Crocodile Tears

Anthony Horowitz

Crocodile Tears

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Chapter 1 - FIRE STAR

Chapter 2 - REFLECTIONS IN A MIRROR

Chapter 3 - CARDS BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Chapter 4 - OFF-ROAD VEHICLE

Chapter 5 - DEATH AND CHAMPAGNE

Chapter 6 - NINE FRAMES PER SECOND

Chapter 7 - BAD NEWS

Chapter 8 - THE LION’S DEN

Chapter 9 - INVISIBLE MAN

Chapter 10 - GREENFIELDS

Chapter 11 - CONDITION RED

Chapter 12 - HELL ON EARTH

Chapter 13 - EXIT STRATEGY

Chapter 14 - FEELING THE HEAT

Chapter 15 - Q & A

Chapter 16 - SPECIAL DELIVERY

Chapter 17 - A SHORT FLIGHT TO NOWHERE

Chapter 18 - WOLF MOON

Chapter 19 - ALL FOR CHARITY

Chapter 20 - PURE TORTURE

Chapter 21 - RAW DEAL

Chapter 22 - MARGIN OF ERROR

Chapter 23 - SIMBA DAM

Chapter 24 - UNHAPPY LANDING

Chapter 25 - SOFT CENTERS

Acknowledgements

A division of Penguin Young Readers Group.

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Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Horowitz. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345

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eISBN : 978-1-101-15149-5

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To R & NA. 009.

ALSO BY ANTHONY HOROWITZ

THE ALEX RIDER NOVELS:

Stormbreaker

Point Blank

Skeleton Key

Eagle Strike

Scorpia

Ark Angel

Snakehead

THE DIAMOND BROTHERS MYSTERIES:

The Falcon’s Malteser

Public Enemy Number Two

Three of Diamonds

South by Southeast

Horowitz Horror

More Horowitz Horror

The Devil and His Boy

crocodile tears: fake or hypocritical tears.

From the belief that crocodiles will pretend

to cry in order to attract their victims . . .

and will then cry for real as they devour them.

1

FIRE STAR

RAVI CHANDRA WAS GOING to be a rich man.

It made his head spin to think about it. In the next few hours, he would earn more than he had managed in the last five years: a fantastic sum, paid in cash, right into his hands. It was the start of a new life. He would be able to buy his wife the clothes that she wanted, a car, a proper diamond ring to replace the band of cheap gold she had worn since they were married. He would take the boys, aged four and six, to Disneyland in California. And he would travel to London and see the Indian cricket team play at Lord’s, something he had dreamed about all his life but had never thought possible.

Until now.

He sat hunched up beside the window of the bus that was taking him to work, as he had done every day for as long as he could remember. It was devilishly hot. The fans had broken down once again and of course the company was in no hurry to replace them. Worse still, this was the end of June, the time of the year known in southern India as Agni Nakshatram—or “Fire Star.” The sun was unforgiving. It was almost impossible to breathe. The damp heat clung to you from morning until night and the whole city stank.

When he had money, he would move from this area. He would leave the cramped two-bedroom apartment in Mylapore, the busiest, most crowded part of the city, and go and live somewhere quieter and cooler with a little more space to stretch out. He would have a fridge full of beer and a big plasma TV. Really, it wasn’t so much to ask.

The bus was slowing down. Ravi had done this journey so many times that he would have known where they were with his eyes closed. They had left the city behind them. In the distance there were hills—steep and covered, every inch of them, with thick, green vegetation. But the area he was in now was more like a wasteland, with just a few palm trees sprouting among the rubble and electricity pylons closing in on all sides. His place of work was just ahead. In a moment, they would stop at the first security gate.

Ravi was an engineer. His identity badge with his photograph and his full name—Ravindra Manpreet Chandra—described him as a Plant Operator. He worked at the Jowada nuclear power station just three miles north of Chennai, the fourth largest city in India, formerly known as Madras.

He glanced up and there was the power station in front of him, a series of huge multicolored blocks securely locked inside miles and miles of wire. It sometimes occurred to him that wire defined Jowada.

There was razor wire and barbed wire, wire fences and telephone lines. And of course, the electricity that they manufactured was carried all over India by thousands more miles of wire. How strange to think that when someone turned on their TV in Pondicherry or their bedside light in Nellore, it had all begun here.

The bus stopped at the security point with its TV cameras and armed guards. Following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, nuclear power plants all over the world had become recognized as potential terrorist targets. New barriers had been added. Security forces had been enlarged. For a long time it had all been an incredible nuisance, with people ready to jump on you if you so much as sneezed. But it had been many years since 9/11. People had become lazy. Take old Suresh, for example, the guard at this outer checkpoint. He recognized everyone on the bus. He saw them at the same time every day: in at half past seven, out at half past five. Occasionally, he’d bump into them while strolling past the shops on Rannganatha Street. He even knew their wives and girlfriends. It wouldn’t have occurred to him to ask for ID or to check what they were carrying into Jowada. He waved the bus through.

Two minutes later, Ravi got out. He was a short, skinny man with bad skin and a mustache that sat uncomfortably on his upper lip. He was already wearing overalls and protective steel-capped shoes. He was carrying a heavy toolbox. Nobody asked him why he had taken it home with him when normally he would have left it in his locker; nobody had cared. It was quite possible that he’d had to fix something in the apartment where he lived. Maybe he’d been moonlighting, carrying a few jobs out for the neighbors for a few extra rupees.

The bus had come to a final halt beside a brick wall with a door that, like every door at Jowada, was made of solid steel, designed to hold back smoke, fire, or even a direct missile strike. Another guard and more television cameras watched as the passengers got out and went through. On the other side of the door, a blank, whitewashed corridor led to a locker room, which was one of the few places in the complex that wasn’t air-conditioned. Ravi opened his locker (there was a pinup of the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty stuck in the door) and took out a safety helmet, goggles, earplugs, and a fluorescent jacket. He also removed a bunch of keys. Nuclear power stations do not use swipe cards or electronic locks on the majority of their doors. This is another safety measure. Manual locks and keys will still operate in the event of a power failure.

Still clutching his toolbox, Ravi set off down another corridor. When he had first come here, he had been amazed how clean everything was—especially when he compared it to the street where he lived, which was full of rubbish and potholes filled with muddy water and droppings from the oxen that lumbered along, pulling wooden carts between the cars and the motorized rickshaws. He turned a corner and there was the next checkpoint, the final barrier he would have to pass through before he was actually in.

For the first time, he was nervous. He knew what he was carrying. He remembered what he was about to do. What would happen if he were stopped? He would go to prison, perhaps for the rest of his life.

He had heard stories about Chennai Central Jail, about inmates buried in tiny cells far underground and food so disgusting that some preferred to starve to death. But it was too late to back out now. If he hesitated or did anything suspicious, that was one sure way to get stopped.

He came to a massive turnstile with bars as thick as baseball bats. It allowed only one person in at a time, and then you had to shuffle through as if you were being processed, as if you were some sort of factory machine. There was also an X-ray scanner, a metal detector, and yet more guards.

“Hey—Ravi!”

“Ramesh, my friend. You see the cricket last night?”

“I saw it. What a game!”

Soccer, cricket, tennis . . . whatever. Sports were their currency. Every day, the plant operators passed it between them, and Ravi had deliberately watched Wimbledon the night before so that he could join in the conversation. Even in the cool of the corridor, he was sweating. He could feel the perspiration beading on his forehead and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. Surely someone would stop him and ask him why he was still holding on to his toolbox. Everyone knew the correct procedure. It should be opened and searched, all the contents taken out.

But it didn’t happen. A moment later, he was through. Nobody had so much as questioned him. It had gone just as he thought it would. Knew it would. Nobody had lifted off the top tray of the toolbox and discovered the twenty pounds of C4 plastic explosive concealed underneath.

Ravi walked away from the barrier and stopped in front of a row of shelves. He pulled out a small plastic device that looked like a pager. This was his EPD—or Electronic Personal Dosimeter. It would record his own radiation level and warn him if he came into contact with any radioactive material. It had already been set with his personal ID and security clearance. There were four levels of security at Jowada, each one allowing access to areas with different risks of contamination. Just for once, Ravi’s EPD had been set to the highest level. Today he was going to enter the heart of the power station, the reactor chamber itself.

This was where the deadly flame of Jowada burned. Sixty thousand uranium fuel rods, each one 3.85

meters long, bound together inside the pressure vessel that was the reactor itself. Every minute of the day and night, twenty thousand tons of fresh water were sent rushing through pipes both to cool the beast and to tame it. The resulting steam—two tons of it every second—powered the turbines. The turbines produced electricity. That was how it worked. In many ways it was very simple.

A nuclear reactor is at once the safest and the most dangerous place on the planet. An accident might have such nightmarish consequences that there can be no accident. The reactor chamber at Jowada was made out of steel-reinforced concrete. The walls were five feet thick. The great dome, stretching out over the whole thing, was the height and breadth of a major cathedral. In the event of a malfunction, the reactor could be turned off in seconds. And whatever happened in this room would be contained.

Nothing could be allowed to leak through to the outside world.

A thousand safeguards had been built into the construction and the running of Jowada. One man with a dream of watching cricket in London was about to blow them apart.

The approach had come six weeks before at the street corner closest to his apartment: two men, one a European, the other from Delhi. It turned out that the second man, the one from Delhi, was a friend of Ravi’s cousin Jagdish, who worked in the kitchen of a five-star hotel. Once they had recognized each other, it seemed only natural to go for tea and samosas . . . particularly as the European was paying.

“How much do they pay you at Jowada?” The European knew the answer without having to ask. “Only fifteen thousand rupees a month, yes? A child couldn’t live on that amount, and you have a wife and a family. These people! They cheat the honest worker. Maybe it’s time they were taught a lesson. . . .” Very quickly the conversation was steered the way the two men wanted it to go, and that first time, they’d left him with a gift, a fake Rolex watch. And why not? Jagdish had done them favors in the past, giving them free food that he had stolen from the kitchen. Now it was their turn to look after Ravi. The next time they met, a week later, it was an iPhone—the real thing. But the gifts were only a glimpse of all the riches that could be his if he would just agree to undertake a piece of business on their behalf. It was dangerous. A few people might be hurt. “But for you, my friend, it will mean a new life.

Everything you ever wanted can be yours. . . .”

Ravi Chandra entered the reactor chamber of the Jowada nuclear power station at exactly eight o’clock.

Four other engineers went in with him. They had to go in one at a time through an air lock—a white, circular corridor with an automatic sliding door at each end. In many ways it looked like something out of a space-ship, and its purpose was much the same. The exit wouldn’t open until the entrance had closed. It was all part of the need for total containment. The five men were dressed identically, with safety helmets and goggles. All of them were carrying toolboxes. For the rest of the day they would carry out a series of tasks, some of them as ordinary as oiling a valve or changing a lightbulb. Even the most advanced technology needs occasional maintenance.

As they emerged from the air lock into the reactor chamber, they seemed almost to vanish, so tiny were they in these vast surroundings, dwarfed by the gantries and walkways—bright yellow—overhead, by electric hoists and cables, soaring banks of machinery, fuel rod transportation canisters, generators. Arc lamps shone down from the edges of the dome, and in the middle of it all, surrounded by ladders and platforms, what looked like an empty swimming pool plunged twelve yards down, with stainless steel plates on all four sides. This was the reactor. Underneath a 150-ton steel cap, millions of uranium atoms were splitting again and again, producing unimaginable heat.

Four metal towers stood guard in the chamber. If they were shaped a little like rockets, they were rockets that would never fly. Each one was locked in its own steel cage and connected to the rest of the machinery by a network of massive pipes. These were the reactor coolant pumps, keeping the water rushing around on its vital journey. Inside each metal casing, a 50-ton motor was spinning at the rate of 1,500 revs per minute.

The pumps were labeled north, south, east, and west. The south pump was going to be Ravi’s primary target.

But first of all he crossed to the other side of the reactor chamber, to a door marked EMERGENCY

EXIT ONLY. The two men had explained everything very carefully to him. There was no point attacking the reactor cap. Nothing could penetrate it. Nor was there any point in sabotaging the reactor chamber, not while it was locked down. Any blast, any radiation leak would be contained. To achieve their aims, an exit had to be found. The power of the nuclear reactor had to be set free.

And there it was on the blueprint they had shown him. The emergency air lock was the Achilles’ heel in the fortification of Jowada. It should never have been built. There was no need for it and it had never been used. The idea of a passageway between the reactor chamber and the back of the turbine hall, where it opened onto a patch of wasteland close to the perimeter fence, was to reassure workers that there was a fast way out should one ever be needed. But what it also provided was a single pathway from the reactor to the outside world. It was, in one sense, the barrel of a gun. All it needed was to be unblocked.

Nobody noticed Ravi as he strolled over to the emergency door, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have remarked on it. Everyone had their own worksheet. They would assume he was just following his.

He opened the inner door—a solid metal plate—and let himself into the corridor. This was identical to the one he had used to enter, the same size and shape as a passageway in an underground train station—

only without the advertisements. About halfway along, there was a control panel fixed high up in the wall. Standing on tiptoe, Ravi unscrewed it, using one of the few real tools he had brought with him.

Inside, there was a complicated mass of circuitry, but he knew exactly what to do. He cut two wires, took one of them, and attached it to a third. It was quite easy, really. The exit door slid open in front of him, revealing a patch of blue sky on the other side of another wire fence. He felt the sluggish air roll in. Somewhere, perhaps in the control room, someone would notice what had happened. Even now a light might be blinking on one of the consoles. But it would take a while before anyone came to investigate and by then it would be too late.

Ravi went back into the reactor chamber and over to the nearest of the four reactor coolant pumps. This was the only way that wide-scale sabotage was possible. What he was aiming for was known in the nuclear industry as a LOCA—a Loss of Coolant Accident. It was a LOCA that had caused the catastrophe at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union and had almost done the same at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The pump was locked in its cage, but Ravi had the key. That was one of the reasons he had been chosen for this job. The right man in the right place.

He stopped in front of the cylindrical wall, which rose more than sixty feet into the air. He could hear the machinery inside. The noise was constant and deafening. His mouth was dry now, thinking about what he was about to do. Was he insane? Suppose they traced this back to him? But then his mind drifted to all that money, to his wife, to the life they could finally lead. His family was not in Chennai today. He had sent them to friends in Bangalore. They would be safe. He was doing this for them.

He had to do this for them.

For a few brief seconds greed and fear hung in the balance, and then the scale tipped. He knelt down and placed the toolbox against the metal casing, opened it and removed the top shelf. The inside was almost filled with the bulk of the plastic explosive, yet there was just enough room for a digital display showing ten minutes, a tangle of wires, and a switch.

Ten minutes. That would be more than enough time to leave the chamber before the bomb went off. If anyone questioned him, he would say he needed to use the toilet. He would exit the same way he had come in, and once he was on the other side of the air lock, he would be safe. After the blast, there would be panic, alarms, a well-rehearsed evacuation, radiation suits for everyone. He would simply join the crowds and make his way out. They would never be able to trace the bomb to him. There wouldn’t be any evidence at all.

People might die. People he knew. Could he really do this?

The switch was right there in front of him. So small. All he had to do was flick it and the countdown would begin.

Ravi Chandra took a deep breath. He reached out with a single finger. He pressed the switch.

It was the last thing he did in his life. The men from the street corner had lied to him. There was no ten-minute delay. When he activated the bomb, it went off immediately, almost vaporizing him. Ravi was dead so quickly that he never even knew that he had been betrayed, that his wife was now a widow and that his children would never meet Mickey Mouse. Nor did he see the effect of what he had done.

Exactly as planned, the bomb tore a hole in the side of the coolant pump, smashing the rotors. There was a hideous metallic grinding as the entire thing tore itself apart. One of the other plant operators—

the same man who had been chatting about cricket just a few minutes ago—was killed instantly, thrown off his feet and into the reactor pit. The other engineers in the chamber froze, their eyes filled with horror as they saw what was happening, then scattered, diving for cover. They were too late. There was another explosion and suddenly the air was filled with shrapnel, spinning fragments of metal and machinery that had been turned into vicious missiles. The two closest men were cut to pieces. The others turned to run for the air lock.

None of them made it. Alarms were already sounding, lights flashing, and as the machinery disintegrated, it seemed that everything in the chamber had been slowed down, turned into a black-andred hell. A cable whipped down, trailing sparks. There were three more explosions, pipes wrenching themselves free, fireballs spinning outward, and then a roar as burning steam came rushing out like an express train, filling the chamber. The worst had happened. Jagged knives of broken metal had smashed open the pipes, and although the reactor was already closing down, there were still several tons of radioactive steam with nowhere to go. One man was caught in the full blast and disappeared with a single hideous scream.

The steam thundered out, filling the entire chamber. Normally, the walls and the dome would have contained it. But Ravi Chandra, in almost the last act of his life, had opened the emergency air lock.

Like some alien stampede, the steam found it and rushed through, out into the open air. All over the Jowada power station, systems were being shut down, corridors emptied, safety measures put into place.

But it was already too late.

The people of Chennai saw a huge plume of white smoke rise up into the air. They heard the alarms.

Already, workers at Jowada were calling their relatives in the city, warning them to get out. The panic began at once. More than a million men, women, and children dropped what they were doing and tried to find a way through traffic that had come to a complete standstill. Fights broke out. There were collisions and smashups at a dozen different junctions and traffic lights. But it had all happened too quickly, and not a single person would have actually made it out of the city before the radioactive cloud, blown by a southerly wind, fell onto them.

The story appeared that night on television news all around the world.

It was estimated that at least a hundred people died in the one hour following the explosion. Of course, there had been casualties within the Jowada power station itself, but far more people were killed in the madness to get out of Chennai. By the following morning, the newspaper headlines were calling it “A NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE”—in capital letters, of course. The Indian authorities were adamant that the steam cloud would have contained only low-level radiation and that there was no need for panic, but there were just as many experts who disagreed.

Twenty-four hours later, an appeal was made to help the people of Chennai. Further casualties were being reported. Homes and shops had been looted. There were still riots in the streets and the army had been called in to restore order. The hospitals were full of desperate people. One British charity—it called itself First Aid—came forward with a comprehensive plan to distribute food, blankets, and, most important of all, potassium iodate tablets for every one of the eight million people of Chennai to counter possible radiation sickness.

As always, the world’s people were unfailing in their generosity, and by the end of the week First Aid had raised over two million dollars.

Of course, if the disaster had been any greater, they would have raised much, much more.

2

REFLECTIONS IN A MIRROR

ALEX RIDER TOOK ONE last glance in the mirror, then stopped and looked a second time. It was strange, but he wondered if he recognized the boy who was looking back. There were the thin lips, the slightly chiseled nose and chin, the light brown hair hanging in two strands over the very dark brown eyes. He raised a hand and, obediently, his reflection did the same. But there was something different about this other Alex Rider. It wasn’t quite him.

