Eagle Strike

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EAGLE STRIKE

Alex Rider Book 4

ANTHONY HOROWITZ

First published 2003 by Walker Books Ltd 87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

ISBN 0-7445-9057-4

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

NOT MY BUSINESS

THE FINGER ON THE TRIGGER

MATADOR

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCE

SAINT OR SINGER?

THE PLEASURE DOME

FEATHERED SERPENT

RUE BRITANNIA

PAIN SYNTHESIS

THE TRUTH ABOUT ALEX

PEDAL POWER

EMERGENCY MEASURES

UNFAIR EXCHANGE

INSANITY AND BISCUITS

EAGLE STRIKE

RICHMOND BRIDGE

PROLOGUE

^ »

he Amazon jungle. Fifteen years ago.

It had taken them five days to make the journey, cutting their way through the dense, suffocating undergrowth, fighting through the very air, which hung heavy, moist and stilt. Trees as tall as cathedrals surrounded them, and a strange, green light—almost holy—shimmered through the vast canopy of leaves. The rainforest seemed to have an intelligence of its own. Its voice was the sudden screech of a parrot, the flicker of a monkey swinging through the branches overhead. It knew they were there.

But so far they had been lucky. They had been attacked, of course, by leeches and mosquitoes and stinging ants. But the snakes and scorpions had left them alone. The rivers they had crossed had been free of piranhas. They had been allowed to go on.

They were travelling light. They earned with them only their basic rations: map, compass, water bottles, iodine tablets, mosquito nets and machetes. Their single heaviest item was the 88

Winchester rifle with Sniperscope that they were going to use to kill the man who lived here in this impenetrable place, one hundred miles south of Iquitos in Peru. The two men knew each other"s names but never used them. It was part of their training. The older of the two called himself Hunter. He was English, although he spoke seven languages so fluently that he could pass himself off as a native of many of the countries he found himself in. He was about thirty, handsome, with the close-cut hair and watchful eyes of a trained soldier. The other man was slim, fair-haired and twitching with nervous energy. He had chosen the name of Cossack. He was just nineteen years old. This was his first kill. Both men were dressed in khaki—standard jungle camouflage. Their faces were also painted green, with dark brown stripes across their cheeks.

They had reached their destination just as the sun had begun to rise, and were standing there now, utterly still, ignoring the insects that buzzed around their faces, tasting their sweat.

In front of them was a clearing, man-made, separated from the jungle by a ten metre high fence.

An elegant colonial house with wooden verandas and shutters, white curtains and slowly rotating fans stood at the heart of it, with two more low brick buildings about twenty metres behind.

Accommodation for the guards. There must have been about a dozen of them patrolling the perimeter and watching from rusting metal towers. Perhaps there were more inside. But they were lazy. They were shuffling around, not concentrating on what they were supposed to be doing. They were in the middle of the jungle. They thought they were safe.

A four-seater helicopter stood waiting on a square of asphalt. It would take the owner of the house just twenty steps to walk from the front door to the helicopter. That was the only time he would be visible. That was when he would have to die.

The two men knew the name of the man they had come to kill, but they didn"t use that either.

Cossack had spoken it once but Hunter had corrected him.

“Never call a target by his real name. It personalizes him. It opens a door into his life and, when the time comes, it may remind you what you are doing and make you hesitate.” Just one of the many lessons Cossack had learnt from Hunter. They referred to the target only as the Commander. He was a military man—or he had been. He still liked to wear military-style clothes. With so many bodyguards he was in command of a small army. The name suited him.

The Commander was not a good man. He was a drug dealer, exporting cocaine on a massive scale. He also controlled one of the most vicious gangs in Peru, torturing and killing anyone who got in his way. But all this meant nothing to Hunter and Cossack. They were here because they had been paid twenty thousand pounds to take him out—and if the Commander had been a doctor or a priest it would have made no difference to them.

Hunter glanced at his watch. It was two minutes to eight in the morning and he had been told the Commander would be leaving for Lima on the hour. He also knew that the Commander was a punctual man. He loaded a single .308 cartridge into the Winchester and adjusted the Sniperscope. One shot was all he would need.

Meanwhile Cossack had taken out his field glasses and was scanning the compound for any sign of movement. The younger man was not afraid, but he was tense and excited. A trickle of perspiration curved behind his ear and ran down his neck. His mouth was dry. Something tapped gently against his back and he wondered if Hunter had touched him, warning him to stay calm.

But Hunter was some distance away, concentrating on the gun.

Something moved.

Cossack only knew for certain it was there when it climbed over his shoulder and onto his neck—and by then it was too late. Very slowly, he turned his head. And there it was, at the very edge of his field of vision. A spider, clinging to the side of his neck, just underneath the line of his chin. He swallowed. From the weight of it he had thought it was a tarantula—but this was worse, much worse. It was very black with a small head and an obscene, swollen body, like a fruit about to burst. He knew that if he could have turned it over, he would have found a red hourglass marking on its abdomen.

It was a black widow. Latrodectus curacaviensis. One of the deadliest spiders in the world.

The spider moved, its front legs reaching out so that one was almost touching the corner of Cossack"s mouth. The other legs were still attached to his neck, with the main body of the spider now hanging under his jaw. He wanted to swallow again but he didn"t dare. Any movement might alarm the creature, which anyway needed no excuse to attack. Cossack guessed that this was the female of the species: a thousand times worse than the male. If it decided to bite him, its hollow fangs would inject him with a neurotoxic venom which would paralyse his entire nervous system. He would feel nothing at first. There would just be two tiny red pricks on his skin. The pain—waves of it—would come in about an hour. His eyelids would swell. He would be unable to breathe. He would go into convulsions. Almost certainly he would die.

Cossack considered raising a hand and trying to flick the hideous thing off. If it had been anywhere else on his body he might have taken the chance. But it had settled on his throat, as if fascinated by the pulse it had found there. He wanted to call to Hunter, but he couldn"t risk moving the muscles in his neck. He was barely breathing. Hunter was still making the final adjustments, unaware of what was going on. What could he do?

In the end he whistled. It was the only sound he dared make. He was horribly aware of the creature hanging off him. He felt the prick of another leg, this time touching his lip. Was it about to climb onto his face?

Hunter looked round and saw at once that something was wrong. Cossack was standing unnaturally still, his head contorted, his face, underneath the paint, completely white. Hunter took a step so that Cossack now stood between him and the compound.

He had lowered the rifle, the muzzle pointing towards the ground.

Hunter saw the spider.

At the same moment, the door of the house opened and the Commander came out: a short, plump man dressed in a dark tunic hanging open at the collar. Unshaven, he was carrying a briefcase and smoking a cigarette.

Twenty steps to the helicopter—and he was already moving briskly, talking to the two bodyguards who accompanied him. Cossack"s eyes flickered over to Hunter. He knew the organization that had employed them would not forgive failure, and this was the only chance they would get. The spider moved again and, looking down, Cossack saw its head: a cluster of tiny, gleaming eyes—half a dozen of them—gazing up at him, uglier than anything in the world.

His skin was itching. The whole side of his face wanted to peel itself away. But he knew that there was nothing Hunter could do. He had to fire now. The Commander was only ten steps away from the helicopter. The blades were already turning. Cossack wanted to scream at him. Do it! The sound of the gunshot would frighten the spider and it would bite. But that wasn"t important. The mission had to succeed.

It took Hunter less than two seconds to make a decision. He could use the tip of the gun to brush away the black widow. He might succeed in getting rid of it before it bit Cossack. But by then the Commander would be in his helicopter, behind bulletproof glass. Or he could shoot the Commander. But once he had fired the gun, he would have to turn and run immediately, disappear into the jungle. There would be no time to help Cossack; there would be nothing he could do.

He made his decision, swept up the gun, aimed and fired.

The bullet, white-hot, flashed past, cutting a line in Cossack"s neck. The black widow disintegrated instantly, blown apart by the force of the shot. The bullet continued across the clearing and through the fence and—still carrying tiny fragments of the black widow with it—

buried itself in the Commander"s chest. The Commander had been about to climb into the helicopter. He stopped as if surprised, put a hand to his heart, and crumpled. The bodyguards twisted round, shouting, staring into the jungle, trying to see the enemy.

But Hunter and Cossack had already gone. The jungle swallowed them in seconds, although it was more than an hour before they stopped to catch their breath.

Cossack was bleeding. There was a red line that could have been drawn with a ruler across the side of his neck, and the blood had seeped down, soaking into his shirt. But the black widow hadn"t bitten him. He held out a hand, accepting a water bottle from Hunter, and drank.

“You saved my life,” he said.

Hunter considered. “To take a life and save a life with one bullet… that"s not bad going.” Cossack would have the scar for the rest of his life. But that would not be a very long time. The life of the professional assassin is often short. Hunter would die first, in another country, on another mission. Later it would be his turn.

Right now he said nothing. They had done their job. That was all that mattered. He gave back the water bottle, and as the sun beat down and the jungle watched and reflected upon what had happened, the two men set off together, cutting and hacking their way through the mid-morning heat of another day.

NOT MY BUSINESS

« ^ »

lex Rider lay on his back, drying out in the midday sun.

He could feel the salt water from his last swim trickling through his hair and evaporating off his chest. His shorts, still wet, clung to him. He was, at that moment, as happy as it is possible to be; one week into a holiday that had been perfect from the moment the plane had touched down in Montpellier and he had stepped out into the brilliance of his first Mediterranean day. He loved the South of France—the intense colours, the smells, the pace of life that hung onto every minute and refused to let go. He hadn"t any idea what time it was, except that he was getting hungry and guessed it must soon be Lunch. There was a brief burst of music as a girl with a radio walked past, and Alex turned his head to follow her. And that was when the sun went in, the sea froze, and the whole world seemed to catch its breath.

He wasn"t looking at the girl with the radio. He was looking past her, down to the sea wall that divided the beach from the jetty, where a yacht was just pulling in. The yacht was enormous, almost the size of one of the passenger boats that carried tourists up and down the coast. But no tourists would ever set foot on this craft. It was completely uninviting, cruising silently through the water, with tinted glass in the windows and a massive bow that rose up like a solid white wall. A man stood at the very front, staring straight ahead, his face blank. It was a face that Alex recognized instantly.

Yassen Gregorovich. It had to be.

Alex sat perfectly still, supporting himself on one arm, his hand half buried in the sand. As he watched, a man in his twenties appeared from the cabin and busied himself mooring the boat. He was short and apelike, wearing a string vest that showed off the tattoos which completely covered his arms and shoulders. A deckhand? Yassen made no offer to help him with his work.

A third man hurried along the jetty. He was fat and bald, dressed in a cheap white suit. The top of his head had been burnt by the sun and the skin had turned an ugly, cancerous red.

Yassen saw him and climbed down, moving like spilt oil. He was wearing blue jeans and a white shirt open at the neck. Other men might have had to struggle to keep their balance walking down the swaying gangplank, but he didn"t even hesitate. There was something inhuman about him.

With his close-cropped hair, his hard blue eyes and pale, expressionless face, he was obviously no holidaymaker. But only Alex knew the truth about him. Yassen Gregorovich was a contract killer, the man who had murdered his uncle and changed his own Life. He was wanted alt over the world.

So what was he doing here in a little seaside town on the edge of the marshes and lagoons that made up the Camargue? There was nothing in Saint-Pierre apart from beaches, campsites, too many restaurants and an oversized church that looked more like a fortress. It had taken Alex a week to get used to the quiet charm of the place. And now this!

“Alex? What are you looking at?” Sabina murmured, and Alex had to force himself to turn round, to remember that she was there.

“I"m…” The words wouldn"t come. He didn"t know what to say.

“Do you think you could rub a little more sun-cream into my back? I"m overheating…” That was Sabina. Slim, dark-haired, and sometimes much older than her fifteen years. But then she was the sort of girl who had probably swapped toys for boys before she hit eleven. Although she was using factor 25, she seemed to need more suncream rubbed in every fifteen minutes, and somehow it was always Alex who had to do it for her. He glanced quickly at her back, which was in fact perfectly bronzed. She was wearing a bikini made out of so little material that it hadn"t bothered with a pattern. Her eyes were covered by a pair of fake Dior sunglasses (which she had bought for a tenth of the price of the real thing) and she had her head buried in The Lord of the Rings, at the same time waving the suncream.

Alex looked back at the yacht. Yassen was shaking hands with the bald man. The deckhand was standing near by, waiting. Even at this distance Alex could see that Yassen was very much in charge; that when he spoke, the two men listened. Alex had once seen Yassen shoot a man dead just for dropping a package. There was still an extraordinary coldness about him that seemed to neutralize even the Mediterranean sun. The strange thing was that there were very few people in the world who would have been able to recognize the Russian. Alex was one of them. Could Yassen"s being here have something to do with him?

“Alex…?” Sabina said.

The three men moved away from the boat, heading into the town. Suddenly Alex was on his feet.

“I"ll be right back,” he said.

“Where are you going?”

“I need a drink.”

“I"ve got water.”

“No, I want a Coke.”

Even as he swept up his T-shirt and pulled it over his head, Alex knew that this was not a good idea. Yassen Gregorovich might have come to the Camargue because he wanted a holiday. He might have come to murder the local mayor. Either way, it had nothing to do with Alex and it would be crazy to get involved with Yassen again. Alex remembered the promise he had made the last time they had met, on a rooftop in central London.

You killed Ian Rider. One day I"ll kill you.

At the time he had meant it—but that had been then. Right now he didn"t want anything to do with Yassen or the world he represented.

And yet…

Yassen was here. He had to know why.

The three men were walking along the main road, following the line of the sea. Alex doubled back across the sand, passing the white concrete bullring that had struck him as bizarre when he"d first come here—until he had remembered that he was only about a hundred miles from Spain. There was to be a bullfight tonight. People were already queuing at the tiny windows to buy tickets, but he and Sabina had decided they would keep well clear. “I hope the bull wins,” had been Sabina"s only comment.

Yassen and the two men turned left, disappearing into the town centre. Alex quickened his pace, knowing how easy it would be to lose them in the tangle of lanes and alleyways that surrounded the church. He didn"t have to be too careful about being seen. Yassen thought he was safe. It was unlikely that, in a crowded holiday resort, he would notice anyone following him. But with Yassen you never knew. Alex felt his heart thumping with every step he took. His mouth was dry, and for once it wasn"t the sun that was to blame.

Yassen had gone. Alex looked left and right. There were people crowding in on him from all sides, pouring out of the shops and into the open-air restaurants that were already serving lunch.

The smell of paella filled the air. He cursed himself for hanging back, for not daring to get any closer. The three men could have disappeared inside any of the buildings. Could it be, even, that he had imagined seeing them in the first place? It was a pleasant thought, but it was dashed a moment later when he caught sight of them sitting on a terrace in front of one of the smarter restaurants in the square, the bald man already calling for menus.

Alex walked in front of a shop selling postcards, using the racks as a screen between himself and the restaurant. Next came a café serving snacks and drinks beneath wide, multicoloured umbrellas. He edged into it. Yassen and the other two men were now less than ten metres away and Alex could make out more details. The deckhand was pushing bread into his mouth as if he hadn"t eaten for a week. The bald man was talking quietly, urgently, waving his fist in the air to emphasize a point. Yassen was listening patiently. With the noise of the crowd all around, Alex couldn"t make out a word any of them were saying. He peered round one of the umbrellas and a waiter almost collided with him, letting loose a torrent of angry French. Yassen glanced in his direction and Alex ducked away, afraid that he had drawn attention to himself.

A line of plants in wooden tubs divided the café from the restaurant terrace where the men were eating. Alex slipped between two of the tubs and moved quickly into the shadows of the restaurant interior. He felt safer here, less exposed. The kitchens were right behind him. To one side was a bar and in front of it about a dozen tables, all of them empty. Waiters were coming in and out with plates of food, but all the customers had chosen to eat outside.

Alex looked out through the door. And caught his breath. Yassen had got up and was walking purposefully towards him. Had he been spotted? But then he saw that Yassen was holding something: a mobile phone. He must have received a call and was coming into the restaurant to take it privately. Another few steps and he would reach the door. Alex looked around him and saw an alcove screened by a bead curtain. He pushed through it and found himself in a storage area just big enough to conceal him. Mops, buckets, cardboard boxes and empty wine bottles crowded around him. The beads shivered and became still.

Yassen was suddenly there.

“I arrived twenty minutes ago,” he was saying. He was speaking English with only a very slight trace of a Russian accent. “Franco was waiting for me. The address is confirmed and everything has been arranged.”

There was a pause. Alex tried not to breathe. He was centimetres away from Yassen, separated only by the fragile barrier of brightly coloured beads. But for the fact that it was so dark inside after the glare of the sun, Yassen would surely have seen him.

“We"ll do it this afternoon. You have nothing to worry about. It is better for us not to communicate. I will report to you on my return to England.” Yassen Gregorovich clicked off the phone and suddenly became quite still. Alex actually saw the moment, the sudden alertness as some animal instinct told Yassen that he had been overheard.

The phone was still cradled inside the man"s hand, but it could have been a knife that he was about to throw. His head was still but his eyes glanced from side to side, searching for the enemy. Alex stayed where he was behind the beads, not daring to move. What should he do?

He was tempted to make a break for it, to run out into the open air. No. He would be dead before he had taken two steps. Yassen would kill him before he even knew who he was or why he had been there. Very slowly, Alex looked around for a weapon, for anything to defend himself with.

And then the kitchen door swung open and a waiter came out, swerving round Yassen and calling to someone at the same time. The stillness of the moment was shattered. Yassen slipped the phone into his trouser pocket and went out to rejoin the other men.

Alex let out a huge sigh of relief.

What had he learnt?

Yassen Gregorovich had come here to kill someone. He was sure of that much. The address is confirmed and everything has been arranged. But at least Alex hadn"t heard his own name mentioned. So he was right. The target was probably some Frenchman, living here in Saint-Pierre. It would happen sometime this afternoon. A gunshot or perhaps a knife flashing in the sun. A fleeting moment of violence and someone somewhere would sit back, knowing they had one enemy less.

What could he do?

Alex pushed through the bead curtain and made his way out of the back of the restaurant. He was relieved to find himself in the street, away from the square. Only now did he try to collect his thoughts. He could go to the police, of course. He could tell them that he was a spy who had worked, three times now, for MI6—British military intelligence. He could say that he had recognized Yassen, knew him for what he was, and that a killing would almost certainly take place that afternoon unless he was stopped. But what good would it do? The French police might understand him, but they would never believe him. He was a fourteen-year-old English schoolboy with sand in his hair and a suntan.

They would take one look at him and laugh.

He could go to Sabina and her parents. But Alex didn"t want to do that either. He was only here because they had invited him, and why should he bring murder into their holiday? Not that they would believe him any more than the police. Once, when he had been staying with her in Cornwall, Alex had tried to tell Sabina the truth. She had thought he was joking.

Alex looked around at the tourist shops, the ice-cream parlours, the crowds strolling happily along the street. It was a typical picture-postcard view. The real world. So what the hell was he doing getting mixed up again with spies and assassins?

He was on holiday. This was none of his business.

Let Yassen do whatever he wanted. Alex wouldn"t be able to stop him even if he tried. Better to forget that he had ever seen him.

Alex took a deep breath and walked back down the road towards the beach to find Sabina and her parents. As he went he tried to work out what he would tell them: why he had left so suddenly and why he was no longer smiling now that he was back.

