Ark Angel Page 24

  The numbers in the display were still counting down. Now they showed 25:33:00.

  Alex swore. Why didn’t they have some sort of rubbish chute? Then he could get rid of the bomb, jettison it into outer space. There probably was an airlock on Ark Angel, but he had no idea how to operate it. Anyway, there was no time. His finger was still touching the switch. One of six switches. A one in six chance of getting it right.

  Not good enough.

  Alex let out a long, shuddering breath and withdrew his hand. He took hold of the still-ticking bomb and gently unfastened it, then eased it up through the hatch and back into the centre of the space hotel. Ed Shulsky had told him where to leave it, but Alex made the decision for himself. The toilet. Somehow it seemed a fitting end. He lowered the nose of the torpedo into it and left it there.

  It was time to go.

  He pushed himself off as gently as he could and was rewarded with a slow, careful progression back towards the waiting module of the Soyuz. He passed underneath Kaspar, taking care not to look up. In a few minutes’ time, the dead man was going to be given one of the most spectacular cremations anyone could ask for. It was more than he deserved.

  The docking station was ahead of him – but there was one last thing he had to do. He looked at his watch. Eleven minutes past four. There were just nineteen minutes remaining, and Alex knew it was madness to waste even a few seconds. But he would never have this opportunity again. He found another window on the opposite side from the sun, opened the shutter and looked out.

  And there it was.

  Planet earth. Seen from outer space.

  His first thought was how big it was; his second, how small. Of course, he had seen images of the earth taken by astronauts. But this was different. He was seeing it with his own eyes. And he was moving. As he crouched in front of the porthole, he was travelling so fast that it would take him just ninety minutes to go all the way round. No wonder it seemed small. And yet the earth filled his vision. All the life in the universe, five billion people, was concentrated there. And the thought of that was enormous.

  He was struck by the colours. No photographs could have prepared him for the sheer iridescence of the planet. It looked as if it were lit from inside. At first it seemed that everything was blue and white – most of the planet was water – and Alex remembered lying on his back when he was small, staring at a perfect summer sky. If he could have turned the sky into a ball, that was what he was seeing now. But as he gazed down he began to make out the shape of the coastlines, a thin line of emerald green; and then Ark Angel turned the corner of the world and there was Africa – all of Africa ahead of him – and suddenly he was seeing intense gold, yellow and red … mountains and deserts but no cities. Nothing moving. And he wondered, if he was an alien and came upon the earth, could he pass by without being aware of the teeming life below?

  But then day became night and he found himself over the western Mediterranean seaboard, and even from three hundred miles away he could make out thousands of electric lights that had to be man-made. Spain and Gibraltar, Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria and the Lebanon – all of them were visible at once, the tiny lights blinking like fireflies. There were storms over Europe. Alex saw the lightning shimmer through the clouds.

  It wasn’t just that there was life on earth. The whole earth was alive. Alex could feel it pulsating beneath him, and suddenly he knew that for all its technology, Ark Angel was a sterile, dead place and he didn’t care that soon it would no longer exist. He had made the right decision. At that moment, Alex felt a sense of loneliness he would remember for the rest of his life. He wanted to go home.

  He made his way back to the Soyuz module, trying to control his progress but still crashing into the walls. Only by holding onto the handrails did he prevent himself from going into another sickening spin. He had a raging thirst and wished he’d found himself something to drink before he left. What happened when you opened a can of Coke in space? He would never find out.

  Somehow he reached the entrance and folded himself in. He was operating on automatic. All he wanted was to get away. He reached up and closed the hatch, turning the lever to lock it before blastoff. This was the compartment he had travelled up in. But it was going to stay behind. There was a second hatch underneath him and he opened it, passing into the re-entry module below. There was more room here. Of course. The re-entry module had to be big enough for Kaspar. He strapped himself into the seat, found another headset and put it on, wondering if it would work.

  “Alex? What is your status?” It was Tamara’s voice. He had never been happier to hear anyone.

  “The bomb is still active,” he said. He looked at his watch. Twenty-five past four. “Professor Sing lied to us,” he went on. “Kaspar was here. And now I’ve only got five minutes left. Get me out of here.”

  Another burst of static. A disembodied voice was muttering half-words that made no sense. There had to be something wrong with the radio. Alex wondered what would happen next. How long would he have to sit here before he disengaged? And what would happen if he didn’t? The second hand on his watch ticked round. It seemed to be taunting him, moving faster than it should. The time now was twenty-eight minutes past four.

  Already he was sweating. Hunched up on his back with no view, he had no idea where he was, how much further he was around the world. Twenty-nine minutes past four. Had he reached the last sixty seconds of his life?

  He felt a sudden jolt. For a terrible moment, he thought that the bomb had detonated. Then he realized that was impossible. He hadn’t heard anything but he was suddenly aware that the module’s retro-rockets must have been fired. He twisted his head round and peered through the periscope. Ark Angel was already a mile away, vanishing into space like a pebble dropped into a well.

  And then it exploded.

