Crocodile Tears Read online

  It was worse than he imagined. The breath was smashed out of him. His neck and his spine almost separated. He was sure he had broken several of his ribs. He rolled, spinning toward the edge. If he kept rolling and fell off, he would be left behind after all and it would all have been for nothing.

  Alex stretched out his arms and legs, spread-eagling himself, doing everything he could to stay in contact with the roof. He wondered why the driver hadn’t stopped, but perhaps he hadn’t heard anything above the noise of the engine.

  The bus reached the security gate and passed through without slowing down. Then it was outside the complex, accelerating across Salisbury Plain.

  Alex stayed where he was, battered and exhausted. He allowed the cold air to wash over him. Every part of him was in pain. Something was trickling against his chest and for a horrible moment he thought he had been shot. But it wasn’t blood. The test tube had smashed. Smithers would just have to use whatever liquid he could separate from the fiber of Alex’s jacket. Surely there would be enough of it to analyze.

  Meanwhile, he couldn’t travel all the way back to London on the roof.

  Just before they reached the main road, Alex crawled over to the edge and lowered the top half of his body so that he was hanging, upside down, outside the window where he had been sitting. He was lucky. Tom Harris saw him, his eyes widening in disbelief. Alex made a sign with one hand. Tom nodded.

  About one minute later, the bus stopped and Tom got out. Alex watched him rush behind a tree and pretend to be sick. He used the opportunity to slide to the edge and lower himself down. He limped over and joined his friend.

  “Alex!” Tom looked horrified. “What happened to you?”

  “Things didn’t quite go as planned.”

  “You look awful!”

  “Really? I feel great. . . .”

  Tom helped Alex back to the bus. The two of them had to pass Mr. Gilbert, who was sitting in the front seat. Their teacher was even more shocked than Tom had been. He had only seen one boy leave the bus. So how was it possible for two of them to be returning?

  “Rider!” he gasped. “What are you doing out of the bus? What happened to you?”

  Alex didn’t know what to say. He could only imagine what he must look like.

  Tom came to his rescue. “He fell out of the window, sir. It’s lucky we stopped.”

  “I don’t believe a word of it! The windows don’t even open—”

  “It was the back door.”

  “Well . . .” The biology teacher was out of his depth. He just wanted to get back to London. “You’ll see the principal first thing tomorrow morning,” he snapped. “Now get back to your seat.”

  Alex leaned on Tom and hobbled to the back of the bus past forty staring faces. Everyone would be talking about this at school the next day—but this was Alex Rider. Somehow, any strange behavior was to be expected. As for Alex, he still had the flash drive with its precious download and the sample from the test tube as an added bonus. He had completed his part of the bargain and he had come out of it more or less in one piece. And as he hadn’t heard a word from Harry Bulman, he assumed that MI6 had kept their promise too.

  He sank back into his seat, reflecting that his part in all this was over. He might never find out what McCain and Straik had been planning—but what did it really matter? It was none of his business and he was just glad that he would never see either of them again.

  Desmond McCain was back in Straik’s office, and for once it was clear that he had lost his composure. He was sitting cross-legged, one hand clenching and unclenching on his knee, and the crack that divided the two halves of his head seemed to have somehow widened as the damaged muscles in his jaw attempted to chew over what had happened. Even the silver crucifix earring had lost its shine.

  “This intruder must have been in here, in the room, when we were talking,” he growled.

  “I would think so.” Behind his desk, Leonard Straik licked his lips. He was blinking repeatedly.

  “But where?” McCain’s great white eyes slid slowly around the office. “There! Behind the picture!”

  “I hardly think that there’s room.”

  “Where else?” McCain paused, deep in thought. “What did he hear?”

  “I don’t think he could have heard anything very much, Desmond.” Straik faltered. “We were only in here a couple of minutes. It’s just lucky I noticed the flash drive.”

  “So he now has the contents of your computer.”

