Point Blank Read online

  Mrs. Stellenbosch wasn’t even sweating. She brought the two ends together and dropped it back into the grate. It clanged against the stone.

  ‚We enforce strict discipline here at the academy,' Dr. Grief said. ‚Bedtime is at ten o’clock—not a minute past. We do not tolerate bad language. You will have no contact with the outside world without our permission. You will not attempt to leave. And you will do as you are told instantly, without hesitation. And finally…' He leaned toward Alex. ‚You are permitted only in certain parts of this building.' He gestured with a hand, and for the first time Alex noticed a second door at the far end of the room. ‚My private quarters are through there.

  You will remain on the first and second floors only. That is where the bedrooms and classrooms are located. The third and fourth floors are out of bounds. The basement also. This again is for your safety.'

  ‚You’re afraid I’ll trip on the stairs?' Alex asked.

  Dr. Grief ignored him. ‚You may leave,' he said.

  ‚Wait outside the office, Alex,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said. ‚Someone will be along to get you.'

  Alex stood up.

  ‚We will make you into what your parents want,' Dr. Grief said.

  ‚Maybe they don’t want me at all.'

  ‚We can arrange that too.'

  Alex left.

  ‚An unpleasant boy … a few days … faster than usual … the Gemini Project … closing down…'

  If the door hadn’t been so thick, Alex would have been able to hear more. The moment he had left the room he had cupped his ear against the keyhole, hoping to pick up something that might be useful to MI6. Sure enough, Dr. Grief and Mrs. Stellenbosch were busily talking on the other side, but Alex heard little and understood less.

  A hand clamped down on his shoulder and he twisted around, annoyed with himself. A so-called spy caught listening at keyholes! But it wasn’t one of the guards. Alex found himself looking up at a round-faced boy with long, dark hair, dark blue eyes, and pale skin. He was wearing a very old Star Wars T-shirt, torn jeans, and a baseball cap. Recently he had been in a fight, and it looked like he’d gotten the worst of it. There was a bruise around one of his eyes and a gash on his lip.

  ‚They’ll shoot you if they catch you listening at doors,' the boy said. He looked at Alex with hostile eyes. Alex guessed that he was the sort of boy who wouldn’t trust anyone easily. ‚I’m James Sprintz,' he said. ‚They told me to show you around.'

  ‚Alex Friend.'

  ‚So what did you do to get sent to this dump?' James asked as they walked down the corridor.

  ‚I got expelled from Eton.'

  ‚I got thrown out of a school in Dusseldorf.' James sighed. ‚I thought it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Until my dad sent me here.'

  ‚What does your dad do?' Alex asked.

  ‚He’s a banker. He plays the money markets. He loves money and he has lots of it.' James’s voice was flat and unemotional.

  ‚Dieter Sprintz?' Alex remembered the name. He’d made the front page of every newspaper in England a few years before. The hundred-million-dollar man. That was how much he had made in just twenty-four hours. At the same time, the pound had crashed and the British government had almost collapsed.

  ‚Yeah. Don’t ask me to show you a photograph, because I don’t have one. This way…'

  They had reached the main hall with the dragon fireplace. From here, James showed him into the dining room, a long, high-ceilinged room with six tables and a window leading into the kitchen. After that, they visited two living rooms, a games room, and a library. The academy reminded Alex of a ski resort-and not just because of its setting. There was a sort of heaviness about the place, a sense of being cut off from the real world. The air was warm and silent, and despite the size of the rooms, Alex couldn’t help feeling claustrophobic. Grief had said that there were only six boys currently at the school. The building could have housed sixty. Empty space was everywhere.

  There was nobody in either of the living rooms—just a collection of armchairs, desks, and tables—but they found a couple of boys in the library. This was a long, narrow room with old-fashioned oak shelves lined with books in a variety of languages. A suit of medieval Swiss armor stood in an alcove at the far end.

  ‚This is Tom. And Hugo,' James said. ‚They’re probably doing extra math or something, so we’d better not disturb them.'

  The two boys looked up and nodded briefly. One of them was reading a textbook. The other had been writing. They were both much better dressed than James and didn’t look very friendly.

