"We could send your father a photograph," Kaspar explained. "But what would that achieve? He will know by now that you have been taken by force. There are stronger ways of making our demands known, ways that he may find more persuasive." He lifted the knife close to his chin, as if about to shave. The blade was fifteen centimetres long with a serrated edge. He examined his reflection in the steel. "We could send him a lock of your hair. He would, I'm sure, recognize it as yours. But then, he might take it as a sign of weakness of compa.s.sion on our part.

"And so I apologize, Paul Drevin. It gives me no pleasure to hurt a child, even a wealthy, spoilt child such as yourself. But what I intend to send your father is a finger from your right hand..."

Automatically Alex tried to pull back. But Combat Jacket had been expecting it. His full weight pressed down on Alex's hand. His fingers were splayed, helpless, on the table.

"The pain will be great. But there are children all over the world who have only ever known pain and starvation, while boys like you languish in the playground of the rich. Do you play the piano, Paul? I hope not. It will not be so easy after today."

He reached out and grabbed Alex's little finger. That was the one he had chosen. The knife began its journey down.

"I'm not Paul Drevin!" Alex spat out the words urgently. His eyes had widened. He could feel the blood draining from his face. The knife was still moving. "You've made a mistake!" he insisted. "My name is Alex Rider. I was in room nine. I don't know anything about Paul Drevin."

The knife stopped. It was millimetres above his little finger.

"Do it!" Combat Jacket hissed.

"I was awake last night," Alex insisted. The words came tumbling out. "I was coming back from the toilet. I saw your men outside my room. One of them pulled out a gun, and then they began chasing me. I didn't know what was happening. I had to defend myself..."

"He's lying," Combat Jacket snarled. "I asked him his name." He turned to Spectacles. "Tell him."

"That's right," Spectacles agreed. "We saw his room. Room eight. It was empty. Then he appeared. We called out his name and he answered."

Kaspar tightened his grip on the knife. He had made up his mind.

"I was in room nine, not room eight!" Alex was shouting now. His head was swimming. He could already see the knife cutting through flesh and bone. He could imagine the pain. Then suddenly he had a thought. "What do you think I was in hospital for?" he demanded.

"We know know what you were there for," Kaspar replied. "Appendicitis." what you were there for," Kaspar replied. "Appendicitis."

"Appendicitis. Right. Then look at my bandages. They're nowhere near my appendix."

There was a long pause. Alex could feel Combat Jacket still pressing down hard, longing for the cutting to begin. But Kaspar was uncertain. "Open his shirt," he ordered.

n.o.body moved.

"Do it!"

Combat Jacket was still holding Alex as tightly as ever but now Silver Tooth stepped forward. He reached out and grabbed hold of Alex's shirt, tearing the top two b.u.t.tons. Kaspar stared at the bandages crossing over his chest. Alex could feel his heart straining beneath them.

"What is this?" Kaspar demanded.

"I had a chest wound."

"What sort of chest wound?"

"An accident on my bike." It was the one lie Alex had told. He couldn't tell them what had really happened. He didn't want them to know who he was. "I met Paul Drevin," he admitted. "He's the same age as me. But he doesn't look anything like me. Just make a phone call. You can find out easily enough." He took a deep breath. "You can cut off all my fingers if you want, but his father isn't going to pay you a penny. He doesn't even know I exist!"

There was another silence.

"He's lying!" Combat Jacket insisted.

But Kaspar was already working it out for himself. He had heard Alex speak. Paul Drevin had a faint Russian accent. This boy had obviously lived in England all his life. Kaspar swore and stabbed down with the knife. The blade buried itself in the table less than a centimetre from Alex's hand. The hilt quivered as he released it.

Alex saw the disappointment in the faces of Spectacles and Silver Tooth. But Kaspar had made his decision.

"Let go of him."

Combat Jacket held him tightly for a moment longer, then released his arm and stood back, muttering something ugly under his breath. Alex s.n.a.t.c.hed back his hand. His right arm was hurting as much as his left one. He wondered if Kaspar would send him back to the hospital. By the time he got out of here, he would need it.

But it wasn't over yet.

Spectacles and Silver Tooth were waiting to escort him out, but Kaspar gestured for them to wait. He was examining Alex a second time, rea.s.sessing him. It was impossible to see behind the markings on his face, to know what was going on in his mind. "If it turns out that you are who you say you are," he began, "if you really are not Paul Drevin, then you are of no use to us. We can kill you in any way that we please. And I think it will please my men to kill you very slowly indeed. So perhaps, my friend, it would have been better for you if there had been no mistake. Perhaps the loss of one finger might have been the easier way."

