Point Blank

Scanned & proofed by unknown.

Converted to HTML, cleaned, re-formatted & proofread by nukie.

Color: -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9-

Text Size: 10- 11- 12- 13- 14- 15- 16- 17- 18- 19- 20- 21- 22- 23- 24

Point Blank

Alex Rider Book 2

Anthony Horowitz

Table of Contents

GOING DOWN

BLUE SHADOW

HOOKED

SEARCH AND REPORT

THE SHOOTING PARTY

THE TUNNEL

SPECIAL EDITION

ROOM 13

‚MY NAME IS GRIEF'

THINGS THAT GO CLICK IN THE NIGHT

SEEING DOUBLE

DELAYING TACTICS

HOW TO RULE THE WORLD

BLACK RUN

AFTER THE FUNERAL

NIGHT RAID

DEAD RINGER

GOING DOWN

^ »

MICHAEL J. ROSCOE was a careful man.

The car that drove him to work at quarter past seven each morning was a custom-made Mercedes with reinforced steel plates and bulletproof windows. His driver, a retired FBI agent, carried a Beretta subcompact automatic pistol and knew how to use it. There were just five steps from the point where the car stopped to the entrance of Roscoe Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue, but closed-circuit television cameras followed him every inch of the way. Once the automatic doors had slid shut behind him, a uniformed guard—also armed—watched as he crossed the foyer and entered his own private elevator.

The elevator had white marble walls, a blue carpet, a silver handrail, and no buttons. Roscoe pressed his hand against a small glass panel. A sensor read his fingerprints, verified them, and activated the elevator. The doors slid shut and the elevator rose to the sixtieth floor without stopping. Nobody else ever used it. Nor did it ever stop at any of the other floors in the building. At the same time it was traveling up, the receptionist in the lobby was on the telephone, letting his staff know that Mr. Roscoe was on his way.

Everyone who worked in Roscoe’s private office had been handpicked and thoroughly vetted. It was impossible to see him without an appointment. Getting an appointment could take three months.

When you’re rich, you have to be careful. There are cranks, kidnappers, terrorists—the desperate and the dispossessed. Michael J. Roscoe was the chairman of Roscoe Electronics and the ninth or tenth richest man in the world—and he was very careful indeed. Ever since his face had appeared on the front cover of Time magazine (‚The Electronics King'), he knew that he had become a visible target. When in public he walked quickly, with his head bent. His glasses had been chosen to hide as much as possible of his round, handsome face. His suits were expensive but anonymous. If he went to the theater or to dinner, he always arrived at the last minute, preferring not to hang around. There were dozens of different security systems in his life, and although they had once annoyed him, he had allowed them to become routine.

But ask any spy or security agent. Routine is the one thing that can get you killed. It tells the enemy where you’re going and when you’re going to be there. Routine was going to kill Michael J. Roscoe, and this was the day death had chosen to come calling.

Of course, Roscoe had no idea of this as he stepped out of the elevator that opened directly into his private office, a huge room occupying the corner of the building with floor-to-ceiling windows giving views in two directions: Fifth Avenue to the east, Central Park just a few blocks south. The two remaining walls contained a door, a low book shelf, and a single oil painting—a vase of flowers by Vincent van Gogh.

The black glass surface of his desk was equally uncluttered: a computer, a leather notebook, a telephone, and a framed photograph of a fourteen-year-old boy. As he took off his jacket and sat down, Roscoe found himself looking at the picture of the boy. Blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Paul Roscoe looked remarkably like his father had thirty years ago. Michael Roscoe was now fifty-two and beginning to show his age despite his year-round tan. His son was almost as tall as he was. The picture had been taken the summer before, on Long Island. They had spent the day sailing. Then they’d had a barbecue on the beach. It had been one of the few happy days they’d ever spent together.

The door opened and his secretary came in. Helen Bosworth was English. She had left her home and, indeed, her husband to come and work in New York, and still loved every minute of it. She had been working in this office for eleven years, and in all that time she had never forgotten a detail or made a mistake.

‚Good morning, Mr. Roscoe,' she said.

‚Good morning, Helen.'

She put a folder on his desk. ‚The latest figures from Singapore. Costings on the R- 15

Organizer. You have lunch with Senator Andrews at half past twelve. I’ve booked The Ivy.'

‚Did you remember to call London?' Roscoe asked.

Helen Bosworth blinked. She never forgot anything, so why had he asked? ‚I’ve spoke to Alan Blunt’s office yesterday afternoon,' she said. Afternoon in New York would have been evening in London. ‚Mr. Blunt was not available, but I’ve arranged a person-to-person call with you this afternoon. We can have it patched through to your car.'

‚Thank you, Helen.'

‚Shall I have your coffee sent in to you?'

‚No, thank you, Helen. I won’t have coffee today.'

Helen Bosworth left the room, seriously alarmed. No coffee? What next? Mr. Roscoe had begun his day with a double espresso for as long as she had known him. Could it be that he was ill? He certainly hadn’t been himself recently—not since Paul had returned home from that school in the South of France. And this phone call to Alan Blunt in London! Nobody had ever told her who he was, but she had seen his name once in a file. He had something to do with military intelligence. MI6. What was Mr. Roscoe doing, talking to a spy?

Helen Bosworth returned to her office and soothed her nerves, not with coffee—she couldn’t stand the stuff—but with a refreshing cup of English Breakfast tea. Something very strange was going on, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.

Meanwhile, sixty floors below, a man had walked into the lobby area wearing gray overalls with an ID badge attached to his chest. The badge identified him as Sam Green, maintenance engineer with X-Press Elevators Inc. He was carrying a briefcase in one hand and a large silver toolbox in the other. He set them both down in front of the reception desk.

Sam Green was not his real name. His hair—black and a little greasy—was fake, as were his glasses, mustache, and uneven teeth. He looked fifty years old, but he was actually closer to thirty. Nobody knew the man’s real name, but in the business that he was in, a name was the last thing he could afford. He was known merely as ‚The Gentleman,' and he was one of the highest-paid and most successful contract killers in the world. He had been given his nickname because he always sent flowers to the families of his victims.

The lobby guard glanced at him.

‚I’m here for the elevator,' he said. He spoke with a Bronx accent even though he had never spent more than a week there in his life.

‚What about it?' the guard asked. ‚You people were here last week.'

‚Yeah. Sure. We found a defective cable on elevator twelve. It had to be replaced, but we didn’t have the parts. So they sent me back.' The Gentleman fished in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. ‚You want to call the head office? I’ve got my orders here.'

If the guard had called X-Press Elevators Inc., he would have discovered that they did indeed employ a Sam Green—although he hadn’t shown up for work in two days. This was because the real Sam Green was at the bottom of the Hudson River with a knife in his back and a twenty-pound block of concrete attached to his foot. But the guard didn’t make the call. The Gentleman had guessed he wouldn’t bother. After all, the elevators were always breaking down. There were engineers in and out all the time. What difference would one more make?

The guard jerked a thumb. ‚Go ahead,' he said.

The Gentleman put away the letter, picked up his cases, and went over to the elevators.

There were a dozen servicing the skyscraper, plus a thirteenth for Michael J. Roscoe. Elevator number twelve was at the end. As he went in, a delivery boy with a parcel tried to follow.

‚Sorry,' The Gentleman said. ‚Closed for maintenance.' The doors slid shut. He was on his own. He pressed the button for the sixty-first floor.

He had been given this job only a week before. He’d had to work fast, killing the real maintenance engineer, taking his identity, learning the layout of Roscoe Tower, and getting his hands on the sophisticated piece of equipment he had known he would need. His employers wanted the multimillionaire eliminated as quickly as possible. More importantly, it had to look like an accident. For this, The Gentleman had demanded—and been paid—one hundred thousand dollars. The money was to be paid into a bank account in Switzerland; half now, half on completion.

The elevator door opened again. The sixty-first floor was used primarily for maintenance.

This was where the water tanks were housed, as well as the computers that controlled the heat, air-conditioning, security cameras, and elevators throughout the building. The Gentleman turned off the elevator, using the manual override key that had once belonged to Sam Green, then went over to the computers. He knew exactly where they were. In fact, he could have found them wearing a blindfold. He opened his briefcase. There were two sections to the case.

The lower part was a laptop computer. The upper lid was fitted with a number of drills and other tools, each of them strapped into place.

It took him fifteen minutes to cut his way into the Roscoe Tower mainframe and connect his own laptop to the circuitry inside. Hacking his way past the Roscoe security systems took a little longer, but at last it was done. He tapped a command into his keyboard. On the floor below, Michael J. Roscoe’s private elevator did something it had never done before. It rose one extra floor—to level sixty-one. The door, however, remained closed. The Gentleman did not need to get in.

Instead, he picked up the briefcase and the silver toolbox and carried them back into the same elevator he had taken from the lobby. He turned the override key and pressed the button for the fifty-ninth floor. Once again, he deactivated the elevator. Then he reached up and pushed. The top of the elevator was a trapdoor that opened outward. He pushed the briefcase and the silver box ahead of him, then pulled himself up and climbed onto the roof of the elevator. He was now standing inside the main shaft of Roscoe Tower. He was surrounded on four sides by girders and pipes blackened with oil and dirt. Thick steel cables hung down, some of them humming as they carried their loads. Looking down, he could see a seemingly endless square tunnel illuminated only by the chinks of light from the doors that slid open and shut again as the other elevators arrived at various floors. Somehow the breeze had made its way in from the street, spinning dust that stung his eyes. Next to him was a set of elevator doors that, had he opened them, would have led him straight into Roscoe’s office. Above these, over his head and a few yards to the right, was the underbelly of Roscoe’s private elevator.

The toolbox was next to him, on the roof of the elevator. Carefully, he opened it. The sides of the case were lined with thick sponge. Inside, in the specialty molded space, was what looked like a complicated film projector, silver and concave with a thick glass lens. He took it out, then glanced at his watch. Eight thirty-five A.M. It would take him an hour to connect the device to the bottom of Roscoe’s elevator, and a little more to ensure that it was working. He had plenty of time.

Smiling to himself, The Gentleman took out a power screwdriver and began to work.

At twelve o’clock, Helen Bosworth called on the telephone. ‚Your car is here, Mr. Roscoe.'

‚Thank you, Helen.'

Roscoe hadn’t done much that morning. He had been aware that only half his mind was on his work. Once again, he glanced at the photograph on his desk. Paul. How could things have gone so wrong between a father and a son? And what could have happened in the last few months, to make them so much worse?

He stood up, put his jacket on, and walked across his office, on his way to lunch with Senator Andrews. He often had lunch with politicians. They wanted either his money, his ideas—or him. Anyone as rich as Roscoe made for a powerful friend, and politicians need all the friends they can get.

He pressed the elevator button, and the doors slid open. He took one step forward.

The last thing Michael J. Roscoe saw in his life was the inside of his elevator with its white marble walls, blue carpet, and silver handrail. His right foot, wearing a black leather shoe that was handmade for him by a small shop in Rome, traveled down to the carpet and kept going—

right through it. The rest of his body followed, tilting into the elevator and then through it. And then he was falling sixty floors to his death.

He was so surprised by what had happened, so totally unable to understand what had happened, that he didn’t even cry out. He simply fell into the blackness of the elevator shaft, bounced twice off the walls, then crashed into the solid concrete of the basement, five hundred yards below.

The elevator remained where it was. It looked solid but, in fact, it wasn’t there at all. What Roscoe had stepped into was a hologram, an image being projected into the empty space of the elevator shaft where the real elevator should have been. The Gentleman had programmed the door to open when Roscoe pressed the call button, and had quietly watched him step into oblivion. If the multimillionaire had managed to look up for a moment, he would have seen the silver hologram projector, beaming the image, a few yards above him. But a man getting into an elevator on his way to lunch does not look up. The Gentleman had known this. And he was never wrong.

At 12:35, the chauffeur called up to say that Mr. Roscoe hadn’t arrived at the car. Ten minutes later, Helen Bosworth alerted security, who began to search around the foyer of the building. At one o’clock, they called the restaurant. The senator was there, waiting for his lunch guest. But Roscoe hadn’t shown up.

In fact, his body wasn’t discovered until the next day, by which time the multimillionaire’s disappearance had become the lead story on the news. A bizarre accident—that’s what it looked like. Nobody could work out what had happened. Because by that time, of course, The Gentleman had reprogrammed the computer, removed the projector, and left everything as it should have been before quietly leaving the building.

Two days later, a man who looked nothing like a maintenance engineer walked into JFK

International Airport. He was about to board a flight for Switzerland. But first, he visited a flower shop and ordered a dozen black tulips to be sent to a certain address. The man paid with cash. He didn’t leave a name.

BLUE SHADOW

« ^ »

THE WORST TIME TO FEEL alone is when you’re in a crowd. Alex Rider was walking across the school yard, surrounded by hundreds of boys and girls his own age. They were all heading in the same direction, all wearing the same blue and gray uniform, all of them thinking probably much the same thoughts. The last lesson of the day had just ended. Homework, supper, and television would fill the remaining hours until bed. Another school day. So why did he feel so out of it, as if he were watching the last weeks of the spring term from the other side of a giant glass screen?

Alex jerked his backpack over one shoulder and continued toward the bike shed. The bag was heavy. As usual, it contained double homework … French and history. He had missed three weeks of school and was working hard to catch up. His teachers had not been sympathetic. Nobody had said as much, but when he had finally returned with a doctor’s letter (‚a bad dose of flu with complications') they had nodded and smiled and secretly thought him a little bit pampered and spoiled. On the other hand, they had to make allowances. They all knew that Alex had no parents, that he had been living with an uncle who had died in some sort of car accident. But even so. Three weeks in bed! Even his closest friends had to admit that was a bit much.

And he couldn’t tell them the truth. He wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what had really happened. That was the hell of it.

Alex looked around him at the children streaming through the school gates, some dribbling soccer balls, some on their cell phones. He looked at the teachers, curling themselves into their secondhand cars. At first, he had thought the whole school had somehow changed while he was away. But he knew now that what had happened was worse. Everything was the same. He was the one who had changed.

Alex was fourteen years old, an ordinary schoolboy in an ordinary West London school. Or he had been. Three weeks before, he had discovered that his uncle was a secret agent, working for MI6. The uncle—Ian Rider—had been murdered, and MI6 had forced Alex to take his place.

They had given him a crash course in Special Air Service survival techniques and sent him on a lunatic mission on the South Coast. He had been chased, shot at, and almost killed. And at the end of it he had been packed off and sent back to school as if nothing had happened. But first they had made him sign the Official Secrets Act. Alex smiled at the memory of it. He didn’t need to sign anything. Who would have believed him anyway?

But it was the secrecy that was getting to him now. Whenever anyone asked him what he had been doing in the weeks he had been away, he had been forced to tell them that he had been in bed, reading, slouching around the house, whatever. Alex didn’t want to boast about what he’d done, but he hated having to deceive his friends. It made him angry. MI6 hadn’t just put him in danger. They’d locked his whole life in a filing cabinet and thrown away the key.

He had reached the bike shed. Somebody muttered a ‚goodbye' in his direction and he nodded, then reached up to brush away the single strand of fair hair that had fallen over his eye. Sometimes he wished that the whole business with MI6 had never happened. But at the same time—he had to admit it—part of him wanted it all to happen again. Sometimes he felt that he no longer belonged in the safe, comfortable world of Brookland Comprehensive. Too much had changed. And at the end of the day, anything was better than double homework.

He lifted his bike out of the shed, unlocked it, pulled the backpack over his shoulders, and prepared to ride away. That was when he saw the beaten-up white car. Back outside the school gates for the second time that week.

Everyone knew about the man in the white car.

He was in his twenties, bald-headed with two broken stumps where his front teeth should have been and five metal studs in his ear. He didn’t advertise his name. When people talked about him, they called him Skoda, after the make of his car. But some said that his name was Jake and that he had once been to Brookland. If so, he had come back like an unwelcome ghost; here one minute, vanishing the next … somehow always a few seconds ahead of any passing police car or overly inquisitive teacher.

Skoda sold drugs. He sold soft drugs, like pot and cigarettes, to the younger kids, and harder stuff to any of the older ones stupid enough to buy it. It seemed incredible to Alex that Skoda could get away with it so easily, dealing his little packets in broad daylight. But of course, there was a code of honor in the school. No one turned anyone in to the police, not even a rat like Skoda. And there was always the fear that if Skoda went down, some of the people he supplied—friends, classmates—might go with him.

Drugs had never been a huge problem at Brookland, but recently that had begun to change.

A clutch of seventeen-year-olds had started buying Skoda’s goods, and like a stone dropped into a pool, the ripples had rapidly spread. There had been a spate of thefts, as well as one or two nasty bullying incidents—younger children being forced to bring in money for older ones.

The stuff Skoda was selling seemed to get more expensive the more you bought of it, and it hadn’t been cheap at the start.

Alex watched as a heavy-shouldered boy with dark eyes and serious acne lumbered over to the car, paused by the open window, and then continued on his way. He felt a sudden spurt of pure loathing. The boy’s name was Colin, and a year before, he had been hardworking and popular. These days, he was just avoided. Alex had never thought much about drugs, apart from knowing that he would never take them himself. But he could see that the man in the white car wasn’t poisoning just a handful of dumb kids. He was poisoning the whole school.

A policeman on foot patrol appeared, walking toward the gate. A moment later, the white car was gone, black smut bubbling from a faulty exhaust. Alex was on his bike before he knew what he was doing, pedaling fast out of the yard and swerving around the school secretary, who also was on her way home.

‚Not too fast, Alex!' she called out, sighing when he ignored her. Miss Bedfordshire had always had a soft spot for Alex without knowing quite why. And she alone in the school had wondered if there hadn’t been more to his absence than the doctor’s note had suggested.

The white Skoda accelerated down the road, turning left and then right, and Alex thought he was going to lose it. But then it twisted through the maze of back streets that led up to the King’s Road and hit the inevitable four o’clock traffic jam, coming to a halt about two hundred yards ahead.

The average speed of traffic in London is—at the start of the twenty-first century—slower than it was in Victorian times. During normal working hours, any bicycle will beat any car on just about any journey at all. And Alex wasn’t riding just any bike. He still had his Condor Junior Roadracer, handbuilt for him in the workshop that had been open for business on the same street in Holborn for more than fifty years. He’d recently had it upgraded with an integrated brake and gear lever system fitted to the handlebar, and he only had to flick his thumb to feel the bike click up a gear, the lightweight titanium sprockets spinning smoothly beneath him.

He caught up with the car just as it turned the corner and joined the rest of the traffic on the King’s Road. He would just have to hope that Skoda was going to stay in the city, but somehow Alex didn’t think it likely that he would travel too far. The drug dealer hadn’t chosen Brookland Comprehensive as a target simply because he’d been there. It had to be somewhere in his general neighborhood—not too close to home but not too far either.

