Stormbreaker

but to trust her. He followed her out of the room, around the corner, and up a flight of stairs to a landing with a statue of a naked woman, some Greek goddess, in the corner. Vole paused for a moment, resting her hand against the statue’s arm.
    “What is it?” Alex asked.
    “I feel dizzy. You go on. It’s the first door on the left.”
    Alex went past her, along the landing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her press down on the statue’s arm. The arm moved … a lever. By the time he knew he had been tricked, it was too late. He yelled out as the floor underneath him swung around on a hidden pivot. He tried to stop himself falling, but there was nothing he could do. He crashed onto his back and slid down through the floor and into a black plastic tunnel, which corkscrewed beneath him. As he went, he heard Nadia Vole laugh triumphantly, and then he was gone, desperately trying to find a hold on the sides, wondering what would be at the end of his fall.
    Five seconds later he found out. The corkscrew spat him out. He fell briefly through the air and splashed into cold water. For a moment he was blinded, fighting for air. Then he rose to the surface and found himself in a huge glass tank filled with water and rocks. That was when he realized, with horror, exactly where he was.
    Vole had deposited him in the tank with the giant jellyfish: Herod Sayle’s Portuguese man-of-war. It was a miracle that he hadn’t crashed right into it. He could see it in the far corner of the tank, its dreadful tentacles with their hundreds of stinging cells, twisting and spiraling in the water. There was nothing between him and it. Alex fought back the panic, forced himself to keep still. He realized that thrashing about in the water would only create the current that would bring the creature over to him. The jellyfish had no eyes. It didn’t know he was there. It wouldn’t … couldn’t attack.
    But eventually it would reach him. The tank he was in was huge, at least fifteen feet deep and twenty or thirty feet long. The glass rose above the level of the water, far out of his reach. There was no way he could climb out. Looking down, through the water, he could see light. He realized he was looking into the room he had just left, Herod Sayle’s private office. There was a movement everything was vague and distorted through the rippling water—and the door opened. Two figures walked in. Alex could barely make them out, but he knew who they were. Fraulein Vole and Mr. Grin. They stood together in front of the tank. Vole was holding what looked like a mobile telephone in her hand.
    “I hope you can hear me, Alex.” The German woman’s voice rang out from a speaker somewhere above his head. “I am sure you will have seen by now that there is no way out of the tank. You can tread water.
    Maybe for one hour, maybe for two. Others have lasted for longer. What is the record, Mr. Grin?”
    “Ire naaargh aah!”
    “Five and a half hours. Yes. But soon you will get tired, Alex. You will drown. Or perhaps it will be faster and you will drift into the embrace of our friend. You see him … no? It is not an embrace to be desired. It will kill you. The pain, I think, will be beyond the imagination of a child. It is a pity, Alex Rider, that M16
    chose to send you here. They will not be seeing you again.”
    The voice clicked off. Alex kicked in the water, keeping his head above the surface, his eyes fixed on the jellyfish. There was another blurred movement on the other side of the glass. Mr. Grin had left the room.
    But Vole had stayed behind. She wanted to watch him die.
    Alex looked up. The tank was lit from above by a series of neon strips, but they were too high to reach.
    Beneath him he heard a click and a soft, whirring sound. Almost at once he became aware that something had changed. The jellyfish was moving toward him! He could see the translucent cone with its dark mauve tip heading toward him. Underneath the creature, the tentacles slowly danced.
    He swallowed water and realized he had opened his mouth to cry out. Vole must have turned on some sort of artificial current. That was what was making the jellyfish move. Desperately he kicked out with his feet, moving away from it, surging through the water on his back. One tentacle floated up and draped itself over his foot. If he hadn’t been wearing sneakers, he would have been stung. Could the stinging cells penetrate his clothes? Almost certainly. His sneakers were the