  ‚Creeps,' James said as soon as they had left the room.

  ‚In what way?'

  ‚When I was told about this place, they said all the kids had problems. I thought it was going to be wild. Do you have a cigarette?'

  ‚I don’t smoke.'

  ‚Great, another one… I get here and it’s like a museum or a monastery or … I don’t know what. It looks like Dr. Grief’s been busy. Everyone’s quiet, hardworking, boring. God knows how he did it. Sucked their brains out with a straw or something. A couple of weeks ago I got into a fight with a couple of them, just for the hell of it.' He pointed to his face. ‚They beat the crap out of me and then went back to their studies. Really creepy!'

  They went into the games room, which contained table tennis, darts, a wide-screen TV, and a snooker table. ‚Don’t try playing snooker,' James said. ‚The room’s on a slant and all the balls roll the wrong way.'

  Then they went upstairs, where the boys had their study-bedrooms. Each one contained a bed, an armchair, a television (‚It shows only the programs Dr. Grief wants you to see,' James said), a bureau, and a desk. A second door led into a small bathroom with a toilet and shower.

  None of the rooms was locked.

  ‚We’re not allowed to lock them,' James explained. ‚We’re all stuck here with nowhere to go, so nobody bothers to steal anything. I heard that Hugo Vries—the boy in the library—used to steal anything he could get his hands on. He was arrested for shoplifting in Amsterdam.'

  ‚But not anymore?'

  ‚He’s another success story. He’s flying home next week. His father owns diamond mines.

  Why bother shoplifting when you can afford to buy the whole shop?'

  Alex’s study was at the end of the corridor, with views over the ski jump. His suitcases had already been carried up and were waiting for him on the bed. Everything felt very bare, but according to James, the study-bedrooms were the only part of the school the boys were allowed to decorate themselves. They could choose their own bedspreads and cover the walls with their own posters.

  ‚They say it’s important that you express yourself,' James said. ‚If you haven’t brought anything with you, Miss Stomach-bag will take you into Grenoble.'

  ‚Stomach-bag?'

  ‚Mrs. Stellenbosch. That’s my name for her.'

  ‚What do the other boys call her?'

  ‚They call her Mrs. Stellenbosch.' James sighed. ‚I’m telling you—this is a deeply weird place, Alex. I’ve been to a lot of schools because I’ve been thrown out of a lot of schools. But this one is the pits. I’ve been here for six weeks now and I’ve hardly had any lessons. They have music evenings and discussion evenings and they try to get me to read. But otherwise, I’ve been left on my own.'

  ‚They want you to assimilate,' Alex said, remembering what Dr. Grief had said.

  ‚That’s their word for it. But this place … they may call it a school, but it’s more like being in prison. You’ve seen the guards. '

  ‚I thought they were here to protect us.'

  ‚If you think that, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought. Think about it! There are about thirty of them. Thirty armed guards for seven kids? That’s not protection. That’s intimidation.' James paused by the door. He examined Alex for a second time. ‚It would be nice to think that someone has finally arrived who I can relate to,' he said,

  ‚Maybe you can,' Alex said.

>   ‚Yeah. But for how long?'

  James left, closing the door behind him.

  Alex began to unpack. The bulletproof ski suit and infrared goggles were at the top of the first suitcase. It didn’t look as if he would be needing them. It wasn’t as if he even had any skis.

  Then came the Discman. He remembered the instructions Smithers had given him. ‚If you’re in real trouble, just press Fast Forward three times.' He was almost tempted to do it now. There was something unsettling about the academy. He could feel it even now, in his room. He was like a goldfish in a bowl. Looking up, he almost expected to see a pair of huge eyes looming over him, and he knew that they would be wearing red-tinted glasses. He weighed the Discman in his hand. He couldn’t hit the panic button—yet. He had nothing to report back to MI6. There was nothing to connect the school with the deaths of the two men in New York and the Black Sea.

