Eagle Strike

walked on feet that had been smashed and wrenched round to face backwards. Flames leapt out of his hands, reflected a hundred times in the mirrors and adding to the twisting clouds of smoke.
    Of course, there was nothing supernatural about the three creatures waiting for Alex to appear.
    Beneath the grotesque masks, the plastic skin and make-up, they were nothing more than criminals, recently released from Bijlmer, the largest prison in the Netherlands. They now worked as guards for Cray Software Technology, but they had special duties too. This was one of them. The three men were armed with curved swords, javelins, steel claws and flame-throwers.
    They were looking forward to using them.
    It was the one dressed as Xolotl who saw Alex first.

    The camera in zone three had gone down, so there had been no way of knowing if Alex was on his way or if the snake had finished him. But suddenly there was a movement. The guard saw a figure lurch round a corner, naked to the waist. The boy was making no attempt to hide, and the guard saw why.
    Alex Rider was soaked in blood. His entire chest was bright red. His mouth was opening and closing, but no sound came out. Then the guard saw the wooden spear sticking out of his chest.
    The boy had obviously tried to run down the corridor but hadn‟t quite made it. One of the spears had found its target.
    Alex saw the guard and stopped. He dropped to his knees. One hand pointed limply at the spear, then fell. He looked upwards and tried to speak. More blood trickled out of his mouth. His eyes closed and he pitched to one side. He didn‟t move again.
    The guard relaxed. The boy‟s death meant nothing to him. He reached into the pocket of his chain-mail shirt and took out a radio transmitter.
    “It‟s over,” he said, speaking in Dutch. “The boy‟s been killed by a spear.”
    Neon strips flickered on throughout the game zone. In the harsh white light the different zones seemed cruder, more like fairground attractions. The guards, too, looked ridiculous in their fancy dress. The dangling eyes were painted ping-pong balls. The alligator body was nothing more than a rubber suit. The backward-facing feet could have come out of a joke shop. The three of them formed a circle around Alex.
    “He‟s still breathing,” one of them said.

    “Not for much longer.” The second guard glanced at the point of the spear, covered in rapidly congealing blood.
    “What shall we do with him?”
    “Leave him here. It‟s not our job. Disposal can pick him up later.”
    They walked away. One of them stopped beside a wall, painted to look like crumbling stone, and pulled open a concealed panel to reveal a button. He pressed it and the wall slid open. There was a brightly lit corridor on the other side. The three men went off to change.
    Alex opened his eyes.
    The trick he had played was so old that he was almost ashamed. If it had been done on the stage, it wouldn‟t have fooled a six-year-old. But he supposed that circumstances were a little different here.
    Left on his own in the miniature jungle, he had reclaimed the broken spear that he had used to kilt the snake. He had tied it to his chest using the wire he had torn out of the security camera.
    Then he had covered himself with blood taken from the dead snake. That had been the worst part, but he‟d had to make sure that the illusion would work. Steeling himself, he had scooped up some more of the blood and put it in his mouth. He could still taste it now and he was having to force himself not to swallow. But it had fooled the men completely. None of them had looked too closely. They had seen what they wanted to see.
    Alex waited until he was certain he was alone, then sat up and untied the spear. He would just have to hope that the cameras had all been turned off when the game had ended. The exit was still open and Alex stole through, leaving the make-believe world behind him. He found himself in an ordinary corridor, stretching into the distance with tiled walls and plain wooden doors on either side. He knew that although the immediate danger was behind him, he could hardly afford to start relaxing yet. He was half naked and covered in blood. He was still trapped in the heart of the compound. And it could only be a matter of time before someone discovered that the body had disappeared and realized the trick that had been played.
    He opened the first of the doors. It led into a storage cupboard. The second and third doors were locked, but