Silver Tooth was grinning. Spectacles nodded gravely.

"Take him back to his room," Kaspar commanded. "I will make the necessary enquiries. And then we'll meet again."

FIRE ESCAPE.

It was late afternoon when the door opened and Combat Jacket came in. Alex guessed that he had been in the room for eight hours. He had been allowed out once to use a chemical toilet, and at around midday he had been given a sandwich and a drink by an unsmiling Spectacles. The sandwich had been two days past its sell-by date and still in the plastic wrapping, bought from a garage. But Alex wolfed it down hungrily.

Combat Jacket had been sent to fetch him. He led Alex back down the corridor to the flat where the interrogation had taken place, his face with its ugly, broken nose giving nothing away. There was something about the whole set-up that Alex didn't understand. Kaspar had told him they were freedom fighters eco-warriors or whatever. They were certainly fanatics. The tattoos were ample proof of that. But the way they were treating him, the threats, the demands for money, seemed to belong to a different world. They talked about pollution and the ozone layer; but they acted like thugs and common criminals. They had killed the night receptionist for no good reason. They seemed to have no regard at all for human life.

By now, Alex guessed, they must know the truth. So what were they going to do with him? He remembered what Kaspar had said and clamped down on his imagination. Instead, he searched for a way to break out of here. It wasn't going to be easy. The four men had already tested him once. They knew what he was capable of. They weren't going to give him a second chance.

Kaspar was waiting for him. There was a newspaper on the table in front of him but no sign of the knife. Spectacles and Silver Tooth were standing behind him. As Alex sat down, Kaspar turned the newspaper round. It was the Evening Standard Evening Standard and the front-page headline told the whole story in just three words. and the front-page headline told the whole story in just three words.

Wrong boy kidnapped n.o.body was talking, so Alex quickly read the article. There was a photograph of St Dominic's Hospital but no picture of him or Paul Drevin. That didn't surprise him. He remembered reading somewhere that Paul's father Nikolei Drevin had managed to get an embargo on any photos of his family being published, claiming it was too much of a security risk. And, of course, MI6 would have prevented any picture of Alex being used. He didn't even get a mention by name.

A security guard was murdered in the small hours of the morning during a ruthless attack on a north London hospital. It seems almost certain that the intended target of the gang was fourteen-year-old Paul Drevin, son of one of the world's richest men, Russian businessman Nikolei Drevin. Drevin made the headlines earlier this year when he bought Stratford East Football Club. He is also the guiding light behind the hundred billion pound Ark Angel project the first hotel in s.p.a.ce.In an astonishing development, police have confirmed that the gang managed to kidnap the wrong boy. This other boy, who has not been named, was discovered to be missing from his room following major surgery. Speaking from the hospital, Dr Roger Hayward made an urgent plea for the boy's fast return. His condition is said to be stable but serious.

Alex looked up. Kaspar seemed to be waiting for him to speak. "I told you," he said. "So why don't you let me go? I've got nothing to do with this. I was just next door."

"You got involved on purpose," Kaspar said.

"No." Alex denied it but his mouth was dry.

"You switched room numbers. You answered to the name of Paul Drevin. You crippled one of my men and injured the others."

Alex said nothing, waiting for the axe to fall.

"I don't understand why you chose to become involved," Kaspar went on. "I don't know who you are. But you made your decision. You chose to become an enemy of Force Three and so you must pay."

"I didn't choose anything."

"I'm not going to argue with you. I am fighting a war and in any war there are casualties innocent victims who just happen to get in the way. If it makes it any easier, think of yourself as one of them." Kaspar sighed but there was no sadness in the map of his face. "Goodbye, Alex Rider. It was a pity that we had to meet. It has cost me a million pounds in ransom money. It will cost you rather more..."

Before Alex could react, he was grabbed from behind and dragged to his feet. He didn't speak as he was forced back out of the room and down the corridor. This time he was thrown into another room, smaller than his previous cell. Alex just had time to make out a chair, a barred window and four bare walls before he was shoved hard in the back and sent sprawling to the floor.

Combat Jacket stood over him. "I wish he'd let me have a little time with you," he rasped. "If I had my way, we'd do this differently-"

"Move it!" The voice came from outside. One of the other men was waiting.