  The bomb blew up, a burst of orange flame that ripped the entire space station apart, sending the different modules spinning in different directions. The arms with the solar panels fell away. There were two more explosions. A shower of brilliant sparks and a dazzling burst of white light that stretched out in silence.

  Alex felt a sense of euphoria. He had succeeded! He had put the bomb in exactly the right place, and instead of propelling Ark Angel towards Washington, it had simply destroyed it. There was nothing left. A few pieces were falling through space but they would quickly burn up. At last it was over.

  He fell.

  The crackle on the radio stopped abruptly. Alex found himself in the grip of a silence so complete that for a moment he thought he might have died, and he had to remind himself he wasn’t home yet. He was plummeting down, feet forward, moving at eighteen thousand miles an hour. Five miles a second. This was the most dangerous part of the entire journey. If the control centre had miscalculated, he would be incinerated. Already he was aware of a pink glow outside the window as the module began to rub against the earth’s upper atmosphere.

  And then he was on fire. The whole world was on fire. The very air was breaking up, being smashed to pieces, the electrons separating from the nuclei. The module had become a fireball, and Alex knew that his life depended on the hundreds of thermal tiles that surrounded him. He was in the heart of a living hell.

  He yelled out. He couldn’t help himself.

  Then the red disappeared, like a curtain being torn apart.

  He saw blue.

  There was a second, back-breaking jolt as the parachute deployed. The world seemed to shimmer on the other side of the window and Alex saw the Pacific Ocean spread out before him.

  A splash. Steam. Waves lashing at the windows. Sunlight turning the water into diamonds.

  And at last silence.

  He was rocking back and forth, a hundred miles off the eastern coast of Australia. The wrong side of the world – but that didn’t matter.

  Alex Rider was back.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I don’t usually include an acknowledgements page, but Ark Angel has been the most complicated Alex Ride
r adventure to write, and this time there are a lot of people to thank.

  The last chapters couldn’t have been written without Professor George Fraser, director of the University of Leicester Space Research Centre, and Derek Pullan at the University of Leicester Research Office. Anyone with an interest in space should make a beeline for the Leicester Space Centre, where you will see a module very similar to the one in which Alex travelled. I was also privileged to speak with Dr Michael Foale, who has spent three hundred and seventy-four days in space.

  Clare Hornick, the director of operations at the Hospital of St John & Elizabeth, gave me a bloodthirsty tour of the hospital and introduced me to the Magnetom. At the same hospital, Dr Roger Hayward, MD FRCP, provided the expertise that brought Alex back to life. Simon Greenberg, Chelsea’s head of communications, very kindly showed me round Stamford Bridge – even into the players’ showers. Simone Schehtman of Teamworks gave me a crash course in karting, and thanks to everyone at the Raceway in King’s Cross for lending me their track.

  The gadget that Alex uses on page 235 was designed by Jonathan Bennett, the winner of a competition on the BBC television programme Blue Peter. I’m also grateful to Mark Greener, who shared his power kiting experiences with me; and to Marsha Brown, my assistant, who organized it all. And finally my thanks go to Jane Winterbotham, my editor at Walker Books, who had to read this book one hundred times without going mad.

  Everything in this story is meant to be within the bounds of possibility, but please don’t try out the stunt in Chapter 5, as I can take no responsibility for broken arms, legs … or necks.

  AH

  Anthony Horowitz is one of the most popular and prolific children’s writers working today. His phenomenally successful Alex Rider series has sold millions of copies worldwide and Anthony has won numerous awards, including the Bookseller Association/Nielsen Author of the Year Award 2007, the Children’s Book of the Year Award for Ark Angel at the 2006 British Book Awards, and the Red House Children’s Book Award for Skeleton Key. Stormbreaker, the first Alex Rider mission, was made into a blockbuster movie starring Alex Pettyfer as the teenage superspy and featuring Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy and Robbie Coltrane among the cast.

  Anthony’s other titles for Walker Books include The Power of Five, a series of supernatural thrillers which he describes as “Alex Rider with devils and witches”; Raven’s Gate, Evil Star, Nightrise and Necropolis are the first four books of the series. He is also the author of the Diamond Brothers mysteries; Groosham Grange and its sequel, Return to Groosham Grange; The Devil and His Boy, The Switch; and Granny.

  Anthony also writes extensively for TV, with credits including Midsomer Murders, Poirot and the drama series Foyle’s War, which won the Lew Grade Audience Award. He is married to television producer Jill Green and lives in London with his two sons, Nicholas and Cassian, and their dog, Loony.

  To find out more about Anthony and his books, check out:

  www.anthonyhorowitz.com

  www.powerof5.co.uk

  www.alexrider.com

  For AC

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

  First published 2005 by Walker Books Ltd

  87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

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  Text © 2005 Anthony Horowitz

  Cover design by Walker Books Ltd

  Alex Rider Icon™ © 2005 Walker Books Ltd

  The right of Anthony Horowitz to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This book has been typeset in Officina Sans

  Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

  a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-0-7445-8324-3

  www.walker.co.uk