steering him, but all he cared about was that he was still moving. His bones rattled as the quad hit a rut in the track and bounced upward. For a ghastly second Alex thought he was going to be hurled off the bike and into space. But somehow he managed to keep his grip, even though the crash of the tires hitting the ground punched out all his breath.
He cut through another green curtain and savagely pulled on the handlebars, trying to bring the machine under control. He had found the footpath—and also the side of the cliff. just five yards more and he would have launched himself over the edge and down to the rocks below. For a few seconds he sat where he was, the engine idling. That was when the other quad appeared. The second rider must have seen what had happened. He had reached the footpath and was facing Alex, about two hundred feet away. Something glinted in his hand, resting on the handlebar. He was carrying a gun.
Alex looked back the way he had come. It was no good. The path was too narrow. By the time he had turned the quad around, the man would have reached him. One shot and it would all be over. Could he go back into the grass? No, for the same reason. If he wanted to move fast, he had to move forward, even if that meant heading for a straight-on collision with the other quad.
There was no other way.
The man gunned his engine and spurted forward. Alex did the same. Now the two of them were racing toward each other down a narrow path with a bank of earth and rock suddenly rising up to form a barrier on one side and the edge of the cliff on the other. There wasn’t enough room for them to pass. They could stop or they could crash … but if they were going to stop they had to do it in the next ten seconds.
The quads were getting closer and closer, moving faster all the time. Far below, the waves glittered silver, breaking against the rocks. The grass, higher now, flashed by. 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. The wind rushed into him, hammering at his chest and face. It was like the old-fashioned game of chicken. One of them had to stop. One of them had to get out of the way.
Three, two, one…
It was the man who finally broke. He was less than twenty feet away, so close that Alex could make out the perspiration on his forehead. If he fired a third shot now, there would be no way he could miss. But he was traveling too fast. The path was too uneven. He couldn’t fire and drive at the same time. Just when it seemed that a crash was inevitable, he twisted his quad and swerved off the path, up into the grass. At the same time, he tried to bring the gun around. But he was too late. His quad was slanting, tipping over onto just two of its wheels. The man screamed. His quad hit a rock and bounced upward, landed briefly on the footpath then continued over the edge of the cliff.
Alex had felt the man rush past him but had seen little more than a blur. Now he shuddered to a halt and turned around just in time to watch the other quad fly off the cliff and into the air. The man, still screaming managed to separate himself from the machine on the way down, but the two of them hit the water at the same moment. The quad floated for a few seconds longer than the man.
Who had sent him? It was Nadia Vole who had suggested the walk, but it was Mr. Grin who had actually seen him leave. Mr. Grin had given the order—he was sure of it.
Alex took the quad the rest of the way into Port Tallon. The sun was still shining as he sped down into the little fishing village, but he couldn’t enjoy it. He was angry with himself because he knew he’d made too many mistakes. He should have been dead now, he knew. Only luck and a low-voltage electric fence had managed to keep him alive.
DOZMARY MINE
« ^ »
ALEX WALKED THROUGH Port Tallon, past the Fisherman’s Arms tavern and up the cobbled street toward the library. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the village seemed to be asleep, the boats bobbing in the harbor, the streets and pavements empty. A few seagulls wheeled lazily over the rooftops, uttering the usual mournful cries. The air smelled of salt and dead fish.
The library was redbrick, Victorian, sitting self-importantly at the top of a hill. Alex pushed open the heavy swing door and went into a room with a tiled chessboard floor and about fifty shelves fanning out from a central reception area. Six or seven people were sitting at tables, working. A man in a thickly knitted jersey was reading
“Can I help you?” Despite the sign, she had such a loud voice that everyone looked up when she spoke.
“Yes…” Alex had come here because of a chance remark made by Herod Sayle. He had been talking about Ian Rider. “
“I had a friend staying in the village,” he said. “I was wondering if he came here. His name’s Ian Rider.”
“Rider with an i or a y? I don’t think we have any Riders at all.” The woman tapped a few keys on her computer, then shook her head. “No…”
“He was staying at Sayle Enterprises,” Alex said. “He was about forty, thin, fair haired. He drove a BMW.”
“Oh yes.” The librarian smiled. “He did come here a couple of times. A nice man. Very polite. I knew he didn’t come from around here. He was looking for a book…”
“Do you remember what book?”
“Of course I do. I can’t always remember faces, but I never forget a book. He was interested in viruses.”
“Viruses?”
“Yes. That’s what I said. He wanted information…”
A computer virus! This might change everything. A computer virus was the perfect piece of sabotage: invisible and instantaneous. A single blip written into the software and every single piece of information in the Stormbreaker software could be destroyed at any time. But Herod Sayle couldn’t possibly want to damage his own creation. That would make no sense at all. So maybe Alex had been wrong about him from the very start. Maybe Sayle had no idea
