“Alex?” Miss Bedfordshire, the school secretary, had seen him. She tried to wave him down. Alex ignored her. He pushed down and swerved around her and then he was gone, disappearing through the school gates.
8
FLYING LESSON
A SITTING TARGET.
That was how Alex felt. He was cycling slowly around the side of the school right next to the building site where the marksman had been concealed, and he was very aware that the street was empty with only a few parked cars, that there were no witnesses, and that if the sniper was still in place, this time he wouldn’t miss. He could imagine the crosshairs of the scope sweeping across the street, settling first on his shoulders, then on the back of his neck. Perhaps they were already there and one twitch of a finger would send him catapulting over the handlebars and into oblivion.
He jerked his head up toward the rooftop but saw nothing. Alex was gambling on the fact that the man had already made his getaway. He would have heard the school alarms go off and would have assumed that Alex had been evacuated with the rest of his class, that he was lost in the crowd, one uniform among hundreds. Surely that was what he would think. And with the police arriving (Alex could hear them now, the whoop of sirens coming from all four points of the compass, closing in on the school), he wouldn’t want to hang around.
Where was he? Alex had hoped to spot him as he left. But there was nobody in the building site, no sign of any movement on the roof or the ladders leading down. He drew to a halt, resting with one foot against the curb, listening for the sound of an engine. Somewhere, on the other side of the scaffolding and the half-built walls, there was someone in a hurry to get out of here. Where are you? Every police car in the country will be here in a minute. You don’t want to hang around.
Without warning, a car appeared at the top of the road, a silver VW Golf, pulling out of the building site and turning away from where Alex was waiting. He couldn’t see the driver, but he thought, from the shape, that it was a man and he seemed to be alone. It had to be the sniper. Alex pushed off again. Behind him, the alarms were still ringing at Brookland School. He heard the first police cars arrive, the thud of slamming doors, and men’s voices barking out commands. There was no time to lose. Any minute now the roads would be cordoned off. If he was really unlucky, the sniper would get away while he was left behind.
The VW was driving quickly but without breaking the speed limit, as if not wanting to draw attention to itself. Alex pedaled harder to catch up—at the same time making sure he didn’t get too close. It occurred to him that he had done this before, almost a year ago. Then it had been two drug dealers in a Skoda. He had followed them to a houseboat on the Thames, near Putney Bridge. He’d never thought he was going to have to repeat the exercise . . . and this time it was going to be more difficult. The dealers had had no idea who he was. But one look in the mirror and the sniper would certainly recognize him. Alex swung his bike off the road and onto the sidewalk, crouching behind the parked cars to keep out of sight.
London is the slowest-moving city in Europe. Cars drive at an average of twelve miles per hour, and it’s well known that the fastest way to cross the city is on two wheels. As Alex powered up the sidewalk, he remembered his uncle, Ian Rider, complaining as he sat in a jam. “I don’t know why I bother with a BMW six-cylinder turbocharged engine. I might as well drive a horse and buggy.” Alex knew that his bike would have the edge on the VW. He could weave in and out of the traffic. He could ignore the lights. He could cut corners across the sidewalk. Provided they didn’t reach any of the outer motorways, he’d be able to keep up.
The car reached a T-junction and turned left, heading toward the King’s Road. Before it disappeared from sight, Alex memorized its license plate number. The letters spelled out a word—BEG 88. There were plenty of Volkswagens on the London roads and most of them seemed to be silver. It was helpful that this one should have a registration that was so easily memorable. Still on the sidewalk, Alex swung around the corner, narrowly missing a woman pushing a stroller. The Raleigh 160 was perfect for this sort of cycling. It wasn’t too heavy and the 700cc alloy wheels were perfectly balanced, making it easy to manipulate while its twenty-one gears gave him all the speed he could ask for. They were heading west, out of London. The school was already a long way behind.
