Stormbreaker

to a halt. Rain and sweat trickled down the side of his face. His hair, dark now with grime, was glued across his forehead.
    The sergeant looked at his watch. “Eleven hours, five minutes. That’s not bad, Cub. But the others were here three hours ago.”
    Bully for them, Alex thought. He didn’t say anything.
    “Anyway, you should just make it to the first RV,” the sergeant went on. “It’s up there.”
    He pointed to a wall. Not a sloping wall. A sheer one. Solid rock rising two or three hundred feet up without a handhold or a foothold in sight. Even looking at it, Alex felt his stomach shrink. Ian Rider had taken him climbing … in Scotland, in France, all over Europe. But he had never attempted anything as difficult as this. Not on his own. Not when he was so tired.
    “I can’t,” he said. In the end the two words came out easily.
    “I didn’t hear that,” the sergeant said.
    “I said, I can’t do it, sir.”
    “Can’t isn’t a word we use around here.”
    “I don’t care. I’ve had enough. I’ve just had …”
    Alex’s voice cracked. He didn’t trust himself to go on.
    He stood there, cold and empty, waiting for the ax to fall.
    But it didn’t. The sergeant gazed at him for a long minute. He nodded his head slowly. “Listen to me, Cub,”
    he said. “I know what happened in the Killing House.”
    Alex glanced up.
    “Wolf forgot about the closed-circuit TV. We’ve got it all on film.”
    “Then why—?” Alex began.
    “Did you make a complaint against him, Cub?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Do you want to make a complaint against him, Cub?”
    A pause. Then… “No, sir.”
    “Good.” The sergeant pointed at the rock face, suggesting a path up with his finger. “It’s not as difficult as it looks,” he said. “And they’re waiting for you just over the top. You’ve got a nice cold dinner. Survival rations. You don’t want to miss that.”
    Alex drew a deep breath and started forward. As he passed the sergeant, he stumbled and put out a hand to steady himself, brushing against him. “Sorry, sir …” he said.
    It took him twenty minutes to reach the top and sure enough K Unit was already there, crouching around three small tents that they must have pitched earlier in the afternoon. Two just large enough for sharing.
    One, the smallest, for Alex.
    Snake, a thin, fair-haired man who spoke with a Scottish accent, looked up at Alex. He had a tin of cold stew in one hand, a teaspoon in the other. “I didn’t think you’d make it,” he said. Alex couldn’t help but notice a certain warmth in the man’s voice. And for the first time he hadn’t called him Double 0 Nothing.
    “Nor did I,” Alex said.
    Wolf was squatting over what he hoped would become a campfire, trying to get it started with two flint stones while Fox and Eagle watched. He was getting nowhere. The stones only produced the smallest of sparks and the scraps of newspaper and leaves that he had collected were already far too wet. Wolf struck at the stones again and again. The others watched, their faces glum.
    Alex held out the box of matches that he had pickpocketed from the sergeant when he had pretended to stumble at the foot of the rock face. “These might help,” he said.
    He threw the matches down, then went into his tent.

TOYS AREN’T US

    IN THE LONDON OFFICE, Mrs. Jones sat waiting while Alan Blunt read the report. The sun was shining.
    A pigeon was strutting back and forth along the ledge outside as if it were keeping guard.
    “He’s doing very well,” Blunt said at last. “Remarkably well, in fact.” He turned a page. “I see he missed target practice.”
    “Were you planning to give him a gun?” Mrs. Jones asked.
    “No. I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
    “Then why does he need target practice?”
    Blunt raised an eyebrow. “We can’t give a teenager a gun,” he said. “On the other hand, I don’t think we can send him to Port Tallon empty-handed. You’d better have a word with Smithers.”
    “I already have. He’s working on it now.”
    Mrs. Jones stood up as if to leave. But at the door she hesitated. “I wonder if it’s occurred to you that Rider may have been preparing him for this all along?” she said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Preparing Alex to replace him. Ever since the boy was old enough to walk, he’s been being trained for intelligence work … but without knowing it. I mean, he’s lived abroad so he now speaks French, German, and Spanish. He’s