Alex didn't look ill now. He looked as if he had been in a fistfight. There were a number of small cuts on his forehead and the side of his cheek, and from the way he was standing, Bray guessed he had hurt his shoulder. He was here because of a report sent in by his biology teacher, Mr. Gilbert. But Alex didn't give any sign of being ashamed or nervous about what might follow. He was just angry.

Mr. Bray sighed. "Alex. You made a very good start in year seven. All your reports said the same. And I am well aware of your personal circ.u.mstances. I imagine you were very close to your uncle."

"Yes, sir."

"It doesn't help that you've had a lot of time off school . . . all these illnesses. Obviously, I've made allowances for you. But this business yesterday . . . frankly, I'm appalled. As I understand it, the bus had an emergency door that you opened, and you managed to fall out. Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm amazed you could be so irresponsible. You could have seriously hurt yourself. And there were other young people on the bus too. Didn't you stop to think that you might cause an accident? I can't imagine why you would do such a thoughtless thing." Mr. Bray took off his gla.s.ses and laid them on his desk. It was something he always did when he was about to p.r.o.nounce sentence. "I hate the idea of your missing any more lessons, but I'm afraid I am going to have to make an example of you. You are going to have one day's suspension from school. You are to go home straightaway, and I've written a note for you to take with you."

Half an hour later, Alex crossed the school yard with a sense of injustice burning in him. He had survived poisonous plants and insects, hand-to-hand combat, and machine-gun fire. He had downloaded the contents of Straik's computer and stolen a sample of whatever he was brewing at Greenfields. Jack would have already delivered them to the MI6 offices on Liverpool Street. And what was his reward? To be treated like a naughty schoolboy, sent home with a note.

The first lesson had already begun, and n.o.body noticed Alex as he made his way out of the gates and down the road toward the bus stop. As he walked, he found himself going over the events of the day before. The appearance of Desmond McCain had completely thrown him. What was the head of an international charity doing in a bio research center in Wiltshire? He was planning something with Leonard Straik. That much was clear. The two of them had talked about shipping a thousand gallons of the liquid-and they had said that it was alive. But what was it and what was it for? The more Alex thought about it, the less sense it made.

McCain had been to prison once in his life, and he had to be heading that way again. Alex was certain now-not that he had ever really doubted it-that his near death in Scotland, along with Sabina and her father, had been no accident. McCain had tried to kill them. He was prepared to do anything to protect himself. MI6 had wanted to investigate Leonard Straik because he might be a security risk. In fact, he was using Greenfields for something much bigger than anyone suspected.

And then Alex remembered something he had overheard while he was in the office. McCain was going to send the Becket woman somewhere the following day-today. A place called Elm's Cross. The name rang a faint bell. Alex continued walking until he arrived at an Internet cafe not far from Brompton Cemetery. The place served disgusting coffee, but it charged only two dollars for half an hour on one of its ancient computers. At least it had broadband.

Alex paid and chose a computer at the very back, away from the window. The owner glanced at him briefly, then returned to a crumpled copy of The Sun The Sun. Alex Googled Elm's Cross Elm's Cross and waited for the page to come up on the screen. The results were disappointing. There was a packaging company with that name in Warminster, a restaurant in Bradford, and a film studio in west London that had apparently closed down a year ago. None of them could possibly be connected. Except . . . and waited for the page to come up on the screen. The results were disappointing. There was a packaging company with that name in Warminster, a restaurant in Bradford, and a film studio in west London that had apparently closed down a year ago. None of them could possibly be connected. Except . . .

"What about the shooting?"

Straik to McCain. When Alex had heard them, he'd automatically a.s.sumed that they were talking about guns. But suppose they had actually meant shooting film? Alex looked for more information about the studio. It was on the other side of Hayes, not far from Heathrow Airport. According to an old news report, a raft of British comedies had been shot there after the war, but the increasing noise of aircraft along with the decline in British film production had combined to put it out of business. There was talk of the land being developed . . . affordable housing and more office s.p.a.ce. The last film that had been shot there was an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the shopping chain Woolworth's. It seemed appropriate. A few weeks later, Woolworth's had gone bust too.