And then the VW signaled right. Alex looked for the turnoff but there wasn’t one. They were passing a parade of shops with an Esso garage at the end. And that was where the car was heading. Alex swore to himself. He must have been chasing the wrong man! Snipers pulling away from their latest target don’t usually stop to fill up with gas or buy themselves a Twix. Alex stopped for a second time, catching his breath as the VW rolled across the forecourt. He thought about cycling back to Brookland, then decided against it. There would be too many questions to answer. It would be easier just to go home and find Jack.
The car wasn’t filling up. Without stopping, it had driven straight into the automatic car wash—and that was strange because there was a large sign reading OUT OF ORDER. From his vantage point on the other side of the road, Alex watched in puzzlement. As far as he could see, the driver hadn’t even opened his window to drop a token into a slot, and yet as the VW disappeared behind the plastic screen, the brushes begin to rotate and jets of water shot out of the hoses running along the walls. It was as if the car wash had been waiting for the car. The sign must have been put there to stop any other drivers getting in ahead.
Alex stayed where he was, waiting for the VW to emerge. He was certain now that something strange was going on and that this was after all connected in some way with the shooting at his school. He could only make out the shape of the car. It was lost in the cloud of white foam that mushroomed against the plastic screen. Water and soap suds coursed along the concrete floor. The whole process took four minutes. At last the brush stopped and returned to its starter position, and a few seconds later the VW drove out.
Only it was no longer silver. It was now bright red. Had it been painted inside the car wash? No—exactly the opposite had happened. The silver paint had been stripped off to reveal the red beneath and the license plate had changed too. Parts of the letters had been washed away so that BEG now read PFC and the number 88 had become 33. This was all part of the plan! The driver had known that the police would be called. After a school shooting, every police car in London would be on the lookout for the getaway vehicle. Well, if they were looking for a silver VW with the license plate BEG 88, they would be disappointed. That car had vanished into thin air.
Alex knew now that this wasn’t one man operating on his own. It would have taken a serious organization to arrange the trick with the car wash. Scorpia? The triads? They were both enemies of his, but he somehow doubted that either of them would come for him now, after months of inactivity. There would be no point. Even so, he would have to be careful. The car could be leading him into further danger and he was completely on his own. Only Miss Bedfordshire had seen him leave the school and she had no idea which direction he’d taken. Only a few hours ago he’d been congratulating himself that all his troubles were over. How wrong he had been!
He followed the car down the King’s Road as far as Eel Brook Common, a small patch of green parkland crowded with Chelsea residents walking their dogs. The car was pulling away, traveling at about thirty miles per hour, but luckily it was forced to stop at a red traffic light and Alex was able to catch up. He was absolutely determined. Whatever happened, he wasn’t going to let it get away. But then the car turned off down Wandsworth Bridge Road, driving straight down to the Thames. Alex gritted his teeth and stamped down on the pedals. He knew that the roads widened on the other side of the bridge. A bicycle could keep up with a car in the traffic, but once they were over the river, he’d have no chance.
They stopped again and Alex was tempted to move closer, to try to get a view in through the side window. It might help later on if he could give the police a description of the driver. All he could se
e from here was a hunched-up figure wearing a cap. He wondered what sort of man could bring himself to fire into a crowded school. How much had he been paid? And that made him think again about the car wash. What sort of minds would have thought up something like that? What other tricks might they have up their sleeve?
And suddenly he was on Wandsworth Bridge. Only a few weeks ago he had rowed underneath it, and he had wondered then how it could possibly have been built. Most of the Thames bridges were very elegant, built as if to ornament the river. This one was just a slab of reinforced concrete—functional and ugly. It was also very long, with four lanes of traffic, and Alex had to pedal hard to keep up, afraid of being seen but more afraid of losing the VW altogether. He glimpsed the dark gray water beneath him, stretching into the distance with nothing memorable on either side. The driver came to a roundabout and accelerated onto it without looking left or right. Alex did the same and was rewarded with the deafening blast of a horn and a fistful of hot, dusty air as a huge truck thundered past, inches away. He wobbled slightly as he fought for balance, aware that his legs were getting tired. It would be just as well if the car did speed off soon. Any farther and he might get himself killed.
