Ark Angel

background, to tell him its name.
    Hornchurch Towers.
    The building that had burnt down. The picture had been taken just a few days before he had almost died there.

    Either it was an incredible coincidence or Kaspar and his men—the group that called itself Force Three—
    had deliberately taken him to a block of flats that Drevin had just purchased. They had thought he was Paul Drevin. They had been planning to ransom him for the sum of a million pounds. So why had they taken him to a building that his father owned?
    Alex undressed and got into bed. He couldn’t sleep. He had thought he was meant to be having two weeks in the lap of luxury. Looked after and safe—that was what Jack had said. He was beginning to feel that both of them might be wrong.

SHORT CIRCUIT

    The building was in SoHo, at the southern end of Manhattan. It stood between a delicatessen and a parking garage in a street full of converted warehouses with metal fire escapes, and boutiques that felt no need to advertise. There were no skyscrapers in this part of New York. SoHo prided itself on its village atmosphere, even if you needed a city salary to afford an apartment here. The entire neighbourhood was relaxed. People walked their dogs or ate their sandwiches in the autumn sun. There was little traffic. It was easy to forget the noise and the chaos just twenty blocks north.
    Creative Ideas Animation fitted in perfectly. It sold cartoons: cells from the Simpsons and Futurama, original drawings from Disney and DreamWorks. It only had a small front window and there weren’t many pictures on display. Unlike the other galleries in the area, its front door was locked. Visitors had to ring a bell. Even so, people would occasionally wander in off the street, but once they were inside they would find that the girl who worked there was unhelpful, the prices were ridiculous and there were better selections elsewhere. In the twenty years the gallery had been there, nobody had ever bought anything.
    Which was precisely the idea. The people who worked at Creative Ideas Animation had no interest at all in art of any sort. They needed a base in New York and this was what they had chosen. SoHo suited them nicely. Nobody noticed who went in or out. Not that it mattered anyway. They owned the garage next door and used a secret entrance round the side.
    At six o’clock that evening, five men and two women were sitting round a conference table in a surprisingly spacious and well-appointed room on the first floor just above the gallery. The table was a rectangle of polished glass on a chrome frame. The chairs were also made of chrome, with black leather seats. Clocks showing time zones around the world lined two of the walls. A large plasma screen covered a third. The fourth was a single plate-glass window facing a restaurant on the other side of the street. The glass was one way. Nobody at the restaurant could see in.
    All the people in the room were formally dressed in dark suits and crisp white shirts. Six of them were young and fit; they could have just come out of college. The seventh, at the head of the table, was more crumpled. He was a sixty-year-old black man with sunken eyes, grizzled white hair and moustache, and a look of perpetual tiredness.
    One of the younger men was speaking.
    “I have to report a development in England,” he was saying. “It may not be relevant, but as you are aware, six days ago Nikolei Drevin was targeted by the environmental group Force Three. They were planning to abduct his son and hold him to ransom but they captured the wrong kid. It seems this other kid got in the way on purpose. He actually got himself kidnapped. Can you believe that?” He coughed. “What happened next is still unclear, but somehow the kid managed to escape and Drevin decided to reward him by making him part of the family. So now he’s on his way over here. He’ll be travelling with Drevin and Drevin’s son down to Flamingo Bay.”
    “Does this kid have a name?” someone asked.
    “Alex Rider.” It was the older man who had spoken. “I think you should take a look at him.” There was an unmarked file on the table in front of him. He leant forward, flipped it open and took out a photograph. He passed it to the man sitting next to him. “This was sent to me last night,” he explained. “This is the kid we’re talking about. The woman with him is his guardian. He has no parents.” One after another, the four men and two women examined the