we seem to have run into some unexpected weather. We’ll do our best to skirt it, but in the meantime, for your comfort and safety, we ask you to remain seated with your seat belt fastened.’ Beyond Amelia was the porthole window. I leaned across her to look out of it. The endless blue sky was dotted with occasional clouds, but it didn’t look particularly stormy. I could make out the lush green rainforest below us without difficulty. ‘Seems like a nice day to me,’ I said. ‘The Democratic Republic of Congo averages more thunderstorms per year than anywhere else on earth,’ Amelia replied. ‘Good to know. Still, not today, eh?’ As if to prove me wrong, at that moment the plane hit another airborne speed bump, hurling me sideways in my seat. I burst out laughing. Up until this point the trip from London to Kinshasa via Brussels had been long and boring. This was fun. Mum, however, is a nervous passenger at the best of times. Through the seat gap ahead, I glimpsed her neck, rigid with fear. More loudly than she meant to, she said, ‘Will the plane cope, Nicholas?’ to Dad, who was in the seat next to hers. ‘Of course,’ he said, stroking her hand on the armrest. Unfortunately, Amelia heard what Mum said too. Amelia always means well, more or less, but has a knack of saying the wrong thing. Now she leaned forward and said, ‘Mrs Courtney, the wings on an Airbus A330 are tested to more than 5.2 metres of displacement. It would take an extraordinarily abrupt pressure differential to rip them off.’ Mum withdrew her hand from under Dad’s, her knuckles white. ‘Where do you get this stuff?’ I asked Amelia. ‘What stuff?’ she replied, genuinely confused. Amelia’s mother met mine on the maternity ward fourteen years ago; we’ve known each other since we were babies. How her mind works, though, I’ll never understand. It’s not short of processing power, I admit, but she uses that power for the strangest things. ‘Amelia means we’re perfectly safe, Mum,’ I said, as another wedge of turbulence lifted me, grinning, from my seat. ‘The wind’s just giving us a helping hand. We’ll be in Kinshasa in no time.’ I was wrong about that. The jagged air got worse. Someone a few rows back threw up (and I mean up) and somebody near the front lost it completely and began wailing. A few minutes later, although I still couldn’t see anything other than blue sky out of the window, the co-pilot’s super-calm voice informed us that the weather had closed in on Kinshasa. For safety’s sake, we were being diverted from N’Djili Airport to somewhere else beginning with R, or it might have been D. Either way,