Of course, the clothes he was wearing didn’t help. In a few minutes, he would be leaving for a New Year’s Eve party being held at a castle on the banks of Loch Arkaig in the Highlands of Scotland—and the invitation had been clear. Dress: black tie. Reluctantly, Alex had gone out and rented the entire outfit . . . dinner jacket, black trousers, and a white shirt with a wing collar that was too tight and squeezed his neck. The one thing he had refused to do was put on the polished leather shoes that the shopkeeper had insisted would make the outfit complete. Black sneakers would have to do. What did it all make him look like? he wondered as he straightened the bow tie for the tenth time. A young James Bond. He hated the comparison, but he couldn’t avoid it.

It wasn’t just the clothes. As Alex continued his examination, he had to admit that so much had happened in the last year that he’d almost lost track of who—and what—he was. Standing in front of the mirror, it was as if he had just stepped down from the merry-go-round that his life had become. He might be still, but the world around him was spinning.

Just two months ago, he had been in Australia . . . not on vacation, not visiting relatives, but, incredibly, working for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, disguised as an Afghan refugee. He had been sent to infiltrate the people-smuggling gang known as the snakehead, yet his mission had taken him much further than that, setting him against Major Winston Yu and the potential devastation of a huge bomb buried deep beneath a fault line in the earth’s crust. It had also brought him face-to-face with his godfather, the man he had known only as Ash. Thinking about him now, Alex saw something spark in his eyes. Was it anger? Grief? Alex had never known his parents, and he’d thought Ash would somehow be able to explain where he’d come from, to make sense of his past. But his godfather had done nothing of the sort, and their meeting had led only to betrayal and death.

And that was really it, wasn’t it? That was what the boy in the mirror was trying to tell him. He was still only fourteen years old, but the last year—a year whose end they were about to celebrate—had almost destroyed him. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel Major Yu’s walking stick smashing into the side of his head, the crushing weight of the water under the Bora Falls, the punishment he had taken in the Thai boxing ring in Bangkok. And those were just the most recent in a string of injuries. How many times had he been punched, kicked, beaten, knocked out? And shot. His wounds might have healed, but he would still be reminded of them every time he undressed for bed. The scar left by the .22

bullet fired into his chest by a sniper on a rooftop on Liverpool Street would always be with him. Along with the memory of pain. They say that never leaves you either.

Had it changed him? Of course it had. Nobody could come through what he had and stay the same. And yet . . .

“Alex! Stop admiring yourself in the mirror and get downstairs.” It was Sabina. Alex turned and saw her standing in the doorway, wearing a silver dress with lots of glitter around the collar. Her dark hair—

she had grown it long—was tied back. Unusually for her, she was wearing makeup: pale blue eye shadow and pink, glossy lipstick. “Dad’s waiting. We’re about to leave.”

“I’ll just be one minute.”

Alex twisted the bow tie again, wondering what he had to do to stop the darn thing from going crooked.

He looked ridiculous. Nobody under the age of fifty should have to dress like this. But at least he’d been able to resist Sabina’s suggestion that he should go to the party dressed in a kilt. She’d been teasing him about it since Christmas.

Despite everything, the last six weeks had been fantastic for Alex Rider. First of all, Sabina and her parents had unexpectedly arrived in England. Edward Pleasure was a journalist. He had almost been killed once, investigating the pop singer Damian Cray. Alex had blamed himself for that, and when, at the end of it all, Sabina had left for America, he had been certain he would never see her again. But now she was back in his life, and although she was a year older than him, the two had never been closer. It helped perhaps that she was one of the few people who knew about his involvement with MI6.

Better still, the Pleasures had invited Alex to join them for the New Year at the house they had rented in the West Highlands of Scotland. Hawk’s Lodge was a Victorian pile that had been named after an obscure poet rather than the bird. It stood, three stories high, on the edge of woodland with Ben Nevis in the background. It was the sort of house that needed roaring log fires, hot chocolate, old-fashioned board games, and too much to eat. Liz Pleasure, Sabina’s mother, had supplied all of this and more from the moment they had arrived. In the past few days, the four of them had gone hiking and fishing.

They had visited ruined castles and isolated villages and strolled along the famous white sands of Morar. Sabina had hoped it might snow—there was good skiing over at Avi emore and she had brought her gear with her—but although it was freezing outside, so far the weather had only managed a few flurries. There was no television in the house, and Edward had banned Sabina from bringing her Nintendo DS, so they had spent the evenings playing Scrabble or Perudo, the Peruvian game of liar dice, which Alex nearly always won. If there was one thing he had learned in his life, it was certainly how to lie.

Meanwhile, Jack Starbright, Alex’s housekeeper and in some ways still his closest friend, was in Washington, D.C. She had been invited to Scotland too, but had decided to go home for New Year with her parents. Following her out of the house, it had crossed Alex’s mind that one day she would go back to America for good. All her friends and family were there. He wondered what would happen to him if she did. She had looked after him since his uncle had died, and as far as he knew, there was nobody to take her place.

As if reading his thoughts, she had given him a hug while the taxi driver loaded up her suitcases.

“Don’t worry, Alex. I’ll see you in ten days. Just try and have a good time in Scotland. See if you can get past New Year without getting into trouble. Don’t forget, school starts on the sixth.” And that was another reason to be cheerful. Alex had managed to complete an entire half term at Brookland without getting kidnapped, shot at, or recruited by one of the world’s security agencies. He had begun to feel like an ordinary schoolboy again, getting told off for talking in class, sweating over his homework, listening for the bell that meant the end of day.

He took one last look in the mirror. Jack was right. Forget all this spy stuff. He’d had enough of all that.

He was leaving it behind.

He went down two flights of stairs to the hall with its wood panels and rather gloomy paintings of Scottish wildlife. Edward Pleasure was waiting with Sabina. It seemed to Alex that the journalist had grown quite a lot older since they had last met. There were definitely more lines in his face, he now wore glasses all the time, and he had lost a lot of weight. He also limped, supporting himself with a heavy walking stick, metal tipped and with a metal handle shaped like a duck’s head. His wife had bought it for him in an antiques shop in London. She had joked that if any of the people he wrote about ever tried to attack him, at least he’d have something he could use to defend himself.

The journalist had put on his own black tie for the evening, but Alex saw at once from his expression that something was wrong.

“What is it?” Alex asked Sabina.

“Mum’s not coming,” Sabina replied. She was looking glum. All her enthusiasm for the party had drained away.

“She says she’s not feeling up to it,” Edward explained. “It’s nothing serious. She’s just got a bit of the flu . . .”

“Then I think we should all stay,” Sabina said.

“That’s nonsense, Sabina. The three of you go and enjoy yourselves.” Liz Pleasure had appeared at one of the doorways. She was a pleasant, easygoing woman with long, straggly hair. She didn’t care how she looked and she liked to run a house without rules. Right now she was wearing a baggy jersey and jeans, holding a box of tissues. “I don’t much like parties anyway, and I’m certainly not going out in this weather.”

“But you don’t want to be here for New Year on your own.”

“I’m going to have a hot bath with some of that expensive oil your dad bought me for Christmas. Then I’m going to bed. I’ll be asleep long before midnight.” She went over to Sabina and put her arm around her. “Honestly, Sab, it doesn’t bother me. We can celebrate New Year tomorrow and you can tell me what I missed.”

“I don’t even want to go to this stupid party!”

“That’s not true. You love parties. And you look terrific . . . both of you.”

“But Mum . . .”

“You have to go. Your dad’s got the tickets and they cost a fortune.” She beamed at Alex. “You look after her, Alex. And remember: This is a party in a real Scottish castle. I’m sure you’re going to have a fantastic time.”

There was no point in any further argument, and twenty minutes later, Alex found himself being driven along the twisting roads that led north to Loch Arkaig. The weather had turned worse. The snow that Sabina had been hoping for was falling more heavily, swirling in front of the headlights as they cut through the night. Edward Pleasure was driving a Nissan X-Trail that he had rented at Inverness Airport. Alex was glad he had chosen a four-by-four. The snow was already settling. Any thicker and they would need the extra traction.

Sabina was stretched out in the back, untangling her iPod. Alex was in the front. It was the first time he had been alone with Edward Pleasure since the south of France, and he felt a little uncomfortable. The journalist must have known about his involvement with MI6. Sabina would have told him everything that had happened. But the two of them had never discussed it, as if it was somehow impolite.

“It’s good to have you with us, Alex,” Edward muttered. He was deliberately keeping his voice down so that Sabina, plugged into Coldplay, wouldn’t hear. “I know Sab was really glad you could tag along.”

“I’ve had a great time,” Alex said. He thought for a moment, then added, “I’m not sure about tonight, though.”

Edward smiled. “We don’t have to stay too long if you don’t want to. But what Liz said was right.

Nobody celebrates New Year like the Scottish. And Kilmore Castle is quite a place. Dates back to the thirteenth century. It was torn down in the Jacobite rising and stayed more or less in ruins until it was bought by Desmond McCain.”

“Isn’t he the man you’re writing about?”

“That’s right. He’s the main reason we’re going. The Reverend Desmond McCain.” Edward reached down and flicked a switch, blowing hot air over the window. The windshield wipers were doing their best, but snow was still sticking to the glass. It was warm and cozy inside the car, in marked contrast with the world outside. “He’s an interesting man, Alex. Do you want to hear about him?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, you’ve probably read a bit about him in the papers. He was brought up in an orphanage in east London. No parents. No family. Nothing. He’d been abandoned in a shopping cart, wrapped in a plastic bag . . . McCain Frozen Fries. That’s how he got his name. He was fostered by a couple in Hackney, and from that moment things started going better for him. He did well at school . . . particularly at sports. By the time he was eighteen, he had become a famous boxer. He won the WBO world middleweight title twice, and everyone thought he’d make it a hat trick before he got knocked out in the first round by Buddy Sangster in Madison Square Garden in 1983.”

“What happened to Buddy Sangster?” Alex asked. He’d heard the name somewhere before.

“It’s funny you should ask. He died a year later. He fell under a train in the New York subway. They showed his funeral on TV. One of his fans even sent a hundred black tulips to the funeral. I remember hearing that . . .” Edward shook his head. “Anyway, Desmond McCain wasn’t boxing anymore. His jaw had been smashed up pretty badly. He went to some plastic surgeon in Las Vegas, but it was a botch job and it never healed properly. To this day he eats only soft food. He can’t chew. But it wasn’t the end of his career. He went into business . . . property development, and he was very good at it.

There were a dozen tenants in Rotherhithe, down on the River Thames, and somehow he persuaded them to sell cheaply to him, and then he knocked down their houses and put up a bunch of skyscrapers and made a fortune.

“That was about the time that he became interested in politics. He’d given thousands of dollars to the Conservative party, and suddenly he announced he wanted to be a member of Parliament. Of course, they welcomed him with open arms. He was rich, he was successful—and he was black. That was part of it too. And the next thing you know, he managed to get himself elected in a corner of London that hadn’t voted Conservative since the nineteenth century, and even then it had only been by mistake.

People liked him. It was the typical rags-to-riches story . . . you could say plastic bag to riches in his case. He got a big majority, and a year later he was a minister in the department of sport. There was even talk that he could become our first black prime minister.”

“So what went wrong?”

Edward sighed. “Everything! It turned out that his business hadn’t been going as well as people thought. One or two of his developments had fallen behind schedule, and he had huge financial problems. The bank was closing in and it looked as if he might go bankrupt . . . and of course you’re not allowed to be a member of Parliament if that happens. Too unsightly for their taste. God knows what he was thinking, but he decided to set fire to one of his properties and claim the insurance. That was his way out of the mess. Well, the property in question was a twenty-four-story office building overlooking St. Paul’s, and one night it simply burned to the ground. The next day, McCain put in a claim for fifty million dollars. Problem solved.”

They came to a sharp bend in the road and Edward Pleasure slowed down. By now the whole road was snow covered, with dark pine trees looming up on both sides.

“At least that’s what he thought,” he went on. “Unfortunately for him, the insurance company smelled a rat. They started asking questions. Like, for example, why had the alarms been switched off? Why had the security staff been given the night off? There was a lot of gossip in the press—and then, suddenly, a witness turned up. It turned out there’d been a homeless person sleeping in the underground garage. He’d actually been there when McCain drove in with six gallons of gasoline and a cigarette lighter. He’d been lucky to get away alive. Anyway, McCain was arrested. There was a fairly sensational trial. He was sent to prison for nine years.”

Alex had listened to all this in silence. “You called him Reverend McCain,” he said.

“Well, that’s the strange thing. In a way, McCain’s whole life had been bizarre—but while he was in jail, he converted to Christianity. He did a correspondence course and became a priest in some church no one’s ever heard of. And when he got out—that was five years ago—he didn’t go back into business or politics. He said he’d spent his whole life being selfish and that he wanted to put all that behind him.

Instead, he set up a charity. First Aid. That’s what it’s called. It provides a rapid response to emergencies all over the world.”

“How much farther?” Sabina’s voice came from the backseat. She was still plugged into her earphones.

Edward Pleasure held up a hand and opened it twice, signaling ten minutes.

“You interviewed him,” Alex said.

“Yes. I’ve done a big piece for Vanity Fair. They’ll be publishing it next month.”

“And?”

“You’ll meet him tonight, Alex, and you can see for yourself. He’s got an enormous amount of energy and he’s channeled it into helping people less fortunate than himself. He’s raised millions for famine relief in Africa, bush fires in Australia, floods in Malaysia . . . even that accident in southern India.

Jowada . . .”

Alex nodded. He’d read about it when he’d been working as a ball boy at Wimbledon. It had made the front pages. “The nuclear reactor . . . ,” he said.

Edward nodded. “For a time it looked as if the whole city of Chennai could have been affected.

Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as that, but a lot of people were killed in the panic. First Aid was up and running the very next day, getting antiradiation stuff to the women and kids, helping with supplies . . .

that sort of thing. Nobody was quite sure how they got off the mark so quickly, but that’s how they work. Instant response. Their aim is to be the first charity in.”

“And you really think this man, McCain, is genuine? That he’s turned a new leaf?”

“You mean . . . do I think he’s another Damian Cray?” Edward smiled briefly. It had been his article exposing Cray as a maniac that had almost got him killed. “Well, I did have my doubts when I first met him. I mean, even if he wasn’t a crook, he was a politician, which didn’t exactly recommend him. But you don’t need to worry, Alex. I did plenty of research into his charity. I interviewed him and a lot of people who know him. I spoke to the police and I opened many old files. The truth is, other than his past, I couldn’t find anything bad to write about him. He really does seem to be a rich man who made a bad mistake and who’s trying to make up for it.”

“How has he managed to buy a castle? If he went bankrupt . . .”

“That’s a good question. After he went to prison, he lost all his money . . . everything. But he had powerful friends—both in business and in politics—and they did what they could to help him out.

Thanks to them, he managed to hang on to Kilmore Castle. He also has a London apartment, and he’s the part owner of a safari camp somewhere in Kenya.” A car suddenly appeared in the road beside them, overtaking. Edward slowed down to let it pass. He watched as it was swallowed up by the whirling snow. “I’ll be interested to hear what you think of McCain,” he muttered.

“Is that why you’re going?”

“When I met him, I mentioned I was planning to be in Scotland for the New Year, and he invited me.

He gave me the tickets, which is just as well, since they cost one thousand dollars each.” Alex let out a low whistle.

“Well, it’s for charity. All the profits will go to First Aid. There’ll be a lot of rich people there tonight.

They’ll raise a fortune.”

There was another brief silence. The road had begun to climb steeply uphill, and Edward shifted down a gear.

“We never really talked about Damian Cray,” Edward muttered.

Alex twisted in his seat. “There’s nothing to say.”

“My book about him sold a million copies. But I never mentioned you, or your part in what happened.”

“I prefer it that way.”

“You saved Sabina’s life.”

“She saved mine.”

“Can I give you some advice, Alex?” Edward Pleasure had to keep his eyes on the road, yet just for a moment he turned them on Alex. “Stay away from all that. MI6, intelligence, all the rest of it. I’ve got a good idea what’s been going on over the past year. Sabina’s told me some of it, but I have contacts in the CIA and I hear things. I don’t want to know what you’ve been through, but believe me, you’re better off out of it.”

“Don’t worry.” Alex remembered what he’d been thinking back at Hawk’s Lodge. “I don’t think MI6

are interested in me anymore. They didn’t even send me a Christmas card. That part of my life is over.

And I’m glad.”

The road was even steeper now, and the trees had fallen away on one side to reveal an expanse of black water, Loch Arkaig, stretching out below. It was still snowing, but the flakes didn’t seem to be making contact with the half-frozen surface, as if the two were somehow canceling each other out. The loch was said to have its own monster—a giant water horse—and looking down, Alex could well believe it.

Loch Arkaig had been left behind by the glaciers. Twelve miles long and in places three hundred feet deep, who could say what secrets it had managed to keep to itself for the past five million years?

And there was Kilmore Castle looming up above him, almost invisible behind the sweeping snow. It had been built on a rocky outcrop, above the loch, completely dominating the surrounding landscape, a massive pile of gray stone with towers and battlements, narrow, slit-like windows, soaring archways, and solid, unwelcoming doors. There was nothing about the place that could have been built for comfort. It existed only to rule and to keep those inside it in power. It was hard to imagine how it had ever fallen or, for that matter, how it had been built. Even the Nissan X-Trail, with its 2.5-liter four-cylinder turbo diesel engine, seemed to be struggling as it negotiated the series of tight hairpin bends that were the only way up. Had soldiers once come here on horseback? What medieval weapons could possibly have penetrated these massive walls?

They were in a line of traffic now with other partygo ers, just visible behind the frosted windows of their cars. The last bend brought them to a wide-open space that had been converted into a parking lot with attendants in Day-Glo jackets frantically signaling where to go. Two fiery torches had been placed on either side of the main entrance, the flames fighting the snow. Men and women in heavy coats, their faces lost behind scarves, were hurrying across the gravel and bundling themselves in. There was something almost nightmarish about the scene. It didn’t look like a party. These people could have been refugees running for their lives from some freak act of nature. All the while dressed to kill.

Edward Pleasure parked the car and Sabina took off her iPod.

“We don’t have to stay until midnight,” Edward told her. “If you want to leave earlier, just let me know.”

“I wish Mum had come,” Sabina muttered.

“Me too. But let’s try and enjoy ourselves.”

