Stormbreaker (8 page)

“The Portuguese man-of-war,” Sayle continued. He had a heavy accent brought with him from the Cairo marketplace. “It's beautiful, don't you think?”

“I wouldn't keep one as a pet,” Alex said.

“I came upon this one when I was diving in the South China Sea.” Sayle gestured at a glass display case and Alex noticed three harpoon guns and a collection of knives resting in velvet slots. “I love to kill fish,” Sayle went on. “But when I saw this specimen ofPhysalia physalia, I knew I had to capture it and keep it. You see, it reminds me of myself.”

“It's ninety-nine percent water. It has no brain, no guts, and no anus.” Alex had dredged up the facts from somewhere and spoken them before he knew what he was doing.

Sayle glanced briefly at him, then turned back to the creature hovering over him in its tank. “It's an outsider,” he said. “It drifts on its own, ignored by the other fish. It is silent and yet it demands respect. You see the nematocysts, Mr. Lester? The stinging cells? If you were to find yourself wrapped in there, it would be an unforgettable death.”

“Call me Alex,” Alex said.

He'd meant to say Felix, but somehow it had slipped out. It was the most stupid, the most amateurish mistake he could have made. But he had been thrown by the way Sayle had appeared and by the slow, hypnotic dance of the jellyfish. The gray eyes squirmed. “I thought your name was Felix.”

“My friends call me Alex.”

“Why? ”

“After Alex Ferguson. He's the manager of my favorite soccer team.” It was the first thing Alex could think of. But he'd seen a soccer poster in Felix Lester's bedroom and knew that at least he'd chosen the right team. “Manchester United,” he added.

Sayle smiled. “That's most amusing. Alex it shall be. And I hope we will be friends, Alex. You are a very lucky boy. You won the competition and you are going to be the first teenager to try out my Stormbreaker. But this is also lucky, I think, for me. I want to know what you think of it! I want you to tell me what you like ... what you don't.” The eyes dipped away and suddenly he was businesslike. “We have only three days until the launch,” he said. “We'd better get abliddy move on, as my father used to say. I'll have my man take you to our room and tomorrow morning, first thing, you must get to work. There's a math program you should try ... also languages. All the software was developed ere at Sayle Enterprises. Of course we've talked to children We've gone to teachers, to education experts. But you, my dear ... Alex. You will be worth more to me than all of them put together.”

As he had talked, Sayle had become more and more animated, carried away by his own enthusiasm. He had become a completely different man. Alex had to admit at he'd taken an immediate dislike to Herod Sayle. No wonder Blunt and the people at M16 had mistrusted him! But now he was forced to think again. He was standing opposite one of the richest men in England, a an who had decided out of the goodness of his heart to give a huge gift to English schools. Just because he as small and slimy, that didn't necessarily make him an enemy. Perhaps Blunt was wrong after all.

“Ah! Here's my man now,” Sayle said. “And aboutbliddy time!”

The door had opened and a man had come in, dressed in the black suit and tails of an old-fashioned butler. He was as tall and thin as his master was short and round, with a thatch of close-cropped ginger hair on top of a face that was so pale it was almost paper white From a distance it had looked as if he was smiling, but as he drew closer, Alex gasped. The man had two horrendous scars, one on each side of his mouth, twisting up all the way to his ears. It was as if someone had at some time attempted to cut his face in half. The scars were a gruesome shade of mauve. There were smaller, fainter scars where at one time his cheeks had been stitched.

“This is Mr. Grin,” Sayle said. “He changed his name after his accident.”

“Accident?” Alex found it hard not to stare at the terrible wound.

“Mr. Grin used to work in a circus. It was a novelty knifethrowing act. For the climax he used to catch a spinning knife between his teeth. But then one night his elderly mother came to see the show. She waved to him from the front row and he got his timing wrong. He's worked for me now for a dozen years and although his appearance may be displeasing, he is loyal and efficient. Don't try to talk to him, by the way. He has no tongue.”

“Eeeurgh!” Mr. Grin said.

“Nice to meet you,” Alex muttered.

“Take him to the blue room,” Sayle commanded. He turned to Alex. “You're fortunate that one of our nicest rooms has come up free-here, in the house. We had a security man staying there. But he left us quite suddenly.”

