Herod Sayle was playing snooker when Alex was shown back into the room with the jellyfish. It was hard to say quite where the heavy wooden snooker table had come from, and Alex couldn’t avoid thinking that the little man looked slightly ridiculous, almost lost at the far end of the green baize. Mr Grin was with him, carrying a footstool which Sayle stood on for each shot. Otherwise he would
barely have been able to reach over the edge.
“Ah … good evening, Felix. Or, of course, I mean Alex!” Sayle exclaimed. “Do you play snooker?”
“Occasionally.”
“How would you like to play against me? There are only two reds left – then the colours. But I’m willing to bet that you don’t manage to score a single point.”
“How much?”
“Ha ha!” Sayle laughed. “Suppose I was to bet you ten pounds a point?”
“As much as that?” Alex looked surprised.
“To a man like myself, ten pounds is nothing. Nothing! Why, I could quite happily bet you a hundred pounds a point!”
“Then why don’t you?” The words were softly spoken but they were still a direct challenge. Sayle gazed thoughtfully at Alex. “Very well,” he said. “A hundred pounds a point. Why not? I like a gamble. My father was a gambling man.”
“I thought he was a hairdresser.” “Who told you that?”
Silently, Alex cursed himself. Why was he never more careful when he was with this man? “I read it in a paper,” he said. “My dad got me some stuff to read about you when I won the competition.”
“A hundred pounds a point, then. But don’t expect to get rich.” Sayle hit the white, sending one of the reds straight into the middle
pocket. The jellyfish floated past as if watching the game from its tank. Mr Grin picked up the footstool and moved it round the table. Sayle laughed briefly and followed the butler round, already sizing up the next shot, a fairly tricky black into the corner. “So what does your father do?” he asked.
“He’s an architect,” Alex said.
“Oh yes? What has he designed?” The question was casual, but Alex wondered if he was being tested.
“He’s been working on an office in Soho,” Alex said. “Before that he did an art gallery in Aberdeen.”
“Yes.” Sayle climbed on to the footstool and aimed. The black missed the corner pocket by a fraction of a millimetre, spinning back into the centre. Sayle frowned. “That was your bliddy fault,” he snapped at Mr Grin.
“Warg?”
“Your shadow was on the table. Never mind, never mind!” He turned to Alex. “You’ve been unlucky. None of the balls will go in. You won’t make any money this time.”
Alex pulled a cue out of the rack and glanced at the table. Sayle was right. The last red was too close to the cushion. But in snooker there are other ways to win points, as Alex knew only too well. It was one of the many games he had played with Ian Rider. The two of them had even belonged to a club in Chelsea and Alex had represented the junior team. This was something he hadn’t mentioned to Sayle. He carefully aimed at the red, then hit. Perfect.
“Nowhere near!” Sayle was back at the table before the balls had even stopped rolling. But he had spoken too soon. He stared as the white ball hit the cushion and rolled behind the pink. He’d been snookered. For about twenty seconds he measured up the angles, breathing through his nose. “You’ve had a bit of bliddy luck!” he said. “You seem to have accidentally snookered me. Now, let me see…” He concentrated, then hit the white, trying to curve it round the pink. But once again he was out by about a millimetre. There was an audible click as it touched the pink.
“Foul shot,” Alex said. “Six points to me. Does that mean I get six hundred pounds?”
“What?”
“The foul is worth six points to me. At a hundred pounds a point—”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Saliva dripped from the corners of Sayle’s mouth as he stared incredulously at the table.
Alex’s shot had exposed the red ball. It was a straightforward shot into the top corner, and he took it without a moment’s hesitation. “And another hundred makes seven hundred,” he said, moving down the table and brushing past Mr. Grin. He quickly assessed the angles. Yes…
He executed a perfect kiss on the black, sending it into the corner while the white spun back into position for a good angle on the yellow. One thousand four hundred pounds, plus another two hundred for the yellow, which he pocketed right after. Sayle could only watch in disbelief as Alex followed up with the green, brown, blue, and then the pink, all in order, before sinking the black at the far end of the table.