The lights changed and the white car jerked forward, heading west. Alex pedaled slowly, keeping a few cars behind, just in case Skoda happened to glance in his mirror. They reached the corner known as World’s End, and suddenly the road was clear and Alex had to switch gears again and pedal hard to keep up. The car drove on, through Parson’s Green and down toward Putney. Alex twisted from one lane to another, cutting in front of a taxi and receiving the blast of a horn as his reward. It was a warm day, and he could feel his French and history homework dragging down his back. How much farther were they going? And what would he do when they got there? Alex was beginning to wonder whether this had been a good idea when the car turned off and he realized they had arrived.

Skoda had pulled into a rough tarmac area, a temporary parking lot next to the River Thames, not far from Putney Bridge. Alex stayed on the bridge, allowing the traffic to roll past, and watched as the dealer got out of his car and began to walk. The area was being redeveloped, another block of prestigious apartments rising up to bruise the London skyline.

Right now the building was no more than an ugly skeleton of steel girders and prefabricated concrete slabs. It was surrounded by a swarm of men in hard hats. There were bulldozers, cement mixers, and, towering above them all, a huge, canary yellow crane. A sign read: RIVERVIEW HOUSE. And below it: ALL VISITORS REPORT TO THE SITE OFFICE.

Alex wondered if Skoda had some sort of business on the site. He seemed to be heading for the entrance. But then he turned off. Alex watched him, increasingly puzzled.

The building site was wedged in between the bridge and a cluster of modern buildings.

There was a pub, then what looked like a brand-new conference center, and finally a police station with a parking lot half filled with official cars. But right next to the building site, sticking out into the river, was a wooden jetty with two cabin cruisers and an old iron barge quietly rusting in the murky water. Alex hadn’t noticed the jetty at first, but Skoda walked straight onto it, then climbed onto the barge. He found a door, opened it, and disappeared inside. Was this where he lived? It was already growing dark, and somehow Alex doubted he was about to set off on a pleasure cruise down the River Thames.

He got back on his bike and cycled slowly to the end of the bridge, and then down toward the parking lot. He left the bike and his backpack out of sight and continued on foot, moving more slowly as he approached the jetty. He wasn’t afraid of being caught. This was a public place, and even if Skoda did reappear, there would be nothing he could do. But he was curious, just what was the dealer doing on board a barge? It seemed a bizarre place to have stopped.

Alex still wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he wanted to have a look inside. Then he would decide.

The wooden jetty creaked under his feet as he stepped onto it. The barge was called Blue Shadow, but there was little blue left in the flaking paint, the rusty ironwork, and the dirty, oil-covered decks. The barge was about thirty yards long and very square with a single cabin in the center. It was lying low in the water, and Alex guessed that most of the living quarters would be underneath. He knelt down on the jetty and pretended to tie his shoelaces, hoping to look through the narrow, slanting windows. But all the curtains were drawn. What now?

The barge was moored on one side of the jetty. The two cabin cruisers were side by side on the other. Skoda wanted privacy—but he must also need light, and there would be no need to draw the curtains on the far side, with nothing there but the river. The only trouble was that to look in the other windows, Alex would have to climb onto the barge itself. He considered briefly. It had to be worth the risk. He was near enough to the building site. Nobody was going to try to hurt him in broad daylight.

He placed one foot on the deck, then slowly transferred his weight onto it. He was afraid that moving the barge would give him away. Sure enough, the barge dipped under his weight, but Alex had chosen his moment well. A police launch was sailing past, heading up the river and back into town. The barge bobbed naturally in its wake, and by the time it settled, Alex was on board, crouching next to the cabin door.

Now he could hear music coming from inside. The heavy beat of a rock band. He didn’t want to do it, but he knew there was only one way to look in. He tried to find an area of the deck that wasn’t too covered in oil, then lay flat on his stomach. Clinging on to the handrail, he lowered his head and shoulders over the side of the barge and shifted himself forward so that he was hanging almost upside down over the water.

He was right. The curtains on this side of the barge were open. Looking through the dirty glass of the window, he could see two men. Skoda was sitting on a bunk, smoking a cigarette.

There was a second man, blond-haired and ugly, with twisted lips and three days’ stubble, wearing a torn sweatshirt and jeans, making a cup of coffee at a small stove. The music was coming from a boom box perched on a shelf. Alex looked around the cabin. Besides two bunks and the miniature kitchen, the barge offered no living accommodations at all. Instead, it had been converted for another purpose. Skoda and his friend had turned it into a floating laboratory.

There were two metal work surfaces, a sink, and a pair of electric scales. Everywhere there were test tubes and Bunsen burners, flasks, glass pipes, and measuring spoons. The whole place was filthy—obviously neither of the two men cared about hygiene—but Alex knew that he was looking into the heart of their operation. This was where they prepared the drugs they sold: cut them down, weighed them, and packaged them for delivery to local schools. It was an insane idea to put a drug factory on a boat, almost in the middle of London, and only a stone’s throw away from a police station. But at the same time, it was a clever one. Who would have looked for it here?

The blond -haired man suddenly turned around, and Alex hooked his body up and slithered backward onto the deck. For a moment he was dizzy. Hanging upside down had made the blood drain into his head. He took a couple of breaths, trying to collect his thoughts. It would be easy enough to walk over to the police station and tell the officer in charge what he had seen. The police could take over from there.

But something inside Alex rejected the idea. Maybe he would have done that a few months before: let someone else take care of it. But he hadn’t cycled all this way just to call the police.

He thought back to his first sighting of the white car outside the school gates. He remembered his friend Colin shuffling over to it and felt once again a brief blaze of anger. This was something he wanted to do himself.

But what could he do? If the barge had been equipped with a plug, Alex would have pulled it out and sunk the entire thing. But of course it wasn’t as easy as that. The barge was tied to the jetty by two thick ropes. He could untie them, but that wouldn’t help either. The barge would drift away, but this was Putney. There were no whirlpools or waterfalls. Skoda could simply turn on the engine and cruise back again.

Alex looked around him. On the building site, the day’s work was coming to an end. Some of the men were already leaving, and as he watched, he saw a trapdoor open about a hundred and fifty yards above him and a stocky man begin the long climb down from the top of the crane. Alex closed his eyes. A whole series of images suddenly flashed into his mind, like different sections of a jigsaw puzzle.

The barge. The building site. The police station. The crane with its big hook, dangling underneath the jib.

And the Blackpool amusement park. He’d gone there once with his housekeeper, Jack Starbright, and had watched as she won a teddy bear, hooking it out of a glass case and carrying it over to a chute.

Could it be done? Alex looked again, working out the angles. Yes. It probably could.

He stood up and crept back across the deck to the door that Skoda had entered. A length of wire was lying to one side, and he picked it up, then wound it several times around the handle of the door. He looped the wire over a hook in the wall and pulled it tight. The door was effectively locked. There was a second door at the back of the boat. Alex secured this one with his own bicycle padlock. As far as he could see, the windows were too narrow to crawl through.

There was no other way in or out.

He crept off the barge and back onto the jetty. Then he untied it, leaving the thick rope loosely curled up beside the metal pegs—the stanchions—that had secured it. The river was still. It would be a while before the barge drifted away.

He straightened up. Satisfied with his work so far, he began to run.

HOOKED

« ^ »

THE ENTRANCE TO THE BUILDING site was crowded with construction workers preparing to go home. Alex was reminded of Brookfield an hour earlier. Nothing really changed when you got older—except that maybe you weren’t given homework. The men and women drifting out of the site were tired, in a hurry to be away. That was probably why none of them tried to stop Alex as he slipped in among them, walking purposefully as if he knew where he was going, as if he had every right to be there.

But the shift wasn’t completely finished yet. Other workers were still carrying tools, stowing away machinery, packing up for the night. They all wore protective headgear, and seeing a pile of plastic helmets, Alex snatched one up and put it on. The great sweep of the block of apartments that was being built loomed up ahead of him. To pass through it, he was forced into a narrow corridor between two scaffolding towers. Suddenly a heavy-set man in white overalls stepped in front of him, blocking his way.

‚Where are you going?' he demanded.

‚My dad…' Alex gestured vaguely in the direction of another worker and kept walking.

The trick worked. The man didn’t challenge him again.

He headed toward the crane. It stood in the open, the high priest of construction. Alex hadn’t realized how very tall it was until he had reached it. The supporting tower was bolted into a massive block of concrete. It was very narrow—once he squeezed through the iron girders, he could reach out and touch all four sides. A ladder ran straight up the center. Without stopping to think, Alex began to climb.

It’s only a ladder, he told himself. You’ve climbed ladders before. You’ve got nothing to worry about. But this was a ladder with three hundred rungs. If Alex let go or slipped, there would be nothing to stop him from falling to his death. There were rest platforms at intervals, but Alex didn’t dare stop to catch his breath. Somebody might look up and see him. And there was always a chance that the barge, loose from its moorings, might begin to drift. Alex knew he had to hurry.

After two hundred and fifty rungs, the tower narrowed. Alex could see the crane’s control cabin directly above him. He looked back down. The men on the building site were suddenly very small and far away. He climbed the last ladder. There was a trapdoor over his head, leading into the cabin. But the trapdoor was locked.

Fortunately, Alex was ready for this. When MI6 had sent him on his first mission, they had given him a number of gadgets—he couldn’t exactly call them weapons—to help him out of a tight spot. One of these was a tube marked ZIT-CLEAN, FOR HEALTHIER SKIN. But the cream inside the tube did much more than clean up pimples.

Although Alex had used most of it, he had managed to hold on to the last remnants and often carried the tube with him as a sort of souvenir. He had it in his pocket now. Holding on to the ladder with one hand, he took the tube out with the other. There was very little of the cream left, but Alex knew that a little was all he needed. He opened the tube, squeezed some of the cream onto the lock, and waited. There was a moment’s pause, then a hiss and a wisp of smoke.

The cream was eating into the metal. The lock sprang open. Alex pushed back the trapdoor and climbed the last few rungs. He was in.

He had to close the trapdoor again to create enough floor space to stand on. He found himself in a square, metal box, about the same size as a sit-in arcade game. There was a pilot’s chair with two joysticks—one on each arm—and instead of a screen, a floor-to-ceiling window with a spectacular view of the building site, the river, and the whole of West London. A small computer monitor had been built into one corner, and at knee level, there was a radio transmitter.

The joysticks beside the arms were surprisingly uncomplicated. Each had just six buttons—

two green, two black, and two red. There were even helpful diagrams to show what they did.

The right hand lifted the hook up and down. The left hand moved it along the jib, closer or farther from the cabin. The left hand also controlled the whole top of the crane, rotating it three hundred and sixty degrees. It couldn’t have been much simpler. Even the START button was clearly labeled. A big switch for a big toy.

He turned the switch and felt power surge into the control cabin. The computer lit up with a graphic of a barking dog as the warm-up program spun into life. Alex eased himself into the operator’s chair. There were still twenty or thirty men on the site. Looking down between his knees, he saw them moving silently far below. Nobody had noticed that anything was wrong.

But still he knew he had to move fast.

He pressed the green button on the right-hand control—green for go—then touched his fingers against the joystick and pushed. Nothing happened! Alex frowned. Maybe it was going to be more complicated than he’d thought. What had he missed? He rested his hands on the joysticks, looking left and right for another control. His right hand moved slightly and suddenly the hook soared up from the ground. It was working!

Unknown to Alex, heat sensors concealed inside the handles of the joysticks had read his body temperature and activated the crane. All modern cranes have the same security system built into them, in case the operator has a heart attack and dies. There can be no accidents. Body heat is needed to make the crane work.

And luckily for him, this crane was a Liebherr 154 EC-H, one of the most modern in the world. The Liebherr is incredibly easy to use, and also remarkably accurate. Even sitting so high above the ground, the operator can pick up a tea bag and drop it into a small china pot. Now Alex pushed sideways with his left hand and gasped as the crane swung around. In front of him he could see the jib stretching out, swinging high over the rooftops of London. The more he Alex settled himself in the chair and pulled back, wondering what would happen next.

Inside the boat, Skoda was opening a bottle of gin. He’d had a good day, selling more than a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of merchandise to the kids at his old school. And the best thing was, they’d all be back for more. Soon, he’d sell them the stuff only if they promised to introduce it to their friends. Then the friends would become customers too. It was the easiest market in the world. He’d gotten them hooked. They were his to do with as he liked.

The fair-haired man working with him was named Beckett. The two had met in prison and decided to go into business together when they got out. The boat had been Beckett’s idea. There was no real kitchen and no toilet, and it was freezing in winter … but it worked. It even amused them to be so close to a police station. Sometimes they enjoyed watching the police cars or boats going past. Of course, the pigs would never think of looking for criminals right on their own doorstep.

Suddenly Beckett swore. ‚What the…?'

‚What is it?' Skoda looked up.

‚The cup…'

Skoda watched as a cup of coffee, which had been sitting on a shelf, began to move. It slid sideways, then fell off with a clatter, spilling cold coffee on the gray rag that they called a carpet. Skoda was confused. The cup seemed to have moved on its own. Nothing had touched it. He giggled. ‚How did you do that?' he asked.

‚I didn’t.'

‚Then…'

The fair-haired man was the first to realize what was happening—but even he couldn’t guess the truth. ‚We’re sinking!' he shouted.

He scrabbled for the door. Now Skoda felt it for himself. The floor was tilting. Test tubes and beakers slid into each other, then crashed to the floor, glass shattering. He swore and followed Beckett—uphill now. With every second that passed, the gradient grew steeper. But the strange thing was that the barge didn’t seem to be sinking at all. On the contrary, the front of it seemed to be rising out of the water.

‚What’s going on?' Skoda yelled.

‚The door’s jammed!' Beckett had managed to open it an inch, but the wire on the other side was holding it firm. ‚Check the other door!'

But the second door was now high above them. More bottles rolled off the table and smashed. In the kitchen, dirty plates and mugs slid into each other, pieces flying. With something between a sob and a snarl, Skoda tried to climb up the mountainside that the inside of the boat had become. But it was already too steep. The door was almost over his head. He lost his balance and fell backward, shouting as, one second later, the other man was thrown on top of him. The two of them rolled into the corner, tangled up in each other. Plates, cups, knives, forks, and dozens of pieces of scientific equipment crashed into them. The walls of the barge were grinding with the pressure. A window shattered. A table turned itself into a battering ram and buried itself at them. Skoda felt a bone snap in his arm and screamed out loud.

The barge was completely vertical, standing in the water at ninety degrees. For a moment it rested where it was. Then it began to rise…

Alex stared at the barge in amazement. The crane was lifting it at half speed—some sort of override had come into action, slowing the operation down—but it wasn’t even straining. Alex could feel the power under his palms. Sitting in the cabin with both hands on the joysticks, his feet apart and the jib of the crane jutting out ahead of him, he felt as if he and the crane had become one. He had only to move an inch and the five-ton boat would be brought to him. He could see it, dangling on the hook, spinning slowly. Water was streaming off the bow. It was already clear of the water, rising up about five yards per second. He wondered what it must be like inside.

And then the radio beside his knee hissed into life.

‚Crane operator! This is base. What the hell do you think you’re doing? Over!' A pause, a burst of static. Then the metallic voice was back. ‚Who is in the crane? Who’s up there? Will you identify yourself…'

There was a microphone snaking toward Alex’s chin and he was tempted to say something.

But he decided against it. Hearing a teenager’s voice would only panic them more.

He looked down between his knees. About a dozen construction workers were closing in on the base of the crane. Others were pointing at the boat, jabbering amongst themselves. No sounds reached the cabin. It was as if Alex were cut off from the real world. He felt very secure.

He had no doubt that more workers had already started climbing the ladder and that it would all be over soon, but for the moment he was untouchable. He concentrated on what he was doing. Getting the barge out of the water had been only half his plan. He still had to finish it.

‚Crane operator! Lower the hook! We believe there are people inside the boat and you are endangering their lives. Repeat. Lower the hook!'

The barge was almost two hundred feet above the water, swinging on the end of the hook.

Alex moved his left hand, turning the crane around so that the boat was dragged in an arc along the river and then over dry land. There was a sudden buzz. The jib came to a halt. Alex pushed the joystick. Nothing happened. He glanced at the computer. The screen had gone blank.

Someone at ground level had come to his senses and done the only sensible thing. He had switched off the power. The crane was dead.

Alex sat where he was, watching the barge swaying in the breeze. He hadn’t quite succeeded in what he had set out to do. He had planned to lower the boat—along with its contents—safely into the parking lot by the police station. It would have made a nice surprise for the authorities, he had thought. Instead the boat was now hanging over the conference center that be had seen from Putney Bridge. But at the end of the day, he supposed it didn’t make much difference. The result would be the same.

He stretched his arms and relaxed, waiting for the trapdoor to burst open. This wasn’t going to be easy to explain.

And then he heard the tearing sound.

The metal stanchion that protruded from the end of the deck had never been designed to carry the entire weight of the barge. It was a miracle that it had lasted as long as it had. As Alex watched, openmouthed, the stanchion tore itself free. For a few seconds it clung by one edge to the deck. Then the last metal rivet came loose.

The five-ton barge had been sixty yards above the ground. Now it began to fall.

In the Putney Riverside Conference Center, the chief of the Metropolitan Police was addressing a large crowd of journalists, TV cameramen, civil servants, and government officials.

He was a tall, thin man who took himself very seriously. His dark blue uniform was immaculate, with every piece of silver—from the studs on his epaulettes to his five medals—

polished until it gleamed. This was his big day. He was sharing the platform with no less a personage than the home secretary himself. The assistant chief of police was there as well as seven lower-ranking officers. A slogan was being projected onto the wall behind him.

WINNING THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS

Silver letters on a blue background. The chief of police had chosen the colors himself, knowing that they matched his uniform. He liked the slogan. He knew it would be in all the major newspapers the next day—along with, just as important, a photograph of himself.

‚We have overlooked nothing!' he was saying, his voice echoing around the modern room.

He could see the journalists scribbling down his every word. The television cameras were all focused on him. ‚Thanks to my personal involvement and efforts, we have never been more successful.' He smiled at the home secretary, who smiled toothily back. ‚But we are not resting on our laurels. Oh, no! Any day now we hope to announce another breakthrough.'

That was when the barge hit the glass roof of the conference center. There was an explosion.

The chief of police just had time to dive for cover as a vast, dripping object plunged down toward him. The home secretary was thrown backward, his glasses flying off his face. His security men froze, helpless. The boat crashed into the space in front of them, between the stage and the audience. The side of the cabin had been torn off, and there was the laboratory, exposed, with the two dealers sprawled together in one corner, staring dazedly at the hundreds of policemen and officials who now surrounded them. A cloud of white powder mushroomed up and then fell onto the dark blue uniform of the police chief, covering him from head to toe.

The fire alarms had all gone off. The lights blew out. Then the screaming began.

Meanwhile, the first of the construction workers had made it to the crane cabin and was gazing, astonished, at the fourteen-year-old boy he had found there.

‚Do you…?' he stammered. ‚Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?'