They got out of the car, and after the warmth of the interior, Alex was immediately hit by the deep chill of the night, the snow dancing in his eyes, the wind rushing through his hair. He had no coat and ran forward, hugging himself, using his shoulders to battle through the elements. It was as if the very worst of the winter had somehow been concentrated on this rocky platform, high above the loch. The flames of the fiery torches writhed and twisted. Somebody shouted something, but the words were snatched away.

And then they had reached the archway and passed through into an inner courtyard, where at least the wind couldn’t penetrate. Alex found himself in an irregularly shaped space with high walls, cannons, a lawn under two inches of snow, and a huge bonfire. About a dozen guests were crowding around, feeling the warmth, and laughing as they brushed snow off their sleeves. A second archway stood ahead of him, this one with carved eagles and an inscription in Gaelic, the letters glowing red and shimmering in the light of the fire.

“What’s that?” Sabina asked.

Edward shrugged, but next to him one of the other guests had overheard. “It’s the motto of the Kilmore clan,” he explained. “This was their ancestral home. They were here for three hundred years.”

“Do you know what it means?”

“Yes. ‘You cannot defeat your enemies until you know who they are.’ ” The guest pushed forward and disappeared into the castle.

Alex looked at the inscription for a moment. He wondered if in some way it wasn’t speaking to him.

Then he dismissed the thought. A New Year was about to begin and with it a new set of rules. There were no more enemies. That was what he had decided.

“Come on, Alex . . .”

Sabina grabbed his arm and together they went in.

3

CARDS BEFORE MIDNIGHT

ALEX HAD NEVER BEEN to a party like it.

The banqueting hall at Kilmore Castle was huge, but even so, it was jammed with people: five or six hundred of them had been invited and this wasn’t an invitation anyone was going to turn down, even if it came with a thousand-dollar price tag. Within minutes, Alex had recognized half a dozen TV

celebrities and soap stars, a clutch of politicians, two celebrity chefs, and a pop star. The men were in black tie or kilts. The women had fought to outdo each other with yards of silk and velvet, plunging necklines, and a dazzling assortment of diamonds and jewels.

A whole army of waiters in full Scottish dress were fighting their way through the crowd carrying trays of vintage champagne while a trio of bagpipe players performed on a gallery above. There were no electric lights. More than a hundred candles flickered in two massive chandeliers. Torches blazed from iron braziers mounted in the walls. The center of the room was dominated by a massive stone fireplace with flames leaping up the chimney and throwing red shadows across the flagstone floor.

The Kilmores hadn’t lived at the castle for centuries, but they were certainly there tonight. Life-size portraits hung on the walls . . . grim-looking men with swords and shields, proud-eyed women in tartan and bonnets. Suits of armor had been placed in many of the alcoves, and crossed swords stood guard over every archway and door. The animals they had killed—stags, foxes, wild boar—looked down on the scene with their disembodied heads and glass eyes. Coats of arms dotted the walls, the fireplace, even the windows.

Desmond McCain must have spent a fortune on the party, ensuring that at the very least his guests would get value for their money. A buffet table reached from one end of the hall to the other, piled high with great slabs of beef and salads, whole salmon, venison, and—on a giant silver platter—a roast suckling pig complete with angry eyes and an apple in its mouth. There were dozens of different wines and spirits, punch bowls, and as many as fifty brands of malt whisky in bottles of various shapes. One archway led to a dance floor, another to a fully equipped casino with roulette, blackjack, and poker.

Somehow, McCain had managed to park a brand-new Mini Convertible in the hallway. It was the first prize in a raffle that also included a Kawasaki 260X Jet Ski and a two-week Caribbean cruise—all of them had been given free to First Aid by wealthy sponsors.

Outside, the snow was still falling. The wind was cutting through the night like a scalpel. But all that was forgotten as, inside, the guests enjoyed the warmth of each other’s company and the spirit of the celebration as the minutes ticked down to the New Year.

And yet, despite all this, Alex and Sabina felt out of place. Not many other teenagers had been invited, and the ones they met all lived locally, seemed to be at least six feet tall, and clearly regarded them as outsiders. Alex and Sabina ate together, had a couple of sodas, and made their way to the dance floor—

but even here they didn’t feel comfortable, surrounded by adults twisting and swaying to music that hadn’t been popular in decades.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Sabina announced as the band lurched into an ABBA classic.

Alex knew what she meant. The center of the dance floor was dominated by three bald men in kilts, jabbing their fingers into the air to the tune of “Money, Money, Money.” He glanced at his watch. It was only ten past eleven. “I don’t think we can leave yet, Sabina,” he said.

“Have you seen my dad?”

“He was talking to one of the politicians.”

“Probably hoping to get a story. He never stops.”

“Come on, Sabina. Cheer up. This place is meant to be hundreds of years old. Let’s go and explore.” They pushed their way off the dance floor and headed down the nearest corridor. The stone walls twisted around, and the music and the noise of the party were cut off almost at once. Another corridor led off of it, this one decorated with tapestries and heavy gilt mirrors with glass blackened by age. At the end, they came to a staircase that led to one of the towers, and suddenly they found themselves outside, surrounded by a low brick wall, looking out into the white-spotted blackness that the night had become.

“That’s better,” Sabina said. “I was suffocating in there.”

“Are you cold?” Alex could see the snow falling gently onto her bare neck and shoulders.

“I’ll be all right for a minute.”

“Here.” He took off his jacket and handed it to her.

“Thanks.” She slipped it on. There was a pause. “I wish I didn’t have to go back to America,” she said.

The words jolted Alex. He had forgotten momentarily that she would be returning in a few days’ time.

She’d enrolled at a school in San Francisco, where the family was living, and it would be a while before they saw each other again. He’d miss her. The thought saddened him. He’d seen so much of Sabina over the Christmas break that he’d gotten used to having her around. “Maybe I could come over for the Easter holidays,” he said.

“Have you been to San Francisco?”

“Once. My uncle took me on a business trip. At least, that’s what he told me. He was probably working with the CIA, spying on someone or something.”

“Do you ever think about Damian Cray?”

“No.” Alex shook his head. The question seemed to have come out of nowhere. Alex glanced at Sabina and was surprised to see that she was looking at him with something close to anger in her eyes.

“I do. All the time. It was horrible. He was crazy. And the way he died! I’ll remember that for the rest of my life.”

Well, that made sense. Sabina had been there at the very end. In fact, she had been at least partly responsible for his sensational death.

“I thought you said you were going to stop all that,” she went on. “Playing at being a spy . . .”

“It was never my choice,” Alex replied. “And anyway, I’ve already told your dad. I’ve stopped. It’s not going to happen again.”

Sabina sighed. “San Francisco’s great,” she said. “Great shops. Great food. Great weather. But I miss England.” She paused. “I miss you.”

“I’ll come visit. I promise.”

“You’d better. . . .”

They had only been outside for a couple of minutes, but in this weather it was more than enough. Alex could see the flakes of snow in Sabina’s hair. “Let’s go downstairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah. Let’s find Dad and get out of here. I’ll go back to the main hall. You look in the other rooms. I want to get back to Mum, and if you ask me, this party sucks. All these men in kilts and not one of them with decent legs . . .”

She handed him back his jacket and the two of them made their way back down the twisting staircase, then split up, searching for Edward Pleasure. Alex watched Sabina hurry down the corridor, then went the other way, past more unsmiling portraits of long-dead ancestors. He wondered why anyone would want to live in a place like this. Maybe Desmond McCain needed somewhere to hide from the world.

When he wasn’t trying to save it.

He heard the murmur of voices, the clink of a glass, and a woman laughing. He had come to a set of double doors, opening into what must be the castle’s library, with shelves of leather-bound books that looked at least a hundred years old and which were surely never read. He saw at once that the library had been converted into a casino, with card tables, a spinning roulette wheel, and croupiers in white shirts, waistcoats, and bow ties. As he walked in, the roulette ball tumbled into its slot with a loud clunk, the audience laughed and applauded, and the croupier called out “Eighteen, red, even . . .” and began to sort out the bets. There were almost a hundred people playing the different games, most of them holding drinks and one or two of them puffing at cigars. This must be the only room in the castle where smoking was allowed; a cloud of smoke hung in the air.

Alex didn’t even notice himself entering the room, so spellbound was he. He looked briefly at the cards sliding across the green baize, the fresh bets stacking up in front of the roulette wheel, the men and women, some standing, some sitting, leaning forward, their faces flushed with excitement. The main focus of attention seemed to be at the far end of the room. There was a game in progress with six players—but one of them had just lost. Alex saw him throw his cards down with disgust and get up, leaving an empty chair. At the same time the winning player laughed a deep, rich sound that warmed the room.

Desmond McCain. It had to be him. Alex would have known it even if he hadn’t been the only black man in the room. McCain was lolling back in his chair in front of a great window that had the effect of framing him, putting him at the center of the picture. Almost despite himself, Alex moved forward to get a closer look. He had been thinking about McCain only a few minutes ago. It couldn’t hurt to see what the laird of Kilmore Castle was really like.

McCain was gathering up his cards, which almost disappeared in his oversized hands. He was a huge man with an extraordinary presence that somehow drew Alex to him. He was completely bald, with a round, polished head that had surely never seen a single hair. His eyes were a strange shade of gray—

they were dark yet alight with electricity—and his smile was quite simply dazzling. Like everyone else, he was dressed in black tie, but unlike so many of the others, he looked completely comfortable, as if he always dressed this way.

He picked up a glass of whisky, which he drank as if it were a cocktail, using a straw at the side of his mouth, and Alex remembered what Edward Pleasure had told him about the boxing injury. It was true.

The man he was looking at had received a blow that had permanently dislocated his jaw. Worse than that, it had been put back together in such a way that it no longer fit properly. It was as if someone had taken a photograph of his head, cut it horizontally in half, and then reattached the two pieces a few millimeters apart. His eyes and nose were no longer exactly over his mouth.

And there was something else. McCain said something, turned his head, and laughed a second time.

That was when Alex saw it. He was wearing a silver crucifix, not around his neck but on his ear. It was less than a centimeter high, pinned into the lobe. The jewelry was quite striking set against the intense, dark skin. This was a man who wore his faith openly, who dared you to argue against it.

Alex drew closer. The six of them had been playing a version of poker—Texas Hold ’Em—in which five cards turned faceup are used by everyone at the table. And the stakes couldn’t have been higher.

Alex saw this at once from the number of different-colored chips spilling over the table—each one marked $50, $100, even $500. Each chip had been bought at its face value. The casino was using real money. Alex could feel the tension in the air. A scattering of cards, a few minutes’ playing time, and thousands of dollars could be changing hands. At the moment, McCain was clearly in the lead.

There was a whole mountain of chips stacked up in front of him, and only one of the players—a man with a shock of silver hair and a thick, fleshy face—came anywhere close.

McCain looked up and noticed Alex. At once the smile was there, drawing him in, making him feel that the two of them had known each other for years.

“Good evening,” he boomed. “Welcome to the Kilmore Casino. You’re frankly a little young to be gambling, I’d have said. What’s your name?”

“Alex. Alex Rider.”

“And I’m Desmond McCain. We’re just about to play the last hand. Why don’t you join us? It’s all for a good cause, so I think we can turn a blind eye to the age limit.” He gestured at the seat that had just been vacated. Alex could already hear that his broken jaw made it difficult for him to speak. Words beginning with f or r came out slightly blurred. “The cards have been quite interesting this evening.

Let’s see if they have anything more to say before midnight.” Alex knew he was making a mistake. He was meant to be looking for Edward Pleasure. He had agreed with Sabina. They were going to leave. But it was almost as if McCain had challenged him. If he walked away now, he would look like some little kid who was out of his depth. McCain had won the last hand and was neatly stacking up all the chips, including those of the man who had just left. Alex took his chair and sat down.

“Good!” McCain beamed at him. “Do you know the rules of Texas Hold ’Em?” Alex nodded.

“We’re taking this very seriously. It costs five hundred dollars to join the table—that money goes straight to First Aid—and minimum bets are fifty dollars. Have you brought your pocket money with you?”

A couple of the other players laughed. Alex ignored them. “I didn’t bring any money at all,” he said.

“Then we’ll waive the entrance fee and I’ll stake you. This is the last hand of the evening, so one thousand dollars ought to be enough.” He slid the chips over. “It makes it more fun with more people.

And you never know. You could win enough to buy yourself a new PlayStation!” With Alex making up the numbers, there would be six players at the table: three men, two women, and him. McCain was at one end with a dark-haired woman—Alex vaguely recognized her as a television reporter—at his side. Then came an elderly man who could have been a retired soldier, sitting rigidly with a straight back and a face fixed in concentration. The silver-haired man came next. He reminded Alex of an accountant or a banker. The circle was completed by a Scottish woman with ginger hair, sipping champagne even though it was clear she’d already had more than enough.

The croupier shuffled the deck and each player was dealt two cards, facedown. These were known as the “hole cards.” Alex had learned the basics of the game, playing with Ian Rider and Jack Starbright at an age when other children were probably reading Dick and Jane. Texas Hold ’Em is largely a game of bluff. You try to make pairs, three of a kind, a full house, and so on. But everything depends on your hidden cards. They may be great. They may be terrible. The secret is to make sure no one guesses either way.

Alex watched as McCain raised the corners of his cards with a thumb and smiled, not even attempting to conceal his pleasure. Of course, it was possible that he was bluffing, but Alex got the sense that this wasn’t a man who was too clever when it came to hiding his emotions. He must have something good under there . . . high cards or a pair. Alex examined his own cards. There was nothing to get excited about, but he kept his own face blank.

“Come on, then,” McCain said.

The croupier was a pale, serious-looking man in his late twenties. He looked uncomfortable having a teenager in the game, but dealt three more cards—“the flop”—faceup on the table. All six players would use these cards to try to create the best hand possible. The first one out was the jack of diamonds, a face card. Then came the seven of hearts. The third card drew a slight murmur from the people gathered around. It was the ace of spades. This was going to be an expensive game.

The betting began.

Alex looked at all the money he had been given, thinking there must be better ways to spend a thousand dollars. McCain started the bidding with two hundred dollars, and the reporter folded at once.

“There’s no point playing against you, Desmond,” she said. She had a thick Scottish accent. “You always win.”

“‘We are all running in the race,’” McCain said. “‘But only one receives the prize.’” He laughed briefly. “That’s Corinthians, chapter nine, verse twenty-four.” He turned to the soldier. “Are you in, Hamilton?”

Hamilton also folded. The accountant, Alex, and the ginger-haired woman all slid their $100 chips in front of them.

Two more cards. Two more bets. By the time the last card had been dealt, this was what Alex was looking at, spread out on the green baize surface:

There were just three players remaining. The other woman had folded, leaving Alex, the accountant, and McCain to fight it out. The fact that the ace of spades had now been joined by a pair of jacks sitting faceup on the table made this an even more extraordinary game. McCain had asked if the cards had anything to say, and it seemed that they were screaming. If this had been a real casino, the betting might have climbed to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even so, it was going to get expensive. Alex had just $700 left, yet the accountant had almost as much as McCain. And, even with such high sums, it was obvious that there was more to this than money. McCain was still relaxed, still smiling—yet he really wanted to win the game. It was his party, his castle, his evening. It was a matter of personal pride.

And the other people in the room had sensed it too. Alex realized that the roulette wheel had stopped spinning. Everyone had gathered around the table to watch this strange contest—two men, a boy, and five white rectangles that, combined with the turned-down cards, could mean so much or so little.

“Interesting cards,” McCain muttered. “If either of you have another ace, you’ll have two pairs. You could win the entire pot . . .”

Why had he said that, Alex wondered. The odds of two pairs at poker are not huge. Why even mention it? Was he perhaps challenging them? Or could it be that he was trying to divert their attention?

Suppose he had three of a kind . . .

“I’ll tell you what,” McCain went on with a fast check of his watch. “It’s the last game of the evening, so why don’t we have a bit of fun?”

McCain lifted his hands theatrically, touched the two thumb tips together, then laid his palms flat on the table. There was a stir from the audience as he used the wedge to slide all his chips forward, the piles collapsing on top of one another as at least fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of chips were spread across the table. One or two people clapped. Everyone knew what was happening here. It was all or nothing.

This was one of those games that any serious gambler would remember for the rest of his life.

“I’m going to make it easy for you,” McCain said. He ran a hand across his jaw as if he were trying to smooth it back into place. “I know the two of you don’t have enough money to match my bet, but I’m feeling charitable.” He smiled at his own joke. “Put all your money in and we’ll call it even.” The accountant drummed his fingers on the table. “Are you trying to pretend you’ve got the third jack, Desmond?” he asked. He had a clipped, nasal way of speaking. His eyes were small and almost colorless; Alex watched them dart from McCain to the cards on the table and somehow knew that he was about to make a mistake. “I think you’re bluffing,” he went on. “You’re just trying to scare us away. Well, it’s not going to work.” He slid his own pile into the center, the plastic chips mingling with McCain’s. He’d added about ten thousand dollars of his own.

Twenty-five thousand dollars! Any thought of charity had suddenly disappeared. It was a fantastic sum of money to be determined by the turn of two cards.

Alex glanced at his own pile of chips. It looked pathetic in comparison with the others, but he assumed McCain’s invitation extended to him. “I’m in,” he said.

“All right, Leo!” McCain nodded at the accountant. “Let’s see what you’ve got.” The accountant flicked over his two cards. There was a mutter of approval from the spectators. He did indeed have another ace—the ace of diamonds—plus a two of spades. Adding them to the faceup cards gave him two pairs—aces and jacks—a very good hand. McCain really would need three of a kind to do better.

It should have been Alex’s turn to show his cards next, yet McCain ignored him. “Too bad, Leo!” he crowed. “‘God hath delivered you into my hand’—as it says in the first book of Samuel, chapter twenty-three.” The silver crucifix glimmered briefly as he leaned forward and picked up his cards. He paused for a moment, then turned them over, one at a time. The first card was the jack of clubs. Three of a kind. It beat Leo easily. But then came the real triumph. He turned over the second card to reveal the other black jack—the jack of spades. The audience exploded. The odds of getting four of a kind in Texas Hold ’Em are 4,165 to 1. It was incredible luck. It was almost miraculous.

Now Alex understood why McCain had talked about two pairs. He had actually been underselling himself to draw the other players in. And the tactic, at least in part, had worked.

“I have the knaves and that makes it my evening,” McCain roared. His eyes were bright with pleasure.

He leaned forward and began to sweep all the chips toward him.

“What about my cards?” Alex said quietly.

“Your cards?” McCain blinked. He had forgotten Alex was even there. He glanced down at the table as if to reassure himself. Nothing could beat four jacks, not with only one ace showing on the table . . .

could it? He relaxed. “Do forgive me, Alex,” he said. “I should have let you show your cards first. But everyone here would love to see them. What have you got?”

