Ark Angel

terrorists didn’t stand a chance. They were dead before they could react, blown off their feet onto the cold concrete floor. Alex twisted round. Magnus Payne was holding one of the Mini Uzis. There was a dreadful smile on his face. A cloud of smoke hovered around his hands.
    “You’re insane!” Alex spat out the words without knowing what he was saying. “You’re never going to get away with it! They’ll know it was you…”
    “They may well suspect it was me, but it’s going to be almost impossible to prove,” Drevin retorted. “I’m afraid I’m the victim in all this.”
    “But what about me? What about Tamara? If you kill us, the CIA will come after you!”
    “The CIA are already after me. What difference will another couple of bodies make? I’m afraid you and Miss Knight wilt be found on the beach. Accidentally caught in the crossfire. A terrible shame. But not my fault.”
    “And what about Kaspar?” Why had Alex thought of him? He was the one piece missing from this crazy jigsaw. If Force Three had been working for Drevin all along, then so had Kaspar. But where was he?
    “Show him,” Drevin ordered.
    Magnus Payne put down the sub-machine gun. He reached up and took hold of his ginger hair. A wig. He pulled it off, then ripped at his skin. Alex should have recognized the latex. He had recently worn a similar disguise himself. He watched in dismay as the head of security seemed to tear his own face apart and the dreadful tattoos appeared underneath. In just a few seconds the magic trick was complete. Magnus Payne was gone; Kaspar stood in his place.
    “The tattoos were rather painful and unpleasant,” Drevin commented. “But we had to create a terrorist leader people would remember. I’d say we succeeded, wouldn’t you?”

    Alex felt utterly defeated. He remembered now his first meeting with Payne on Flamingo Bay. The head of security had disguised his voice, of course. But even so, Alex had been sure he’d seen him somewhere before. And Payne had known immediately who he was. Both he and Paul had been in the buggy when Drevin introduced them, and Payne was supposed to be meeting them both for the first time. But he had known immediately which was which. Of course. He had recognized Alex.
    “We’ll arrange the bodies on the beach after the launch,” Drevin said to Kaspar. “And we’ll add the boy and the woman then.” He put down his glass and stood up. “Goodbye, Alex. I enjoyed meeting you very much. I would have liked to get to know you better. But I’m afraid we’ve reached the end.”
    He tugged at his ring one last time as if there was something he had forgotten to say. The men who had pretended to be Force Three, and whose names Alex would never know, lay sprawled on the floor.
    Kaspar stepped forward and grabbed hold of the chair. Alex was helpless as his chair was tilted backwards and he was dragged away.

WIND AND WATER

    Kaspar drove Alex across the compound to a flat, rectangular building with barred windows and a door with steps leading down, just below the level of the ground. Alex could no longer think of the other man as Magnus Payne. Drevin’s head of security hadn’t bothered to replace his wig or mask, and even in the darkness the hideous map of the world still glowed livid on his skin. Alex wondered how much he had been paid to disfigure himself. Whatever the sum, it would probably cost him just as much one day to pay for the laser surgery to remove the tattoos.
    Alex had been untied from the wooden chair but his hands were still bound. As they got out of the buggy, he tested the wire, attempting to find some slack. It seemed to him that, given time, he might be able to free himself. Not that it would do him much good. The building in front of him looked like a prison. And Kaspar knew what he was capable of. He wasn’t going to make any more mistakes.
    They went down the steps into a large area filled with electronic equipment, computers and workstations.
    A model of a space probe—gleaming steel with circuitry spilling everywhere—took up most of the room.
    Alex noticed two sets of what looked like tracksuits hanging on a rail. They both had the Ark Angel logo stitched onto the sleeve. He supposed they must be the outfits worn by astronauts.
    “This way,” Kaspar grunted. He gestured with his gun towards another flight of stairs leading down.
    Alex obeyed and found himself in a wide corridor with two solid-looking cages on either side. As he