That afternoon, Alex and Sabina hitched a lift with a local farmer to Aigues-Mortes, a fortified town on the edge of the salt marshes. Sabina wanted to escape from her parents and hang out in a French café, where they could watch the locals and tourists rub shoulders in the street. She had devised a system for marking French teenagers for good looks—with points lost for weedy legs, crooked teeth or bad dress sense. Nobody had yet scored more than seven out of twenty and Alex would normally have been happy sitting with her, listening to her as she laughed out loud.

But not this afternoon.

Everything was out of focus. The great walls and towers that surrounded him were miles away, and the sightseers seemed to be moving too slowly, like a film that had run down. Alex wanted to enjoy being here. He wanted to feel part of the holiday again. But seeing Yassen had spoilt it all.

Alex had met Sabina only a month before, when the two of them had been helping at the Wimbledon tennis tournament, but they had struck up an immediate friendship. Sabina was an only child. Her mother, Liz, worked as a fashion designer; her father, Edward, was a journalist.

Alex hadn"t seen very much of him. He had started the holiday late, coming down on the train from Paris, and had been working on some story ever since.

The family had rented a house just outside Saint-Pierre, right on the edge of a river, the Petit Rhone. It was a simple place, typical of the area: bright white with blue shutters and a roof of sun-baked terracotta tiles. There were three bedrooms and, on the ground floor, an airy, old-fashioned kitchen that opened onto an overgrown garden with a swimming pool and a tennis court with weeds pushing through the asphalt. Alex had loved it from the start. His bedroom overlooked the river, and every evening he and Sabina had spent hours sprawled over an old wicker sofa, talking quietly and watching the water ripple past.

The first week of the holiday had disappeared in a flash. They had swum in the pool and in the sea, which was less than a mile away. They had gone walking, climbing, canoeing and, once (it wasn"t Alex"s favourite sport), horse-riding. Alex really liked Sabina"s parents. They were the sort of adults who hadn"t forgotten that they had once been teenagers themselves, and more or less left him and Sabina to do whatever they wanted on their own. And for the last seven days everything had been fine.

Until Yassen.

The address is confirmed and everything has been arranged. We"ll do it this afternoon…

What was the Russian planning to do in Saint-Pierre? What bad luck was it that had brought him here, casting his shadow once again over Alex"s life? Despite the heat of the afternoon sun, Alex shivered.

“Alex?”

He realized that Sabina had been talking to him, and looked round. She was gazing across the table with a look of concern. “What are you thinking about?” she asked. “You were miles away.”

“Nothing.”

“You haven"t been yourself all afternoon. Did something happen this morning? Where did you disappear to on the beach?”

“I told you. I just needed a drink.” He hated having to lie to her but he couldn"t tell her the truth.

“I was just saying we ought to get going. I promised we"d be home by five. Oh my God! Look at that one!” She pointed at another teenager walking past. “Four out of twenty. Aren"t there any good-looking boys in France?” She glanced at Alex. “Apart from you, I mean.”

“So how many do I get out of twenty?” Alex asked.

Sabina considered. “Twelve and a half,” she said at last. “But don"t worry, Alex. Another ten years and you"ll be perfect.”

Sometimes horror announces itself in the smallest of ways.

On this day it was a single police car, racing along the wide, empty road that twisted down to Saint-Pierre. Alex and Sabina were sitting in the back of the same truck that had brought them.

They were looking at a herd of cows grazing in one of the fields when the police car—blue and white with a light flashing on the roof—overtook them and tore off into the distance. Alex still had Yassen on his mind and the sight of it tightened the knot in the pit of his stomach. But it was only a police car. It didn"t have to mean anything.

But then there was a helicopter, taking off from somewhere not so far away and arcing into the brilliant sky. Sabina saw it and pointed at it.

“Something"s happened,” she said. “That"s just come from the town.” Had the helicopter come from the town? Alex wasn"t so sure. He watched it sweep over them and disappear in the direction of Aigues-Mortes, and all the time his breaths were getting shorter and he felt the heavy weight of some nameless dread.

And then they turned a corner and Alex knew that his worst fears had come true—but in a way that he could never have foreseen.

Rubble, jagged brickwork and twisted steel. Thick black smoke curling into the sky. Their house had been blown apart. Just one wall remained intact, giving the cruel illusion that not too much damage had been done. But the rest of it was gone. Alex saw a brass bed hanging at a crazy angle, somehow suspended in mid-air. A pair of blue shutters lay in the grass about fifty metres away. The water in the swimming pool was brown and scummy. The blast must have been immense.

A fleet of cars and vans was parked around the building. They belonged to the police, the hospital, the fire department and the anti-terrorist squad. To Alex they didn"t look real: more like brightly coloured toys. In a foreign country, nothing looks more foreign than its emergency services.

“Mum! Dad!”

Alex heard Sabina shout the words and saw her leap out of the truck before they had stopped moving. Then she was running across the gravel drive, forcing her way between the officials in their different uniforms. The truck stopped and Alex climbed down, unsure whether his feet would come into contact with the ground or if he would simply go on, right through it. His head was spinning; he thought he was going to faint.

Nobody spoke to him as he continued forward. It was as if he wasn"t there at all. Ahead of him he saw Sabina"s mother appear from nowhere, her face streaked with ashes and tears, and he thought to himself that if she was all right, if she had been out of the house when the explosion happened, then maybe Edward Pleasure had escaped too. But then he saw Sabina begin to shake and fall into her mother"s arms, and he knew the worst.

He drew nearer, in time to hear Liz"s words as she clutched hold of her daughter.

“We still don"t know what happened. Dad"s been taken by helicopter to Montpellier. He"s alive, Sabina, but he"s badly injured. We"re going to him now. You know your dad"s a fighter. But the doctors aren"t sure if he"s going to make it or not. We just don"t know…” The smell of burning reached out to Alex and engulfed him. The smoke had blotted out the sun.

His eyes began to water and he fought for breath.

This was his fault.

He didn"t know why it had happened but he was utterly certain who was responsible.

Yassen Gregorovich.

None of my business. That was what Alex had thought. This was the result.

THE FINGER ON THE TRIGGER

« ^ »

he policeman facing Alex was young, inexperienced, and struggling to find the right words. It wasn"t just that he was having difficulty with the English language, Alex realized. Down here in this odd, quiet corner of France, the worst he would usually have to deal with would be the occasional drunk driver or maybe a tourist losing his wallet on the beach. This was a new situation and he was completely out of his depth.

“It is the most terrible affair,” he was saying. “You have known Monsieur Pleasure very long time?”

“No. Not very long time,” Alex said.

“He will receive the best treatment.” The policeman smiled encouragingly. “Madame Pleasure and her daughter are going now to hospital but they have requested us to occupy us with you.” Alex was sitting on a folding chair in the shadow of a tree. It was just after five o"clock but the sun was still hot. The river flowed past a few metres away and he would have given anything to dive into the water and swim, and keep swimming, until he had put this whole business behind him.

Sabina and her mother had left about ten minutes ago and now he was on his own with this young policeman. He had been given a chair in the shade and a bottle of water, but it was obvious that nobody knew what to do with him. This wasn"t his family. He had no right to be here. More officials had turned up: senior policemen, senior firemen. They were moving slowly through the wreckage, occasionally turning over a plank of wood or moving a piece of broken furniture as if they might uncover the one simple clue that would tell them why this had taken place.

“We have telephoned to your consul,” the policeman was saying. “They will come to take you home. But they must send a representative from Lyon. It is a long way. So tonight you must wait here in Saint-Pierre.”

“I know who did this,” Alex said.

“Comment?”

“I know who was responsible.” Alex glanced in the direction of the house. “You have to go into the town. There is a yacht tied to the jetty. I didn"t see the name but you can"t miss it. It"s huge

… white. There"s a man on the yacht; his name is Yassen Gregorovich. You have to arrest him before he can get away.”

The policeman stared at Alex, astonished. Alex wondered how much he had understood.

“I am sorry? What is it that you say? This man, Yassen…”

“Yassen Gregorovich.” “You know him?” “Yes.”

“Who is he?”

“He"s a killer. He is paid to kill people. I saw him this morning.”

“Please!” The policeman held up a hand. He didn"t want to listen to any more. “Wait here.” Alex watched him walk away towards the parked cars, presumably to find a senior officer. He took a sip of water, then stood up himself. He didn"t want to sit here watching the events from a folding chair like a picnicker. He walked towards the house. There was an evening breeze but the smell of burnt wood still hung heavily all around. A scrap of paper, scorched and blackened, blew across the gravel. On an impulse, Alex reached down and picked it up. He read: caviar for breakfast, and the swimming pool at his Wiltshire mansion is rumoured to have been built in the shape of Elvis Presley. But Damian Cray is more than the world"s richest and most successful pop star. His business ventures—including hotels, TV stations and computer games—have added millions more to his personal fortune.

The questions remain. Why was Cray in Paris earlier this week and why did he arrange a secret meeting with—

That was all there was. The paper turned black and the words disappeared.

Alex realized what he was looking at. It must be a page from the article that Edward Pleasure had been working on ever since he had arrived at the house. Something to do with the mega-celebrity Damian Cray…

“Excusez-moi, jeune homme…”

He looked up and saw that the policeman had returned with a second man, this one a few years older, with a downturned mouth and a small moustache. Alex"s heart sank. He recognized the type before the man had even spoken. Oily and self-important, and wearing a uniform that was too neat, there was disbelief etched all over his face.

“You have something to tell us?” he asked. He spoke better English than his colleague.

Alex repeated what he had said.

“How do you know about this man? The man on the boat.”

“He killed my uncle.”

“Who was your uncle?”

“He was a spy. He worked for MI6.” Alex took a deep breath. “I think I may have been the target of the bomb. I think he was trying to kill me…”

The two policemen spoke briefly together, then turned back to Alex. Alex knew what was coming. The senior policeman had rearranged his features so that he now looked down at Alex with a mixture of kindness and concern. But there was arrogance there too: I am right. You are wrong. And nothing wilt persuade me otherwise. He was like a bad teacher in a bad school, putting a cross beside a right answer.

“You have had a terrible shock,” the policeman said. “The explosion … we already know that it was caused by a leak in the gas pipe.”

“No…” Alex shook his head.

The policeman held up a hand. “There is no reason why an assassin would wish to harm a family on holiday. But I understand. You are upset; it is quite possible that you are in shock. You do not know what it is you are saying.”

“Please—”

“We have sent for someone from your consulate and he will arrive soon. Until then it would be better if you did not interfere.”

Alex hung his head. “Do you mind if I go for a walk?” he said. The words came out low and muffled.

“A walk?”

“Just five minutes. I want to be on my own.”

“Of course. Do not go too far. Would you like someone to accompany you?”

“No. I"ll be all right.”

He turned and walked away. He had avoided meeting the policemen"s eyes and they doubtless thought he was ashamed of himself. That was all right. Alex didn"t want them to see his fury, the black anger that coursed through him like an arctic river. They hadn"t believed him! They had treated him like a stupid child!

With every step he took, images stamped themselves on his mind. Sabina"s eyes widening as she took in the wreck of the house. Edward Pleasure being flown to some city hospital. Yassen Gregorovich on the deck of his yacht, gliding off into the sunset, another job done. And it was Alex"s fault! That was the worst of it. That was the unforgivable part. Well, he wasn"t going to sit there and take it. Alex allowed his rage to carry him forward. It was time to take control.

When he reached the main road, he glanced back. The policemen had forgotten him. He took one last look at the burnt-out shell that had been his holiday home, and the darkness rose up in him again. He turned away and began to run.

Saint-Pierre was just under a mile away. It was early evening by the time he arrived there and the streets were packed with people in a festive mood. In fact, the town seemed busier than ever.

Then he remembered. There was a bullfight tonight and people had driven in from all around to watch it.

The sun was already dipping behind the horizon but daylight still lingered in the air as if accidentally left behind. The street lamps were lit, throwing garish pools of orange onto the sandy pavements. An old carousel turned round and round, a spinning blur of electric bulbs and jangling music. Alex made his way through it all without stopping. Suddenly he was on the other side of the town and the streets were quiet again. The night had advanced and everything was a little more grey.

He hadn"t expected to see the yacht. At the back of his mind he had thought that Yassen would have left long ago. But there it still was, moored where he had seen it earlier that day, a lifetime ago. There was nobody in sight. It seemed that the whole town had gone to the bullfight. Then a figure stepped out of the darkness and Alex saw the bald man with the sunburn. He was still dressed in the white suit. He was smoking a cigar, the smouldering tip casting a red glow across his face.

There were lights glinting behind the portholes of the boat. Would he find Yassen behind one of them? Alex had no real idea what he was doing. Anger was still driving him blindly on. All he knew was that he had to get onto the yacht and that nothing was going to stop him.

The man"s name was Franco. He had stepped down onto the jetty because Yassen hated the smell of cigar smoke. He didn"t like Yassen. More than that; he was afraid of him. When the Russian had heard that Edward Pleasure had been injured, not killed, he had said nothing, but there had been something intense and ugly in his eyes. For a moment he had looked at Raoul, the deckhand. It had been Raoul who had actually placed the bomb … too far from the journalist"s room, as it turned out. The mistake was his. And Franco knew that Yassen had very nearly killed him there and then. Perhaps he still would. God—what a mess!

Franco heard a shoe scraping against loose rubble and saw a boy walking towards him. He was slim and suntanned, wearing shorts and a faded Stone Age T-shirt, with a string of wooden beads around his neck. He had fair hair which hung in strands over his forehead. He must be a tourist—

he looked English. But what was he doing here?

Alex had wondered how close he could get to the man before his suspicions were aroused. If it had been an adult approaching the boat, it would have been a different matter; the fact that he was only fourteen was the main reason he had been so useful to MI6. People didn"t notice him until it was too late.

That was what happened now. As the boy came closer, Franco was struck by the dark brown eyes set in a face that was somehow too serious for a boy of that age. They were eyes that had seen too much.

Alex drew level with Franco. At that moment, he lashed out, spinning round on the ball of his left foot, kicking with the right. Franco was taken completely by surprise. Alex"s heel struck him hard in the stomach—but straight away Alex knew that he had underestimated his opponent. He had expected to feel soft fat beneath the flapping suit. But his foot had slammed into a ring of muscle, and although Franco was hurt and winded, he hadn"t been brought down.

Franco dropped the cigar and lunged, his hand already scrabbling in his jacket pocket. It came out holding something. There was a soft click and seven inches of glinting silver leapt out of nowhere. He had a flick knife. Moving much faster than Alex would have thought possible, he launched himself across the jetty. His hand swung in an arc. Alex heard the blade slicing the air.

He swung again, and the knife flashed past Alex"s face, missing him by a centimetre.

Alex was unarmed. Franco had obviously used the knife many times before, and if he hadn"t been weakened by the first kick, this fight would already have been over. Alex looked around, searching for anything he could defend himself with. There was almost nothing on the jetty—just a few old boxes, a bucket, a fisherman"s net.

Franco was moving more slowly now. He was fighting a kid—nothing more. The little brat might have surprised him with that first attack, but it would be easy enough to bring this to an end.

He muttered a few words in French: something low and ugly. Then, a second later, his fist swung through the air, this time carrying the knife in an upward arc that would have cut Alex"s throat if he hadn"t thrown himself backwards. Alex cried out.

He had lost his footing, falling heavily onto his back, one arm outstretched. Franco grinned, showing two gold teeth, and stepped towards him, anxious to finish this off. Too late he saw that he had been tricked. Alex"s hand had caught hold of the net. As Franco loomed over him, he sprang up, swinging his arm forward with all his strength. The net spread out, falling over Franco"s head, shoulder and knife hand. He swore and twisted round, trying to free himself, but the movement only entangled him all the more.

Alex knew he had to finish this quickly. Franco was still struggling with the net but Alex saw him open his mouth to call for help. They were right next to the yacht. If Yassen heard anything, there would be nothing more Alex could do. He took aim and kicked a second time, his foot driving into the man"s stomach. The breath was knocked out of him; Alex saw his face turn red.

He was half out of the net, performing a bizarre dance on the edge of the jetty, when he lost his balance and fell. With his hands trapped he couldn"t protect himself. His head hit the concrete with a loud crack and he lay still. Alex stood, breathing heavily. In the distance he heard a trumpet blare and there was a scattered round of applause. The bullfight was due to begin in ten minutes. A small band had arrived and was about to play. Alex looked at the unconscious man, knowing he had had a close escape. There was no sign of the knife; maybe it had fallen into the water. Briefly he wondered if he should go on. Then he thought of Sabina and her father, and the next thing he knew he had climbed the gangplank and was standing on the deck.

The boat was called Fer de Lance. Alex noticed the name as he climbed up, and remembered seeing it somewhere else. That was it! It was on a school trip to London Zoo. It was some sort of snake. Poisonous, of course. He was standing in a wide area with a steering wheel and controls next to a door on one side and leather sofas across the back. There was a low table. The bald man must have been sitting here before he went down for his smoke. Alex saw a crumpled magazine, a bottle of beer, a mobile phone and a gun.

He recognized the telephone. It was Yassen"s. He had seen it in the Russian"s hand back at the restaurant earlier that day. The phone was an odd colour—a shade of brown—otherwise Alex might have ignored it. But now he noticed that it was still turned on. He picked it up.

Alex quickly scrolled to the main menu and then to Call Register. He found what he was looking for: a record of all the calls Yassen had received that day. At 12.53 he had been talking to a number that began 44207. The 44 was England; the 207 meant it was somewhere in London.

That was the call Alex had overheard in the restaurant. Quickly he memorized the number. It was the number of the person who had given Yassen his orders. It would tell him all he needed to know.

He picked up the gun.

He finally had it. Each time he had worked for MI6 he had asked them to give him a gun, and each time they had refused. They had supplied him with gadgets—but only tranquillizer darts, stun grenades, smoke bombs. Nothing that would kill. Alex felt the power of the weapon he was holding. He weighed it in his hand. The gun was a Grach MP-443, black, with a short muzzle and a ribbed stock. It was Russian, of course, new army issue. He allowed his finger to curl around the trigger and smiled grimly. Now he and Yassen were equals.

He padded forward, went through the door and climbed down a short flight of stairs that went below deck and into a corridor that seemed to run the length of the boat, with cabins on either side. He had seen a lounge above but he knew that it was empty. There had been no lights behind those windows. If Yassen was anywhere, he would be down here. Clutching the Grach more tightly, he crept along, his feet making no sound on the thickly carpeted floor.

He came to a door and saw a yellow strip of light seeping out of the crack below. Gritting his teeth, he reached for the handle, half hoping it would be locked. The handle turned and the door opened. Alex went in.

The cabin was surprisingly large, a long rectangle with a white carpet and modern wooden fittings along two of the walls. The third wall was taken up by a low double bed with a table and a lamp on each side. There was a man stretched out on the white cover, his eyes closed, as still as a corpse. Alex stepped forward. There was no sound in the room, but in the distance he could hear the band playing at the bullring: two or three trumpets, a tuba and a drum.

Yassen Gregorovich made no movement as Alex approached, the gun held out in front of him.

Alex reached the side of the bed. This was the closest he had ever been to the Russian, the man who had killed his uncle. He could see every detail of his face: the chiselled lips, the almost feminine eyelashes. The gun was only a centimetre from Yassen"s forehead. This was where it ended. All he had to do was pull the trigger and it would be over.

“Good evening, Alex.”

It wasn"t that Yassen had woken up. His eyes had been closed and now they weren"t. It was as simple as that. His face hadn"t changed. He knew who Alex was immediately, at the same time taking in the gun that was pointing at him. Taking it in and accepting it.