Alex waited a moment. He was aware that everyone was watching him. But for some reason he wanted McCain to remember this. Maybe it was just that he didn’t like being taken for granted.

He turned over the eight of hearts. And then the ten of hearts.

There was a long silence as the truth sank in. Then the audience gasped. The seven of hearts, the nine of hearts, and the jack of hearts were already on the table, faceup. Put them together with Alex’s cards and he had a straight flush . . . seven, eight, nine, ten, and jack of hearts. And in the rules of poker, a straight flush beats four of a kind.

Alex had won.

McCain froze with his hands still cradling the chips, and in that moment Alex stared at all the chips spread out in front of him. They were all his! He had just won more money than he had owned in his whole life. But even so, he regretted what he had done. McCain was his host. This was meant to be his big night. Yet he had just been shown up in front of a large crowd of his friends by an unknown fourteen-year-old. How would he take it? Alex glanced up. McCain was staring across the table with raw anger in his eyes.

“I’m sorry . . . ,” Alex began.

McCain slammed his hands together as if to break the mood. At the same time, he leaned back and roared with laughter. “Well, there’s a lesson in pride,” he exclaimed loudly, for everyone to hear. “I jumped in too quickly. I was too sure of myself, and it seems I’ve been undone by a child I don’t even remember inviting. Never mind! Alex, you’ve beaten me fair and square.” He used his huge hands to push the chips away as if trying to distance himself from them. “You can cash in your chips with the croupier. I bet you must be the richest thirteen-year-old in Scotland right now.”

“Actually, I’m fourteen,” Alex said. “And I don’t want the money. You can give it all to First Aid.” That drew a round of applause from the audience. McCain stood up. “That’s very generous of you,” he said. “Donating my own money to my own charity!” He was joking, but there was an edge to his voice.

“I can promise you it will be well spent.” He moved away from the table, a few people patting him on the back as he left.

Alex glanced down one last time at McCain’s cards: the knaves, as he had called them. They were strangely ugly—almost like freaks, joined at the chest, with flowing hair and strange multicolored tunics.

Scowling knaves versus his own brave hearts. But of course, it didn’t mean anything. They were only cards, and even as he watched, they were swept away and shuffled back into the deck.

4

OFF-ROAD VEHICLE

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Even as he made his way back into the main body of the castle, Alex thought about what he had just done. It had been an awful lot of money to give away without thinking. He could have held back a little of it, bought something for Jack or Sabina.

He shook his head, annoyed with himself. Charity was what the evening was all about. The money wasn’t his and never had been. He remembered the look of anger in Desmond McCain’s eyes as Alex had revealed his straight flush. McCain might be a born-again Christian, but he hadn’t liked being beaten and somehow Alex doubted that he was going to be invited back.

Sabina had disappeared, but Alex stumbled across Edward Pleasure in yet another of the castle’s many passageways, leaning on his walking stick while he talked on his BlackBerry. There was a spiral staircase just behind him, leading up to the next floor.

He closed up the phone as Alex approached. “That was Liz,” he said. “She’s not feeling any better and I’m beginning to think we ought to head back after all . . .”

“That’s fine with me,” Alex said. “In fact, Sabina was looking for you. She wants to leave too.” It was half past eleven. In just thirty minutes there would be the countdown to midnight, balloons, more champagne, and a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne” before what had been described as the biggest fireworks display in Scotland. Guests were already streaming past, making their way into the main room. But Alex didn’t mind missing it. There was something about Kilmore Castle that he found unsettling. Maybe it was the fact that it was so ancient and remote, perched high above the loch as if it didn’t want to belong to the twenty-first century. He would be glad to see in the New Year somewhere else.

“Let’s wait here for Sabina,” Mr. Pleasure said. “She’s bound to turn up sooner or later.” Neither of them spoke. Alex could hear music coming from the dance floor—now they’d shifted into Michael Jackson. A few more guests hurried past. One of them recognized him from the casino and smiled at him. Once again, the two of them were alone.

“So, are you looking forward to school?” Edward asked, as much to fill the silence as anything else.

“Yes. I am.” If the question had taken Alex by surprise, so did the answer. He really was looking forward to the start of the spring term. He felt safe at school. He felt normal.

“What was that essay you were working on?”

Alex had brought homework with him to Scotland. After taking so much time off, he was trying as best he could to catch up. “I’m doing a project about GM crops,” he said.

“GM?”

“You know . . . genetically modified. It’s something we’ve been looking at in biology. How scientists can muck around with crops and make them do different things.” Alex dredged his mind, trying to remember what he’d been learning the term before. “It’s something Prince Charles is always going on about,” he said. “He’s afraid they’ll accidentally destroy the world.”

“The real problem with GM crops could be the corporations who end up controlling them,” Edward said. “Have you heard of the terminator gene?”

Alex shook his head.

“It’s something they’ve built into plants that effectively turns them off. It stops them from reproducing.

So if you want more wheat or barley or whatever, you have to go back to the same company and pay them. You see what I mean? Whoever controls the genes could end up controlling the world’s economy.

It might be a good subject for me to write about myself. The real danger of genetically modified food . .

.”

There was the sound of footsteps coming down the spiral staircase and suddenly Desmond McCain was there, pacing toward them. Sitting at the card table, Alex hadn’t realized how big the man was. He was almost seven feet tall, built like an American football player, with oversized shoulders and arms. Given his life story, he must have been at least fifty years old, but he looked much younger. He obviously still kept himself in shape.

Edward Pleasure turned around and recognized him. “Reverend McCain!” he exclaimed.

“Mr. Pleasure . . .” McCain came to a halt. Alex saw a hard-to-read emotion pass over his face. His eyes, ever so briefly, clouded over as the zigzag that was his mouth stretched tight. Then, just as quickly, the expression of unease was gone. He smiled. “I’m very glad you could make it to my little affair,” he said. He gestured at Alex. “Are the two of you together by any chance?”

“Yes. Have you met?”

“Alex and I were playing cards just a few minutes ago.” McCain’s smile remained, but it seemed a little strained and artificial. “If I’d known he was your guest, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so rash with my betting. He actually cleaned me out.” They were now all standing on the same level, but McCain still loomed over them. “How is the article?” he asked.

“It’s finished.”

“I hope it won’t contain any unpleasant surprises.”

“You won’t have long to wait. It should be out next month.”

“Have you delivered it?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m looking forward to reading it.” McCain examined the journalist as if it was his mind that he was trying to read. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then McCain blinked as if he had suddenly lost interest. “But now you must forgive me,” he said. “I have a speech to make. Thank you so much for coming to Kilmore Castle. It was very good to see you again. And a pleasure to meet you, Alex.” He swept past them in the direction of the banqueting hall. Edward Pleasure was looking puzzled.

“What was all that about?” he asked.

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know.” He hesitated. “I thought he looked upset about something. . . .”

“I thought so too.”

“Maybe he’s worried about what you’re going to write.”

“He shouldn’t be. I’ve already told you. I had nothing bad to say. Actually, I think he’s quite a remarkable man. Take tonight for example. All these people have come here because of him. And it’s all for charity. He never rests.”

He stopped as Sabina appeared, hurrying down the corridor toward them. “Dad!” she said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Edward Pleasure put an arm around her. “We’re leaving,” he said. “Mum’s still awake. We can toast the New Year when we get in.”

They had no choice but to leave through the banqueting hall. By now all the guests had assembled and were standing together, champagne glasses in hand, facing the gallery where the bagpipe players had been performing and where McCain was about to make his speech. At least nobody would notice the three of them as they left early. Alex and Sabina followed Edward Pleasure and they made their way down the side of the buffet table—which had been partly cleared—on their way out.

There was a sudden fanfare, a single trumpeter standing at the back of the hall, his instrument glowing golden in the candlelight. The notes echoed across the chamber and the guests stopped talking and looked up expectantly. McCain appeared on the gallery. Two of the Highland pipers walked behind him, flanking him, a guard of honor. Alex couldn’t help wondering if they were about to burst into tune.

But they stood back as McCain reached the front and looked down on the crowd.

“I want to thank you all for coming,” he began, his voice booming out. “I’ll be brief. It will turn midnight in exactly twenty minutes, and that’s when the party really begins. For those of you who stay the course, we’ll be serving haggis, neeps, and tatties, then a traditional Scottish breakfast to see you off. And the champagne will be flowing all night.”

A few people cheered. The invitation had made it clear that everyone was welcome until sunrise.

“We’re here to enjoy ourselves,” he went on. “But at the same time, we can’t forget the many terrible things that are happening around the world and the many millions of people who need our help. I want you to know that tickets sold for tonight’s party, along with raffle tickets, our silent auction, and private donations, have raised a fantastic $875,000 for First Aid.”

There was another burst of applause. Hearing it, Alex felt ashamed of himself. Whatever mistakes he had made in the past, McCain had more than redeemed himself. The whole evening was about helping other people, and in his own small way Alex had inadvertently spoiled it.

McCain held up a hand. “I have no idea how that money will be spent, but thank God it’s there.” He stressed the word God as if the two of them were personal friends. “This year, we had those terrible floods in Malaysia, the volcano eruption in Guatemala, and most recently, the incident at the Jowada power station in India, which could have been much, much worse. We were there first. Your money went straight to the people who needed it. Charity is the bond of perfectness, as it says in the book of Colos sians. And the next time disaster strikes, wherever in the world it happens, we will be ready.” Edward Pleasure had retrieved his coat and slipped it on. One of the waiters had opened the door to reveal a maelstrom of snow against an unforgiving night. It was time to go. Alex took one last look back, and it seemed to him that at that moment, standing on his own in the middle of the gallery, Desmond McCain stared straight at him, locking him into a final eye contact that ignored the six hundred people between them.

“Alex?” Sabina called out to him.

And then they were gone, out of the warmth of the castle, hurrying toward the car that Edward Pleasure was already unlocking, using the remote control on his key ring. The back lights blinked a welcome orange in the darkness. It had been snowing all evening. There was a carpet a couple of inches thick on the ground and on top of all the cars. If it continued much longer, Sabina might get her skiing break after all.

They threw themselves into the Nissan X-Trail, slamming the doors behind them and shaking loose some of the snow that had piled onto the car’s roof. Once again, Alex was glad that they had an off-road vehicle. They would need it tonight.

“What a night!” Edward Pleasure muttered, echoing Alex’s thoughts. He turned the key in the ignition and the engine began to throb reassuringly. He found the heating and turned it up as far as it would go.

Alex was next to him. Sabina was once again in the back. “I’m afraid we’re actually going to have New Year on the road,” he said. “It’ll take us at least an hour to get home.”

“I don’t mind.” Sabina was already untangling the wires of her iPod. “That place gave me the creeps.”

“I thought you liked parties.”

“Yes, Dad. But not when I’m the youngest person there by about two hundred years.” They set off, the tires crunching on the newly laid snow. The weather had briefly cleared—which was just as well. Edward Pleasure would need all the visibility he could get to negotiate his way down the series of hairpin bends that led to the main road beside the loch. Alex took one last look at the great bulk of Kilmore Castle. He could see the firelight glowing behind the windows of the banqueting hall and could imagine McCain’s speech ending, the balloons cascading, the kissing and the singing and then more drinking and dancing into the morning. He was glad they’d left early. He’d had a great time in Scotland, but, like Sabina, he’d felt slightly uncomfortable at the party. He loosened his bow tie, then pulled it off. He’d have preferred to have spent the evening at home.

The accident was so sudden, so unexpected, that none of them even realized it had happened until it was almost over. For Alex, it was as if the journey down the hillside had been broken into a series of still pictures. There was Edward Pleasure changing gear as the car picked up speed. How fast were they going? No more than twenty-five miles per hour. Sabina said something and he half turned around to answer her. The headlights were shooting out, two separate columns, distinct from each other.

And then there was a cracking sound. It seemed to come from a long way away, but that wasn’t possible. It had to be something in the engine. The car shuddered and lurched crazily to one side.

Sabina cried out. There was nothing anyone could do. It was as if a giant hand had seized the back of the car and swung it around like a toy. Alex felt the tires slide helplessly across the road. Edward wrenched the steering wheel the other way, but it was useless. They were spinning out of control with the night sky rushing toward them. And then came the moment when the tires left the icy surface altogether, and with a surge of terror Alex knew that they had come off the edge of the rock face, that they were in the air with the black, frozen waters of Loch Arkaig far below.

For half a second the car hung in the air.

Then it pitched forward and plunged down.

5

DEATH AND CHAMPAGNE

IT WAS LIKE DRIVING deliberately into a black wall. They couldn’t stop. There was nothing they could do. The last thing Alex saw was Edward Pleasure clutching the steering wheel as if he had been electrified, his arms rigid, his eyes staring. Outside, the world had turned upside down. The headlights were bouncing off the surface of the loch, which hurtled toward them, filling the front window.

They hit the water. The actual impact was brutal, whipping them forward and backward at the same time. Alex realized that there must have been a thin coating of ice stretching across the lake—he heard it and felt it splinter. It was like smashing through a mirror into another dimension. The car didn’t float, even for a second. Carried on by its own velocity, it plunged into the darkness, huge tentacles of water reaching out and drawing it in. The real world of Scotland and castles and New Year was wiped out as if it had never existed, to be replaced by . . . nothing. All the lights in the car had gone out. It was as if steel shutters had fallen on the other side of the windows. Alex would never have believed that darkness could be so total.

Something was pressing against him, smothering him. For a moment he panicked, punching out with his fists, trying to get whatever it was off him. He couldn’t breathe. What was this huge thing pushing him back into his seat? Where had it come from? He forced himself to think straight, to fight against the sense of blind terror.

The air bag. That was all. It must have been activated at the moment of impact.

Air. He was going to need it. They were still sinking beneath the surface, getting deeper and deeper. He couldn’t see anything, but he could feel the pressure in his ears. There was no letup. It was getting worse and worse. How deep was the loch? Some of these Scottish lakes continued down for hundreds of feet. They would keep going until they reached the bottom, and that was where they would die. What had seconds before been a $35,000 luxury car had become a steel coffin.

There was a soft thud and a shudder as the tires came into contact with mud. Alex was aware of a ton of blackness weighing down on him. They weren’t moving anymore. That was something to be grateful for. But how far down had they gone? More to the point, how long did they have? The car wouldn’t be able to keep the water out for more than a few minutes. It was even now splashing down onto his feet, presumably coming through the air vents on either side of the satellite navigation system. The water was freezing cold, numbing the flesh at first touch. Already it was over his ankles. It was as if his legs were being taken away from him, one inch at a time.

“Dad?” It was Sabina’s voice, coming from the backseat. She sounded a mile away.

“Are you okay, Sabina?” Alex asked.

“Yes. I think so. What about Dad?”

Edward Pleasure hadn’t spoken since they had left the road. Alex reached out over the air bag and felt the worst. The journalist was resting against the steering wheel . . . unconscious, injured, perhaps even dead. It was impossible to say. Alex couldn’t see anything. He drew his hand back and held it in front of his own face, so close that it was brushing against his nose. He couldn’t see it. It was impossible to breathe normally. His heart was racing, trapped inside him, just as he was trapped in this car. He couldn’t deny it. He was terrified.

He swallowed hard and somehow managed to speak. “Your dad’s unconscious,” he said.

“What happened?” He could hear the tears in Sabina’s voice. Like him, she was struggling for control.

“I don’t know.”

“What do we do?”

It should have been silent here at the bottom of Loch Arkaig, yet Alex was aware of noise all around him. The engine was ticking and clanking as the engine cooled. There were strange, ghostlike echoes coming from the lake itself. The Nissan was groaning as it fought against the pressure outside. And—

most terrible of all—a steady stream of water continued to splash into the cabin.

Alex felt the water rise over his knees, a blanket of ice. He was sure that it had only been at ankle level a few seconds ago, but time didn’t exist down here. Seconds were hours and a whole life could be over in a minute.

There was the sound of fumbling in the back, then Sabina spoke again. “Alex . . . the door’s locked.”

“Don’t even try to open it!”

Different thoughts were spinning uselessly through his mind. The Nissan might have a self-locking system. If the doors had locked themselves electronically, it would be impossible to get out. But there was no point in getting out anyway. Inside or outside they would die.

“What are we going to do?”

Alex was still blind. He reached up, hitting his hand on the ceiling. Where was the light switch over the mirror? He found it and turned it on. Nothing. Of course, the car’s electrical circuits would have flooded. But then he remembered. Edward Pleasure had consulted a map just after they’d left Hawk’s Lodge . . . and he’d used a flashlight. Where had he put it?

He pushed the air bag out of the way and reached for the glove compartment. Somehow he managed to get it open, and more water poured out. God! They couldn’t have more than a few minutes left. The water had already risen over the edge of his seat, rushing between his legs. It was unbelievably cold.

The whole lower part of his body no longer belonged to him.

But he had found what he was looking for. A heavy rubber cylinder. He flicked it on and to his utter relief it worked. The beam leapt out of his hand.

Alex had experienced more than enough in the past year, but he would never forget what he saw right then. It was the perfect nightmare.

The car was already half filled with water, which looked as black and as thick as oil. More of it was pouring out of the ventilation ducts, coming in two steady streams. Outside the windows there was nothing. The glass didn’t even look like glass. They could have been buried alive rather than deep under the surface of Loch Arkaig . . . it would have made no difference. The two air bags took up most of the space in the front of the car. Edward Pleasure was slumped against his, a great gash on the side of his head. Alex undid his seat belt and twisted around. Sabina was looking more frightened than he had ever seen her. She had drawn up her legs as if she were cowering away from the water, but it had reached her anyway. It completely covered the backseat. The bottom of her silver dress was soaked.

She was shivering with cold and fear.

They were in a tomb. And they were alone. Nobody would have seen them leave the road. Nobody would ever find them. It would simply seem that they had vanished into thin air.

“Alex . . .” Sabina was staring at the flashlight as if it could somehow save her life. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. The car lost control.”

“Is Dad . . . ?”

“He’s okay. He’s still breathing.” The light flickered and for a brief second the darkness rushed in. It couldn’t go out now! Alex tightened his grip as if he could somehow will the batteries to keep working.

“We’re going to have to open the window, Sabina.”

“Why?”

“It’s the reason the doors won’t open. We have to make the pressure inside the car the same as the pressure outside.”

“But then we’ll drown.”

“No.” Alex shook his head. “We didn’t sink that far. I don’t think we can be more than sixty feet down.”

“Sixty feet is a long way, Alex.”

Alex drew a breath. He knew that there couldn’t be too many more breaths in this cramped compartment available to him. The water was rising all the time, the air space beneath the ceiling becoming narrower and narrower. But once the water reached the level of the air vents, it would stop.

They would be sitting in a bubble of air that would quickly diminish as they breathed out carbon dioxide. Sabina had been wrong. They wouldn’t drown. They would suffocate.

