Stormbreaker: Chapters 10–13

Alex was woken up by an indignant Nadia Vole, knocking at his door.

His night expedition hadn’t been quite the success he’d hoped. He had seen so much—the submarine, the silver boxes, the death of the guard who had dared to drop one—and yet in the end he still hadn’t learned much of anything.

Mr. Grin had just come out of one of the buildings and was standing some distance away, talking into a mobile telephone. There was something unnerving about the sight.

Away from the fences, the armed guards, and the strange sense of threat that pervaded Sayle Enterprises, it was as if he were breathing fresh air for the first time in days.

The Cornish countryside was beautiful, the rolling hills a lush green, dotted with wildflowers.

In fact, the path climbed upward quite steeply almost at once, and suddenly Alex found himself perched over a clear, blue, and sparkling English Channel, following a track that zigzagged precariously along the edge of a cliff.

Port Tallon itself was at the very end of the cliffs, tucked in against the sea. It looked almost too quaint from here, like a model in a black-and-white Hollywood film.

A drone, then a scream, and then a second bike appeared in front of him, roaring toward him, cutting a swath through the grass.

Alex could hear the engines, whining in unison, coming up fast behind him.

There was the roar of an engine and then a billowing cloud of red fire exploded over the grass, blazing it to a crisp.

Alex felt it singe his shoulders, yelled, and threw himself to one side. One of the riders was carrying a flamethrower!

Whoever these people were, they had tried to run him down, to cut him in half, and to incinerate him.

He ran over to the quad, which had come to rest lying on its side. He heaved it up again, jumped onto the saddle, and kick started it.

For a ghastly second Alex thought he was going to be hurled off the bike and into space.

The man fired his gun twice. Alex felt the first bullet slice past his shoulder. The second ricocheted off the side of his bike, almost causing him to lose control.

It was hard to be sure of the scale, but there was a labyrinth of shafts, tunnels, and railway lines running for miles underground.

He went down to the harbor and found one of those maritime stores that seem to sell anything and everything.

The floor was already damp, and a sheen of salt water hung in the air.

There was absolutely no sound in the mine apart from his own rasping breath, the crunch of his footsteps, and the quickening thud of his heart.

He pulled on the dry suit. It was cold, clammy, and uncomfortable.

Alex took several deep breaths, hyperventilating and oxygenating his blood, knowing it would give him a few precious extra seconds.

The roof of the tunnel was scraping his shoulders and he was afraid that it would tear through the dry suit and gouge into his skin as well.

As vague as the light was, it gave him strength.

Using the beam as a makeshift jetty, he clambered onto the rock.

His shoes and socks were sodden.

When he moved forward his feet squelched and he had to take off his shoes and shake them out before he could go on.

Tentatively, Alex took hold of the grill, but it was firmly secured, bolted into the rock face.

The voice rang out over a loudspeaker system, neither male nor female; emotionless, inhuman.

The computers were passing underneath a bizarre machine—cantilevers, wires, and hydraulic arms.

A lean, fair-haired figure dressed in black detached himself from the assembly line and walked languidly toward a door that slid open to receive him.

His own room seemed the best answer. The telephone was there. And so were his only weapons, the few gadgets that Smithers had given him four days—or was it four years?—ago.

The butler made an inarticulate sound and lashed out a second time.

His arms were twisted behind him and the tendons in his shoulder were on fire.

Mr. Grin went over to one of the display cases and took out a knife, razor sharp with a serrated edge.

There was a sudden flash and the knife that Mr. Grin had been holding was suddenly quivering in the back of the chair, an inch from his head.

They had names for me. Herod Smell. Goat-boy. The dwarf. And they played tricks on me. Pins on the chair. Books stolen and defaced.

But there was one who was worse than any of them. He was a small, smarmy shrimp of a boy, but his parents were rich and he had a way with the other children.

All the time he goaded me and taunted me and there was nothing I could do because he was popular and I was a foreigner.

Every school in England will be joining in, with the schoolchildren gathered around their nice, new shiny computers. And at midday, on the stroke of twelve, my old friend, the prime minister, will make one of his smug, self-serving speeches and then he’ll press a button.

“Yassen is working for the people who have been helping me. Let’s not mention any names or even nationalities. You’d be surprised how many countries there are in the world who loathe the English. Most of Europe, just to begin with. But anyway...” He clapped his hands and went back to his desk.