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
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!”
