The man reached for the machete, took hold of it, and suddenly he was coming again at Alex, chopping the air with a series of vicious blows. Alex looked left, right, then behind him. He had almost backed into another tree. The bark looked innocent enough, but he didn’t dare touch it. It might contain ricin or botulin or any other toxin that Beckett had forgotten to mention. How far away was it? Alex judged the distance carefully, then stood his ground. The man stumbled toward him. The heavy protective suit he was wearing was slowing him down. The blade slashed toward Alex’s neck. At the very last second, Alex ducked and, just as he had hoped, he heard the clunk as it bit into the tree. The man pulled at it, but it was stuck fast. And that was when Alex twisted around and slammed his foot into the man’s chest, putting all his strength behind it.
The man, thrown backward, slipped and fell on his back, landing in one of the beds of porcupine flowers. Even now, his suit should have protected him. But he had no way of realizing what Alex had done. Before he had lost it, he had used the little pencil-sharpener knife to make a slit that ran all the way from the man’s waist to the back of his neck. There was a gap now that had allowed the spikes to go all the way through. The man screamed. Behind the mask, his eyes bulged and his entire body began to jerk, his legs kicking helplessly. Alex watched in horror as gray foam began to pour out of his mouth. Then suddenly his arms shot out and he lay still.
Alex didn’t stay a moment longer than he had to. The noise of the fight would have disturbed whatever else was living in this nightmare place. If there were any other men working inside the dome, they would be on their way to investigate. He’d had enough. Still forcing himself not to panic, he pressed forward. A few minutes later, he was finally rewarded—a door! This one opened from the inside. Alex felt a great wave of relief as he swiped the card and passed through. The door swung shut. He had left the Poison Dome behind.
He examined the back of his hand. The web had left a white line running from one side to the other and the whole thing was swollen and painful. Well, he just had to be grateful that he hadn’t actually met the spider. He rubbed the wound, but that only made it feel worse. He would just have to ignore it until he could get medical help. Where was he? The dome had brought him into another greenhouse, this one filled with troughs of what looked like wheat. He wasn’t safe yet, but at least he was away from the shooting. Maybe the guards thought he was already dead.
He found a door and made his way outside again. In the distance he could hear shouting and two electric vehicles shot past, carrying more guards toward the noise. The lecture theater—white and modern—was right in front of him. Alex didn’t know if the cameras were still jammed, nor did he care anymore. He was tired. His hand was hurting. His shoulder—where he had been hit with the handle of the machete—was on fire. There was still broken glass in his hair and he knew there must be quite a few cuts on his forehead and face. The next time Mr. Gilbert offered him a school trip, he would say he was sick.
He staggered forward, heading for the lecture theater. Maybe the rest of the school would already be there. He would slip in without being noticed and join the rest of the group. He could already see himself dozing off during the rest of whatever talk was going on.
Then the doors opened. Two guards stepped out. They saw Alex at the same moment that he saw them.
It wasn’t over yet.
Alex turned around and ran.
13
EXIT STRATEGY
TOM HARRIS WAS GETTING WORRIED.
Almost an hour had passed since Alex had slipped away, disappearing into a restroom like some superhero about to change into costume and save the world. Only it wasn’t like that. Tom knew that Alex didn’t really want to work for MI6. He had said as much when the two of them were out together in Italy. So why had Alex chosen to go back to it all—and what could be such a big deal about a research center that seemed to be spending most of its time designing the perfect tomato?
After Alex had gone, the rest of the school party had been taken to one of the laboratories, where an earnest young scientist with a neatly trimmed beard had shown them the chemical process that put new DNA into a single plant cell. Tom had barely listened. He didn’t find it easy to concentrate at the best of times. Now, his parents had recently separated. His father was living on his own in a motel in south London. His mother had taken up smoking again. They were both overachievers with a pile of diplomas between them, but what good had it done them? If Tom had his way, he would drop school entirely.
As they had moved from one laboratory to the next, Tom had passed a window and had found himself looking for Alex. There was nobody in sight. But during the next demonstration—something to do with plants freeze-dried in liquid nitrogen—he had noticed a red light begin to blink discreetly in the corner of the room. Beckett had clearly seen it too. Tom saw her face change, a look of concern creeping into her eyes. It was an alarm. He was sure of it.
And then, in the distance, he heard something. The sound of breaking glass—a lot of it. Everyone else was too busy listening, taking notes. But Tom knew what it meant. Alex was on the run. Part of him was tempted to sneak out and join him.
It was lucky he didn’t. As soon as the demonstration ended, Beckett insisted on a roll call to check that everyone was there, and—as promised—Tom stood in for Alex, doing a reasonable imitation of his voice.
“Rider?”
“Here, sir.”
Only James Hale, standing next to him, saw what was happening and glanced at him quizzically. Tom shrugged but gave nothing away.
And now they were in some workshop, two floors down, underground. Tom wondered if they had been brought here on purpose, to stop them from hearing or seeing anything that might be going on outside. Another scientist—this one young, female, and Chinese—had arrived to show them the famous gene gun, developed, they were told, by the director of Greenfields. It was a rather ordinary-looking piece of equipment that resembled a small metal safe with a glass door. Nonetheless, this was at the heart of GM technology, the woman said. She opened the door and placed a round petri dish inside.
