Eagle Strike

you won‟t go after Cray, I will. He may be Father Christmas, Joan of Arc and the Pope all rolled into one, but it was his voice on the phone and I know he was somehow involved in what happened in the South of France. I‟m going to prove it to you.”
    Alex stood up and, without waiting to hear another word, left the room.
    There was a long pause.
    Blunt took out a pen and made a few notes on a sheet of paper. Then he looked at Mrs Jones.
    “Well?” he demanded.
    “Maybe we should go over the files one more time,” Mrs Jones suggested. “After all, Herod Sayle pretended to be a friend of the British people, and if it hadn‟t been for Alex…”
    “You can do what you like,” Blunt said. He drew a ring round the last sentence he had written.
    Mrs Jones could see the words Yassen Gregorovich upside down on the page. “Curious that he should have run into Yassen a second time,” he muttered.
    “And more curious still that Yassen didn‟t kill him when he had the chance.”
    “I wouldn‟t say that, all things considered.”
    Mrs Jones nodded. “Maybe we ought to tell Alex about Yassen,” she suggested.
    “Absolutely not.” Blunt picked up the piece of paper and crumpled it. “The less Alex Rider knows about Yassen Gregorovich the better. I very much hope the two of them don‟t run into each other again.” He dropped the paper ball into the bin underneath his desk. At the end of the day everything in the bin would be incinerated.
    “And that,” he said, “is that.”

    Jack was worried.
    Alex had come back from Liverpool Street in a bleak mood and had barely spoken a word to her since. He had come into the sitting room where she was reading a book and she had managed to learn that the meeting with Sabina hadn‟t gone well and that Alex wouldn‟t be seeing her again.
    But during the afternoon she managed to coax more and more of the story out of him until finally she had the whole picture.
    “They‟re all idiots!” Alex exclaimed. “I know they‟re wrong but just because I‟m younger than them, they won‟t listen to me.”
    “I‟ve told you before, Alex. You shouldn‟t be mixed up with them.”
    “I won‟t be. Never again. They don‟t give a damn about me.”
    The doorbell rang.
    “I‟ll go,” Alex said.
    There was a white van parked outside. Two men were opening the back and, as Alex watched, they unloaded a brand-new bicycle, wheeling it down and over to the house. Alex cast his eye over it. The bike was a Cannondale Bad Boy, a mountain bike that had been adapted for the city with a lightweight aluminium frame and one-inch wheels. It was silver and seemed to have come equipped with all the accessories he could have asked for: Digital Evolution lights, a Blackburn mini-pump … everything top of the range. Only the silver bell on the handlebar seemed old-fashioned and out of place. Alex ran his hand over the leather saddle with its twisting Celtic design and then along the frame, admiring the workmanship. There was no sign of any welds.
    The bike was handmade and must have cost hundreds.
    One of the men came over to him. “Alex Rider?” he asked.
    “Yes. But I think there‟s been a mistake. I didn‟t order a bike.”
    “It‟s a gift. Here…”
    The second man had left the bike propped up against the railings. Alex found himself holding a thick envelope. Jack appeared on the step behind him. “What is it?” she asked.
    “Someone has given me a bike.”
    Alex opened the envelope. Inside was an instruction booklet and attached to it a letter.
    Dear Alex,
    I‟m probably going to get a roasting for this, but I don‟t like the idea of you taking off on your own without any back-up. This is something I‟ve been working on for you and you might as well have it now. I hope it comes in useful.
    Look after yourself, dear boy. I‟d hate to hear that anything lethal had happened to you.
    All the best,
    Smithers
    PS This letter will self-destruct ten seconds after it comes into contact with the air so I hope you read it quickly!

    Alex just had time to read the last sentence before the letters on the page faded and the paper itself crumpled and turned into white ash. He moved his hands apart and what was left of the letter blew away in the breeze. Meanwhile the two men had got back into the van and driven away. Alex was left with the bike. He flicked through the first pages of the instruction book.
    BIKE PUMP—SMOKESCREEN
    MAGNESIUM FLARE—HEADLAMP
    HANDLEBAR—MISSILE