“We have to get out of the car and swim for the surface,” he said. “It’s the only way.”

“What about Dad?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll look after him.”

“But how do we open the window?”

All the windows in the Nissan were electrically operated, and even if the battery still had power, it wouldn’t have been enough to move them. The pressure outside was too great. A manual handle would have been equally useless. They had to break the glass. Alex thought about leaning back and kicking out, using the heel of his shoe. But he knew it wouldn’t work. He couldn’t get the right angle, and anyway, the glass was reinforced. He’d never have the strength.

He needed a hammer or an ax. Something metallic. A fire extinguisher? There wasn’t one. Golf clubs?

Edward Pleasure had brought golf clubs with him, but they weren’t in the car. He’d left them back at Hawk’s Lodge.

Then Alex remembered.

“Sabina, where’s your dad’s walking stick?”

“It’s here.”

“Pass it to me.” He couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice. He could feel the seconds ticking away.

Sabina passed it across and Alex quickly examined it in the tentative light. The handle was metal and shaped like a duck’s head. He could use it like a hammer . . . except it was too long. He didn’t have enough room to swing it. It had to be shorter. How?

“Take this.” He handed the flashlight to Sabina. “Shine it on me.”

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer her. He took the walking stick and fed it through the steering wheel, slanting diagonally across the dashboard so that the tip was in the far corner. The bulk of the walking stick was now in front of him. Using all his strength and his own body weight, he wrenched forward, pushing the stick in front of him. There was a creak of straining wood, but the stick held.

The water was rising over his chest. He could feel its grip, as cold as death. He tried again and this time he was successful. The walking stick snapped in half.

There was no time to lose. He let the bottom half drop and took the splintered end in his hand. He now had something like a hammer, about a foot long.

“I’m going to break the window,” he shouted. “Take a deep breath. As soon as the water’s over your head, you’ll be able to open the door.”

Sabina nodded. She was either too cold or too frightened to speak.

Alex clutched the walking stick. Then, at the last minute, he remembered something he had learned from his days scuba diving with his uncle. “Don’t hold your breath!” he exclaimed. It was one of the most common reasons for diving accidents. If he and Sabina held their breath as they rose through the different pressure levels, they would end up puncturing their lungs. “Swim as fast as you can,” he said.

“But remember to hum as you go.”

“What do you want me to hum, Alex? ‘Auld Lang Syne’?” Alex almost smiled. Only Sabina could still make jokes at a time like this. Perhaps that was why the two of them were so close. “Hum anything, Sabina,” he said. “As long as you’re humming, your lungs will be open.”

He unfastened Edward’s seat belt and checked that the driver’s door was unlocked. The car was filling more slowly now, but there couldn’t be much more oxygen left. He tightened his grip on the broken walking stick, then swung it with all his strength, aiming for his own passenger window, as high up as possible. The duck’s-beak handle slammed into the glass.

Sabina had aimed the flashlight toward him, and he saw a series of spidery cracks in the glass. Water oozed in, but the window held. Was it his imagination or was it already getting more difficult to breathe? He had seconds left. He swung the makeshift hammer again, then once more.

On the third strike, the window shattered, and Alex was almost torn out of his seat by the torrent of water that came rushing in, filling up the available space. The flashlight went out and the blackness returned so suddenly that he wondered if the force of the water might have knocked him out. But he was still conscious. Still thinking. Had Sabina managed to open her door? He couldn’t worry about her.

There was nothing more he could do. He had to get himself out. And Edward Pleasure too.

Fumbling, blind, he searched for the door handle. He had underestimated just how cold the rush of water would be. There were iron bands around his chest, crushing him, trying to empty his lungs. He squeezed the handle and felt the door open. At once he lurched sideways, fighting his way out of the car.

But he didn’t dare go too far. Everything was black. If he lost contact with the car, he would never find it again, and Edward Pleasure would drown. With the icy water swirling around his face, he hooked a hand underneath the door frame and felt his way over the roof and down the other side. Where was the door handle? He was already beginning to strain for air. He should have opened it from the inside. That might have saved a few precious seconds.

His hand smashed into the side mirror, but it didn’t matter because he couldn’t feel anything. Somehow he managed to curl his fingers around the handle and pull. The door opened. Alex’s own natural buoyancy was dragging him up, but he kicked out, forcing himself to stay down. He reached inside and put his arms around Edward Pleasure, yet he couldn’t get him out. He seemed to be stuck, jammed against the steering wheel.

With his own air running out and the surface at least sixty feet away, Alex thought the unthinkable. It was like some devil voice whispering in his ear. Leave him. Look after yourself. If you stay down here any longer, both of you will die.

It was the air bag pinning him in place. That was the problem. Alex still had the walking stick. At the last moment, almost instinctually, he had slipped it through his belt, taking it with him. Now he drew it out and, holding it this time by the handle, jabbed the splintered end into the nylon skin. He felt it puncture and there was a rush of bubbles against his fist. He was briefly tempted to breathe them in—

but somehow he remembered that there would be nitrogen rather than oxygen inside the bag and it wouldn’t do him any good. The bag crumpled. Alex pulled again. Edward Pleasure came free.

They were out of the car—but which way was up? Alex couldn’t even see the bubbles escaping from his lips. Nor could he feel them. The intensity of the cold had punched right through him and his entire body was numb. He was still gripping Edward Pleasure and he kicked out with his legs, hoping that gravity, buoyancy, whatever would take him in the right direction.

The journalist was dragging him down. He was a dead weight in Alex’s arms, and once again that voice was in his ear. Let him go. Forget him. Save yourself. But he just gripped all the tighter, kicked and kicked again.

Alex was following his own advice and humming—not a tune, more a soft moan of despair. Suppose he was wrong? The Nissan could have plunged a hundred feet or even more. He looked up but saw no light, no sign of the surface.

He kicked.

It didn’t feel as if he was making any progress. And what about Edward? How could Alex be sure he was still alive?

His chest was beginning to ache. His lungs were screaming for air and Alex knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist them much longer. It couldn’t have taken him more than a minute to clamber across the car. Another minute to get Edward out. Perhaps another minute since then. Surely he could hold his breath longer than that!

But not in this cold. The icy chill of Loch Arkaig had weakened him. It was all over. His humming faltered and stopped. There was no more air to come out. With a sob of pure despair Alex opened his mouth . . .

. . . And breathed air. He didn’t even know how or when he had reached the surface. He hadn’t felt his shoulders break through. Somehow he was just there. As his vision cleared, he saw the blurred outline of the moon, lost behind clouds, and a scatter of still-falling snow. He had to struggle to keep Edward Pleasure’s head above water, and he wondered, with a sense of dread, if the rescue had all been in vain.

He wasn’t sure that Sabina’s father was still breathing. He looked horribly like a corpse.

And where was Sabina? Alex tried to call her name, but he was too frozen . . . his chest, his vocal cords. He jerked around in the water. There was Kilmore Castle, high above him. The shore was about sixty feet away. He was alone. She hadn’t made it.

“Aaah . . .”

No. He was wrong. There was a splashing sound, the black surface of the lake parted, and suddenly Sabina was next to him with light rippling around her. Her face was white. Her long hair had come loose and was hanging into the water. She had tried to call his name, but it was too much for her. The two of them stared at each other, saying more with their eyes than they could ever have managed with words. Then Sabina reached out and took hold of her father, sharing the weight. The two of them began an awkward, stumbling swim to dry land.

And even as they went, Alex knew that their ordeal wasn’t over yet. They hadn’t drowned, but they could still die of cold. Their body temperatures must be dangerously low. Once they were on the shore, they would have to find help—and quickly, before their entire systems shut down. But how could they do it? Kilmore Castle was too high up, too far away. None of the guests would be leaving yet. And Edward Pleasure needed immediate help . . . unless it was already too late.

There was a loud bang and for a horrible moment Alex thought that someone was shooting at them, but a second later the sky exploded with a blaze of white and silver, and he realized McCain had just launched his first fireworks. So this was the New Year . . . and what a way to begin it, with this hideous midnight swim. All around him, the water shimmered with a brilliant array of colors as the display continued overhead. He could imagine the guests, sipping their champagne, wrapped up in their coats and scarves, as they watched from the battlements with the usual ooohs and aaahs as each five-hundred-dollar missile was outdone by the next. What would they think if they could see what was happening below? Death and champagne. It seemed incredible that the two could be so close, existing side by side.

It took them five minutes to reach the water’s edge, and climbing onto the beach was a horrible, brutal experience. The beach was covered in shingle, slate gray and jagged. No feeling had yet returned to Alex’s arms and legs, but if it had, he would have known only pain. He was filthy, covered in some oily film. Water was still streaming down his face. It was in his eyes and mouth. He must look barely human.

But his only thoughts were for Edward Pleasure. Helped by Sabina, he turned the journalist onto his back, then knelt beside him. The weeks he had spent in the Brecon Beacons being trained by the Special Operations Division of MI6 hadn’t included lifesaving. Fortunately, he’d learned that at school.

There was a hiss and a scream, and for a second the sky blazed red, illuminating Edward’s face. His eyes were still closed. Alex checked that his mouth wasn’t blocked. He found his heart, placed both fists on top of it, and pushed hard.

He did it again, then continuously. Sabina was shaking violently. She might have been sobbing, but she made no sound. She had no strength left. She could only watch in growing despair as Alex kept up the massage. Edward Pleasure lay flat out, still. But suddenly, on the tenth or eleventh attempt, he suddenly coughed and water gushed out of his mouth. Sabina grabbed hold of his arm. He opened his eyes. Alex let out a deep breath. He’d been about to try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and despite everything, a little part of him was relieved that it wasn’t going to be needed.

Silver sparks crackled and exploded, hundreds of them, spread out across the darkness, then rained slowly down onto the loch.

We’ve got to get help. Alex tried to speak, but he was so cold, he couldn’t make himself understood and the words came out as no more than single letters. “W-w-w . . . v-v-v . . . g-g-g . . .” His whole body was out of control. His teeth were chattering. The muscles in his neck and shoulders seemed to be locked rigid. He could see the snow settling on Sabina’s and her father’s hair. He had never been so cold. He hadn’t thought it was possible for the human body to continue functioning at this temperature.

A few more minutes out here and the three of them would freeze solid.

But the greatest miracle of the night was still to come. Alex heard the sound of footsteps on the shingle and turned around. There was a man hurrying toward them, carrying a blanket. He had appeared as if by magic. In fact, it seemed so unlikely that he was there at all that Alex wondered if he was hallucinating. It was impossible to make out the man’s features in the shifting colors of the night, but vaguely Alex registered the fact that he wasn’t dressed in black tie. He wasn’t a guest from the party.

The man reached them. “I saw what happened!” he exclaimed. “I thought you must be dead. Are you all right? Can you move?”

“Our car . . .” Alex pointed out at the loch. For a moment, the water blazed emerald green. A great circle of fire hung in the sky, then blinked out.

“I know. I saw. We have to get you, quickly, into the warm.” The man draped the blanket over Sabina, and as he leaned forward another firework exploded, the glare revealing the side of his face. Alex saw that he was either Indian or Pakistani, a young man, in his very early twenties. As Sabina clutched the blanket and drew it around her shoulders, the man peeled off his coat and gave it to Alex. “Put this on,” he instructed. “Do you think you can walk? My van is just up on the road. It’s only five minutes from here. Once you’re inside, you’ll be okay.”

Edward Pleasure was recovering his strength. He dragged himself up onto one elbow and broke into another fit of coughing. “What happened?” he asked. His voice was little more than a whisper.

“Not now, sir. Not now. We have to go.”

The fireworks display had come to an end. In the far distance, Alex heard clapping and the blare of plastic noisemakers and paper horns. Slowly, the three of them staggered to their feet. Sabina and Alex had to support Edward Pleasure, and all three of them needed the help of the man who had come out of nowhere. Somehow he managed to guide them across the beach with the snow whirling around them as if unwilling to let them go.

A track led down from the main road and, on it, a white van sat with its headlights on and taillights blinking. The sight of it lent them new strength. They came off the shingle and threw themselves into the back.

“Don’t worry!” Without his jacket, the man was shivering himself. He paused beside the doors. “I’ll take you to a hospital. You’ll be all right.” He closed the doors, locking them in.

They were lying on the bare metal, a puddle of water surrounding them. Sabina was almost hidden in her blanket. Edward Pleasure was barely conscious. Alex heard the driver get into the front, and a few seconds later, they moved off. At the same time, he realized that his senses were returning. The man had turned the heat up to full and Alex could actually feel the warm breeze against his skin.

It took them an hour to reach an Inverness hospital, and Liz Pleasure arrived two hours after that. By then, all three of them had been treated for hypothermia and shock and were tucked up in bed with hot water bottles and soup, being looked after by nurses who had agreed to work through New Year’s Eve and who, Alex decided, really were true angels. The man who had rescued them had left without even giving his name. He had told them he was a supplier—on his way to Kilmore Castle. But what had he been supplying so late into the night? Alex didn’t think it right to ask him, but even now it struck him that something didn’t quite add up. After all, the back of the van had been empty.

They were released the next morning, Edward Pleasure blaming himself for the car accident, all of them too shaken to discuss it. Between them, they had decided to cut the vacation short. The Highlands and lochs of Scotland held no attraction after what had happened. They needed the reassurance of the city.

Waiting for the plane that would take them back to London, Alex did wonder if he should tell them what he knew, what he had seen one second before the car swerved and left the road. But in the end he decided against it. He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure. He wanted to believe that he was wrong.

Just before the car had lost control, he had heard a distant cracking sound. And at the same moment, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he’d seen a tiny flash of light in the darkness, behind them and high up above. He hadn’t imagined it. It had been there. And he understood exactly what it meant.

A marksman positioned in the battlements of Kilmore Castle.

Edward Pleasure hadn’t skidded on the ice. One of his tires had been blown out and it had been done quite deliberately by someone who wanted to force them off the road. Anyone else would have thought they were imagining it, but Alex knew better. He had been a target too many times before. Someone had just tried to kill them.

But who?

Desmond McCain? Because he had lost at cards? No—that was insane. There had to be someone else.

An old enemy perhaps. Alex had plenty enough of them. Or maybe it had nothing to do with him.

Edward Pleasure could have been the target. Journalists, too, had plenty of people who wanted to settle scores.

He said nothing. The last time he had been with the family, in the south of France, they had been attacked. How could he possibly tell them that it had happened a second time? Sabina would never want to see him again. It was much better to persuade himself that he was wrong, that he was tired, that he had an overactive imagination. Anyway, in a few minutes they would be in the air, flying south, leaving it all behind them.

And yet, secretly, he knew that he was lying to himself. As his flight was called and he picked up his carry-on luggage, Alex gritted his teeth. Trouble never seemed to leave him alone. Well, let it follow him to London. He’d just have to be ready for it when it showed up again.

6

NINE FRAMES PER SECOND

ALEX WAS GLAD TO BE HOME.

First of all, Jack was there, waiting for him, surrounded by presents she’d brought back from America.

Alex sometimes wondered what people would make of the two of them, living together the way they did. With her baggy clothes, her wild red hair, and her constant smile, Jack was more like a big sister than a housekeeper. And although she was actually his legal guardian, she never nagged or lectured him. They were really just friends and Alex knew that he couldn’t have gotten through the last twelve months without her. She knew what he was doing. She had tried to talk him out of it. But she had never stood in his way.

She’d bought him new jeans, two shirts, a Barack Obama baseball cap, and a pair of fake police sunglasses. And over their first dinner together, he had told her what had happened at Loch Arkaig . . .

but with no mention of any sniper.

“I just don’t believe it, Alex!” Jack exclaimed. “You go off for a nice New Year’s Eve party and you end up sixty feet under a frozen loch. Only you could manage that.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Alex protested. “I wasn’t driving.”

“You know what I mean. How’s Edward? How’s Sabina?”

“They’re okay. They were shaken up. We all were.”

“I’m not surprised. Do you know how it happened?”

Alex hesitated. The one thing he wasn’t going to do was lie to Jack. “Nobody’s quite sure. They haven’t gotten the car out yet. It’s possible they never will. But Edward thinks one of the tires blew out.

He felt something just before he lost control.”

“And what about the man who helped you?”

“He didn’t hang around. He didn’t even wait to be thanked.” Alex wouldn’t have mentioned the accident at all, but he knew it would come out the following weekend when he and Jack went to Heathrow Airport to say good-bye to Sabina and her parents, who were finally returning home.

It was an uneasy last meeting, the five of them standing together, hemmed in by the crowds and suitcases and bright lights of Terminal Three.

“We’ll see you again in the spring,” Edward Pleasure said, reaching out and shaking Alex’s hand.

“We’ve got a spare room and we can head up the coast. I’m sure you’d enjoy trekking in Yosemite, or we could stay on Big Sur.”

Sabina’s mother gave him a hug. “I know what you did,” she said quietly. “Sabina told me. Edward would still be in that car if it hadn’t been for you.” Alex said nothing. For some reason, it always embarrassed him, being thanked. “I hope you’ll come and see us. And you too, Jack. Maybe you should come over together.”

And then it was Sabina’s turn. She and Alex moved a little to one side.

“Bye, Alex.”

“Bye, Sabina.”

“I thought you were brilliant in the car. When I started to swim up to the surface, I was certain I was going to die. But I knew my dad would be all right because you’d promised you’d look after him.”

“It seems that every time your family meets me, something bad happens,” Alex said. It was true. In Cornwall, the south of France, and now in Scotland . . . sudden violence had never been far away.

“Will you come to San Francisco?”

“There’d probably be an earthquake or something.”

“I don’t mind. I still want to see you.”

Sabina glanced at her parents. They were standing with their backs to her, talking to Jack. She quickly leaned forward and kissed Alex on the cheek. Then, suddenly, the three of them were picking up their carry-on luggage and making their way through to the security checks and passport control. Sabina looked back one last time and waved. Then they were gone.

The next day, Alex went back to school and the Christmas holidays were forgotten in a whirl of seating assignments, schedules, textbooks, new teachers, and old friends. Brookland was a sprawling, mixed comprehensive school half a mile north of Chelsea. It had been built only about ten years ago and it prided itself on its modern architecture, with double-height windows and bright primary colors. At the same time, though, it still had an old-fashioned, friendly feel. Everyone wore uniforms . . . sober shades of blue and gray. The school even had a Latin motto: Pergo et Perago, which sounded like the story of two Italian cannibals but which actually meant “I try and I achieve.”

“No running in the corridor, Alex.” Miss Bedfordshire, the school secretary, greeted Alex with one of her favorite phrases, even though Alex had only been walking quickly. She had stepped out of one of the classrooms, blocking his path.

“Hi, Miss Bedfordshire.”