“The gene gun is a very effective way to deliver new DNA into a plant,” she explained. “This is done by a system known as Biolistic Particle Delivery . . .”
As she continued, Tom noticed a guard, dressed in khaki, steal into the room. He approached Beckett and whispered urgently into her ear. Tom wasn’t surprised when, a moment later, she stepped forward, interrupting the talk.
“I am very sorry, boys and girls,” she exclaimed. “I am afraid we are going to have to end your visit to Greenfields. An emergency situation has arisen and you must return to your school bus at once.”
“Wait a minute . . . ,” Mr. Gilbert began. His face was indignant. They had driven a long way to visit the center and they had only been here for an hour.
“There will be no argument,” Beckett snapped. “We will take the back staircase. Your driver has been instructed to meet you around the side of the building.”
James moved closer to Tom. “This is about Alex, isn’t it,” he muttered.
“Alex is standing right next to me,” Tom replied.
“Yeah. Sure.” James nodded slowly.
The class was already filing out and the two of them followed behind.
The guards had seen him. If they had been carrying Uzis, he would have been dead already. One of them was coming after him, catching up fast. The other had stopped to talk into his radio, alerting the others.
Alex was getting tired. He was in pain. As he ran back toward the center of the complex, he was aware of just two things. He had to drop out of sight. And—if it wasn’t too late already—he had to find his way back to his friends. There was safety in numbers. So long as he was part of Brookland School, inside the group, there was nothing that Straik or anybody else could do.
But where were they? There was no bus, no sign of anyone, and definitely no way out of the Greenfields Bio Center. The fence was too high and
he could see the gate, over on his right, firmly closed. The Poison Dome, which he’d managed to break out of just a few moments before, was now on his left. Well, one thing was certain. He wasn’t going back in there.
Alex heard a whine and saw an electric car with three more guards speeding across the lawn toward him. The door of one of the brick buildings opened and more guards poured out. These ones were armed. For just a second, Alex was tempted to hand himself over. He could still pretend he had lagged behind his class and gotten lost. Would they really be so quick to kill him?
Then he remembered the test tube in his top pocket. Straik knew someone had hacked into his computer. And there was a dead man in the Poison Dome. Alex put the thought out of his mind. It was obvious what they could—and would—do if they got hold of him, and right now they were just seconds away. He had to move . . . fast.
Ahead of him, a wide tarmac driveway ran straight between what looked like two rows of factories. This was the only way with no guards . . . and it might lead him back to the block where the school visit had begun. A single white-coated technician stood in his way, but he was busy with other things, funneling a steaming liquid from a steel cylinder into a heavily insulated container. Liquid nitrogen. It had to be. Alex had seen the same stuff—though in smaller quantities—at Brookland. And what were its properties? In physics class . . . yes . . . there was something he had been told.
The electric car was getting nearer. The guards who were on foot had brought up their machine guns, preparing to fire. A single cascade of silent bullets and he would be torn to shreds. Alex was already sprinting down the driveway. As the stunned technician stood frozen in surprise, Alex leapt forward and seized the steel cylinder. Then, in a single movement—he spun around and hurled it behind him. The container hit the tarmac and the liquid nitrogen splashed out, immediately forming itself into marbles that bounced along the hard surface. At the same time, it began to evaporate, and suddenly there was a wall of white mist between Alex and his pursuers as the liquid reacted to the higher temperature and turned back into gas. The car swerved as for just a moment Alex disappeared from view. The technician was shouting, but Alex ignored him.
He raced over to the nearest door, using the library card to swipe his way in. He hoped the guards would be unaware that he could open any lock and would keep running. His eyes were watering and he could taste nitrogen gas at the back of his throat. If he had thrown the liquid in a closed room, he would have killed himself, suffocating as the oxygen was swallowed up. Now he found himself in a bare industrial building with cinder-block walls and cement floors. A series of furnaces stood in front of him, none of them operating. A metal staircase twisted upward. Alex was disappointed. He had hoped the building might offer more. Somewhere to hide. Some way of escape. Something.
He took the stairs. He would go up to the roof. There was a communication system built into the pocket calculator that Smithers had given him. He would use it to call MI6. With luck, they would respond before it was too late.
The staircase rose six floors. At the top he came to an old-fashioned door with a push bar. Even as he reached it, he heard the main door of the building crash open beneath him and knew that the guards had worked out where he had gone. He had to fight back a growing sense of hopelessness. There really didn’t seem to be any way out of this mess. So what now? A fire escape. He would make his way from the roof back down again and find somewhere else to hide.
Alex had crashed through the door, which then slammed shut behind him. He found himself on a wide, flat roof covered with asphalt. A long silver chimney rose about fifty feet into the air, presumably carrying smoke from the furnaces that Alex had seen below. There were two air-conditioning units and a water tank. But that was all. There was no fire escape in sight. The roof had a low brick wall running all the way around the edge. The nearest building looked to be at least ten yards away—too far to jump. Alex was six stories up with no way to climb down. He was trapped.