  “All the files are encrypted. And even if he manages to break into them, they won’t give much away.”

  “What about the test tube?”

  “I don’t think that matters either. Of course, it’s bad news. He’ll have the sample analyzed—but it won’t tell him very much. I don’t think anyone will be able to guess its significance.”

  “You don’t think.” McCain’s fist came pounding down on the side of his chair. Straik heard a dull crack. The arm of the chair had been broken in two. “Five years’ work and hundreds of thousands of dollars! We’re just a few days away from Poison Dawn, and you don’t think we’ve been compromised! Obviously, this intruder came in here on the back of your blasted school visit. Why did you allow it in the first place?”

  “We had no choice. We only rent this facility . . . the land and the buildings. We have to do what the government tells us, and they insisted we have a couple of schools in. They insisted we educate schools about GM technology.”

  “So then it was a government agent who broke in?”

  “I don’t know, Desmond.” Straik took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “But I don’t think it was a coincidence that the cameras malfunctioned when they did.”

  “Did any of the guards see the intruder?”

  “Quite a few of them did. And they’re insisting it was a boy . . . a teenager.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all. If it was a child, then the whole thing could have been . . . I don’t know . . . a prank!”

  “He blew up a chimney on the recycling unit. And he killed a guard in the Poison Dome.”

  “A teenager? Then who was he? What was he doing here?”

  There was a knock at the door and Dr. Beckett came in, her white coat flapping behind her, carrying a file. There was something military about the way she walked, like a soldier delivering news of a defeat. “I have the photographs,” she announced.

  “I thought you said the cameras weren’t working,” McCain said.

  “They were jammed for about forty minutes.” Straik took the file. “But they were working when the bus first arrived, and I thought it might be worth our while to examine who exactly came here today.”

  McCain went over to the desk. The file that Beckett had brought contained a dozen photographs taken by the camera closest to the main gate. They were grainy, in black and white, but Mr. Gilbert and Miss Barry were clear enough, stepping down from the bus with the rest of the school group following behind. Straik and Beckett were both leaning forward, examining the pictures, when McCain suddenly stabbed down with his finger.

  “Him!”

  “Who is it, Desmond?”

  “Don’t you recognize him, you idiot? I don’t believe it! It’s impossible. But there’s no doubt about it. It’s the boy from Scotland.”

  “What boy?” Then Straik realized. “The boy from the card game.”

  “Alex Rider.” McCain uttered the name with undisguised hatred. “That was what he called himself.”

  “I heard that name on the roll call,” Beckett muttered. “But he never left the group.”

  “Somebody must have answered for him,” McCain said. His finger was still pressing down on Alex, as if he could squash him like a bug. “It’s definitely the same boy, and this is the second time he’s crossed my path.”

  “I thought we’d dealt with him, Desmond.” Myra Beckett stared at the picture in dismay. “You said he was in the car with that journalist—”

  “Evidently, we faile
d.” McCain twisted away. “Which means that that irritating journalist is still alive as well. This boy is no mere teenager, though. Who is this Alex Rider? Why is he interested in us?”

  “We can find out,” Straik muttered.

  McCain nodded. “We have contacts. We need to use them. It doesn’t matter how much it costs. Someone must know something about this boy . . . he clearly wasn’t working alone.” McCain took one last look at the photograph. With an effort, he broke free. “We’ll locate him and we’ll bring him back here.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we’ll find out what he knows.”

  14

  FEELING THE HEAT

  HENRY BRAY HAD BEEN THE PRINCIPAL at Brookland for seven years and assistant principal at another school for five years before that. He didn’t often find himself lost for words, but right now that was exactly how he felt. Once again, he examined the boy in front of him while he tried to work out how to proceed.