Alex said nothing. There was a slight tremble in the hand holding the gun and he brought his other hand up to steady it.

“You have my gun,” Yassen said.

Alex took a breath, “Do you intend to use it?”

Nothing

Yassen continued calmly. “I think you should consider very carefully. Killing a man is not like you see on the television. If you pull that trigger, you will fire a real bullet into real flesh and blood. I will feel nothing; I will be dead instantly. But you will live with what you have done for the rest of your life. You will never forget it.” He paused, letting his words hang in the air. “Do you really have it in you, Alex? Can you make your finger obey you? Can you kill me?” Alex was rigid, a statue. All his concentration was focused on the finger curled around the trigger. It was simple. There was a spring mechanism. The trigger would pull back the hammer and release it. The hammer would strike the bullet, a piece of death just nineteen milli-metres long, sending it on its short, fast journey into this man"s head. He could do it. “Maybe you have forgotten what I once told you. This isn"t your life. This has nothing to do with you.” Yassen was totally relaxed. There was no emotion in his voice. He seemed to know Alex better than Alex knew himself. Alex tried to look away, to avoid the calm blue eyes that were watching him with something like pity.

“Why did you do it?” Alex demanded. “You blew up the house. Why?” The eyes flickered briefly. “Because I was paid.”

“Paid to kill me?”

“No, Alex.” For a moment Yassen sounded almost amused. “It had nothing to do with you.”

“Then who—”

But it was too late.

He saw it in Yassen"s eyes first, knew that the Russian had been keeping him distracted as the cabin door opened quietly behind him. A pair of hands seized him and he was swung violently away from the bed. He saw Yassen whip aside as fast as a snake—as fast as a fer de lance. The gun went off, but Alex hadn"t fired it intentionally and the bullet smashed into the floor. He hit a wall and felt the gun drop out of his hand. He could taste blood in his mouth. The yacht seemed to be swaying.

In the far distance a fanfare sounded, followed by an echoing roar from the crowd. The bullfight had begun.

MATADOR

“You are not with MI6?”

“No.”

“But you followed me to the restaurant.”

“That"s right.” Alex nodded.

Yassen half smiled to himself. “I thought there was someone.” Then he was serious again. “You were staying in the house.”

“I was invited by a friend,” Alex said. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “Her dad"s a journalist. Was he the one you wanted to kill?”

“That is none of your business.”

“It is now.”

“It was bad luck you were staying with him, Alex. I"ve already told you. It was nothing personal.”

“Sure.” Alex looked Yassen straight in the eye. “With you it never is.” Yassen went back over to the two men and at once Franco began to jabber again, spitting out his words. He had poured himself a whisky which he downed in a single swallow, his eyes never leaving Alex.

“The boy knows nothing and he can"t hurt us,” Yassen said. He was speaking in English—for his benefit, Alex guessed.

“What you do with him?” Raoul asked, following in clumsy English too.

“Kill him!” This was Franco.

“I do not kill children,” Yassen replied, and Alex knew that he was telling only half the truth.

The bomb in the house could have killed anyone who happened to be there and Yassen wouldn"t have cared.

“Have you gone mad?” Franco had slipped back into French. “You can"t just let him walk away from here. He came to kill you. If it hadn"t been for Raoul, he might have succeeded.”

“Maybe.” Yassen studied Alex one last time. Finally he came to a decision. “You were unwise to come here, little Alex,” he said. “These people think I should silence you and they are right. If I thought it was anything but chance that brought you to me, if there was anything that you knew, you would already be dead. But I am a reasonable man. You did not kill me when you had the chance, so now I will give you a chance too.”

He spoke rapidly to Franco in French. At first Franco seemed sullen, argumentative. But as Yassen continued, Alex saw a smile spread slowly across his face.

“How will we arrange this?” Franco asked. “You know people. You have influence. You just have to pay the right people.” “The boy will be killed.” “Then you will have your wish.”

“Good!” Franco spat. “I"ll enjoy watching!” Yassen came over to Alex and stopped just a short distance away. “You have courage, Alex,” he said. “I admire that in you. Now I am going to give you the opportunity to display it.” He nodded at Franco. “Take him!” It was nine o"clock. The night had rolled in over Saint-Pierre, bringing with it the threat of a summer storm. The air was still and heavy and thick cloud had blotted out the stars.

Alex stood on sandy ground in the shadows of a concrete archway, unable to take in what was happening to him. He had been forced, at gunpoint, to change his holiday clothes for a uniform so bizarre that, but for his knowledge of the danger he was about to face, he would have felt simply ridiculous.

First there had been a white shirt and a black tie. Then came a jacket with shoulder pads hanging over his arms and a pair of trousers that fitted tight around his thighs and waist but stopped well short of his ankles. Both of these were covered in gold sequins and thousands of tiny pearls, so that as Alex moved in and out of the light he became a miniature fireworks display. Finally he had been given black shoes, an odd, curving black hat, and a bright red cape which was folded over his arm.

The uniform had a name. Traje de luces. The suit of lights worn by matadors in the bullring. This was the test of courage that Yassen had somehow arranged. He wanted Alex to fight a bull.

Now he stood next to Alex, listening to the noise of the crowd inside the arena. At a typical bullfight, he had explained, six bulls are killed. The third of these is sometimes taken by the least experienced matador, a noviltero, a young man who might be in the ring for the first time. There had been no noviltero on the programme tonight … not until the Russian had suggested otherwise. Money had changed hands. And Alex had been prepared. It was insane—but the crowd would love him. Once he was inside the arena, nobody would know that he had never been trained. He would be a tiny figure in the middle of the floodlit ring. His clothes would disguise the truth. Nobody would see that he was only fourteen.

There was an eruption of shouting and cheering inside the arena. Alex guessed that the matador had just killed the second bull.

“Why are you doing this?” Alex asked.

Yassen shrugged. “I"m doing you a favour, Alex.”

“I don"t see it that way.”

“Franco wanted to put a knife in you. It was hard to dissuade him. In the end I offered him a little entertainment. As it happens, he greatly admires this sport. This way he gets amused and you get a choice.”

“A choice?”

“You might say it is a choice between the bull and the bullet.”

“Either way I get killed.”

“Yes. That is the most likely outcome, I"m afraid. But at least you will have a heroic death. A thousand people will be watching you. Their voices will be the last thing you hear.”

“Better than hearing yours,” Alex growled.

And suddenly it was time.

Two men in jeans and black shirts ran forward and opened a gate. It was like a wooden curtain being drawn across a stage and it revealed a fantastic scene behind. First there was the arena itself, an elongated circle of bright yellow sand.

As Yassen had promised, it was surrounded by a thousand people, tightly packed in tiers. They were eating and drinking, many of them waving programmes in front of their faces, trying to shift the sluggish air, jostling and talking. Although all of them were seated, none of them were still. In the far corner a band played, five men in military uniforms, looking like antique toys.

The glare from the spotlights was dazzling.

Empty, the arena was modern, ugly and dead. But filled to the brim on this hot Mediterranean night, Alex could feel the energy buzzing through it, and he realized that all the cruelty of the Romans with their gladiators and wild animals had survived the centuries and was fully alive here.

A tractor drove towards the gate where Alex was standing, dragging behind it a misshapen black lump that had until seconds ago been a proud and living thing. About a dozen brightly coloured spears dangled out of the creature"s back. As it drew nearer, Alex saw that it was leaving a comma of glistening red in the sand. He felt sick, and wondered if it was fear of what was to come or disgust and hatred of what had been. He and Sabina had agreed that they would never in a million years go to a bullfight. He certainly hadn"t expected to break that promise so soon.

Yassen nodded at him. “Remember,” he said, “Raoul, Franco and I will be beside the barrera—

that"s right at the side of the ring. If you fail to perform, if you try to run, we will gun you down and disappear into the night.” He raised his shirt to show Alex the. Grach, tucked into his waistband. “But if you agree to fight, after ten minutes we will leave. If by some miracle you are still standing, you can do as you please. You see? I am giving you a chance.” The trumpets sounded again, announcing the next fight. Alex felt a hand press into the small of his back and he walked forward, giddy with disbelief. How had this been allowed to happen?

Surely someone would see that underneath the fancy dress he was just an English schoolboy, not a matador or a noviltero or whatever it was called. Someone would have to stop the fight.

But the spectators were already shouting their approval. A few flowers rained down in his direction. Nobody could see the truth and Franco had paid enough money to make sure they didn"t find out until it was too late. He had to go through with this. His heart was thumping. The smell of blood and animal sweat rose in his nostrils. He was more afraid than he had ever been.

A man in an elaborate black silk suit with mother-of-pearl buttons and sweeping shoulders stood up in the crowd and raised a white handkerchief. This was the president of the bullring, giving the signal for the next fight. The trumpets sounded. Another gate opened and the bull that Alex was to fight thundered into the ring like a bullet fired from a gun. Alex stared. The creature was huge—a mass of black, shimmering muscle. It must have weighed seven or eight hundred kilograms. If it ran into him, it would be like being run over by a bus—except that he would be impaled first on the horns that corkscrewed out of its head, tapering to two lethal points. Right now it was ignoring Alex, running madly in a jagged circle, kicking out with its back legs, enraged by the lights and the shouting crowd.

Alex wondered why he hadn"t been given a sword. Didn"t matadors have anything to defend themselves with? There was a spear lying on the sand, left over from the last fight. This was a banderilla. It was about a metre long with a decorated, multicoloured handle and a short, barbed hook. Dozens of these would be plunged into the bull"s neck, destroying its muscles and weakening it before the final kill. Alex himself would be given a spear as the fight continued, but he had already made a decision. Whatever happened, he would try not to hurt the bull. After all, it hadn"t chosen to be here either.

He had to escape. The gates had been closed but the wooden wall enclosing the arena—the barrera, as Yassen had called it—was no taller than he was. He could run and jump over it. He glanced at the wall where he had just come in. Franco had taken his place in the front row. His hand was underneath his jacket and Alex had no doubt what it was holding. He could make out Yassen at the far end. Raoul was over to his right. Between them the three men had the whole ring covered.

He had to fight. Somehow he had to survive ten minutes. Maybe there were only nine minutes now. It felt as if an eternity had passed since he had entered the ring.

The crowd fell silent. A thousand faces waited for him to make his move.

Then the bull noticed him.

Suddenly it stopped its circling and lumbered towards him, coming to a halt about twenty metres away, its head low and its horns pointing at him. Alex knew with a sick certainty that it was about to charge. Reluctantly he allowed the red cape to drop so that it hung down to the sand.

God—he must look an idiot in this costume, with no idea what he was meant to be doing. He was surprised the fight hadn"t been stopped already. But Yassen and the two men would be watching his every move. Franco would need only the smallest excuse to draw his gun. Alex had to play his part.

Silence. The heat of the coming storm pressed down on him. Nothing moved.

The bull charged. Alex was shocked by the sudden transformation. The bull had been static and distant. Now it was bearing down on him as if a switch had been thrown, its massive shoulders heaving, its every muscle concentrated on the target that stood waiting, unarmed, alone. The animal was near enough now for Alex to be able to see its eyes: black, white and red, bloodshot and furious.

Everything happened very quickly. The bull was almost on top of him. The vicious horns were plunging towards his stomach. The stench of the animal smothered him. Alex leapt aside, at the same time lifting the cape, imitating moves he had seen … perhaps on television or in the cinema. He actually felt the bull brush past, and in that tiny contact sensed its huge power and strength. There was a flash of red as the cape flew up. The whole arena seemed to spin, the crowd rising up and yelling. The bull had gone past. Alex was unhurt.

Although he didn"t know it, Alex had executed a reasonable imitation of the veronica. This is the first and most simple movement in a bullfight, but it gives the matador vital information about his opponent: its speed, its strength, which horn it favours. But Alex had learnt only two things.

Matadors were braver than he thought—insanely brave to do this out of choice! And he also knew he was going to be very lucky to survive a second attack.

The bull had stopped at the far end of the ring. It shook its head, and grey strings of saliva whipped from either side of its mouth. All around, the spectators were still clapping. Alex saw Yassen Gregorovich sitting among them. He alone was still, not joining in the applause. Grimly, Alex let the cape hang down a second time, wondering how many minutes had passed. He no longer had any sense of time.

He actually felt the crowd catch its breath as the bull began its second attack. It was moving even faster this time, its hooves pounding on the sand. The horns were once again levelled at him. If they hit him, they would cut him in half.

At the very last moment, Alex stepped aside, repeating the movement he had made before. But this time the bull had been expecting it. Although it was advancing too fast to change direction, it flicked its head and Alex felt a searing pain along the side of his stomach. He was thrown off his feet, cartwheeling backwards and crashing down onto the sand. A roar exploded from the crowd.

Alex waited for the bull to turn round and lay into him. But he had been lucky. The animal hadn"t seen him go down. It had continued its run to the other side of the arena, leaving him alone.

Alex got to his feet. He put a hand down to his stomach. The jacket had been ripped open and when he took his hand away there was bright red blood on his palm. He was winded and shaken, and the side of his body felt as if it were on fire. But the cut wasn"t too deep. In a way, Alex was disappointed. If he had been more badly hurt, they would have had to stop the fight.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement. Yassen had stood up and was walking out. Had the ten minutes passed or had the Russian decided that the entertainment was over and that there was no point staying to watch the bloody end? Alex checked around the arena.

Raoul was leaving too. But Franco was staying in his seat. The man was in the front row, only about ten metres away. And he was smiling. Yassen had tricked him. Franco was going to stay there. Even if Alex did manage to escape the bull, Franco would take out his gun and finish it himself.

Weakly Alex leant down and picked up the cape. The material had got torn in the last encounter and it gave Alex a sudden idea. Everything was in its right place: the cape, the bull, the single banderilla, Franco.

Ignoring the pain in his side, he started to run. The audience muttered and then roared in disbelief. It was the bull"s job to attack the matador, but suddenly, in front of them, it seemed to be happening the other way round. Even the bull was taken unawares, regarding Alex as if he had forgotten the rules of the game or decided to cheat. Before it had a chance to move, Alex threw the cape. There was a short wooden handle sewn into the cloth and the weight of it carried the whole thing forward so that it landed perfectly—over the creature"s eyes. The bull tried to shake the cloth free, but one of its horns had passed through the hole. It snorted angrily and stamped it the ground. But the cape stayed in place.

Everyone was shouting now. Half the spectators had risen to their feet and the president was looking around him helplessly. Alex ran and snatched up the banderilla, noticing the ugly hook, stained red with the blood of the last bull. In a single movement he swung it round and threw it.

His target wasn"t the bull. Franco had started to rise out of his seat as soon as he"d realized what Alex was about to do; his hand was already scrabbling for his gun. But he was too late. Either Alex had been lucky or sheer desperation had perfected his aim. The banderilla turned once in the air, then buried itself in Franco"s shoulder. Franco screamed. The point wasn"t long enough to kill him, but the barbed hook kept the banderilla in place, making it impossible to pull out.

Blood spread along the sleeve of his suit.

The whole arena was in an uproar. The crowd had never seen anything like this. Alex continued running. He saw the bull free itself from the red cape. It was already searching for him, determined to take its revenge.

Take your revenge another day, Alex thought. I have no quarrel with you.

He had reached the barrera and leapt up, grabbed the top and pulled himself over. Franco was too shocked and in too much pain to react; anyway, he had been surrounded by onlookers trying to help. He would never have been able to produce his gun and take aim. Everybody seemed to be on the edge of panic. The president signalled furiously and the band struck up again, but the musicians all began at different times and none of them played the same tune.

One of the men in jeans and black shirts sprinted towards Alex, shouting something in French.

Alex ignored him. He hit the ground and ran.

At the very moment that Alex shot out into the night, the storm broke. The rain fell like an ocean thrown from the sky. It crashed into the town, splattered off the pavements and formed instant rivers that raced along the gutters and overwhelmed the drains. There was no thunder. Just this avalanche of water that threatened to drown the world.

Alex didn"t stop. In seconds his hair was soaked. Water ran in rivulets down his face and he could barely see. As he ran he tore off the outer parts of the matador"s costume, first the hat, then the jacket and tie, throwing each item away, leaving their memory behind.

The sea was on his left, the water black and boiling as it was hit by the rain. Alex twisted off the road and felt sand beneath his feet. He was on the beach—the same beach where he had been lying with Sabina when all this began. The sea wall and the jetty were beyond it.

He leapt onto the sea wall and climbed the heavy boulders. His shirt hung out of his trousers; it was already sodden, clinging to his chest.

Yassen"s boat had left.

Alex couldn"t be sure, but he thought he could see a vague shape disappearing into the darkness and the rain and he knew that he must have missed it by seconds. He stopped, panting. What had he been thinking of anyway? If the Fer de Lance had still been there, would he really have climbed aboard a second time? Of course not. He had been lucky to survive the first attempt. He had come here just in time to see it leave and he had learnt nothing.

No.

There was something.

Alex stood there for a few more moments with the rain streaming down his face, then turned and walked back into the town.

He found the phone box in a street just behind the main church. He had no money so was forced to make a reverse charge call and he wondered if it would be accepted. He dialled the operator and gave the number that he had found and memorized in Yassen"s mobile phone.

“Who is speaking?” the operator asked.

Alex hesitated. Then… “My name is Yassen Gregorovich,” he said.

There was a long silence as the connection was made. Would anyone even answer? England was an hour behind France but it was still late at night.

The rain was falling more lightly now, pattering on the glass roof of the phone box. Alex waited.

Then the operator came back on.

“Your call has been accepted, monsieur. Please go ahead…” More silence. Then a voice. It spoke just two words.

“Damian Cray.”

Alex said nothing.

The voice spoke again. “Hello? Who is this?”

Alex was shivering. Maybe it was the rain; maybe it was a reaction to everything that had happened. He couldn"t speak. He heard the man breathing at the end of the line.

Then there was a click and the phone went dead.

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCE

« ^ »

ondon greeted Alex like an old and reliable friend. Red buses, black cabs, blue-uniformed policemen and grey clouds … could he be anywhere else? Walking down the King"s Road, he felt a million miles from the Camargue—not just home, but back in the real world. The side of his stomach was still sore and he could feel the pressure of the bandage against his skin, but otherwise Yassen and the bullfight were already slipping into the distant past.

He stopped outside a bookshop which, like so many of them, advertised itself with the wafting smell of coffee. He paused for a moment, then went in.

He quickly found what he was looking for. There were three books on Damian Cray in the biography section. Two of these were hardly books at all—more glossy brochures put out by record companies to promote the man who had made them so many millions. The first was called Damian Cray—Live! It was stacked next to a book called Cray-zee! The Life and Times of Damian Cray. The same face stared out from the covers. Jet-black hair cut short like a schoolboy"s. A very round face with prominent cheeks and brilliant green eyes. A small nose, almost too exactly placed right in the middle. Thick lips and perfect white teeth.

The third book had been written quite a few years later. The face was a little older, the eyes hidden behind blue-tinted spectacles, and this Damian Cray was climbing out of a white Rolls-Royce, wearing a Versace suit and tie. The title of the book showed what else had changed: Sir Damian Cray: The Man, The Music, The Millions. Alex glanced at the first page, but the heavy, complicated prose soon put him off. It seemed to have been written by someone who probably read the Financial Times for laughs.

In the end he didn"t buy any of the books. He wanted to know more about Cray, but he didn"t think these books would tell him anything he didn"t know already. And certainly not why Cray"s private telephone number had been on the mobile phone of a hired assassin.