Alex glanced at the empty hook and at the gaping hole in the roof of the conference center, at the rising smoke and dust. He shrugged apologetically.

‚I was just working on the crime figures,' he said. ‚And I think there’s been a drop.'

SEARCH AND REPORT

« ^ »

THE CHAUFFEUR-DRIVEN Rolls-Royce Corniche cruised along a tree-lined avenue, penetrating ever deeper into the Lancashire countryside, its 6.75-liter light pressure V8 engine barely a whisper in the great, green silence all around. Alex sat in the back, trying to be unimpressed by this car that cost as much as a house. Forget the plush carpeting, the wooden panels, and the leather seats, he told himself. It’s only a car.

It was the day after his meeting at MI6, and, as Alan Blunt had ordered, his appearance had completely changed. He had to look like a rebel, the rich son who wanted to live life by his own rules. So Alex had been dressed in purposefully provocative clothes. He was wearing a T-shirt cut so low that most of his chest was exposed, and there was a leather thong around his neck. A baggy, checked shirt, missing most of its buttons, hung off his shoulders and down to his faded Tommy Hilfiger jeans, frayed at the knees and ankles. Despite his protests, his hair had been cut so short that he almost looked like a skinhead, and his right ear had been pierced. He could still feel it throbbing underneath the temporary stud that had been put in to keep the hole from closing.

The car had reached a set of wrought iron gates, which opened automatically to receive it.

And there was Haverstock Hall, a great mansion with stone figures on the terrace and seven figures in the price. Sir David’s family had lived here for generations, Mrs. Jones had told him.

They also seemed to own half the Lancashire countryside. The grounds stretched for miles in every direction, with sheep dotted across the hills on one side and three horses watching from an enclosure on the other. The house itself was Georgian: white brick with slender windows and columns. Everything looked very neat. There was a walled garden with evenly spaced beds, a square glass conservatory housing a swimming pool, and a series of ornamental hedges with every leaf perfectly in place.

The car stopped. The horses swung their necks around to watch Alex get out, their tails rhythmically beating at flies. Nothing else moved.

The chauffeur walked around to the trunk. ‚Sir David will be inside,' he said. He had disapproved of Alex from the moment he set eyes on him. Of course, he hadn’t said as much.

But he was a professional. He could show it with his eyes.

Alex moved away from the car, drawn toward the conservatory on the other side of the drive. It was a warm day, the sun beating down on the glass, and the water on the other side looked suddenly inviting. He passed through an open set of doors. It was hot inside the conservatory. The smell of chlorine rose up from the water’ stifling him.

He had thought that the pool was empty, but as he watched, a figure swam up from the bottom, breaking through the surface just in front of him. It was a girl, dressed only in a white bikini. She had long, black hair and dark eyes, but her skin was pale. Alex guessed she must be fifteen years old and remembered what Mrs. Jones had told him about Sir David Friend. ‚He has a daughter … a year older than you.' So this must be her. He watched her heave herself out of the water. Her body was well shaped, closer to the woman she would become than the girl she had been. She was going to be beautiful. That much was certain. The trouble was, she already knew it. When she looked at Alex, arrogance flashed in her eyes.

‚Who are you?' she asked. ‚What are you doing in here?'

‚I’m Alex.'

‚Oh, yes.' She reached for a towel and wrapped it around her neck. ‚Daddy said you were coming, but I didn’t expect you just to walk in like this.' Her voice was very adult and upper class. It sounded strange, coming out of that fifteen-year-old mouth. ‚Do you swim?' she asked.

‚Yes,' Alex said.

‚That’s a shame. I don’t like having to share the pool. Especially with a boy. And a smelly London boy at that.' She ran her eyes over Alex, taking in the torn jeans, the shaven hair, the stud in his ear. She shuddered. ‚I can’t think what Daddy was doing, agreeing to let you stay,'

she went on. ‚And having to pretend you’re my brother! What a ghastly idea! If I did have a brother, I can assure you he wouldn’t look like you. '

Alex was wondering whether to pick the girl up and throw her back into the pool or out through a window when there was a movement behind him, and he turned to see a tall, rather aristocratic man with curling gray hair and glasses, wearing a sports jacket, open-neck shirt, and cords, standing just behind him. He too seemed a little jolted by Alex’s appearance, but he recovered quickly, extending a hand. ‚Alex?' he demanded.

‚Yes.

‚I’m David Friend.'

Alex shook his hand. ‚How do you do,' he said politely.

‚I hope you had a good journey. I see you’ve met my daughter.' He smiled at the girl, who was now sitting beside the pool, drying herself and ignoring them both.

‚We haven’t actually introduced ourselves,' Alex said.

‚Her name is Fiona.'

‚Fiona Friend.' Alex smiled. ‚That’s not a name I’ll forget.'

‚I’m sure the two of you will get along fine.' Sir David didn’t sound convinced. He gestured back toward the house. ‚Why don’t we go and talk in the study?'

Alex followed him back across the drive and into the house. The front door opened into a hall that could have come straight out of the pages of an expensive magazine. Everything was perfect, the antique furniture, ornaments, and paintings placed exactly so. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen and even the sunlight, streaming in through the windows, seemed almost artificial, as if it was there only to bring out the best in everything it touched. It was the house of a man who knows exactly what he wants and has the time and money to get it.

‚Nice place,' Alex said.

‚Thank you. Please come this way.' Sir David opened a heavy, oak-paneled door to reveal a sophisticated and modern office beyond. There was a desk and two chairs, a pair of computers, a white leather sofa, and a series of metal bookshelves. Sir David motioned at the chair and sat down behind the desk.

He was unsure of himself. Alex could see it immediately. Sir David Friend might run a business empire worth millions—seven billions—of dollars, but this was a new experience for him. Having Alex here, knowing who and what he was, he wasn’t quite sure how to react.

‚I’ve been told very little about you,' he began. ‚Alan Blunt got in touch with me and asked me to put you up here for the rest of the week, to pretend that you’re my son. I have to say, you don’t look anything like me.'

‚I don’t look anything like myself either,' Alex said.

‚You’re on your way to some school in the French Alps. They want you to investigate it.'

He paused. ‚Nobody asked me my opinion,' he said, ‚but I’ll give it to you anyway. I don’t like the idea of a fourteen-year-old boy being used as a spy. It’s dangerous—'

‚I can look after myself,' Alex cut in.

‚I mean, it’s dangerous to the government. If you manage to get yourself killed and anyone finds out, it could cause the prime minister a great deal of embarrassment.' Sir David sighed. ‚I advised him against it, but for once he overruled me. It seems that the decision has already been made. This school—the academy—has already telephoned me to say that the assistant director will be coming here to pick you up next Saturday. It’s a woman. A Mrs. Stellenbosch. That’s a South African name, I think.'

Sir David had a number of bulky files on his desk. He slid them forward. ‚In the meantime, I understand you have to familiarize yourself with details about my family. I’ve prepared a number of files. You’ll also find information here about the school you’re meant to have been expelled from—Eton. You can start reading them tonight.' Alex took them and he went on. ‚If you need to know anything more, just ask. Fiona will be with you the whole time.' He glanced down at his fingertips. ‚I’m sure that in itself will be quite an experience for you.'

The door opened and a woman came in. She was slim with dark hair, very much like her daughter. She was wearing a simple mauve dress with a string of pearls around her neck.

‚David,' she began, then stopped, seeing Alex.

‚This is my wife,' Friend said. ‚Caroline, this is the boy I was telling you about. Alex.'

‚It’s very nice to meet you, Alex.' Lady Caroline tried to smile but her lips managed only a faint twitch. ‚I understand you’re going to stay with us for a while.'

‚Yes, Mother,' Alex said.

Lady Caroline blushed.

‚He has to pretend to be our son,' Sir David reminded her. He turned to Alex. ‚Fiona doesn’t know anything about MI6 and the rest of it. I don’t want to alarm her. I’ve told her that it’s connected with my work … a social experiment, if you like. She’s to pretend you’re her brother, to give you a week in the country as part of the family. I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell her the truth.'

‚Dinner is in half an hour,' Lady Caroline said. ‚Do you eat venison?' She sniffed.

‚Perhaps you’d like to shower before you eat? I’ll show you to your room.'

Sir David stood up. ‚You’ve got a lot of reading to do. I’m afraid I have to go back to London tomorrow—I have lunch with the president of France—so I won’t be able to help you.

But, as I say, if there’s anything you don’t know…'

‚Fiona Friend,' Alex said.

Alex had been given a small, comfortable room at the back of the house. He took a quick shower, then put his old clothes back on again. He liked to feel clean but he had to look grimy—

it suited the character of the boy he was supposed to be. He opened the first of the files. Sir David had been thorough. He had given Alex the names and recent histories of just about the entire family, as well as photographs of vacations, details of the house and stables in Mayfair, the apartments in New York, Paris, and Rome, and the villa in Barbados. There were newspaper clippings, magazine articles … everything he could possibly need.

A gong sounded. It was seven o’clock. Alex went downstairs and into the dining room. The room had six windows and a polished mahogany table long enough to seat fifteen. But only the three of them were there: Sir David, Lady Caroline, and Fiona. The food had already been served, presumably by a butler or cook. Sir David gestured at an empty chair. Alex sat down.

‚Fiona was just talking about Soloman,' Lady Caroline said. There was a pause. ‚Soloman is a horse. We have lots of horses.' She turned to Alex. ‚Do you ride?'

‚Only my bicycle,' Alex said.

‚I’m sure Alex isn’t interested in horses,' Fiona said. She appeared to be in a bad mood. ‚In fact, I doubt if we have anything in common. Why do I have to pretend he’s my brother? The whole thing is completely—'

‚Fiona…,' Sir David muttered in a low voice.

‚Well, it’s all very well having him here, Daddy, but it is meant to be my Easter vacation.'

Alex realized that Fiona must go to a private school. Her term would have ended earlier than his. ‚I don’t think it’s fair.'

‚Alex is here because of my work,' Sir David continued. It was strange, Alex thought, the way they talked about him as if he weren’t actually there. ‚I know you have a lot of questions, Fiona, but you’re just going to have to do as I say. He’s with us only until the end of the week. I want you to look after him.'

‚But he’s a city boy!' Fiona insisted. ‚He’s going to hate it here. And anyway, how can pretending he’s my brother help you with your supermarkets?'

‚Fiona…' Sir David didn’t want any more argument. ‚It’s what I told you. An experiment.

And you will make him feel welcome!'

Fiona picked up her glass and looked directly at Alex for the first time since he had come into the room. ‚We’ll see about that,' she said.

The week seemed endless. After only two days, Alex was beginning to think that Fiona was right. He was a city boy. He had lived his whole life in London and felt utterly lost, suffocating in the big green blanket of the countryside. The estate went on for as far as the eye could see, and the Friends seemed to have no connection with the real world. Alex had never felt more isolated. Sir David himself had disappeared to London. Lady Caroline did her best to avoid Alex. Once or twice she drove into Skipton—the nearest town—but otherwise she seemed to spend a lot of time gardening or arranging flowers. And Fiona…

She had made it clear from the start how much she disliked Alex. There could be no reason for this. It was simply that he was an outsider, and Fiona seemed to mistrust anything that didn’t belong to the miniature world of Haverstock Hall. She’d asked him several times what he was really doing there. Alex had shrugged and said nothing, which had only made her dislike him all the more.

And then, on the third day, she introduced him to some of her friends.

‚I’m going shooting,' she told him. ‚I don’t suppose you want to come?'

Alex shrugged. He had memorized most of the details in the files and figured he could easily pass as a member of the family. Now he was counting the hours until the woman from the academy arrived to take him away.

‚Have you ever been shooting?' Fiona asked.

‚No,' Alex said.

‚I go hunting and shooting,' Fiona said. ‚But of course, you’re a city boy. You wouldn’t understand.'

‚What’s so great about killing animals?' Alex asked.

‚It’s part of the country way of life. It’s tradition.' Fiona looked at him as if he were stupid.

It was how she always looked at him. ‚Anyway, the animals enjoy it.'

The shooting party turned out to be young and—apart from Fiona—entirely male. Five of them were waiting on the edge of a forest that was part of the Haverstock estate. Rufus, the leader, was sixteen and well built with dark, curling hair. He seemed to be Fiona’s boyfriend.

The others—Henry, Max, Bartholomew, and Fred—were about the same age. Alex looked at them with a heavy heart. They had uniform Barbour jackets, tweed trousers, flat caps, and Huntsman leather boots. They spoke with uniform upper-class accents. Each of them carried a shotgun, with the barrel broken over his arm. Two of them were smoking. They gazed at Alex with barely concealed contempt. Fiona must have already told them about him. The city boy.

Quickly, she made the introductions. Rufus stepped forward.

‚Nice to have you with us,' he drawled. He ran his eyes over Alex, not bothering to hide his contempt. ‚Up for a bit of shooting, are you?'

‚I don’t have a gun,' Alex said.

‚Well, I’m afraid I’m not going to lend you mine.' Rufus snapped the barrel back into place and held it up for Alex to see. It was a beautiful gun, with twenty-five inches of gleaming steel stretching out of a dark walnut stock decorated with ornately carved, solid silver sideplates.

‚It’s an over-and-under shotgun with detachable trigger lock, handmade by Abbiatico and Salvinelli,' he said. ‚It cost me thirty grand—or my mother, anyway. It was a birthday present.'

‚It couldn’t have been easy to wrap,' Alex said. ‚Where did she put the ribbon?'

Rufus’s smile faded. ‚You wouldn’t know anything about guns,' he said. He nodded at one of the other teenagers, who handed Alex a much more ordinary weapon. It was old and a little rusty. ‚You can use this one,' he said. ‚And if you’re very good and don’t get in the way, maybe we’ll let you have a bullet.'

They all laughed at that. Then the two smokers put out their cigarettes and everyone set off into the woods.

Thirty minutes later, Alex knew he had made a mistake in coming. The boys blasted away left and right, aiming at anything that moved. A rabbit spun in a glistening red ball. A wood pigeon tumbled out of the branches and flapped around on the leaves below. Whatever the quality of their weapons, the teenagers weren’t good shots. The animals they managed to hit were only wounded, and Alex felt a growing sickness, following this trail of blood.

They reached a clearing and paused to reload. Alex turned to Fiona. ‚I’m going back to the house,' he said.

‚Why? Can’t stand the sight of a little blood?'

Alex glanced at a hare about fifty feet away. It was lying on its side with its back legs kicking helplessly. ‚I’m surprised they let you carry guns,' he said. ‚I thought you had to be seventeen.'

Rufus overheard him. He stepped forward, an ugly look in his eyes. ‚We don’t bother with rules in the countryside,' he muttered.

‚Maybe Alex wants to call a policeman!' Fiona said.

‚The nearest police station is forty miles from here,' Rufus said with a cold smile.

‚Do you want to borrow my cell phone?' one of the other boys asked.

They all laughed again. Alex had had enough. Without saying another word, he turned around and walked off.

It had taken him thirty minutes to reach the clearing, but thirty minutes later he was still stuck in the woods, completely surrounded by trees and wild shrubs. Alex realized he was lost.

He was annoyed with himself. He should have watched where he was going when he was following Fiona and the others. The forest was enormous. Walk in the wrong direction and he might blunder onto the North Yorkshire moors … and it could be days before he was found. At the same time, the spring foliage was so thick that he could barely see ten yards in any direction. How could he possibly find his way? Should he try to retrace his steps or continue forward in the hope of stumbling on the right path?

Alex sensed danger before the first shot was fired. Perhaps it was the snapping of a twig or the click of a metal bolt being slipped into place. He froze—and that was what saved him. There was an explosion—loud, close—and a tree one step ahead of him shattered, splinters of wood dancing in the air.

Alex turned around, searching for whoever had fired the shot. ‚What are you doing?' he shouted. ‚You nearly hit me!'

Almost immediately there was a second shot and, just behind it, a whoop of excited laughter. And then Alex realized what was happening: They hadn’t mistaken him for an animal. They were aiming at him for fun.

He dived forward and began to run. The trunks of the trees seemed to press in on him from all sides, threatening to bar his way. The ground underneath was soft from recent rain and dragged at his feet, trying to glue them into place. There was a third explosion. He ducked, feeling the gunshot spray above his head, shredding the foliage.

Anywhere else in the world, this would have been madness. But this was the middle of the English countryside and these were rich, bored teenagers who were used to having things their own way. Somehow, Alex had insulted them. Perhaps it had been the jibe about the wrapping paper. Perhaps it was his refusal to tell Fiona who he really was. But they had decided to teach him a lesson, and they would worry about the consequences later. Did they mean to kill him?

‚We don’t bother with rules in the countryside,' Rufus had said. If Alex was badly wounded—

or even killed—they would somehow get away with it. A dreadful accident. He wasn’t looking where he was going and stepped into the line of fire.

No. That was impossible.

They were trying to scare him—that was all.

Two more shots. A pheasant erupted out of the ground, a ball of spinning feathers, and screamed up into the sky. Alex ran on, his breath rasping in his throat. A thick briar reached out across his chest and tore at his clothes. He still had the gun he had been given, and he used it to beat a way through. A tangle of roots almost sent him sprawling.

‚Alex? Where are you?' The voice belonged to Rufus. It was high-pitched and mocking, coming from the other side of a barrier of leaves. There was another shot, but this one went high over his head. They couldn’t see him. Had he escaped?

No, he hadn’t. Alex came to a stumbling, sweating halt. He had broken out of the woods but he was still hopelessly lost. Worse—he was trapped. He had come to the edge of a wide, filthy lake. The water was a scummy brown and looked almost solid. No ducks or wild birds came anywhere near the surface. The evening sun beat down on it and the smell of decay drifted up.

‚He went that way!'

‚No … through here!'

‚Let’s try the lake.'

Alex heard the voices and knew that he couldn’t let them find him here. He had a sudden image of his body, weighed down with stones, at the bottom of the lake. But that gave him an idea. He had to hide.

He stepped into the water. He would need something to breathe through. He had seen people do this in films. They would lie in the water and breathe through a hollow reed. But there were no reeds here. Apart from grass and thick, slimy algae, nothing was growing at all.

One minute later, Rufus appeared at the edge of the lake, his gun still hooked over his arm.

He stopped and looked around with eyes that knew the forest well. Nothing moved.

‚He must have doubled back,' he said.

The other hunters had gathered behind him. There was tension between them now, a guilty silence. They knew the game had gone too far.

‚Let’s forget him,' one of them said.

‚Yeah…'

‚We’ve taught him a lesson.'

They were in a hurry to get home. As one, they disappeared back the way they had come.

Rufus was left on his own, still clutching his gun, searching for Alex. He took one last look across the water, then turned to follow them.

That was when Alex struck. He had been lying under the water, watching the vague shapes of the teenagers as if through a sheet of thick brown glass. The barrel of the shotgun was in his mouth. The rest of the gun was just above the surface of the lake. He was using the hollow tubes to breathe. Now he rose up—a nightmare creature oozing mud and water, with fury in his eyes.