  Alex Rider was different from all the other boys at Brookland. He knew that. The unfortunate death of his uncle in a car accident almost a year ago had clearly sent him off the rails. That was understandable. But Alex had barely been in school since then, missing week after week because of so many different illnesses that in the end (Mr. Bray hadn’t told anyone he’d done this) he had actually written to the doctor, suspecting that something might be going on. He had received a short note back. Alex had viral problems. His health was very delicate. The doctor—his name was Blunt—wouldn’t be at all surprised if Alex had to miss a lot more school in the future.

  Alex didn’t look ill now. He looked as if he had been in a fistfight. There were a number of small cuts on his forehead and the side of his cheek, and from the way he was standing, Bray guessed he had hurt his shoulder. He was here because of a report sent in by his biology teacher, Mr. Gilbert. But Alex didn’t give any sign of being ashamed or nervous about what might follow. He was just angry.

  Mr. Bray sighed. “Alex. You made a very good start in year seven. All your reports said the same. And I am well aware of your personal circumstances. I imagine you were very close to your uncle.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It doesn’t help that you’ve had a lot of time off school . . . all these illnesses. Obviously, I’ve made allowances for you. But this business yesterday . . . frankly, I’m appalled. As I understand it, the bus had an emergency door that you opened, and you managed to fall out. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m amazed you could be so irresponsible. You could have seriously hurt yourself. And there were other young people on the bus too. Didn’t you stop to think that you might cause an accident? I can’t imagine why you would do such a thoughtless thing.” Mr. Bray took off his glasses and laid them on his desk. It was something he always did when he was about to pronounce sentence. “I hate the idea of your missing any more lessons, but I’m afraid I am going to have to make an example of you. You are going to have one day’s suspension from school. You are to go home straightaway, and I’ve written a note for you to take with you.”

  Half an hour later, Alex crossed the school yard with a sense of injustice burning in him. He had survived poisonous plants and insects, hand-to-hand combat, and machine-gun fire. He had downloaded the contents of Straik’s computer and stolen a sample of whatever he was brewing at Greenfields. Jack would have already delivered them to the MI6 offices on Liverpool Street. And what was his reward? To be treated like a naughty schoolboy, sent home with a note.

  The first lesson had already begun, and nobody noticed Alex as he made his way out of the gates and down the road toward the bus stop. As he walked, he found himself going over the events of the day before. The appearance of Desmond McCain had completely thrown him. What was the head of an international charity doing in a bio research center in Wiltshire? He was planning something with Leonard Straik. That much was clear. The two of them had talked about shipping a thousand gallons of the liquid—and they had said that it was alive. But what was it and what was it for? The more Alex thought about it, the less sense it made.

  McCain had been to prison once in his life, and he had to be heading that way again. Alex was certain now—not that he had ever really doubted it—that his near death in Scotland, along with Sabina and her father, had been no accident. McCain had tried to kill them. He was prepared to do anything to protect himself. MI6 had wanted to investigate Leonard Straik because he might be a security risk. In fact, he was using Greenfields for something much bigger than anyone suspected.

  And then Alex remembered something he had overheard while he was in the office. McCain was going to send the Becket woman somewhere the following day—today. A place called Elm’s Cross. The name rang a faint bell. Alex continued walking until he arrived at an Internet cafe not far from Brompton Cemetery. The place served disgusting coffee, but it charged only two dollars for half an hour on one of its ancient computers. At least it had broadband.

  Alex paid and chose a computer at the very back, away from the window. The owner glanced at him briefly, then returned to a crumpled copy of The Sun. Alex Googled Elm’s Cross and waited for the page to come up on the screen. The results were disappointing. There was a packaging company with that name in Warminster, a restaurant in Bradford, and a film studio in west London that had apparently closed down a year ago. None of them could possibly be connected. Except . . .

  “What about the shooting?”

  Straik to McCain. When Alex had heard them, he’d automatically assumed that they were talking about guns. But suppose they had actually meant shooting film? Alex looked for more information about the studio. It was on the other side of Hayes, not far from Heathrow Airport. According to an old news report, a raft of British comedies had been shot there after the war, but the increasing noise of aircraft along with the decline in British film production had combined to put it out of business. There was talk of the land being developed . . . affordable housing and more office space. The last film that had been shot there was an advertisement for the shopping chain Woolworth’s. It seemed appropriate. A few weeks later, Woolworth’s had gone bust too.