Combat Jacket spat at Alex and walked out. The door closed and almost at once Alex heard the unmistakable sound of hammering. He shook his head in disbelief. They weren't just locking him in. They were nailing the door to the frame.

Once again, he examined his surroundings. He wondered why they had chosen this particular room. The bars on the window made no real difference. Even if the window had been wide open, he was at least seven storeys up. He wouldn't have been able to climb out. And what exactly were they proposing to do? They obviously weren't planning to come back and get him. Were they simply going to leave him here to starve to death?

The answer came about an hour later. The sun was beginning to set and lights were coming on in buildings all over east London. Alex was becoming increasingly anxious. He was on his own, high up in a derelict tower block. He had a feeling that Kaspar and the others had gone; he could hear nothing at all on the other side of the door. The silence was unnerving. He knew that MI6 would be doing everything they could, searching the city for him, but what hope did they have of finding him here? He couldn't open the window. The room was empty. There was no way he could attract anyone's attention. For once he really did seem to be completely helpless.

And then he smelled it. Seeping through the floorboards, coming from somewhere deep in the heart of the building.

Burning.

They had set fire to the tower block. Alex knew it even before he saw the first grey wisps of smoke creeping under the door. They had doused the place with petrol, set it alight and left him nailed inside what would soon be the world's biggest funeral pyre. For a moment he felt panic black and irresistible as it engulfed him. More smoke was curling under the door. Alex sprang to his feet and backed over to the window, wondering if there was some way he could knock out the gla.s.s. But that wouldn't help him. He forced himself to slow down, to think. He wasn't going to let them kill him. Only eleven days ago, a paid a.s.sa.s.sin had fired a .22 calibre bullet at his heart. But he was still alive. He wasn't easy to kill.

There were just two ways out of the room: the door and the window. Both of those were obviously hopeless. But what about the walls? They were made of hardboard and plaster. In the flat where he had been interrogated, they had been knocked through. Maybe he could do the same here. Experimentally he ran his hands over them, pushing and probing, searching for any weak spots. His throat was sore and his eyes were beginning to water. More and more smoke was pouring in. He stood back, then lashed out in a karate kick, his foot smashing into the centre of the wall. Pain shot up his leg and through his body. The wall didn't even crack.

That just left the ceiling. Alex remembered the corridor outside. It had been missing some of its ceiling tiles and he had seen a gap underneath the pipes and wires that ran above. The ceiling in this room was covered with the same tiles.

And they had left him a chair.

He dragged it over to the corner nearest the door and stood on it. The floor had almost disappeared beneath a swirling carpet of smoke. It seemed to be reaching up as if it wanted to grab hold and devour him. Alex checked his balance, then punched upwards with the heel of his hand. The tiles were made of some sort of fibreboard and broke easily. He punched again, then tore at the edges of the hole he had made. Dirt and debris showered down, almost blinding him. But when he next looked up he saw that there was a s.p.a.ce above him. If he could reach, he could haul himself up, over the door and jump down the other side.

He ripped out more tiles until the hole was wide enough to squeeze through. He could hear something a few floors below him a faint crackling. The sound made his skin crawl. It meant that the fire was getting close. He forced himself to concentrate on what he was doing. The chair was wobbling underneath him. If he fell and twisted an ankle, he was finished.

At last he was ready. He tensed himself, then jumped. He felt the chair topple and crash to the floor but he had done it! His hands had caught hold of an old water pipe and now he was dangling just below the ceiling, his arms disappearing into the s.p.a.ce above. Once again he was all too aware of the st.i.tches in his chest and wondered briefly if they would hold. G.o.d! The physio people had told him he ought to keep up his stretching exercises, but he doubted they'd had this in mind.

Gritting his teeth, Alex summoned all his strength to pull himself up into the cavity. His face pa.s.sed through a cobweb and he grimaced as the fine strands laced themselves over his nose and mouth. His stomach touched the edge of the hole. He was half in and half out of the room. The crawl s.p.a.ce was in front of him. The wall with the door was underneath him. Dozens of wires and insulated pipes ran inches above his head, stretching into the distance. Dust stung his eyes. What now?