Alex had made his decision. Jack wouldn't be expecting him, and even if the school had managed to tell her what was happening, she wouldn't be too worried if he took his time turning up. He would have to be careful. He was still in school uniform and that would certainly attract attention, being out on the street in the middle of the day-but he doubted there would be many policemen around, where he was going.

He took the subway from Fulham Broadway and a taxi the rest of the way. Elm's Cross was in a strange derelict area that had somehow been forgotten by the housing estates, the industrial zones, and the soulless strip malls that surrounded it. As Alex paid the taxi driver, there was a sudden roar and he looked up to see the underbelly of a 747 as it lurched out of the sky toward the main runway of Heathrow. In the distance he could make out the M4 highway, raised up on concrete spurs, injecting London with a never-ending stream of cars and trucks.

The driver looked at him suspiciously. "Shouldn't you be in school?" he asked.

Alex tipped him generously. "I'm on a school project," he replied. "We're writing about air pollution."

The lie had come easily. Alex could actually taste the exhaust fumes in the air, and he couldn't imagine what it would be like to live with it, day in and day out. He wondered what he was doing. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he had been congratulating himself on a mission accomplished. MI6 had what they wanted. So why was he here, quite possibly putting his head back in the noose?

He was angry. That was part of the reason. But Alex knew it was more than that. Mr. Bray might have given him the excuse, but there was part of him that needed to investigate, to uncover the answers. That part had been deliberately cultivated by MI6 and his uncle-Ian Rider. Using him wasn't enough. First, they had turned him into someone who wanted wanted to be used. to be used.

Alex hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder and set off. He had given the taxi driver an address about a quarter of a mile from his true destination-just in case he had taken it upon himself to call the police and warn them about a boy cutting off from school. He pa.s.sed through an empty area with what looked like a reservoir on one side and a wide expanse of dirty, litter-strewn gra.s.s on the other. A wire fence stretched out ahead of him. Now he had to be careful. Desmond McCain had said he was coming here today. If he happened to drive past, Alex would stick out like a sore thumb, and this time there were no witnesses.

ELM'S CROSS STUDIOS PRIVATE.

WARNING: 24-HOUR SURVEILLANCE.

The sign hung on the fence outside the main gate, but Alex wasn't sure he believed it. How could there be round-the-clock surveillance when there were no cameras? There were no guards in sight either. The paint on the sign had faded, with rust speckling through. And the gate itself was open, inviting him in.

Alex could see a paved driveway leading down to a cl.u.s.ter of buildings, most of them low-rise with long, narrow windows running horizontally, just beneath the roof. They might once have been surrounded by manicured lawns, but the site had become overgrown with long gra.s.s and shrubs running rampant. In the middle of it all, there was a row of three hangars, big enough to house planes . . . although they long ago would have ceased to fly. The whole place looked sad and abandoned.

He walked in. If security men appeared, he would just have to bluff it out. With a bit of luck, n.o.body here would know what had happened the day before. And although the guards at Greenfields had been armed, it was very unlikely that they would be toting guns right next to a major international airport.

n.o.body stopped him. There were definitely no cameras. Alex pa.s.sed a couple of Dumpsters, filled to overflowing. A lot of the contents were household rubbish-old cartons and broken pieces of furniture. But there were also oddities: a plastic cactus, a swordfish, a scaled-down replica of the Statue of Liberty missing the hand holding the torch. He thought he saw a car parked on the other side of some shrubs and was about to duck out of sight when he realized it was a black saloon BMW, left over from the Second World War, burned out and resting on bricks instead of tires. He was surrounded by the remnants of old films that had been made, seen, and forgotten. Elm's Cross had once been a dream factory, but the machinery had long since shut down.

