Never Say Die

by Anthony Horowitz

“You too.”

  Alex had put his clothes back on. He took the gun and the walkie-talkie, then snatched up the chisel. Finally he slipped out into the night.

  Once again the compound was criss-crossed by powerful beams of light, but Alex easily slipped through them. He was full of confidence since finding Jack. He also knew that there was no going back now. Quite soon, someone would discover that Frankie Stallone had disappeared and at that moment, the element of surprise would be gone. It was a warm evening with a strange stillness in the air, as if there was about to be a storm. But there were no clouds. Looking up, Alex saw a mass of stars in an ink-black sky. The moon was reflected in the steel lines of the railway, which stretched into the distance like some sort of magical pathway. The tunnel was several miles away and out of sight, although Alex could make out the shape of the hills that rose up, surrounding them. Safety lay on the other side.

  He crouched down behind an oil drum as two guards walked past, heading for the steam train which was sitting beside the platform with its tender full of coal, quietly puffing. That was one good thing about the abandoned coke works: there was no shortage of hiding places. Alex’s thoughts were already racing ahead. He needed to give the Grimaldis something to think about while he and Jack led the children out of here. He had a gun now … and – he had checked – six bullets. How could he use them? Briefly, Alex considered sneaking into the building that the two brothers occupied. Two shots and it would all be over. But, like Jack, he knew he couldn’t do it. Despite all the things that had happened to him, he was no assassin, and anyway, there were all the other guards to consider. It might be the start of a bloodbath.

  He had another idea. Briefly he weighed it in his mind, balancing it against any other options – then smiled to himself. Yes. It might work. He waited until the two guards were out of sight, then crept over to the shed where he had found the chisel. He knew that time was against him but this would just take a few minutes. Sulphuric acid. The question was – how long would it take to eat through rusting metal? Well, that was certainly something that had never come up in science class.

  Ten minutes later, he was approaching the block where Giovanni and Eduardo were staying. It was easy enough to find: the only brand-new building in the entire compound. There were no lights on behind the windows. The twins must have gone to bed. Nor did there seem to be any guards around at the moment. At least, that was what Alex thought. He froze. There was somebody outside after all, lying face upward in a wheelbarrow, hands hanging limply towards the ground. Drunk? Asleep? It took him about half a second to realize the answer was neither.

  With a dry mouth and an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, Alex drew closer. In the beams of light, it was easy to make out the drab, brown hair – lifeless in every sense – and the heavy shoulders, the stout legs. It was a woman. Bizarrely, she had her handbag resting on her lap. Although he had never met her, Alex knew that he was looking at the coach driver, Jane Vosper, another victim of the brothers and their twisted plan.

  He didn’t want to go near but there was one thing he had to do. Alex went over to the wheelbarrow, doing his best not to look at her face. He was interested in her handbag. He clicked it open and looked inside. And there they were, exactly as he had hoped! He reached in and took out a bunch of keys. One of them was an ignition key, clearly marked with the Mercedes-Benz logo. He slipped the whole bunch into his pocket. Now all he had to do was to find the security man and the teacher and they could drive the coach out of here.

  The outhouse that Jack had described was a short distance from the new building, close to the perimeter fence. Alex wasn’t surprised to see a man standing guard outside, a machine gun cradled in his arms. He backed away. He couldn’t risk using the gun. If a single shot was fired, the entire compound would be alerted. But he had another idea.

  He pressed the button on the walkie-talkie that he had taken from Stallone and held it close to his lips. He spoke in a low voice. “Sector Five – do you copy?”

  In front of him, he saw the guard reach for his own walkie-talkie. “This is Sector Five, over.”

  “We have a disturbance in Sector One. Request backup.”

  “Heading there now. Over.”

  Alex had no idea where Sector One was but he hoped it was far away. He reckoned he would have a few minutes before the guard discovered that something was wrong and hopefully he wouldn’t realize that he had been deliberately tricked. He watched as the man walked away, then Alex crept through the shadows until he reached the door. The outhouse was made of brick with a wooden door that was fastened with two sliding bolts but no lock. Alex had brought the chisel with him in case he needed it to break in, but this was going to be easier than he’d thought. He slid the bolts across, opened the door and entered.

  The room was completely bare. There were two men slumped on the concrete floor, surrounded by water bottles and a scattering of sandwich wrappers. One was small and crumpled with thinning brown hair, dressed in a suit that was hanging off him. The other was younger and tougher, with the square shoulders and cropped hair of an ex-soldier. The drama teacher and the security man. It was easy to tell which was which. They both leapt up as Alex came into the room.

  “Who the hell are you?” the security man demanded.

  “I’m Alex Rider,” Alex said. “Are you Ted Philby?”

  “That’s right. Deputy head of school security.” Philby examined Alex suspiciously. “Where have you come from? You weren’t on the coach.”

  “I can’t explain right now. We don’t have any time. I distracted the guard but he’ll be back any moment.”

  “Whoa! Wait a minute!” Philby wasn’t moving. “I’m not going anywhere until you’ve told me how you got here and shown me your ID.”

