Stormbreaker

been dead now, he knew. Only luck and a low-voltage electric fence had managed to keep him alive.

DOZMARY MINE

    ALEX WALKED THROUGH Port Tallon, past the Fisherman’s Arms tavern and up the cobbled street toward the library. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the village seemed to be asleep, the boats bobbing in the harbor, the streets and pavements empty. A few seagulls wheeled lazily over the rooftops, uttering the usual mournful cries. The air smelled of salt and dead fish.
    The library was redbrick, Victorian, sitting self-importantly at the top of a hill. Alex pushed open the heavy swing door and went into a room with a tiled chessboard floor and about fifty shelves fanning out from a central reception area. Six or seven people were sitting at tables, working. A man in a thickly knitted jersey was reading Fisherman’s Week. Alex went over to the reception. There was the inevitable sign—SILENCE
    PLEASE. Beneath it an elderly, round-faced woman sat reading Crime and Punishment.
    “Can I help you?” Despite the sign, she had such a loud voice that everyone looked up when she spoke.
    “Yes…” Alex had come here because of a chance remark made by Herod Sayle. He had been talking about Ian Rider. “Spent half his time in the village. In the port, the post office, the library.” Alex had already seen the post office, another old-fashioned building near the port. He didn’t think he’d learn anything there. But the library? Maybe Rider had come here looking for information. Maybe the librarian would remember him.
    “I had a friend staying in the village,” he said. “I was wondering if he came here. His name’s Ian Rider.”
    “Rider with an i or a y? I don’t think we have any Riders at all.” The woman tapped a few keys on her computer, then shook her head. “No…”
    “He was staying at Sayle Enterprises,” Alex said. “He was about forty, thin, fair haired. He drove a BMW.”
    “Oh yes.” The librarian smiled. “He did come here a couple of times. A nice man. Very polite. I knew he didn’t come from around here. He was looking for a book…”
    “Do you remember what book?”
    “Of course I do. I can’t always remember faces, but I never forget a book. He was interested in viruses.”
    “Viruses?”
    “Yes. That’s what I said. He wanted information…”
    A computer virus! This might change everything. A computer virus was the perfect piece of sabotage: invisible and instantaneous. A single blip written into the software and every single piece of information in the Stormbreaker software could be destroyed at any time. But Herod Sayle couldn’t possibly want to damage his own creation. That would make no sense at all. So maybe Alex had been wrong about him from the very start. Maybe Sayle had no idea what was really going on.
    “I’m afraid I couldn’t help him,” the librarian continued. “This is only a small library and our grant’s been cut for the third year running.” She sighed. “Anyway, he said he’d get some books sent down from London.
    He told me he had a box at the post office…”
    That made sense too. Ian Rider wouldn’t want information sent to Sayle Enterprises, where it could be intercepted.
    “Was that the last time you saw him?” Alex asked.
    “No. He came back about a week later. He must have gotten what he wanted because this time he wasn’t looking for books about viruses. He was interested in local affairs.”
    “What sort of local affairs?”
    “Cornish local history. Shelf CL.” She pointed. “He spent an afternoon looking in one of the books and then he left. He hasn’t been back since then, which is a shame. I was rather hoping he’d join the library. Would you like to?”
    “Not today, thanks,” Alex said.
    Local history. That wasn’t going to help him. Alex nodded at the librarian and made for the door. His hand was just reaching out for the handle when he remembered: CL 475/19.
    He reached into his pocket and took out the Game Boy, pulled off the back, and unfolded the square of paper he had found in his bedroom. Sure enough, the letters were the same.CL. They weren’t referring to a grid reference. CL was the label on a book!
    Alex went over to the shelf that the librarian had shown him. Books grow old faster when they’re not being read and the ones gathered here were long past retirement, leaning tiredly against one another for support. CL 475/19—the number was printed on the spine—was called Dozmary: The