He came to the first of the hangars, with the words STUDIO A STUDIO A stenciled in yellow letters on the corrugated iron wall. The huge sliding doors were open, but there was nothing inside apart from a puddle of oily water and a pile of broken wood. Cables hung down from the ceiling. A pigeon cooed somewhere in the rafters, the sound amplified by the empty s.p.a.ce. The second hangar was the same. Alex was beginning to think he was wasting his time. There was n.o.body here. And what would someone like Desmond McCain want with an abandoned film studio, anyway? He must have been referring to a different Elm's Cross after all. Alex looked at his watch. Quarter past eleven. Jack would be wondering where he was. He took out his mobile phone, thinking he would call her. There was no signal. stenciled in yellow letters on the corrugated iron wall. The huge sliding doors were open, but there was nothing inside apart from a puddle of oily water and a pile of broken wood. Cables hung down from the ceiling. A pigeon cooed somewhere in the rafters, the sound amplified by the empty s.p.a.ce. The second hangar was the same. Alex was beginning to think he was wasting his time. There was n.o.body here. And what would someone like Desmond McCain want with an abandoned film studio, anyway? He must have been referring to a different Elm's Cross after all. Alex looked at his watch. Quarter past eleven. Jack would be wondering where he was. He took out his mobile phone, thinking he would call her. There was no signal.

"It's ready, ma'am . . ."

"Then I'll leave you to it."

Alex heard the voices and crouched behind a low brick wall-in fact made of painted cardboard and wood, another old piece of film scenery. He had already recognized the voice of Dr. Myra Beckett, and a moment later, there she was, walking out of the third studio dressed in a raincoat, which she had wrapped tightly around her waist. There were two men with her. Alex looked around for anyone else, but it seemed they were alone.

Beckett nodded at the men. "I'll see you back at Greenfields," she said.

For the first time, Alex noticed a couple of cars parked in the narrow driveway between Studios B and C. Beckett got into one of them and drove off. The two men went back into the studio. What could they possibly be doing there? Alex knew that he'd already been in enough trouble. Jack would kill him if she found out he'd come here. But he couldn't just back out now. He had to know.

Beckett had left. Alex crept over to the studio entrance, fearful that the two men would reemerge at any moment. He peered inside. There was no sign of them, but it seemed that this studio was still in use. He could make out powerful lights on the other side of a huge screen stretched over a metal frame. The screen was a barrier between Alex and whatever was happening, but at least it was dark on this side. He could hear the two men muttering in the distance and knew that, for the moment, he was safe. He slipped inside.

"Some of this stuff must be worth a fortune."

"You heard what she said. Leave it!"

The two voices carried easily in the enclosed s.p.a.ce. Alex made his way along the back of the screen, keeping close to the outer wall. McCain was closing this place down. That is what he had said in Straik's office. Perhaps Mr. Bray had done Alex a favor after all. If he hadn't been suspended, he might never have had the opportunity to find out what was going on.

Then the two men appeared, coming around the side of the screen. But for the darkness, they would have seen Alex at once. Alex slipped behind a pile of boxes, crouching low. The men walked straight past him, so close that he could have reached out and touched them. He watched them disappear the way he had come. Good. Now he was on his own.

The sound of the door slamming shut echoed all around him like a gunshot. Alex twisted around, but he knew already there was nothing he could do. He heard the rattle of a chain being drawn through the handles, followed by the snap of a padlock. The men had finished here. They had left the lights on. But they had locked and bolted the main door. He heard their footsteps as they walked away and, a moment later, the sound of a car engine starting up. He would just have to hope there was another way out.

Alex straightened up, then continued around the side of the screen. And suddenly he was no longer in London, no longer in a grubby industrial area near Heathrow Airport.

He was in Africa.