Alex walked back through Chelsea, turning off down the pretty, white-fronted street where his uncle, Ian Rider, had lived. He now shared the house with Jack Starbright, an American girl who had once been the housekeeper but had since become his legal guardian and closest friend. She was the reason Alex had first agreed to work for MI6. He had been sent undercover to spy on Herod Sayle and his Stormbreaker computers. In return she had been given a visa which allowed her to stay in London and look after him.

She was waiting for him in the kitchen when he got in. He had agreed to be back by one and she had thrown together a quick lunch. Jack was a good cook but refused to make anything that took longer than ten minutes. She was twenty-eight years old, slim, with tangled red hair and the sort of face that couldn"t help being cheerful, even when she was in a bad mood. “Had a good morning?” she asked as he came in. “Yes.” Alex sat down slowly, holding his side. Jack noticed but said nothing. “I hope you"re hungry,” she went on. “What"s for lunch?” “Stir-fry.”

“It smells good.”

“It"s an old Chinese recipe. At least, that"s what it said on the packet. Help yourself to some Coke and I"ll serve up.”

The food was good and Alex tried to eat, but the truth was that he had no appetite and he soon gave up. Jack said nothing as he carried his half-finished plate over to the sink, but then she suddenly turned round.

“Alex, you can"t keep blaming yourself for what happened in France.” Alex had been about to leave the kitchen but now he returned to the table.

“It"s about time you and I talked about this,” Jack went on. “In fact, it"s time we talked about everything!” She pushed her own plate of food away and waited until Alex had sat down. “All right. So it turns out that your uncle—Ian—wasn"t a bank manager. He was a spy. Well, it would have been nice if he"d mentioned it to me, but it"s too late now because he"s gone and got himself killed, which leaves me stuck here, looking after you.” She quickly held up a hand. “I didn"t mean that. I love being here. I love London. I even love you.

“But you"re not a spy, Alex. You know that. Even if Ian had some crazy idea about training you up. Three times now you"ve taken time off from school and each time you"ve come back a bit more bashed around. I don"t even want to know what you"ve been up to, but personally I"ve been worried sick!” “It wasn"t my choice…” Alex said. “That"s my point exactly. Spies and bullets and madmen who want to take over the world—it"s got nothing to do with you. So you were right to walk away in Saint-Pierre. You did the right thing.” Alex shook his head. “I should have done something. Anything. If I had, Sabina"s dad would never—”

“You can"t know that. Even if you"d called the cops, what could they have done? Remember—

nobody knew there was a bomb. Nobody knew who the target was. I don"t think it would have made any difference at all. And if you don"t mind my saying so, Alex, going after this guy Yassen on your own was frankly … well, it was very dangerous. You"re lucky you weren"t killed.”

She was certainly right about that. Alex remembered the arena and saw again the horns and bloodshot eyes of the bull. He reached out for his glass and took a sip of Coke. “I still have to do something,” he said. “Edward Pleasure was writing an article about Damian Cray. Something about a secret meeting in Paris. Maybe he was buying drugs or something.” But even as he spoke the words, Alex knew they couldn"t be true. Cray hated drugs. There had been advertising campaigns—posters and TV—using his name and face. His last album, White Lines, had contained four anti-drugs songs. He had made it a personal issue. “Maybe he"s into porn,” he suggested weakly.

“Whatever it is, it"s going to be hard to prove, Alex. The whole world loves Damian Cray.” Jack sighed. “Maybe you should talk to Mrs Jones.”

Alex felt his heart sink. He dreaded the thought of going back to MI6 and meeting the woman who was its deputy head of Special Operations. But he knew Jack was right. At least Mrs Jones would be able to investigate. “I suppose I could go and see her,” he said.

“Good. But just make sure she doesn"t get you involved. If Damian Cray is up to something, it"s her business—not yours.”

The telephone rang.

There was a cordless phone in the kitchen and Jack took the call. She listened for a moment, then handed the receiver to Alex. “It"s Sabina,” she said. “For you.” They met outside Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus and walked to a nearby Starbucks. Sabina was wearing grey trousers and a loose-fitting jersey. Alex had expected her to have changed in some way after all that had happened, and indeed she looked younger, less sure of herself. She was obviously tired. All traces of her South of France suntan had disappeared.

“Dad"s going to live,” she said as they sat down together with two bottles of juice. “The doctors are pretty sure about that. He"s strong and he kept himself fit. But…” Her voice trembled. “It"s going to take a long time, Alex. He"s still unconscious—and he was badly burnt.” She stopped and drank some of her juice. “The police said it was a gas leak. Can you believe that? Mum says she"s going to sue.”

“Who"s she going to sue?”

“The people who rented us the house. The gas board. The whole country. She"s furious…” Alex said nothing. A gas leak. That was what the police had told him.

Sabina sighed. “Mum said I ought to see you. She said you"d want to know about Dad.”

“Your dad had just come down from Paris, hadn"t he?” Alex wasn"t sure this was the right time, but he had to know. “Did he say anything about the article he was writing?” Sabina looked surprised. “No. He never talked about his work. Not to Mum. Not to anyone.”

“Where had he been?”

“He"d been staying with a friend. A photographer.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Marc Antonio. Why are you asking all these questions about my dad? Why do you want to know?”

Alex avoided the questions. “Where is he now?” he asked.

“In hospital in France. He"s not strong enough to travel. Mum"s still out there with him. I flew home on my own.”

Alex thought for a moment. This wasn"t a good idea. But he couldn"t keep silent. Not knowing what he did. “I think he should have a police guard,” he said.

“What?” Sabina stared at him. “Why? Are you saying … it wasn"t a gas leak?” Alex didn"t answer.

Sabina looked at him carefully, then came to a decision. “You"ve been asking a lot of questions,” she said. “Now it"s my turn. I don"t know what"s really going on, but Mum told me that after it happened, you ran away from the house.”

“How did she know?”

“The police told her. They said you had this idea that someone had tried to kill Dad … and that it was someone you knew. And then you disappeared. They were searching everywhere for you.”

“I went to the police station at Saint-Pierre,” Alex said.

“But that wasn"t until midnight. You were completely soaked and you had a cut and you were dressed in weird clothes…”

Alex had been questioned for an hour when he had finally shown up at the gendarmerie. A doctor had given him three stitches and bandaged up the wound. Then a policeman had brought him a change of clothes. The questions had only stopped with the arrival of the man from the British consulate in Lyons. The man, who had been elderly and efficient, seemed to know all about Alex. He had driven Alex to Montpellier Airport to catch the first flight the next day. He had no interest in what had happened. His only desire seemed to be to get Alex out of the country.

“What were you doing?” Sabina asked. “You say Dad needs protection. Is there something you know?”

“I can"t really tell you—” Alex began.

“Stuff that!” Sabina said. “Of course you can tell me!”

“I can"t. You wouldn"t believe me.”

“If you don"t tell me, Alex, I"m going to walk out of here and you"ll never see me again. What is it that you know about my dad?”

In the end he told her. It was very simple. She hadn"t given him any choice. And in a way he was glad. The secret had been with him too long and carrying it alone, he had begun to feel it weighing him down.

He began with the death of his uncle, his introduction to MI6, his training and his first meeting with Yassen Gregorovich at the Stormbreaker computer plant in Cornwall. He described, as briefly as he could, how he had been forced, twice more, to work for MI6—in the French Alps and off the coast of America. Then he told her what he had felt the moment he had seen Yassen on the beach at Saint-Pierre, how he had followed him to the restaurant, why in the end he had done nothing.

He thought he had skimmed over it all but in fact he talked for half an hour before arriving at his meeting with Yassen on the Fer de Lance. He had avoided looking directly at Sabina for much of the time as he talked, but when he reached the bullfight, describing how he had dressed up as a matador and walked out in front of a crowd of a thousand, he glanced up and met her eyes. She was looking at him as if seeing him for the first time. She almost seemed to hate him.

“I told you it wasn"t easy to believe,” he concluded lamely.

“Alex…”

“I know the whole thing sounds mad. But that"s what happened. I am so sorry about your dad.

I"m sorry I couldn"t stop it from happening. But at least I know who was responsible.”

“Who?”

“Damian Cray.”

“The pop star?”

“Your dad was writing an article about him. I found a bit of it at the house. And his number was on Yassen"s mobile phone.”

“So Damian Cray wanted to kill my dad.”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence. Too long, Alex thought.

At last Sabina spoke again. “I"m sorry, Alex,” she said. “I have never heard so much crap in all my life.”

“Sab, I told you—”

“I know you said I wouldn"t believe it. But just because you said that, it doesn"t make it true!” She shook her head. “How can you expect anyone to believe a story like that? Why can"t you tell me the truth?”

“It is the truth, Sab.”

Suddenly he knew what he had to do.

“And I can prove it.”

They took the tube across London to Liverpool Street Station and walked up the road to the building that Alex knew housed the Special Operations division of MI6. They found themselves standing in front of a tall, black-painted door, the sort that was designed to impress people coming in or leaving. Next to it, screwed into the brickwork, was a brass plaque with the words: ROYAL & GENERAL BANK PLC

LONDON

Sabina had seen it. She looked at Alex doubtfully. “Don"t worry,” Alex said. “The Royal & General Bank doesn"t exist. That"s just the sign they put on the door.” They went in. The entrance hall was cold and businesslike, with high ceilings and a brown marble floor. To one side there was a leather sofa and Alex remembered sitting there the first time he had come, waiting to go up to his uncle"s office on the fifteenth floor. He walked straight across to the glass reception desk where a young woman was sitting with a microphone curving across her mouth, taking calls and greeting visitors at the same time. There was an older security officer in uniform and peaked cap next to her.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked, smiling at Alex and Sabina.

“Yes,” Alex said. “I"d like to see Mrs Jones.”

“Mrs Jones?” The young woman frowned. “Do you know what department she works in?”

“She works with Mr Blunt.”

“I"m sorry…” She turned to the security guard. “Do you know a Mrs Jones?”

“There"s a Miss Johnson,” the guard suggested. “She"s a cashier.” Alex looked from one to the other. “You know who I mean,” he said. “Just tell her that Alex Rider is here—”

“There is no Mrs Jones working at this bank,” the receptionist interrupted.

“Alex…” Sabina began.

But Alex refused to give up. He leant forward so that he could speak confidentially. “I know this isn"t a bank,” he said. “This is MI6 Special Operations. Please could you—”

“Are you doing this as some sort of prank?” This time it was the security guard who was speaking. “What"s all this nonsense about MI6?” “Alex, let"s get out of here,” Sabina said. “No!” Alex couldn"t believe what was happening. He didn"t even know exactly what it was that was happening. It had to be a mistake. These people were new. Or perhaps they needed some sort of password to allow him into the building. Of course. On his previous visits here, he had only ever come when he had been expected. Either that or he had been brought here against his will. This time he had come unannounced. That was why he wasn"t being allowed in.

“Listen,” Alex said. “I understand why you wouldn"t want to let just anyone in, but I"m not just anyone. I"m Alex Rider. I work with Mr Blunt and Mrs Jones. Could you please let her know I"m here?”

“There is no Mrs Jones,” the receptionist repeated helplessly.

“And I don"t know any Mr Blunt either,” the security guard added.

“Alex. Please…” Sabina was sounding more and more desperate. She realty wanted to leave.

Alex turned to her. “They"re lying, Sabina,” he said. “I"ll show you.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her over to the lift. He reached out and stabbed the call button.

“You stop right there!” The security guard stood up.

The receptionist reached out and pressed a button, presumably calling for help.

The lift didn"t come.

Alex saw the guard moving towards him. Still no lift. He looked around and noticed a corridor leading away, with a set of swing doors at the end. Perhaps there would be a staircase or another set of lifts somewhere else in the building. Pulling Sabina behind him, Alex set off down the corridor. He heard the security guard getting closer. He quickened his pace, searching for a way up.

He slammed through the double doors.

And stopped.

He was in a banking hall. It was huge, with a domed ceiling and advertisements on the walls for mortgages, savings schemes and personal loans. There were seven or eight glass windows arranged along one side, with cashiers stamping documents and cashing cheques, while about a dozen customers—ordinary people off the street—waited in line. Two personal advisers, young men in smart suits, sat behind desks in the open-plan area. One of them was discussing pension schemes with an elderly couple. Alex heard the other answer his phone.

“Hello. This is the Royal & General Bank, Liverpool Street. Adam speaking. How may I help?” A light flashed on above one of the windows. Number four. A man in a pinstripe suit went over to it and the queue shuffled forward.

Alex took all this in with one glance. He looked at Sabina. She was staring with a mixture of emotions on her face.

And then the security guard was there. “You"re not meant to come into the bank this way,” he said. “This is a staff entrance. Now, I want you to leave before you get yourself into real trouble.

I mean it! I don"t want to have to call the police, but that"s my job.”

“We"re going.” Sabina had stepped in and her voice was cold, definite. “Sab—”

“We"re going now.”

“You ought to look after your friend,” the security guard said. “He may think this sort of thing is funny, but it isn"t.”

Alex left—or rather allowed Sabina to lead him out. They went through a revolving door and out onto the street. Alex wondered what had happened. Why had he never seen the bank before?

Then he realized. The building was actually sandwiched between two streets with a quite separate front and back. He had always entered from the other side.

“Listen—” he began.

“No. You listen! I don"t know what"s going on inside your head. Maybe it"s because you don"t have parents. You have to draw attention to yourself by creating this … fantasy! But just listen to yourself, Alex! I mean, it"s pretty sick. Schoolboy spies and Russian assassins and all the rest of it…”

“It"s got nothing to do with my parents,” Alex said, feeling anger well up inside him.

“But it"s got everything to do with mine. My dad gets hurt in an accident—”

“It wasn"t an accident, Sab.” He couldn"t stop himself. “Are you really so stupid that you think I"d make all this up?”

“Stupid? Are you calling me stupid?”

“I"m just saying that I thought we were friends. I thought you knew me…”

“Yes! I thought I knew you. But now I see I was wrong. I"ll tell you what"s stupid. Listening to you in the first place was stupid. Coming to see you was stupid. Ever getting to know you … that was the most stupid thing of all.”

She turned and walked away in the direction of the station. In seconds she had gone, disappearing into the crowd.

“Alex…” a voice said behind him. It was a voice that he knew.

Mrs Jones was standing on the pavement. She had seen and heard everything that had taken place. “Let her go,” she said. “I think we need to talk.” SAINT OR SINGER?

« ^ »

he office was the same as it had always been. The same ordinary, modern furniture, the same view, the same man behind the same desk. Not for the first time, Alex found himself wondering about Alan Blunt, head of MI6 Special Operations. What had his journey to work been like today? Was there a suburban house with a nice, smiling wife and two children waving goodbye as he left to catch the tube? Did his family know the truth about him? Had he ever told them that he wasn"t working for a bank or an insurance company or anything like that, and that he carried with him—perhaps in a smart leather case, given to him for his birthday—files and documents full of death? Alex tried to see the teenager in the man in the grey suit. Blunt must have been his own age once. He would have gone to school, sweated over exams, played football, tried his first cigarette and got bored at weekends like anybody else. But there was no sign of any child in the empty grey eyes, the colourless hair, the mottled, tightly drawn skin. So when had it happened?

What had turned him into a civil servant, a spy-master, an adult with no obvious emotions and no remorse?

And then Alex wondered if the same thing would one day happen to him. Was that what MI6

were preparing him for? First they had turned him into a spy; next they would turn him into one of them. Perhaps they already had an office waiting with his name on the door. The windows were closed and it was warm in the room, but he shuddered. He had been wrong to come here with Sabina. The office on Liverpool Street was poisonous, and one way or another it would destroy him if he didn"t stay away.

“We couldn"t allow you to bring that girl here, Alex,” Blunt was saying. “You know perfectly well that you can"t just show off to your friends whenever—”

“I wasn"t showing off,” Alex cut in. “Her dad was almost killed by a bomb in the South of France.”

“We know all about the business in Saint-Pierre,” Blunt murmured.

“Do you know that it was Yassen Gregorovich who planted it?” Blunt sighed irritably. “That doesn"t make any difference. It"s none of your business. And it"s certainly nothing to do with us!”

Alex stared at him in disbelief. “Sabina"s father is a journalist,” he exclaimed. “He was writing about Damian Cray. If Cray wanted him dead, there must be a reason. Isn"t it your job to find out?”

Blunt held up a hand for silence. His eyes, as always, showed nothing at all. Alex was struck by the thought that if this man were to die, sitting here at his desk, nobody would notice any difference.

“I have received a report from the police in Montpellier, and also from the British consulate,” Blunt said. “This is standard practice when one of our people is involved.”

“I"m not one of your people,” Alex muttered.

“I am sorry that the father of your … friend was hurt. But you might as well know that the French police have investigated—and you"re right. It wasn"t a gas leak.” “That"s what I was trying to tell you.”

“It turns out that a local terrorist organization—the CST—have claimed responsibility.”

“The CST?” Alex"s head spun. “Who are they?”

“They"re very new,” Mrs Jones explained. “CST stands for Camargue Sans Touristes.

Essentially they"re French nationalists who want to stop local houses in the Camargue being sold off for tourism and second homes.”

“It"s got nothing to do with the CST,” Alex insisted. “It was Yassen Gregorovich. I saw him and he admitted it. And he told me that the real target was Edward Pleasure. Why won"t you listen to what I"m saying? It was this article Edward was writing. Something about a meeting in Paris. It was Damian Cray who wanted him dead.”

There was a brief pause. Mrs Jones glanced at her boss as if needing his permission to speak. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Did Yassen mention Damian Cray?” she asked.

“No. But I found his private telephone number in Yassen"s phone. I rang it and I actually heard him speak.”

“You can"t know it was Damian Cray.”

“Well, that was the name he gave.”

“This is complete nonsense.” It was Blunt who had spoken and Alex was amazed to see that he was angry. It was the first time Alex had ever seen him show any emotion at all and it occurred to him that not many people dared to disagree with the chief executive of Special Operations.

Certainly not to his face.

“Why is it nonsense?”

“Because you"re talking about one of the most admired and respected entertainers in the country.

A man who has raised millions and millions of pounds for charity. Because you"re talking about Damian Cray!” Blunt sank back into his chair. For a moment he seemed undecided. Then he nodded briefly. “All right,” he said. “Since you have been of some use to us in the past, and since I want to clear this matter up once and for all, I will tell you everything we know about Cray.”

“We have extensive files on him,” Mrs Jones said.

“Why?”

“We keep extensive files on everyone who"s famous.”

“Go on.”

Blunt nodded again and Mrs Jones took over. She seemed to know all the facts by heart. Either she had read the files recently or, more probably, she had the sort of mind that never forgot anything.

“Damian Cray was born in north London on 5 October 1950,” she began. ”That"s not his real name, by the way. He was christened Harold Eric Lunt. His father was Sir Arthur Lunt, who made his fortune building multi-storey car parks. As a child, Harold had a remarkable singing voice, and aged eleven he was sent to the Royal Academy of Music in London. In fact, he used to sing regularly there with another boy who also became famous. That was Elton John.

“But when he was thirteen, there was a terrible disaster. His parents were killed in a bizarre car accident.”

“What was bizarre about it?”

“The car fell on top of them. It rolled off the top floor of one of their car parks. As you can imagine, Harold was distraught. He left the Royal Academy and travelled the world. He changed his name and turned to Buddhism for a while. He also became a vegetarian. Even now, he never touches meat. The tickets for his concerts are made out of recycled paper. He has very strict values and he sticks to them.