“It’s good to see you. Did you have a good Christmas?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“And do you plan to stay with us for the whole term? It would certainly make a nice change.” Alex had missed almost half the school year, and Miss Bedfordshire had always had her doubts about the series of strange illnesses that had been listed on his doctor’s notes. “I hope so,” he said.

“Maybe you should eat more fruit. You know . . . an apple a day.”

“I’ll give it a try.”

Alex hurried on his way, aware that the secretary was watching him as he went. Sometimes he wondered how much she really knew.

And then there were twenty minutes of catching up with the usual crowd. Tom Harris was late as usual and looked incredibly scruffy in a new uniform, which was one size too big for him. His parents had recently gotten separated, and he had spent the Christmas holidays with his older brother in Naples.

Alex had gotten to know them both when he’d come up against Scorpia for the first time—and Tom was the only boy in the school who was aware of his involvement with MI6. There were a couple of girls with him now, and together they all piled into the sports hall for Year Group Assembly.

This began, as usual, with a hymn, which the principal, Mr. Bray, insisted on—even though every other school in the area had dropped it. There were three hundred of them packed into the hall, and they were horribly out of tune. The last chords faded away and everyone sat down to listen to an uplifting speech, which, as usual, went on too long. This term, it was all about respect. “Respect for others; respect for yourself; above all, respect for the community.” Alex noticed that Tom was listening intently, with one hand resting against the side of his head. Only he could see the white wires of an iPod trailing back down the other boy’s sleeve and could hear the faint tish-ta-ta-tish coming from his ear.

Then it was on to school business. Mr. Bray introduced a new class tutor and mentioned a couple of teachers who were leaving. “One last thing,” he announced. “I’m very happy to tell you that the science wing is finally opening again after the mysterious fire that did so much damage back in May.” Alex shifted uncomfortably. He had been at the very center of the fire and knew exactly what had caused it.

He was glad that Tom wasn’t listening. Watching Alex squirm, and knowing as much about him as he did, his friend might have been able to put two and two together. “I hope you’ll enjoy the new facilities.

I wish you all a hardwork ing and successful term.”

The assembly finished and the lessons began. For Alex that meant history followed by math and then social studies, a cheerful assortment for the first morning of the first day of classes. After lunch, the first lesson of the afternoon was biology with John Gilbert, a young teacher who had only arrived the summer before. He was curly haired with glasses and specialized in brightly colored ties. He hadn’t been teaching long enough to lose his enthusiasm, and it had been he who had given the class the project on genetic engineering that Alex had described in Scotland.

“I hope you’ve all begun to think about this very serious subject,” he began. “I’m going to want to see your written work completed by midterm. And I’ve got some good news.” He picked up a letter and showed it to the class. “At the end of last term, I wrote to the Greenfields Bio Center in Wiltshire. I’m sure you know who they are . . . they’re always in the news. Greenfields is a private organization, one of the world leaders in plant science and microbiology. They’ve been doing more than anyone else to develop new techniques in genetic engineering, and they’ve got a huge facility on the edge of Salisbury Plain. I asked if we could visit, look at their work, and maybe talk to some of their professors—and rather to my surprise, they’ve agreed. To be honest with you, I didn’t think they’d allow school visits because so much of their work is secretive. But we’ll be heading down there in a couple of weeks. I’ll need to get permission from your parents, and I’ll hand out forms at the end of the period. Don’t forget to get them signed!”

He put the letter down and went over to the blackboard.

“Now, I want to find out how you’re coming along with your projects. But first of all, I asked you to come up with some of the good things and the bad things about GM crops. Can anyone give me an example of how this science has helped society?”

GM crops.

Alex couldn’t help himself. He remembered the moment he had told Edward Pleasure about his work just as Desmond McCain had come down the stairs, and suddenly he was back at Kilmore Castle, half an hour before New Year’s. McCain had appeared alarmed about something. But what could it have been, and could it really have led to the gunshot and the near death in Loch Arkaig?

There had been no gunshot. Alex tried to force the idea out of his head. The car had blown a tire, that was all. And yet, he still remembered McCain, the gleaming, bald head, the silver cross, the strange line where the two halves of his head failed to meet.

No. This was crazy. McCain ran a charity. He had made a mistake in his life, but he had paid for it. He wasn’t a killer.

“Rider?”

Alex heard his name, realized it had been called out twice, and forced himself to focus back on the class. Just as he had feared, Mr. Gilbert had asked him something and he hadn’t even heard the question. He’d been miles away.

“I’m sorry, sir?” he said.

Mr. Gilbert sighed. “You don’t turn up to school very often, Rider. But it would be nice if you actually listened when you did. Hale?”

James Hale was another of Alex’s friends, a neat-looking boy with brown hair and blue eyes, sitting at the next desk. He glanced apologetically at Alex and then answered. “GM science can make crops grow extra vitamins,” he said. “And there was a special sort of rice that was changed so that it could grow underwater for a few days without dying.”

“Very good. It was called golden rice, and obviously it was very useful in countries with too much rainfall. Anyone else?”

Alex made sure he concentrated until the end of the lesson. The first day of the term was far too early to get into trouble. Somehow he made it to 3:45 without further incident, and then he was part of the crowd, pouring out of the school gates with his backpack over his shoulder. For once, he hadn’t brought his bike with him. Alex owned a Condor Junior Roadracer that had been built for him as a twelfth birthday present. But he’d noticed recently that it wasn’t giving him a comfortable ride. The truth was that he was growing out of it, and the seat wouldn’t adjust any more. He would be sorry to see it go. It belonged to his old life, before his uncle had died, and there was precious little of that left.

Perhaps it was thinking of his uncle that drove Alex to take a shortcut across Brompton Cemetery. This was where Ian Rider had been buried after the so-called car accident, the one that began with gunshots being fired into his uncle’s car. It was at the funeral that Alex had first begun to learn the truth about his uncle, that he had never actually worked in a bank. He had instead lived and died as a spy. Alex often walked past the gravestone, but today, acting on impulse, he left the main path and went over to it. He looked at the name, carved in a square slab of gray marble, with the dates below it and a single line: A GOOD MAN TAKEN BEFORE HIS TIME. Well, that was one way to put it. Somebody had left flowers, quite recently. Roses. The petals were dead and withered, but there was still a little color in the leaves. Who had been here? Jack? And if it was her, why hadn’t she mentioned it to him?

Alex bent down and swept the plants to one side. He thought about the man who had looked after him all his life but who had been gone now for almost a year. He could still picture Ian Rider—halfway up a mountain, on a diving boat in full scuba gear, or racing on Jet Skis over the South China Sea. He had taken Alex all over the world, always challenging him, pushing him to the limit. Adventure vacations, he had called them. And how could Alex have known that all that time he was being trained, prepared to follow in his uncle’s footsteps?

Footsteps that had brought him here.

“Alex Rider?”

They must have crept up behind him while he was crouching beside the grave, and even without looking up, Alex knew that somehow he was in trouble. There was something about the voice—soft and threatening, with a slight foreign inflection.

Slowly, Alex turned and looked up. Sure enough, there were three men standing at the foot of the grave, all of them Chinese, dressed in jeans and loose-fitting jackets. They were completely relaxed, as if they had strolled into the cemetery and come upon him by chance. But Alex knew that wasn’t the case. They might have followed him from school. They might have known that he sometimes took this shortcut and waited for him. But there was nothing chance about this meeting. They were here for one single purpose.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “My name is James Hale. You’ve got the wrong person.” Even as he spoke, he was glancing left and right. There was nobody else around. No passing vicar, no other kids from Brookland on their way home. Apart from his backpack, Alex had nothing with him.

He knew he wasn’t going to find any weapons in a cemetery, but there was always a chance that a gravedigger had been careless enough to leave behind a spade.

He was out of luck. There was an open grave, waiting for its occupant, about a dozen headstones away.

But there was no sign of any tools. What else? A small stone angel stood above him, a monument to “a great dad, a much-missed granddad and a wonderful husband.” Why did no one ever have anything bad to say about people who had died?

The nearest man smiled unpleasantly, revealing nicotine-stained teeth. “You are Alex Rider,” he insisted. “This is the grave of your uncle.”

“You’re wrong. He used to live next door . . .”

Just for a moment, the three men hesitated, wondering if, after all, they had made a mistake. But then the leader made up his mind. “You will come with us,” he said.

“Why? Where do you want to take me?”

“No more questions. Just come!”

Alex remained where he was, crouching beside the gravestone. He wondered what would happen next.

He quickly found out. The man who had spoken made a signal, and suddenly all three of them were armed. The knives had appeared in their hands like some unpleasant magic trick. Alex examined the silver blades, one in front of him, one on either side. They were notched, designed to leave the most vicious wounds. Somehow the men had gotten into position, surrounding Alex, without seeming to move. They were standing in combat stance, the weight spread evenly over their feet, each knife exactly the same distance from the ground. These were professional killers. They had done this many times before.

“What do you want?” Alex demanded, trying to keep his voice neutral. “I don’t have any money.”

“We don’t want money.” One of the other men spat into the grass. He had furious eyes, lips twisted into a permanent sneer.

“Major Winston Yu sent us to see you,” the leader said.

Winston Yu! So that was what this was about. Somehow the head of the snakehead that Alex had helped break up in Thailand had reached out from whatever hell he had been sent to. He had left instructions for revenge.

“Major Yu is dead,” Alex said.

“You killed him.”

“No. The last time I saw him, he was running away. If he’s dead, that’s the best thing that ever happened to him. But it had nothing to do with me.”

“You’re lying.”

“What difference does it make? He’s finished. The whole thing’s over. Coming after me isn’t going to bring him back.”

“You must pay for what you did.”

They were about to make their move. Alex could almost see the knives jabbing forward, striking at his stomach and chest. They would leave him in the cemetery, bleeding to death, and the next funeral that took place here would be his. But he wasn’t going to let that happen. He acted first. He was still holding the dead roses that he had been clearing from his uncle’s grave. He could feel the sharp thorns digging into the palm of his hand.

Swinging his arm up, Alex threw them, scattering them across the first man’s face. For just a second, the man was blinded, in pain, the thorns cutting into him. A single dead rose clutched at the skin under one of his eyes. Alex sprang up, then followed through with a powerful back kick, the ball of his foot ramming into the man’s stomach. The man’s eyes widened in shock and he crumpled, gasping for breath. That left just two.

They were already lunging toward him. Alex had to get out of their range, and there was only one way.

He threw himself sideways, one hand down, cartwheeling over Ian Rider’s gravestone. He needed a weapon and he snatched up the only one he could see—the stone angel from the grave next to his uncle’s. He hoped the much-missed granddad wouldn’t mind. The angel was heavy. Alex swung it around and hurled it at one of the men. It hit him in the face, breaking his nose. Blood poured over the man’s lips and he reeled away, howling.

The last of the three men swore in Chinese and launched himself toward Alex, the knife swinging in great arcs, cutting at the air. Alex fled. With his attacker getting closer all the time, he ran over six of the graves, then leapt over the open trench. But the moment he landed, he stopped and turned around.

The man had also jumped. He had been taken completely by surprise. He had expected Alex to keep running. Instead, he was in midair while Alex had both feet firmly planted on the ground. There was nothing he could do as Alex lashed out with a front jab—the kizami-zuki he had been taught in karate—

leaning with all his weight forward for maximum reach.

Alex’s fist caught the man in the throat. The man’s eyes went white and he plunged down like a stone, disappearing into the grave. He hit the mud at the bottom and lay still.

The first man was now on his knees, wheezing, barely able to breathe. The second was still bleeding.

Alex alone was unhurt. So what should he do now? Call the police on his mobile? No. The last thing he needed right now was a load of tricky questions.

He went back to Ian Rider’s grave, snatched up his backpack, and walked away. But even as he went, there were questions of his own nagging at his mind. If Major Yu had given orders for him to be killed, why hadn’t they just gone ahead and done it? They could have tiptoed up behind him and stabbed him.

Why had they felt the need to announce themselves? And for that matter, why had none of them been carrying a gun? Wouldn’t that have made the whole thing easier?

As Alex left the cemetery, he didn’t see the fourth man, fifty yards away, hiding behind one of the Victorian mausoleums. This was an Englishman or an American, with fair hair hanging down to his neck, smiling to himself as he watched Alex through the 135mm telephoto lens that was attached to the Nikon D3 digital camera he was holding. He had taken more than a hundred shots of the encounter, clicking away at a rate of nine frames per second, but he took a few more, just for good measure. Click.

Alex dusting himself down. Click. Alex turning away. Click. Alex heading for the main gate.

He had it all recorded. It was perfect. The man had been chewing gum, but now he took it out of his mouth, rolled it into a ball, and pressed it against one of the grave-stones. Click. One final shot of Alex leaving the cemetery and the whole thing was in the bag.

7

BAD NEWS

ALEX WAS HAVING DINNER with Jack when the doorbell rang.

“Are you expecting anyone?” she asked.

“No.”

The doorbell sounded again, longer and more insistent. This time Jack put down her knife and fork and frowned. “I’ll get it,” she said. “But why do they have to come at this time of night?” It was half past seven in the evening. Alex had come home, changed, done his homework, and had a shower. He was sitting at the kitchen table of the Chelsea home that had once belonged to Ian Rider but which he and Jack now shared. He was wearing jeans and an old sweat-shirt. His hair was still damp and his feet were bare. Jack liked to call herself a ten-minute cook because that was the maximum amount of time she spent preparing a meal. Tonight she had served a homemade fish pie, although Alex suspected she had cheated on the time.

He was feeling guilty. He hadn’t told her yet about the fight at the cemetery, partly because he was waiting for the right moment, partly because he knew what she would say. There was no way that he could keep something like that from her, but he wasn’t keen on ruining the evening.

He heard voices out in the hall—a man speaking, polite but insistent. Jack arguing. There was a pause, then Jack returned on her own. Alex could see at once that she was concerned.

“There’s someone here who wants to see you,” she said.

“Who is it?”

“He says his name is Harry Bulman.”

Alex shook his head. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“Then let me introduce myself . . .”

A man had appeared at the kitchen door behind Jack, strolling into the room, looking around him at the same time. He was in his thirties, with long, blond hair falling in a tangle, broad shoulders, and a thick neck. He was handsome—but not quite as handsome as he thought. There was an arrogance about him that presented itself in every move he made, even the way he had followed Jack in. He was dressed nicely in gray slacks, a black blazer, and a white shirt open at the collar. He had a gold chain around his neck and a gold signet ring with the letters HB on his third finger. To Alex, it was as if he had stepped out of an advertisement for clothes . . . or perhaps for toothpaste. This was a man who enjoyed being himself and wanted to sell himself to the world.

Jack spun around. “I don’t remember inviting you in.”.

“Please. Don’t ask me to wait outside. If you want the truth, I’ve been waiting for this moment for quite a long time.” He looked past Jack. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Alex.” Alex slid his food aside. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Do you mind if I sit down?”

“You don’t need to sit down,” Jack growled. “You’re not staying long.”

“You might change your mind when you hear what I’ve got to say.” The man sat down anyway. He was at the head of the table, opposite Alex. “My name is Harry Bulman,” he said. “I’m sorry I’ve come by so late, but I know you’re at school, Alex—at Brookland—and I wanted to catch you while you were both in.”

“What do you want?” Alex asked.

“Well, right now, I could murder a beer if there’s one going.” Nobody moved. “Okay. I’ll get to the point. I’ve come here to speak to you, Alex. As a matter of fact, although you won’t believe it, I want to help you. I hope the two of us are going to be seeing quite a bit of each other. I think we’re going to become friends.”

“I don’t need any help,” Alex said.

Bulman smiled. His teeth were as white as his shirt. “You haven’t heard what I’ve got to say.”

“Then why don’t you get on with it?” Jack cut in. “Because we were having supper and we didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Smells good.” Bulman drew a business card out of his wallet and slid it across the table. Jack came over and sat next to Alex. They both read it. There was the name—Harry Bulman—and beneath it his job description: Freelance Journalist. There was also an address in north London and a telephone number.

“You work for the press,” Jack said.

“The Mirror, the Express, the Star . . .” Bulman nodded. “If you ask around, you’ll find I’m fairly well known.”

“What are you doing here?” Alex asked. “You said you could help me. I don’t need a journalist.”

“As a matter of fact, you do.” Bulman took out a packet of chewing gum. “Do you mind?” he asked.

“I’ve given up smoking and I find this helps.” He unwrapped a piece and curled it into his mouth. He looked around again. “This is a nice place you’ve got here.”

“Please get on with it, Mr. Bulman.”

Alex could hear that Jack was running out of patience. But the journalist had already outmaneuvered them twice. He had simply walked in here, and for the moment neither of them was asking him to leave.

“All right. Let’s cut to the chase.” Bulman rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “You might not know this, but many journalists have a specialist area. It might be food, sports, politics . . .

whatever. My specialty is intelligence. I spent six years in the army—I was in the commandos—and I hung on to my old contacts when I left. I always figured they might come in handy. I was actually thinking about writing a book, but that didn’t work out, so I started touting myself around Fleet Street.

MI5, MI6, CIA . . . any bits of gossip I managed to pick up, I’d string together as a story. It wasn’t going to make me rich. But I did okay.”

Alex and Jack were listening to this in silence. Neither of them liked the way it was going.

“And then, a couple of months ago, I started to hear these strange rumors. They began with an event that took place at the Science Museum last April, when Herod Sayle was about to launch his Stormbreaker computer system. What happened to the Stormbreakers, by the way? There was going to be one in every school in the country, but suddenly they were recalled and that was that. They were never seen again.”

He waited for a response, but Alex simply met his questioning gaze with silence.

“Anyway, back to the Science Museum. It seems that someone, an agent of MI6 Special Operations, parachuted through the roof and took a shot at Sayle. No name. No pack drill. Nothing unusual about that. But then I was talking to a mate in a pub, and he told me that the bloke at the end of the parachute wasn’t a man at all. It was a boy. He swore to me that Special Operations had gone out and recruited a fourteen-year-old and that this was their latest secret weapon.

“Of course, I didn’t believe it at first. But I decided to have a nose around, so I started asking questions. And do you know what? It all turned out to be true. MI6 had taken some poor bloody kid, trained him up with the SAS in the Lake District, and sent him out on active service no less than three times. It took me a while longer to find out the name of this boy wonder. In the SAS, he was known as

‘Cub.’ But I persisted . . . I’m not so bad at this job . . . and in the end I got what I wanted. Alex Rider.

That’s you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alex said.

“You’re making a mistake, Mr. Bulman,” Jack added. “Your story is ridiculous. Alex is still at school.”

“Alex is still at Brookland,” Bulman agreed. “But according to the school secretary, a very nice lady named Miss Bedfordshire, he’s been away an awful lot recently. Don’t blame her, by the way. She didn’t know I was a journalist. I pretended I was calling from the local council. But let me see . . .” Bulman took out a notebook.