Alex had never actually been to Africa, yet the scene that surrounded him was unmistakable. He was in the middle of a cl.u.s.ter of mud huts, half a dozen of them, with no windows and roofs made out of straw. They had been constructed close to each other in a dusty enclosure, surrounded by a wooden picket fence. An a.s.sortment of clothes, old but brightly colored, hung on a washing line between two stunted acacia trees. To one side, there was a well with a few objects-pots, pans, some tin plates-scattered around it. A shield shaped like a leaf and two wooden spears had been propped up against one of the doorways as if guarding the way in.

It was only when he looked up that the illusion was broken. Electric arc lamps blazed down from a network of catwalks high above. Together, they were creating the heat and light of an African summer's day. The giant screen was actually a cyclorama made out of a bright green fabric. Alex understood enough about film technology to know that a computer could insert anything into the green background. A flick of a switch and the village could be in a jungle, a desert, or beneath a clear blue sky.

But what sort of film was being made? With a shudder, Alex realized that the village was populated-but not with anything that resembled life. There were three dead cows lying on their sides, their legs rigid, their stomachs bloated, their eyes gla.s.sy and empty. They had to be made out of plastic. There was no smell, no flies swarming over them as there would have been out in the wild. But that didn't take away any of the horror. From the look of them, if these animals had been real, they would have died in pain.

They weren't alone. As Alex moved farther into the set, almost drawn in against his will, he saw what had once been a large bird, perhaps an eagle, now a crumpled heap of bone and feathers lying in the dust. It was only when he reached the edge of the village that he came upon the first human being. A little black boy, maybe two or three years old, was lying curled up, one matchstick arm drawn across his eyes. Alex felt sick. He could tell that it was just a dummy, not a real child. But who would create something like this? And why?

He had seen enough. He could work out the reason for all of this later. Alex just wanted to be back out in the fresh air. He looked around him for a second door and saw one, set in one of the walls of the hangar. He tried it, but it was locked too. There were no windows. He looked up. He could see two barred skylights set in the roof, but there was no way he was going to be able to reach them, even if he climbed up to the lighting platforms. A rectangular air-conditioning shaft ran the full length of the hangar, suspended from the ceiling by a series of metal brackets. He might be able to reach the skylights if he climbed on top of it-but even then, how would he cut his way through the bars?

Perhaps he could blow them up. He still had the second gel-ink pen that Smithers had given him. He was already taking off his backpack when he remembered. He had left the pencil case with the pen and the pocket calculator beside his bed. He checked his mobile. There was no signal. So it looked as if he was just going to have to wait here until someone came back.

And then the whole world burst into flames.

Alex didn't know what was more shocking-the fact that it was so silent, or so unexpected. All around him the ground simply erupted, tongues of fire shooting upward as if powered by hidden pipes below. Alex could have been in the middle of a minefield. About half a dozen bombs, incendiaries perhaps, were being set off, one by one. Alex was thrown off his feet. He knew that if one of the devices went off directly underneath him, he would be killed. He threw his arm across his eyes, protecting them from the heat.

Now he understood what Beckett and the two men had been doing. Closing this place down meant destroying it. The three of them must have just finished laying the explosive charges when he had come across them. They had been set off either by timer switches or remote control. It made no difference either way to Alex. The flames were roaring all around him. It was as if he had been locked inside some huge oven. He had only minutes to break out of here. Very soon he would begin to suffocate. And if he pa.s.sed out, that would be the end of him. Everything in here would burn. There would be nothing left.

The green screen had caught alight. Alex saw it dissolve like a huge sheet of paper, turning black and then orange and red as the flames burst through. His eyes were streaming now. It was difficult to see, almost impossible to think. The doors were locked. The skylights were out of reach. The walls were metal. The mobile was dead. He had nothing with him. There was no way out.

The air-conditioning shaft . . .

