Stormbreaker

breathe.
    The front of the tank had blown off and a thousand gallons of water had cascaded into Herod Sayle’s office.
    The water had smashed the furniture and blown the windows out. It was still falling in torrents through the holes where the windows had been, the rest of it draining away through the floor. Bruised and dazed, Alex stood up, water curling around his ankles.
    Where was the jellyfish?
    He had been lucky that the two of them hadn’t become tangled up in the sudden eruption of water. But it could still be close. There might still be enough water in Sayle’s office to allow it to reach him. Alex backed into a corner of the room, his whole body taut. Then he saw it.
    Nadia Vole had been less lucky than he. She had been standing in front of the glass when the girders broke and she hadn’t been able to get out of the way in time. She was floating on her back, her legs limp and broken. The Portuguese man-of-war was all over her. Part of it was sitting on her face and she seemed to be staring at him through the quivering mass of jelly. Her yellow lips were drawn back in an endless scream.
    The tentacles were wrapped all around her, hundreds and hundreds of stinging cells clinging to her arms and legs and chest. Feeling sick, Alex backed away to the door and staggered out into the corridor.
    An alarm had gone off. He only heard it now as sound and vision came back to him. The screaming of the siren shook him out of his dazed state. What time was it? Almost eleven o’clock. At least his watch was still working. But he was in Cornwall, at least a five-hour drive from London, and with the alarms sounding, the armed guards, and the razor wire, he’d never make it out of the complex. Find a telephone? No. Vole had probably been telling the truth when she said they were blocked. And, anyway, how could he get in touch with Alan Blunt or Mrs. Jones at this late stage? They’d already be at the Science Museum.
    Just one hour left.
    Outside, over the din of the alarms, Alex heard another sound. The splutter and roar of a propeller. He went over to the nearest window and looked out. Sure enough, the cargo plane that had been there when he arrived was about to take off.
    Alex was soaking wet, battered, and almost exhausted. But he knew what he had to do.
    He spun around and began to run.

ELEVEN O’CLOCK

    ALEX BURST OUT of the house and stopped in the open air, taking stock of his surroundings. He was aware of alarms ringing, guards running toward him, and two cars, still some distance away, tearing up the main drive, heading for the house. He just hoped that although it was obvious something was wrong, nobody would yet know what it was. They shouldn’t be looking for him—at least, not yet. That might give him the edge.
    It looked like he was too late. Sayle’s private helicopter had already gone. Only the cargo plane was left. If Alex was going to reach the Science Museum in London in the fifty-nine minutes left to him, he had to be on it. But the cargo plane was already in motion, rolling slowly away from its chocks. In a minute or two it would go through the preflight tests. Then it would take off.
    Alex looked around and saw an open-topped army jeep parked on the drive near the front door. There was a guard standing next to it, a cigarette slipping out of his hand, looking around to see what was happening but looking the wrong way. Perfect. Alex sprinted across the gravel. He had brought a weapon from the house. One of Sayle’s harpoon guns had floated past him just as he left the room and he’d snatched it up, determined at last to have something he could use to defend himself. It would be easy enough to shoot the guard right now. A harpoon in the back and the jeep would be his. But Alex knew he couldn’t do it.
    Whatever Alan Blunt and M16 wanted to turn him into, he wasn’t ready to shoot in cold blood. Not for his country. Not even to save his own life.
    The guard looked up as Alex approached and fumbled for the pistol in a holster at his belt. He never made it. Alex used the handle of the harpoon gun, swinging it around and up to hit him, hard, under the chin.
    The guard crumpled, the pistol falling out of his hand. Alex grabbed it and leaped into the jeep, grateful to see the keys were in the ignition. He turned them and heard the engine start up. He knew how to drive.
    That was something else Ian Rider had made sure he’d learned … as soon as his legs were long enough to reach the pedals. The