  But if there was anything, he knew where he would find it. Why were two whole floors of the building out of bounds? It made no sense at all. Presumably the guards slept up there, but even though Dr. Grief seemed to employ a small army, that would still leave a lot of empty rooms. The third and fourth floors. If something was going on at the academy, it had to be going on up there.

  A bell sounded downstairs. Alex shut his suitcase, left his room, and walked down the corridor. He saw another couple of boys walking ahead of him, talking quietly together. Like the boys he had seen in the library, they were clean and well dressed with hair cut short and neatly groomed. Really creepy, James had said. Even on first sight, Alex had to agree.

  He reached the main staircase. The two boys had gone down. Alex glanced in their direction, then went up. The staircase turned a corner and stopped. Ahead of him was a sheet of metal that rose up from the floor to the ceiling and all the way across, blocking off the view. The wall had been added recently, like the helipad. Someone had carefully and deliberately cut the building in two.

  There was a door set in the metal wall and beside it a keypad with nine buttons demanding a code. Alex reached for the door handle, his hand closing around it. He didn’t expect the door to open—nor did he expect what happened next. The moment his fingers came into contact with the handle, an alarm went off, a shrieking siren that echoed throughout the building. A few seconds later, he heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to find two guards facing him, their guns half raised.

  Neither of them spoke. One of them ran past him and punched a code into the keypad. The alarm stopped. And then Mrs. Stellenbosch was there, hurrying forward on her short, muscular legs.

  ‚Alex!' she exclaimed. Her eyes were filled with suspicion. ‚What are you doing here? The director told you that the upper floors are forbidden.'

  ‚Yeah … well, I forgot.' Alex looked straight at her. ‚I heard the bell go and I was on my way to the dining room.'

  ‚The dining room is downstairs.'

  ‚Right.'

  Alex walked past the two guards, who stepped aside to let him pass. He felt Mrs. Stellenbosch watching him while he went. Metal doors, alarms, and guards with machine guns. What were they trying to hide? And then he remembered something else. The Gemini Project. Those were the words he had heard when he was listening at Dr. Grief’s door. Gemini.

  The twins. One of the twelve star signs. But what did it mean? Turning the question over his mind, Alex went down to meet the rest of the students.

  THINGS THAT GO CLICK IN THE NIGHT

  AT THE END OF HIS FIRST week at Point Blanc, Alex drew up a list of the six boys with whom he shared the school. It was midafternoon, and he was alone in his room. A notepad was open in front of him. It had taken him about half an hour to put together the names and the few details that he had. He only wished he had more.

  HUGO VRIES (14) Dutch. Lives in Amsterdam. Brown hair, green eyes. Father’s name, Rudi. Owns diamond mines. Speaks little English. Reads and plays guitar. Very solitary. Sent to PB for major shoplifting and arson.

  TOM MCMORIN (14) Canadian. From Vancouver. Parents divorced. Mother runs media empire (newspapers, TV). Reddish hair, blue eyes. Well built, chess player. Car thefts and drunken driving … sent to PB.

  NICOLAS MARC (14) French … from Bordeaux? Expelled from private school in Paris, cause unknown. Drugs? Brown hair, brown eyes, very fit all around. Tattoo of devil on left shoulder. Good at sports. Father = Anthony Marc. Airlines, pop music, hotels. Never mentions his mother.

  CASSIAN JAMES (14) American. Fair hair, brown eyes. Mother = Jill … studio chief in Hollywood. Parents divorced. Writes poetry, plays jazz piano. Expelled from six schools.

  Various drugs offenses. Sent to PB after smuggling arrest. Tells jokes. Seems popular.

  JOE CANTERBURY (14) American. Spends much of his time with Cassian. Brown hair, blue eyes. Mother (name unknown) New York senator. Father something major at the Pentagon.

  Vandalism, truancy, shoplifting. Claims to have own motorbike and three girlfriends (!) in Los Angeles.

  JAMES SPRINTZ (14) German. Father = Dieter Sprintz, banker, well-known financier (the hundred-million-dollar man). Mother living in England. Brown hair, dark blue eyes, pale. Lives in Dusseldorf. Expelled for wounding a teacher with an air pistol. Closest I’ve got to a friend at PB—the only one who really hates it here.

