Eagle Strike

front of his eyes.
    Another truck had stopped and the driver was being questioned while the cabin was searched.
    Could he do it? He remembered the bicycle that was chained to a lamppost just a couple of hundred metres down the road. Before he had left England he had gone through the manual that had come with it and had been amazed how many gadgets Smithers had been able to conceal in and around such an ordinary object. Even the bicycle clips were magnetic! Alex watched the gate slide open and the truck pass through.
    Yes. It would work. He would have to wait until it was dark—but it was the last thing anyone would expect. Despite everything, Alex suddenly found himself smiling.
    He just hoped he could find a fancy-dress shop in Amsterdam.

    By nine o‟clock it was dark but the searchlights around the compound had been activated long before, turning the area into a dazzling collision of black and white. The gates, the razor wire, the guards with their guns … all could be seen a mile away. But now they were throwing vivid shadows, pools of darkness that might offer a hiding place to anyone brave enough to get close.
    A single truck was approaching the main gate. The driver was Dutch and had driven up from the port of Rotterdam. He had no idea what he was carrying and he didn‟t care. From the first day he had started working for Cray Software Technology, he had known that it was better not to ask questions. The first of the two traffic lights was red and he slowed down, then came to a halt.

    There were no other vehicles in sight and he was annoyed to be kept waiting, but it was better not to complain. There was a sudden knocking sound and he glanced out of the window, looking in the side mirror. Was someone trying to get his attention? But there was no one there and a moment later the light changed, so he threw the gearstick into first and moved on again.
    As usual he drove onto the glass panel and wound down his window. There was a guard standing outside and he passed across his ID, a plastic card with his photograph, name and employee number. The driver knew that other guards would inspect his truck. He sometimes wondered why they were so sensitive about security. After all, they were only making computer games. But he had heard about industrial sabotage … companies stealing secrets from each other. He supposed it made sense.
    Two guards were walking round the truck even as the driver sat there, thinking his private thoughts. A third was examining the pictures being transmitted by the camera underneath it. The truck had recently been cleaned. The word GAMESLAYER stood out on the side, with the Omni figure crouching next to it. One of the guards reached out and tried to open the door at the back.
    It was, as it should have been, locked. Meanwhile the other guard peered in through the front cabin window. But it was obvious that the driver was alone.
    The security operation was smooth and well practised. The cameras had shown nobody hiding underneath the truck or on the roof. The rear door was locked. The driver had been cleared. One of the guards gave a signal and the gate opened electronically, sliding sideways to let the truck in. The driver knew where to go without being told. After about fifty metres he branched off the entrance road and followed a narrower track that brought him to the unloading bay. There were about a dozen other vehicles parked here, with warehouses on both sides. The driver turned off the engine, got out and locked the door. He had paperwork to deal with. He would hand over the keys and receive a stamped docket with his time of arrival. They would unload the vehicle the following day.
    The driver left. Nothing moved. There was nobody else in the area.

    But if anyone had walked past, they might have seen a remarkable thing. On the side of the truck, the black-clothed figure of Omni turned its head. At least, that was what it would have looked like. But if that person had looked more closely, they would have realized that there were two figures on the truck. One was painted; the other was a real person, clinging impossibly to the metal panelling in exactly the same position as the picture underneath.
    Alex Rider dropped silently to the ground. The muscles in his arms and legs were screaming and he wondered how much longer he would have been able to hold on. Smithers had supplied four powerful magnetic clips with the bike and these were what Alex had used to keep himself in place: two