“Oh? Why was that?” Alex asked, casually.

“I have no idea. One moment he was here, the next he was gone.” Sayle smiled again. “I hope you won't do the same, Alex.”

“Thi ... wurgh!” Mr. Grin gestured at the door, and leaving Herod Sayle standing in front of his huge captive, Alex left the room.

He was led back along a passage, past more works of art, up a staircase, and then along a wide corridor with thick wood-paneled doors and chandeliers. Alex assumed that the main house was used for entertaining. Sayle himself must live here. But the computers would be constructed in the modern buildings he had seen opposite the airstrip. Presumably he would be taken there tomorrow.

His room was at the far end. It was a large room with a four-poster bed and a window looking out onto the fountain. Darkness had fallen and the water, cascading ten feet into the air over a semi-naked statue that looked remarkably like Herod Sayle, was eerily illuminated by a dozen concealed lights. Next to the window was a table with an evening meal already laid out for him: ham, cheese, salad. His luggage was lying on the bed.

He went over to his case-a Nike sports bag-and examined it. When he had closed it up, he had inserted three hairs into the zip, trapping them in the metal teeth. They were no longer there. Alex opened the case and went through it. Everything was exactly as it had been when he had packed, but he was certain that the sports bag had been expertly and methodically searched.

He took out the Color Game Boy, inserted the Speed Wars cartridge, and pressed the start button. At once the screen lit up with a green rectangle, the same shape as the room. He lifted the Game Boy up and swung it around him, following the line of the walls. A red flashing dot suddenly appeared on the screen. He walked forward, holding the Game Boy in front of him.

The dot flashed faster, more intensely. He had reached a picture, hanging next to the bathroom, a squiggle of colors that looked suspiciously like a Picasso. He put the Game Boy down, and being careful not to make a sound, lifted the canvas off the wall. The bug was taped behind it, a black disk about the size of a dime. Alex looked at it for a minute wondering why it was there. Security? Or was Sayle such a control freak that he had to know what his guests were doing, every minute of the day and night?

Alex lifted the picture and gently lowered it back into place. There was only one bug in the room. The bathroom was clean.

He ate his dinner, showered, and went to bed. As he passed the window, he noticed activity in the grounds near the fountains. There were lights coming out of the modern buildings. Three men, all dressed in white overalls, were driving toward the house in an open-top jeep. Two more men walked past. These were security guards, dressed in the same uniforms as the men at the gate. They were both carrying semiautomatic machine guns. Not just a private army but a well-armed one.

He got into bed. The last person who had slept here had been his uncle, Ian Rider. Had he seen something, looking out of the window? Had he heard something? What could have happened that meant he had to die?

Sleep took a long time coming to the dead man's bed.

ALEX SAW IT the moment he opened his eyes. It would have been obvious to anyone who slept in the bed, but, of course, nobody had slept there since Ian Rider had been killed. It was a triangle of white slipped into a fold in the canopy above the four-poster bed. You had to be lying on your back to see it-like Alex was now.

It was out of his reach. He had to balance a chair on the mattress and then stand on the chair to reach it. Wobbling, almost falling, he finally managed to trap it between his fingers and pull it out. It was a square of paper, folded twice. Someone had drawn on it, a strange design with what looked like a reference number beneath it:

There wasn't very much of it, but Alex recognized Ian Rider's handwriting. What did it mean? He pulled on some clothes, went over to the table, and took out a sheet of plain paper. Quickly, he wrote a brief message in block capitals:

FOUND THIS IN IAN RIDERS ROOM.

CAN YOU MAKE ANY SENSE OF IT?

Then he found his Game Boy, inserted the Nemesis cartridge into the back, turned it on, and passed the screen over the two sheets of paper, scanning first his message and then the design. Instantaneously, he knew, a machine would have clicked on in Mrs. Jones's office in London and a copy of the two pages would have scrolled out of the back. Maybe she could work it out. She was, after all, meant to work for Intelligence.

Finally, Alex turned off the machine, then removed the back and hid the folded paper in the battery compartment. The diagram had to be important. Ian Rider had hidden it. Maybe it was what had cost him his life.

