James moved closer to Tom. "This is about Alex, isn't it," he muttered.

"Alex is standing right next to me," Tom replied.

"Yeah. Sure." James nodded slowly.

The cla.s.s was already filing out and the two of them followed behind.

The guards had seen him. If they had been carrying Uzis, he would have been dead already. One of them was coming after him, catching up fast. The other had stopped to talk into his radio, alerting the others.

Alex was getting tired. He was in pain. As he ran back toward the center of the complex, he was aware of just two things. He had to drop out of sight. And-if it wasn't too late already-he had to find his way back to his friends. There was safety in numbers. So long as he was part of Brookland School, inside the group, there was nothing that Straik or anybody else could do.

But where were they? There was no bus, no sign of anyone, and definitely no way out of the Greenfields Bio Center. The fence was too high and he could see the gate, over on his right, firmly closed. The Poison Dome, which he'd managed to break out of just a few moments before, was now on his left. Well, one thing was certain. He wasn't going back in there.

Alex heard a whine and saw an electric car with three more guards speeding across the lawn toward him. The door of one of the brick buildings opened and more guards poured out. These ones were armed. For just a second, Alex was tempted to hand himself over. He could still pretend he had lagged behind his cla.s.s and gotten lost. Would they really be so quick to kill him?

Then he remembered the test tube in his top pocket. Straik knew someone had hacked into his computer. And there was a dead man in the Poison Dome. Alex put the thought out of his mind. It was obvious what they could-and would-do if they got hold of him, and right now they were just seconds away. He had to move . . . fast.

Ahead of him, a wide tarmac driveway ran straight between what looked like two rows of factories. This was the only way with no guards . . . and it might lead him back to the block where the school visit had begun. A single white-coated technician stood in his way, but he was busy with other things, funneling a steaming liquid from a steel cylinder into a heavily insulated container. Liquid nitrogen. It had to be. Alex had seen the same stuff-though in smaller quant.i.ties-at Brookland. And what were its properties? In physics cla.s.s . . . yes . . . there was something he had been told.

The electric car was getting nearer. The guards who were on foot had brought up their machine guns, preparing to fire. A single cascade of silent bullets and he would be torn to shreds. Alex was already sprinting down the driveway. As the stunned technician stood frozen in surprise, Alex leapt forward and seized the steel cylinder. Then, in a single movement-he spun around and hurled it behind him. The container hit the tarmac and the liquid nitrogen splashed out, immediately forming itself into marbles that bounced along the hard surface. At the same time, it began to evaporate, and suddenly there was a wall of white mist between Alex and his pursuers as the liquid reacted to the higher temperature and turned back into gas. The car swerved as for just a moment Alex disappeared from view. The technician was shouting, but Alex ignored him.

He raced over to the nearest door, using the library card to swipe his way in. He hoped the guards would be unaware that he could open any lock and would keep running. His eyes were watering and he could taste nitrogen gas at the back of his throat. If he had thrown the liquid in a closed room, he would have killed himself, suffocating as the oxygen was swallowed up. Now he found himself in a bare industrial building with cinder-block walls and cement floors. A series of furnaces stood in front of him, none of them operating. A metal staircase twisted upward. Alex was disappointed. He had hoped the building might offer more. Somewhere to hide. Some way of escape. Something.

He took the stairs. He would go up to the roof. There was a communication system built into the pocket calculator that Smithers had given him. He would use it to call MI6. With luck, they would respond before it was too late.

The staircase rose six floors. At the top he came to an old-fashioned door with a push bar. Even as he reached it, he heard the main door of the building crash open beneath him and knew that the guards had worked out where he had gone. He had to fight back a growing sense of hopelessness. There really didn't seem to be any way out of this mess. So what now? A fire escape. He would make his way from the roof back down again and find somewhere else to hide.

Alex had crashed through the door, which then slammed shut behind him. He found himself on a wide, flat roof covered with asphalt. A long silver chimney rose about fifty feet into the air, presumably carrying smoke from the furnaces that Alex had seen below. There were two air-conditioning units and a water tank. But that was all. There was no fire escape in sight. The roof had a low brick wall running all the way around the edge. The nearest building looked to be at least ten yards away-too far to jump. Alex was six stories up with no way to climb down. He was trapped.