Rufus heard him but he was too late. Alex swung the shotgun, catching Rufus in the small of the back. Rufus grunted and fell to his knees, his own gun falling out of his hands. Alex picked it up. There were two cartridges in the breech. He snapped the gun shut.

Rufus looked at him, and suddenly all the arrogance had gone and he was just a stupid, frightened teenager, struggling to get to his knees.

‚Alex…' The single word came out as a whimper. It was as if he were seeing Alex for the first time. ‚I’m sorry!' he sniveled. ‚We weren’t really going to hurt you. It was a joke. Fiona put us up to it. We just wanted to scare you. Please…'

Alex paused, breathing heavily. ‚How do I get out of here?' he asked.

‚Just follow the lake around,' Rufus said. ‚There’s a path.'

Rufus was still on his knees. There were tears in his eyes. Alex realized that he was pointing the silver-plated shotgun in his direction. He turned it away, disgusted with himself. This boy wasn’t the enemy. He was nothing.

‚Don’t follow me,' Alex said and began to walk.

‚Please!' Rufus called after him. ‚Can I have my gun back? My mother would kill me if I lost it.'

Alex stopped. He weighed the weapon in his hands, then threw it with all his strength. The handcrafted Italian shotgun spun twice in the dying light, then disappeared with a splash in the middle of the lake. ‚You’re too young to play with guns,' he said.

He walked away, letting the forest swallow him up.

THE TUNNEL

« ^ »

THE MAN SITTING IN THE gold, antique chair turned his head slowly and gazed out the window at the snow-covered slopes of Point Blanc. Dr. Hugo Grief was almost sixty years old with short, white hair and a face that was almost colorless too. His skin was white, his lips vague shadows. Even his tongue was no more than gray. And yet, against this blank background, he wore circular wire glasses with dark red lenses. For him, the entire world would be the color of blood. He had long fingers, the nails beautifully manicured. He was dressed in a dark suit buttoned up to his neck. If there were such a thing as a vampire, it might look very much like Dr. Hugo Grief.

‚I have decided to move the Gemini Project into its last phase,' he said. He spoke with a South African accent, biting into each word before it left his mouth. ‚There can be no further delay.'

‚I understand, Dr. Grief.'

A woman sat opposite Dr. Grief, dressed in tight-fitting spandex with a sweatband around her head. This was Eva Stellenbosch. She had just finished her morning workout—two hours of weight lifting and aerobics—and was still breathing heavily, her huge muscles rising and falling. Mrs. Stellenbosch had a facial structure that wasn’t quite human, with lips curving out far in front of her nose and wisps of bright ginger hair hanging over a high-domed forehead.

She was holding a glass filled with some milky green liquid. Her fingers were thick and stubby.

She had to be careful not to break the glass.

She sipped her drink, then frowned. ‚Are you sure we’re ready?' she asked.

‚We have no choice in the matter. We have had two unsatisfactory results in the last few months. First Ivanov. Then Roscoe in New York. Quite apart from the expense of arranging the terminations, it’s possible that someone may have connected the two deaths.'

‚Possible, but unlikely,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said.

‚The intelligence services are idle and inefficient, it is true. The CIA in America. MI6 in England. Even the KGB. They’re all shadows of what they used to be. But even so, there’s always the chance that one of them might have accidentally stumbled onto something. The sooner we end this phase of the operation, the more chance we have of remaining unnoticed.'

Dr. Grief brought his hands together and rested his chin on his fingers. ‚When is the final boy arriving?' he asked.

‚Alex?' Mrs. Stellenbosch sipped from her cup and set it down. She opened her handbag and took out a handkerchief, which she used to wipe her lips. ‚I am traveling to England tomorrow,' she said.

‚Excellent. You’ll take the boy to Paris on the way here?'

‚Of course, Doctor. If that’s what you wish.'

‚It is very much what I wish. We can do all the preliminary work there. It will save time.

What about the Sprintz boy?'

‚I’m afraid we still need another few days.'

‚That means that he and Alex will be here at the same time.'

‚Yes.'

Dr. Grief considered. He had to balance the risk of the two boys meeting against the dangers of moving too fast. It was fortunate that he had a scientific mind. His calculations were never wrong. ‚Very well,' he said. ‚The Sprintz boy can stay with us for another few days. I sense he is growing restless, and a new friend might put his mind at ease.'

Mrs. Stellenbosch nodded. She lifted her glass and emptied its contents, the veins in her neck throbbing as she swallowed.

‚Alex Friend is an excellent catch for us,' Dr. Grief said.

‚Supermarkets?' The woman sounded unconvinced.

‚His father has the prime minister’s ear. He is an impressive man. His son, I am sure, will meet up to all our expectations.' Dr. Grief smiled. His eyes glowed red. ‚Very soon, we’ll have Alex here, at the academy. And then, at last, the Gemini Project will be complete.'

‚You’re sitting all wrong,' Fiona said. ‚Your back isn’t straight. Your hands should be lower. And your feet are pointing the wrong way.'

‚What does it matter, so long as you’re enjoying yourself?' Alex asked, speaking through gritted teeth.

It was the fourth day of his stay at Haverstock Hall, and Fiona had been persuaded to take him out riding. Alex wasn’t enjoying himself at all. First he’d had to endure the inevitable lecture—although he had barely listened. The horses were Iberian or Hungarian. They’d won a bucketful of gold medals. Alex didn’t care. All he knew was that his horse was big and black and attracted flies. And that he was riding it with all the style of a sack of potatoes on a trampoline.

The two of them had barely mentioned the business in the forest. When Alex had limped back to the house, soaked and freezing, Fiona had politely fetched him a towel and offered him a cup of tea.

‚You tried to kill me!' Alex said.

‚Don’t be silly.' Fiona looked at Alex with something like pity in her eyes. ‚We would never do that. Rufus is a very nice boy.'

‚What?'

‚It was just a game, Alex. Just a bit of fun.'

And that was it. Fiona had smiled as if everything had been explained and then gone to have a swim. Alex had spent the rest of the evening with the files. He was trying to take in a fake history that spanned fourteen years. There were uncles and aunts, friends at Eton, a whole crowd of people he had to know without ever having met any of them. More than that, he was trying to get the feel of this luxurious lifestyle. That was why he was here now, out riding with Fiona—she upright in her riding jacket and breeches, he bumping along behind.

They had ridden for about an hour and a half when they came to a tunnel. Fiona had tried to teach Alex a bit of technique—the difference, for example, between walking, trotting, and cantering. But this was one sport he had already decided he would never take up. Every bone in his body had been rattled out of shape, and his bottom was so bruised he wondered if he would ever be able to sit down again. Fiona seemed to be enjoying his torment. He even wondered if she had chosen a particularly bumpy route to add to his bruises. Or maybe it was just a particularly bumpy horse.

There was a single railway line ahead of them, crossed by a tiny lane with an automatic gate crossing equipped with a bell and flashing lights to warn motorists of any approaching train.

Fiona steered her horse—a smaller gray—toward it. Alex’s horse automatically followed. He assumed they were going to cross the line, but when she reached the barrier, Fiona stopped.

‚There’s a shortcut we can take if you want to get home,' she said.

‚A shortcut would be good,' Alex admitted.

‚It’s that way.'

Fiona pointed up the line toward a tunnel, a gaping black hole in the side of a hill, surrounded by dark red brick. Alex looked at her to see if she was joking. She was obviously quite serious. He turned back to the tunnel. It was like the barrel of a gun, pointing at him, warning him to keep away. He could almost imagine the giant finger on the trigger, somewhere behind the hill. How long was it? Looking more carefully, he could see a pinprick of light at the other end, perhaps half a mile away.

‚You’re not serious,' he said.

‚Actually, Alex, I don’t usually tell jokes. When I say something, I mean it. I’m just like my father.'

‚Except your father isn’t completely crazy,' Alex muttered.

Fiona pretended not to hear him. ‚The tunnel is about one mile long,' she explained.

‚There’s a bridge on the other side, then another gate crossing. If we go that way, we can be home in thirty minutes. Otherwise it’s an hour and a half back the way we came.'

‚Then let’s go the way we came.'

‚Oh, Alex, don’t be such a scaredy-cat!' Fiona pouted at him. ‚There’s only one train an hour on this line and the next one isn’t due for…' She looked at her watch. ‚…twenty minutes.

I’ve been through the tunnel a hundred times and it never takes more than five minutes. Less if you canter.'

‚It’s still crazy to ride on a railway line.'

‚Well, you’ll have to find your own way home if you turn back.' She kicked with her heels and her horse jerked forward, past the barrier and onto the line. ‚I’ll see you later.'

But Alex followed her. He would never have been able to ride back to the house on his own.

He didn’t know the way, and he could barely control his horse. Even now it was following Fiona with no prompting from him. Would the two animals really enter the darkness of the tunnel? It seemed incredible, but Fiona had said they had done it before, and sure enough, the horses walked into the side of the hill without even hesitating.

Alex shivered as the light was suddenly cut off behind him. It was cold and clammy inside.

The air smelled of soot and diesel. The tunnel was a natural echo chamber. The horses’ hooves rattled all around them as they struck against the gravel between the ties. What if his horse stumbled? Alex put the thought out of his mind. The leather saddles creaked. Slowly his eyes got used to the dark. A certain amount of sunshine was filtering in from behind. More comfortingly, the way out was clearly visible straight ahead, the circle of light widening with every step. He tried to relax. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

And then Fiona spoke. She had slowed down, allowing his horse to catch up with hers. ‚Are you still worried about the train, Alex?' she said scornfully. ‚Perhaps you’d like to go faster.'

He heard the riding crop whistle through the air and felt his horse jerk as Fiona whipped it hard on the rear. The horse whinnied and leapt forward. Alex was almost thrown backward off the saddle. Digging in with his legs, he just managed to cling on, but the whole top of his body was at a crazy angle, the reins tearing into the horse’s mouth. Fiona laughed. And then Alex was aware only of the wind rushing past him, the thick blackness spinning around his face and the horses’ hooves striking heavily at the gravel as the animal careened forward. Soot blew into his eyes, blinding him. He thought he was going to fall. Minutes seemed to pass in mere seconds.

But then, miraculously, they burst out into the light. Alex fought for his balance and then brought the horse back under control, pulling back with the reins and squeezing the horse’s flanks with his knees. He took a deep breath and waited for Fiona to appear.

His horse had come to rest on the bridge that she had mentioned. The bridge was fashioned out of thick iron girders and spanned a river. There had been a lot of rain that month and, about fifty feet below him, the water was racing past, dark green and deep. Carefully, he turned around to face the tunnel. If he lost control here, it would be easy to fall over the edge. The sides of the bridge couldn’t have been more than three feet high.

He could hear Fiona approaching. She had been cantering after him, probably laughing the entire way. He gazed into the tunnel, and that was when Fiona’s gray horse burst out, raced past him, and disappeared through the gate crossing on the other side of the bridge.

But Fiona wasn’t on it.

The horse had come out alone.

It took Alex a few seconds to work it out. His head was reeling. She must have fallen off.

Perhaps her horse had stumbled. She could be lying inside the tunnel. On the track. How long was there until the next train? Twenty minutes, she had said. But at least five of those minutes had gone, and she might have been exaggerating to begin with.

Alex swore. Damn this wretched girl with her spoiled brat behavior and her almost suicidal games. But he couldn’t leave her. He seized hold of the reins. Somehow he would get this horse to obey him. He had to get her out, and he had to do it fast.

Perhaps his desperation managed to communicate itself to the horse’s brain. The animal wheeled around and tried to back away, but when Alex kicked with his heels, it stumbled forward and reluctantly entered the darkness of the tunnel for a second time. Alex kicked again.

He didn’t want to hurt it, but he could think of no other way to make it obey him.

The horse trotted on. Alex searched ahead. ‚Fiona!' he called out. There was no reply. He had hoped that she would be walking toward him, but he couldn’t hear any footsteps. If only there were more light!

The horse stopped and there she was, right in front of him, lying on the ground, her arms and chest actually on the line. If a train came now, it would cut her in half. It was too dark to see her face, but when she spoke he heard the pain in her voice.

‚Alex…,' she said. ‚I think I’ve broken my ankle.'

‚What happened?'

‚There was a cobweb or something. I was trying to keep up with you. It went in my face and I lost my balance.'

She’d been trying to keep up with him! She almost sounded as if she were blaming him—as if she had forgotten that she was the one who had whipped his horse on in the first place.

‚Can you get up?' Alex asked.

‚I don’t think so.'

Alex sighed. Keeping a tight hold on the reins, he slid off his horse. Fiona had fallen right in the middle of the tunnel. He forced himself not to panic. If what she had told him was true, the next train must still be at least ten minutes away.

He reached down to help her up. His foot came to rest on one of the rails …

… and he felt something. Under his foot. Shivering up his leg. The track was vibrating.

The train was on its way.

‚You’ve got to stand up,' he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. He could already see the train in his imagination, thundering along the line. When it plunged into the tunnel, it would be a five-hundred-ton torpedo that would smash them to pieces. He could hear the grinding of the wheels, the roar of the engines. Blood and darkness. It would be a horrible way to die.

But he still had time.

‚Can you move your toes?' he asked.

‚I think so.' Fiona was clutching him.

‚Then your ankle’s probably sprained, not broken. Come on.'

He dragged her up, wondering if it would be possible to stay inside the tunnel, on the edge of the track. If they hugged the wall, the train might simply go past them. But Alex knew there wouldn’t be enough space. And even if the train missed them, it would still hit the horse.

Suppose it derailed? Dozens of people could be killed.

‚What train comes this way?' he asked. ‚Does it carry passengers?'

‚Yes.' Fiona was sounding tearful. ‚It’s a Virgin train. Heading up to Glasgow.'

Alex sighed. It was just his luck to get the only Virgin train ever to arrive on time.

Fiona froze. ‚What’s that?' she asked.

She had heard the clanging of a bell. The gate crossing! It was signaling the approach of the train, the barrier lowering itself over the road.

And then Alex heard a second sound that made his blood run cold. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. It was extraordinary. His breath was stuck in his lungs and refused to get up to his mouth. His whole body was paralyzed as if some switch had been thrown in his brain. He was simply terrified.

The screech of a train whistle. It was still a mile or more away, but the tunnel was acting as a sound conductor and he could feel it cutting into him. And then another sound: the rolling thunder of the diesel engine. It was moving fast toward them. Underneath his foot, the rail vibrated more violently.

Alex gulped for air and forced his legs to obey him. ‚Get on the horse,' he shouted. ‚I’ll help you.'

Not caring how much pain he caused her, he dragged Fiona next to the horse and forced her up onto the saddle. The noise grew louder with every second that passed. The rail was humming softly, like a giant tuning fork. The very air inside the tunnel seemed to be in motion, spinning left and right as if trying to get out of the way.

Fiona squealed and Alex felt her weight leave his arms as she fell onto the saddle. The horse whinnied and took a half step sideways, and for a dreadful moment Alex thought she was going to ride off without him. There was just enough light to make out the shapes of both the animal and its rider.

He saw Fiona grabbing the reins. She brought it back under control. Alex reached up and caught hold of the horse’s mane. He used the thick hair to pull himself onto the saddle, in front of Fiona. The noise of the train was getting louder and louder. Soot and loose concrete were trickling out of the curving walls. The wind currents were twisting faster, the rails singing. For a moment the two of them were tangled together, but then he had the reins and she was clinging on to him, her arms around his chest.

‚Go!' he shouted and kicked the horse.

The horse needed no encouragement. It raced for the light, galloping up the railway line, throwing Alex and Fiona back and forward, into each other.

Alex didn’t dare look behind him, but he felt the train as it reached the mouth of the tunnel and plunged in, traveling at 105 miles per hour. A shock wave hammered into them. The train was punching the air out of its way, filling the space with solid steel. The horse understood the danger and burst forward with new speed, its hooves flying over the ties in great strides. Ahead of them the tunnel mouth opened up, but Alex knew, with a sickening sense of despair, that they weren’t going to make it. Even when they got out of the tunnel, they would still be hemmed in by the sides of the bridge. The second gate crossing was a hundred yards farther down the line. They might get out but they would die in the open air.

The horse passed through the end of the tunnel. Alex felt the circle of darkness slip over his shoulders. Fiona was screaming, her arms wrapped around him so tightly that he could barely breathe. He could hardly hear her. The roar of the train was right behind him, and as the horse began a desperate race over the bridge, he sneaked a glance around. He just had time to see the huge, metallic beast roar out of the tunnel, towering over them, its body painted the brilliant red of the Virgin colors, the driver staring in horror from behind his window. There was a second blast from the train whistle, this one all-consuming, exploding all around them. Alex knew what he had to do. He pulled on one rein, at the same time kicking with the opposite foot.

He just had to hope the horse would understand what he wanted.

And somehow it worked. The horse veered around. Now it was facing the side of the bridge. There was a final, deafening blast from the train. Diesel fumes smothered them. Alex kicked again with all his strength. The horse jumped.

The train roared past, missing them by inches. But now they were in the air, over the side of the bridge. The railcars were still thundering past, a red blur. Fiona screamed a second time.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion as they fell. One moment they were next to the bridge, a moment later underneath it and still falling. The green river rose up to receive them.

The horse with its two riders plummeted through the air and crashed into the river. Alex just had time to snatch a breath. He was afraid that the water wouldn’t be deep enough, that all three of them would end up with broken necks. But they hit the surface and passed through, down into a freezing, dark green whirlpool that sucked at them greedily, threatening to keep them there forever. Fiona was torn away from him. He felt the horse kick itself free. Bubbles exploded out of his mouth and he realized he was yelling.

Finally, Alex rose to the surface again. The water was rushing past and, dragged back by his clothes and shoes, he clumsily swam for the nearest bank.

The train driver hadn’t stopped. Perhaps he had been too frightened by what had happened. Perhaps he wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. Either way, the train had gone. Alex reached the bank and pulled himself, shivering, onto the grass. There was a splutter and a cough from behind him, and Fiona appeared. She had lost her riding hat, and her long black hair was hanging over her face. Alex looked past her. The horse had also managed to reach dry land. It trotted forward and shook itself, seemingly unharmed. Alex was glad about that. When all was said and done, the horse had saved both their lives.

He stood up. Water dripped out of his clothes. There was no feeling anywhere in his body.

He wondered whether it was because of the cold water or the shock of what he had just been through. He went over to Fiona and helped her to her feet.

‚Are you all right?' he asked.

‚Yes.' She was looking at him strangely. She wobbled, and he put out a hand to steady her.

‚Thank you,' she said.

‚That’s all right.'

‚No.' She held on to his hand. Her shirt had fallen open and she threw back her head, shaking the hair out of her eyes. ‚What you did back there … it was fantastic. Alex, I’m sorry I’ve been so awful to you all week. I thought—because you were here only for charity and all the rest of it—I thought you were just an oik. But I was wrong about you. You’re really great.

