Scorpia

of our students several weeks to master the art. After just a few hours on the range, Alex was already achieving impressive results. At the end of his second day he scored seventy-two per cent.”
    “I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
    D’Arc shifted in his seat. In his formal suit and tie, shrunk to fit Mrs Rothman’s computer screen, he looked rather like a ventriloquist’s dummy. “Today we switched the targets,” he explained. “Instead of black and red rings, Alex was asked to fire at photographs of men and women. He was supposed to aim at the vital areas: the heart … between the eyes.”
    “How did he do?”
    “That’s the point. His score dropped to forty-six per cent. He missed several targets altogether.” D’Arc took off his glasses and polished them with a cloth. “I also have the results of his Rorschach psychological test,” he went on. “He was asked to identify certain shapes—”
    “I do know what a Rorschach test is, Professor.”
    “Of course. Forgive me. Well, there was one shape that every student who has ever come here has identified as a man lying in a pool of blood. But not Alex. He said he thought it was a man flying through the air with a backpack. Anothershape, which is invariably seen as a gun pointing at someone’s head, he believed to be someone pumping up a football. At our very first meeting, Alex told me that he couldn’t kill for us, and I have to say that, psychologically speaking, he seems to lack what might be called the killer instinct.”
    There was a long pause. The image on the computer screen flickered.
    “It’s very disappointing,” d’Arc went on. “Having met Alex, I must say that a teenage assassin would be extremely useful to us. The possibilities are almost limitless. I think we should make it a high priority to find one of our own.”
    “I doubt there are many teenagers quite as experienced as Alex.”
    “That’s what I began by saying. But even so …”
    There was another pause. Mrs Rothman came to a decision. “Did Alex see Dr Steiner?” she asked.
    “Yes. Everything was done exactly as you instructed.”
    “Good.” She nodded. “You say that Alex won’t kill for us, but you could still be proved wrong. It’s just a question of giving him the right target – and this time I’m not talking about paper.”
    “You want to send him on an assignment?”
    “As you know, Invisible Sword is about to enter its final, critical phase. Introducing Alex Rider into the mix right now might provide an interestingdistraction, at the very least. And if he
did
succeed, which I believe he might, he could be very useful indeed. All in all, the timing couldn’t be better.”
    Julia Rothman leant forward so that her eyes almost filled the screen.
    “This is what I want you to do…”
    There were two hundred and forty-seven steps to the top of the bell tower. Alex knew because he had counted every one of them. The bottom of the tower was empty, a single chamber with bare brick walls and a smell of damp. It had clearly been abandoned years ago. The bells themselves either had been stolen or had fallen down and been lost. The stairs were made of stone and twisted round, following the edges of the tower, and small windows allowed just enough light to see. There was a door at the top. Alex wondered if it would be locked. The tower was used occasionally during camouflage exercises, when the students had to creep from one side of the island to the other. It was a useful lookout post. But he hadn’t been up here before himself.
    The door was open. It led to a square platform, about ten metres wide, out in the open air. Once there might have been a balustrade enclosing the platform and making it safe. But at some point it had been removed and now the stone floor simply ended. If Alex took three more paces he would stepinto nothing. He would fall to his death.
    Cautiously Alex walked to the edge and glanced down. He was right above the monastery courtyard. He could see the
makiwara
which had been set up earlier in the afternoon. This was a heavy pole with a thick leather pad wrapped around it at head height. It was used to practise kick-boxing and karate strikes. There was nobody in sight. Lessons for the day had ended and the other students were resting before dinner.
    He looked across the woodland that surrounded the monastery, already dark and impenetrable. The sun was sinking into the sea, spilling the last of its light over the black water.