He could imagine the guards already climbing the staircase, making their way toward him. Somehow he had to keep them at bay. There were a few pieces of scaffolding left over from building work lying on the ground beside the water tank. He s.n.a.t.c.hed two of them, ran back to the door, and wedged them against the handle, slanting them into the ground. That would at least buy him a bit of time.

But he was still a sitting target. In a way, he had played right into their hands. They could leave him here all night and then pick him off at their leisure. Where were his friends? Alex ran back to the edge of the building, skidding to a halt beside the parapet. And finally he saw them.

The school bus was parked at the far end of the main driveway. The field trip must have ended early, as students were already loading up. Even as he watched, he saw Tom Harris and James Hale climbing on board, deep in conversation. He heard a couple of girls laughing. It seemed incredible that they could be unaware of what had been going on at Greenfields while they were being shown around. And there were the two teachers-Mr. Gilbert and Miss Barry! Alex tried to get their attention, tried to call out to them, but they were too far away and his voice was hoa.r.s.e from the nitrogen. He could only watch in despair as the door hissed shut, sealing his friends inside. He twisted around and looked the other way. The gate was already sliding open. Straik was determined to get rid of the school party as quickly as possible. The best Alex could hope for was one last roll call, perhaps delaying their departure by another few minutes. Then they would be gone. He would be stuck here, on his own.

He sized up the angles. The bus would pa.s.s directly underneath him. Could he jump down? No. He was far too high up. Even a.s.suming he timed it properly and landed on the roof, he would break his arms, his legs, and quite possibly his neck. Could he wave at the driver, somehow attracting his attention? Impossible. He wouldn't be seen at this height and there was nothing he could throw down.

He heard the sound of fists pounding against metal. A single door was all that was between him and the armed guards, wedged shut by two pieces of scaffolding. Desperately, Alex made a circuit of the roof. There were no fire escapes, no ladders, no ropes, nothing. The bus engine had started. It was about thirty yards away at the end of the driveway. At the other end, the gate was open, with Salisbury Plain in clear view.

A cascade of machine-gun fire sent Alex diving for cover. The noise was deafening and very near. But they weren't shooting at him. Not yet. One of the guards at the top of the stairs had sprayed the door with bullets. Alex actually saw the metal bulging and blistering as it was hammered. It was on the verge of being blown off its hinges.

The chimney . . .

Alex was already up and running as the idea took shape in his mind. The chimney was modern and silver, and as far as he could see, its outer casing was fairly thin. He didn't have time to work out the measurements, but surely if it was laid out horizontally, it might reach across to the next rooftop. He could use it as a bridge. And he had the means to bring it down.

Another burst of machine-gun fire. The door shivered in its frame. Feverishly, Alex reached into his backpack and took out the red gel-ink pen that Smithers had given him. Red was more powerful. It would do more damage. That was what Smithers had said. He glanced back at the door. White smoke was trickling through the cracks around the side. How much longer would it hold? Alex had the pen in his hand. He twisted the cap once then pulled the little plunger to activate it. He felt it click and slammed the pen against the chimney, diving for cover behind one of the air-conditioning units. The pen stayed in place, held magnetically.

The bus had yet to move. The guards were hammering at the door now, using the stocks of their machine guns to finish the job. There was a brief pause and then an explosion, louder than anything that had gone before. Hopefully the bus driver would hear it. He would have to stop and find out what was going on! Alex was crouching with his hands over his ears. He felt the blast sear across his forearms and the top of his head and looked up just in time to see the chimney topple like a felled tree, the metal close to the base grinding in protest as it was torn apart.

It crashed down, but even as it fell, Alex saw that his plan couldn't work. The chimney was too short to reach the building opposite. It had fallen sideways, smashing into the low wall. The wall acted as a fulcrum, tearing the metal skin a second time. The chimney ended up tilting down toward the main driveway. What had been its top end was now about thirty feet above the road.

The door, meanwhile, had finally collapsed, blown off its frame from one last blast of machine-gun fire. Half a dozen men rushed out onto the roof.

The bus was now moving, slowly picking up speed, roaring toward the gate as if desperate to get out of here. In a few seconds, it would pa.s.s directly beneath Alex.

One of the guards saw him and shouted. Alex stood where he was. The guard took aim.

As the bus drew closer, Alex sprinted forward, as if determined to throw himself off the side of the building. The guard fired. Bullets skidded across the roof of the building, ripping up the asphalt.