  Alex had made his decision. Jack wouldn’t be expecting him, and even if the school had managed to tell her what was happening, she wouldn’t be too worried if he took his time turning up. He would have to be careful. He was still in school uniform and that would certainly attract attention, being out on the street in the middle of the day—but he doubted there would be many policemen around, where he was going.

  He took the subway from Fulham Broadway and a taxi the rest of the way. Elm’s Cross was in a strange derelict area that had somehow been forgotten by the housing estates, the industrial zones, and the soulless strip malls that surrounded it. As Alex paid the taxi driver, there was a sudden roar and he looked up to see the underbelly of a 747 as it lurched out of the sky toward the main runway of Heathrow. In the distance he could make out the M4 highway, raised up on concrete spurs, injecting London with a never-ending stream of cars and trucks.

  The driver looked at him suspiciously. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” he asked.

  Alex tipped him generously. “I’m on a school project,” he replied. “We’re writing about air pollution.”

  The lie had come easily. Alex could actually taste the exhaust fumes in the air, and he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live with it, day in and day out. He wondered what he was doing. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he had been congratulating himself on a mission accomplished. MI6 had what they wanted. So why was he here, quite possibly putting his head back in the noose?

  He was angry. That was part of the reason. But Alex knew it was more than that. Mr. Bray might have given him the excuse, but there was part of him that needed to investigate, to uncover the answers. That part had been deliberately cultivated by MI6 and his uncle—Ian Rider. Using him wasn’t enough. First, they had turned him into someone who wanted to be used.

  Alex hoisted
his backpack onto his shoulder and set off. He had given the taxi driver an address about a quarter of a mile from his true destination—just in case he had taken it upon himself to call the police and warn them about a boy cutting off from school. He passed through an empty area with what looked like a reservoir on one side and a wide expanse of dirty, litter-strewn grass on the other. A wire fence stretched out ahead of him. Now he had to be careful. Desmond McCain had said he was coming here today. If he happened to drive past, Alex would stick out like a sore thumb, and this time there were no witnesses.

  ELM’S CROSS STUDIOS

  PRIVATE

  WARNING: 24-HOUR SURVEILLANCE

  The sign hung on the fence outside the main gate, but Alex wasn’t sure he believed it. How could there be round-the-clock surveillance when there were no cameras? There were no guards in sight either. The paint on the sign had faded, with rust speckling through. And the gate itself was open, inviting him in.

  Alex could see a paved driveway leading down to a cluster of buildings, most of them low-rise with long, narrow windows running horizontally, just beneath the roof. They might once have been surrounded by manicured lawns, but the site had become overgrown with long grass and shrubs running rampant. In the middle of it all, there was a row of three hangars, big enough to house planes . . . although they long ago would have ceased to fly. The whole place looked sad and abandoned.

  He walked in. If security men appeared, he would just have to bluff it out. With a bit of luck, nobody here would know what had happened the day before. And although the guards at Greenfields had been armed, it was very unlikely that they would be toting guns right next to a major international airport.

  Nobody stopped him. There were definitely no cameras. Alex passed a couple of Dumpsters, filled to overflowing. A lot of the contents were household rubbish—old cartons and broken pieces of furniture. But there were also oddities: a plastic cactus, a swordfish, a scaled-down replica of the Statue of Liberty missing the hand holding the torch. He thought he saw a car parked on the other side of some shrubs and was about to duck out of sight when he realized it was a black saloon BMW, left over from the Second World War, burned out and resting on bricks instead of tires. He was surrounded by the remnants of old films that had been made, seen, and forgotten. Elm’s Cross had once been a dream factory, but the machinery had long since shut down.