Alex heaved himself over the edge of the tower and jumped.
He fell, incredibly fast, as if he had simply leapt to his death. He was certain that the lines—all six of them—would break. But then he lurched back upward and felt a jolt in his arms that told him the fishing lines were holding and that he was actually dangling in the air like an oversized puppet. Or a fish. His hands were hooked into the bent wire, barely able to keep their grip. He couldn’t feel his fingers. The rain whipped into his face. The electric fence rushed toward him in a blur.
He was too low! His feet were going to plow straight into it. Crying out, Alex curled his legs up, putting more strain on his stomach and arms. He folded his knees into his stomach, desperately aware that his feet were still too low. The wire was suddenly very close. He saw the rain hitting it and imagined the current running through it. He closed his eyes, waiting for the shock.
But then, somehow, he passed over it, missing it by less than an inch. He wasn’t going to be electrocuted. But there were other ways to die. He was traveling too fast. In about one second’s time he would hit the wooden hoist and that would smash every bone in his body. Alex felt the wind and the rain slamming against him. He could hardly see at all. At the last moment, hoping he had judged it right, he swung himself sideways and let go.
Briefly, he hurtled downward. He must have been traveling at forty or fifty miles per hour, faster than a speeding car. For a horrible fraction of a second, he felt himself twisting through the air, falling into nothing. Then his feet hit water. He had missed the jetty and plunged into the lake. Was it deep enough? The thought hadn’t even reached Alex’s mind before he was sinking into utter darkness, bubbles erupting from his nose and mouth, drowning. He floundered with his arms, kicked out with his legs. Everything was confused.
Then he broke the surface. He was on the other side of the fence, outside the abbey. But the guards had seen him. They knew what he had done and they were already shouting for the gate to be opened. Alex was soaked, he was terrified, he was half frozen. And he still hadn’t gotten away.
12
THE FOREST
THEY WERE COMING AFTER him.
Dr. Feng, Karl, Vaudrey, Ivan, Brutus . . . Alex didn’t know how many of them there were. Perhaps Nurse Wendy had even joined them too. He could hear the dog barking, not far behind, and only hoped that the rainfall would deaden his scent and, for that matter, the noise he was making as he fought his way through the woods.
There was a flash of lightning, a vast wall of it, blocking the way forward and briefly illuminating the ancient trees snarled together in knots, thick leaves shaking in the wind, endless raindrops hanging in spider’s webs all around, paths that led nowhere, moss, toadstools, grass . . . everything frozen in black and white, as bad as any nightmare Alex had ever endured. He had absolutely no idea where he was going. The forest might continue for miles. He couldn’t even be sure that he was still running away from the abbey. He had lost all sense of direction and it was only the sounds of his pursuers, always behind him but getting closer, that told him which way to run.
His foot caught in a root and he was sent flying forward, crashing into the ground. Fortunately, soft mud broke his fall, but when he stood up again, he was even more disoriented than before and, worse, he found that he had twisted his ankle. As he pressed on, every footstep brought with it a jolt of pain that traveled up his leg, into his knee and thigh. He was still drenched from the lake but, impossibly, the rain was making him wetter. He could feel the strength draining out of him.
Should he continue or perhaps climb a tree and hide? He could lose himself in the branches and wait for daylight. Would he survive a night in this storm, and did he even have the strength to pull himself up out of sight? He was still trying to make up his mind when he stumbled through a tangle of bushes, thorns tearing at his clothes, and found himself in a large, circular clearing.
There was a little more light here, the moon somehow penetrating the dense gray clouds. It gave Alex hope. Perhaps, if the trees were thinning out, he might actually have made it to the other side. Could there be a road nearby? He listened for any traffic but there was nothing. He was in the middle of the countryside and it was half past eight at night. Even if there was a road, nobody would be out in this weather. Still, he pressed on with new strength, ignoring the pain in his ankle. Bellhanger Abbey must have been built near a community. Surely he would find it.
He was halfway across when Brutus found him.
The German shepherd came bounding out from the tree line and stopped for a moment, barking furiously. Alex turned and saw it, a dripping ball of fur, blazing eyes and white teeth. It barely looked like a dog at all, more like a wild beast out of one of those medieval paintings . . . a vision of hell. Three men emerged behind it. Alex couldn’t make out their faces. It didn’t matter. He was fully exposed, in the middle of the clearing. They had seen him. Slowly, knowing the chase was over, they began to move toward him.
There was nothing more Alex could do. The men were armed with rifles. Even if he turned and tried to run, they could shoot him down. Brutus could reach him in seconds. He had done everything he could. But it was over.
The men drew closer. Alex could hear the dog growling.
Alex recognized Karl. Without saying a word, determined to get this over with, the head of security lifted his rifle. He took aim.
There was a shot.
