And yet…
Why was he so slow? Taking his time with the sword, still clutching the railing with his other hand…
Alex looked at him, examining the handsome, flawed face, searching for something in the man’s eyes.
And found it.
That look. He had seen it before. He remembered Wolf, the SAS soldier he had trained with. And suddenly everything made sense. The secret weakness that Mrs Rothman had mentioned. The reason why Nile had come second, not first, at Malagosto. He thought back to their meeting in the bell tower over the monastery. Nile had lingered at the door, unwilling to come forward, holding onto the frame in just the same way that he was holding onto the railing now. No wonder Nile had been so slow climbing up to the balloon.
Nile was afraid of heights.
But that wasn’t going to save Alex. Fifteen seconds had passed since the lights had turned red. Already the nanoshells with their poisonous cargo would be oscillating inside his heart. All over London children would be walking home, waiting for buses, pouring into tube stations, unaware of what was about to happen.
Then Nile spoke.
“This is what I promised would happen to you if you betrayed us,” he said. The smile on his face might have been forced, but there could be no doubting what he was about to do. He balanced the sword in the palm of his hand, feeling the weight before he aimed and threw. “I said I would kill you. And that’s what I’m going to do, right now.”
“Sure, Nile,” Alex replied. “But how are you going to get back down?”
“What?” The smile faltered.
“Just look down, Nile,” Alex went on. “Look how high we are.” He glanced up at the flame and the envelope.
“You know, I don’t think this balloon is going to hold us both up.”
“Shut up!” Nile hissed the words. The hand clutching the railing had gone whiter than ever. Alex could see the fingers clenching tighter and tighter.
“Look at the people; look at the cars. See how tiny they are!”
“Stop it!”
And that was when Alex made his move. He already knew what he was going to do. Nile was petrified, unable to react. All his speed and strength had vanished. With a gasp, Alex pulled out the first sword, freeing it from the plastic. In a single movement he swept it up and slashed through one of the rubber pipes that fed the burner.
After that, everything happened very quickly.
The severed pipe coiled left and right like a wounded snake. Propane gas in liquid form was still being pumped through, and as the severed end whipped past the burner, it ignited, becoming at once a huge ball of flame. The pipe twisted back again and spat its deadly payload in the direction of Nile.
Nile had just managed to raise the second sword in the start of what would be his final throw. He was aiming at Alex’s chest. Then the fireball hit him. He screamed once and disappeared. One second he was there, the next he had been blown into the air, a spinning, burning puppet of a man, falling to his death one hundred metres below.
It looked as if Alex was about to follow him.
The entire platform was on fire, the plastic melting. There was burning liquid propane everywhere and it was dissolving everything it touched. Alex struggled to his feet as the flames licked towards him. What now? The burner had gone out but the balloon didn’t seem to be falling. The platform, however, would—and very soon.
The four ropes securing it to the envelope were made of nylon and all four of them were on fire. One of them snapped and Alex cried out as the platform tilted, almost throwing him over the edge. His eyes darted to the machinery. The electric cables must be fireproof. The little red lights showed him that the three remaining dishes were still transmitting. More than a minute must have passed since Nile had appeared, surely! Alex pressed a hand against his chest, expecting at any moment to feel the stab of pain as the poison broke free and entered his system.
But he was still alive, and he knew he had just seconds left to escape from the burning platform. No chance of jumping to safety. He was a hundred metres above the ground. He heard a snapping sound as a second rope began to break. The fire was out of control. It was burning him; it was burning everything.
Alex jumped.
Not down—but up. He leapt first onto the control box and then up so that his hands caught the metal frame surrounding the burner. He hauled himself up and stood. Now he could reach the circular skirt at the bottom of the envelope itself. It was incredible. Looking up, it felt as if he were standing inside a huge, circular room. The walls were fabric but they could have been solid. He was inside the balloon, imprisoned by it. He saw a nylon cord. It led all the way to the parachute valve at the very top. Would it take his weight?
And then the remaining ropes holding the platform gave way. The platform fell, taking the burner and the dishes with it, disappearing from under Alex’s feet. Alex just had time to wind the nylon cord around one hand and grab hold of the fabric of the balloon with the other. Suddenly he was dangling. Once again his arms and wrists took the strain. He wondered if the balloon would crumple and fall. But most of the weight had gone; only he was left. It stayed where it was.
Alex looked down. He couldn’t stop himself. And that was when he saw—in the middle of the fire and the smoke, the spinning platform and the falling ropes—the three red lights had gone out. He was sure of it. Either the flames had destroyed the machinery or the dishes had deactivated themselves the moment they dropped below one hundred metres.
The terahertz beams had stopped. Not a single child would die.
Nobody was sure where the bag lady had appeared from. Perhaps she had been dossing in the small cemetery behind the Church of Forgotten Saints. But now she had wandered into what, until a few minutes ago, had been a full-scale battle.
She was lucky. The SAS men had taken control of the church and the immediate area. Most of the Scorpia people were dead; the remainder had put down their weapons in surrender. A final explosion had breached the
