Stormbreaker

to contact us at once.”
    “And then?”
    “We’ll pull you out. It doesn’t matter how old you are, Alex. If Yassen finds out you’re working for us, he’ll kill you too.”
    She took the photograph back. Alex stood up.
    “You’ll leave here tomorrow morning at eight o’clock,” Mrs. Jones said. “Be careful, Alex. And good luck.”
    Alex walked across the hangar, his footsteps echoing. Behind him, Mrs. Jones unwrapped a peppermint and slipped it into her mouth. Her breath always smelled faintly of mint. As head of Special Operations, how many men had she sent to their deaths? Ian Rider and maybe dozens more. Perhaps it was easier for her if her breath was sweet.
    There was a movement ahead of him and he saw that the parachutists had gotten back from their jump.
    They were walking toward him out of the darkness with Wolf and the other men from K Unit right at the front. Alex tried to step around them, but he found Wolf blocking his way.
    “You’re leaving,” Wolf said. Somehow he must have heard that Alex’s training was over.
    “Yes.”
    There was a long pause. “What happened on the plane…” he began.
    “Forget it, Wolf,” Alex said. “Nothing happened. You jumped and I didn’t. That’s all.”
    Wolf held out a hard. “I want you to know … I was wrong about you. You’re all right. And maybe … one day it would be good to work with you.”
    “You never know,” Alex said.
    They shook.
    “Good luck, Cub.”
    “Good-bye, Wolf.”
    Alex walked out into the night.

PHYSALIA PHYSALIA

    THE SILVER GRAY Mercedes S600 cruised down the freeway, traveling south. Alex was sitting in the front passenger seat with so much soft leather around him that he could barely hear the 389 horsepower, 6-liter engine that was carrying him toward the Sayle complex near Port Tallon, Cornwall. At eighty miles per hour, the engine was only idling. But Alex could feel the power of the car. One hundred thousand pounds worth of German engineering. One touch from the unsmiling chauffeur and the Mercedes would leap forward. This was a car that sneered at speed limits.
    Alex had been collected that morning from a converted church in Hampstead, North London. This was where Felix Lester lived. When the driver had arrived, Alex had been waiting with his luggage, and there was even a woman he had never met before—an M16 operative—kissing him, telling him to brush his teeth, waving goodbye. As far as the driver was concerned, Alex was Felix. That morning Alex had read through the file and knew that Lester went to a school called St. Anthony’s, had two sisters and a pet Labrador. His father was an architect. His mother designed jewelry. A happy family—his family if anybody asked.
    “How far is it to Port Tallon?” he asked.
    So far the driver had barely spoken a word. He answered Alex without looking at him. “A few hours. You want some music?”
    “Got any John Lennon CDs?” That wasn’t his choice. According to the file, Felix Lester liked John Lennon.
    “No.”
    “Forget it. I’ll get some sleep.”
    He needed the sleep. He was still exhausted from the training and wondered how he would explain all the halfhealed cuts and bruises if anyone saw under his shirt. Maybe he’d tell them he got bullied at school. He closed his eyes and allowed the leather to suck him into sleep.
    It was the feeling of the car slowing down that awoke him. He opened his eyes and saw a fishing village, the blue sea beyond, a swath of rolling green hills, and a cloudless sky. It was a picture off a jigsaw puzzle, or perhaps a holiday brochure advertising a forgotten England. Seagulls swooped and cried overhead. An old tugboat—tangled nets, smoke, and flaking paint—pulled into the quay. A few locals, fishermen and their wives, stood around, watching. It was about five o’clock in the afternoon and the village was caught in the silvery light that comes at the end of a perfect spring day.
    “Port Tallon,” the driver said. He must have noticed Alex opening his eyes.
    “It’s pretty.”
    “Not if you’re a fish.”
    They drove around the edge of the village and back inland, down a lane that twisted between strangely bumpy fields. Alex saw the ruins of buildings, half-crumbling chimneys, and rusting metal wheels and knew that he was looking at an old tin mine. They’d mined tin in Cornwall for three thousand years until one day the tin had run out. Now all that was left was the holes.
    About another mile down the lane a