But instead it seemed that the VW had reached its destination. It turned off down a narrow drive that snaked back toward the river, and as Alex slowed down, he saw it draw into a parking space and stop. A sign read Wandsworth Park, but it wasn’t a park so much as an industrial estate, one of those little pieces of London that had somehow been overlooked. There were a couple of office buildings sitting side by side, facing the river. They were modern and unremarkable, two stories high with white walls and square windows. One of them advertised a mobile phone company. The other could have been almost anything. A garage and auto-repair service stood opposite them, close to the water’s edge, but it seemed to have closed down.
The whole area was covered in rubble, with abandoned tires, oil drums, and empty skips. Alex had stopped at the top of the drive, concealing himself behind a broken wire fence. He wondered how a place like this could have just been left to decay. Put a few houses on it, with views over the river, and surely it would be worth millions. But then again, this wasn’t somewhere people would necessarily want to live. The noise of the traffic on Wandsworth Bridge was endless and the air smelled of diesel. Maybe a few run-down businesses was all it was good for.
The man got out of his car, then reached into the back and drew out the bag that he had been carrying on the roof. It was the bag that contained his weapon. Peering out over the rubbish, Alex got a better view of him. He was short, in his thirties, dressed in an anorak and jeans, with a cap hiding his hair. He was clean shaven and white. His movements were completely leisurely, as if he were on his way home after a round of golf. He closed the car door, locked it with a remote on his key ring, and began to stroll down toward the river. Alex chose his moment, then freewheeled down the slope and came to a skidding halt behind one of the skips.
What now? From this new angle he could see a concrete jetty sticking out into the fast-flowing water of the Thames. The jetty was T-shaped and long enough to accommodate a dozen cars. But that wasn’t what was parked there. A helicopter was waiting, a two-seater Robinson R22, one of the most popular flying machines in the world. Alex recognized the long tail, slanting upward, and the tiny bubble of a cabin resting on its grasshopper legs. It was perched at the far end, painted gray like the water behind it. Someone must have landed it here for the man in the VW. But if so, it couldn’t be taking him very far. As far as Alex could recall, the Robinson had a range of less than 250 miles. Still, that would be enough to get it to the middle of France.
There was a narrow, three-story building at the other end of the jetty, right next to the river. It could have been a clubhouse for canoeists or perhaps some sort of outpost for the river police. It was wooden, painted white—but the paint was flaking and some of the windows were cracked. Alex assumed it was empty, but then the door opened and a second man came out, walking across the jetty, heading toward the helicopter.
The two men were about to meet. Alex knew he had to get closer, to hear what they said. He was still some distance away, crouching beside the skip, but fortunately the men were looking out over the river with their backs to him. Abandoning his bike, he ran down toward them, keeping low behind a slight rise in the ground. He was afraid the sound of his feet on the gravel would give him away, but the drone of the traffic was loud enough to cover it. He threw himself facedown just as the two men met.
“So how did it go?” the man from the office asked.
“It was fine. Mission accomplished,” the sniper replied.
He was lying. Surely he must have known that he had missed his target. But maybe it wasn’t in his interest to admit that he had failed. Not if he was hoping to be paid.
“Let’s go then,” the first man said.
They set off together, heading for the helicopter. So was that it? Was he just going to sit there and let them fly off? Alex memorized the registration number—A5455H—on the helicopter’s tail. If he telephoned it through to the police, maybe they could intercept the Robinson before it could land. But it wasn’t enough. Alex could still feel the anger. These people had broken in on his life. They had tried to kill him and they had hurt his best friend. And calling the police would probably do no good at all. He remembered what had happened to the car. The pilot might press a button and change the registration of the helicopter. Maybe it would turn bright pink in midair. Suddenly Alex was determined. He wasn’t going to let them get away.