“Anyway, he came back to England in the seventies and formed a band—Slam! They were an instant success. I"m sure the rest of this will be very familiar to you, Alex. At the end of the seventies the band split up, and Cray began a solo career which took him to new heights. His first solo album, Firelight, went platinum. After that he was seldom out of the UK or US top twenty.

He won five Grammys and an Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 1986 he visited Africa and decided to do something to help the people there. He arranged a concert at Wembley Stadium, with all proceeds going to charity. Chart Attack—that was what it was called. It was a huge success and that Christmas he released a single: „Something for the Children". It sold four million copies and he gave every penny away.

“That was just the beginning. Since the success of Chart Attack, Cray has campaigned tirelessly on a range of world issues. Save the rainforests; protect the ozone layer; end world debt. He"s built his own rehabilitation centres to help young people involved with drugs, and he spent two years fighting to have a laboratory closed down because it was experimenting on animals.

“In 1989 he performed in Belfast, and many people believe that this free concert was a step on the way towards peace in Northern Ireland. A year later he made two visits to Buckingham Palace. He was there on a Thursday to play a solo for Princess Diana"s birthday; and on the Friday he was back again to receive a knighthood from the Queen.

“Only last year he was on the cover of Time magazine. „Man of the Year. Saint or Singer?" That was the headline. And that"s why your accusations are ridiculous, Alex. The whole world knows that Damian Cray is just about the closest thing we have to a living saint.”

“It was still his voice on the telephone,” Alex said.

“You heard someone give his name. You don"t know it was him.”

“I just don"t understand it!” Now Alex was angry, confused. “All right, we all like Damian Cray.

I know he"s famous. But if there"s a chance that he was involved with the bomb, why won"t you at least investigate him?”

“Because we can"t.” It was Blunt who had spoken and the words came out flat and heavy. He cleared his throat. “Damian Cray is a multimillionaire. He"s got a huge penthouse on the Thames and another place down in Wiltshire, just outside Bath.”

“So what?”

“Rich people have connections and extremely rich people have very good connections indeed.

Since the nineties, Cray has been putting his money into a number of commercial ventures. He bought his own television station and made a number of programmes that are now shown all around the world. Then he branched out into hotels—and finally into computer games. He"s about to launch a new game system. He calls it the Gameslayer, and apparently it will put all the other systems—PlayStation 2, GameCube, whatever—into the shade.”

“I still don"t see—”

“He is a major employer, Alex. He is a man of enormous influence. And, for what it"s worth, he donated a million pounds to the government just before the last election. Now do you understand? If it was discovered that we were investigating him, and merely on your say-so, there would be a tremendous scandal. The prime minister doesn"t like us anyway. He hates anything he can"t control. He might even use an attack on Damian Cray as an excuse to close us down.”

“Cray was on television only today,” Mrs Jones said. She picked up a remote control. “Have a look at this and then tell me what you think.”

A TV monitor in the corner of the room flickered on, and Alex found himself looking at a recording of the mid-morning news. He guessed Mrs Jones probably recorded the news every day.

She fast-forwarded, then ran the film at the correct speed.

And there was Damian Cray. His hair was neatly combed and he was wearing a dark, formal suit, white shirt and mauve silk tie. He was standing outside the American embassy in London"s Grosvenor Square.

Mrs Jones turned up the sound.

“…the former pop singer, now tireless campaigner for a number of environmental and political issues, Damian Cray. He was in London to meet the president of the United States, who has just arrived in England as part of his summer vacation.”

The picture switched to a jumbo jet landing at Heathrow Airport, then cut in closer to show the president standing at the open door, waving and smiling.

“The president arrived at Heathrow Airport in Air Force One, the presidential plane. He is due to have a formal lunch with the prime minister at number ten Downing Street today…” Another cut. Now the president was standing next to Damian Cray and the two men were shaking hands, a long handshake for the benefit of the cameras which flashed all around them.

Cray had sandwiched the president"s hand between both his own hands and seemed unwilling to let him go. He said something and the president laughed.

“…but first he met Cray for an informal discussion at the American embassy in London. Cray is a spokesman for Greenpeace and has been leading the movement to prevent oil drilling in the wilds of Alaska, fearing the environmental damage this may cause. Although he made no promises, the president agreed to study the report which Greenpeace…” Mrs Jones turned off the television.

“Do you see? The most powerful man in the world interrupts his holiday to meet Damian Cray.

And he sees Cray before he even visits the prime minister! That should give you the measure of the man. So tell me! What earthly reason could he have to blow up a house and perhaps kill a whole family?”

“That"s what I want you to find out.”

Blunt sniffed. “I think we should wait for the French police to get back to us,” he said. “They"re investigating the CST. Let"s see what they come up with.” “So you"re going to do nothing!” “I think we have explained, Alex.” “All right.” Alex stood up. He didn"t try to conceal his anger.

“You"ve made me look a complete fool in front of Sabina; you"ve made me lose one of my best friends. It"s really amazing. When you need me, you just pull me out of school and send me to the other side of the world. But when I need you, just this once, you pretend you don"t even exist and you just dump me out on the street…”

“You"re being over-emotional,” Blunt said.

“No, I"m not. But I"ll tell you this. If you won"t go after Cray, I will. He may be Father Christmas, Joan of Arc and the Pope all rolled into one, but it was his voice on the phone and I know he was somehow involved in what happened in the South of France. I"m going to prove it to you.”

Alex stood up and, without waiting to hear another word, left the room.

There was a long pause.

Blunt took out a pen and made a few notes on a sheet of paper. Then he looked at Mrs Jones.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Maybe we should go over the files one more time,” Mrs Jones suggested. “After all, Herod Sayle pretended to be a friend of the British people, and if it hadn"t been for Alex…”

“You can do what you like,” Blunt said. He drew a ring round the last sentence he had written.

Mrs Jones could see the words Yassen Gregorovich upside down on the page. “Curious that he should have run into Yassen a second time,” he muttered.

“And more curious still that Yassen didn"t kill him when he had the chance.”

“I wouldn"t say that, all things considered.”

Mrs Jones nodded. “Maybe we ought to tell Alex about Yassen,” she suggested.

“Absolutely not.” Blunt picked up the piece of paper and crumpled it. “The less Alex Rider knows about Yassen Gregorovich the better. I very much hope the two of them don"t run into each other again.” He dropped the paper ball into the bin underneath his desk. At the end of the day everything in the bin would be incinerated.

“And that,” he said, “is that.”

Jack was worried.

Alex had come back from Liverpool Street in a bleak mood and had barely spoken a word to her since. He had come into the sitting room where she was reading a book and she had managed to learn that the meeting with Sabina hadn"t gone well and that Alex wouldn"t be seeing her again.

But during the afternoon she managed to coax more and more of the story out of him until finally she had the whole picture.

“They"re all idiots!” Alex exclaimed. “I know they"re wrong but just because I"m younger than them, they won"t listen to me.”

“I"ve told you before, Alex. You shouldn"t be mixed up with them.”

“I won"t be. Never again. They don"t give a damn about me.” The doorbell rang.

“I"ll go,” Alex said.

There was a white van parked outside. Two men were opening the back and, as Alex watched, they unloaded a brand-new bicycle, wheeling it down and over to the house. Alex cast his eye over it. The bike was a Cannondale Bad Boy, a mountain bike that had been adapted for the city with a lightweight aluminium frame and one-inch wheels. It was silver and seemed to have come equipped with all the accessories he could have asked for: Digital Evolution lights, a Blackburn mini-pump … everything top of the range. Only the silver bell on the handlebar seemed old-fashioned and out of place. Alex ran his hand over the leather saddle with its twisting Celtic design and then along the frame, admiring the workmanship. There was no sign of any welds.

The bike was handmade and must have cost hundreds.

One of the men came over to him. “Alex Rider?” he asked.

“Yes. But I think there"s been a mistake. I didn"t order a bike.”

“It"s a gift. Here…”

The second man had left the bike propped up against the railings. Alex found himself holding a thick envelope. Jack appeared on the step behind him. “What is it?” she asked.

“Someone has given me a bike.”

Alex opened the envelope. Inside was an instruction booklet and attached to it a letter.

Dear Alex,

I"m probably going to get a roasting for this, but I don"t like the idea of you taking off on your own without any back-up. This is something I"ve been working on for you and you might as well have it now. I hope it comes in useful.

Look after yourself, dear boy. I"d hate to hear that anything lethal had happened to you.

All the best,

Smithers

PS This letter will self-destruct ten seconds after it comes into contact with the air so I hope you read it quickly!

Alex just had time to read the last sentence before the letters on the page faded and the paper itself crumpled and turned into white ash. He moved his hands apart and what was left of the letter blew away in the breeze. Meanwhile the two men had got back into the van and driven away. Alex was left with the bike. He flicked through the first pages of the instruction book.

BIKE PUMP—SMOKESCREEN

MAGNESIUM FLARE—HEADLAMP

HANDLEBAR—MISSILE EJECTION

TRAILRIDER—JERSEY (BULLETPROOF)

MAGNETIC—BICYCLE CLIPS

“Who is Smithers?” Jack asked. Alex had never told her about him.

“I was wrong,” Alex said. “I thought I had no friends at MI6. But it looks like I"ve got one.” He wheeled the bicycle into the house. Smiling, Jack closed the door.

THE PLEASURE DOME

« ^ »

t was only in the cold light of morning that Alex began to see the impossibility of the task he had set himself. How was he supposed to investigate a man like Cray? Blunt had mentioned that he had homes in London and Wiltshire, but hadn"t supplied addresses. Alex didn"t even know if Cray was still in England.

But as it turned out, the morning news told Alex where he might begin.

When he came into the kitchen, Jack was reading the newspaper over her second cup of coffee.

She took one look at him, then slid it across the table. “This"ll put you off your cornflakes.” Alex turned the paper round—and there it was on the second page: Damian Cray looking out at him. A headline ran below the picture:

Cray Launches £100m Gameslayer it"s definitely the hottest ticket in London. Today—game players get to see the eagerly anticipated Gameslayer, developed by Cray Software Technology, a company based in Amsterdam, at a cost rumoured to be in excess of one hundred million pounds. The state-of-the-art game system will be demonstrated by Sir Damian Cray himself in front of an invited audience of journalists, friends, celebrities and industry experts.

No expense has been spared on the launch, which kicks off at one o"clock and includes a lavish champagne buffet inside the Pleasure Dome that Cray has constructed inside Hyde Park. This is the first time that a royal park has been used for a purely commercial venture and there were some critics when permission was given earlier this year.

But Damian Cray is no ordinary businessman. He has already announced that twenty per cent of profits from the Gameslayer will be going to charity, this time helping disabled children throughout the UK. Yesterday Cray met with the United States president to discuss oil drilling in Alaska. It is said that the Queen herself approved the temporary construction of the Pleasure Dome, which uses aluminium and PTFE fabric (the same material used in the Millennium Dome). Its futuristic design has certainly proved an eye-opener for passing Londoners.

Alex stopped reading. “We have to go,” he said. “Do you want your eggs scrambled or boiled?”

“Jack…”

“Alex. It"s a ticket-only event. What will we do?”

“I"ll work something out.”

Jack scowled. “Are you really sure about this?”

“I know, Jack. It"s Damian Cray. Everyone loves him. But here"s something they may not have noticed.” He folded the paper and slid it back to her. “The terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the bomb in France was called Camargue Sans Touristes.”

“I know.”

“And this new computer game has been developed by Cray Software Technology.”

“What about it, Alex?”

“Maybe it"s just another coincidence. But CST… It"s the same letters.” Jack nodded. “All right,” she said. “So how do we get in?” They took a bus up to Knightsbridge and crossed over into Hyde Park. Before he had even passed through the gates and into the park itself, Alex could see just how much had been invested in the launch. There were hundreds of people streaming along the pavements, getting out of taxies and limousines, milling around in a crowd that seemed to cover every centimetre of grass. Policemen on foot and on horseback stood at every corner, giving directions and trying to form people into orderly lines. Alex was amazed that the horses could remain so calm surrounded by so much chaos.

And then there was the Pleasure Dome itself. It was as if a fantastic spaceship had landed in the middle of the lake at the centre of Hyde Park. It seemed to float on the surface of the water, a black pod, surrounded by a gleaming aluminium frame, silver rods criss-crossing in a dazzling pattern. Blue and red spotlights swivelled and rocked, the beams flashing even in the daylight. A single metal bridge stretched across from the bank to the entrance but there were more than a dozen security men barring the way. Nobody was allowed to cross the water without showing their ticket. There was no other way in.

Music blared out of hidden speakers: Cray singing from his last album, White Lines. Alex walked down to the edge of the water. He could hear shouting and, even in the hazy afternoon sun, he was almost blinded by a hundred flashbulbs all exploding at the same time. The mayor of London had just arrived and was waving at the press pack, at least a hundred strong, herded together into a pen next to the bridge. Alex looked around and realized that he knew quite a few of the faces converging on the Pleasure Dome. There were actors, television presenters, models, DJs, politicians … all waving their invitations and queuing up to be let in. This was more than the first appearance of a new game system. It was the most exclusive party London had ever seen. And somehow he had to get in. He ignored a policeman who was trying to move him out of the way and continued towards the bridge, walking confidently, as if he had been invited. Jack was a few steps away from him and he nodded at her.

It had been Ian Rider, of course, who had taught him the basics of pickpocketing. At the time it had just been a game, shortly after Alex"s tenth birthday, when the two of them were together in Prague. They were talking about Oliver Twist and his uncle was explaining the techniques of the Artful Dodger, even providing his nephew with a quick demonstration. It was only much later that Alex had discovered that all this had been yet another aspect of his training; that all along his uncle had secretly been turning him into something he had never wanted to be.

But it would be useful now.

Alex was close to the bridge. He could see the invitations being checked by the burly men in their security uniforms: silver cards with the Gameslayer logo stamped in black. There was a natural crush here as the crowd arrived at the bottleneck and sorted itself into a single line to cross the bridge. He glanced one last time at Jack. She was ready.

Alex stopped.

“Somebody"s stolen my ticket!” he shouted.

Even with the music pounding out, his voice was loud enough to carry to the crowd in the immediate area. It was a classic pickpocket"s trick. Nobody cared about him, but suddenly they were worried about their own tickets. Alex saw one man pull open his jacket and glance into his inside pocket. Next to him a woman briefly opened and closed her handbag. Several people took their tickets out and clutched them tightly in their hands. A plump, bearded man reached round and tapped his back jeans pocket. Alex smiled. Now he knew where the tickets were.

He signalled to Jack. The plump man with the beard was going to be the mark—the one he had chosen. He was perfectly placed, just a few steps in front of Alex. And the corner of his ticket was actually visible, just poking out of the back pocket. Jack was going to play the part of the stall; Alex was in position to make the dip. Everything was set.

Jack walked ahead and seemed to recognize the man with the beard. “Harry!” she exclaimed, and threw her arms around him. “I"m not…” the man began. At that exact moment, Alex took two steps forward, swerved round a woman he vaguely recognized from a television drama series and slipped the ticket out of the man"s pocket and placed it quickly under his own jacket, holding it in place with the side of his arm. It had taken less than three seconds and Alex hadn"t even been particularly careful. This was the simple truth about pickpocketing. It demanded organization as much as skill. The mark was distracted. All his attention was on Jack, who was still embracing him. Pinch someone on the arm and they won"t notice if, at the same time, you"re touching their leg. That was what Ian Rider had taught Alex all those years ago.

“Don"t you remember me?” Jack was exclaiming. “We met at the Savoy!”

“No. I"m sorry. You"ve got the wrong person.”

Alex was already brushing past, on his way to the bridge. In a few moments the mark would reach for his ticket and find it missing, but even if he grabbed hold of Jack and accused her, there would be no evidence. Alex and the ticket would have disappeared.

He showed the ticket to a security man and stepped onto the bridge. Part of him felt bad about what he had done and he hoped the man with the beard would still be able to talk his way in.

Quietly he cursed Damian Cray for turning him into a thief. But he knew that, from the moment Cray had answered his call in the South of France, there could be no going back.

He crossed the bridge and gave the ticket up on the other side. Ahead of him was a triangular entrance. Alex stepped forward and went into the dome: a huge area fitted out with high-tech lighting and a raised stage with a giant plasma screen displaying the letters CST. There were already about five hundred guests spread out in front of it, drinking champagne and eating canapes. Waiters were circulating with bottles and trays. A sense of excitement buzzed all around.

The music stopped. The lighting changed and the screen went blank. Then there was a low hum and clouds of dry ice began to pour onto the stage. A single word—GAMESLAYER—appeared on the screen; the hum grew louder. The Gameslayer letters broke up as an animated figure appeared, a ninja warrior, dressed in black from head to toe, clinging to the screen like a cut-down version of Spiderman. The hum was deafening now, a roaring desert wind with an orchestra somewhere behind. Hidden fans must have been turned on because real wind suddenly blasted through the dome, clearing away the smoke and revealing Damian Cray—in a white suit with a wide, pink and silver striped tie—standing alone on the stage, with his image, hugely magnified, on the screen behind.

The audience surged towards him, applauding. Cray raised a hand for silence.

“Welcome, welcome!” he said.

Alex found himself drawn towards the stage like everyone else. He wanted to get as close to Cray as he could. Already he was feeling that strange sensation of actually being in the same room as a man he had known all his life … but a man he had never met. Damian Cray was smaller in real life than he seemed in his photographs. That was Alex"s first thought.

Nevertheless, Cray had been an A-list celebrity for thirty years. His presence was huge and he radiated confidence and control.

“Today is the day that I launch the Game-slayer, my new games console,” Cray went on. He had a faint trace of an American accent. “I"d like to thank you all for coming. But if there"s anyone here from Sony or Nintendo, I"m afraid I have bad news for you.” He paused and smiled.

“You"re history.”

There was laughter and applause from the audience. Even Alex found himself smiling. Cray had a way of including people, as if he personally knew everyone in the crowd.

“Gameslayer offers graphic quality and detail like no other system on the planet,” Cray went on.

“It can generate worlds, characters and totally complex physical simulations in real time thanks to the floating-point processing power of the system, which is, in a word, massive. Other systems give you plastic dolls fighting cardboard cut-outs. With Gameslayer, hair, eyes, skin tones, water, wood, metal and smoke all look like the real thing. We obey the rules of gravity and friction. More than that, we"ve built something into the system that we call pain synthesis. What does this mean? In a minute you"ll find out.”

He paused and the audience clapped again.

“Before I move on to the demonstration, I wonder if any of the journalists among you have any questions?”

A man near the front raised his hand. “How many games are you releasing this year?”

“Right now we only have the one game,” Cray replied. “But there will be twelve more in the shops by Christmas.”

“What is the first game called?” someone asked.

“Feathered Serpent.”

“Is it a shoot-„em-up?” a woman asked.

“Well, yes. It is a stealth game,” Cray admitted.

“So it involves shooting?”

“Yes.”

The woman smiled, but not humorously. She was in her forties, with grey hair and a severe, schoolteacher face. “It"s well known that you have a dislike of violence,” she said. “So how can you justify selling children violent games?”

A ripple of unease ran through the audience. The woman might be a journalist, but somehow it seemed wrong to question Cray in this manner. Not when you were drinking his champagne and eating his food.

Cray, however, didn"t seem offended. “That"s a good question,” he replied in his soft, lilting voice. “And I"ll tell you, when we began with the Gameslayer, we did develop a game where the hero had to collect different-coloured flowers from a garden and then arrange them in vases. It had bunnies and egg sandwiches too. But do you know what? Our research team discovered that modern teenagers didn"t want to play it. Can you imagine? They told me we wouldn"t sell a single copy!”

