Ark Angel

as he lay there bleeding with a bullet in his chest, the MI6 chief had been planning ahead, engineering his next assignment. It was almost beyond belief. No. Where Blunt was concerned, it was to be expected.
    “Shulsky will take you back to the airport,” Byrne added. “We’ll sort you out a temporary passport and Drevin will pick you up tomorrow. Good luck on Flamingo Bay.”
    “Just don’t expect any postcards,” Alex said.
    He and Ed Shulsky left together. Byrne shook his head and walked slowly back the other way.

FLAMINGO BAY

    The six-seater Cessna 195 seaplane circled the island almost lazily before it came in to land. Alex, along with Paul and his father, had been flown from New York to Grantley Adams International Airport on the south-east corner of Barbados. From there they had been taken by car a few miles up the coast to Ragged Point, where the seaplane had been waiting for the final ten-mile flight to Drevin’s private island.
    Alex could see it now, his face pressed against the window with the single propeller buzzing noisily and the starboard wing stretching out above his head. From the air, Flamingo Bay looked as ridiculously beautiful as every Caribbean island, the colours almost too intense to be true. There was the dazzling blue of the ocean, the immaculate white beaches, the rich, elemental green of the pine trees and rainforest. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for the coming launch. As the plane arced for a second time, tilting towards the stretch of water that would be its landing strip, brilliant sunshine blazed in through the window.
    “There it is!” Paul Drevin leant past Alex and pointed. “You can see the launch site!” he exclaimed.
    The island was about two miles long and shaped like a leaping fish. The rocket gantries stood where the eye should have been. There were two of them, right next to the sea, with about a dozen brick buildings, many of them surmounted with satellite dishes, about a quarter of a mile away. The ground in this area was quite bare, all the vegetation burned away, presumably by rocket exhaust. Alex remembered what Kaspar had told him when he had been a prisoner of Force Three. Four bird species had been made extinct on the island. He was surprised it hadn’t been more.
    If the head of the fish was naked, the rest of it was covered with dense rainforest separated by a narrow track which ran the full length of the island. The track led to a tall fence running north to south, with a checkpoint and a series of wooden cabins near by. This was the only way into the launch site. There were watchtowers all over the island, making sure that nobody could approach unseen by sea.
    Drevin’s house had been built on what Alex thought of as the fish’s tail. It was a simple white structure, and even from this distance he could see that it was ultra-modern with giant glass windows giving uninterrupted views of the sea. The arched belly of the fish was one long beach with palm trees leaning towards the water. As the plane dipped down, Alex saw a brightly painted wooden jetty, three motor launches and a couple of sailing boats anchored in the shallows. He couldn’t hear music from steel drums or smell the rum—but it was easy to imagine them.
    “Fasten your seat belts,” Drevin said. “We are about to land.”
    Drevin was sitting on the other side of the aisle, wearing a pale yellow open-necked shirt. He hadn’t spoken much on the journey from New York, not even when he had fetched Alex from the departure lounge at JFK. Alex got the impression that Drevin blamed him personally for the mix-up over the passport. Or perhaps he was annoyed with the American authorities for inconveniencing one of his guests.
    Now he was deep in thought, tugging at his ring. In the bright sunlight his face looked more pale than ever.
    Alex was grateful for the silence. He wasn’t sure how to behave with Drevin any more. Everything Joe Byrne had told him was tumbling around in his head. In the space of just a few days, Drevin had gone from being a reclusive billionaire who didn’t like losing, to the biggest criminal in the world. He was involved with the mafiya and the triads, who—only a few months ago—had tried to kill Alex. People who got in his way died. He was another monster and here he was, sitting just a few seats away.
    The Cessna swept down and landed smoothly, water spraying up towards the windows. It taxied towards the jetty and came to a halt. Paul