“You were away for the first time last April. You were also away at the end of last year. That would have been at exactly the same time that a teenage boy dropped in on an oil rig in the Timor Sea, fighting alongside the Australian SAS. And who was that kid at Heathrow Airport when Damian Cray had a nasty accident in a jumbo jet? Now there’s a funny thing, isn’t it? An international pop singer one minute—a multimillionaire—and the next minute the papers are announcing that he’s had a heart attack. Well, I suppose I’d have a heart attack too if someone pushed me into the turbine of a plane.” Bulman snapped the notebook shut. “Nobody’s been allowed to write anything about any of this.

National security and all the rest of it. But I’ve spoken to people who were at the Science Museum, at Heathrow, and in Australia.” He fixed his eyes on Alex. “And they’ve all described you to a T.” There was a long silence. Jack’s fish pie had gone cold. Alex was stunned. He had always supposed MI6 would protect him from publicity. He had never expected a journalist to turn up at his own home.

Jack was the first to speak. “You’ve got it all wrong,” she said. “Alex took a bit of time off last term because he was sick. You can’t possibly think—”

“Please don’t treat me like an idiot, Miss Starbright,” Bulman cut in, and suddenly there was steel in his voice. “I’ve done my homework. I know everything. So why don’t you stop wasting my time and face up to the facts?” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a bunch of photographs. Alex winced. He guessed what was coming even before the journalist spread them on the table. And he was right. The pictures had been taken just a few hours before in Brompton Cemetery. They showed Alex in action against the three men who had attacked him, kicking out in one frame, spinning over the gravestone in another.

“When were these taken?” Jack asked. She was obviously shaken.

“This afternoon,” Alex replied. “They followed me from school and came up to me in the cemetery.” He looked accusingly at Bulman. “You set it all up.”

The journalist nodded. “Believe me, Alex. They weren’t going to hurt you. But I had to be one hundred percent certain. I wanted to see you in action for myself. And I have to say, you more than lived up to your reputation. In fact, I’m going to have to pay my people double what I promised them. You put two of them into the hospital! Oh . . . and there’s something else you should know about.” Bulman produced a miniature tape recorder and pressed a button. At once, Alex heard his own voice, a little tinny and distant, but definitely him.

“ Major Yu is dead.”

“ You killed him.”

“ No. The last time I saw him, he was running away. . . .”

“All three of them were wired up for sound.” Bulman flicked the tape off. “You knew all about the snakehead, so don’t play innocent with me. By the way, I never found out how Major Yu died. I’d be interested to know how it happened.”

Alex glanced at Jack. They both knew there was no point denying it anymore. “What exactly do you want?” he demanded.

“Well, we could start with that beer I was talking about.” Jack stiffened. Then she stood up, went to the fridge, and took out a can of beer. She gave it to the journalist without a glass, but he didn’t seem to mind. He cracked it open and drank.

“Thank you, Jack,” he said, all pretense of formality gone. “Look . . . I can tell you’re both a bit thrown by this, and I can understand that, but you’ve got to remember what I said when I first came in. I’m on your side. In fact, I want to help you.”

“Help me . . . how?”

“By telling your story.” Bulman held a hand up before Alex could interrupt. “Wait a minute. Just hear me out.” He had obviously rehearsed what he was about to say. “First of all, I think what’s happened to you is an outrage. It’s more than that. It’s a national scandal. In case you hadn’t noticed, the law says that you can’t join the army until you’re sixteen . . . and only after you’ve taken your school exams. So the idea that MI6 can just stroll along and use a kid like you quite frankly beggars belief. Did you volunteer?”

Alex said nothing.

“It doesn’t matter. We can get to all that later. But the point is this: When this gets out, heads are going to roll. The way I see it, you’re the victim in all this, Alex. Don’t get me wrong. You’re also a hero. If even half what I’ve heard about you is true, then what you’ve done is absolutely amazing. But it should never have been allowed to happen, and I think people are going to be horrified when the story breaks.”

“The story will never break,” Jack muttered. “MI6 won’t let you write it.”

“I’m sure they’ll try to stop me. But this is the twenty-first century, Jack, and it’s not so easy anymore.

You think the Americans wanted anyone to know about the torture practices carried out in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq? Or what about all the British members of Parliament who were trying to hide their crooked expenses? There are no secrets these days. If they stop me from going to the newspapers, I can put it on the Internet, and once the story’s broken, the press will come running. You’ll see. And if we keep it exclusive—if we go to the Sunday Times or the Telegraph—we’ll clean up.

“But it’s not just about the newspapers. The way I see it, there’s a book in this. It shouldn’t take more than three months to write, and it’ll sell all over the world. Tony Blair was offered six million for his memoirs, which nobody even wants to read. I reckon we could make ten times that amount. Then there’ll be syndication in the world press, exclusive interviews—Oprah Winfrey will pay a million alone—and almost certainly a bidding war for the rights to make a major Hollywood film. You’re going to be the most famous person in the world, Alex. Everyone is going to want a piece of you.”

“And who gets the money?” Jack asked. She already knew the answer.

“We’ll come to an agreement, Jack. Whatever you may think of me, I’m not greedy, and there’s going to be more than enough to go around. Fifty-fifty! Alex will tell me the full story and I’ll write it down.

I’ve got all the contacts . . . publishers, lawyers, that sort of thing. In a way, I’ll be Alex’s manager, and I promise you I’ll look after him. Like I said, I’m a fan. And after what he’s been through, he deserves to rake it in. From what I hear, MI6 hasn’t even paid him a regular salary. Now that’s what I call exploitation.”

“Suppose I’m not interested,” Alex said. “Suppose I don’t want the story to be told.” Bulman drank more of his beer. The chewing gum was still in his mouth. “It’s too late for that now, Alex,” he explained. “It’s going to happen anyway. The story’s out there and someone’s going to write it, even if I don’t. If you sit back and refuse to cooperate, it’ll only make it worse. You’ll have to live with what people say about you and you won’t get a chance to set down your own side of what happened.

“But in a way, if you don’t mind my saying so, you’re lucky that you’ve got me in the driver’s seat.

You think anyone else would offer you equal partnership? In fact, most other journalists would have just gone ahead and broken the news without even coming here. I can imagine you’re probably a bit confused right now, and I’m sorry I pulled that stunt on you in the cemetery. But believe me, once you get to know me better, we’re going to be friends. I’m a professional. I know what I’m doing.” Bulman finished his beer and crumpled the can. Alex didn’t know what to say. Too many thoughts were going through his head.

Fortunately, Jack was never at a loss for words. “Thank you for being so frank with us,” she said. “But if you don’t mind, we’d like a little time to think about what you’ve said.”

“Of course. I can understand that. You have my number. I can give you one week.” Bulman stood up.

“I reckon it’ll be quite fun, Alex. I’ll come here every evening and we’ll talk for a couple of hours.

Then I’ll write it up the next day while you’re at school. You can read it over for accuracy on weekends.” He gestured at the photographs. “You can hang on to those. I’ve got copies.” He went over to the door, then turned around one last time.

“You’re a real hero, Alex,” he said. “I hope I made that clear from the start. There aren’t many boys your age who actually believe in their country. You’re a patriot and I respect that. I’m really privileged to have met you.” He waved a hand. “Don’t get up. I’ll show myself out.” And then he was gone.

Neither Jack nor Alex said anything until they heard the front door close. Then Jack went out to make sure the journalist had really left. Alex stayed where he was. He was in shock. He was trying to think of what it would all mean. He would become world famous. There was no doubt of that. His photograph would be in all the newspapers and magazines, and he would never be able to walk down the street again, not without being pointed out as some sort of curiosity . . . a freak. He would have to leave Brookland, of course. He might even have to leave the UK. He could say good-bye to his home, to his friends, to any chance of a normal life.

He felt a black anger welling up inside him. How could he have allowed this to happen?

Jack came back into the room. “He’s gone,” she said. She sat down at the table. The photographs were still spread out in front of her. “Why didn’t you tell me about the cemetery?” she asked.

There was no accusation in her voice, but Alex knew she was upset. “I wanted to,” he said. “But it happened so soon after Scotland that I thought you’d be worried.”

“I’d be more worried if I thought you weren’t telling me when you were in trouble.”

“I’m sorry, Jack.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Jack gathered the photographs into a pile and placed them facedown. “He wasn’t quite as clever as he thought,” she said. “He didn’t know everything about you. He’d only found out about three of your missions. And he said you trained in the Lake District. He got that wrong too.”

“He knew enough,” Alex said.

“So what are we going to do?”

“We can’t let him write this story.” Alex felt a hollow in his chest. “He doesn’t care about me. He just wants to use me. He’s going to ruin everything.”

Jack reached out and took his hand. “Don’t worry, Alex. We’ll stop him.”

“How?” Alex thought for a moment, then answered his own question. “We’re going to have to go and see Mr. Blunt.”

It was the only answer. They both knew it. There were no other options.

“I don’t like you going back there.” Jack was only saying what Alex was thinking. “Every time you set foot in that door, something bad comes out of it. I was beginning to think they’d forgotten all about you. This will just remind them . . .”

“I know. But who else is going to stop him, Jack? We need their help.”

“They’ve never helped you before, Alex.”

“This time it would be in their interest. They’re not going to want Harry Bulman writing about them.” Alex pushed his plate away. He had barely eaten, but he no longer had any appetite. “I’ll go after school tomorrow.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Thanks.”

He was going back. The decision had been made. But as Alex got up and helped clear the table, he wondered if in truth he had ever really left.

8

THE LION’S DEN

THE EVENING SEEMED TO have drawn in early on Liverpool Street. It was only half past four as Jack and Alex came out of the station, but already the streetlamps were on and the first commuters were on their way home, snatching their free newspapers without even breaking pace. There must have been a slight mist in the air, because it seemed to Alex that the offices were glowing unnaturally, the light behind the windows not quite making it to the world outside.

Punched in the chest.

Unable to breathe.

The pavement, cold and hard, rushing toward him.

This was where Alex had been shot, and he would never be able to return without experiencing it again.

The flower seller that he saw now, standing across the road, the old woman coming out of the shop . . .

had they been there that day? It had been five o’clock, almost the same time as now, but during the summer. There was the roof where the sniper must have lain concealed, waiting for Alex to come out.

He had sworn that he would never come back here, yet here he was. It was like one of those dreams where you keep on running but always end up in the same place. Trapped.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked. She could see what was going on in his head.

Alex pulled himself together. “It feels strange, being back.”

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“Yes. Let’s get it over with.”

They stopped in front of a tall, classical building that would have been just as much at home in New York but for the Union Jack that hung limply from a pole jutting out of the sixteenth floor. A set of rotating doors invited them in, and set in the wall to one side a brass plaque read, ROYAL & GENERAL BANK PLC. LONDON.

Strangely, the bank was fully operational, with loan desks, cash machines, tellers, and clients, and Alex wondered how many people must have accounts here without knowing what the real purpose of the building was. The entire place belonged to the Special Operations Division of MI6. The bank was nothing more than a cover. And for that matter, how many men and women would come out of those doors, never to return? Alex’s uncle had been one of them, dying for queen and country or whatever else motivated them. What difference did it make once you were dead?

“Alex?” Jack was watching him anxiously, and he realized that, despite what he had just said, he hadn’t moved. “The lion’s den,” she muttered.

“That’s what it feels like.”

“Come on . . .”

They went in.

The doors spun them from the cold reality of the city to the warmth and deception of a world where nothing was ever what it seemed. They were in a reception area with a row of elevators, a marble floor, half a dozen clocks—each one showing the time in a different country—and the inevitable potted plants. But there would be hidden cameras too. Their images would already be on the way to a central computer equipped with face-recognition software. And the two receptionists, both female and pretty, would know exactly who they were before they said a word.

One of them looked up as they approached. “Can I help you?”

“We have an appointment with Mrs. Jones.”

“Of course. Please take a seat.”

It was all so normal. Alex and Jack took their place on a leather sofa with a scattering of financial magazines on the table in front of them. Alex had come straight from school, so he was still in his uniform. He wondered what he must look like to passersby. A rich kid, perhaps, opening his first account.

A few minutes later, one of the elevators opened and a dark-haired woman in a black suit stepped out.

As usual, she wore very little jewelry, just a simple silver chain around her neck. This was Mrs. Jones, the deputy head of Special Operations and the second most important person in the building. Despite the impact that she’d had on his life, Alex knew very little about her. She lived in an apartment in Clerkenwell, near the old meat market. She might have been married once. She had two children, but something had happened to them and they were no longer around. And that was it. If she’d ever had a private life, she’d left it behind her when she became a spy—and the spy was all that was left.

“Good afternoon, Alex.” She didn’t exactly seem pleased to see him. Her face was completely neutral.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you, Mrs. Jones.”

“We’re ready to see you.” She turned to Jack. “I’ll bring Alex back down in about half an hour.” Jack stood up. “I’m coming too.”

“I’m afraid not. Mr. Blunt prefers to see Alex on his own.”

“Then we’re leaving.”

Mrs. Jones shrugged. “That’s your choice. But you said on the telephone that you needed our help.”

“It’s all right, Jack.” Alex could see the way this was going, and he had quickly made his decision. It was always possible that Alan Blunt would agree to help him—but it would only be on his own terms.

Any argument and Alex would be thrown out in the street. It had happened before. “I don’t mind seeing them on their own if that’s what they want.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Jack nodded. “All right. I’ll wait for you here.” She glanced at the magazines. “I can catch up with the latest banking news.”

Alex and Mrs. Jones walked over to the elevator, and she pressed the button for the sixteenth floor.

Only she knew that the button had read her fingerprint and that if she hadn’t been authorized to travel up, two armed guards would have been waiting when she arrived. She was also aware of the thermal intensifier concealed behind the mirror, as well as the early warning chemical detector that had been added recently. Even the floor was examining the soles of Alex’s shoes. The dust and residue under his feet might, in certain circumstances, provide valuable information about where he had been.

Mrs. Jones seemed more relaxed now that the two of them were on their own. “So, how is school going?” she asked.

“Okay,” Alex said. Mrs. Jones sounded friendly enough, but he had learned to treat even the most casual question with suspicion.

“And how was Scotland?”

How had she known he had gone to Scotland for the New Year? Did she know what had happened there? Alex decided to put her to the test. “I had a great time,” he said. “I really liked Loch Arkaig. In fact, I made quite an in-depth visit.”

Mrs. Jones didn’t even blink. “I haven’t been there myself.” They arrived at the sixteenth floor and left the elevator, walking down a heavily carpeted corridor with doors that had numbers but no names. They stopped outside 1605. Mrs. Jones knocked, and without waiting for an answer, they went in.

Alan Blunt was sitting behind his desk as if he had been there forever, as if he never left. He was the same gray man in the same gray suit with the same files open in front of him. Sometimes Alex tried to imagine the head of Special Operations with a wife and children, going to a film or playing sports. But he couldn’t do it. Like Mrs. Jones, Blunt had no life outside these four walls. Was that what he had dreamed about when he was young, being locked into a job that would never let him go? Had he actually ever been young?

“Sit down, Alex.” Blunt waved Alex to a chair without looking up from his paperwork. He wrote something down and underlined it. Alex wondered what he had just done. He could have been ordering extra office stationery. He could have just sentenced someone to death. The trouble with Blunt was that either way he would have shown the same lack of emotion.

He glanced briefly at Alex. “You’re getting taller.” He sounded disapproving—but that made sense.

The younger and more innocent Alex looked, the more useful he was to MI6.

There was a long silence. Alex took the seat he had been offered. Mrs. Jones sat down beside the desk.

Blunt made a few last notes, the nib of his pen scratching against the page. At last he finished what he was doing. “I understand you have a problem,” he said.

Jack hadn’t said very much on the telephone. She’d had enough dealings with MI6 to know that nobody says anything important on an unsecured line. So Alex quickly explained what had happened: the fight in the cemetery, Harry Bulman’s visit, the newspaper story he was intending to write.

He finished talking. Blunt reached out and wiped a speck of dust off the surface of the desk.

“That’s very interesting, Alex,” he said. “But I’m not sure there’s very much we can do.”

“What?” Alex was astonished. “Why not?”

“Well, as you’ve often reminded us, you don’t actually work for us. You’re not part of MI6.”

“That’s never stopped you from using me.”

“Perhaps not. But it’s not our business to interfere with the freedom of the press. If this man, Bulman, has found out about your activities over the past year, there’s not a great deal we can do. Are you asking us to arrange an accident?”

“No!” Alex was horrified. He wondered if Blunt was even being serious.

“Then what exactly do you have in mind?”

Alex drew a breath. Maybe Blunt was trying to confuse him deliberately. He wasn’t sure how to respond. “Do you really want him to go ahead and write this story?” he asked.

“I don’t see that it matters one way or another. We can always deny it.”

“What about me?”

“You can deny it too.”

He could. But it would make no difference. Once Bulman’s report came out, his life would still be in pieces. In fact, if MI6 denied the story, it would only make it worse. Alex would be left out in the cold.

Once again, he felt a rising sense of anger. It was Blunt who had put him in this situation in the first place. Was he really going to sit back and wash his hands of the whole affair?

But then Mrs. Jones came to his rescue. “Maybe we could have a word with this journalist,” she suggested. “It might be possible to make him see things from our point of view.”

“Talking to him would only compromise us,” Blunt insisted.

“I absolutely agree. But in view of what Alex has done for us in the past . . .” She hesitated. “And what he might do for us in the future . . .”

Blunt looked up, his eyes, behind the square gunmetal spectacles, locking into Alex’s for the first time.

“Would you ever consider coming back?” he asked.

It was as if the thought had only just occurred to him, but suddenly Alex understood. Everything in this room had been rehearsed. Mrs. Jones had known he had been to Scotland. They knew exactly what was going on at Brookland. They probably even got copies of his homework. And of course, they had steered this conversation exactly where they wanted. These two never left anything to chance.

“There’s something you want,” Alex said. His voice was heavy.

“Not at all.” Blunt drummed his fingers. Then he seemed to remember something. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a file that he laid in front of him. “Well, since you mention it, there is one thing. But it’s a very simple matter, Alex. Hardly even worthy of your talents.” Alex leaned forward. The file that Blunt had selected was stamped with the usual red letters—TOP

SECRET. But there was another word written underneath it in black ink. Alex read it upside down.

GREENFIELDS. It meant something. Where had he heard it before? Then he remembered and he reeled back. He almost wanted to laugh. How did they do it?

Greenfields was the name of the research center that he was about to visit with the rest of his class. His biology teacher, Mr. Gilbert, had been talking about it only the day before.