Everyone broke into laughter. Now it was the female journalist who was looking uncomfortable.

Cray held up a hand again. “Actually, you"ve made a fair point,” he went on. “It"s true—I hate violence. Real violence … war. But, you know, modern kids do have a lot of aggression in them.

That"s the truth of it. I suppose it"s human nature. And I"ve come to think that it"s better for them to get rid of that aggression playing harmless computer games, like mine, than out on the street.”

“Your games still encourage violence!” the woman insisted.

Damian Cray frowned. “I think I"ve answered your question. So maybe you should stop questioning my answer,” he said.

This was greeted by more applause, and Cray waited until it had died down. “But now, enough talk,” he said. “I want you to see Gameslayer for yourself, and the best way to see it is to play it.

I wonder if we have any teenagers in the audience, although now I come to think of it, I don"t remember inviting any…”

“There"s one here!” someone shouted, and Alex felt himself pushed forward. Suddenly everyone was looking at him and Cray himself was peering down from the stage.

“No…” Alex started to protest.

But the audience was already clapping, urging him on. A corridor opened up in front of him.

Alex stumbled forward and before he knew it he was climbing up onto the stage. The room seemed to tilt. A spotlight spun round, dazzling him. And there it was.

He was standing on the stage with Damian Cray.

FEATHERED SERPENT

« ^ »

t was the last thing Alex could have expected.

He was face to face with the man who—if he was right—had ordered the death of Sabina"s father. But was he right? For the first time, he was able to examine Cray at close quarters. It was a strangely unsettling experience.

Cray had one of the most famous faces in the world. Alex had seen it on CD covers, on posters, in newspapers and magazines, on television … even on the back of cereal packets. And yet the face in front of him now was somehow disappointing. It was less real than all the images he had seen.

Cray was surprisingly young-looking, considering he was already in his fifties, but there was a taut, shiny quality to his skin that whispered of plastic surgery. And surely the neat, jet-black hair had to be dyed. Even the bright green eyes seemed somehow lifeless. Cray was a very small man. Alex found himself thinking of a doll in a toyshop. That was what Cray reminded him of.

His superstardom and his millions of pounds had turned him into a plastic replica of himself.

And yet…

Cray had welcomed him onto the stage and was beaming at him as if he were an old friend. He was a singer. And, as he had made clear, he opposed violence. He wanted to save the world, not destroy it. MI6 had gathered files on him and found nothing. Alex was here because of a voice, a few words spoken at the end of a phone. He was beginning to wish he had never come.

It seemed that the two of them had been standing there for ages, up on the stage with hundreds of people waiting to see the demonstration. In fact, only a few seconds had passed. Then Cray held out a hand. “What"s your name?” he asked.

“Alex Rider.”

“Well, it"s great to meet you, Alex Rider. I"m Damian Cray.” They shook hands. Alex couldn"t help thinking that there were millions of people all around the world who would give anything to be where he was now.

“How old are you, Alex?” Cray asked.

“Fourteen.”

“I"m very grateful to you for coming. Thanks for agreeing to help.” The words were being amplified around the dome. Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw that his own image had joined Cray"s on the giant screen. “We"re very lucky that we do indeed have a teenager,” Cray went on, addressing the audience. “So let"s see how … Alex … gets on with the first level of Gameslayer One: Feathered Serpent.”

As Cray spoke, three technicians came onto the stage, bringing with them a television monitor, a games console, a table and a chair. Alex realized that he was going to be asked to play the game in front of the audience—with his progress beamed up onto the plasma screen.

“Feathered Serpent is based on the Aztec civilization,” Cray explained to the audience. “The Aztecs arrived in Mexico in 1195, but some claim that they had in fact come from another planet. It is on that planet that Alex is about to find himself. His mission is to find the four missing suns. But first he must enter the temple of Tlaloc, fight his way through five chambers and then throw himself into the pool of sacred flame. This will take him to the next level.” A fourth technician had come onto the stage, carrying a webcam. He stopped in front of Alex and quickly scanned him, pressed a button on the side of the camera and left. Cray waited until he had gone.

“You may have been wondering about the little black-suited figure that you saw on the screen,” he said, once again taking the audience into his confidence. “His name is Omni, and he will be the hero of all the Gameslayer games. You may think him a little dull and unimaginative. But Omni is every boy and every girl in Britain. He is every child in the world … and now I will show you why!”

The screen went blank, then burst into a digital whirl of colour. There was a deafening fanfare—

not trumpets but some electronic equivalent—and the gates of a temple with a huge Aztec face cut into the wood appeared. Alex could tell at once that the graphic detail of the Gameslayer was better than anything he had ever seen, but a moment later the audience gasped with surprise and Alex perfectly understood why. A boy had walked onto the screen and was standing in front of the gates, awaiting his command. The boy was Omni. But he had changed. He was now wearing exactly the same clothes as Alex. He looked like Alex. More than that, he was Alex right down to the brown eyes and the hanging strands of fair hair.

Applause exploded around the room. Alex could see journalists scribbling in their notebooks or talking quickly into mobile phones, hoping to be the first with this incredible scoop. The food and the champagne had been forgotten. Cray"s technology had created an avatar, an electronic double of him, making it possible for any player not just to play the game but to become part of it. Alex knew then that the Gameslayer would sell all over the world. Cray would make millions.

And twenty per cent of that would go to charity, he reminded himself.

Could this man really be his enemy?

Cray waited until everyone was quiet, and then he turned to Alex. “It"s time to play,” he said.

Alex sat down in front of the computer screen that the technicians had set up. He took hold of the controller and pressed with his left thumb. In front of him and on the giant plasma screen, his other self walked to the right. He stopped and turned himself the other way. The controller was incredibly sensitive. Alex almost felt like an Aztec god, in total control of his mortal self.

“Don"t worry if you get killed on your first go,” Cray said. “The console is faster than anything on the market and it may take you a while to get used to it. But we"re all on your side, Alex.

So—let"s play Feathered Serpent! Let"s see how far you can go!” The temple gates opened.

Alex pressed down and on the screen his avatar walked forward and into a game environment that was alien and bizarre and brilliantly realized. The temple was a fusion of primitive art and science fiction, with towering columns, flaming beacons, complex hieroglyphics and crouching Aztec statues. But the floor was silver, not stone. Strange metal stairways and corridors twisted around the temple area. Electric light flickered behind heavily barred windows. Closed-circuit cameras followed his every move.

“You have to start by finding two weapons in the first chamber,” Cray advised, leaning over Alex"s shoulder. “You may need them later.”

The first chamber was huge, with organ music throbbing and stained-glass windows showing cornfields, crop circles and hovering spaceships. Alex found the first weapon easily enough.

There was a sword hanging high up on a wall. But he soon realized there were traps everywhere.

Part of the wall crumbled as he climbed it and reaching out for the sword activated a missile which shot out of nowhere, aiming for the avatar. The missile was a double boomerang with razor-blade edges, rotating at lightning speed. Alex knew that if he was hit, he would be cut in half.

He stabbed down with his thumbs and his miniature self crouched. The boomerang spun past.

But as it went, one of its blades caught the avatar on the arm. The audience gasped. A tiny flow of blood had appeared on the miniature figure"s sleeve and its face—Alex"s face—had distorted, showing pain. The experience was so realistic that Alex almost felt a need to check his own, real arm. He had to remind himself that it was only the avatar that had been wounded.

“Pain synthesis!” Cray repeated the words, his voice echoing across the Pleasure Dome. “In the Gameslayer world, we share all the hero"s emotions. And should Alex die, the central processing unit will ensure that we feel his death.”

Alex had climbed back down and was searching for the second weapon. The little wound was already healing, the blood flow slowing down. He dodged as another boomerang shot past his shoulder. But he still couldn"t find the second weapon.

“Try looking behind the ivy,” Cray suggested in a stage whisper, and the audience smiled, amused that Alex needed help so soon.

There was a crossbow concealed in an alcove. But what Cray hadn"t told Alex was that the ivy covering the alcove contained a ten thousand volt charge. He found out soon enough. The moment his avatar touched the ivy, there was a blue flash and it was thrown backwards, screaming out loud, its eyes wide and staring. The avatar hadn"t quite been killed, but it had been badly hurt.

Cray tapped Alex on the shoulder. “You"ll have to be more careful than that,” he said.

A buzz of excitement travelled through the audience. They had never seen anything like this before.

And that was when Alex decided. Suddenly MI6, Yassen, Saint-Pierre … all of it was forgotten.

Cray had tricked him into touching the ivy. He had deliberately injured him. Of course, it was just a game. It was only the avatar that had been hurt. But the humiliation had been his—and suddenly he was determined to get the better of Feathered Serpent. He wasn"t going to be beaten.

He wasn"t going to share his death with anyone.

Grimly, he picked up the crossbow and sent the avatar forward, further into the Aztec world.

The second chamber consisted of a huge hole in the ground. It was actually a pit, fifty metres deep, with narrow pillars stretching all the way to the top. The only way to get from one side to the other was to jump from one pillar to the next. If he missed his step or overbalanced, he would fall to his death—and to make it more difficult it was pouring with rain inside the chamber, making the surfaces slippery. The rain itself was extraordinary. As Cray told the audience, the Gameslayer"s image technology allowed every raindrop to be realized individually. The avatar was soaking wet, its clothes sodden and its hair plastered to its head.

There was a sudden electronic squawk. A creature with butterfly wings and the face and claws of a dragon swooped down, trying to knock the avatar off its perch. Alex brought the crossbow up and shot it, then took the last three leaps to the other side of the pit.

“You"re doing very well,” Damian Cray said. “But I wonder if you"ll make it through the third chamber.”

Alex was confident. Feathered Serpent was beautifully designed. Its texture maps and backgrounds were perfect. The Omni character was way ahead of the competition. But for all this, it was just another computer game, similar to ones that Alex had played on Xbox and PlayStation 2. He knew what he was doing. He could win.

He made easy work of the third section: a tall, narrow corridor with carved faces on either side.

A hail of wooden spears and arrows fired out of the wooden mouths but not one of them came close as the avatar ducked and weaved, all the time running forward. A bubbling river of acid twisted along the corridor. The avatar jumped over it as if it were a harmless stream.

Now he came to an incredible indoor jungle where the greatest threat, among the trees and the creepers, was a huge robotic snake, covered in spikes. The creature looked horrific. Alex had never seen better graphics. But his avatar ran circles round it, leaving it behind so quickly that the audience barely had a chance to see it.

Cray"s face hadn"t changed, but now he was leaning over Alex, his eyes fixed on the screen, one hand resting on Alex"s shoulder. His knuckles were almost white.

“You"re making it look too easy,” he murmured.

Although the words were spoken light-heartedly, there was a rising tension in his voice.

Because the audience was now on Alex"s side. Millions of pounds had been spent on the development of the Feathered Serpent software. But it was being beaten by the first teenager to play it. As Alex dodged a second robotic snake, someone laughed. The hand on his shoulder tightened.

He came to the fifth chamber. This was a mirror maze, filled with smoke and guarded by a dozen Aztec gods wrapped in feathers, jewellery and golden masks. Again, each and every one of the gods was a small masterpiece of graphic art. But although they lunged at the avatar, they kept on missing, and suddenly more of the people in the audience were laughing and applauding, urging Alex on.

One more god, this one with claws and an alligator tail, stood between Alex and the pool of fire that would lead him to the next level. All he had to do was get past it. That was when Cray made his move. He was careful. Nobody would see what happened and if they did it would simply look as if he was carried away by the excitement of the game. But he was quite deliberate. His hand suddenly moved to Alex"s arm and closed tight, pulling it away from the controller. For a few brief seconds, Alex lost control. It was enough. The Aztec god reached out and its claws raked across the avatar"s stomach. Alex actually heard his shirt being torn; he almost felt the pain as the blood poured out. His avatar fell to its knees, then pitched forward and lay still. The screen froze and the words GAME OVER appeared in red letters.

Silence fell inside the dome.

“Too bad, Alex,” Cray said. “I"m afraid it wasn"t quite as easy as you thought.” There was a scattering of applause from the audience. It was hard to tell if they were applauding the technology of the game or the way Alex had taken it on and almost beaten it. But there was also a sense of unease. Perhaps Feathered Serpent was too realistic. It really was as if a part of Alex had died there, on the screen.

Alex turned to Cray. He was angry. He alone knew that the man had cheated. But Cray was smiling again.

“You did great,” he said. “I asked for a demonstration and you certainly gave us one. You make sure you leave your address with one of my assistants. I"ll be sending you a free Gameslayer system and all the introductory games.”

The audience heard this and applauded with more enthusiasm. For a second time, Cray held out a hand. Alex hesitated for a moment, then took it. In a way, he couldn"t blame Cray. The man couldn"t allow the Gameslayer to be turned into a laughing stock on its first outing. He had an investment to protect. But Alex still didn"t like what had happened.

“Good to meet you, Alex. Well done…”

He climbed down from the stage. There were more demonstrations and more talks by members of Cray"s staff. Then lunch was served. But Alex didn"t eat. He had seen enough. He left the Pleasure Dome and crossed over the water, walking back through the park and all the way down to the King"s Road.

Jack was waiting for him when he got home.

“So how did it go?” she asked.

Alex told her.

“What a cheater!” Jack scowled. “Mind you, Alex. A lot of rich men are bad losers and Cray is very rich indeed. Do you really think this proves anything?”

“I don"t know, Jack.” Alex was confused. He had to remind himself: a great chunk of the Gameslayer profits was going to charity. A huge amount. And he still had no proof. A few words on a phone. Was it enough to tie Cray in with what had happened in Saint-Pierre? “Maybe we should go to Paris,” he said. “That was where this all began. There was a meeting. Edward Pleasure was there. He was working with a photographer. Sabina told me his name. Marc Antonio.”

“With a name like that, he should be easy enough to track down,” Jack said. “And I love Paris.”

“It still might be a waste of time.” Alex sighed. “I didn"t like Damian Cray. But now that I"ve met him…” His voice trailed off. “He"s an entertainer. He makes computer games. He didn"t look like the sort of man who"d want to hurt anyone.”

“It"s your call, Alex.”

Alex shook his head. “I don"t know, Jack. I just don"t know…” The launch of the Gameslayer was on the news that night. According to the reports, the entire industry had been knocked out by the graphic quality and the processing power of the new system. The part that Alex had played in the demonstration wasn"t mentioned. However, something else was.

An event had taken place that had cast a cloud over what would otherwise have been a perfect day. It seemed that someone had died. A picture flashed up onto the screen, a woman"s face, and—

Alex recognized her at once. It was the school-teacherly woman who had put Cray on the spot, asking him awkward questions about violence. A policeman explained that she had been run over by a car as she left Hyde Park. The driver hadn"t stopped.

The following morning Alex and Jack went to Waterloo and bought two tickets for Eurostar.

By lunchtime they were in Paris.

RUE BRITANNIA

« ^ »

o you realize, Alex,” Jack said, “Picasso sat exactly where we"re sitting now. And Chagall. And Salvador Dali…”

“At this very table?”

“At this very café. All the big artists came here.”

“What are you trying to say, Jack?”

“Well, I was just wondering if you"d like to forget this whole adventure thing and come with me to the Picasso Museum. Paris is such a fun place. And I"ve always found looking at pictures a lot more enjoyable than getting shot.”

“Nobody"s shooting at us.”

“Yet.”

A day had passed since they had arrived in Paris and booked into a little hotel that Jack knew, opposite Notre-Dame. Jack knew the city well. She had once spent a year at the Sorbonne, studying art. But for the death of Ian Rider and her involvement with Alex, she might well have gone to live there.

She had been right about one thing. Finding out where Marc Antonio lived had been easy enough. She had only telephoned three agencies before she found the one that represented the photographer, although it had taken all her charm—and rusty French—to cajole his telephone number out of the girl on the switchboard. Getting to meet him, however, was proving more difficult.

She had rung the number a dozen times during the course of the morning before it was answered.

It was a man"s voice. No, he wasn"t Marc Antonio. Yes, this was Marc Antonio"s house but he had no idea where he was. The voice was full of suspicion. Alex had been listening, sharing the receiver with Jack. In the end he took over.

“Listen,” he said. His French was almost as good as Jack"s, but then he had started learning when he was three years old. “My name is Alex Rider. I"m a friend of Edward Pleasure. He"s an English journalist—”

“I know who he is.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

A pause. “Go on…”

“I have to speak to Marc Antonio. I have some important information.” Alex considered for a moment. Should he tell this man what he knew? “It"s about Damian Cray,” he said.

The name seemed to have an effect. There was another pause, longer this time. Then…

“Come to la Palette. It"s a café on the rue de Seine. I will meet you there at one o"clock.” There was a click as the man hung up.

It was now ten past one. La Palette was a small, bustling café on the corner of a square, surrounded by art galleries. Waiters with long white aprons were sweeping in and out, carrying trays laden with drinks high above their heads. The place was packed but Alex and Jack had managed to get a table right on the edge, where they would be most conspicuous. Jack was drinking a glass of beer; Alex had a bright red fruit juice—a sirop de grenadine—with ice. It was his favourite drink when he was in France.

He was beginning to wonder if the man he had spoken to on the telephone was going to show up.

Or could he be here already? How were they going to find each other in this crowd? Then he noticed a motorcyclist sitting on a beaten-up Piaggio 125cc motorbike on the other side of the street; he was a young man in a leather jacket with black curly hair and stubble on his cheeks. He had pulled in a few minutes before but hadn"t dismounted, as if he was waiting for someone.

Alex met his eye; there was a flash of contact. The young man looked puzzled but then he got off his bike and came over, moving warily as if afraid of a trap.

“You are Alex Rider?” he asked. He spoke English with an attractive accent, like an actor in a film.

“Yes.”

“I wasn"t expecting a child.”

“What difference does it make?” Jack demanded, coming to Alex"s defence. “Are you Marc Antonio?” she asked.

“No. My name is Robert Guppy.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“He asked me to take you to him.” Guppy glanced back at the Piaggio. “But I have only room for one.”

“Well, you can forget it. I"m not letting Alex go on his own.”

“It"s all right, Jack,” Alex cut in. He smiled at her. “It looks like you get to visit the Picasso Museum after all.”

Jack sighed. Then she nodded. “All right,” she said. “But take care.” Robert Guppy drove through Paris like someone who knew the city well—or who wanted to die in it. He swerved in and out of the traffic, ignored red lights and spun across intersections with the blare of car horns echoing all around. Alex found himself clinging on for dear life. He had no idea where they were going but realized there was a reason for Guppy"s dangerous driving. He was making sure they weren"t being followed.

They slowed down on the other side of the Seine, on the edge of the Marais, close to the Forum des Halles. Alex recognized the area. The last time he had been here, he had called himself Alex Friend and had been accompanying the hideous Mrs Stellenbosch on the way to the Point Blanc Academy. Now they slowed down and stopped in a street of typically Parisian houses—six storeys high with solid-looking doorways and tall frosted windows. Alex noticed a street sign: rue Britannia. The street went nowhere and half the buildings looked empty and dilapidated.

Indeed, the ones at the far end were shored up by scaffolding and surrounded by wheelbarrows and cement mixers, with a plastic chute for debris.

But there were no workmen in sight.

Guppy got off the bike. He gestured at one of the doors. “This way,” he said. He glanced up and down the street one last time, then led Alex in.

