Ark Angel

murderers who had broken in…? What for?
    Alex rested his shoulders against a wall and slid back down to the floor, cradling his arm. He was still barefooted and he shivered. His single shirt wasn’t enough to protect him against the chill of the early morning. Sitting there, he played back the events that had brought him here.
    Four men had come to St Dominic’s, but they hadn’t been interested in him. They had asked for the boy in the room next door: Paul Drevin. Suddenly Alex remembered where he had heard the name. He’d seen it in the newspapers—but not Paul. Nikolei. That was it. Nikolei Drevin was some sort of Russian multibillionaire. Well, that made sense. The men must have wanted his son for the most obvious reason.
    Money. But they had accidentally kidnapped him instead.

    What would they do when they found out? Alex tried to put the thought out of his mind. He had seen how they’d dealt with Conor, the night receptionist. Somehow he didn’t think they’d apologize and offer him the taxi fare home.
    But there was nothing he could do. He sat where he was, slumped against the wall, watching the sky turn from grey to red to a dull sort of blue.
    He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, the door had opened and Spectacles was standing over him, an expression of pure hatred on his face. Alex wasn’t surprised. The last time they’d met, Alex had slammed a ten-kilogram oxygen tank into his groin. If there was any surprise, it was that just a few hours later the man had found the strength to stand.
    Spectacles was holding a gun. Alex looked into the man’s eyes. They glinted orange behind the tinted glass and gazed at him with undisguised venom. “Get up!” he snapped. “You’re to come with me.”
    “Whatever you say.” Alex got slowly to his feet. “Is it my imagination,” he asked, “or is your voice a little higher than it used to be?”
    The hand with the gun twitched. “This way,” Spectacles muttered.
    Alex followed him out into a corridor that was as dilapidated as the room where he had been confined. The walls were damp and peeling. Many of the ceiling tiles were missing, revealing great gaps filled with a tangle of wires and pipes. There were doors every ten or fifteen metres, some of them hanging off their hinges. Once, they would have opened into people’s flats. But it was obvious that—apart from rats and cockroaches—nobody had lived here for years.
    Combat Jacket was waiting for them outside.
    He had recovered from his encounter with the medicine ball but there was an ugly bruise on the side of his head where he had hit the wall. The two of them marched Alex down the corridor to a door at the end.

    “In!” Spectacles said.
    Alex pushed open the door and went through. He found himself in a large, open space with litter strewn across the floor and graffiti everywhere. There were windows on two sides, some of them covered by broken blinds. Alex guessed he was inside one of the flats, although the partition walls had been smashed through to make a single area. He could see an abandoned bath in one corner. In the middle, there was a table and two chairs. A man was sitting there, waiting for him. Spectacles prodded his gun into Alex’s back.
    Alex stepped forward and sat down.
    With a shiver, he examined the man sitting opposite him. He was dressed in what might once have been a uniform but the jacket was torn and missing buttons. The man must have been about thirty years old but it was impossible to be sure. His face and head had been tattooed all over. Alex saw the United States of America reaching down one cheek, Europe on the other. His nose and the skin above his lips were blue, the colour of the Atlantic Ocean. Brazil and West Africa touched the comers of his mouth. If the man turned round, Alex knew he would see Russia and China. He had never seen anything quite so strange—or so revolting—in his life.
    With difficulty, Alex tore his eyes away and looked around. Combat Jacket and Spectacles were standing on either side of the doorway. Silver Tooth was lurking in a corner. Alex hadn’t noticed him in the shadows, but now he stepped into the light and Alex saw that his neck was swollen, two angry red marks burned into the skin. There was no sign of Steel Watch. Perhaps they’d been unable to peel him off the Magnetom.
    The man with the tattoos spoke. “You have caused us a great deal of annoyance,” he said. “In truth, you should be