Eagle Strike

my autograph. As a matter of fact, Alex, I‟m rather pleased to see you. I was planning to come and find you one day anyway. You completely spoilt the launch of my Gameslayer. Much too clever by half! I was very cross with you, and although I‟m rather busy at the moment, I was going to arrange a little accident…”
    “Like you did for that woman in Hyde Park?” Alex asked.
    “She was a nuisance. She asked impertinent questions. I hate journalists, and I hate smart-arse kids too. As I say, I‟m very glad you managed to find your way here. It makes my life a lot easier.”
    “You can‟t do anything to me,” Alex said. “MI6 know I‟m here. They know all about Eagle Strike. You may have the codes, but you‟ll never be able to use them. And if I don‟t report in this evening, this whole place will be surrounded before tomorrow and you‟ll be in jail…”
    Cray glanced at Yassen. The Russian shook his head. “He‟s lying. He must have heard us talking from the stairs. He knows nothing.”

    Cray licked his lips. Alex realized that he was enjoying himself. He could see now just how crazy Cray was. The man didn‟t connect with the real world and Alex knew that whatever he was planning, it was going to be on a big scale—and probably lethal.
    “It doesn‟t make any difference,” Cray said. “Eagle Strike will have taken place in less than forty-eight hours from now. I agree with you, Yassen. This boy knows nothing. He‟s irrelevant. I can kill him and it won‟t make any difference at all.”
    “You don‟t have to kill him,” Yassen said. Alex was surprised. The Russian had killed Ian Rider.
    He was Alex‟s worst enemy. But this was the second time Yassen had tried to protect him. “You can just lock him up until it‟s all over.”
    “You‟re right,” Cray said. “I don‟t have to kill him. But I want to. It‟s something I want to do very much.” He pushed himself off the piano stool and came over to Alex. “Do you remember I told you about pain synthesis?” he said. “In London. The demonstration… Pain synthesis allows game players to experience the hero‟s emotions—all his emotions, particularly those associated with pain and death. You may wonder how I programmed it into the software. The answer, my dear Alex, is by the use of volunteers such as yourself.”
    “I didn‟t volunteer,” Alex muttered.
    “Nor did the others. But they still helped me. Just as you will help me. And your reward will be an end to the pain. The comfort and the quiet of death…” Cray looked away. “You can take him,” he said.

    Two guards had come into the room. Alex hadn‟t heard them approach, but now they stepped out of the shadows and grabbed hold of him. He tried to fight back, but they were too strong for him.
    They pulled him off the sofa and away, down one of the passages leading from the room.
    Alex managed to look back one last time. Cray had already forgotten him. He was holding the flash drive, admiring it. But Yassen was watching him and he looked worried. Then an automatic door shot down with a hiss of compressed air and Alex was dragged away, his feet sliding uselessly behind him, following the passageway to whatever it was that Damian Cray had arranged.
    The cell was at the end of another underground corridor. The two guards threw Alex in, then waited as he turned round to face them. The one who had found him on the stairs spoke a few words with a heavy Dutch accent.
    “The door closes and it stays closed. You find the way out. Or you starve.”
    That was it. The door slammed and Alex heard two bolts being drawn across. He heard the guards‟ footsteps fade into the distance. Suddenly everything was silent. He was on his own. He looked around him. The cell was a bare metal box about five metres long and two metres wide with a single bunk, no water and no window. The door had closed flush to the wall. There was no crack round the side, not so much as a keyhole. He knew he had never been in worse trouble.
    Cray hadn‟t believed his story; he had barely even considered it. Whether Alex was with MI6 or not seemed to make no difference to him … and the truth was that this time Alex really had got himself caught up in something without MI6 there to back him up. For once he had no gadgets to help him break out of the cell. He had brought the bicycle that Smithers had given him from London to Paris and then to Amsterdam. But right now it was parked outside Central Station in the