Ark Angel

He thought about the strange, lonely boy in the room next to his. Paul Drevin was only just fourteen—eight months younger than Alex. These men had come for him. Alex couldn’t let them take him.
    He looked at the open door of his own room—number nine. It was exactly opposite the lift, and was the first thing the men would see when they stepped out. Paul Drevin was asleep in the next room. His door was closed. Their names were visible in the half-light: ALEX RIDER and PAUL DREVIN. They were printed on plastic strips that fitted into a slot on each door. Underneath, also on strips, were the room numbers.
    Suddenly, out of nowhere, a plan started to form in Alex’s mind. Wondering if he had left himself enough time, he darted forward and snatched a teaspoon from a cup and saucer a nurse had left on the desk. Using the spoon handle, he prised his name and room number out of their slots, then did the same to the next door. It took another few seconds to snap the plastic strips back into place. Now it was Alex Rider who was asleep in room nine. The door to room eight was open and Paul Drevin wasn’t there.
    Alex ran into his room, pulled open the cupboard and grabbed a shirt and a pair of jeans. He knew what he had done wasn’t enough. If the men glanced at the doors more than briefly, they would see the trick that had been played, because the sequence was wrong: six, seven, nine, eight, ten. Alex had to make sure they didn’t have time to examine anything.
    He had to make them come after him. He didn’t dare get dressed in sight of the lift. He hurried out with the clothes—past the nurses’ station, away from the two rooms. He came to a corridor leading off at ninety degrees. It ran about twenty metres to a pair of swing doors and another staircase. There was an open store cupboard on one side of the corridor and next to it a trolley with some sort of machine: low and flat with a series of buttons and a narrow, rectangular TV screen that looked like it had been squashed. Alex recognized the machine. There were also two oxygen cylinders. He could feel his heart pounding underneath the bandages. The silence in the hospital was unnerving. How much time had passed since Conor had been killed?
    Swiftly he stripped off the pyjamas and pulled on his own clothes. It felt good to be dressed again after ten long days and nights. He was no longer a patient. He was beginning to get his life back.
    The lift doors opened, breaking the silence with a metallic rattle. Alex watched the four men walk out.
    Quickly he summed them up. Two were black, two white. They moved as a single unit, as if they were used to working together. He gave them names based on their appearances. The man who had shot Conor was the leader. He had a broken nose that seemed to split his face like a crack in a mirror. Alex thought of him as Combat Jacket. The next was thin, with crumpled cheeks and orange-tinted glasses. Spectacles. The third was short and muscular, and obviously spent a serious amount of time at the gym. He had a heavy dull metal watch on his wrist, and that gave him his name: Steel Watch. The last man was unshaven, with straggly black hair. At some point he’d been to a bad dentist, who had left his mark very visibly. He would be Silver Tooth.
    All four were moving quickly, impatient after the long wait in the lift. This was the moment of truth.
    Combat Jacket registered the open door and the empty bed inside. He read the name. At that moment, Alex appeared, walking down the corridor as if he had just been to the toilet and was returning to his room. He stopped and gave a small gasp of surprise. The men looked at him. And immediately made the assumption that Alex had guessed they would. Even if they knew what their target was supposed to look like, they couldn’t see his face in the soft light. He was Paul Drevin. Who else could he be? “Paul?” Combat Jacket spoke the single word.
    Alex nodded.
    “We’re not going to hurt you. But you’re going to have to come with us.”

    Alex took a step back. Combat Jacket took out a gun. The same gun that he had used to kill the night receptionist. Alex turned and fled.
    As his bare feet pounded on the hospital carpet, he was afraid that he had left it too late, that he would feel the white heat of a bullet between his shoulder blades. But the corridor was right in front of him. With a feeling of relief, he threw himself round the corner. Now he was out of sight.

    The four men were slow