Ark Angel

had read his medical file and understood what he had been through.
    In truth, he should have been dead. Alex Rider had been hit by a bullet fired from a .22 rifle from a distance of almost seventy-five metres. The sniper had been aiming for his heart—and if the bullet had found its target, Alex would have had no chance of surviving. But nothing is certain—not even murder. A tiny movement had saved his life. As he had come out of MI6’s headquarters on Liverpool Street, he had stepped off the pavement, his right foot carrying his body down towards the level of the road. It was at that exact moment that the bullet had hit him, and instead of powering into his heart, it had entered his body half a centimetre higher, ricocheting off a rib and exiting horizontally under his left arm.
    The bullet had missed his vital heart structures, but even so it had done plenty of damage, tearing through the subclavian artery, which carries blood over the top of the lung and into the arm. This was what Alex had felt when he was hit. As blood had poured out of the severed artery, filling the space between the lung and the thoracic cage, he had found himself unable to breathe. Alex could easily have died from shock or loss of blood. If he had been a man he almost certainly would have. But the body of a child is different to that of an adult. A young person’s artery will automatically shut itself down if cut—doctors can’t explain how or why—and this will limit the amount of blood lost. Alex was unconscious but he was still breathing, four minutes later, when the first ambulance arrived.
    There wasn’t much the paramedics could do: IV fluids, oxygen and some gentle compression around the bullet’s point of entry. But that was enough. Alex had been rushed to St Dominic’s, where surgeons had removed the bone fragments and put a graft on the artery. He had been in the operating theatre two and a half hours.
    And now he was looking almost as if nothing had happened. As the nurse came into the room, he closed the book and settled back into his pillows. Diana Meacher knew that this was his last night in hospital. He had been here for ten days and tomorrow he was going home. She also knew that she wasn’t allowed to ask too many questions. It was there in large print on his file: PATIENT 9/75958 RIDER/ALEX: SPECIAL
    STATUS (MISO). NO UNAUTHORIZED VISITORS. NO PRESS. REFER ALL ENQUIRIES TO DR
    HAYWARD.
    It was all very strange. She had been told she would meet some interesting people at St Dominic’s, and she had been required to sign a confidentiality clause before she began work. But she’d never expected anything like this. MISO stood for Military Intelligence: Special Operations. But what was the secret service doing with a teenage boy? How had Alex managed to get himself shot? And why had there been two armed policemen sitting outside his room for the first four days of his stay? Diana tried to push these thoughts out of her mind as she put the tray down. Maybe she should have stuck with the NHS.
    “How are you feeling?” she asked.
    “I’m fine, thanks.”
    “Looking forward to going home?”
    “Yes.”
    Diana realized she was staring at Alex and turned her attention to the medicines. “Are you in any pain?”
    she asked. “Can I get you something to help you sleep?”
    “No, I’m all right.” Alex shook his head and for a moment something flickered in his eyes. The pain in his chest had slowly faded but he knew it would never leave him completely. He could feel it now, vague and distant, like a bad memory. “Would you like me to come back later?”
    “No, it’s all right, thanks.” He smiled. “I don’t need anyone to tuck me in.”
    Diana blushed. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “But if you need me, I’ll be just down the hall. You can call me any time.”
    “I might do that.”
    The nurse picked up her tray and walked out of the room. She left behind the scent of her perfume—
    heather and spring flowers—in the air. Alex sniffed. It seemed to him that since his injury, his senses had become more acute.
    He reached for his French book, then changed his mind. To hell with it, he thought. Irregular verbs could wait. It was his own future that concerned him more.

    He looked around at the neat, softly lit room that tried hard to pretend it belonged to an expensive hotel rather than a hospital. There was a TV on a table in the corner, operated by a remote control beside the bed.
    A window