But what rankled him most wasn’t Crawley. It wasn’t MI6. It was that he had been defeated by a fourteen-year-old boy. Mr. Alex Bloody Rider. The kid was probably laughing at him.
When the phone had rung a few weeks later and Bulman had heard the voice of one of his contacts, the ex-soldier who had helped him put the story together in the first place, the reporter was tempted to hang up. Fortunately, the man didn’t mention Alex Rider. He simply said that something interesting had turned up and he wondered if Bulman would like to meet at the usual place.
The usual place was the Crown pub on Fleet Street. Bulman used his old army training to make sure he wasn’t being followed, but he still insisted on walking to a second pub on the other side of town before he said a word. And even then, he chose a back room with the music turned up loud and nobody else in sight.
And that was when he heard that someone else was now asking questions about Alex Rider, and that they were prepared to pay good money for information. It was all being done very discreetly. The friend didn’t even know who wanted to know—but the money involved had a lot of zeroes and there was a telephone number he could pass on if Bulman was interested.
Bulman took twenty-four hours to come to a decision. Every instinct told him that Alex Rider had an enemy and that they weren’t doing this to buy him a surprise present for his birthday. There was a risk putting himself forward. He could be walking into a trap. But even as he mulled it over, two thoughts stayed in his mind. The first was the money, which he needed. The second was the possibility that he could do Alex serious harm.
In the end he made the call.
He had been passed from one anonymous voice to another. There had been three different people asking him questions before he had finally been told to come here, and he was fairly sure that his own background, everything about him, would have been checked. But the way that it was all being handled reassured him. Whoever these people were, they were afraid of being found out, just like him. And the more careful they were, the safer he would be.
Finally, the date for this meeting had been set. According to the signs on the street, this was the site of a new hostel for the homeless being built by the international charity First Aid. Even so, Bulman was astonished to find himself face-to-face with the Reverend Desmond McCain. Of course he remembered the story of the Parliament member who had gone bad, the building that had burned down and the false insurance claim. He’d heard that McCain had reformed. For the past five years he had been devoting himself to charity projects. Well, obviously he wasn’t quite as saintly as people thought. It had already occurred to Bulman that there might be another story in all this, but of course, he kept the thought to himself.
There had been no pleasantries and no introductions. No offers of tea or coffee. After Bulman had sat down, McCain had opened the meeting as if he really were a vicar addressing his congregation.
“I appreciate your coming here today, Mr. Bulman. It is most generous of you. I understand you have information about a boy named Alex Rider. Please would you be good enough to tell me everything you know.”
And Bulman had done just that. Once he had started, he found it all pouring out of him, everything he had learned during his research. It had been difficult to stop.
“They recruited a child!” McCain had listened in silence, but now he turned to Straik. “ ‘For they are a wicked generation, children who have no faith.’ We should have been warned by the book of Deuteronomy, chapter thirty-two.”
“He’s been incredibly successful,” Bulman said, although it annoyed him to have to admit it. “I have notes on his last three assignments, and there may have been others.”
“You have his address?”
“I’ve actually been to his house. I know where he goes to school. I’ve written it all down for you. I can tell you everything you want to know.” Bulman didn’t want to push his luck, but he couldn’t resist asking a few questions of his own. It was too good an opportunity to miss. He began innocently. “What is this place? You’re building a hostel?”
“It’s a dreadful thing, the number of young homeless people there are in London,” he said—and to Bulman’s surprise, he actually had to brush away a tear. “Out on the streets with no food or shelter! First Aid was given this land by one of the city’s most prominent developers, and I’m happy to say that we have raised enough cash to build somewhere they can be looked after with food and warm clothes.”
“You do a lot of charity.”
“I have made it my life’s work.”
It was the moment to ask what Bulman really wanted to know. “So why are you interested in Alex, Mr. McCain?” he continued casually. “I have to tell you, whatever you do with that kid is fine with me. But I would be interested to know—”
“I’m sure you would, Mr. Bulman.” The round white eyes settled on him, and for a moment he shuddered. “You are a journalist, I understand.”
“That’s right.”
“I would hate to think that you might be tempted to write about this meeting today.”
“That depends how much you’re going to pay me.”
“We’ve already agreed on the price,” Straik muttered. “Twenty thousand dollars, in cash.”
Bulman licked his lips. He could taste the mint from the chewing gum. “I agreed to that price before I realized that Mr. McCain was involved,” he said. “But I thought, under the circumstances, that we might renegotiate.”
“I agree with you,” McCain said. “That’s exactly what I’ve decided to do.”
He took out a gun and shot the journalist three times; once in the head, once in the throat, and once in the chest. Bulman’s last gesture was one of surprise. His eyes widened even as his hands flew up and his body jerked in the chair. Then he slumped back. Blood trickled down from the three bullet holes, spreading across his shirt.
“Was that completely wise?” Straik asked.
“It was unavoidable,” McCain replied. He slipped the gun back into his pocket. “He wasn’t going to keep quiet. He was greedy. A week from now or a year from now, he would have made himself a nuisance.”
