Point Blank

would know that she had her hands full with him.

He spent the next forty minutes watching television and pretending to drink the gin. Then he took the glass into the bathroom and dumped it in the sink. It was time to get dressed.

Should he do what he was told and put on neater clothes? In the end, he compromised. He put on a new shirt, but kept the same jeans. A moment later, the telephone rang. His call for dinner.

Mrs. Stellenbosch was waiting for him in the restaurant, a large, airless room in the basement. Soft lighting and mirrors had been used to make it feel more spacious, but it was still the last place Alex would have chosen. The restaurant could have been anywhere, in any part of the world. There were two other diners—businessmen, from the looks of them—but otherwise they were alone. Mrs. Stellenbosch had changed into a black evening dress with feathers at the collar, and she had an antique necklace of black and silver beads. The fancier her clothes, Alex thought, the uglier she looked. She was smoking another cigar.

‚Ah, Alex!' She blew smoke. ‚Did you have a rest? Or did you watch TV?'

Alex didn’t say anything. He sat down and opened the menu, then closed it again when he saw that it was all in French.

‚You must let me order for you. Some soup to start, perhaps? And then a steak. I’ve never yet met a boy who doesn’t like steak.'

‚My cousin Oliver is a vegetarian,' Alex said. It was something he had read in one of the files.

The assistant director nodded as if she already knew this. ‚Then he doesn’t know what he is missing,' she said. A palefaced waiter came over and she placed the order in French. ‚What will you drink?' she asked.

‚I’ll have a Coke.'

‚A repulsive drink, I’ve always thought. I have never understood the taste. But of course, you shall have what you want.'

The waiter brought a Coke for Alex and a glass of champagne for Mrs. Stellenbosch. Alex watched the bubbles rising in the two glasses, his black, hers a pale yellow.

‚ Sante.' she said.

‚I’m sorry?'

‚It’s French for good health.'

‚Oh. Cheers…'

There was a moment’s silence. The woman’s eyes were fixed on him as if she could see right through him. ‚So you were at Eton,' she said casually.

‚That’s right.' Alex was suddenly on his guard.

‚What house were you in?'

‚The Hopgarden.' It was the name of a real house at the school. Alex had read the file carefully.

‚I visited Eton once. I remember a statue. I think it was of a king. It was just through the main gate…'

She was testing him. Alex was sure of it. Did she suspect him? Or was it simply a precaution, something she always did? ‚You’re talking about Henry the Sixth,' he said. ‚His statue’s in College Yard. He founded Eton.'

‚But you didn’t like it there.'

‚No.'

‚Why not?'

‚I didn’t like the uniform and I didn’t like the beaks.' Alex was careful not to use the word teachers. At Eton, they’re known as beaks. He half smiled to himself. If she wanted a bit of Eton-speak, he’d give it to her. ‚And I didn’t like the rules. Getting fined by the Pop. Or being put in the Tardy Book. I was always getting Rips and Infoes … or being put on the Bill. The divs were boring…'

‚I’m afraid I don’t really understand a word you’re saying.'

‚Divs are lessons,' Alex explained. ‚Rips are when your work is no good.'

‚I see!' She drew a line with her cigar. ‚Is that why you set fire to the library?'

‚No,' Alex said. ‚That was just because I don’t like books.'

The first course arrived. Alex’s soup was yellow and had something floating in it. He picked up his spoon and poked at it suspiciously. ‚What’s this?' he demanded.

‚ Soupe de moules. '

He looked at her blankly.

‚Mussel soup. I hope you enjoy it.'

‚I’d have preferred tomato,' Alex said.

The steaks, when they came, were typically French: barely cooked at all. Alex took a couple of mouthfuls of the bloody meat, then threw down his knife and fork and used his fingers to eat all the french fries. Mrs. Stellenbosch talked to him about the French Alps, about skiing, and about her visits to various European cities. It was easy to look bored. He was bored. And he was beginning to feel tired. He took a sip of Coke, hoping the cold drink would wake him up. The meal seemed to be dragging on all night.

But at last the desserts—ice cream with white chocolate sauce—had come and gone. Alex declined coffee.

‚You’re looking tired,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said. She lit another cigar. The smoke curled around her head and made him feel dizzy. ‚Would you like to go to bed?'

‚Yes.'

‚We don’t need to leave until midday tomorrow. You’ll have time for a visit to the Louvre, if you’d like that.'

Alex shook his head. ‚Actually, paintings bore me.'

‚Really? What a shame!'

Alex stood up. Somehow his hand knocked into his glass, spilling the rest of the Coke over the pristine white tablecloth. What was the matter with him? Suddenly he was exhausted.

‚Would you like me to come up with you, Alex?' the woman asked. She was looking carefully at him, a tiny glimmer of interest in her otherwise dead eyes.

‚No. I’ll be all right.' Alex stepped away. ‚Good night.'

Getting upstairs was an ordeal. He was tempted to take the elevator, but he didn’t want to lock himself into that small, windowless cubicle. He would have felt suffocated. He climbed the stairs, his shoulders resting heavily against the wall. Then he stumbled down the corridor and somehow got his key into the lock. When he finally got inside, the room was spinning. What was going on? Had he drunk more of the gin than he had intended, or was he …?

Alex swallowed. He had been drugged. There had been something in the Coke. It was still on his tongue, a sort of bitterness. There were only three steps between him and his bed, but it could have been a mile away. His legs wouldn’t obey him anymore. just lifting one foot took all his strength. He fell forward, reaching out with his arms. Somehow he managed to propel himself far enough. His chest and shoulders hit the bed, sinking into the mattress. The room was spinning around him, faster and faster. He tried to stand up, tried to speak—but nothing came. His eyes closed. Gratefully, he allowed the darkness to take him.

Thirty minutes later, there was a soft click and the room began to change.

If Alex had been able to open his eyes, he would have seen the desk, the minibar, and the framed pictures of Paris begin to rise up the wall. Or so it might have seemed to him. But in fact the walls weren’t moving. It was the floor that was sinking downward on hidden hydraulics, taking the bed—with Alex on it—into the depths of the hotel. The entire room was nothing more than a huge elevator that carried him, one inch at a time, into the basement and beyond.

Now the walls were metal sheets. He had left the wallpaper, the lights, and the pictures high above him. He was dropping through what might have been a ventilation shaft with four steel rods guiding him to the bottom. Brilliant lights suddenly flooded over him. There was a soft click. He had arrived.

The bed had come to rest in the center of a gleaming underground clinic. Scientific equipment crowded in on him from all sides. There were a number of cameras: digital, video, infrared, and X-ray. There were instruments of all shapes and sizes, most of them unrecognizable to anyone without a science degree. A tangle of wires spiraled out from each machine to a bank of computers that hummed and blinked on a long worktable against one of the walls. A glass window had been cut into the wall on the other side. The room was air-conditioned. Had Alex been