And I know we’re going to be friends now.' She half closed her eyes and moved toward him, her lips slightly parted. ‚You can kiss me if you like,' she said.

Alex let go of her and turned away. ‚Thanks, Fiona,' he said. ‚But frankly I’d prefer to kiss the horse.'

SPECIAL EDITION

« ^ »

THE HELICOPTER CIRCLED twice over Haverstock Hall before beginning its descent. It was a Robinson R44, fourseater aircraft, American built. There was only one person—the pilot—

inside. Sir David Friend had returned from London, and he and his wife came outside to watch it land in front of the house. The engine noise died down and the rotors began to slow. The cabin door slid open, and the pilot got out, dressed in a one-piece leather flying suit, helmet, and goggles.

The pilot walked up to them, extending a hand. ‚Good morning,' she shouted over the noise of the rotors. ‚I’m Mrs. Stellenbosch. From the academy…'

If Sir David and Lady Caroline had been thrown by their first sight of Alex, the appearance of the assistant director left them frozen to the spot. Sir David was the first to recover. ‚You flew the helicopter yourself?'

‚Yes … I’m qualified,' Mrs. Stellenbosch answered.

‚Would you like to come in?' Lady Caroline said. ‚Perhaps you’d like some tea.'

She led them into the house and into the living room, where Mrs. Stellenbosch sat, legs apart, her helmet on the sofa beside her. Sir David and Lady Caroline sat opposite her. Tea had been brought in on a tray.

‚Do you mind if I smoke?' Mrs. Stellenbosch asked.

She reached into a pocket and took out a small packet of cigars without waiting for an answer. She lit one and blew smoke. ‚What a very beautiful house you have, Sir David.

Georgian, I would say, but decorated with such taste! And where, may I ask, is Alex?'

‚He went for a walk,' Sir David said.

‚Perhaps he’s a little nervous.' She smiled again and took the teacup Lady Caroline had proffered. ‚I understand that Alex has been a great source of concern to you.'

Sir David Friend nodded. His eyes gave nothing away. For the next few minutes, he told Mrs. Stellenbosch about Alex, how he had been expelled from Eton, how out of control he had become. Lady Caroline listened to all this in silence, occasionally holding her husband’s arm.

‚I’m at my wit’s end,' Sir David concluded. ‚We have an older daughter, and she’s perfectly delightful. But Alex’? He hangs around the house. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t show any interest in anything. His appearance … well, you’ll see for yourself. The Point Blanc Academy is our last resort, Mrs. Stellenbosch. We’re desperately hoping you can straighten him out.'

The assistant director poked at the air with her cigar, leaving a gray trail. ‚I’m sure you’ve been a marvelous father, Sir David,' she purred. ‚But these modern children! It’s heartbreaking the way some of them behave. You’ve done the right thing, coming to us. As I’m sure you know, the academy has had a remarkable success rate over the years.'

‚What exactly do you do?' Lady Caroline asked.

‚We have our methods.' The woman’s eyes twinkled.

She tapped ash into her saucer. ‚But I can promise you, we’ll straighten out all his problems.

Don’t you worry! When he comes home, he’ll be a completely different boy.'

Alex had reached the edge of a field about a half mile from the house. He had seen the helicopter land and knew that his time had come. But he wasn’t ready yet to leave. Mrs. Jones had telephoned him the night before. Once again, MI6 wasn’t going to send him empty-handed into what might be enemy territory.

He watched as a combine harvester rumbled slowly toward him, cutting a swathe through the grass. It jerked to a halt a short distance away, and the door of the cabin opened. A man got out—with difficulty. He was so fat that he had to squeeze himself out, first one buttock, then the next, and finally his stomach, shoulders, and head. The man was wearing a checked shirt and blue overalls—a farmer’s outfit. But even if he’d had a straw hat and a blade of corn between his teeth, Alex could never have imagined him actually farming anything.

The man grinned at him. ‚Hello, old chap!' he said.

‚Hello, Mr. Smithers,' Alex replied.

Smithers worked for MI6. He had supplied the various devices Alex had used on his last mission. ‚Very nice to see you again!' he exclaimed. He winked. ‚What do you think of the cover? I was told to blend in with the countryside.'

‚The combine harvester’s a great idea,' Alex said. ‚Except, this is April. There isn’t anything to harvest.'

‚I hadn’t thought of that!' Smithers beamed. ‚The trouble is, I’m not really a field agent.

Field agent!' He looked around him and laughed. ‚Anyway, I’m jolly glad to have the chance to work with you again, Alex—to think up a few bits and pieces for you. It’s not often I get a teenager. Much more fun than the adults!'

He reached into the cabin and pulled out a suitcase. ‚Actually, it’s been a bit tricky this time,' he went on.

‚Have you got another Nintendo Game Boy?' Alex asked.

‚No. That’s just it. The school doesn’t allow Game Boys—or any computers at all, for that matter. They supply their own laptops. I could have hidden a dozen gadgets inside a laptop, but there you are! Now, let’s see…' He opened the case. ‚I’m told there’s still a lot of snow up at Point Blanc’ so you’ll need this.'

‚A ski suit,' Alex said. That was what Smithers was holding.

‚Yes. But it’s highly insulated and also bulletproof.' He pulled out a pair of green-tinted goggles. ‚These are ski goggles. But in case you have to go anywhere at night, they’re actually infrared. There’s a battery concealed in the frame. Just press the switch and you’ll be able to see about twenty yards, even if there’s no moon.'

Smithers reached into the case a second time. ‚Now, what else would a boy of your age have with him? Fortunately, you’re allowed to take a Sony Discman, provided all the CDs are classical.' He handed Alex the machine.

‚So while people are shooting at me in the middle of the night, I get to listen to music,' Alex said.

‚Absolutely. Only don’t play the Beethoven!' Smithers held up the disc. ‚The Discman converts into an electric saw. The CD is diamond-edged. It’ll cut through just about anything—

useful if you need to get out in a hurry. There’s also a panic button I’ve built in. If you’re in real trouble and you need help, just press Fast Forward three times. It’ll send out a signal that our satellite will pick up. And then we can fast forward you out!'

‚Thank you, Mr. Smithers,' Alex said, but he was disappointed and it showed.

Smithers understood. ‚I know what you want,' he said. ‚But you know you can’t have it.

No guns! Mr. Blunt is adamant. He thinks you’re too young.'

‚Not too young to get killed, though.'

‚I know. So I’ve given it a bit of thought and rustled up a couple of … defensive measures, so to speak. This is just between you and me, you understand. I’m not sure Mr. Blunt would approve.'

He held out a hand. A gold ear stud lay in two pieces in the middle of his palm: a diamond shape for the front and a catch to hold it at the back. The stud looked tiny surrounded by so much flesh. ‚They told me you’d had your ear pierced,' he said. ‚So I made you this. Be very careful after you’ve put it in. Bringing the two pieces together will activate it.'

‚Activate what?' Alex looked doubtful.

‚The ear stud is a small but very powerful explosive device. Like a miniature grenade.

Separating the two pieces again will set it off. Count to ten and it’ll blow a hole in just about anything … or anyone, I should add.'

‚Just so long as it doesn’t blow off my ear,' Alex muttered.

‚No, no. It’s perfectly safe so long as the pieces remain attached.' Smithers smiled. ‚And finally, I’m very pleased with this. It’s exactly what you’d expect to find in a young boy’s luggage, and I designed it especially for you.' He had produced a book.

Alex took it. It was a hardcover edition of the latest Harry Potter book. ‚Thanks,' he said.

‚But I’ve already read it.'

‚This is a special edition. There’s a gun built into the spine, and the chamber is loaded with a stun dart. Just point it and press the author’s name. It’ll knock out an adult in less than five seconds.'

Alex smiled. Smithers climbed back into the combine harvester. For a moment he seemed to have wedged himself permanently into the door, but then with a grunt he managed to go the whole way. ‚Good luck, old chap,' he said. ‚Come back in one piece! I really do enjoy having you around!'

It was time to go.

Alex’s luggage was being loaded into the helicopter, and he was standing next to his new parents, clutching the Harry Potter book. Eva Stellenbosch was waiting for him underneath the rotors. He had been shocked by her appearance, and at first he had tried to hide it. But then he’d relaxed. He didn’t have to be polite. Alex Rider might have good manners, but Alex Friend wouldn’t give a damn what she thought. He glanced at her scornfully now and noticed that she was watching him carefully as he said good-bye.

Once again, Sir David Friend acted his part perfectly. ‚Good-bye, Alex,' he said. ‚You will write to us and let us know you’re okay?'

‚If you want,' Alex said.

Lady Caroline moved forward and kissed him. Alex backed away from her as if embarrassed. He had to admit that she looked genuinely sad.

‚Come, Alex!' Mrs. Stellenbosch was in a hurry to get away. She had told him that the helicopter had a range of only four hundred miles and that they would need to stop in Paris to refuel.

And then Fiona appeared, crossing the grass toward them. Alex hadn’t spoken to her for the last two days, not since the business at the tunnel. Nor had she spoken to him. He had rejected her, and he knew she would never forgive him. She hadn’t come down to breakfast this morning, and he’d assumed she wouldn’t show herself again until he’d gone. So what was she doing here now?

Suddenly Alex knew. She’d come to cause trouble—one last jab below the belt. He could see it in her eyes and in the way she flounced across the lawn with her hands rolled into fists.

Fiona didn’t know he was a spy. But she must know that he was here for a reason, and she had probably guessed it had something to do with the woman from Point Blanc. So she had decided to come out and spoil things for him.

Maybe she was going to ask questions. Maybe she was going to give Mrs. Stellenbosch a piece of her mind. Either way, Alex knew that his mission would be over before it had even begun. All his work memorizing the files and all the time he had spent with the family would have been for nothing.

‚Fiona…' Sir David muttered. His eyes were grave. He had come to the same conclusion as Alex.

She ignored him. ‚Are you from the academy?' she asked, speaking directly to Mrs. Stellenbosch.

‚Yes, my dear.'

‚Well, I think there’s something you should know.'

There was only one thing Alex could do. He lifted the Harry Potter book and pointed it at Fiona, then pressed the spine once, hard. There was no noise, but he felt the book shudder in his hand. Fiona put her hand to the side of her leg. All the color drained out of her face. She crumpled to the grass.

Lady Caroline ran to her. Mrs. Stellenbosch looked puzzled. Alex turned to her, his face blank. ‚That’s my sister,' he said. ‚She gets very emotional.'

Two minutes later, the helicopter took off. Alex watched through the window as Haverstock Hall got smaller and smaller and then disappeared behind them. He looked at Mrs. Stellenbosch, hunched over the controls, her eyes hidden by her goggles. He eased himself into his chair and let himself be carried away into the darkening sky. Then the clouds rolled in.

The countryside was gone. So was his only weapon. Alex was on his own.

ROOM 13

« ^ »

IT WAS RAINING IN PARIS. The city looked tired and disappointed, the Eiffel Tower fighting against a mass of heavy clouds. There was nobody sitting at the tables outside the cafes, and for once the little kiosks selling paintings and postcards were being ignored by the tourists, who were hurrying back to their hotels. It was five o’clock in the afternoon and the evening was drawing in, unnoticed. The shops and offices were emptying, but the city didn’t care. It just wanted to be left alone.

The helicopter had landed in a private area of Charles de Gaulle airport, and a car had been waiting to drive them in. Alex had said nothing during the flight and now he sat on his own in the back, watching the buildings flash by. They were following the Seine, moving surprisingly fast along a wide, two-lane road that dipped above and below the water level. Their route took them past Notre Dame. Then they turned off, weaving their way through a series of back streets with smaller restaurants and boutiques fighting for space on the pavements.

‚The Marais,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said to Alex, pointing out the window.

He pretended to show no interest. In fact, he had stayed in the Marais once with his uncle and knew it as one of the most sophisticated and expensive sections in Paris.

The car turned into a large square and stopped. Alex glanced out the window. He was surrounded on four sides by the tall, classical houses for which Paris is famous. But the square had been disfigured by a single modern hotel. It was a white, rectangular block, the windows fitted with dark glass that allowed no view inside. It rose up four floors with a flat roof and the name HOTEL DU MONDE in gold letters above the main door. If a spaceship had landed in the square, crushing a couple of buildings to make room for itself, it couldn’t have looked more out of place.

‚This is where we’re staying,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said. ‚The hotel is owned by the academy.'

The driver took their cases out of the trunk. Alex followed the assistant director toward the entrance, the door sliding open automatically to allow them in. The lobby was cold and faceless, white marble and mirrors with a single potted plant tucked into a corner as an afterthought.

There was a small reception desk with an unsmiling male receptionist in a dark suit and glasses, a computer, and a row of pigeonholes. Alex counted them. There were fifteen. Presumably, the hotel had fifteen rooms.

‚ Bonsoir, Madame Stellenbosch.' The receptionist nodded his head slightly. He ignored Alex. ‚I hope you had a good journey from England,' he continued, still speaking in French.

Alex gazed blankly, as if he hadn’t understood a word. Alex Friend wouldn’t speak French. He wouldn’t have bothered to learn. But Ian Rider had made certain that his nephew was speaking French almost as soon as he was speaking English. Not to mention German and Spanish as well.

The receptionist took down two keys. He didn’t ask either of them to sign in. He didn’t ask for a credit card. The school owned the hotel, so there would be no bill when they left. He gave Alex one of the keys.

‚I hope you’re not superstitious,' he said, speaking in English now.

‚No,' Alex replied.

‚It is room thirteen. On the first floor. I am sure you will find it most agreeable.' The receptionist smiled.

Mrs. Stellenbosch took her key. ‚The hotel has its own restaurant,' she said. Her voice was gravelly and strangely masculine. Her breath smelled of cigar smoke. ‚We might as well eat here tonight. We don’t want to go out in the rain. Anyway, the food here is excellent. Do you like French food, Alex?'

‚Not much,' Alex said.

‚Well, I’m sure we’ll find something that you like. Why don’t you freshen up after the journey?' She looked at her watch. ‚We’ll eat at seven—an hour and a half from now. It will give us an opportunity to talk together. Might I suggest, perhaps, some neater clothes for dinner? The French are informal, but—if you’ll forgive me saying so, my dear—you take informality a little far. I’ll call you at five to seven. I hope the room is all right.'

Room 13 was at the end of a long, narrow corridor. The door opened into a surprisingly large space, with views over the square. There was a double bed with a black-and-white comforter, a television and minibar, a desk, and, on the wall, a couple of framed pictures of Paris. A porter had carried up Alex’s suitcase, and as soon as he was gone, Alex kicked off his shoes and sat down on the bed. He wondered why they had come here. He knew the helicopter had needed refueling, but that shouldn’t have necessitated an overnight stop. Why not fly on straight to the school?

He had more than an hour to kill. First he went into the bathroom—more glass and white marble—and took a long shower. Then, wrapped in a towel, he went back into the room and turned on the television. Alex Friend would watch a lot of television. There were about thirty channels to choose from. Alex skipped past the French ones and stopped on MTV. He wondered if he was being monitored. There was a large mirror next to the desk, and it would be easy enough to conceal a camera behind it. Well, why not give them something to think about?

He opened the minibar and poured himself a glass of gin. Then he went into the bathroom, refilled the bottle with water, and put it back in the fridge. Drinking alcohol and stealing! If she was watching, Madame Stellenbosch would know that she had her hands full with him.

He spent the next forty minutes watching television and pretending to drink the gin. Then he took the glass into the bathroom and dumped it in the sink. It was time to get dressed.

Should he do what he was told and put on neater clothes? In the end, he compromised. He put on a new shirt, but kept the same jeans. A moment later, the telephone rang. His call for dinner.

Mrs. Stellenbosch was waiting for him in the restaurant, a large, airless room in the basement. Soft lighting and mirrors had been used to make it feel more spacious, but it was still the last place Alex would have chosen. The restaurant could have been anywhere, in any part of the world. There were two other diners—businessmen, from the looks of them—but otherwise they were alone. Mrs. Stellenbosch had changed into a black evening dress with feathers at the collar, and she had an antique necklace of black and silver beads. The fancier her clothes, Alex thought, the uglier she looked. She was smoking another cigar.

‚Ah, Alex!' She blew smoke. ‚Did you have a rest? Or did you watch TV?'

Alex didn’t say anything. He sat down and opened the menu, then closed it again when he saw that it was all in French.

‚You must let me order for you. Some soup to start, perhaps? And then a steak. I’ve never yet met a boy who doesn’t like steak.'

‚My cousin Oliver is a vegetarian,' Alex said. It was something he had read in one of the files.

The assistant director nodded as if she already knew this. ‚Then he doesn’t know what he is missing,' she said. A palefaced waiter came over and she placed the order in French. ‚What will you drink?' she asked.

‚I’ll have a Coke.'

‚A repulsive drink, I’ve always thought. I have never understood the taste. But of course, you shall have what you want.'

The waiter brought a Coke for Alex and a glass of champagne for Mrs. Stellenbosch. Alex watched the bubbles rising in the two glasses, his black, hers a pale yellow.

‚ Sante.' she said.

‚I’m sorry?'

‚It’s French for good health.'

‚Oh. Cheers…'

There was a moment’s silence. The woman’s eyes were fixed on him as if she could see right through him. ‚So you were at Eton,' she said casually.

‚That’s right.' Alex was suddenly on his guard.

‚What house were you in?'

‚The Hopgarden.' It was the name of a real house at the school. Alex had read the file carefully.

‚I visited Eton once. I remember a statue. I think it was of a king. It was just through the main gate…'

She was testing him. Alex was sure of it. Did she suspect him? Or was it simply a precaution, something she always did? ‚You’re talking about Henry the Sixth,' he said. ‚His statue’s in College Yard. He founded Eton.'

‚But you didn’t like it there.'

‚No.'

‚Why not?'

‚I didn’t like the uniform and I didn’t like the beaks.' Alex was careful not to use the word teachers. At Eton, they’re known as beaks. He half smiled to himself. If she wanted a bit of Eton-speak, he’d give it to her. ‚And I didn’t like the rules. Getting fined by the Pop. Or being put in the Tardy Book. I was always getting Rips and Infoes … or being put on the Bill. The divs were boring…'

‚I’m afraid I don’t really understand a word you’re saying.'

‚Divs are lessons,' Alex explained. ‚Rips are when your work is no good.'

‚I see!' She drew a line with her cigar. ‚Is that why you set fire to the library?'

‚No,' Alex said. ‚That was just because I don’t like books.'

The first course arrived. Alex’s soup was yellow and had something floating in it. He picked up his spoon and poked at it suspiciously. ‚What’s this?' he demanded.

‚ Soupe de moules. '

He looked at her blankly.

‚Mussel soup. I hope you enjoy it.'

‚I’d have preferred tomato,' Alex said.