“What do you know about genetic engineering?” Blunt demanded.

“I’ve been doing a project on it,” Alex said. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

“It’s an interesting subject,” Blunt continued in a tone of voice that suggested it was anything but.

“Genetic science can do incredible things. Grow tomatoes in the desert or oranges the size of melons.

There’s no question that companies like Greenfields could change the way we live. Of course . . .” He drew his fingers beneath his chin. “There are also certain dangers.”

“Whoever controls the food chain controls the world.” Alex remembered what Edward Pleasure had said when they were in Scotland.

“Exactly. Anything that puts too much power into the hands of one individual is of interest to us. And there is one individual working at Greenfields who is causing us particular concern.”

“His name is Leonard Straik,” Mrs. Jones said.

“Straik is the director and the chief science officer. Aged fifty-eight. Unmarried. He was a brilliant student, studying biology at Cambridge back in the seventies. He invented something called the Biolistic Particle Delivery System—also known as the gene gun. It uses helium pressure to fire new DNA into existing plant organisms . . . something like that, anyway. The long and the short of it is that thanks to Straik, it’s become much easier to mass-produce GM seeds.

“For twenty years, Straik ran his own company— Leonard Straik Diagnostics . . . or LSD, as it was called. It all went well for a time, but like many scientists, he was less brilliant when it came to business and the whole thing collapsed. Straik lost all his money and went freelance. Six years ago he was hired as the director of Greenfields, and he has been there ever since.”

“Why are you interested in him?”

“Because of something that happened a few months ago.” Blunt opened the file. “Last November, the police got a call from a whistle-blower inside the company, a bio-technician by the name of Philip Masters. He said he knew something about Straik and wanted to talk. Given the security implications, the police passed the information to us and we arranged a meeting—but one day before it could take place, there was an accident and Masters was killed. Apparently he came into contact with some sort of toxic material and it poisoned his entire nervous system. By the time he turned up in the local morgue, he was unrecognizable.”

“An accident . . .”

“Exactly. It seemed a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“We don’t like coincidences,” Mrs. Jones said.

“Since then, we’ve been taking a close look at Greenfields,” Blunt went on. “It’s a major operation. As well as research and development, it’s also one of the largest suppliers of genetically modified seeds in the world, using the gene gun that Straik pioneered. There are whole countries—in Africa and South America, for instance—that are dependent on them. We cannot risk having a loose cannon at the center of an operation like that. Masters knew something about Straik. We need to know what it was.” Alex nodded. He was beginning to see where this was going.

“We’ve managed to put a tap on Straik’s telephone and we intercept all the calls he makes on his mobile. But we need more than that.”

“We want to get into his computers,” Mrs. Jones said.

Blunt nodded. “There may be nothing in all this. After all, people die all the time. Accidents happen and there are plenty of toxic plants on the site. I understand Straik keeps a whole greenhouse full of them. He’s been doing research into natural cures . . . antivenoms. But we have to get someone into Greenfields—and it can’t be a security guard or a maintenance engineer. That’s exactly what he’d be expecting. We have to take a different approach.”

Alex had heard it all before. People with something to hide would always suspect an adult, particularly if they knew they were under surveillance. But nobody would think twice about a schoolboy on a class visit. Alex remembered what Mr. Gilbert had said. “I didn’t think they’d allow school visits because so much of their work is secretive.” But somehow they had been persuaded to make an exception for Brookland. Had MI6 been working quietly behind the scenes?

“It would be easy for you to slip away from the group during your visit,” Mrs. Jones continued. “And it would only take you thirty seconds to download everything from Straik’s computer.”

“Won’t it have a password?” Alex asked. “And how would I even get into his office?”

“We can have a word with Smithers about all that,” Blunt replied. “But it’s up to you, Alex. It seems fairly straightforward to me. We can’t even be sure that Straik is up to no good. It may all be a fuss about nothing. However, it seems that we can do each other a favor. You agree to help us and we’ll have a word with this man—Harry Bulman—and see if we can persuade him to leave you alone.” Blunt smiled, but Alex wasn’t fooled. He knew exactly what was going on. If he refused to help, his life would be torn apart. Blunt was pretending to offer him a choice, knowing exactly what Alex would do. The decision had already been made.

He should have expected it. He had agreed to walk into the lion’s den—so he could hardly complain when he got scratched.

“It’s a pleasure to see you as always, Alex,” Smithers said. “I fancy you’ve grown a bit. Unless, of course, Mr. Blunt has supplied you with a pair of my new sneakers. I’m rather pleased with them, I must say.”

“Do they fire missiles?” Alex asked.

“Oh, no. Nothing like that. They’re for use by agents who need to change their appearance rapidly in the field. There’s a hydraulic system built into the heel, and they can add three inches to your height.”

“Do you have a name for them?”

Smithers folded his arms across his ample stomach. “Pumps!”

The two of them were sitting in Smithers’s office on the eleventh floor. The room looked ordinary enough, but Alex knew that everything in sight actually disguised something else—from the X-ray angle floor lamp to the incinerator “out” tray. Even the filing cabinet concealed an elevator to the ground floor. Smithers was exactly as Alex remembered him. He was dressed in an old-fashioned three-piece suit that must have been specially tailored to fit his bulk, with a striped tie that was surely the old-school variety. As usual, there was a broad smile across his face and above his various chins. Smithers was the one agent in MI6 that Alex was always pleased to see. He was also the only person Alex trusted.

“So I understand you’re going to look into Greenfields for us,” Smithers continued. “Very good of you, Alex. I’m always amazed how helpful you are.”

“Well, Mr. Blunt is very persuasive.”

“That’s certainly true. At least it shouldn’t be too dangerous this time . . . although do look out. That chap Masters was a bit of a mess. He’d definitely trodden on something that he shouldn’t—so just make sure you look where you’re going.” Smithers coughed, realizing that he’d said too much, and continued hastily. “I’m sure no one will even notice you.”

“How do I get into Straik’s office?” Alex asked.

“I’ve got a few things for you right here.” Smithers opened a drawer in his desk and took out an old-fashioned pencil case. It was made of tin, slightly battered, decorated with a picture of the Simpsons . . . the sort of thing he might have been given for Christmas three or four years ago. “It’s very unlikely that you’ll be searched,” Smithers explained. “But we know Greenfields has a very efficient security system, so better safe than sorry.”

He pushed the case forward. “The tin is rather clever,” he explained. “I actually developed it for international air travel. It has a lead lining so it won’t show any of the hidden circuitry if it passes through an X-ray machine. But at the same time, there are silhouettes of pens and rulers fused inside the lid, and if the tin is scanned, they’ll show up as ghost images. You could carry anything you wanted inside and nobody would notice.”

He opened the tin. Alex was surprised that it actually did contain pens and rulers—along with other pieces of school equipment. “Since this is a school trip, I’ve concealed all the gadgets inside things you might reasonably be expected to have with you,” Smithers said. He picked out a rather large eraser with a pudgy finger and thumb. “The memory stick that you’ll need for Straik’s computer is inside this. Just tear open the eraser and plug it in. You won’t need passwords or anything like that. It’s completely automatic. In thirty seconds, everything that’s inside the computer will be on the drive’s memory.” He took out a library card. It was already stamped with Alex’s name and had a magnetic strip on the back. “Straik’s office will almost certainly be locked. This will get you in. It looks like a library card, but actually it’s an all-purpose swipe card.” He lifted the tin and for the first time Alex noticed a narrow slot near the bottom. “You take the library card and you swipe any door that you want to open. Then you feed it into the tin. There’s a miniaturized flux reversal system hidden in the bottom. It will work out the code you need and reprogram the card. These are now standard equipment for all MI6 agents, although this is the first time I’ve hidden one in the bottom of a Simpsons pencil case!”

“How do I find Straik’s office?” Alex asked.

“I’m working on that, Alex. Greenfields is a big place, and I doubt there’ll be signs. But I’ve got a rather neat idea and I’ll send it to you later.”

Alex picked up a pencil sharpener. “What does this do?”

“It sharpens pencils.” Smithers reached out for it. “But it also converts into a knife. It’s tiny, of course, but the blade is diamond edged and will cut through almost anything. No need to worry about closed-circuit TV cameras. . . .” He took what looked like a small pocket calculator out of the tin. “Just press the plus button three times and it will send out a square wave frequency signal, which should jam any transmissions within fifty yards. On the subject of jam, it’s almost time for tea. Would you like some?”

“No, thanks.” Alex took the calculator. “Does it do anything else?”

“As a matter of fact, it’s also an extremely sophisticated communications device. Press 911 and you can talk directly to us. It’ll work anywhere in the world.”

“911,” Alex muttered. “In case of emergencies . . .”

Smithers smiled. “And finally, I know you like your explosions, Alex, so you’ll enjoy this.” He took the last two items out of the tin.

“They look like pens,” Alex said.

“Yes, they do. They’re gel-ink pens . . . but the gel in this instance is short for gelignite.” Smithers held them in front of him. “There are two colors here. The red one is much more powerful than the black one. Remember that. It’s the difference between blowing a door off its hinges and blowing the lock off a door. They both have time fuses concealed in the cap. Twist once for fifteen seconds, then pull the plunger upward to activate. You have a delay of up to two minutes. They’re also magnetic. And, of course, they write.”

He put everything back into the tin and closed the lid.

“There you are, old chap. Everything you need . . . nice and neat. I’m sure this mission is going to be a piece of cake—which reminds me once again that it really is time for tea. Are you sure you won’t join me?”

“No, thanks, Mr. Smithers.” Alex took the pencil case and got to his feet. “I’ll see you.”

“I’m sure you will, Alex. I don’t know what it is about you, but you just don’t seem able to stay away.

Take care—and do come and see me again soon.”

Back on the sixteenth floor, Alan Blunt was still behind his desk, listening as Mrs. Jones read from a report. It had been printed and handed to her only minutes before. There were just two pages: a black-and-white photograph followed by about fifty lines of text.

“Harry Bulman,” she was saying. “Educated at Eton. Expelled when he was sixteen. Drugs. He went into the army, and it’s true what he told Alex. He actually made it into the commandos, but they threw him out. Dishonor able discharge for cowardice. His unit came under attack in Afghanistan and he was found buried in a sand dune. He was hiding. After that, he managed to get odd jobs in journalism.

Writing about defense issues some of the time, but mainly it was just smut. Three-in-a-bed headlines and that sort of thing. Married and divorced. No children. Lives in north London. Thirty-seven years old.”

There was a brief silence as Blunt took this in. Nothing showed behind his eyes, but Mrs. Jones knew that he would be considering every possibility and that within seconds he would have come up with a plan of attack. This was his great strength. It was the reason why he had headed up Special Operations for so long.

“Invisible Man,” he said. He had made his decision. “We’ll give it to Crawley. He hasn’t been out in the field for a while. He’ll enjoy it.”

“Right.” There was a shredder beside the desk. Mrs. Jones fed her copy of the report into it and the blades began to rotate. Harry Bulman was looking out from the photograph. There was a half smile on his face, as if he was pleased with himself. Slowly, he disappeared into the machine, sliced into ribbons, dropping into the bin below.

9

INVISIBLE MAN

THERE WERE AT LEAST TEN THOUSAND GUESTS in the auditorium and they were all applauding. Harry Bulman made his way through the crowd, occasionally pausing to shake hands and to receive congratulations from people he didn’t even know. Ahead of him, the stage beckoned. A dozen golden statuettes stood in a line and one of them had his name on it: Journalist of the Year. It was glimmering in the spotlight, twice the size of any of the others, and as he walked toward it, it seemed to grow even bigger. At the same time, a bell began to ring and . . .

He woke up. It was eight o’clock in the morning and his alarm had just gone off.

It had been a dream, of course, but a very pleasant one—and Bulman had no doubt that very soon it would become a reality.

He was going to be famous. Newspaper editors who were usually too busy to give him the time of day would be lining up to employ him. There would be television talk shows, celebrity parties, lots of awards. It occurred to him that maybe he had been a little too generous offering Alex fifty percent of his earnings. After all, he was the one doing all the work. It was his story. Maybe forty or even thirty percent would have been closer to the mark. In fact, at the end of the day, the journalist didn’t need to pay him anything at all. It wasn’t as if Alex could do anything about it.

It was incredible, really, that the two of them had finally met. Bulman remembered the first time he had heard the story of a teenage spy. It had been in a pub, the Crown on Fleet Street, a late-night drinking session with an old friend in the police who had been at the Science Museum when the parachutist came through the roof. He hadn’t believed it then, but something had told him to stick with it, and very soon he had found himself on what had become nothing less than a quest. He had spent months doggedly following leads that had gone nowhere, meeting contacts who had clammed up at the last moment, calling in favors, and, when necessary, making threats. Piece by piece he had put the story together. And in the end it had led him to Alex.

Bulman slept in a circular bed with black silk sheets on the top floor of a modern block of apartments in Chalk Farm. His bedroom had views of the railway lines leading into Euston Station. The place had been built only twenty years ago but already there were cracks appearing, maybe because of the vibrations from the trains. One was passing now. When he had first moved in here, the grinding wheels used to wake him up, but he had soon grown used to it. Now he quite liked it. He wouldn’t have been able to afford the place if it had been anywhere quieter.

It was the start of a new week. Seven days since he had been in Alex’s Chelsea flat. In the end, he had decided to give the boy time to work things out and to recognize he had no alternative but to work with him. He and that housekeeper of his would have talked things over and probably blamed each other for what had happened. Now that he thought about it, maybe that was another interesting angle. The girl—

Jack—was quite pretty. What was she doing, living with a fourteen-year-old boy? The National Enquirer would like that! Well, this afternoon Bulman would go back. He would be there waiting with a glass of white wine and a digital recorder when Alex finished school.

He threw back the covers and went into the kitchen, where the plates from dinner last night—and the night before—were still stacked up in the sink. Bulman enjoyed good food, but he couldn’t be bothered to cook for himself and the packaging from frozen meals was spilling out of the garbage. He found a clean mug and made himself a coffee, glancing at the newspaper articles that were pinned to a corkboard above the sink. “Secrets of Army’s Basra Breakfast.” “Intelligence Chief Appears on Face-book.” “SAS Commander Misses Flight.” He wasn’t proud of his work. Nobody took much notice of what he wrote, and the stories were always nearer the back of the paper than the front. What did it matter, anyway? They were read and then forgotten . . . if they were read at all.

That would all change soon.

Bulman opened the fridge. He took out the milk and sniffed it. It was sour. He poured it into the sink and drank his coffee black. What was he going to do until four o’clock? It was a beautiful day, a cold January sun glinting off the railway tracks. He watched a second train rumble past on its way into town, packed with commuters on their way to their boring jobs. He could almost imagine them, squashed into the newspapers they were trying to read. A month from now, those newspapers would belong to him.

A late breakfast. Shopping. A couple of beers at the Groucho Club in Soho. He mapped out his day as he got dressed in his usual open-neck shirt, blazer, and slacks. He never wore jeans. He liked to look stylish. He fastened the shirt with brightly polished silver cuff links, each one decorated with a miniature engraving of the Fairbairn-Sykes dagger, used by the commandos since the Second World War. Finally, he scooped up the briefcase that he always carried with him, grabbed his wallet from the bedside table, finished his coffee, and went out.

There was a newsstand opposite the apartment with a display showing the morning headlines.

“Journalist Killed.” He couldn’t help smiling as he read the words. He wondered if it was somebody he knew, probably taking a bullet in Afghanistan or somewhere else in the Middle East. He had often tried to get himself sent abroad (“. . . our man, Harry Bulman, entrenched with the allied forces in Iraq . . .”), but none of the editors had been interested. Well, serves the guy right, whoever he was. Probably some stupid amateur who didn’t know when to duck.

He was about to cross the road and buy the paper when he remembered that he had used the last of his change down at the pub the night before. He’d been drinking with a couple of freelance journalists and somehow they’d all ended up around the slot machine, shoveling coins in. At one stage he’d won more than twenty-five dollars, but of course he’d put it all back in again and lost it. That was his problem. He never knew when to stop. He took out his wallet and opened it. All he had was a couple of credit cards.

He had no money at all.

The nearest cash machine was at the traffic lights on the other side of Camden Market. Bulman thought about walking, but as luck would have it, a bus appeared at that exact moment, rumbling toward him down the hill. At least he had his pass . . . it was valid for any subway or bus in London. He hurried over to the bus stop, arriving just as the driver pulled in and the doors hissed open. A couple of people got on ahead of him, but then it was his turn. He pressed his card against the scanner. The machine made a discouraging sound.

“I’m sorry, mate,” the driver said. “You’ve got nothing left on your card.”

“That’s not possible,” Bulman replied. “I took the subway last night and I had about thirty dollars left on it.”

“Well, it’s showing zero now.” The driver pointed at the screen.

“Your machine must be broken.”

“It worked for everyone else.”

Bulman held his card against the screen for a second time—but with the same result. He glanced around. The bus was crowded with people waiting to move off. They were all watching him impatiently. “All right.” He scowled. “I’ll give you the cash.” But even as he reached into his pocket, he remembered that he didn’t have any cash. The driver was glaring at him now. Bulman gave up. The bank was only a quick walk away. The sun was shining.

“Forget it,” he muttered. “I’ll walk.”

He stepped back onto the sidewalk. The doors closed and the bus moved off. Bulman was still holding his travel pass. He glared at it. When he had a spare minute, he would send a letter to Transport for London to complain. Maybe he would even write a newspaper article about his experience. Idiots. Why couldn’t they get the technology to work?

It took him ten minutes to walk down to the bank, by which time it was almost nine o’clock. All around him, the shops were opening. People were hurrying out of the coffee shops, clutching their oversized cups, then disappearing into their offices . . . another busy London day. Propping his briefcase under his arm, Bulman selected a debit card and fed it into the machine. He needed money for breakfast, to pick up a few groceries—and later on, he might treat himself to a taxi over to Chelsea. He punched in his PIN, touched the box for $50, and waited.

The screen went black. Then a message came up.

Bulman stared at the screen, then punched the Cancel button to get his card back. Nothing happened.

Not only was the machine refusing to give him any money, it had decided to keep his card! There was nothing wrong with the account, he was sure of it. The last time he’d looked, he’d had over four hundred dollars in it. Someone must have vandalized the ATM, some lout who’d had too much to drink.

He’d have to find another cash machine and use his credit card for a cash advance. He walked only a block before finding one. Very cautiously, he typed in his PIN, taking care not to make any mistakes.

The same thing happened. A blank screen. A stark white message. His card was swallowed up.

He swore. A couple of people had lined up to use the same machine and they were looking at him with a sort of pity, as if they imagined that he was broke, that there was nothing in his account. What was he to do now? He was angry, humiliated, and hungry—he needed breakfast. He had no money and no way to travel.