The chimney had been sliced open by the edge of the wall. It had almost broken in half. If it had, it would have fallen down to the road, blocking the bus. But it was being held in place by a small section of the metal skin, resting on the wall and acting like a hinge. Alex dived headfirst into the opening. The chimney was just big enough for him with his backpack still strapped to his shoulders. It was like being inside a slide at a swimming pool. The round silver surface offered no resistance and Alex shot down.

In the end, it was all about timing. If he had hit the road, he would have died. If he had started too soon, he might have missed the bus and been run over by it. But Alex had timed it perfectly. He shot out of what had once been the top of the chimney at the exact moment that the bus pa.s.sed beneath him. For a brief second, he saw the roof, a yellow blur rushing past. He had only about fifteen feet to fall, but he knew that the impact was going to be painful.

It was worse than he imagined. The breath was smashed out of him. His neck and his spine almost separated. He was sure he had broken several of his ribs. He rolled, spinning toward the edge. If he kept rolling and fell off, he would be left behind after all and it would all have been for nothing.

Alex stretched out his arms and legs, spread-eagling himself, doing everything he could to stay in contact with the roof. He wondered why the driver hadn't stopped, but perhaps he hadn't heard anything above the noise of the engine.

The bus reached the security gate and pa.s.sed through without slowing down. Then it was outside the complex, accelerating across Salisbury Plain.

Alex stayed where he was, battered and exhausted. He allowed the cold air to wash over him. Every part of him was in pain. Something was trickling against his chest and for a horrible moment he thought he had been shot. But it wasn't blood. The test tube had smashed. Smithers would just have to use whatever liquid he could separate from the fiber of Alex's jacket. Surely there would be enough of it to a.n.a.lyze.

Meanwhile, he couldn't travel all the way back to London on the roof.

Just before they reached the main road, Alex crawled over to the edge and lowered the top half of his body so that he was hanging, upside down, outside the window where he had been sitting. He was lucky. Tom Harris saw him, his eyes widening in disbelief. Alex made a sign with one hand. Tom nodded.

About one minute later, the bus stopped and Tom got out. Alex watched him rush behind a tree and pretend to be sick. He used the opportunity to slide to the edge and lower himself down. He limped over and joined his friend.

"Alex!" Tom looked horrified. "What happened to you?"

"Things didn't quite go as planned."

"You look awful!"

"Really? I feel great. . . ."

Tom helped Alex back to the bus. The two of them had to pa.s.s Mr. Gilbert, who was sitting in the front seat. Their teacher was even more shocked than Tom had been. He had only seen one boy leave the bus. So how was it possible for two of them to be returning?

"Rider!" he gasped. "What are you doing out of the bus? What happened to you?"

Alex didn't know what to say. He could only imagine what he must look like.

Tom came to his rescue. "He fell out of the window, sir. It's lucky we stopped."

"I don't believe a word of it! The windows don't even open-"

"It was the back door."

"Well . . ." The biology teacher was out of his depth. He just wanted to get back to London. "You'll see the princ.i.p.al first thing tomorrow morning," he snapped. "Now get back to your seat."

Alex leaned on Tom and hobbled to the back of the bus past forty staring faces. Everyone would be talking about this at school the next day-but this was Alex Rider. Somehow, any strange behavior was to be expected. As for Alex, he still had the flash drive with its precious download and the sample from the test tube as an added bonus. He had completed his part of the bargain and he had come out of it more or less in one piece. And as he hadn't heard a word from Harry Bulman, he a.s.sumed that MI6 had kept their promise too.

He sank back into his seat, reflecting that his part in all this was over. He might never find out what McCain and Straik had been planning-but what did it really matter? It was none of his business and he was just glad that he would never see either of them again.

Desmond McCain was back in Straik's office, and for once it was clear that he had lost his composure. He was sitting cross-legged, one hand clenching and unclenching on his knee, and the crack that divided the two halves of his head seemed to have somehow widened as the damaged muscles in his jaw attempted to chew over what had happened. Even the silver crucifix earring had lost its shine.

"This intruder must have been in here, in the room, when we were talking," he growled.

"I would think so." Behind his desk, Leonard Straik licked his lips. He was blinking repeatedly.

"But where?" McCain's great white eyes slid slowly around the office. "There! Behind the picture!"

"I hardly think that there's room."

"Where else?" McCain paused, deep in thought. "What did he hear?"