The steaks, when they came, were typically French: barely cooked at all. Alex took a couple of mouthfuls of the bloody meat, then threw down his knife and fork and used his fingers to eat all the french fries. Mrs. Stellenbosch talked to him about the French Alps, about skiing, and about her visits to various European cities. It was easy to look bored. He was bored. And he was beginning to feel tired. He took a sip of Coke, hoping the cold drink would wake him up. The meal seemed to be dragging on all night.

But at last the desserts—ice cream with white chocolate sauce—had come and gone. Alex declined coffee.

‚You’re looking tired,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said. She lit another cigar. The smoke curled around her head and made him feel dizzy. ‚Would you like to go to bed?'

‚Yes.'

‚We don’t need to leave until midday tomorrow. You’ll have time for a visit to the Louvre, if you’d like that.'

Alex shook his head. ‚Actually, paintings bore me.'

‚Really? What a shame!'

Alex stood up. Somehow his hand knocked into his glass, spilling the rest of the Coke over the pristine white tablecloth. What was the matter with him? Suddenly he was exhausted.

‚Would you like me to come up with you, Alex?' the woman asked. She was looking carefully at him, a tiny glimmer of interest in her otherwise dead eyes.

‚No. I’ll be all right.' Alex stepped away. ‚Good night.'

Getting upstairs was an ordeal. He was tempted to take the elevator, but he didn’t want to lock himself into that small, windowless cubicle. He would have felt suffocated. He climbed the stairs, his shoulders resting heavily against the wall. Then he stumbled down the corridor and somehow got his key into the lock. When he finally got inside, the room was spinning. What was going on? Had he drunk more of the gin than he had intended, or was he …?

Alex swallowed. He had been drugged. There had been something in the Coke. It was still on his tongue, a sort of bitterness. There were only three steps between him and his bed, but it could have been a mile away. His legs wouldn’t obey him anymore. just lifting one foot took all his strength. He fell forward, reaching out with his arms. Somehow he managed to propel himself far enough. His chest and shoulders hit the bed, sinking into the mattress. The room was spinning around him, faster and faster. He tried to stand up, tried to speak—but nothing came. His eyes closed. Gratefully, he allowed the darkness to take him.

Thirty minutes later, there was a soft click and the room began to change.

If Alex had been able to open his eyes, he would have seen the desk, the minibar, and the framed pictures of Paris begin to rise up the wall. Or so it might have seemed to him. But in fact the walls weren’t moving. It was the floor that was sinking downward on hidden hydraulics, taking the bed—with Alex on it—into the depths of the hotel. The entire room was nothing more than a huge elevator that carried him, one inch at a time, into the basement and beyond.

Now the walls were metal sheets. He had left the wallpaper, the lights, and the pictures high above him. He was dropping through what might have been a ventilation shaft with four steel rods guiding him to the bottom. Brilliant lights suddenly flooded over him. There was a soft click. He had arrived.

The bed had come to rest in the center of a gleaming underground clinic. Scientific equipment crowded in on him from all sides. There were a number of cameras: digital, video, infrared, and X-ray. There were instruments of all shapes and sizes, most of them unrecognizable to anyone without a science degree. A tangle of wires spiraled out from each machine to a bank of computers that hummed and blinked on a long worktable against one of the walls. A glass window had been cut into the wall on the other side. The room was air-conditioned. Had Alex been awake, he might have shivered in the cold. His breath appeared as a faint white cloud, hovering around his mouth.

A plump man wearing a white coat had been waiting to receive him. The man, who was about forty, had yellow hair that he wore slicked back, and a face that was rapidly sinking into middle age, with puffy cheeks and a thick, fatty neck. The man had glasses and a small mustache. Two assistants were with him, also wearing white coats. Their faces were blank.

The three of them set to work at once. Handling Alex as if he were a sack of vegetables—or a corpse—they picked him up and stripped off all his clothes. Then they began to photograph him, beginning with a conventional camera. Starting at his toes, they moved upward, clicking off at least a hundred pictures, the flash igniting and the film automatically advancing. Not one inch of his body escaped their examination. A lock of his hair was snipped off and put into a plastic envelope. An opthalmoscope was used to produce a perfect image of the back of his eye.

They made a mold of his teeth, slipping a piece of putty into his mouth and manipulating his chin to make him bite down. They made a careful note of the birthmark on his left shoulder, the scar on his arm, and even the ends of his fingers. Alex bit his nails; that was recorded too.

Finally, they weighed him on a large, flat scale and then measured him—his height, chest size, waist, inside leg, hand size, and so on—making a note in their books of every measurement.

And all the time, Mrs. Stellenbosch watched from the other side of the window. She never moved. The only sign of life anywhere in her face was the cigar, clamped between her lips. It glowed red, and the smoke trickled up.

The three men had finished. The one with the yellow hair spoke into a microphone. ‚We’re all finished, he said.

‚Give me your opinion, Mr. Baxter.' The woman’s voice echoed out of a speaker concealed behind the wall.

‚It’s a cinch.' The man called Baxter was English. He spoke with an upper-class accent, and he was obviously pleased with himself. ‚He’s got a good bone structure. Very fit. Interesting face. You notice the pierced ear? He’s had that done recently. Nothing else to say, really.'

‚When will you operate?'

‚Whenever you say, old girl. Just let me know.'

Mrs. Stellenbosch turned to the other two men. ‚ Envoyez lui!' She snapped the two words.

The two assistants put Alex’s clothes back on him. This took longer than taking them off. As they worked, they made a careful note of all the brand names. The Quiksilver T-shirt. The Gap socks. By the time they had dressed him, they knew as much about him as a doctor knows about a newborn baby. It had all been noted down.

Mr. Baxter walked over to the worktable and pressed a button. At once, the carpet, bed, and hotel furniture began to rise up. They disappeared through the ceiling and kept going. Alex slept on as he was carried back through the shaft, finally arriving in the space that he knew as room 13.

There was nothing to show what had happened. The whole experience had evaporated, as quickly as a dream.

“MY NAME IS GRIEF”

« ^ »

THE ACADEMY AT POINT Blanc had been built by a lunatic. For a time it had been used as an asylum. Alex remembered what Alan Blunt had told him as the helicopter began its final descent, the red and white helipad looming up to receive it. The photograph in the brochure had been artfully taken. Now that he could see the building for himself, he could only describe it as … crazy.

It was a jumble of towers and battlements, green sloping roofs and windows of every shape and size. Nothing fitted together properly. The overall design should have been simple enough: a circular central area with two wings. But one wing was longer than the other. The two sides didn’t match. The academy was four floors high, but the windows were spaced in such a way that it was hard to tell where one floor ended and the next began. There was an internal courtyard that wasn’t quite square, with a fountain that had frozen solid. Even the helipad, jutting out of the roof, was ugly and awkward, as if someone had thrown a giant Frisbee that had smashed into the brickwork and lodged in place.

Mrs. Stellenbosch flicked off the controls. ‚I will take you down to meet the director,' she shouted over the noise of the blades. ‚Your luggage will be brought down later.'

It was cold on the roof. Although it was almost the end of April, the snow covering the mountain still hadn’t melted and everything was white for as far as the eye could see. The academy was built into the side of a steep slope. A little farther down, Alex saw a big iron tongue that started at ground level but then curved outward as the mountainside dropped away. It was a ski jump—the sort of thing he had seen at the winter Olympics. The end of the curve was at least fifty feet above the ground, and far below, Alex could make out a flat area, shaped like a horseshoe, where the jumpers were meant to land.

He was staring at it, imagining what it would be like to propel yourself into space with only two skis to break your fall, when the woman grabbed his arm. ‚We don’t use it,' she said. ‚It is forbidden. Come now! Let’s get out of the cold.'

They went through a door in the side of one of the towers and down a narrow spiral staircase (each step a different distance apart) that took them all the way to the ground floor.

Now they were in a long, narrow corridor with plenty of doors but no windows.

‚Classrooms,' Mrs. Stellenbosch explained. ‚You will see them later.'

Alex followed her through the strangely silent building. The central heating had been turned up high inside the academy, and the atmosphere was warm and heavy. They stopped at a pair of modern glass doors that opened into the courtyard Alex had seen from above. From the heat back into the cold again, Mrs. Stellenbosch led him through the doors and past the frozen fountain. A movement caught his eye, and Alex glanced up. This was something he hadn’t noticed before. A sentry stood on one of the towers. He had a pair of binoculars around his neck and a submachine gun slung across one arm.

Armed guards? In a school? Alex had been here only a few minutes and already he was unnerved.

‚Through here!' Mrs. Stellenbosch opened another door for him, and he found himself in the main reception hall of the academy. A log fire burned in a massive fireplace with two stone dragons guarding the flames. A grand staircase led upward. The hall was lit by a chandelier with at least a hundred bulbs. The walls were paneled with wood. The carpet was thick, dark red. A dozen pairs of eyes followed Alex as he followed Mrs. Stellenbosch down the next corridor. The hall was decorated with animal heads: a rhino, an antelope, a water buffalo, and, saddest of all, a lion. Alex wondered who had shot them.

They came to a single door that suggested they had come to the end of their journey. So far, Alex hadn’t encountered any boys, but glancing out of the window, he saw two more guards marching slowly past, both of them cradling automatic machine guns.

Mrs. Stellenbosch knocked on the door.

‚Come in!' Even with just two words, Alex caught the South African accent.

The door opened, and they went into a huge room that made no sense. Like the rest of the building, its shape was irregular, none of the walls running parallel. The ceiling was about fifty feet high with windows running the whole, way and giving an impressive view of the slopes.

The room was modern with soft lighting coming from units concealed in the walls. The furniture was ugly, but not as ugly as the animal heads on the walls and the zebra skin on the wood floor. There were three chairs next to a small fireplace. One of them was gold and antique. A man was sitting in it. His head turned as Alex came in.

‚Good afternoon, Alex,' he said. ‚Please come and sit down.'

Alex sauntered into the room and took one of the chairs. Mrs. Stellenbosch sat in the other.

‚My name is Grief,' the man continued. ‚Dr. Grief. I am very pleased to meet you and to have you here.'

Alex stared at the man who was the director of Point Blanc, at the white-paper skin and the eyes burning behind the red eyeglasses. It was like meeting a skeleton, and for a moment he was lost for words. Then he recovered. ‚Nice place,' he said.

‚Do you think so?' There was no emotion whatsoever in Grief’s voice. So far he had moved only his neck. ‚This building was designed in 1857 by a Frenchman who was certainly the world’s worst architect. This was his only commission. When the first owners moved in, they had him shot.'

‚There are still quite a few people here with guns.' Alex glanced out of the window as another pair of guards walked past.

‚Point Blanc is unique,' Dr. Grief explained. ‚As you will soon discover, all the boys who have been sent here come from families of great wealth and importance. We have had the sons of emperors and industrialists. Boys like yourself. It follows that we could very easily become a target for terrorists. The guards are therefore here for your protection.'

‚That’s very kind of you.' Alex felt he was being too polite. It was time to show this man what sort of person he was meant to be. ‚But to be honest, I don’t really want to be here myself.

So if you’ll just tell me how I get down into town, maybe I can get the next train home.'

‚There is no way down into town.' Dr. Grief lifted a hand to stop Alex from interrupting.

Alex glanced at his long skeletal fingers and at the eyes glinting red behind the glasses. The man moved as if every bone in his body had been broken and then put back together again.

‚The skiing season is over. It’s too dangerous now. There is only the helicopter, and that will take you from here only when I say so.' The hand lowered itself again. ‚You are here, Alex, because you have disappointed your parents. You were expelled from school. You have had difficulties with the police.'

‚That wasn’t my bloody fault!' Alex protested.

‚Don’t interrupt the doctor!' Mrs. Stellenbosch said.

Alex glanced at her balefully.

‚Your appearance is displeasing,' Dr. Grief went on. ‚Your language also. It is our job to turn you into a boy of whom your parents can be proud.'

‚I’m happy as I am,' Alex said.

‚That is of no relevance.' Dr. Grief fell silent.

Alex shivered. There was something about this room, so big, so empty, so twisted out of shape. And this man who was both old and young at the same time but who somehow wasn’t completely human. ‚So what are you going to do with me?' Alex asked.

‚There will be no lessons to begin with,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said. ‚For the first couple of weeks we want you to assimilate.'

‚What does that mean?'

‚To assimilate. To conform … to adapt … to become like.' It was as if she were reading out of a dictionary. ‚There are six boys at the academy at the moment. You will meet them and you will spend time with them. There will be opportunities for sports and for being social. There is a good library here, and you will read. Soon you will learn our methods.'

‚I want to call my mom and dad,' Alex said.

‚The use of telephones is forbidden,' Mrs. Stellenbosch explained. She tried to smile sympathetically, but with her face it wasn’t quite possible. ‚We find it makes our students homesick,' she went on. ‚Of course, you may write letters if you wish.'

‚I prefer e-mail,' Alex said.

‚For the same reason, e-mail is not permitted.'

Alex shrugged and swore under his breath.

Dr. Grief had seen him. ‚You will be polite to the assistant director,' he snapped. He hadn’t raised his voice, but the words had an acid tone. ‚You should be aware, Alex, that Mrs. Stellenbosch has worked with me now for twenty-six years and that when I met her she had been voted Miss South Africa five years in a row.'

Alex glanced at the hostile face. ‚A beauty contest?' he asked.

‚The weight-lifting championships.' Dr. Grief glanced at the fireplace. ‚Show him,' he said.

Mrs. Stellenbosch got up and went over to the fireplace. There was a poker lying in the grate. She took it with both hands. For a moment she seemed to concentrate. Alex gasped. The solid metal poker, almost two inches thick, was slowly bending. Now it was U-shaped.

Mrs. Stellenbosch wasn’t even sweating. She brought the two ends together and dropped it back into the grate. It clanged against the stone.

‚We enforce strict discipline here at the academy,' Dr. Grief said. ‚Bedtime is at ten o’clock—not a minute past. We do not tolerate bad language. You will have no contact with the outside world without our permission. You will not attempt to leave. And you will do as you are told instantly, without hesitation. And finally…' He leaned toward Alex. ‚You are permitted only in certain parts of this building.' He gestured with a hand, and for the first time Alex noticed a second door at the far end of the room. ‚My private quarters are through there.

You will remain on the first and second floors only. That is where the bedrooms and classrooms are located. The third and fourth floors are out of bounds. The basement also. This again is for your safety.'

‚You’re afraid I’ll trip on the stairs?' Alex asked.

Dr. Grief ignored him. ‚You may leave,' he said.

‚Wait outside the office, Alex,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said. ‚Someone will be along to get you.'

Alex stood up.

‚We will make you into what your parents want,' Dr. Grief said.

‚Maybe they don’t want me at all.'

‚We can arrange that too.'

Alex left.

‚An unpleasant boy … a few days … faster than usual … the Gemini Project … closing down…'

If the door hadn’t been so thick, Alex would have been able to hear more. The moment he had left the room he had cupped his ear against the keyhole, hoping to pick up something that might be useful to MI6. Sure enough, Dr. Grief and Mrs. Stellenbosch were busily talking on the other side, but Alex heard little and understood less.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder and he twisted around, annoyed with himself. A so-called spy caught listening at keyholes! But it wasn’t one of the guards. Alex found himself looking up at a round-faced boy with long, dark hair, dark blue eyes, and pale skin. He was wearing a very old Star Wars T-shirt, torn jeans, and a baseball cap. Recently he had been in a fight, and it looked like he’d gotten the worst of it. There was a bruise around one of his eyes and a gash on his lip.

‚They’ll shoot you if they catch you listening at doors,' the boy said. He looked at Alex with hostile eyes. Alex guessed that he was the sort of boy who wouldn’t trust anyone easily. ‚I’m James Sprintz,' he said. ‚They told me to show you around.'

‚Alex Friend.'

‚So what did you do to get sent to this dump?' James asked as they walked down the corridor.

‚I got expelled from Eton.'

‚I got thrown out of a school in Dusseldorf.' James sighed. ‚I thought it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Until my dad sent me here.'

‚What does your dad do?' Alex asked.

‚He’s a banker. He plays the money markets. He loves money and he has lots of it.' James’s voice was flat and unemotional.

‚Dieter Sprintz?' Alex remembered the name. He’d made the front page of every newspaper in England a few years before. The hundred-million-dollar man. That was how much he had made in just twenty-four hours. At the same time, the pound had crashed and the British government had almost collapsed.

‚Yeah. Don’t ask me to show you a photograph, because I don’t have one. This way…'

They had reached the main hall with the dragon fireplace. From here, James showed him into the dining room, a long, high-ceilinged room with six tables and a window leading into the kitchen. After that, they visited two living rooms, a games room, and a library. The academy reminded Alex of a ski resort-and not just because of its setting. There was a sort of heaviness about the place, a sense of being cut off from the real world. The air was warm and silent, and despite the size of the rooms, Alex couldn’t help feeling claustrophobic. Grief had said that there were only six boys currently at the school. The building could have housed sixty. Empty space was everywhere.

There was nobody in either of the living rooms—just a collection of armchairs, desks, and tables—but they found a couple of boys in the library. This was a long, narrow room with old-fashioned oak shelves lined with books in a variety of languages. A suit of medieval Swiss armor stood in an alcove at the far end.

‚This is Tom. And Hugo,' James said. ‚They’re probably doing extra math or something, so we’d better not disturb them.'

The two boys looked up and nodded briefly. One of them was reading a textbook. The other had been writing. They were both much better dressed than James and didn’t look very friendly.

‚Creeps,' James said as soon as they had left the room.

‚In what way?'

‚When I was told about this place, they said all the kids had problems. I thought it was going to be wild. Do you have a cigarette?'

‚I don’t smoke.'

‚Great, another one… I get here and it’s like a museum or a monastery or … I don’t know what. It looks like Dr. Grief’s been busy. Everyone’s quiet, hardworking, boring. God knows how he did it. Sucked their brains out with a straw or something. A couple of weeks ago I got into a fight with a couple of them, just for the hell of it.' He pointed to his face. ‚They beat the crap out of me and then went back to their studies. Really creepy!'

They went into the games room, which contained table tennis, darts, a wide-screen TV, and a snooker table. ‚Don’t try playing snooker,' James said. ‚The room’s on a slant and all the balls roll the wrong way.'

Then they went upstairs, where the boys had their study-bedrooms. Each one contained a bed, an armchair, a television (‚It shows only the programs Dr. Grief wants you to see,' James said), a bureau, and a desk. A second door led into a small bathroom with a toilet and shower.

None of the rooms was locked.

‚We’re not allowed to lock them,' James explained. ‚We’re all stuck here with nowhere to go, so nobody bothers to steal anything. I heard that Hugo Vries—the boy in the library—used to steal anything he could get his hands on. He was arrested for shoplifting in Amsterdam.'

‚But not anymore?'

‚He’s another success story. He’s flying home next week. His father owns diamond mines.

Why bother shoplifting when you can afford to buy the whole shop?'

Alex’s study was at the end of the corridor, with views over the ski jump. His suitcases had already been carried up and were waiting for him on the bed. Everything felt very bare, but according to James, the study-bedrooms were the only part of the school the boys were allowed to decorate themselves. They could choose their own bedspreads and cover the walls with their own posters.