It was a square tunnel hanging underneath the ceiling, plugged into the wall. It brought air into the building. So it had to lead outside. The silver shaft was big enough to crawl through, and Alex thought he could make out an access panel. He wiped a sleeve against his eyes. All the clothes on the washing line were ablaze. One of the huts had vanished, consumed by a whirlpool of fire. Suddenly, all the lights blinked out. The main electric cable must have melted. Now the hangar was an intense red, lit only by the inferno that was destroying it.

Coughing, forcing himself to suck in the hot air, Alex started forward. Without knowing quite why, he grabbed hold of the shield and carried it over to the ladder. It would make it more difficult to climb, yet somehow he had a feeling he would need it. He reached out and grabbed the first rung. It was already warm. In a minute's time, it would be too hot to hold.

Dragging the shield with him, he climbed up to the walkway. The air-conditioning shaft was directly above him, running about thirty yards to the far wall. He was going to have to climb into it and then crawl the whole distance with the flames roaring underneath him. Alex stared at the distance across the studio with a sense of despair that made him weak. It was going to be like feeding himself into an oven. If he didn't move fast, he would roast before he reached the other end.

But would there even be a way out? There had to be. There was no other choice.

The access panel to the ventilation shaft was fastened with four nuts and bolts. Alex was lucky. They turned in his hand. But even that wasn't easy. The smoke was blinding him. There was a foul chemical smell-many of the props must have been made of synthetic materials-and even as he dragged at what little air remained, he felt sick. Finally the fourth bolt came free and the panel fell away, bouncing off the walkway and spinning down below. Alex watched it disappear into the fire. There was nothing but fire now. Beckett and her colleagues had done their work all too well.

He pulled himself into the open shaft, sliding the shield in front of him. Now he was glad that he had brought it. Even as he crouched in the square corridor, he could feel the metal underneath him heating up. The shield would at least protect his hands. Quickly, moving with difficulty in the confined s.p.a.ce, he tore off his backpack and dropped it ahead of him. Then came his jacket. He folded it under his knees. It would have to provide a cushion against the heat. He was already sweating. He could see the air rippling in front of him. He fixed his eyes on the end of the tunnel. There was a square of daylight, another access panel. That was what he had to reach.

He set off.

He could no longer see the flames, but he could imagine them, stretching out, licking the metal surface directly beneath him. He was shuffling forward as quickly as he could, his hands resting on the shield, his knees on the jacket. But there wasn't enough room to move properly. For just one moment he lost his balance and his palm and five fingers landed on the metal. He winced. The surface was already too hot to touch. He wasn't going to make it. The end was too far away.

Push the shield. Draw in his knees. Push the shield. Draw in his knees.

His head was swimming. There was almost no air left in the tunnel. And the jacket was burning. Most of his weight was on his knees, and he could feel the heat coming through. There was a dull clang behind him and he glanced back to see that the access panel was filled with smoke and the metal was buckling. There was certainly no way back. It occurred to him that the entire shaft could come free, that the brackets holding it up could melt or break loose and that the whole thing could plunge down, smashing into the studio floor and the roaring fire below. But he couldn't let that possibly stop him.

His knees were hurting now and he'd had to move his hands to the very edge of the shield, gripping the sides. It was fortunate that the African shield seemed to be the real thing. If it had been made of plastic, it would already have melted. Alex could hear someone grunting and realized it was him. Every movement was an effort: fighting the heat, fighting to breathe, forcing himself not to give up. He was more than halfway across. He could see the exit-a metal grille-ahead of him. He wouldn't have time to turn any screws, even a.s.suming there were any. What if the grille was welded into place? No. Don't even think it. Alex shuffled faster and faster. Draw in the knees. Push the shield.

The last ten yards were the worst. Alex's vision was blurred. He could feel tears streaming down his face. But then he was there. The grille was in front of him. He reached out and grabbed hold of it, curling his fingers over the metal slats. It wouldn't move. He shook it. Something whispered behind him and he turned around to see a ball of fire rolling in slow motion from the far end toward him. There was only one thing to do. He slid the shield behind him then somehow maneuvered himself so that he was lying on his back. His shoulders screamed at him. The metal was too hot. He could smell his own clothes beginning to burn. He lashed out with both feet, smashing them into the grille.