He could imagine the guards already climbing the staircase, making their way toward him. Somehow he had to keep them at bay. There were a few pieces of scaffolding left over from building work lying on the ground beside the water tank. He snatched two of them, ran back to the door, and wedged them against the handle, slanting them into the ground. That would at least buy him a bit of time.
But he was still a sitting target. In a way, he had played right into their hands. They could leave him here all night and then pick him off at their leisure. Where were his friends? Alex ran back to the edge of the building, skidding to a halt beside the parapet. And finally he saw them.
The school bus was parked at the far end of the main driveway. The field trip must have ended early, as students were already loading up. Even as he watched, he saw Tom Harris and James Hale climbing on board, deep in conversation. He heard a couple of girls laughing. It seemed incredible that they could be unaware of what had been going on at Greenfields while they were being shown around. And there were the two teachers—Mr. Gilbert and Miss Barry! Alex tried to get their attention, tried to call out to them, but they were too far away and his voice was hoarse from the nitrogen. He could only watch in despair as the door hissed shut, sealing his friends inside. He twisted around and looked the other way. The gate was already sliding open. Straik was determined to get rid of the school party as quickly as possible. The best Alex could hope for was one last roll call, perhaps delaying their departure by another few minutes. Then they would be gone. He would be stuck here, on his own.
He sized up the angles. The bus would pass directly underneath him. Could he jump down? No. He was far too high up. Even assuming he timed it properly and landed on the roof, he would break his arms, his legs, and quite possibly his neck. Could he wave at the driver, somehow attracting his attention? Impossible. He wouldn’t be seen at this height and there was nothing he could throw down.
He heard the sound of fists pounding against metal. A single door was all that was between him and the armed guards, wedged shut by two pieces of scaffolding. Desperately, Alex made a circuit of the roof. There were no fire escapes, no ladders, no ropes, nothing. The bus engine had started. It was about thirty yards away at the end of the driveway. At the other end, the gate was open, with Salisbury Plain in clear view.
A cascade of machine-gun fire sent Alex diving for cover. The noise was deafening and very near. But they weren’t shooting at him. Not yet. One of the guards at the top of the stairs had sprayed the door with bullets. Alex actually saw the metal bulging and blistering as it was hammered. It was on the verge of being blown off its hinges.
The chimney . . .
Alex was already up and running as the idea took shape in his mind. The chimney was modern and silver, and as far as he could see, its outer casing was fairly thin. He didn’t have time to work out the measurements, but surely if it was laid out horizontally, it might reach across to the next rooftop. He could use it as a bridge. And he had the means to bring it down.
Another burst of machine-gun fire. The door shivered in its frame. Feverishly, Alex reached into his backpack and took out the red gel-ink pen that Smithers had given him. Red was more powerful. It would do more damage. That was what Smithers had said. He glanced back at the door. White smoke was trickling through the cracks around the side. How much longer would it hold? Alex had the pen in his hand. He twisted the cap once then pulled the little plunger to activate it. He felt it click and slammed the pen against the chimney, diving for cover behind one of the air-conditioning units. The pen stayed in place, held magnetically.
The bus had yet to move. The guards were hammering at the door now, using the stocks of their machine guns to finish the job. There was a brief pause and then an explosion, louder than anything that had gone before. Hopefully the bus driver would hear it. He would have to stop and find out what was going on! Alex was crouching with his hands over his ears. He felt the blast sear across his forearms and the top of his head and looked up just in time to see the chim
ney topple like a felled tree, the metal close to the base grinding in protest as it was torn apart.
It crashed down, but even as it fell, Alex saw that his plan couldn’t work. The chimney was too short to reach the building opposite. It had fallen sideways, smashing into the low wall. The wall acted as a fulcrum, tearing the metal skin a second time. The chimney ended up tilting down toward the main driveway. What had been its top end was now about thirty feet above the road.
The door, meanwhile, had finally collapsed, blown off its frame from one last blast of machine-gun fire. Half a dozen men rushed out onto the roof.
The bus was now moving, slowly picking up speed, roaring toward the gate as if desperate to get out of here. In a few seconds, it would pass directly beneath Alex.
One of the guards saw him and shouted. Alex stood where he was. The guard took aim.
As the bus drew closer, Alex sprinted forward, as if determined to throw himself off the side of the building. The guard fired. Bullets skidded across the roof of the building, ripping up the asphalt.
The chimney had been sliced open by the edge of the wall. It had almost broken in half. If it had, it would have fallen down to the road, blocking the bus. But it was being held in place by a small section of the metal skin, resting on the wall and acting like a hinge. Alex dived headfirst into the opening. The chimney was just big enough for him with his backpack still strapped to his shoulders. It was like being inside a slide at a swimming pool. The round silver surface offered no resistance and Alex shot down.
In the end, it was all about timing. If he had hit the road, he would have died. If he had started too soon, he might have missed the bus and been run over by it. But Alex had timed it perfectly. He shot out of what had once been the top of the chimney at the exact moment that the bus passed beneath him. For a brief second, he saw the roof, a yellow blur rushing past. He had only about fifteen feet to fall, but he knew that the impact was going to be painful.