Anthony Horowitz - Eagle Strike

“I"m glad you"re here,” Alex said.

Sabina looked at him. “I"m not.”

Ten minutes later the door opened and Yassen Gregorovich appeared carrying two sets of what looked like white overalls with red markings—serial numbers—on the sleeves. “You are to put these on,” he said.

“Why?” Alex asked.

“Cray wants you. You"re coming with us. Do as you"re told.” But Alex still hesitated. “What is this?” he demanded. There was something disturbingly familiar about what he was being asked to wear.

“It is a polyamide fabric,” Yassen explained. The words meant nothing to Alex. “It is used in biochemical warfare,” he added. “Now put it on.”

With a growing sense of dread, Alex put the suit on over his own clothes. Sabina did the same.

The overalls covered them completely, with hoods that would go over their heads. Alex realized that when they were fully suited up, they would be virtually shapeless. It would be impossible to tell that they were teenagers.

“Now come with me,” Yassen said.

They were led back through the house and out into the cloister. There were now three vehicles parked on the grass: a jeep and two covered trucks, both painted white with the same red markings as the suits. There were about twenty men, all in biochemical suits. Henryk, the Dutch pilot, was in the back of the jeep, nervously polishing his glasses. Damian Cray stood next to him talking, but seeing Alex he stopped and came over. He was bristling with excitement, walking jauntily, his eyes even brighter than normal.

“So you"re here!” he exclaimed, as if welcoming Alex to a party. “Excellent! I"ve decided I want you to come along. Mr Gregorovich tried to talk me out of it, but that"s the thing about Russians.

No sense of humour. But you see, Alex, none of this would have happened without you. You brought me the flash drive; it"s only fair you should see how I use it.”

“I"d rather see you arrested and sent to Broadmoor,” Alex said.

Cray simply laughed. “That"s what I like about you!” he exclaimed. “You"re so rude. But I do have to warn you, Yassen will be watching you like a hawk. Or maybe I should say like an eagle.

If you do anything at all, if you so much as blink without permission, he"ll shoot your girlfriend first. And then he"ll shoot you. Do you understand?”

“Where are we going?” Alex asked.

“We"re taking the motorway into London. It"ll take us just a couple of hours. You and Sabina will be in the first truck with Yassen. Eagle Strike has begun, by the way. Everything is in place.

I think you"ll enjoy it.”

He turned his back on them and went over to the jeep. A few minutes later the convoy left, rolling out of the gates and back up the lane to the main road. Alex and Sabina sat next to each other on a narrow wooden bench. There were six men with them, all armed with automatic rifles, slung over the white suits. Alex thought he recognized one of the faces from the compound outside Amsterdam. Certainly he knew the type. Pale skin, dead-looking hair, dark, empty eyes.

Yassen sat opposite them. He too had put on a biochemical suit. He seemed to be staring at Alex, but he said nothing and his face was unreadable.

They travelled for two hours, taking the M4 towards London. Alex glanced occasionally at Sabina and she caught his eye once and smiled nervously. This wasn"t her world. The men, the machine guns, the biochemical suits … they were all part of a nightmare that had come out of nowhere and which still made no sense—with no sign of a way out. Alex was baffled too. But the suits suggested a dreadful possibility. Did Cray have biochemical weapons? Was he planning to use them?

At last they turned off the motorway. Looking out of the back flap, Alex saw a signpost to Heathrow Airport and suddenly he knew, without being told, that this was their true destination.

He remembered the plane he had seen at the compound. And Cray, talking to him in the garden.

Henryk is very valuable to me. He flies jumbo jets. The airport had to be part of it, but it still didn"t explain so many things. The president of the United States. Nuclear missiles. The very name—Eagle Strike—itself. Alex was angry with himself. It was all there in front of him. Some sort of picture was taking shape. But it was still blurred, out of focus.

They stopped. Nobody moved. Then Yassen spoke for the first time. “Out!” A single word.

Alex went first, then helped Sabina down. He enjoyed feeling her hand in his. There was a sudden loud roar overhead and he looked up just in time to see an aircraft sweeping down out of the sky. He saw where they were. They had stopped on the top floor of an abandoned multistorey car park—a legacy of Sir Arthur Lunt, Cray"s father. It was on the very edge of Heathrow Airport, near the main runway. The only car, apart from their own, was a burnt-out shell. The ground was strewn with rubble and old rusting oil drums. Alex couldn"t imagine why they had come here. Cray was waiting for a signal. Something was going to happen. But what?

Alex looked at his watch. It was exactly half past two. Cray called them over. He had travelled in the jeep with Henryk and now Alex saw that there was a radio transmitter on the back seat.

Henryk turned a dial; there was a loud whine. Cray was certainly making a performance out of this. The radio had been connected to a loudspeaker so that they could all hear.

“It"s about to begin,” Cray said. He giggled. “Exactly on time!” Alex looked up. A second plane was coming in. It was still too far away and too high up to be seen clearly, but even so, he thought he recognized something about its shape. Suddenly a voice crackled out of the loudspeaker in the jeep.

“Attention, air traffic control. This is Millennium Air flight 118 from Amsterdam. We have a problem.”

The voice had been speaking in English but with a heavy Dutch accent. There was a pause, an empty hissing, and then a woman"s voice replied. “Roger, MA 118. What is your problem, over?”

“Mayday! Mayday!” The voice from the aircraft was suddenly louder. “This is flight MA 118.

We have a fire on board. Request immediate clearance to land.” Another pause. Alex could imagine the panic in the control tower at Heathrow. But when the woman spoke again, her voice was professional, calm. “Roger your mayday. We have you on radar. Steer on 0-90. Descend three thousand feet.”

“Air traffic control.” The radio crackled again. “This is Captain Schroeder from flight MA 118. I have to advise you that I am carrying extremely hazardous biochemical products on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. We have an emergency situation here. Please advise.” The Heathrow woman replied immediately. “We need to know what is on board. Where is it and what are the quantities?”

“Air traffic control, we are carrying a nerve gas. We cannot be more specific. It is highly experimental and extremely dangerous. There are three canisters in the hold. We now have a fire in the main cabin. Mayday! Mayday!”

Alex looked again. The plane was much lower now and he knew exactly where he had seen it before. It was the cargo plane that he had seen in the compound outside Amsterdam. Smoke was streaming out of the side and even as Alex watched, flames suddenly exploded, spreading over the wings. To anyone watching, it would seem that the plane was in terrible danger. But Alex knew that the whole thing had been faked.

The control tower was monitoring the plane. “Flight MA 118, the emergency services have been alerted. We are beginning an immediate evacuation of the airport. Please proceed to twenty-seven left. You are cleared to land.”

At once Alex heard the sound of alarms coming from all over the airport. The plane was still two or three thousand feet up, the flames trailing behind it. He had to admit that it looked totally convincing. Suddenly everything was starting to make sense. He was beginning to understand Cray"s plan.