Ark Angel

hurt, threatened, manipulated, shot at, beaten up and almost killed. He’d found himself in a world where he couldn’t believe anybody and where nothing was quite what it seemed. And he’d had enough. In two years he would be taking his GCSEs. From now on he was going to keep his head down, and the next time four terrorist kidnappers broke into a hospital he’d simply turn over and go back to sleep!
    Jack Starbright had almost finished eating and Alex realized she hadn’t said a word since she had sat down. She’d been very quiet when she picked him up from hospital too.
    “Jack, are you angry with me?” he asked. “No,” she said. But the single word told him the exact opposite.
    Alex put down his knife and fork. “I’m sorry.” Jack sighed. “I don’t know what to say to you, Alex,” she said. “I’m not sure I can look after you any more.”
    “Are you going back to America?”

    “No! I don’t know.” She looked at him sadly. “You have no idea what it’s been like for me recently. First you tell me you’re going on vacation in Venice. The next thing I know, you’ve got caught up with some international band of criminals and then you get shot. How do you think I felt when they told me? But somehow you pull through and you’re in hospital, and any other kid would just stay there and get better.
    But not you! You have to take on a gang of kidnappers and nearly get killed all over again.”
    “It wasn’t my fault,” Alex protested. “It just happened.”
    “I know. That’s what I tell myself. But the fact is, I feel completely useless.” She fell silent. “And I don’t want to be sitting here next time when they tell me you didn’t make it. I couldn’t bear that.”
    Alex went over to her. “There isn’t going to be a next time,” he said. “And you’re not useless, Jack. I don’t know what I’d do without you. There’s no one else to look after me. And it’s not just that. I sometimes think you’re the only person who really knows me. I only feel normal when I’m with you.”
    Jack stood up and gave him a hug. “Just my luck,” she said ruefully. “All the fourteen-year-olds in the world, and I end up looking after you.”
    The phone rang in the hall.
    “I’ll get it,” she said.
    Alex took the plates over to the dishwasher and began to stack them. About two minutes later, Jack came back in. There was an odd look on her face.
    “Who was it?” he asked.
    “It was for you. I don’t believe it! That was Nikolei Drevin.”
    “He rang himself?”
    “Yes. He’s invited you to have tea with him this afternoon. He’s giving a press conference at the Waterfront Hotel and he wanted to know if you’d come along and meet him afterwards.”

    “What did you say?”
    “Well, I told him I’d ask you and he said he’d send a car.” She shrugged. “I guess he expected you to say yes.”
    Alex thought for a moment. Mr Crawley had said that Drevin would probably get in touch. “Do you think I should go?”
    Jack sighed. “I don’t know. I suppose he wants to thank you. After all, you saved him one million pounds.
    And you stopped his son getting hurt.”
    Alex remembered Paul Drevin. He wondered if the other boy would be at the hotel.
    “I could call him back and say you’re too tired,” Jack added.
    For a moment, Alex was tempted. The last time he’d met a multimillionaire, it had been Damian Cray—and the experience had nearly killed him. On the other hand, this was different. Drevin was a target. It was the man called Kaspar who was the enemy. And it was fair enough that Drevin should want to meet him after what had happened. Alex felt awkward about saying no.
    Sometimes it’s the tiniest things that can mean the difference between life and death. A few centimetres of kerb had saved Alex when he stepped off the pavement on Liverpool Street just as a sniper fired at him.
    Now two words were going to drag him back into the world he thought he’d left behind. “Let’s go.”

AT THE WATERFRONT

    The Waterfront Hotel was brand new—a silver and glass tower rising above the Thames at St Katharine’s Dock. Looking up the river, Alex could see Tower Bridge with HMS Belfast moored near by. He didn’t look the other way. He was only a few miles from where he’d been held prisoner. He didn’t need any reminder of that.
    Behind him, Jack Starbright stepped out of the ordinary London taxi that had brought them here. At first she had been a little