The door led to an inner courtyard with old furniture and a tangle of rusting bicycles in one corner. Alex followed Guppy up a short flight of steps and through another doorway. He found himself in a large, high-ceilinged room with whitewashed walls, windows on both sides and a dark wood floor. It was a photographer"s studio. There were screens, complicated lamps on metal legs and silver umbrellas. But someone was also living here. To one side was a kitchen area with a pile of tins and dirty plates.

Robert Guppy closed the door and a man appeared from behind one of the screens. He was barefoot, wearing a string vest and shapeless jeans. Alex guessed he must be about fifty. He was thin, unshaven, with a tangle of hair that was black mixed with silver. Strangely, he only had one eye; the other was behind a patch. A one-eyed photographer? Alex couldn"t see why not.

The man glanced at him curiously, then spoke to his friend.

“C"est luin qui a telephone?”

“Oui…”

“Are you Marc Antonio?” Alex asked.

“Yes. You say you are a friend of Edward Pleasure. I didn"t know Edward hung out with kids.”

“I know his daughter. I was staying with him in France when…” Alex hesitated. “You know what happened to him?”

“Of course I know what happened to him. Why do you think I am hiding here?” He gazed at Alex quizzically, his one good eye slowly evaluating him. “You said on the telephone that you could tell me something about Damian Cray. Do you know him?”

“I met him two days ago. In London…”

“Cray is no longer in London.” It was Robert Guppy who spoke, leaning against the door. “He has a software plant just outside Amsterdam. In Sloterdijk. He arrived there this morning.”

“How do you know?”

“We"re keeping a close eye on Mr Cray.”

Alex turned to Marc Antonio. “You have to tell me what you and Edward Pleasure found out about him,” he said. “What story were you working on? What was the secret meeting he had here?” The photographer thought for a moment, then smiled crookedly, showing nicotine-stained teeth. “Alex Rider,” he muttered, “you"re a strange kid. You say you have information to give me, but you come here and you ask only questions. You have a nerve. But I like that.” He took out a cigarette—a Gauloise—and screwed it into his mouth. He lit it and blew blue smoke into the air. “All right. It is against my better judgement. But I will tell you what I know.” There were two bar stools next to the kitchen. He perched on one and invited Alex to do the same. Robert Guppy stayed by the door.

“The story that Ed was working on had nothing to do with Damian Cray,” he began. “At least, not to start with. Ed was never interested in the entertainment business. No. He was working on something much more important… a story about the NSA. You know what that is? It"s the National Security Agency of America. It"s an organization involved in counter-terrorism, espionage and the protection of information. Most of its work is top secret. Code makers. Code breakers. Spies…

“Ed became interested in a man called Charlie Roper, an extremely high-ranking officer in the NSA. He had information—I don"t know how he got it—that this man, Roper, might have turned traitor. He was heavily in debt. An addict…”

“Drugs?” Alex asked.

Marc Antonio shook his head. “Gambling. It can be just as destructive. Ed heard that Roper was here in Paris and believed he had come to sell secrets—either to the Chinese or, more likely, the North Koreans. He met me just over a week ago. We"d worked together often, he and I. He got the stories; I got the pictures. We were a team. More than that—we were friends.” Marc Antonio shrugged. “Anyway, we found out where Roper was staying and we followed him from his hotel.

We had no idea who he was meeting, and if you had told me, I would never have believed it.” He paused and drew on his Gauloise. The tip glowed red. Smoke trickled up in front of his good eye.

“Roper went for lunch at a restaurant called la Tour d"Argent. It is one of the most expensive restaurants in Paris. And it was Damian Cray who was paying the bill. We saw the two of them together. The restaurant is high up but it has wide glass windows with views of Paris. I took photographs of them with a telescopic lens. Cray gave Roper an envelope. I think it contained money, and, if so, it was a lot of money because the envelope was very thick.”

“Wait a minute,” Alex interrupted. “What would a pop singer want with someone from the NSA?”

“That is exactly what Ed wanted to know,” the photographer replied. “He began to ask questions.

He must have asked too many. Because the next thing I heard, someone had tried to kill him in Saint-Pierre and that same day they came for me. In my case the bomb was in my car. If I had turned the ignition, I wouldn"t be speaking to you now.”

“Why didn"t you?”

“I am a careful man. I noticed a wire.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “Someone also broke into my apartment. Much of my equipment was stolen, including my camera and all the photographs I had taken at la Tour d"Argent. It was no coincidence.” He paused.

“But why am I telling you all this, Alex Rider? Now it is your turn to tell me what you know.”

“I was on holiday in Saint-Pierre—” Alex began.

That was as far as he got.

A car had stopped somewhere outside the building. Alex hadn"t heard it approach. He only became aware of it when its engine stopped. Robert Guppy took a step forward, raising a hand.

Marc Antonio"s head snapped round. There was a moment"s silence—and Alex knew that it was the wrong sort of silence. It was empty. Final.

And then there was an explosion of bullets and the windows shattered, one after another, the glass falling in great slabs to the floor. Robert Guppy was killed instantly, thrown off his feet with a series of red holes stitched across his chest. A light bulb was hit and exploded; chunks of plaster crumbled off the wall. The air rushed in, and with it came the sound of men shouting and footsteps stamping across the courtyard.

Marc Antonio was the first to recover. Sitting by the kitchen, he had been out of the line of fire and hadn"t been hit. Alex too was shocked but uninjured.

“This way!” the photographer shouted and propelled Alex across the room even as the door burst open with a crash of splintering wood. Alex just had time to glimpse a man dressed in black with a machine gun cradled in his arms. Then he was pulled behind one of the screens he had noticed earlier. There was another exit here—not a door but a jagged hole in the wall. Marc Antonio had already climbed through. Alex followed.

“Up!” Marc Antonio pushed Alex ahead of him. “It"s the only way!” There was a wooden staircase, seemingly unused, old and covered in plaster dust. Alex started to climb … three floors, four, with Marc Antonio just behind him. There was a single door on each floor but Marc Antonio urged him on. He could hear the man with the machine gun. He had been joined by someone else. The two killers were following them up.

He arrived at the top. Another door barred his way. He reached out and turned the handle and at that moment there was another burst of gunfire and Marc Antonio grunted and curved away, falling backwards. Alex knew he was dead. Mercifully, the door had opened in front of him. He tumbled through, expecting at any moment to feel the rake of bullets across his shoulders. But the photographer had saved him, falling between Alex and his pursuers. Alex had made it onto the roof of the building. He lashed out with his heel, slamming the door shut behind him.

He found himself in a landscape of skylights and chimney stacks, water tanks and TV aerials.

The roofs ran the full length of the rue Britannia, with low walls and thick pipes dividing the different houses. What had Marc Antonio intended, coming up here? He was six floors above street level. Was there a fire escape? A staircase leading down?

Alex had no time to find out. The door flew open and the two men came through it, moving more slowly now, knowing he was trapped. Somewhere deep inside Alex a voice whispered—why couldn"t they leave him alone? They had come for Marc Antonio, not for him. He was nothing to do with this. But he knew they would have their orders. Kill the photographer and anyone associated with him. It didn"t matter who Alex was. He was just part of the package.

And then he remembered something he had seen when he entered the rue Britannia, and suddenly he was running, without even being sure that he was going in the right direction. He heard the clatter of machine-gun fire and black tiles disintegrated centimetres behind his feet.

Another burst. He felt a spray of bullets passing close to him and part of a chimney stack shattered, showering him with dust. He jumped over a low partition. The edge of the roof was getting closer. The men behind him paused, thinking he had nowhere to go. Alex kept running.

He reached the edge and launched himself into the air.

To the men with the guns it must have seemed that he had jumped to a certain death on the pavement six floors below. But Alex had seen building works: scaffolding, cement mixers—and an orange pipe designed to carry builders" debris from the different floors down to the street.

The pipe actually consisted of a series of buckets, each one bottomless, interlocking like a flume at a swimming pool. Alex couldn"t judge his leap—but he was lucky. For a second or two he fell, arms and legs sprawling. Then he saw the entrance to the pipe and managed to steer himself towards it. First his outstretched legs, then his hips and shoulders, entered the tube perfectly. The tunnel was filled with cement dust and he was blinded. He could just make out the orange walls flashing past. The back of his head, his thighs and shoulders were battered mercilessly. He couldn"t breathe and realized with a sick dread that if the exit was blocked he would break every bone in his body.

The tube was shaped like a stretched-out 3. As Alex reached the bottom, he felt himself slowing down. Suddenly he was spat back out into daylight. There was a mound of sand next to one of the cement mixers and he thudded into it. All the breath was knocked out of him. Sand and cement filled his mouth. But he was alive.

Painfully he got to his feet and looked up. The two men were still on the roof, far above him.

They had decided not to attempt his stunt. The orange tube had been just wide enough to take him; they would have got jammed before they were halfway. Alex looked up the street. There was a car parked outside the entrance to Marc Antonio"s studio. But there was nobody in sight.

He spat and dragged the back of his hand across his lips; then he limped quickly away. Marc Antonio was dead, but he had given Alex another piece of the puzzle. And Alex knew where he had to go next. Sloterdijk. A software plant outside Amsterdam. Just a few hours on a train from Paris.

He reached the end of the rue Britannia and turned the corner, moving faster all the time. He was bruised, filthy and lucky to be alive. He just wondered how he was going to explain all this to Jack.

BLOOD MONEY

« ^ »

lex lay on his stomach, watching the guards as they examined the waiting car. He was holding a pair of Bausch & Lomb prism system binoculars with 30x magnification, and although he was more than a hundred metres away from the main gate, he could see everything clearly … right down to the car"s number plate and the driver"s moustache.

He had been here for more than an hour, lying motionless in front of a bank of pine trees, hidden from sight by a row of shrubs. He was wearing grey jeans, a dark T-shirt and a khaki jacket, which he had picked up in the same army supplies shop that had provided the binoculars. The weather had turned yet again, bringing with it an afternoon of constant drizzle, and Alex was soaked through. He wished now that he had brought the thermos of hot chocolate Jack had offered him. At the time, he"d thought she was treating him like a child—but even the SAS know the importance of keeping warm. They had taught him as much when he was training with them.

Jack had come with him to Amsterdam and once again it had been she who had checked them into a hotel, this time on the Herengracht, one of the three main canals. She was there now, waiting in their room. Of course, she had wanted to come with him. After what had happened in Paris, she was more worried about him than ever. But Alex had persuaded her that two people would have twice as much chance of being spotted as one, and her bright red hair would hardly help. Reluctantly she had agreed.

“Just make sure you get back to the hotel before dark,” she said. “And if you pass a tulip shop, maybe you could bring me a bunch.”

He smiled, remembering her words. He shifted his weight, feeling the damp grass beneath his elbows. He wondered what exactly he had learnt in the past hour.

He was in the middle of a strange industrial area on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Sloterdijk contained a sprawl of factories, warehouses and processing plants. Most of the compounds were low-rise, separated from each other by wide stretches of tarmac, but there were also clumps of trees and grassland as if someone had tried—and failed—to cheer the place up. Three windmills rose up behind the headquarters of Cray"s technological empire. But they weren"t the traditional Dutch models, the sort that would appear on picture postcards. These were modern, towering pillars of grey concrete with triple blades endlessly slicing the air. They were huge and menacing, like invaders from another planet.

The compound itself reminded Alex of an army barracks … or maybe a prison. It was surrounded by a double fence, the outer one topped with razor wire. There were guard towers at fifty-metre intervals and guards on patrol all around the perimeter. In Holland, a country where the police carry guns, Alex wasn"t surprised that the guards were armed. Inside, he could make out eight or nine buildings, low and rectangular, white-bricked with high-tech plastic roofs.

Various people were moving around, some of them transported in electric cars. Alex could hear the whine of the engines, like milk floats. The compound had its own communications centre, with five huge satellite dishes mounted outside. Otherwise, it seemed to consist of laboratories, offices and living quarters. One building stood out in the middle of it all: a glass and steel cube, aggressively modern in design. This might be the main headquarters, Alex thought. Perhaps he would find Damian Cray inside.

But how was he to get in? He had been studying the entrance for the last hour.

A single road led up to the gate, with a traffic light at each end. It was a complicated process.

When a car or a truck arrived, it stopped at the bottom of the road and waited. Only when the first traffic light changed was it allowed to continue forward to the glass and brick guardhouse next to the gate. At this point, a uniformed man appeared and took the driver"s ID, presumably to check it on a computer. Two more men examined the vehicle, checking that there were no passengers. And that wasn"t all. There was a security camera mounted high up on the fence and Alex had noticed a length of what looked like toughened glass built into the road. When the vehicles stopped they were right on top of it, and Alex guessed that there must be a second camera underneath. There was no way he could sneak into the compound. Cray Software Technology had left nothing to chance.

Several trucks had entered the compound while he had been watching. Alex had recognized the black-clothed figure of Omni painted—life-sized—on the sides as part of the Gameslayer logo.

He wondered if it might be possible to sneak inside one of the trucks, perhaps as it was waiting at the first set of lights. But the road was too open. At night it would be floodlit. Anyway, the doors would almost certainly be locked.

He couldn"t climb the fences. The razor wire would see to that. He doubted he could tunnel his way in. Could he somehow disguise himself and mingle with the evening shift? No. For once his size and age were against him. Maybe Jack would have been able to attempt it, pretending to be a replacement cleaner or a technician. But there was no way he would be able to talk his way past the guards, particularly without speaking a word of Dutch. Security was too tight.

And then Alex saw it. Right in front of his eyes.

Another truck had stopped and the driver was being questioned while the cabin was searched.

Could he do it? He remembered the bicycle that was chained to a lamppost just a couple of hundred metres down the road. Before he had left England he had gone through the manual that had come with it and had been amazed how many gadgets Smithers had been able to conceal in and around such an ordinary object. Even the bicycle clips were magnetic! Alex watched the gate slide open and the truck pass through.

Yes. It would work. He would have to wait until it was dark—but it was the last thing anyone would expect. Despite everything, Alex suddenly found himself smiling.

He just hoped he could find a fancy-dress shop in Amsterdam.

By nine o"clock it was dark but the searchlights around the compound had been activated long before, turning the area into a dazzling collision of black and white. The gates, the razor wire, the guards with their guns … all could be seen a mile away. But now they were throwing vivid shadows, pools of darkness that might offer a hiding place to anyone brave enough to get close.

A single truck was approaching the main gate. The driver was Dutch and had driven up from the port of Rotterdam. He had no idea what he was carrying and he didn"t care. From the first day he had started working for Cray Software Technology, he had known that it was better not to ask questions. The first of the two traffic lights was red and he slowed down, then came to a halt.

There were no other vehicles in sight and he was annoyed to be kept waiting, but it was better not to complain. There was a sudden knocking sound and he glanced out of the window, looking in the side mirror. Was someone trying to get his attention? But there was no one there and a moment later the light changed, so he threw the gearstick into first and moved on again.

As usual he drove onto the glass panel and wound down his window. There was a guard standing outside and he passed across his ID, a plastic card with his photograph, name and employee number. The driver knew that other guards would inspect his truck. He sometimes wondered why they were so sensitive about security. After all, they were only making computer games. But he had heard about industrial sabotage … companies stealing secrets from each other. He supposed it made sense.

Two guards were walking round the truck even as the driver sat there, thinking his private thoughts. A third was examining the pictures being transmitted by the camera underneath it. The truck had recently been cleaned. The word GAMESLAYER stood out on the side, with the Omni figure crouching next to it. One of the guards reached out and tried to open the door at the back.

It was, as it should have been, locked. Meanwhile the other guard peered in through the front cabin window. But it was obvious that the driver was alone.

The security operation was smooth and well practised. The cameras had shown nobody hiding underneath the truck or on the roof. The rear door was locked. The driver had been cleared. One of the guards gave a signal and the gate opened electronically, sliding sideways to let the truck in. The driver knew where to go without being told. After about fifty metres he branched off the entrance road and followed a narrower track that brought him to the unloading bay. There were about a dozen other vehicles parked here, with warehouses on both sides. The driver turned off the engine, got out and locked the door. He had paperwork to deal with. He would hand over the keys and receive a stamped docket with his time of arrival. They would unload the vehicle the following day.

The driver left. Nothing moved. There was nobody else in the area.

But if anyone had walked past, they might have seen a remarkable thing. On the side of the truck, the black-clothed figure of Omni turned its head. At least, that was what it would have looked like. But if that person had looked more closely, they would have realized that there were two figures on the truck. One was painted; the other was a real person, clinging impossibly to the metal panelling in exactly the same position as the picture underneath.

Alex Rider dropped silently to the ground. The muscles in his arms and legs were screaming and he wondered how much longer he would have been able to hold on. Smithers had supplied four powerful magnetic clips with the bike and these were what Alex had used to keep himself in place: two for his hands, two for his feet. He quickly pulled off the black ninja suit he had bought that afternoon in Amsterdam, rolled it up and stuffed it into a bin. He had been in plain sight of the guards as the truck drove through the gate. But the guards hadn"t looked too closely. They had expected to see a figure next to the Gameslayer logo and that was just what they had seen.

For once they had been wrong to believe their eyes.

Alex took stock of his surroundings. He might be inside the compound, but his luck wouldn"t last for ever. He didn"t doubt that there would be other guards on patrol, and other cameras too. What exactly was he looking for? The strange thing was, he had no real idea. But something told him that if Damian Cray went in for all this security, then it must be because he had something to hide. Of course, it was still possible that Alex was wrong, that Cray was innocent. It was a comforting thought.

He made his way through the compound, heading for the great cube that stood at its heart. He heard a whining sound and ducked into the shadows next to a wall as an electronic car sped past with three passengers and a woman in blue overalls at the wheel. He became aware of activity somewhere ahead of him. An open area, brilliantly lit, stretched out behind one of the warehouses. A voice suddenly echoed in the air, amplified by a speaker system. It was a man speaking—but in Dutch. Alex couldn"t understand a word. Moving more quickly, he hurried on, determined to see what was happening.

He found a narrow alleyway between two of the buildings and ran the full length, grateful for the shadows of the walls. At the end he came to a fire escape, a metal staircase spiralling upwards, and threw himself breathlessly behind it. He could hide here. But, looking between the steps, he had a clear view of what was happening ahead.

There was a square of black tarmac with glass and steel office blocks on all sides. The largest of these was the cube that Alex had seen from outside. Damian Cray was standing in front of it, talking animatedly to a man in a white coat, with three more men just behind him. Even from a distance Cray was unmistakable. He was the smallest person there, dressed in yet another designer suit. He had come out to watch some sort of demonstration. About half a dozen guards stood waiting, dotted around the square. Harsh white lights were being beamed down from two metal towers that Alex hadn"t noticed before.

Watching through the fire escape, Alex saw that there was a cargo plane in the middle of the square. It took him a moment or two to accept what he was seeing. There was no way the plane could have landed there. The square was only just wide enough to contain it, and there wasn"t a runway inside the compound, as far as he knew. It must have been carried here on a truck, possibly assembled on site. But what was it doing here? The plane was an old-fashioned one. It had propellers rather than jets, and wings high up, almost sitting on top of the main body. The words MILLENNIUM AIR were painted in red along the fuselage and on the tail.

Cray looked at his watch. A minute later the loudspeaker crackled again with another announcement in Dutch. Everyone stopped talking and gazed at the plane. Alex stared. A fire had started inside the main cabin. He could see the flames flickering behind the windows. Grey smoke began to seep out of the fuselage and suddenly one of the propellers caught alight. The fire seemed to spread out of control in seconds, consuming the engine and then spreading across the wing. Alex waited for someone to do something. If there was any fuel in the plane, it would surely explode at any moment. But nobody moved. Cray seemed to nod.