‚They say it’s important that you express yourself,' James said. ‚If you haven’t brought anything with you, Miss Stomach-bag will take you into Grenoble.'

‚Stomach-bag?'

‚Mrs. Stellenbosch. That’s my name for her.'

‚What do the other boys call her?'

‚They call her Mrs. Stellenbosch.' James sighed. ‚I’m telling you—this is a deeply weird place, Alex. I’ve been to a lot of schools because I’ve been thrown out of a lot of schools. But this one is the pits. I’ve been here for six weeks now and I’ve hardly had any lessons. They have music evenings and discussion evenings and they try to get me to read. But otherwise, I’ve been left on my own.'

‚They want you to assimilate,' Alex said, remembering what Dr. Grief had said.

‚That’s their word for it. But this place … they may call it a school, but it’s more like being in prison. You’ve seen the guards. '

‚I thought they were here to protect us.'

‚If you think that, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought. Think about it! There are about thirty of them. Thirty armed guards for seven kids? That’s not protection. That’s intimidation.' James paused by the door. He examined Alex for a second time. ‚It would be nice to think that someone has finally arrived who I can relate to,' he said,

‚Maybe you can,' Alex said.

‚Yeah. But for how long?'

James left, closing the door behind him.

Alex began to unpack. The bulletproof ski suit and infrared goggles were at the top of the first suitcase. It didn’t look as if he would be needing them. It wasn’t as if he even had any skis.

Then came the Discman. He remembered the instructions Smithers had given him. ‚If you’re in real trouble, just press Fast Forward three times.' He was almost tempted to do it now. There was something unsettling about the academy. He could feel it even now, in his room. He was like a goldfish in a bowl. Looking up, he almost expected to see a pair of huge eyes looming over him, and he knew that they would be wearing red-tinted glasses. He weighed the Discman in his hand. He couldn’t hit the panic button—yet. He had nothing to report back to MI6. There was nothing to connect the school with the deaths of the two men in New York and the Black Sea.

But if there was anything, he knew where he would find it. Why were two whole floors of the building out of bounds? It made no sense at all. Presumably the guards slept up there, but even though Dr. Grief seemed to employ a small army, that would still leave a lot of empty rooms. The third and fourth floors. If something was going on at the academy, it had to be going on up there.

A bell sounded downstairs. Alex shut his suitcase, left his room, and walked down the corridor. He saw another couple of boys walking ahead of him, talking quietly together. Like the boys he had seen in the library, they were clean and well dressed with hair cut short and neatly groomed. Really creepy, James had said. Even on first sight, Alex had to agree.

He reached the main staircase. The two boys had gone down. Alex glanced in their direction, then went up. The staircase turned a corner and stopped. Ahead of him was a sheet of metal that rose up from the floor to the ceiling and all the way across, blocking off the view. The wall had been added recently, like the helipad. Someone had carefully and deliberately cut the building in two.

There was a door set in the metal wall and beside it a keypad with nine buttons demanding a code. Alex reached for the door handle, his hand closing around it. He didn’t expect the door to open—nor did he expect what happened next. The moment his fingers came into contact with the handle, an alarm went off, a shrieking siren that echoed throughout the building. A few seconds later, he heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to find two guards facing him, their guns half raised.

Neither of them spoke. One of them ran past him and punched a code into the keypad. The alarm stopped. And then Mrs. Stellenbosch was there, hurrying forward on her short, muscular legs.

‚Alex!' she exclaimed. Her eyes were filled with suspicion. ‚What are you doing here? The director told you that the upper floors are forbidden.'

‚Yeah … well, I forgot.' Alex looked straight at her. ‚I heard the bell go and I was on my way to the dining room.'

‚The dining room is downstairs.'

‚Right.'

Alex walked past the two guards, who stepped aside to let him pass. He felt Mrs. Stellenbosch watching him while he went. Metal doors, alarms, and guards with machine guns. What were they trying to hide? And then he remembered something else. The Gemini Project. Those were the words he had heard when he was listening at Dr. Grief’s door. Gemini.

The twins. One of the twelve star signs. But what did it mean? Turning the question over his mind, Alex went down to meet the rest of the students.

THINGS THAT GO CLICK IN THE NIGHT

« ^ »

AT THE END OF HIS FIRST week at Point Blanc, Alex drew up a list of the six boys with whom he shared the school. It was midafternoon, and he was alone in his room. A notepad was open in front of him. It had taken him about half an hour to put together the names and the few details that he had. He only wished he had more.

HUGO VRIES (14) Dutch. Lives in Amsterdam. Brown hair, green eyes. Father’s name, Rudi. Owns diamond mines. Speaks little English. Reads and plays guitar. Very solitary. Sent to PB for major shoplifting and arson.

TOM MCMORIN (14) Canadian. From Vancouver. Parents divorced. Mother runs media empire (newspapers, TV). Reddish hair, blue eyes. Well built, chess player. Car thefts and drunken driving … sent to PB.

NICOLAS MARC (14) French … from Bordeaux? Expelled from private school in Paris, cause unknown. Drugs? Brown hair, brown eyes, very fit all around. Tattoo of devil on left shoulder. Good at sports. Father = Anthony Marc. Airlines, pop music, hotels. Never mentions his mother.

CASSIAN JAMES (14) American. Fair hair, brown eyes. Mother = Jill … studio chief in Hollywood. Parents divorced. Writes poetry, plays jazz piano. Expelled from six schools.

Various drugs offenses. Sent to PB after smuggling arrest. Tells jokes. Seems popular.

JOE CANTERBURY (14) American. Spends much of his time with Cassian. Brown hair, blue eyes. Mother (name unknown) New York senator. Father something major at the Pentagon.

Vandalism, truancy, shoplifting. Claims to have own motorbike and three girlfriends (!) in Los Angeles.

JAMES SPRINTZ (14) German. Father = Dieter Sprintz, banker, well-known financier (the hundred-million-dollar man). Mother living in England. Brown hair, dark blue eyes, pale. Lives in Dusseldorf. Expelled for wounding a teacher with an air pistol. Closest I’ve got to a friend at PB—the only one who really hates it here.

Lying on his bed, Alex studied the list. What did it tell him? Not a great deal.

First, all the boys were the same age: fourteen, the same age as him. At least three of them, and possibly four, had parents who were either divorced or separated. They all came from hugely wealthy backgrounds. Blunt had already told him that was the case, but Alex was surprised by just how diverse the parents were. Airlines, diamonds, politics, and movies.

France, Holland, Canada, and America. Each one of them was at the top of his or her field, and those fields covered just about every human activity. He himself was supposed to be the son of a supermarket king. Food. That was another world industry he could check off.

At least two of the boys had been arrested for shoplifting. Two had been involved with drugs. But Alex knew that the list somehow hid more than it revealed. With the exception of James, it was hard to pin down what made the boys at Point Blanc different. In a strange way, they all looked the same.

Their eyes and hair were different colors. They wore different clothes. All the faces were different: Tom handsome and confident, Joe quiet and watchful. And of course they spoke not only with different voices but also in several languages. James had talked about brains being sucked out with straws, and he had a point. It was as if the same consciousness had somehow invaded them all. They had become puppets, dancing on the same string.

The bell rang downstairs. Alex looked at his watch. It was exactly one o’clock—lunchtime.

That was another thing about the school. Everything was done to the exact minute. Lessons from nine until twelve. Lunch from one to two. And so on. James made a point of being late for everything, and Alex had taken to joining him. It was a tiny rebellion but a satisfying one. It showed they still had a little control over their own lives. The other boys, of course, turned up like clockwork. They would be in the dining room now, waiting quietly for the food to be served.

Alex rolled over on the bed and reached for a pen. He wrote a single word on the pad, underneath the names.

BRAINWASHING?

Maybe that was the answer. According to James, the other boys had arrived at the academy two months before him. He had been there for just three weeks. That added up to just eleven weeks in total, and Alex knew that you didn’t take a bunch of delinquents and turn them into perfect students just by giving them good books. Dr. Grief had to be doing something else.

Drugs. Hypnosis. Something.

He waited five more minutes, then hid the notepad under his mattress and left the room. He wished he could lock the door. There was no privacy at Point Blanc. Even the bathrooms had no locks. And Alex still couldn’t shake off the feeling that everything he did, even everything he thought, was somehow being monitored, noted down. Evidence to be used against him.

It was ten past one when he reached the dining room, and sure enough, the other boys were already there, eating their lunch and talking quietly among themselves. Nicolas and Cassian were at one table. Hugo, Tom, and Joe were at another. Nobody was flicking peas. Nobody even had their elbows on the table. Tom was talking about a visit he had made to some museum in Grenoble. Alex had been in the room only a few seconds, but already his appetite had gone.

James had arrived just ahead of him and was standing at one of the windows into the kitchen, helping himself to food. Most of the food arrived precooked, and one of the guards heated it up. Today it was stew. Alex got his lunch and sat next to James. The two of them had their own table. They had become friends quite effortlessly. Everyone else ignored them.

‚You want to go out after lunch?' James asked.

‚Sure. Why not?'

‚There’s something I want to talk to you about.'

Alex looked past James at the other boys. There was Tom, at the head of the table, reaching out for a pitcher of water. He was dressed in a polo shirt and jeans. Next to him was Joe Canterbury. He was talking to Hugo now, waving a finger to emphasize a point. Where had Alex seen that movement before? Cassian was just behind them, round faced, with fine, light brown hair, laughing at a joke.

Different but the same. Watching them closely, Alex tried to figure out what he meant.

It was all in the details, the things you wouldn’t notice unless you saw them all together, like they were now. The way they were all sitting with their backs straight and their elbows close to their sides. The way they held their knives and forks. Hugo laughed, and Alex realized that for a moment he had become a mirror image of Cassian. It was the same laugh. He watched Joe eat a mouthful of food. Then he watched Nicolas. They were two different boys. There was no doubting that. But they ate in the same way, as if mimicking each other.

There was a movement at the door, and suddenly Mrs. Stellenbosch appeared. ‚Good afternoon, boys,' she said.

‚Good afternoon, Mrs. Stellenbosch.' Five people answered, but Alex heard only one voice.

He and James had remained silent.

‚Lessons this afternoon will begin at three o’clock. The subjects will be Latin and French.'

The lessons were taught by Dr. Grief or Mrs. Stellenbosch. There were no other teachers at the school.

Alex hadn’t yet been taught anything. James dipped in and out of class, depending on his mood.

‚There will be a discussion this evening in the library,' Mrs. Stellenbosch went on. ‚The subject is violence in television and film. Tom, you will open the debate. Afterward, there will be hot chocolate, and Dr. Grief will give a lecture on the works of Mozart. Everyone is welcome to attend.'

James jabbed a finger into his open mouth and stuck out his tongue. Alex smiled. The other boys were listening quietly.

‚Dr. Grief would also like to congratulate Cassian James on winning the poetry competition.

His poem is pinned to the bulletin board in the main hall. That is all.'

She turned and left the room. James rolled his eyes. ‚Let’s go out and get some fresh air,' he said. ‚I’m feeling sick.'

The two of them went upstairs and put on their coats. James had the room next door to Alex and had done his best to make it more homey. There were posters of old sci-fi movies on the wall and a mobile with the solar system dangling above the bed. A lava lamp bubbled and swirled on the bedside table, casting an orange glow. There were clothes everywhere. James obviously didn’t believe in hanging them up. Somehow he managed to find a scarf and a single glove. He shoved one hand into a pocket. ‚Let’s go,' he said.

They went back down and along the corridor, passing the games room. Nicolas and Cassian were playing table tennis, and Alex stopped at the door to watch them. The ball was bouncing back and forth, and Alex found himself mesmerized. He stood there for about sixty seconds, watching. Kerplink, kerplunk, kerplink, kerplunk-neither of the boys was scoring. There it was again. Different but the same. Obviously, there were two boys there. But the way they played, the style of their game, was identical. If it had been one boy knocking a ball against a mirror, the result would have looked much the same. Alex shivered. James was standing at his shoulder.

The two of them moved away.

Hugo was sitting in the library. The boy who had been sent to Point Blanc for shoplifting was reading a Dutch edition of National Geographic magazine. They reached the hall, and there was Cassian’s poem, prominently pinned to the bulletin board. He had been sent to Point Blanc for smuggling drugs. Now he was writing about daffodils.

Alex pushed open the main door and felt the cold wind hit his face. He was grateful for it.

He needed to be reminded that there was a real world outside this bizarre goldfish bowl.

It had begun to snow again. The two boys walked slowly around the building. A couple of guards walked toward them, speaking softly in German. Alex had counted thirty guards at Point Blanc, all of them young German men, dressed in uniform black roll-neck sweaters and black vests. The guards never spoke to the boys. They had the pale, unhealthy faces and close-cropped hair he would have expected. Dr. Grief had said they were there for his protection, but Alex still wondered. Were they here to keep intruders out, or the boys in?

‚This way,' James said.

James walked ahead, his feet sinking into the thick snow. Alex followed, looking back at the windows on the third and fourth floors. It was maddening. A whole half of the castleperhaps more-was closed off to him, and he still couldn’t think of a way of getting up to it. He couldn’t climb. The brickwork was too smooth and there was no convenient ivy to provide handholds.

The drainpipes looked too fragile to take his weight.

Something moved. Alex stopped in his tracks.

‚What is it?' James asked.

‚There!' Alex pointed at the third floor. He thought he’d seen a figure, watching them from behind the window directly above his room. It was there for only a moment. The face seemed to be masked. A white mask with a narrow slit for the eyes. But even as he pointed, the figure stepped back, out of sight.

‚I don’t see anything,' James said.

‚It’s gone.'

They walked on, heading for the abandoned ski jump. According to James, the jump had been built just before Grief had bought the academy. There had been plans to turn the building into a winter sports training center. The jump had never been used. They reached the wooden barriers that lay across the entrance and stopped.

‚Let me ask you something,' James said. His breath was misting in the cold air. ‚What do you think of this place?'

‚Why do we have to talk out here?' Alex asked. Despite his coat, he was beginning to shiver.

‚Because when I’m inside the building, I get the feeling that someone is listening to every word I say.'

Alex nodded. ‚I know what you mean.' He considered the question James had put to him.

‚I think you were right the first day we met,' he said. ‚This place is creepy.'

‚So how would you feel about getting out of here?'

‚You know how to fly the helicopter?'

‚No. But I’m going.' James paused and looked around. The two guards had gone into the school. There was nobody else in sight. ‚I can trust you, Alex, because you’ve just gotten here.

He hasn’t gotten to you yet.' Dr. Grief. James didn’t need to say the name. ‚But believe me,' he went on, ‚it won’t be long. If you stay here, you’re going to end up like the others. Model students. That’s exactly the word for them. It’s like they’re all made out of plastic. Well, I’ve had enough. I’m not going to let him do that to me.'

‚Are you going to run away?' Alex asked.

‚Who needs to run?' James looked down the slope. ‚I’m going to ski.'

Alex looked at the slope. It plunged steeply down, stretching on forever. ‚Is that possible?'

he asked. ‚I thought—'

‚I know Grief says it’s too dangerous. But he would, wouldn’t he? It’s true that it’s expert black runs all the way down, and there’s bound to be tons of moguls…'

‚Won’t the snow have melted?'

‚Only farther down.' James pointed. ‚I’ve been right down to the bottom,' he said. ‚I did it the first week I was here. All the slopes run into a single valley. It’s called La Vallee de Fer. You can’t actually make it as far as the town because there’s a train track that cuts across. But if I can get to the track, I reckon I can walk the rest of the way.'

‚And then?'

‚A train back to Dusseldorf. If my dad tries to send me back here, I’ll go to my mom in England. If she doesn’t want me, I’ll disappear. I’ve got friends in Paris and Berlin. I don’t care.

All I know is, I’ve got to split, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll come too.'

Alex considered. He was almost tempted to join the other boy, if only to help him on his way. But he had a job to do. ‚I don’t have any skis,' he said.

‚Nor do I.' James spat into the snow. ‚Grief took all the skis when the season ended. He’s got them locked up somewhere.'

‚On the third floor?'

‚Maybe. But I’ll find them. And then I’m out of here.' He reached out to Alex with his ungloved hand. ‚Come with me.'

Alex shook his head. ‚I’m sorry, James. You go, and good luck to you. But I’ll stick it out a bit longer. I don’t want to break my neck.'

‚Okay. That’s your choice. I’ll send you a postcard.'

The two of them walked back toward the school. Alex gestured at the window where he had seen the masked face. ‚Have you ever wondered what goes on up there?' be asked.

‚No.' James shrugged. ‚I suppose that’s where the guards live.'

‚Two whole floors?'

‚There’s a basement as well. And Dr. Grief’s rooms. Do you think he sleeps with Miss Stomach-bag?' James made a face. ‚That’s a pretty gross thought, the two of them together.

Darth Vader and King Kong. Well, I’m going to find my skis and get out of here, Alex. And if you’ve got any sense, you’ll come too.'

Alex and James were skiing together down the slope, the blades cutting smoothly through the surface snow. It was a perfect night—everything frozen and still. They had left the academy behind them. But then Alex saw the figure ahead of them. Dr. Grief was there. He was standing motionless, wearing his dark suit, his eyes hidden by his round wire glasses. Alex veered away from him. He had lost control. He was moving faster and faster down the slope, his poles flailing at the air, his skis refusing to turn. He could see the ski jump ahead of him. Someone had removed the barriers. He felt his skis leave the snow and shoot forward onto solid ice. And then it was a screaming drop down, tearing ever farther into the night, knowing there was no way back. Dr. Grief laughed, and at the same moment there was a click and Alex was shot into space, spinning a mile above the ground and then falling, falling, falling …

He woke up.

He was lying in bed, the moonlight spilling onto his covers. He looked at his watch. A quarter past two. He played back the dream he had just had. Trying to escape with James. Dr.

Grief waiting for them. He had to admit, the academy was beginning to get to him. He didn’t usually have bad dreams. But the school and the people in it were slipping under his skin, working their way into his mind.

He thought about what he had heard. Dr. Grief laughing and something else … a clicking sound. That was strange. What had gone click? Had it actually been part of the dream?

Suddenly, Alex was completely awake. He got out of bed, went to the door, and turned the handle. He was right. He hadn’t imagined the sound. While he was asleep, the door had been locked from the outside.

Something had to be happening—and Alex was determined to see what it was. He got dressed as quickly as possible, then knelt down and examined the lock. He could make out two bolts, at least a half inch in diameter, one at the top and one at the bottom. They must have been activated automatically. One thing was sure: he wasn’t going to get out through the door.

That left the window. All the bedroom windows were fastened with a steel rod that allowed them to open ten inches but no more. Alex picked up his CD player, put in the Beethoven CD, and turned it on. The CD spun around—moving at a fantastic speed—then slowly edged forward, still spinning, until it protruded out of the casing. Alex pressed the edge of the CD

against the steel rod. It took just a few seconds. The CD cut through the steel like scissors through paper. The rod fell away, allowing the window to swing fully open.

