Crocodile Tears (23 page)

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 assuming 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 space, 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 balls 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 grass, 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 glass 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 cyberspace. 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 Bloody 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 nobody 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 pass 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 passed 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 reassured 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 assignments, 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.”

It was the moment to ask what Bulman really wanted to know. “So why are you interested in Alex, Mr. McCain?” he continued casually. “I have to tell you, whatever you do with that kid is fine with me. But I would be interested to know—”

“I’m sure you would, Mr. Bulman.” The round white eyes settled on him, and for a moment he shuddered. “You are a journalist, I understand.”

“That’s right.”

“I would hate to think that you might be tempted to write about this meeting today.”

“That depends how much you’re going to pay me.”

“We’ve already agreed on the price,” Straik muttered. “Twenty thousand dollars, in cash.”

Bulman licked his lips. He could taste the mint from the chewing gum. “I agreed to that price before I realized that Mr. McCain was involved,” he said. “But I thought, under the circumstances, that we might renegotiate.”

“I agree with you,” McCain said. “That’s exactly what I’ve decided to do.”

He took out a gun and shot the journalist three times; once in the head, once in the throat, and once in the chest. Bulman’s last gesture was one of surprise. His eyes widened even as his hands flew up and his body jerked in the chair. Then he slumped back. Blood trickled down from the three bullet holes, spreading across his shirt.

“Was that completely wise?” Straik asked.

“It was unavoidable,” McCain replied. He slipped the gun back into his pocket. “He wasn’t going to keep quiet. He was greedy. A week from now or a year from now, he would have made himself a nuisance.”

“I’m sure. But are we safe?”

“I would doubt very much that he told anyone he was coming here. There’s nothing to connect him with you or me. He was a journalist. Now he’s a dead journalist. Who really cares about the difference?”

“And what about Alex Rider?” Straik got up and went over to the window. He made a signal and a moment later there was the sound of an engine starting up. “We can’t go ahead, Desmond. Poison Dawn is finished.”

“No.” McCain hadn’t raised his voice, but the single word was dark and thunderous. The two of them had known each other for years, but at that moment Straik wondered if he fully understood what went on inside the other man’s head. There was a sort of madness there. He wouldn’t listen to any argument. “We have been planning this too long,” McCain said. “We’ve spent too much time and too much money. Everything is in place.”

“But if MI6 knows what we’re doing . . .”

“They can’t know. It’s impossible.”

“They sent the boy. First to Scotland and then to Greenfields.”

“I’m not so sure.” McCain glanced at Bulman as if he’d forgotten that he’d just shot him and was expecting him to make some comment. “When Alex Rider came to Kilmore Castle, he was a guest of another journalist, Edward Pleasure. There was a teenage girl too. When he came to Greenfields, he was with a school party. It was quite different. I don’t quite know what’s going on here, but it may not be quite as cut and dried as it seems.”

“Even so . . .”

McCain held a hand up for silence. “We are not canceling Poison Dawn,” he said. “And certainly not yet. It seems to me that we have to meet with this Alex Rider and have a little talk.”

“You think he’ll just walk in here?”

“I have something else in mind.” McCain stood up. “We are about to make an unimaginable amount of money,” he said. “Two hundred million dollars. Maybe more. But that means we have to take risks. More than that, we have to make sure that we move one step ahead of the opposition. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”