“I’m sure. But are we safe?”
“I would doubt very much that he told anyone he was coming here. There’s nothing to connect him with you or me. He was a journalist. Now he’s a dead journalist. Who really cares about the difference?”
“And what about Alex Rider?” Straik got up and went over to the window. He made a signal and a moment later there was the sound of an engine starting up. “We can’t go ahead, Desmond. Poison Dawn is finished.”
“No.” McCain hadn’t raised his voice, but the single word was dark and thunderous. The two of them had known each other for years, but at that moment Straik wondered if he fully understood what went on inside the other man’s head. There was a sort of madness there. He wouldn’t listen to any argument. “We have been planning this too long,” McCain said. “We’ve spent too much time and too much money. Everything is in place.”
“But if MI6 knows what we’re doing . . .”
“They can’t know. It’s impossible.”
“They sent the boy. First to Scotland and then to Greenfields.”
“I’m not so sure.” McCain glanced at Bulman as if he’d forgotten that he’d just shot him and was expecting him to make some comment. “When Alex Rider came to Kilmore Castle, he was a guest of another journalist, Edward Pleasure. There was a teenage girl too. When he came to Greenfields, he was with a school party. It was quite different. I don’t quite know what’s going on here, but it may not be quite as cut and dried as it seems.”
“Even so . . .”
McCain held a hand up for silence. “We are not canceling Poison Dawn,” he said. “And certainly not yet. It seems to me that we have to meet with this Alex Rider and have a little talk.”
“You think he’ll just walk in here?”
“I have something else in mind.” McCain stood up. “We are about to make an unimaginable amount o
f money,” he said. “Two hundred million dollars. Maybe more. But that means we have to take risks. More than that, we have to make sure that we move one step ahead of the opposition. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
He reached forward and grabbed Harry Bulman by the front of his shirt. The journalist had never been a small man, and now he had become, in every sense, a dead weight. Even so, McCain pulled him effortlessly to his feet and dragged him over to the door. Still holding him, he stepped outside. A mechanical digger had started up while he was talking with Straik and it was waiting for him on the other side of the door with its metal arm raised. There was a driver sitting behind the window, smoking. McCain threw down the body and the driver revved up the engine and trundled forward. There was a crunch of machinery as the arm was lowered and the dead man was picked up. Then the digger reversed, carrying Bulman toward the muddy excavation that would soon be his grave.
McCain watched him go. “Well, it looks as if Mr. Bulman finally got what every journalist wants,” he said.
Straik glanced at him.
“A scoop.”
McCain had made his decision. He set off, avoiding the puddles so that he wouldn’t get his shoes dirty as he made his way toward his car.
“So what exactly do you think is going on?”
Even as Alan Blunt posed the question, a waiter approached his table with the main course: steak and kidney pie for him, a tuna salad for Mrs. Jones. The two of them preferred not to talk as the plates were positioned and the wine was poured. They were having lunch at Blunt’s club, the Mandarin, in Whitehall. And although all the waiters had received security clearance, the two of them preferred not to talk while there was any chance of being overheard. A great many members of the Mandarin were either politicians or intelligence chiefs, and it was said to be the most unfriendly place in London. Nobody trusted anybody. Members very rarely spoke to each other at all.
That morning, Blunt and his deputy had been given a full briefing by the chief science officer at MI6, a fiercely intelligent woman called Redwing. She had analyzed the liquid that had seeped into Alex Rider’s jacket after the test tube he had stolen had smashed. Her report—she was always thorough—had begun with wool, polyester, and apple juice. The first two, of course, were the materials of the jacket itself. The third had perhaps been a spill during school lunch.
But the rest of the ingredients had been more interesting. According to Redwing, the test tube had contained something that she called bitrites infestans. This was essentially a biological soup that seemed to have been developed from a variety of different mushrooms. It was too soon to say which mushrooms exactly had been used, but preliminary tests were surprising. The liquid was completely harmless. It even had a nutritional value. Although it would taste disgusting, it could be consumed by humans or animals with no side effects. Redwing had eaten once or twice at the Mandarin, so she had concluded by saying, “They could serve it at your club, Mr. Blunt, and you might not even send it back. Why they’re making so much of it is a little puzzling. A thousand gallons? Is that what your agent said? Well, I can’t tell you what they’re going to do with it, but I can assure you that the worst it would give you is indigestion. . . .”
Alex had told Jack what had happened at Greenfields, and she had in turn informed MI6. The appearance of Desmond McCain, the chase through the complex, the Poison Dome, the escape from the roof . . . they knew all of this. But, like Alex, they still had no clear idea what exactly was going on.
The waiter retreated and Mrs. Jones tried to answer Blunt’s question. “I’m not at all surprised that McCain is up to no good,” she said. “He has a criminal record, after all.”
“Didn’t he convert to Christianity?”
“So he claims—and to be fair, his charity, First Aid, has done some very good work. But after what Alex has told us . . .”