It was over as quickly as it had begun. The man in the white coat spoke into a radio transmitter and the fire went out. It was extinguished so quickly that if Alex hadn"t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn"t have believed it had been there in the first place. They didn"t use water or foam. There were no scorch marks and no smoke.

One moment the plane had been burning; the next it wasn"t. It was as simple as that.

Cray and the three men with him spent a few seconds talking, before turning and strolling back into the cube. The guards in the square marched off. The plane was left where it was. Alex wondered what on earth he had got himself into. This had nothing to do with computer games. It made absolutely no sense at all.

But at least he had spotted Damian Cray.

Alex waited until the guards had gone, then twisted out from behind the fire escape. He made his way as quickly as he could around the square, keeping in the shadows. Cray had made a mistake.

Breaking into the compound was virtually impossible, so he had worried less about security on the inside. Alex hadn"t spotted any cameras, and the guards in the towers were looking out rather than in. For the moment he was safe.

He followed Cray into the building and found himself crossing the white marble floor of what was nothing more than a huge glass box. Above him he could see the night sky with the three windmills looming in the distance. The building contained nothing. But there was a single round hole in one corner of the floor and a staircase leading down.

Alex heard voices.

He crept down the stairs, which led directly into a large underground room. Crouching on the bottom step, concealed behind wide steel banisters, he watched.

The room was open-plan, with a white marble floor and corridors leading off in several directions. The architecture made him think of a vault in an ultra-modern bank. But the gorgeous rugs, the fireplace, the Italian furniture and the dazzling white Bechstein grand piano could have come out of a palace. To one side was a curving desk with a bank of telephones and computer screens. All the lighting was at floor level, giving the room a bizarre, unsettling atmosphere, with alt the shadows going the wrong way. A portrait of Damian Cray holding a white poodle covered an entire wall.

The man himself was sitting on a sofa, sipping a bright yellow drink. He had a cherry on a cocktail stick and Alex watched him pick it off with his perfect white teeth and slowly eat it. The three men from the square were with him, and Alex knew at once that he had been right all along—that Cray was indeed at the centre of the web.

One of the men was Yassen Gregorovich. Wearing jeans and a polo neck, he was sitting on the piano stool, his legs crossed. The second man stood near him, leaning against the piano. He was older, with silver hair and a sagging, pockmarked face. He was wearing a blue blazer with a striped tie that made him look like a minor official in a bank or a cricket club. He had large spectacles that had sunk into his face as if it were damp clay. He looked nervous, the eyes behind the glass circles blinking frequently. The third man was darkly handsome, in his late forties, with black hair, grey eyes and a jawline that was square and serious. He was casually dressed in a leather jacket and an open-necked shirt and seemed to be enjoying himself.

Cray was talking to him. “I"m very grateful to you, Mr Roper. Thanks to you, Eagle Strike can now proceed on schedule.”

Roper! This was the man Cray had met in Paris. Alex had a sense that everything had come full circle. He strained to hear what the two men were saying.

“Hey—please. Call me Charlie.” The man spoke with an American accent. “And there"s no need to thank me, Damian. I"ve enjoyed doing business with you.”

“I do have a few questions,” Cray murmured, and Alex saw him pick up an object from a coffee table next to the sofa. It was a metallic capsule, about the same shape and size as a mobile phone.

“As I understand it, the gold codes change daily. Presumably the flash drive is currently programmed with today"s codes. But if Eagle Strike were to take place two days from now…”

“Just plug it in. The flash drive will update itself,” Roper explained. He had an easy, lazy smile.

“That"s the beauty of it. First it will burrow through the security systems. Then it will pick up the new codes … like taking candy from a baby. The moment you have the codes, you transmit them back through Milstar and you"re set. The only problem you have, like I told you, is the little matter of the finger on the button.”

“Well, we"ve already solved that,” Cray said.

“Then I might as well move out of here.”

“Just give me a couple more minutes of your valuable time, Mr Roper … Charlie…” Cray said.

He sipped his cocktail, licked his lips and set the glass down. “How can I be sure that the flash drive will actually work?”

“You have my word on it,” Roper said. “And you"re certainly paying me enough.”

“Indeed so. Half a million dollars in advance. And two million dollars now. However…” Cray paused and pursed his lips. “I still have one small worry on my mind.” Alex"s leg had gone to sleep as he crouched, watching the scene from the stairs. Slowly he straightened it out. He wished he understood more of what they were saying. He knew that a flash drive was a type of storage device used in computer technology. But who or what was Milstar? And what was Eagle Strike?

“What"s the problem?” Roper asked casually.

“I"m afraid you are, Mr Roper.” The green eyes in Cray"s round, babyish face were suddenly hard. “You are not as reliable as I had hoped. When you came to Paris, you were followed.”

“That"s not true.”

“An English journalist found out about your gambling habit. He and a photographer followed you to la Tour d"Argent.” Cray held up a hand to stop Roper interrupting. “I have dealt with them both. But you have disappointed me, Mr Roper. I wonder if I can still trust you.”

“Now you listen to me, Damian.” Roper spoke angrily. “We had a deal. I worked here with your technical boys. I gave them the information they needed to load the flash drive, and that"s my part of it over. How you"re going to get to the VIP lounge and how you"ll actually activate the system … that"s your business. But you owe me two million dollars, and this journalist—

whoever he was—doesn"t make any difference at all.”

“Blood money,” Cray said.

“What?”

“That"s what they call money paid to traitors.”

“I"m no traitor!” Roper growled. “I needed the money, that"s all. I haven"t betrayed my country.

So quit talking like this, pay me what you owe me and let me walk out of here.”

“Of course I"m going to pay you what I owe you.” Cray smiled. “You"ll have to forgive me, Charlie. I was just thinking aloud.” He gestured, his hand falling limply back. The American glanced round and Alex saw that there was an alcove to one side of the room. It was shaped like a giant bottle, with a curved wall behind and a curving glass door in front. Inside was a table, and on the table a leather attaché case. “Your money is in there,” Cray said. “Thank you.” Neither Yassen Gregorovich nor the man with the spectacles had spoken throughout all this, but they watched intently as the American approached the alcove. There must have been some sort of sensor built into the door because it slid open automatically. Roper went up to the table and opened the case. Alex heard the two locks click up.

Then Roper turned round. “I hope this isn"t your idea of a joke,” he said. “This is empty.” Cray smiled at him from the sofa. “Don"t worry,” he said. “I"ll fill it.” He reached out and pressed a button on the coffee table in front of him. There was a hiss and the door of the alcove slid shut.

“Hey!” Roper shouted.

Cray pressed the button a second time.

For an instant nothing happened. Alex realized he was no longer breathing. His heart was beating at twice its normal rate. Then something bright and silver dropped down from somewhere high up inside the closed-off room, landing inside the case. Roper reached in and held up a small coin.

It was a quarter—a twenty-five cent piece.

“Cray! What are you playing at?” he demanded.

More coins began to fall into the case. Alex couldn"t see exactly what was happening but he guessed that the room really was like a bottle, totally sealed apart from a hole somewhere above.

The coins were falling through the hole, the trickle rapidly turning into a cascade. In seconds the attaché case was full, and still the coins came, tumbling onto the pile, spreading out over the table and onto the floor.

Perhaps Charlie Roper had an inkling of what was about to happen. He forced his way through the shower of coins and pounded on the glass door. “Stop this!” he shouted. “Let me out of here!”

“But I haven"t paid you all your money, Mr. Roper,” Cray replied. “I thought you said I owed you two million dollars.”

Suddenly the cascade became a torrent. Thousands and thousands of coins poured into the room.

Roper cried out, bending an arm over his head, trying to protect himself. Alex quickly worked out the mathematics. Two million dollars, twenty-five cents at a time. The payment was being made in just about the smallest of small change. How many coins would there be? Already they filled all the available floor space, rising up to the American"s knees. The torrent intensified.

Now the rush of coins was solid and Roper"s screams were almost drowned out by the clatter of metal against metal. Alex wanted to look away but he found himself fixated, his eyes wide with horror.

He could barely see the man any more. The coins thundered down. Roper was trying to swat them away, as if they were a swarm of bees. His arms and hands were vaguely visible but his face and body had disappeared. He lashed out with a fist and Alex saw a smear of blood appear on the door—but the toughened glass wouldn"t break. The coins oozed forward, filling every inch of space. They rose up higher and higher. Roper was invisible now, sealed into the glittering mass.

If he was still screaming, nothing more could be heard.

And then, suddenly, it was over. The last coins fell. A grave of eight million quarters. Alex shuddered, trying to imagine what it must have been like to have been trapped inside. How had the American died? Had he been suffocated by the falling coins or crushed by their weight? Alex had no doubt that the man inside was dead. Blood money! Cray"s sick joke couldn"t have been more true.

Cray laughed.

“That was fun!” he said.

“Why did you kill him?” The man in the spectacles had spoken for the first time. He had a Dutch accent. His voice was trembling.

“Because he was careless, Henryk,” Cray replied. “We can"t make mistakes, not at this late stage. And it"s not as if I broke any promises. I said I"d pay him two million dollars, and if you want to open the door and count it, two million dollars is exactly what you"ll find.”

“Don"t open the door!” the man called Henryk gasped.

“No. I think it would be a bit messy.” Cray smiled. “Well, we"ve taken care of Roper. We"ve got the flash drive. We"re all set to go. So why don"t we have another drink?” Still crouching at the bottom of the stairs, Alex gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to panic.

Every instinct told him to get up and run, but he knew he had to take care. What he had seen was almost beyond belief—but at least his mission was now clear. He had to get out of the compound, out of Sloterdijk, and back to England. Like it or not, he had to go back to MI6.

He knew now that he had been right all along and that Damian Cray was both mad and evil. All his posturing—his many charities and his speeches against violence—was precisely that; a façade. He was planning something that he called Eagle Strike, and whatever it was would take place in two days" time. It involved a security system and a VIP lounge. Was he going to break into an embassy? It didn"t matter. Somehow he would make Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones believe him. There was a dead man called Charlie Roper. A connection with the National Security Agency of America. Surely Alex had enough information to persuade them to make an arrest.

But first he had to get out.

He turned just in time to see the figure looming above him. It was a guard, coming down the stairs. Alex started to react, but he was too late.

The guard had seen him. He was carrying a gun. Slowly Alex raised his hands. The guard gestured and Alex stood up, rising above the stair rail. On the other side of the room, Damian Cray saw him. His face lit up with delight.

“Alex Rider!” he exclaimed. “I was hoping to see you again. What a lovely surprise! Come on over and have a drink—and let me tell you how you"re going to die.” PAIN SYNTHESIS

« ^ »

assen has told me all about you,” Cray said.

“Apparently you worked for MI6. I have to say, that"s a very novel idea. Are you still working for them now? Did they send you after me?”

Alex said nothing.

“If you don"t answer my questions, I may have to start thinking about doing nasty things to you.

Or getting Yassen to do them. That"s what I pay him for. Pins and needles … that sort of thing.”

“MI6 don"t know anything,” Yassen said.

He and Cray were alone in the room with Alex. The guard and the man called Henryk had gone.

Alex was sitting on the sofa with a glass of chocolate milk that Cray had insisted on pouring for him. Cray was now perched on the piano stool. His legs were crossed and he seemed completely relaxed as he sipped another cocktail.

“There"s no way the intelligence services could know anything about us,” Yassen went on. “And if they did, they wouldn"t have sent Alex.”

“Then why was he at the Pleasure Dome? Why is he here?” Cray turned to Alex. “I don"t suppose you"ve come all this way to get my autograph. As a matter of fact, Alex, I"m rather pleased to see you. I was planning to come and find you one day anyway. You completely spoilt the launch of my Gameslayer. Much too clever by half! I was very cross with you, and although I"m rather busy at the moment, I was going to arrange a little accident…”

“Like you did for that woman in Hyde Park?” Alex asked.

“She was a nuisance. She asked impertinent questions. I hate journalists, and I hate smart-arse kids too. As I say, I"m very glad you managed to find your way here. It makes my life a lot easier.”

“You can"t do anything to me,” Alex said. “MI6 know I"m here. They know all about Eagle Strike. You may have the codes, but you"ll never be able to use them. And if I don"t report in this evening, this whole place will be surrounded before tomorrow and you"ll be in jail…” Cray glanced at Yassen. The Russian shook his head. “He"s lying. He must have heard us talking from the stairs. He knows nothing.”

Cray licked his lips. Alex realized that he was enjoying himself. He could see now just how crazy Cray was. The man didn"t connect with the real world and Alex knew that whatever he was planning, it was going to be on a big scale—and probably lethal.

“It doesn"t make any difference,” Cray said. “Eagle Strike will have taken place in less than forty-eight hours from now. I agree with you, Yassen. This boy knows nothing. He"s irrelevant. I can kill him and it won"t make any difference at all.”

“You don"t have to kill him,” Yassen said. Alex was surprised. The Russian had killed Ian Rider.

He was Alex"s worst enemy. But this was the second time Yassen had tried to protect him. “You can just lock him up until it"s all over.”

“You"re right,” Cray said. “I don"t have to kill him. But I want to. It"s something I want to do very much.” He pushed himself off the piano stool and came over to Alex. “Do you remember I told you about pain synthesis?” he said. “In London. The demonstration… Pain synthesis allows game players to experience the hero"s emotions—all his emotions, particularly those associated with pain and death. You may wonder how I programmed it into the software. The answer, my dear Alex, is by the use of volunteers such as yourself.”

“I didn"t volunteer,” Alex muttered.

“Nor did the others. But they still helped me. Just as you will help me. And your reward will be an end to the pain. The comfort and the quiet of death…” Cray looked away. “You can take him,” he said.

Two guards had come into the room. Alex hadn"t heard them approach, but now they stepped out of the shadows and grabbed hold of him. He tried to fight back, but they were too strong for him.

They pulled him off the sofa and away, down one of the passages leading from the room.

Alex managed to look back one last time. Cray had already forgotten him. He was holding the flash drive, admiring it. But Yassen was watching him and he looked worried. Then an automatic door shot down with a hiss of compressed air and Alex was dragged away, his feet sliding uselessly behind him, following the passageway to whatever it was that Damian Cray had arranged.

The cell was at the end of another underground corridor. The two guards threw Alex in, then waited as he turned round to face them. The one who had found him on the stairs spoke a few words with a heavy Dutch accent.

“The door closes and it stays closed. You find the way out. Or you starve.” That was it. The door slammed and Alex heard two bolts being drawn across. He heard the guards" footsteps fade into the distance. Suddenly everything was silent. He was on his own. He looked around him. The cell was a bare metal box about five metres long and two metres wide with a single bunk, no water and no window. The door had closed flush to the wall. There was no crack round the side, not so much as a keyhole. He knew he had never been in worse trouble.

Cray hadn"t believed his story; he had barely even considered it. Whether Alex was with MI6 or not seemed to make no difference to him … and the truth was that this time Alex really had got himself caught up in something without MI6 there to back him up. For once he had no gadgets to help him break out of the cell. He had brought the bicycle that Smithers had given him from London to Paris and then to Amsterdam. But right now it was parked outside Central Station in the city and would stay there until it was stolen or rusted away. Jack knew he had planned to break into the compound, but even if she did raise the alarm, how would anyone ever find him?

Despair weighed down on him. He no longer had the strength to fight it.

And still he knew almost nothing. Why had Cray invested so much time and money in the game system he called Gameslayer? Why did he need the flash drive? What was the plane doing in the middle of the compound? Above all, what was Cray planning? Eagle Strike would take place in two days—but where, and what would it entail?

Alex forced himself to take control. He"d been locked up before. The important thing was to fight back—not to admit defeat. Cray had already made mistakes. Even speaking his own name on the phone when Alex called him from Saint-Pierre had been an error of judgement. He might have power, fame and enormous resources. He was certainly planning a huge operation. But he wasn"t as clever as he thought. Alex could still beat him.

But how to begin? Cray had put him into this cell to experience what he called pain synthesis.

Alex didn"t like the sound of that. And what had the guard said? Find the way out—or starve.

But there was no way out. Alex ran his hands across the walls. They were solid steel. He went over and examined the door a second time. Nothing.

It was tightly sealed. He glanced at the ceiling, at the single bulb burning behind a thick pane of glass. That only left the bunk…

He found the trapdoor underneath, built into the wall. It was like a cat flap, just big enough to take a human body. Gingerly, wondering if it might be booby-trapped, Alex reached out and pushed it. The metal flap swung inwards. There was some sort of tunnel on the other side, but he couldn"t see anything. If he crawled into it, he would be entering a narrow space with no light at all—and he couldn"t even be sure that the tunnel actually went anywhere. Did he have the courage to go in?

There was no alternative. Alex examined the cell one last time, knelt down and pushed himself forward. The metal flap swung open in front of him, then travelled down his back as he crawled into the tunnel. He felt it hit the back of his heels and there was a soft click. What was that? He couldn"t see anything. He lifted a hand and waved it in front of his face. It was as if it wasn"t there. He reached out in front of him and felt a solid wall. God! He had walked—crawled rather—into a trap. This wasn"t the way out after all.

He pushed himself back the way he had come. and that was when he discovered the flap was now locked. He kicked out with his feet but it wouldn"t move. Panic, total and uncontrollable, overwhelmed him. He was buried alive, in total darkness, with no air. This was what Cray had meant by pain synthesis: a death too hideous to imagine.

Alex went mad.

Unable to control himself, he screamed out, his fists lashing against the walls of this metal coffin. He was suffocating.

His flailing hand hit a section of the wall and he felt it give way. There was a second flap!

Gasping for air, he twisted round and into a second tunnel, as black and as chilling as the first.

But at least there was some faint flicker of hope burning in his consciousness. There was a way through. If he could just keep a grip on himself, he might yet find his way back into the light.

The second tunnel was longer. Alex slithered forward, feeling the sheet metal under his hands.

He forced himself to slow down. He was still completely blind. If there was a hole ahead of him, he would plunge into it before he knew what had happened. As he went, he tapped against the walls, searching for other passageways. His head knocked into something and he swore. The bad language helped him. It was good to direct his hatred against Damian Cray. And hearing his own voice reminded him he was still alive.

He had bumped into a ladder. He took hold of it with both hands and felt for the opening that must be above his shoulders. He was lying flat on his stomach, but slowly he manipulated himself round and began to climb up, feeling his way in case there was a ceiling overhead. His hand came into contact with something and he pushed. To his huge relief, light flooded in. He had opened some sort of trapdoor with a large, brightly lit room on the other side. Gratefully he climbed the last rungs and passed through.

The air was warm. Alex sucked it into his lungs, allowing his feelings of panic and claustrophobia to fade away. Then he looked up.

He was kneeling on a straw-covered floor in a room that was bathed in yellow light. Three of the walls seemed to have been built with huge blocks of stone. Blazing torches slanted in towards him, fixed to metal brackets. Gates at least ten metres high stood in front of him. They were made out of wood, with iron fastenings and a huge face carved into the surface. Some sort of Mexican god with saucer eyes and solid, blocklike teeth. Alex had seen the face before but it took him a few moments to work out where. And then he knew exactly what lay ahead of him.

He knew how Cray had programmed pain synthesis into his game.

The gates had appeared at the start of Feathered Serpent, the game that Alex had played in the Pleasure Dome in Hyde Park. Then it had been a computerized image, projected onto a screen—