Nothing.

The fireball was getting closer, floating in s.p.a.ce, already halfway down the shaft. He kicked a second time and the grille swung open. Still on his back, Alex drew himself forward, using the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. He hooked his heels over the edge of the wall and somehow spilled out into the open.

He was falling. How high up was he? Had he done all this just to break his neck when he hit the concrete below? But he was lucky. The ground rose up at the back of the studio and he hit soft gra.s.s, the slope of the hill. He rolled over several times, then came to a halt. There were flames above him, shooting out of the little square that had just provided him with an exit. Although the metal walls were keeping most of it contained, smoke was seeping through the cracks, rising into the air. Alex heard the gla.s.s shatter as the skylights broke and thicker smoke began to billow out. Coughing, wiping his eyes, he got to his feet.

The first fire engines arrived ten minutes later, followed by the police. A pilot coming in to land at Heathrow had seen what was happening and radioed the authorities. By the time the firemen bundled out and began uncoiling their hoses, the whole of Studio C was a raging inferno. Not a single piece of evidence of the filming would remain inside.

The firemen did what they could, but in the end it was easier just to let the building burn. Meanwhile, the police checked the rest of the complex, making sure there was no one else around. None of them had noticed a single schoolboy limping along the main road, looking for a taxi to take him home.

15.

Q & A.

"ALEX RIDER IS AN AGENT working for the Special Operations Division of MI6. I know that's hard to believe, but I promise you it's true. He lives in Chelsea, just off the King's Road, with a housekeeper who acts as his guardian. Her name is Jack Starbright. He has no relatives that I know of. His uncle, a man named Ian Rider, was also a spy, but he was killed. That was when the kid got recruited."

Harry Bulman unwrapped a stick of chewing gum, rolled it carefully between his finger and thumb, and slid it into his mouth. He was sitting in a makeshift office that stood on the edge of a building site in London, not far from King's Cross. There was a cheap desk, three plastic chairs, and a fridge with a kettle and coffee mugs. The walls were covered with architect's drawings. Outside, work had finished for the day and it looked as if everyone had gone home. There were two men with him. He recognized one of them. Desmond McCain had been in the papers often enough for his face to be familiar. He was dressed entirely in black, one leg crossed over the other, his hands resting in his lap. Bulman could see his own reflection in the brightly polished leather of McCain's shoe. The other man had been introduced as Leonard Straik. He was older than McCain, with silver hair rising over his forehead. He looked nervous.

Bulman was also neatly dressed. He had put on a suit and tie for this meeting, and his briefcase, with all his notes, was at his feet. But something had gone out of him since he had turned up at Alex's house. His confidence and swagger had been replaced by a dull sense of resentment. He was a man who had been injured, and it showed. He talked slowly, measuring his words, and the hatred in his voice was unmistakable. Even the way he chewed the gum had a mechanical quality. He could have been chewing raw flesh.

After he had been released by the police, Bulman had gone home. He had opened a bottle of whisky and drunk half of it, staring at the wall. He had been terrified. In a matter of hours, his entire life had been stripped away from him and-this was the worst part-it could happen again at any time. The man called Crawley had made it absolutely clear. They could just snap their fingers and he would vanish off the face of the earth, spirited away to some mental hospital where he would be left to rot. They were probably watching him even as he sat there. He wondered if his apartment was bugged. Almost certainly. For the first time in his life, he sensed how powerless he would be if the system-society, the government, whatever-turned against him. They had given him a warning and it had struck him in the heart.