  Lying on his bed, Alex studied the list. What did it tell him? Not a great deal.

  First, all the boys were the same age: fourteen, the same age as him. At least three of them, and possibly four, had parents who were either divorced or separated. They all came from hugely wealthy backgrounds. Blunt had already told him that was the case, but Alex was surprised by just how diverse the parents were. Airlines, diamonds, politics, and movies.

  France, Holland, Canada, and America. Each one of them was at the top of his or her field, and those fields covered just about every human activity. He himself was supposed to be the son of a supermarket king. Food. That was another world industry he could check off.

  At least two of the boys had been arrested for shoplifting. Two had been involved with drugs. But Alex knew that the list somehow hid more than it revealed. With the exception of James, it was hard to pin down what made the boys at Point Blanc different. In a strange way, they all looked the same.

  Their eyes and hair were different colors. They wore different clothes. All the faces were different: Tom handsome and confident, Joe quiet and watchful. And of course they spoke not only with different voices but also in several languages. James had talked about brains being sucked out with straws, and he had a point. It was as if the same consciousness had somehow invaded them all. They had become puppets, dancing on the same string.

  The bell rang downstairs. Alex looked at his watch. It was exactly one o’clock—lunchtime.

  That was another thing about the school. Everything was done to the exact minute. Lessons from nine until twelve. Lunch from one to two. And so on. James made a point of being late for everything, and Alex had taken to joining him. It was a tiny rebellion but a satisfying one. It showed they still had a little control over their own lives. The other boys, of course, turned up like clockwork. They would be in the dining room now, waiting quietly for the food to be served.

  Alex rolled over on the bed and reached for a pen. He wrote a single word on the pad, underneath the names.

  BRAINWASHING?

  Maybe that was the answer. According to James, the other boys had arrived at the academy two months before him. He had been there for just three weeks. That added up to just eleven weeks in total, and Alex knew that you didn’t take a bunch of delinquents and turn them into perfect students just by giving them good books. Dr. Grief had to be doing something else.

  Drugs. Hypnosis. Something.

  He waited five more minutes, then hid the notepad under his mattress and left the room. He wished he could lock the door. There was no privacy at Point Blanc. Even the bathrooms had no locks. And Alex still couldn’t shake off the feeling that everything he did, even everything he thought, was somehow b
eing monitored, noted down. Evidence to be used against him.

  It was ten past one when he reached the dining room, and sure enough, the other boys were already there, eating their lunch and talking quietly among themselves. Nicolas and Cassian were at one table. Hugo, Tom, and Joe were at another. Nobody was flicking peas. Nobody even had their elbows on the table. Tom was talking about a visit he had made to some museum in Grenoble. Alex had been in the room only a few seconds, but already his appetite had gone.

  James had arrived just ahead of him and was standing at one of the windows into the kitchen, helping himself to food. Most of the food arrived precooked, and one of the guards heated it up. Today it was stew. Alex got his lunch and sat next to James. The two of them had their own table. They had become friends quite effortlessly. Everyone else ignored them.

  ‚You want to go out after lunch?' James asked.

  ‚Sure. Why not?'

  ‚There’s something I want to talk to you about.'

  Alex looked past James at the other boys. There was Tom, at the head of the table, reaching out for a pitcher of water. He was dressed in a polo shirt and jeans. Next to him was Joe Canterbury. He was talking to Hugo now, waving a finger to emphasize a point. Where had Alex seen that movement before? Cassian was just behind them, round faced, with fine, light brown hair, laughing at a joke.

  Different but the same. Watching them closely, Alex tried to figure out what he meant.

  It was all in the details, the things you wouldn’t notice unless you saw them all together, like they were now. The way they were all sitting with their backs straight and their elbows close to their sides. The way they held their knives and forks. Hugo laughed, and Alex realized that for a moment he had become a mirror image of Cassian. It was the same laugh. He watched Joe eat a mouthful of food. Then he watched Nicolas. They were two different boys. There was no doubting that. But they ate in the same way, as if mimicking each other.