“I make that four thousand one hundred pounds,” Alex said, placing the cue down. “Thank you very much.”
Sayle’s face turned the color of the last ball. “Four thousand…! I wouldn’t have gambled if I’d known you were this bliddy good,” he exclaimed. He walked over to the wall and pressed a button. Part of the floor slid back, and the entire billiard table disappeared into it, lowered by a hydraulic lift. When the floor sealed again, there was no trace it had ever been there. It was a slick trick—perfect for a man with money to burn.
But Sayle had lost his taste for games. He tossed his billiard cue to Mr. Grin with all his might, who caught it deftly. “Let’s eat,” Sayle said.
* * *
The two of them sat at opposite ends of a long glass table in the room next door while Mr Grin served smoked salmon, then some sort of stew. Alex drank water. Sayle, who had cheered up once again, had a glass of vintage red wine.
“You spent some time with the Stormbreaker today?” he asked. “Yes.”
“And…?”
“It’s great,” Alex said, and meant it. He still found it hard to believe that this ridiculous man could have created anything so sleek and
powerful.
“So which programs did you use?”
“History. Science. Maths. It’s hard to believe, but I actually enjoyed them!”
“Do you have any criticisms?”
Alex thought for a moment. “I was surprised it didn’t have 3D acceleration.”
“The Stormbreaker is not intended for games.”
“Did you consider a headset and integrated microphone?”
“No.” Sayle nodded. “It’s a good idea. I’m sorry you’ve only come here for such a short time, Alex. Tomorrow we’ll have to get you on to the Internet. The Stormbreakers are all connected to a master network. That’s controlled from here. It means they have free twenty- four-hour access.”
“That’s cool.”
“It’s more than cool.” Sayle’s eyes were far away, the grey irises small, dancing. “Tomorrow we start shipping the computers out,” he said. “They’ll go by plane, by lorry and by boat. It will take just one day for them to reach every point of the country. And the day after, at twelve o’clock noon exactly, the Prime Minister will honour me by pressing the START button which will bring every one of my Stormbreakers on-line. At that moment, all the schools will be united. Think of it, Alex! Thousands of schoolchildren – hundreds of thousands – sitting in front of the screens, suddenly together. North, south, east and west. One school. One family. And then they will know me for what I am!”
He picked up his glass and emptied it. “How is the goat?” he asked. “I’m sorry?”
“The stew. The meat is goat. It was a recipe of my mother’s.” “She must have been an unusual woman.”
Herod Sayle held out his glass and Mr Grin refilled it. Sayle was gazing at Alex curiously. “You know,” he said. “I have a strange feeling that you and I have met before.”
“I don’t think so—”
“But yes. Your face is familiar to me. Mr Grin? What do you think?”
The butler stood back with the wine. His dead, white head twisted round to look at Alex. “Eeeg Raargh!” he said.
“Yes, of course. You’re right!” “Eeeg Raargh?” Alex asked.
“Ian Rider. The security man I mentioned. You look a lot like him.
Quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. I never met him.” Alex could feel the danger getting closer. “You told me he left suddenly.”
“Yes. He was sent here to keep an eye on things, but if you ask me he was never any bliddy good. Spent half his time in the village. In the port, the post office, the library. When he wasn’t snooping around here, that is. Of course, that’s something else you have in common. I understand Fräulein Vole found you today…” Sayle’s pupils crawled to the front of his eyes, trying to get closer to Alex. “You were off limits.”
“I got a bit lost.” Alex shrugged, trying to make light of it.
“Well, I hope you don’t go wandering again tonight. Security is very tight at the moment and, as you may have noticed, my men are all armed.”
“I didn’t think that was legal in Britain.”
“We have a special licence. At any rate, Alex, I would advise you to go straight to your room after dinner. And stay there. I would be inconsolable if you were accidentally shot and killed in the darkness. Although it would, of course, save me four thousand pounds.”
“Actually, I think you’ve forgotten the cheque.”
“You’ll have it tomorrow. Maybe we can have dinner together. Mr Grin will be serving up one of my grandmother’s recipes.”
“More goat?” “Dog.”