It was still snowing. Alex turned the CD player off and threw it back on his bed. Then he put on some sweats and his coat and climbed out the window. He was two floors up. Normally a fall from that height would have broken an ankle or a leg. But it had been snowing for the better part of ten hours, and a white bank had built up against the wall right beneath him. Alex lowered himself as far as he could, then let go. He fell through the air and hit the snow, disappearing as far as his waist. He felt his feet strike the hard undersoil, but the bank had protected him. He was cold and damp before he had even started. But he was unhurt.

He climbed out of the snow and began to move around the side of the building, making for the front. He would just have to hope that the main entrance wasn’t locked too. But somehow he was sure it wouldn’t be. His door had been locked automatically. Presumably a switch had been thrown and all the others had been locked too. Most of the boys would be asleep. Even the ones who were awake wouldn’t be going anywhere, leaving Dr. Grief free to do whatever he wanted, coming and going as he pleased.

Alex had just made it to the side of the building when he heard the guards approach, boots crunching. There was nowhere to hide, so he threw himself facedown onto the snow, hugging the shadows. There were two guards. He could hear them talking softly in German, but he didn’t dare look up. If he made any movement, they would see him. If they came too close, they would probably see him anyway. He held his breath, his heart pounding.

The guards walked past and rounded the corner. Their path would take them under his room. Would they see the open window? Alex had left the light off. With luck, there would be no reason for them to look up. But he was still aware that he might not have much time. He had to move now.

He lifted himself up and ran forward. His clothes were covered in snow, and more flakes were falling, drifting into his eyes. It was the coldest part of the night, and Alex was shivering by the time he reached the main door. What would he do if it was locked after all? He certainly wouldn’t be able to stay out in the open until morning.

But the door was unlocked. Alex pushed it open and slipped into the warmth and darkness of the main hall. The dragon fireplace was in front of him. There had been a fire earlier in the evening, and the burned-out logs were still smoldering in the hearth. Alex held his hands against the glow, trying to draw a little warmth into himself. Everything was silent. The empty corridors stretched into the distance, illuminated by a few low-watt bulbs that had been left on at intervals. Only now did it occur to Alex that he could have been mistaken from the start.

Perhaps the doors were locked every night as part of the security. Perhaps he had jumped too quickly to the wrong conclusion and there was nothing going on at all.

‚No!'

It was a boy’s voice—a long, quavering shout that echoed through the school. A moment later, Alex heard feet stamping along a wooden corridor somewhere above. He looked for somewhere to hide and found it inside the fireplace, right next to the logs. The actual fire was contained in a metal basket, and there was a wide space on each side between the basket and the brickwork. Alex crouched low, feeling the heat on the side of his face and legs. He looked out, past the two dragons, waiting to see what would happen.

Three people were coming down the stairs. Mrs. Stellenbosch was the first. She was followed by two of the guards, dragging something between them. It was a boy! He was facedown, dressed only in his pajamas, his bare feet sliding down the stone steps.

Mrs. Stellenbosch opened the library door and went in. The two guards followed. The door crashed shut. The silence returned.

It had all happened very quickly. Alex had been unable to see the boy’s face. But he was sure he knew who it was. He had known just from the sound of his voice.

James Sprintz.

Alex eased himself out of the fireplace and crossed the hall, making for the library door.

There was no sound coming from the other side. He knelt down and looked through the keyhole. No lights were on inside the room. He could see nothing. What should he do? If he went back upstairs, he could make it back to his room without being seen. He could wait until the doors were unlocked and then slip into bed. Nobody would know he had been out.

But the only person in the school who had shown him any kindness was on the other side of the library door. He had been dragged down here. Perhaps he was being brainwashed …

beaten, even. Alex couldn’t just turn around and leave him.

Alex had made his decision. He threw open the door and walked in.

The library was empty.

He stood in the doorway, blinking. The library had only one door. All the windows were closed. There were no lights on and no sign that anyone had been there. The suit of armor stood in its alcove at the end, watching him as he moved forward. Could he have been mistaken?

Could Mrs. Stellenbosch and the guards have gone into a different room?

Alex went over to the alcove and looked behind the armor, wondering if there might be a second exit concealed there. There was nothing. He tapped a knuckle against the wall.

Curiously, it seemed to be made of metal, but unlike the wall across the stairs, there was no handle, nothing to suggest a way through.

There was nothing more he could do here. Alex decided to go back to his room before he was discovered.

But he had just made it to the second floor when he heard voices once again … more guards, walking slowly down the corridor. Alex saw an empty door and slipped inside, once again ducking out of sight. He was in the laundry room. There was a washing machine, a dryer, and two ironing boards. At least it was warm in here. He felt himself surrounded by the smell of soap.

The guards walked past, and soon the sound of their footsteps disappeared. There was a second metallic click that seemed to stretch the full length of the corridor, and Alex realized that all the doors had been unlocked at the same time. He could go back to bed. He crept out and hurried forward. His footsteps took him past James Sprintz’s room, next to his own. He noticed that James’s door was open. And then a voice called out from inside.

‚Alex?' It was James.

No. That wasn’t possible. But there was someone in his room.

Alex looked inside. The light went on.

It was James. He was sitting up in bed, bleary-eyed, as if he had just woken up. Alex stared at him. He was wearing the same pajamas as the boy he had just seen dragged into the library

… but that couldn’t have been him. It must have been someone else.

‚What are you doing?' James asked.

‚I thought I heard something,' Alex said.

‚But you’re dressed. And you’re soaking wet!' James looked at his watch. ‚It’s almost three.'

Alex was surprised that so much time had passed. It had been only a quarter past two when he had woken up. ‚Are you all right?' he asked.

‚Yeah…'

‚You haven’t …?'

‚What?'

‚Nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow.'

Alex crept back to his own room. He closed the door then stripped off his wet clothes, dried himself with a towel, and got back into bed. If it hadn’t been James he had seen being taken into the library, who was it? And yet it had been James; he was sure of it. He had heard the shout, seen the limp form on the stairs. So why was James lying now?

Alex closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep. The movements of the night had created more puzzles and had solved nothing. But at least he’d gotten something out of it all.

He now knew how to get up to the third floor.

SEEING DOUBLE

« ^ »

JAMES WAS ALREADY EATING his breakfast when Alex came down: eggs, bacon, toast, and tea. He had the same breakfast every day. He raised a hand in greeting as Alex came in. But the moment he saw him, Alex got the feeling that something was wrong. James was smiling, but he seemed somehow distant, as if his thoughts were on other things.

‚So what was all that about last night?' James asked.

‚I don’t know.' Alex was tempted to tell James everything—even the fact that he was here under a false name and that he had been sent to spy on the school. But he couldn’t do it. Not here, so close to the other boys. ‚I think I had some sort of bad dream.'

‚Did you go sleepwalking in the snow?'

‚No. I thought I saw something, but I couldn’t have. I just had a weird night.' He changed the subject, lowering his voice. ‚Have you thought any more about your plan?' he asked.

‚What plan?'

‚skiing.'

‚We’re not allowed to ski.'

‚I mean … escaping.'

James smiled as if he’d only just remembered what Alex was talking about. ‚Oh—I’ve changed my mind,' he said.

‚What do you mean?'

‚If I ran away, my dad would only send me back again. There’s no point. I might as well grin and bear it. Anyway, I’d never get all the way down the mountain. The snow’s too thin.'

Alex stared at James. Everything he was saying was the exact opposite of what he had said the day before. He almost wondered if this was the same boy. But of course it was. He was as untidy as ever. The bruises—fading now—were still there on his face. Dark hair, dark blue eyes, pale skin—it was James. And yet, something had happened. He was sure of it.

Then James twisted around, and Alex saw that Mrs. Stellenbosch had come into the room, wearing a particularly nasty lime green dress that came down just to her knees. ‚Good morning, boys!' she announced. ‚We’re starting today’s lessons in ten minutes. The first lesson is history in the tower room.' She walked over to Alex’s table. ‚James, I hope you’re going to join us today.'

James shrugged. ‚All right, Mrs. Stellenbosch.'

‚Excellent. We’re looking at the life of Adolf Hitter. Such an interesting man. I’m sure you’ll find it most valuable.' She walked away.

Alex turned to James. ‚You’re going to class?'

‚Why not?' James had finished eating. ‚I’m stuck here and there isn’t much else to do.

Maybe I should have gone to class before. You shouldn’t be so negative, Alex.' He waved a finger to underline what he was saying. ‚You’re wasting your time.'

Alex froze. He had seen that movement before, the way he had waved his finger. Joe Canterbury, the American boy, had done exactly the same thing yesterday.

Puppets dancing on the same string.

What had happened last night?

Alex watched James leave with the others. He felt he had lost his only friend at Point Blanc, and suddenly he wanted to be away from this place, off the mountain and back in the safe world of Brookland Comprehensive. There might have been a time when he had wanted this adventure. Now he just wanted out of it. Press Fast Forward three times on his CD player and MI6 would come for him. But he couldn’t do that until he had something to report.

Alex knew what he had to do. He got up and left the room.

He had seen the way the night before when he was hiding in the fireplace. The chimney bent and twisted its way to the open air. He had been able to see a chink of light from the bottom. Moonlight. The bricks outside the academy might be too smooth to climb, but inside the chimney they were broken and uneven with plenty of hand- and footholds. Maybe there would be a fireplace on the third or fourth floors. But even if there weren’t, the chimney would still lead him to the roof and—assuming there weren’t any guards waiting for him there—he might be able to find a way down.

Alex reached the fireplace with the two stone dragons. He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock.

Classes would continue until lunch, and nobody would wonder where he was. The fire had finally gone out, although the ashes were still warm. Would one of the guards come to clean it?

He would just have to hope that they would leave it until the afternoon. He looked up the chimney. He could see a narrow slit of bright blue. The sky seemed a very long way away, and the chimney was narrower than he had thought. What if he got stuck? He forced the thought out of his head, reached for a crack in the brickwork, and pulled himself up.

The inside of the chimney smelled of a thousand fires. Soot hung in the air, and Alex couldn’t breathe without taking it in. He managed to find a foothold and pushed, sliding himself a short way up. Now he was wedged inside, forced into a sitting position with his feet against one wall, his back against the other, and his legs and bottom hanging in the air. He wouldn’t need to use his hands at all. He only had to straighten his legs to push himself up, using the pressure of his feet against the wall to keep himself in place. Push and slide. He had to be careful. Every movement brought more soot trickling down. He could feel it in his hair. He didn’t dare look up. If it went into his eyes he would be blinded. Push and slide again, then again. Not too fast. If his feet slipped he would fall all the way back down. He was already a long way above the fireplace. How far had he gone? At least one floor … meaning that he had to be on his way to the third. If he fell from this height, he would break both his legs.

The chimney was getting darker and tighter. The light at the top didn’t seem to be getting any nearer. Alex found it difficult to maneuver himself. He could barely breathe. His entire mouth seemed to be coated in soot. He pushed again, and this time his knees banged into brickwork, sending a spasm of pain down to his feet. Pinning himself in place, Alex reached up and tried to feel where he was going. There was an L-shaped wall jutting out above his head.

His knees had hit the bottom part of it. But his head was behind the upright section. Whatever the obstruction was, it effectively cut the passageway in half, leaving only the narrowest of gaps for Alex’s shoulders and body to pass through.

Once again, the nightmare prospect of getting stuck flashed into his mind. Nobody would ever find him. He would suffocate in the dark. He gasped for breath and swallowed soot. One last try! He pushed again, his arms stretching out over his head. He felt his back slide up the wall, the rough brickwork tearing at his shirt. Then his hands hooked over what he realized must be the top of the L. He pulled himself up and found himself looking into a second fireplace, sharing the main chimney. That was the obstruction he had just climbed around. Alex raised himself over the top and dived clumsily forward. More logs and ashes broke his fall. He had made it to the third floor!

He crawled out of the fireplace. Only a few weeks before, at Brookland, he’d been reading about Victorian chimney sweeps, how boys as young as nine had been forced into virtual slave labor. He had never thought he would learn how they felt. He coughed and spat into the palm of his hand. His saliva was black. He wondered what he must look like. He would have to have a bath before he was seen.

He stood up. The third floor was as silent as the first and second. Soot trickled out of his hair, and for a moment he was blinded. He propped himself against a statue while he wiped his eyes. Then he looked again. He was leaning on a stone dragon, identical to the one on the ground floor. He looked at the fireplace. That too was identical. In fact …

Alex wondered if he hadn’t somehow made a terrible mistake. He was standing in a hall that was the same in every detail as the hall on the ground floor. There were the same corridors, the same staircase, the same fireplace … even the same animal heads staring miserably from the walls. It was as if he had climbed in a circle, arriving back where he had begun. He turned around. No. Here was one difference. There was no main door. He could look down on the front courtyard from the window. There was a guard leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette. This was the third floor. But it had been constructed as a perfect replica of the first.

Alex tiptoed forward, worried that somebody might have heard him climb out of the fireplace. But there was no one around. He followed the corridor as far as the first door. On the first floor, this would lead into the library. Gently, an inch at a time, he opened the door, It led into a second library—again, the spitting image of the first. It had the same tables and chairs, the same suit of armor guarding the same alcove. He ran an eye along one of the shelves. It even had the same books.

But there was one difference—at least, one difference that Alex could see. He felt as if he had strayed into one of those puzzles they sometimes printed in comics or magazines: two identical pictures, but ten deliberate mistakes. Can you spot them? The mistake here was that there was a large television set built into a shelf on a wall. The television was on. Alex found himself looking at an image of yet another library. He was beginning to feel dizzy. What was the library on the television screen? It couldn’t be this one because Alex himself was not being shown. So it had to be the library on the first floor.

Two identical libraries. You could sit in one and watch the other. But why? What was the point?

It took Alex about ten minutes to discover that the entire third floor was a carbon copy of the first floor with the same dining room, living rooms, and games room. Alex went over to the snooker table and placed a ball in the middle. It tolled into the corner pocket. The room was on the same slant. A television screen showed the games room downstairs. It was the same as in the library: one room spying on another.

He retraced his steps and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. He wanted to find his own room, but first he went into James’s. It was another perfect copy: the same sci-fi posters, the same mobile hanging over the bed, the same lava lamp on the same table. There were even the same clothes strewn over the floor. So these rooms weren’t just built to be the same—they were carefully maintained. Whatever happened downstairs, happened upstairs. But did that mean there had been somebody living here, watching every movement that James Sprintz made, doing everything he did? And if so, had somebody else been doing the same for him?

Alex went next door. It was like stepping into his own room. Again there was the same bed, the same furnishings, the same television. He turned it on. The picture showed his room on the first floor. There was the CD player, lying on the bed. There were his wet clothes from the night before. Had somebody been watching when he cut through the window and climbed out into the night? Alex felt a jolt of alarm, then forced himself to relax. This room—the copy of his room—was different. Nobody had moved in here yet. He could tell, just by looking around him.

The bed hadn’t been slept in. And the smaller details hadn’t yet been copied. There was no CD

player in the duplicate room. No wet clothes. He had left the closet door open downstairs. In here it was closed.

The whole thing was like some sort of mind-bending puzzle. Alex forced himself to think it through. Every single boy who arrived at the academy was watched. All his actions were duplicated. If he hung a poster on the wall of his room, an identical poster was hung in an identical room. There would be someone living in this room, doing everything that Alex did.

He remembered the figure he had glimpsed the day before … someone wearing what looked like a white mask. Perhaps that person had been about to move in. But all the evidence suggested that, for whatever reason, he wasn’t here yet.

And that still left the biggest question of all. What was the point? To spy on the boys was one thing. But to copy everything they did?

A door swung shut and he heard voices, two men walking down the corridor outside. Alex crept over to the door and looked out. He just had time to see Dr. Grief walk through a door with another man, a short, plump figure in a white coat. They had gone into the laundry room.

Alex slipped out of the duplicate bedroom and followed them.

‚…you have completed the work. I am grateful to you, Mr. Baxter.'

‚Thank you, Dr. Grief.'

They had left the door open. Alex crouched down and looked through. Here at last was a section of the third floor that didn’t mirror the first. There were no washing machines or ironing boards here. Instead, Alex found himself looking into a room with a row of sinks and a second set of doors leading into a fully equipped operating room at least twice as big as the laundry room on the first floor. At the center of the room was an operating table. The walls were lined with shelves containing surgical equipment, chemicals, and—scattered across the surface—

what looked like black-and-white photographs.

An operating room! What was its role in this bizarre, devilish jigsaw puzzle? The two men had walked into it and were talking together, Grief standing with one hand in his pocket. Alex chose his moment, then slipped into the outer room, crouching down beside one of the sinks.

The second set of doors was open. From here he could watch and listen as the two of them talked.

‚So … I hope you’re pleased with the last operation.' It was Mr. Baxter speaking. He had half turned toward the doors, and Alex could see a round, flabby face with yellow hair and a thin mustache. Baxter was wearing a bow tie and a checked suit underneath his white coat. Alex had never seen the man before. He was certain of it. And yet, he sensed he knew him. Another puzzle!

‚Entirely,' Dr. Grief replied. ‚I saw him as soon as the bandages came off. You have done extremely well.'

‚I was always the best. But that’s what you paid for.' Baxter chuckled. His voice was oily.

‚And while we’re on that subject, maybe we should talk about my final payment.'

‚You have already been paid the sum of one million dollars.'

‚Yes, Dr. Grief.' Baxter smiled. ‚But I was wondering if you might not like to think about a little … bonus?'

‚I thought we had an agreement.' Dr. Grief turned his head very slowly. The red glasses homed in on the other man like searchlights.

‚We had an agreement for my work, yes. But my silence is another matter. I was thinking of another quarter of a million. Given the size and the scope of your Gemini Project, it’s not so much to ask. Then I’ll retire to my little house in Spain and you’ll never hear from me again.'

‚I will never hear from you again?'

‚I promise.'

Dr. Grief nodded. ‚Yes. I think that’s a good idea.'

His hand came out of his pocket. Alex saw that it was holding an automatic pistol with a thick silencer protruding from the barrel. Baxter was still smiling as Grief shot him once, through the middle of the forehead. He was thrown off his feet and onto the operating table. He lay still.

Dr. Grief lowered the gun. He went over to a telephone, picked it up, and dialed a number.

There was a pause while his call was answered. Then …

‚This is Grief. I have some garbage in the operating room that needs to be removed. Could you please inform the disposal team?'

He put down the phone and, glancing one last time at the still figure on the operating table, walked to the other side of the room. Alex saw him press a button. A section of the wall slid open to reveal an elevator on the other side. Dr. Grief got in. The doors closed.

Alex straightened up, too shocked to think straight. He staggered forward and went into the operating room. He knew he had to move fast. The disposal team that Dr. Grief had called for would be on their way. But he wanted to know what sort of operations took place here.