"I don't think he could have heard anything very much, Desmond." Straik faltered. "We were only in here a couple of minutes. It's just lucky I noticed the flash drive."

"So he now has the contents of your computer."

"All the files are encrypted. And even if he manages to break into them, they won't give much away."

"What about the test tube?"

"I don't think that matters either. Of course, it's bad news. He'll have the sample a.n.a.lyzed-but it won't tell him very much. I don't think anyone will be able to guess its significance."

"You don't think." McCain's fist came pounding down on the side of his chair. Straik heard a dull crack. The arm of the chair had been broken in two. "Five years' work and hundreds of thousands of dollars! We're just a few days away from Poison Dawn, and you don't think think we've been compromised! Obviously, this intruder came in here on the back of your blasted school visit. Why did you allow it in the first place?" we've been compromised! Obviously, this intruder came in here on the back of your blasted school visit. Why did you allow it in the first place?"

"We had no choice. We only rent this facility . . . the land and the buildings. We have to do what the government tells us, and they insisted we have a couple of schools in. They insisted we educate schools about GM technology."

"So then it was a government agent who broke in?"

"I don't know, Desmond." Straik took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. "But I don't think it was a coincidence that the cameras malfunctioned when they did."

"Did any of the guards see the intruder?"

"Quite a few of them did. And they're insisting it was a boy . . . a teenager."

"That doesn't make any sense at all. If it was a child, then the whole thing could have been . . . I don't know . . . a prank!"

"He blew up a chimney on the recycling unit. And he killed a guard in the Poison Dome."

"A teenager? Then who was he? What was he doing here?"

There was a knock at the door and Dr. Beckett came in, her white coat flapping behind her, carrying a file. There was something military about the way she walked, like a soldier delivering news of a defeat. "I have the photographs," she announced.

"I thought you said the cameras weren't working," McCain said.

"They were jammed for about forty minutes." Straik took the file. "But they were working when the bus first arrived, and I thought it might be worth our while to examine who exactly came here today."

McCain went over to the desk. The file that Beckett had brought contained a dozen photographs taken by the camera closest to the main gate. They were grainy, in black and white, but Mr. Gilbert and Miss Barry were clear enough, stepping down from the bus with the rest of the school group following behind. Straik and Beckett were both leaning forward, examining the pictures, when McCain suddenly stabbed down with his finger.

"Him!"

"Who is it, Desmond?"

"Don't you recognize him, you idiot? I don't believe it! It's impossible. But there's no doubt about it. It's the boy from Scotland."

"What boy?" Then Straik realized. "The boy from the card game."

"Alex Rider." McCain uttered the name with undisguised hatred. "That was what he called himself."

"I heard that name on the roll call," Beckett muttered. "But he never left the group."

"Somebody must have answered for him," McCain said. His finger was still pressing down on Alex, as if he could squash him like a bug. "It's definitely the same boy, and this is the second time he's crossed my path."

"I thought we'd dealt with him, Desmond." Myra Beckett stared at the picture in dismay. "You said he was in the car with that journalist-"

"Evidently, we failed." McCain twisted away. "Which means that that irritating journalist is still alive as well. This boy is no mere teenager, though. Who is this Alex Rider? Why is he interested in us?"

"We can find out," Straik muttered.

McCain nodded. "We have contacts. We need to use them. It doesn't matter how much it costs. Someone must know something about this boy . . . he clearly wasn't working alone." McCain took one last look at the photograph. With an effort, he broke free. "We'll locate him and we'll bring him back here."

"And then?"

"And then we'll find out what he knows."

14.

FEELING THE HEAT.

HENRY BRAY HAD BEEN THE PRINc.i.p.aL at Brookland for seven years and a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al at another school for five years before that. He didn't often find himself lost for words, but right now that was exactly how he felt. Once again, he examined the boy in front of him while he tried to work out how to proceed.

Alex Rider was different from all the other boys at Brookland. He knew that. The unfortunate death of his uncle in a car accident almost a year ago had clearly sent him off the rails. That was understandable. But Alex had barely been in school since then, missing week after week because of so many different illnesses that in the end (Mr. Bray hadn't told anyone he'd done this) he had actually written to the doctor, suspecting that something might be going on. He had received a short note back. Alex had viral problems. His health was very delicate. The doctor-his name was Blunt-wouldn't be at all surprised if Alex had to miss a lot more school in the future.