“Of course.” This time, Blunt was going to believe everything Alex had said. After all, as much as it embarrassed him to admit it, the boy had been right in the past and MI6 had been proved wrong. “Is there any link between McCain and this man Leonard Straik?” he asked.
“None that we’ve been able to find.”
“What do we know about McCain’s movements in the past five years?”
“I’m having a report prepared. It’ll be on your desk this afternoon.”
Blunt broke the crust on his pie and examined the contents. The food at the Mandarin Club was not good, but the members liked it that way. It reminded them of school. “I have to say, I’m quite worried about all this,” he said. “I always had a feeling that the department would have to turn its attention to GM food one day. There are people out there doing things that half the world doesn’t even understand.”
“We are what we eat.” Mrs. Jones had lost her appetite. She put down her knife and fork.
“That was why I was interested in Mr. Straik. And if he’s working hand-in-hand with McCain, that’s certainly alarming. We need to know what the two of them are up to.”
“What about Alex?” Mrs. Jones asked.
“As usual, Alex has done an extremely good job. We really are going to have to make sure we recruit him full-time after he finishes college. He’s already shown himself to be more resourceful than a great many of our adult agents.” Blunt stuck his fork into the pie and pulled out a piece of rather fatty meat covered in thick brown gravy. “But as far as this business is concerned, he’s no longer involved. Maybe you should drop him a note, Mrs. Jones. We’ve treated him badly in the past, but perhaps we could send him a brief thank-you? And maybe we should enclose a bag of candy.”
Alan Blunt began to eat his lunch. He was still puzzled about the mushroom soup, but his department would work on it. That was the important thing. In the meantime, Alex Rider was already out of his mind.
16
SPECIAL DELIVERY
ALEX COULD TELL JACK was in a bad mood. She had made the breakfast as she did every morning—boiled eggs for him, fruit and muesli for her. There had been a freshly ironed jacket waiting for him in his room. But she had stamped around the kitchen in silence, and when she had loaded the dishwasher, she had slid the plates in as if she had a personal grudge against them.
He knew what had upset her. “Jack,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” She lifted up the toaster and wiped away imaginary crumbs.
“I am. Really.”
Jack turned around and let out a sigh. She could never stay angry for long and they both knew it. “I just don’t understand you sometimes,” she said. “We both agreed that Greenfields wasn’t your business. You did what you were told and you were lucky to get out alive. So what on earth did you think you were up to?”
“I don’t know.” Alex thought for a moment. “I just felt angry after being told off by Mr. Bray. And I thought, if I could only find out what McCain was doing . . .”
“What exactly is he doing?” Jack sat down at the table. “You say there was a film set, an African village. But why? What’s the point?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. McCain runs a charity. First Aid. They have appeals all over the world. Maybe that’s his plan. He wants to raise money for something that hasn’t happened.”
“A fake charity appeal.”
“Exactly. He shows a film of some village that doesn’t exist. People send in money. He gets to keep it.”
Jack thought about it for a moment, and then shook her head. “It wouldn’t work, Alex. These days, everything is on TV or in the newspapers. People would find out soon enough if it wasn’t true.”
“Can you think of anything else?”
“No. But I think we should go back to MI6 and leave it to them this time.” She glanced meaningfully at him. “Okay?”
Alex smiled. “That’s what I’d already decided,” he said. “Do you mind going back?”
“Of course not,” Jack replied. “I’m beginning to wonder where this is all going to end. You go to a party in Scotland a
nd you end up at the bottom of a lake. A school field trip almost lands you in the hospital. And now this!” She took one of Alex’s toast slices and bit it in half. “The trouble is, you’ve got too much of the spy in you. It’s all your uncle’s fault. And your father’s. And your grandfather’s. For all we know, he was probably a spy too.”
Alex looked at his watch. It was a quarter past eight. “I ought to be on my way to school,” he said.
“Yes.” Jack nodded. “Let’s not get into any more trouble with Mr. Bray.”
Alex ran up to his room, collected his books, and put on the spare jacket. He was about to leave when he noticed the black gel-ink pen that Smithers had given him resting on his desk. On impulse, he slipped it inside his pocket. He knew that Tom Harris would get a kick out of seeing it.
He hurried back downstairs and out through the hall, calling out a last “Good-bye!” as he went.
“Don’t forget your scarf!” Jack called back.
She was too late. It was cold outside but dry, and there was no wind. Alex hoisted his knapsack over his shoulder and made his way along the backstreets that would lead him to the King’s Road.
This part of Chelsea was full of elegant townhouses standing side by side with expensive cars parked outside. In a few months, the trees would blossom and the wisteria would tumble down the brickwork. Ian Rider had liked being here because it was quiet and private and yet still in the middle of the city. He’d always had a hatred of the suburbs. “A nice place for children and vets.” Alex could still hear his slightly cryptic remark.
There was a FedEx van at the end of the street, badly parked across the corner, and two men dressed in overalls examining a clipboard that they held between them. They were obviously lost, and as Alex approached, one of them came over to him.
“Excuse me, mate,” he said. “We’ve got a delivery for Packard Street. You wouldn’t know where it is, would you?”