There was a knock at the door. Alex went over and opened it. Mr. Grin was standing outside, still wearing his butler costume.

“Good morning,” Alex said.

“Geurgh!” Mr. Grin gestured and Alex followed him back down the corridor and out of the house. He felt relieved to be out in the air, away from all the oppressive artworks. As they paused in front of the fountains there was a sudden roar and a propeller- driven cargo plane dipped down over the roof of the house and landed on the runway.

“If gring gy,” Mr. Grin explained.

“Just what I thought,” Alex said.

They reached the first of the modern buildings and Mr. Grin pressed his hand against a glass plate next to the door. There was a green glow as his fingerprints were read, and a moment later, the door slid soundlessly open.

Everything was different on the other side of the door. From the art and elegance of the main house, Alex could have stepped into the next century. Long white corridors with metallic floors. Halogen lights. The unnatural chill of air-conditioning. Another world.

A woman was waiting for them, broad- shouldered and severe, her blond hair twisted into the tightest of buns. She had a strangely blank, moon-shaped face, wire-framed spectacles, and no makeup apart from a smear of yellow lipstick. She wore a white coat with a name tag pinned to the top pocket. It read: VOLE.

“You must be Felix,” she said. “Or is it now, I understand, Alex? Yes! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fraulein Vole.” She had a thick German accent. “You may call me Nadia.” She glanced at Mr. Grin. “I will take him from here.”

Mr. Grin nodded and left the building.

“This way.” Vole began to walk. “We have four blocks here. Block A, where we are now, is administration and recreation. Block B is software development. Block C is research and storage. Block D is where the main Stormbreaker assembly line is found.”

“Where's breakfast?” Alex asked.

“You have not eaten? I will send you a sandwich. Herr Sayle is very keen for you to begin at once with the experience.”

She walked like a soldier-straight back, her feet, in tight black leather shoes, rapping against the floor. Alex followed her through another door and into a bare square room with a chair and a desk and, on the desk, the first Stormbreaker he had ever seen.

It was a beautiful machine. iMac might have been the first computer with a real sense of design, but the Stormbreaker had far surpassed it. It was black apart from the white lightning bolt down the side-and the screen could have been a porthole into outer space. Alex sat behind the desk and turned it on. The computer booted itself instantly. A second fork of animated lightning sliced across the screen, there was a swirl of clouds, and then in burning red the letters SE, the logo of Sayle Enterprises. Seconds later, the desktop appeared with icons for math, science, French-every subject-ready for access. Even in those brief seconds, Alex could feel the speed and the power of the computer. And Herod Sayle was going to put one in every school in the country! He had to admire the man. It was an incredible gift.

“I leave you here,” Fraulein Vole said. “It is better for you, I think, to explore the Stormbreaker on your own. Tonight you will have dinner with Herr Sayle and you will tell him your feeling.”

“Yeah-I'll tell him my feeling.”

“I will have the sandwich sent in to you. But I must ask you please not leave the room. There is, you understand, the security.”

“Whatever you say, Mrs. Vole,” Alex said.

The woman left. Alex opened one of the programs and for the next three hours lost himself in the state-of-theart software of the Stormbreaker. Even when his sandwich arrived, he ignored it, letting it curl on the plate. He would never have said that schoolwork was fun, but he had to admit that the computer made it lively. The history program brought the battle of Port Stanley to life with music and video clips. How to extract oxygen from water? The science program did it in front of his eyes. The Stormbreaker even managed to make algebra almost bearable, which was more than Mr. Donovan at Brookland had ever done.

The next time Alex looked at his watch it was one o'clock. He had been in the room for over four hours. He stretched and stood up. Nadia Vole had told him not to leave, but if there were any secrets to be found in Sayle Enterprises, he wasn't going to find them here. He walked over to the door and was surprised to find that it opened as he approached. He went out, into the corridor. There was nobody in sight. Time to move.

Block A was administration and recreation. Alex ,passed a number of offices, then a blank, white-tiled cafeteria. There were about forty men and women, all in white coats and identity tags, sitting and talking animatedly over their lunches. He had chosen a good time. Nobody passed him as he continued through a Plexiglas walkway into Block B. There were computer screens everywhere, glowing in cramped offices piled high with papers and printouts. Software development.