‚He must have doubled back,' he said.
The other hunters had gathered behind him. There was tension between them now, a guilty silence. They knew the game had gone too far.
‚Let’s forget him,' one of them said.
‚Yeah…'
‚We’ve taught him a lesson.'
They were in a hurry to get home. As one, they disappeared back the way they had come.
Rufus was left on his own, still clutching his gun, searching for Alex. He took one last look across the water, then turned to follow them.
That was when Alex struck. He had been lying under the water, watching the vague shapes of the teenagers as if through a sheet of thick brown glass. The barrel of the shotgun was in his mouth. The rest of the gun was just above the surface of the lake. He was using the hollow tubes to breathe. Now he rose up—a nightmare creature oozing mud and water, with fury in his eyes.
Rufus heard him but he was too late. Alex swung the shotgun, catching Rufus in the small of the back. Rufus grunted and fell to his knees, his own gun falling out of his hands. Alex picked it up. There were two cartridges in the breech. He snapped the gun shut.
Rufus looked at him, and suddenly all the arrogance had gone and he was just a stupid, frightened teenager, struggling to get to his knees.
‚Alex…' The single word came out as a whimper. It was as if he were seeing Alex for the first time. ‚I’m sorry!' he sniveled. ‚We weren’t really going to hurt you. It was a joke. Fiona put us up to it. We just wanted to scare you. Please…'
Alex paused, breathing heavily. ‚How do I get out of here?' he asked.
‚Just follow the lake around,' Rufus said. ‚There’s a path.'
Rufus was still on his knees. There were tears in his eyes. Alex realized that he was pointing the silver-plated shotgun in his direction. He turned it away, disgusted with himself. This boy wasn’t the enemy. He was nothing.
‚Don’t follow me,' Alex said and began to walk.
‚Please!' Rufus called after him. ‚Can I have my gun back? My mother would kill me if I lost it.'
Alex stopped. He weighed the weapon in his hands, then threw it with all his strength. The handcrafted Italian shotgun spun twice in the dying light, then disappeared with a splash in the middle of the lake. ‚You’re too young to play with guns,' he said.
He walked away, letting the forest swallow him up.
THE TUNNEL
« ^ »
THE MAN SITTING IN THE gold, antique chair turned his head slowly and gazed out the window at the snow-covered slopes of Point Blanc. Dr. Hugo Grief was almost sixty years old with short, white hair and a face that was almost colorless too. His skin was white, his lips vague shadows. Even his tongue was no more than gray. And yet, against this blank background, he wore circular wire glasses with dark red lenses. For him, the entire world would be the color of blood. He had long fingers, the nails beautifully manicured. He was dressed in a dark suit buttoned up to his neck. If there were such a thing as a vampire, it might look very much like Dr. Hugo Grief.
‚I have decided to move the Gemini Project into its last phase,' he said. He spoke with a South African accent, biting into each word before it left his mouth. ‚There can be no further delay.'
‚I understand, Dr. Grief.'
A woman sat opposite Dr. Grief, dressed in tight-fitting spandex with a sweatband around her head. This was Eva Stellenbosch. She had just finished her morning workout—two hours of weight lifting and aerobics—and was still breathing heavily, her huge muscles rising and falling. Mrs. Stellenbosch had a facial structure that wasn’t quite human, with lips curving out far in front of her nose and wisps of bright ginger hair hanging over a high-domed forehead.
She was holding a glass filled with some milky green liquid. Her fingers were thick and stubby.
She had to be careful not to break the glass.
She sipped her drink, then frowned. ‚Are you sure we’re ready?' she asked.
‚We have no choice in the matter. We have had two unsatisfactory results in the last few months. First Ivanov. Then Roscoe in New York. Quite apart from the expense of arranging the terminations, it’s possible that someone may have connected the two deaths.'
‚Possible, but unlikely,' Mrs. Stellenbosch said.
‚The intelligence services are idle and inefficient, it is true. The CIA in America. MI6 in England. Even the KGB. They’re all shadows of what they used to be. But even so, there’s always the chance that one of them might have accidentally stumbled onto something. The sooner we end this phase of the operation, the more chance we have of remaining unnoticed.'
Dr. Grief brought his hands together and rested his chin on his fingers. ‚When is the final boy arriving?' he asked.
‚Alex?' Mrs. Stellenbosch sipped from her cup and set it down. She opened her handbag and took out a handkerchief, which she used to wipe her lips. ‚I am traveling to England tomorrow,' she said.
‚Excellent. You’ll take the boy to Paris on the way here?'
‚Of course, Doctor. If that’s what you wish.'
‚It is very much what I wish. We can do all the preliminary work there. It will save time.
What about the Sprintz boy?'
‚I’m afraid we still need another few days.'
‚That means that he and Alex will be here at the same time.'
‚Yes.'
Dr. Grief considered. He had to balance the risk of the two boys meeting against the dangers of moving too fast. It was fortunate that he had a scientific mind. His calculations were never wrong. ‚Very well,' he said. ‚The Sprintz boy can stay with us for another few days. I sense he is growing restless, and a new friend might put his mind at ease.'
Mrs. Stellenbosch nodded. She lifted her glass and emptied its contents, the veins in her neck throbbing as she swallowed.
‚Alex Friend is an excellent catch for us,' Dr. Grief said.
‚Supermarkets?' The woman sounded unconvinced.
‚His father has the prime minister’s ear. He is an impressive man. His son, I am sure, will meet up to all our expectations.' Dr. Grief smiled. His eyes glowed red. ‚Very soon, we’ll have Alex here, at the academy. And then, at last, the Gemini Project will be complete.'
‚You’re sitting all wrong,' Fiona said. ‚Your back isn’t straight. Your hands should be lower. And your feet are pointing the wrong way.'
‚What does it matter, so long as you’re enjoying yourself?' Alex asked, speaking through gritted teeth.
It was the fourth day of his stay at Haverstock Hall, and Fiona had been persuaded to take him out riding. Alex wasn’t enjoying himself at all. First he’d had to endure the inevitable lecture—although he had barely listened. The horses were Iberian or Hungarian. They’d won a bucketful of gold medals. Alex didn’t care. All he knew was that his horse was big and black and attracted flies. And that he was riding it with all the style of a sack of potatoes on a trampoline.
The two of them had barely mentioned the business in the forest. When Alex had limped back to the house, soaked and freezing, Fiona had politely fetched him a towel and offered him a cup of tea.
‚You tried to kill me!' Alex said.
‚Don’t be silly.' Fiona looked at Alex with something like pity in her eyes. ‚We would never do that. Rufus is a very nice boy.'
‚What?'
‚It was just a game, Alex. Just a bit of fun.'
And that was it. Fiona had smiled as if everything had been explained and then gone to have a swim. Alex had spent the rest of the evening with the files. He was trying to take in a fake history that spanned fourteen years. There were uncles and aunts, friends at Eton, a whole crowd of people he had to know without ever having met any of them. More than that, he was trying to get the feel of this luxurious lifestyle. That was why he was here now, out riding with Fiona—she upright in her riding jacket and breeches, he bumping along behind.