Eagle Strike

alert. Every van was equipped with a two-way radio and the guard at the gate immediately signalled to the driver and told him to return. The driver stopped before he had even reached the traffic light and wearily obeyed. But it was already too late.
    Alex slipped off the roof and dropped to the ground. Then he ran off into the night.

    Damian Cray was back in his office, sitting on the sofa holding a glass of milk. He had been in bed when the alarm went off and now he was wearing a silver dressing gown, dark blue pyjamas and soft cotton slippers. Something bad had happened to his face. The life had drained out of it, leaving behind a cold, empty mask that could have been cut out of glass. A single vein throbbed above one of his glazed eyes.
    Cray had just discovered that the flash drive had been taken from his desk. He had searched all the drawers, ripping them out, upturning them and scattering their contents across the floor.
    Then, with an inarticulate howl of rage, he had thrown himself onto the desktop, flailing about with his arms and sending telephones, files and photograph frames flying. He had smashed a paperweight into his computer screen, shattering the glass. And then he had sat down on the sofa and called for a glass of milk.
    Yassen Gregorovich had watched all this without speaking. He too had been called from his room by the alarm bells, but, unlike Cray, he hadn‟t been asleep. Yassen never slept for more than four hours. The night was too valuable. He might go for a run or work out in the gym. He might listen to classical music. On this night he had been working with a tape recorder and a well-thumbed exercise book. He was teaching himself Japanese, one of the nine languages he had made it his business to learn.
    Yassen had heard the alarms and known instinctively that Alex Rider had escaped. He had turned off the tape recorder. And he had smiled.
    Now he waited for Cray to break the silence. It had been Yassen who had suggested quietly that Cray should look for the flash drive. He wondered if he would get the blame for the theft.

    “He was meant to be dead!” Cray moaned. “They told me he was dead!” He glanced at Yassen, suddenly angry. “You knew he‟d been in here.”
    “I suspected it,” Yassen said.
    “Why?”
    Yassen considered. “Because he‟s Alex,” he said simply.
    “Then tell me about him!”
    “There is only so much I can tell you.” Yassen stared into the distance. His face gave nothing away. “The truth about Alex is that there is not a boy in the world like him,” he began, speaking slowly and softly. “Consider for a moment. Tonight you tried to kill him—and not just simply with a bullet or a knife, but in a way that should have terrified him. He escaped and he found his way here. He must have seen the stairs. Any other boy—any man even—would have climbed them instantly. His only desire would have been to get out of here. But not Alex. He stopped; he searched. That is what makes him unique, and that is why he is so valuable to MI6.”
    “How did he find his way here?”
    “I don‟t know. If you‟d allowed me to question him before you sent him into that game of yours, I might have been able to find out.”
    “This is not my fault, Mr Gregorovich! You should have killed him in the South of France when you had the chance.” Cray drank the milk and set the glass down. He had a white moustache on his upper Lip. “Why didn‟t you?” he demanded.
    “I tried…”

    “That nonsense in the bullring! That was stupid. I think you knew he‟d escape.”
    “I hoped he might,” Yassen agreed. He was beginning to get bored with Cray. He didn‟t like being asked to explain himself, and when he spoke again it was almost as much for his own benefit as Cray‟s. “I knew him…” he said.
    “You mean … before Saint-Pierre?”
    “I met him once. But even then … I knew him already. The moment I saw him, I knew who he was and what he was. The image of his father…” Yassen stopped himself. He had already said more than he had meant to. “He knows nothing of this,” he muttered. “No one has ever told him the truth.”
    But Cray was no longer interested. “I can‟t do anything without the flash drive,” he moaned, and suddenly there were tears brimming in his eyes. “It‟s all over! Eagle Strike! All the planning.
    Years and years of it. Millions of pounds. And it‟s all your fault!”
    So there it was at last, the finger of blame.
    For a few