Stormbreaker

off me and hung out on the flagpole underneath the Union Jack.” Sayle shook his head slowly. “I had loved that flag when I first came here,” he said. “But in only weeks I came to hate it.”
    “Lots of people are bullied at school—” Alex began and stopped as Sayle backhanded him viciously across the face.
    “I haven’t finished,” Sayle said. He was breathing heavily and there was spittle on his lower lip. Alex could see him reliving the past. And once again he was allowing the past to destroy him.
    “There were plenty of bullies in that school,” he said. “But there was one who was worse than any of them.
    He was a small, smarmy shrimp of a boy, but his parents were rich and he had a way with the other children. He knew how to talk his way around them … a politician even then. Oh yes. He could be charming when he wanted to. When there were teachers around. But the moment their backs were turned, he was onto me. He used to organize the others. ‘Let’s get the goat-boy. Let’s push his head in the toilet.’ He had a thousand ideas to make my life miserable and he never stopped thinking up more. All the time he goaded me and taunted me and there was nothing I could do because he was popular and I was a foreigner. And do you know who that boy grew up to be?”
    “No, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me,” Alex said.
    “I am going to tell you. Yes. He grew up to be the bliddy prime minister!”
    Sayle took out a white silk handkerchief and wiped his face. His bald head was gleaming with sweat. “All my life I’ve been treated the same way,” he continued. “No matter how successful I’ve become, how much money I’ve made, how many people I’ve employed. I’m still a joke. I’m still Herod Smell, the goat-boy, the Cairo tramp. Well, for forty years I’ve been planning my revenge. And now, at last, my time has come.
    Mr. Grin…”
    Mr. Grin went over to the wall and pressed a button. Alex half expected the snooker table to rise out of the floor, but instead, on every wall, a panel slid up to reveal floor-to-ceiling television screens that immediately flickered into life. On one screen Alex could see the underground laboratory, on another the assembly line, on a third the airstrip with the last of the trucks on its way out. There were closed-circuit television cameras everywhere, and Sayle could see every corner of his kingdom without even leaving the room. No wonder Alex had been discovered so easily.
    “The Stormbreakers are armed and ready. And yes, you’re right, Alex. Each one contains what you might call a computer virus. But that, if you like, is my little April Fools’ joke. Because the virus I’m talking about is a form of smallpox. Of course, Alex, it’s been genetically modified to make it faster and stronger … more lethal. A spoonful of the stuff would destroy a city. And my Stormbreakers hold much, much more than that.
    “At the moment it’s isolated, quite safe. But this afternoon there’s going to be a bit of a party at the Science Museum. Every school in England will be joining in, with the schoolchildren gathered around their nice, new shiny computers. And at midday, on the stroke of twelve, my old friend, the prime minister, will make one of his smug, self-serving speeches and then he’ll press a button. He thinks he’ll be activating the computers, and in a way, he’s right. Pressing the button will release the virus, and by midnight tonight, there will be no more schoolchildren in England and the prime minister will weep as he remembers the day he first bullied Herod Sayle!”
    “You’re mad!” Alex exclaimed. “By midnight tonight you’ll be in jail.”
    Sayle dismissed the thought with a wave of the hand. “I think not. By the time anyone realizes what has happened, I’ll be gone. I’m not alone in this, Alex. I have powerful friends who have supported me—”
    “Yassen Gregorovich.”
    “You have been busy!” He seemed surprised that Alex knew the name. “Yassen is working for the people who have been helping me. Let’s not mention any names or even nationalities. You’d be surprised how many countries there are in the world who loathe the English. Most of Europe, just to begin with. But anyway…” He clapped his hands and went back to his desk. “Now you know the truth. I’m glad I was able to tell you, Alex. You have no idea how much I hate you. Even when we were playing that stupid game of snooker, I was thinking