“You obviously had a family that loved animals.”
“Only the edible ones.” Sayle smiled. “And now I must wish you goodnight.”
At one-thirty in the morning, Alex’s eyes blinked open and he was instantly awake.
He slipped out of bed and dressed quickly in his darkest clothes, then left the room. He was half-surprised that the door was unlocked and the corridors seemed to be unmonitored. But this was, after all, Sayle’s private house and any security would have been designed to stop people coming in, not leaving.
Sayle had warned him not to leave the house. But the voices behind the metal door had spoken of something arriving at two o’clock. Alex had to know what it was.
He found his way into the kitchen and tiptoed past a stretch of gleaming silver surfaces and an oversized American fridge. Let sleeping dogs lie, he thought to himself, remembering what was being served for tomorrow’s dinner. There was a side door, fortunately with the key still in the lock. Alex turned it and let himself out. As a last- minute precaution he locked the door and kept the key. Now at least he had a way back in.
It was a soft, grey night with a half-moon forming a perfect D in the sky. D for what, Alex wondered. Danger? Discovery? Or disaster? Only time would tell. He took two steps forward, then froze as a searchlight rolled past, centimetres away, directed from a tower he hadn’t even seen. At the same time he became aware of voices, and two guards walked slowly across the garden, patrolling the back of the house. They were both armed and Alex remembered what Sayle had said. An accidental shooting would save him four thousand pounds. And given the importance of the Stormbreakers, would anyone care just how accidental the shooting might have been?
He waited until the men had gone, then took the opposite direction, running along the side of the house, ducking under the windows. He reached the corner and looked round. In the distance, the airstrip was lit up and there were figures – more guards and technicians – everywhere. One man he recognized, walking past the fountain towards a waiting truck. He was tall and gangly, silhouetted against the lights, a black cut-out. But Alex would have known Mr Grin anywhere. They come in tonight. At 0200. Night visitors. And Mr Grin was on his way to meet them.
The butler had almost reached the truck and Alex knew that if he waited any longer he would be too late. Throwing caution to the wind, he left the cover of the house and ran out into the open, trying to stay low and hoping his dark clothes would keep him invisible. He
was only fifty metres from the truck when Mr Grin suddenly stopped and turned round as if he had sensed there was someone there. There was nowhere for Alex to hide. He did the only thing he could, and threw himself flat on the ground, burying his face in the grass. He counted slowly to five, then looked up. Mr Grin was turning once again. A second figure had appeared … Nadia Vole. It seemed she would be driving. She muttered something as she climbed into the front. Mr Grin grunted and nodded.
By the time Mr Grin had walked round to the passenger door, Alex was once again up and running. He reached the back of the truck just as it began to move. It was similar to trucks he had seen at the SAS camp. It could have been army surplus. The back was tall and square, covered with tarpaulin. Alex clambered on to the moving tailgate and threw himself in. He was only just in time. Even as he hit the floor, a car started up behind him, flooding the back of the truck with its headlamps. If he had waited even a few seconds more, he would have been seen.
In all, a convoy of five vehicles left Sayle Enterprises. The truck Alex was in was the last but one. As well as Mr Grin and Nadia Vole, at least a dozen uniformed guards were making the journey. But to where? Alex didn’t dare look out the back, not with a car right behind him. He felt the truck slow down as they reached the main gate and then they were out on the main road, driving rapidly uphill, away from the village.
Alex felt the journey without seeing it. He was thrown across the metal floor as they sped round hairpin bends, and he only knew they had left the main road when he suddenly found himself being bounced up and down. The truck was moving more slowly. He sensed they were going downhill, following a rough track. And now he could hear something, even over the noise of the engine. Waves. They had come down to the sea.
The truck stopped. There was the opening and slamming of car doors, the scrunch of boots on rocks, low voices talking. Alex crouched down, afraid that one of the guards would throw back the tarpaulin and discover him, but the voices faded and he found himself once again alone. Cautiously, he slipped out the back. He was right. The convoy had parked on a deserted beach. Looking back, he could see a track leading down from the road which twisted up over the cliffs. Mr Grin and the others had gathered beside an old stone jetty
that stretched out into the black water. He was carrying a torch. Alex saw him swing it in an arc.