Alex dragged himself along the pipe, bringing his feet up into the ceiling recess. He kicked down with his heels. More ceiling tiles fell loose and he saw the corridor below. There was a drop of about four metres. Awkwardly he swung himself forward, then let his legs and torso hang. Finally he let go. He dropped down, landing in a crouch. He was in the corridor, on the other side of the locked door. With a sigh of relief, he straightened up. He was out of the room but he was at least seven floors up in an abandoned building that had been set on fire. He wasn't safe yet.

The crackling of the flames was louder out in the corridor. The block of flats had seemed damp and musty to Alex but it was going up like a torch. He could feel the heat in the air. The end of the corridor where he had been interrogated was already shimmering in the heat haze. Where was the fire brigade? Surely someone must have seen what was happening. Alex noticed a fire alarm set in the wall, but the gla.s.s was already broken and the alarm b.u.t.ton was missing. He would have to get out of here on his own.

Which way? He only had two choices left or right and he decided to head away from the interrogation room. He hadn't seen a staircase when he had been taken there to meet Kaspar, but there might be one in the other direction. Smoke trickled up through the floorboards. It hung eerily in the doorways. Soon it would be impossible to see. Very soon it would be impossible to breathe.

He sprinted past the first room where he had been held and continued down the corridor, pa.s.sing a set of lift doors. He didn't even think about trying the lift. Nothing in the building worked and the doors were welded shut. But next to the lift he found what he was looking for: a staircase leading up and down. The steps were made of concrete, zigzagging round behind the lift shaft. He rested his hand briefly on the metal stair rail. It was hot. The fire was near.

But he had no choice. He began to run down, his bare feet slapping against the cement. He would just have to hope he didn't come across any broken gla.s.s. There were twenty-five steps between each floor; he counted them without meaning to. He turned a corner and saw a door leading into a smoke-filled corridor. Definitely no way out there.

The further down he went, the worse it got. Twenty-five more steps and he came to another door. The corridor on the other side was well alight. There were brilliant red and orange flames, tearing into the walls, leaping up through the floor, devouring everything in their path. Alex was shocked by their speed and elemental strength. He had to put up a hand to protect himself, to stop his cheeks from burning.

He continued down. Force Three had started the blaze on the ground floor, allowing the air to carry the flames upwards. As Alex reached the third floor and began the next flight of steps down, he could barely breathe. The smoke was smothering him. He wished he'd thought to soak his shirt in water, to cover his eyes and mouth. But where would he have found water in the building anyway? Another twenty-five steps. Then another. Alex was choking. He could feel the sweat dripping down his sides. It was like being inside a giant oven. How much further?

He saw daylight. A door leading out onto the street.

And that was when Combat Jacket appeared, a nightmare creature, stepping out of nowhere as if in slow motion, his gun raised in front of him. Alex saw the muzzle flash and threw himself backwards as a bullet shot past centimetres above him. He landed awkwardly on the stairs and he was already rolling as a second bullet spat into the concrete, sending fragments of cement flying into the side of his face. Somehow he scrambled to his feet and began to climb up again. Combat Jacket fired twice more but for a brief moment, the smoke was on Alex's side, and the bullets missed. Alex turned a corner. He didn't stop until he was back on the first floor.

He felt sick a mixture of fury and despair. He'd almost made it. What was Combat Jacket doing there, waiting for him? Had he guessed that Alex might somehow manage to escape? It made no sense. But he couldn't think about it now. He was still trapped inside a burning building and he was rapidly running out of options. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. He looked along the corridor. It was a furnace. He couldn't go that way. He couldn't go down. That only left up.

Wearily, he started to climb. He made it to the second floor with just seconds to spare. As he continued up, there was a sudden rush of flames and a crash as part of the ceiling collapsed. Burning wood, metal and gla.s.s cascaded down. The fire had reached the stairs: now the way down was permanently blocked. He would have to try to make it to the roof. Perhaps he would be lucky. The police and fire brigade would be on the way. There might be helicopters.

Alex kept climbing. His hands were black; his face was streaked with tears. But he didn't stop. At the very worst, he would die in the open air. He wasn't going to let the fire finish him here.

He was no longer counting the steps. His legs were aching and the bandages around his chest had come loose. He ran past the eighth floor with a growing sense of despair. This was where he had begun. Forcing himself on, he continued to climb, past the ninth, the tenth ... eleventh ... twelfth... He was aware of the flames chasing him, filling the stairwell, licking at his heels. It was as if the fire knew he was there and was afraid of losing him. At last he came to a solid door with a metal push mechanism. He slammed his palms against it, terrified it would be locked. But the door swung open. The cool evening air rushed to greet him. The sun had set but the sky was a brilliant red, the same colour as the fire that would be with him all too soon.