Karl toppled backward, dropping his own weapon. At the same time, the German shepherd launched itself toward Alex. There was a second shot. The dog yelped, tumbled over, then limped away.
The shots had come from behind Alex.
Alex turned and saw half a dozen figures—men and women all dressed in black—emerging from the forest. One of them shouted, “Get down!”
Alex wasn’t sure if the words were meant for him or for the men from the abbey. He didn’t care. He fell to his knees anyway, taking himself out of the line of fire. Dr. Feng’s people had given up the fight. They were standing with their hands raised, and Alex knew that somehow MI6 had found him.
Someone Alex didn’t know came over to him. “Are you all right, Alex?” the man asked.
Alex got to his feet. He was soaking wet, scratched, and exhausted. His ankle was on fire. The drugs he had been fed at the abbey still hadn’t left his system. He drew a breath.
“Never felt better,” he said, then collapsed, unconscious, to the ground.
LONDON—A WEEK LATER
“I thought you might like to know about Bellhanger Abbey,” Mrs. Jones said.
“Actually, I’m doing my best to forget about it,” Alex replied.
“I’m sure.”
The deputy head of MI6 Special Operations was sitting on the sofa in Alex’s front room. Alex was opposite her, with Jack Starbright next to him. This conversation was supposed to be classified, top secret, but she would never have left him alone when this woman was in the house.
Jack was afraid that if she even blinked, Alex would be spirited away to Russia or Cuba or anywhere else MI6 needed him. It worried her. MI6 never left him alone.
“How did you find me?” Alex asked.
“That was easy. We’d been looking for you and Crawley ever since the two of you had disappeared, and we had agents all over the southwest of England. But it was the moment you answered your iPhone that did it. We were able to lock in to the signal, and we put together an assault team straightaway. They were moving in when they found you.”
“Lucky I called,” Jack muttered.
“Lucky I answered,” Alex agreed.
“But what was it all about?” Jack demanded. “Why had they kidnapped Alex and Mr. Crawley in the first place?”
“The whole thing was an information-gathering exercise,” Mrs. Jones explained. “Dr. Feng—if that’s his real name—was working for a foreign intelligence service, and his job was to find o
ut as much as possible about MI6 Special Operations. He was particularly interested in you, Alex. The idea of a fourteen-year-old boy volunteering to be a spy is a very unusual idea—”
“I never volunteered,” Alex reminded her.
“And they wanted to know who you were and how much you’d achieved,” Mrs. Jones went on, ignoring him. “Somehow they found out you were on your way back from Murmansk and set up a trap. They snatched you and John Crawley just after you landed. Both of you were drugged. You were given a cocktail of Rohypnol, which made you sleep and confused you, and Sodium Pentothal, which is also known as the truth drug. I’d be interested to know how much you told them, incidentally.”
“I didn’t tell them anything,” Alex growled. That wasn’t quite true, but he hadn’t told them anything that was important. Anyway, the question had annoyed him. Mrs. Jones always put her own interests first. “So which foreign intelligence service were they working for?” he asked.
“We still don’t know,” Mrs. Jones replied. “The man called Karl was killed in the crossfire. McDarling, Vaudrey, and the rest were ordinary criminals who had been hired by Feng. As for Feng himself, we’re interrogating him. He’s not talking, but he may have been paid by the Chinese or the Russians. They’re both extremely aggressive when it comes to intelligence. It might even be the Americans. Under their new president, I wouldn’t put anything past them.”
“Well, it was nice of you to call in,” Jack said. “But if you don’t mind, we have to be moving on. Alex is heading off on vacation for a couple of weeks and we need to leave for the airport.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Jones got to her feet. “Anywhere nice?”
“Just somewhere in the sun.” Jack was determined not to tell her—although she knew that MI6 could find out in seconds.
“You certainly deserve a break, Alex. Enjoy yourself!”
In fact, Alex was heading for the South of France. He had been invited by his friend Sabina Pleasure. He was going to be spending a couple of weeks with her parents in an area known as the Camargue. Upstairs, his bags were already packed.
What Alex didn’t know was that a Russian assassin was also making his way to the same location; very soon, the two of them would meet; and the vacation would become the start of yet another mission, this time pitting him against a pop star with plans to change the world.
Alex Rider needed a vacation. But it was the last thing he was going to get.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anthony Horowitz (anthonyhorowitz.com) is a world-renowned screenwriter for film and television, having received multiple awards. And he is, of course, the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Alex Rider novels, which have spawned a major motion picture and a line of graphic novels. Anthony was commissioned by the Conan Doyle estate to write two Sherlock Holmes novels, the critically acclaimed The House of Silk and Moriarty. Most recently he was commissioned by the Ian Fleming estate to write the James Bond novel Trigger Mortis, incorporating never-before-published material from 007's creator. Anthony lives with his wife in London, England; they are parents to two grown boys.
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Alex Rider--Secret Weapon Page 23