Growing ever more curious, Alex crept forward and found a hiding- place behind a cluster of boulders. It seemed they were waiting for a boat. He looked at his watch. It was exactly two o’clock. He almost wanted to laugh. Give the men flintlock pistols and horses and they could have come straight out of a children’s book. Smuggling on the Cornish coast. Could that be what this was all about? Cocaine or marijuana coming in from the Continent? Why else would they be here in the middle of the night?
The question was answered a few seconds later. Alex stared, unable to believe quite what he was seeing.
A submarine. It had emerged from the sea with the speed and impossibility of a huge stage illusion. One moment there was nothing and then it was there in front of him, ploughing through the sea towards the jetty, its engine making no sound, water streaking off its silver casing and churning white behind it. The submarine had no markings, but Alex thought he recognized the shape of the diving plane slashing horizontally through the conning tower and the shark’s tail rudder at the back. A Chinese Han Class 404 SSN? Nuclear- powered. Armed, also, with nuclear weapons.
But what was it doing here, off the coast of Cornwall? What was going on?
The tower opened and a man climbed out, stretching himself in the cold morning air. Even without the half-moon, Alex would have recognized the sleek, dancer’s body and the close-cropped hair of the man whose photograph he had seen only a few days before. It was Yassen Gregorovich. The contract killer. The man who had murdered Ian Rider. He was dressed in grey overalls. He was smiling.
Yassen Gregorovich had supposedly met Sayle in Cuba. Now here he was in Cornwall. So the two of them were working together. But why? Why would the Stormbreaker project need a man like him?
Nadia Vole walked to the end of the jetty and Yassen climbed down to join her. They spoke for a few minutes, but even assuming they were speaking in English, there was no chance of their being overheard. Meanwhile, the guards from Sayle Enterprises had formed a line stretching back almost to the point where the vehicles were parked. Yassen gave an order and, as Alex watched from behind the
rocks, a large metallic silver box with a vacuum seal appeared, held by unseen hands, at the top of the submarine’s tower. Yassen himself passed it down to the first of the guards, who then passed it back up the line. About forty more boxes followed, one after another. It took almost an hour to unload the submarine. The men handled the boxes carefully. They didn’t want to break whatever was inside.
By three o’clock they were almost finished. The boxes were now being packed into the back of the truck that Alex had vacated. And that was when it happened.
One of the men standing on the jetty dropped one of the boxes. He managed to catch it again at the last minute, but even so, it banged down heavily on the stone surface. Everyone stopped. Instantly. It was as if a switch had been thrown, and Alex could almost feel the raw fear in the air.
Yassen was the first to recover. He darted forward along the jetty, moving like a cat, his feet making no sound. He reached the box and ran his hands over it, checking the seal, then nodded slowly. The metal wasn’t even dented.
With everyone else so still, Alex heard the exchange that followed. “It’s OK. I’m sorry,” the guard said. “It’s not damaged and I won’t
do that again.”
“No. You won’t,” Yassen agreed, and shot him.
The bullet spat out of his hand, red in the darkness. It hit the man in the chest, propelling him backwards in an awkward cartwheel. The man fell into the sea. For a few seconds he looked up at the moon as if trying to admire it one last time. Then the black water folded over him.
It took them another twenty minutes to load the truck. Yassen got into the front with Nadia Vole. Mr Grin went in one of the cars.
Alex had to time his return carefully. As the truck picked up speed, rumbling back up towards the road, he left the cover of the rocks, ran forward and pulled himself in. There was hardly any room, but he managed to find a hole and squeeze himself into it. He ran a hand over one of the boxes. It was about the size of a tea chest, unmarked, and cold to touch. He tried to find a way to open it, but it was locked in a way he didn’t understand.
He looked back out of the truck. The beach and the jetty were
already far below them. The submarine was pulling out to sea. One moment it was there, sleek and silver, gliding through the water. Then it had sunk below the surface, disappearing as quickly as a bad dream.