Harry Bulman was many things, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that there was going to be no newspaper story about Alex Rider, no front-page headlines, no publishing deal. Even if he dared try again, there wasn't an editor in town who would go anywhere near him. The Internet? Despite what he had told Alex, he knew there was no point in posting the story in cybers.p.a.ce. It would do nothing for him, other than getting him killed.

But what rankled him most wasn't Crawley. It wasn't MI6. It was that he had been defeated by a fourteen-year-old boy. Mr. Alex b.l.o.o.d.y Rider. The kid was probably laughing at him.

When the phone had rung a few weeks later and Bulman had heard the voice of one of his contacts, the ex-soldier who had helped him put the story together in the first place, the reporter was tempted to hang up. Fortunately, the man didn't mention Alex Rider. He simply said that something interesting had turned up and he wondered if Bulman would like to meet at the usual place.

The usual place was the Crown pub on Fleet Street. Bulman used his old army training to make sure he wasn't being followed, but he still insisted on walking to a second pub on the other side of town before he said a word. And even then, he chose a back room with the music turned up loud and n.o.body else in sight.

And that was when he heard that someone else was now asking questions about Alex Rider, and that they were prepared to pay good money for information. It was all being done very discreetly. The friend didn't even know who wanted to know-but the money involved had a lot of zeroes and there was a telephone number he could pa.s.s on if Bulman was interested.

Bulman took twenty-four hours to come to a decision. Every instinct told him that Alex Rider had an enemy and that they weren't doing this to buy him a surprise present for his birthday. There was a risk putting himself forward. He could be walking into a trap. But even as he mulled it over, two thoughts stayed in his mind. The first was the money, which he needed. The second was the possibility that he could do Alex serious harm.

In the end he made the call.

He had been pa.s.sed from one anonymous voice to another. There had been three different people asking him questions before he had finally been told to come here, and he was fairly sure that his own background, everything about him, would have been checked. But the way that it was all being handled rea.s.sured him. Whoever these people were, they were afraid of being found out, just like him. And the more careful they were, the safer he would be.

Finally, the date for this meeting had been set. According to the signs on the street, this was the site of a new hostel for the homeless being built by the international charity First Aid. Even so, Bulman was astonished to find himself face-to-face with the Reverend Desmond McCain. Of course he remembered the story of the Parliament member who had gone bad, the building that had burned down and the false insurance claim. He'd heard that McCain had reformed. For the past five years he had been devoting himself to charity projects. Well, obviously he wasn't quite as saintly as people thought. It had already occurred to Bulman that there might be another story in all this, but of course, he kept the thought to himself.

There had been no pleasantries and no introductions. No offers of tea or coffee. After Bulman had sat down, McCain had opened the meeting as if he really were a vicar addressing his congregation.

"I appreciate your coming here today, Mr. Bulman. It is most generous of you. I understand you have information about a boy named Alex Rider. Please would you be good enough to tell me everything you know."

And Bulman had done just that. Once he had started, he found it all pouring out of him, everything he had learned during his research. It had been difficult to stop.

"They recruited a child!" McCain had listened in silence, but now he turned to Straik. " 'For they are a wicked generation, children who have no faith.' We should have been warned by the book of Deuteronomy, chapter thirty-two."

"He's been incredibly successful," Bulman said, although it annoyed him to have to admit it. "I have notes on his last three a.s.signments, and there may have been others."

"You have his address?"

"I've actually been to his house. I know where he goes to school. I've written it all down for you. I can tell you everything you want to know." Bulman didn't want to push his luck, but he couldn't resist asking a few questions of his own. It was too good an opportunity to miss. He began innocently. "What is this place? You're building a hostel?"

"It's a dreadful thing, the number of young homeless people there are in London," he said-and to Bulman's surprise, he actually had to brush away a tear. "Out on the streets with no food or shelter! First Aid was given this land by one of the city's most prominent developers, and I'm happy to say that we have raised enough cash to build somewhere they can be looked after with food and warm clothes."

"You do a lot of charity."

"I have made it my life's work."