He was up and running before he knew what he was going to do. The men had reached the helicopter and were climbing in. They were too busy concentrating on their own movements to notice him. Alex sprinted diagonally across the yard and onto the other side of the jetty. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the sniper buckling himself into the backseat, his view obscured by the pilot, who was leaning across him. Alex spun to the right, heading away from them, and a moment later he had reached the three-story building that he had noticed, the one from which the pilot had emerged.
He couldn’t take the two men on by himself. He was empty-handed. But there was always a chance he might find something inside—a high-powered hose, maybe, or anything he could use as a weapon. At the very worst there might be a telephone. His own mobile was still at school.
His hopes were dashed even as he burst in through the front door. He saw that he was in an office complex that might once have belonged to the river authority. The walls were painted pale green and there were a few old maps of the Thames and tidal charts pinned to a cork notice board on a wall. But it was empty, abandoned. The whole place smelled of damp and decay. He tried the door of an office. It wouldn’t budge.
Outside, he heard the whine of the four-cylinder air-cooled engine and knew that the Robinson had started up. It would take about a minute for the rotors to achieve maximum speed and then it would be gone, disappearing into the sky and forever out of his reach. Alex looked around him. There was nothing here, just locked doors and a tatty staircase with peeling Formica, leading up.
The roof. Alex decided there was only one thing he could do, one way he could get back at the sniper. The man in the anorak was pretending that he’d succeeded, that he’d hit his target. Well, Alex would show him otherwise. He would stand on the roof in full view and at least the people who’d hired him would know that he’d failed. Perhaps there would be some sort of punishment for lying to them. Certainly he wouldn’t get paid.
He took the steps two at a time. On the third floor he came across a fire extinguisher strapped to the wall, and he grabbed it and wrenched it free. He didn’t really know what he was doing. In his mind’s eye he saw himself spraying the cockpit as the helicopter flew past, blinding the pilot. But that was ridiculous. The wind would whip the foam away before it got anywhere near. Could he perhaps hurl the extinguisher at the rotors? It was certainly heavy enough to do serious damage. But it was also too he
avy to throw—and anyway, the helicopter would be too far away.
But it was all he had, and he was still carrying it as he clambered up the last staircase and crashed through a pair of emergency exit doors onto the roof. It took him just a few seconds to take in his surroundings. The river was right in front of him. Wandsworth Bridge stretched out to the left. The Robinson R22 was balancing on its legs, already weightless, about to lift off the ground. The pilot, wearing sunglasses now, with a pair of headphones over his ears, was coaxing the joystick. The sniper was in the seat behind him. Alex was above them both, but—as he had thought—he was too far away. However, that might be about to change. In a few seconds’ time the two men would fly right past him. They couldn’t go the other way because of the bridge.
The helicopter lurched off the ground without any seeming effort. It was moving diagonally, heading toward Alex but at the same time away from him, over the water. By the time it drew level, it would be at least fifteen yards away. He couldn’t throw the fire extinguisher that far. If he set off the foam, he would just end up soaking himself.
“If you want to stay in the top group, Spencer, try not to behave like a fifth-grader.”
Somehow, incredibly, Alex remembered Mike Spencer in the classroom, the moment after he had noticed the sniper. He had been firing a piece of eraser with a bendy ruler, aiming at another boy. Could it possibly work? Yes! Why not? The TV antenna was right on the edge of the roof, and the fact that it was swaying meant that it must surely bend. The antenna had four metal rods that came together in the shape of a V. Alex ran over to it. He hoisted the fire extinguisher up so that it rested inside the V and then, using both hands, pulled it back. The whole thing bent toward him. Alex could feel the metal straining. If he let go now, he would launch the extinguisher halfway across the river. That was one advantage of being fifteen. He hadn’t been this strong a year ago.