Alex was close to exhaustion. He had barely eaten all day. He was meant to be in bed. He almost wanted to cry but instead he swore, once, shouting out the ugly word. Then he wiped a grimy sleeve across his face and looked around.

He was on the roof, fifteen storeys up. He could see a water tank in front of him and a brick building that housed the cables for the lifts. Well, there were no working lifts and there was probably no water either, so neither of them would help. At some stage builders must have carried out some work up here. They had left a few lengths of scaffolding and plastic piping as well as a cement mixer and two steel buckets, both half filled with cement that had long ago dried and solidified. Alex ran to the edge of the roof, searching for a fire escape down. He could feel the tarmac against the soles of his feet. It was already hot. Soon it would begin to melt.

There was no fire escape. There was no way down. He could see the street far below. No cars. No pedestrians. He was in some sort of industrial district in east London. The whole area looked like it was cordoned off, waiting for the money that would make redevelopment possible. The building opposite was identical to this one, similarly condemned. It stood less than fifty metres away, connected by the banner that Alex had seen when he woke up.

[image]

If he had come here in a year's time, he might have found himself standing on the balcony of a fabulous penthouse flat. Alex took in the view. He could see the River Thames in front of him. The Millennium Dome, unwanted and unloved, sat on a spur of land with the water bending round it. A plane dipped out of the sky, making for City Airport, which he could see over his shoulder. Alex raised his arm, waving for attention, but he knew at once that it was no good. The plane was too high up. It was already too dark. And the smoke was too thick.

He hurried back to the door. He would have to head down again and hope that the upper corridors were still pa.s.sable. Maybe he could try the other side of the building. He pulled the door open carefully. It seemed impossible that Combat Jacket would have followed him all the way up, but he wasn't taking any chances. But as the door swung wide, he realized that Combat Jacket was the least of his problems.

A fist of flame punched at him. The stairs had become an inferno.

At the same moment, there was an explosion and Alex was hurled backwards by a thousand fragments of burning, splintered wood which had been blasted up from below. He landed painfully on his back, and when he next looked up he saw that the door itself was now on fire. It was the only way off the roof.

He was trapped.

Alex stood up. The tarmac was definitely getting hotter. He could no longer stay too long on one foot. Black smoke was pouring out of the stairwell, billowing into the sky. Now he heard the sound he had been hoping for the wail of sirens. But he knew that by the time they got to him, it would be too late. There was another explosion below him. The windows were beginning to shatter, unable to take the heat. No way down. What could he do?

The banner.

It was twenty metres long, about a hundred metres above the ground, a lifeline between this building and the next. The advertis.e.m.e.nt for Hornchurch Towers was suspended between two steel cables; the top cable was level with the roof, bolted into the brickwork. Alex ran over to it. Could he stand on the lower cable and hold onto the higher one? It would be like a swing bridge in the jungle. He could slowly inch his way across to the other side and safety.

But the cables were too far apart and the material was flapping in the wind. It would knock him off before he was even halfway.

Could he somehow crawl across on his hands and knees?

No. The cable was about two centimetres thick. It wasn't wide enough to support him. He would lose his balance and fall. That was certain.

So how?

The answer came to him in an instant. Everything he needed was there in front of him. But it only worked when he put it all together. Could he do it?

Another window shattered. Behind him, the exit had disappeared in a whirlwind of flames and smoke. He was standing on a giant hot plate and it was becoming more unbearable with every pa.s.sing second. Alex could see the fire engines, the size of toys, speeding along about half a mile away. He had to try. There was no other way.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up one of the lengths of plastic piping, weighing it in his hands. It was about six metres long and light enough for him to carry without feeling any strain. He had to make it heavier. Moving more quickly, he examined the steel buckets. They were half full of hardened cement, and weighed about the same. Somehow he had to attach them to the piping. But there was no rope. He choked and wiped sweat and tears from his eyes. What could he use? Then he looked down and saw the bandages flapping around his chest. He grabbed an end and began to tear them off.

Sixty seconds later he was ready.

It was Ian Rider he had to thank, of course. A visit to a circus in Vienna six years ago when Alex was only eight. It had been his birthday. And he still remembered his favourite act. The tightrope walkers.

"Funambulism," Ian Rider said.