  Alex’s heart sank. He’d met people like this before. Philby was taking charge. He was a fully paid-up member of the school security team – the deputy head no less – and if Alex reminded him that actually, the school hadn’t been secure at all, it wouldn’t help. “I haven’t got ID,” he said.

  “Then how do I know that this isn’t a trick? For all I know, you could be working for them!”

  Philby didn’t even know who “they” were. Alex was about to back out and slam the door when the drama teacher came to his rescue. “I really think we should go with Alex, Mr Wilby,” he said.

  “It’s Philby.”

  “Whatever.” The teacher nodded at Alex. “My name is Jason Green. Have you seen the children? Are they all right?”

  “They’re fine. They’re getting ready to leave.” Alex turned to Philby. He could feel the weight of the gun in his back pocket and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it to threaten the man. “Are you coming or not?”

  “You’ve got the kids?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m coming. They’re my responsibility. And from now on, you do what I tell you. All right?”

  “Sure.”

  There was no time to argue. The three of them went outside and Alex slid the bolts back across the door. With a bit of luck, the guard wouldn’t notice that anything was wrong when he returned. He might even forget about the message he had received. Philby was looking around him, suddenly aware that he had no idea where the children actually were.

  “They’re over there.” Alex nudged him and pointed.

  “Good. Follow me.”

  Keeping close together, the three of them made their way back.

  Meanwhile, Jack had been busy. She had got all fifty-two children out of bed and told them to make as little noise as possible as they got dressed. The children were scared and they had lots of questions but they were also used to doing what they were told. By the time Alex and the two men had returned, they were lined up in the corridor, quietly waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

  Ted Philby had led Alex and the drama teacher through the main door and along the passageway, as if it was he who had managed to break them out of prison, getting rid of the guards at the sam
e time. He took one look at Jack Starbright, still in her nurse’s uniform, and decided to ignore her. He raised a hand to the waiting children. “Hi, kids,” he said. “You don’t have to worry. I’m in control of the situation and I’m going to get you out of here.”

  Jack glanced at Alex. Alex quietly shook his head.

  “You just have to do everything I tell you. You know who I am. You’ve probably seen me in the Hub. I’ve been trained for this.”

  There was a long silence. The children were silent and pale in the soft light of the corridor, standing together in pairs. They did not look convinced.

  Jack stepped forward. “So what exactly is your plan?” she asked.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m with him.” Jack pointed at Alex.

  “Right.” Philby stroked his chin, considering his options. “The first priority is to move these kids and find somewhere for them to hole up. My guess is that we’re in Cornwall or Devon.”

  “We’re in Wales,” Jack told him.

  “Well … that doesn’t matter. We have to bust out of here. We don’t have any transport, so that means we’re going to be on foot.”

  “We have the coach,” Alex said.

  “Yeah. But the coach needs keys.”

  “I have those too.” Alex produced the keys he had taken from the dead woman. For a fleeting moment, he saw her, lying on her back, stretched out in the wheelbarrow.

  “That’s very good,” the drama teacher muttered. He turned to the children. “We’re going to be all right, boys and girls. We’re in safe hands.”

  “Thank you.” Philby assumed that the teacher had been referring to him. “The coach is out of the question,” he went on. “First of all, we’re never going to be able to reach it without being seen. Secondly, it’s noisy. The moment we start the engine, these people are going to come running. No. We need to get out there into the hills. We need to put as many miles between ourselves and this place as we can.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jack said. She went over to Philby and spoke in a quiet voice. “That’s crazy. Some of the children are as young as nine. They’re already terrified and most of them are exhausted. Even assuming we can cut our way through the fence, how far do you think they’re going to get? We have no idea where we are. It’s dark. You should listen to Alex—”

  Philby cut in before she could continue. “Lady – I don’t know who you are but I’m a professional. He’s just a kid. OK?” He turned to the children. “We’re leaving now!”

  Nobody moved.

  Then one of the children put up his hand. Alex recognized the boy he had spoken to when he first arrived. “I don’t want to go with you,” he said. “I want to go with Alex.”

  There was a murmur of agreement along the line.

  Philby scowled. “You don’t get any choice in the matter, son. I’m calling the shots.”

  And that was when the sirens went off, echoing across the compound, howling into the sky. Perhaps the guard had returned and discovered that that his prisoners had gone. Perhaps it was Frankie Stallone who had failed to report in. Either way, it was too late for any further discussion. The alarm had been raised.

  Alex stepped forward.

  “I want everyone to grab a pillow,” he said. “Then follow me.”

  DOWNHILL ALL THE WAY

  “Pillows?”

  Ted Philby was standing in front of Alex. He was several inches taller than him and quite a lot heavier. He had fallen into a combat stance and Jack wondered if he was about to start a physical fight. Meanwhile, Alex stood his ground. Outside, the sirens were still blasting. The children had disappeared back to their rooms. “Pillows aren’t going to protect the kids from gunfire.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you, Mr Philby,” Alex said. “We’re leaving now. I need you to drive the coach. I think it’s the only way out of here. If you won’t do that, Jack will.”

  “I can drive it,” Jack said, although she wondered if she would be able to manage such a massive vehicle as a school coach. She noted that Alex hadn’t handed the security man the keys.

  “The coach is parked right next to the train,” Philby said. “It’s in plain sight … in open ground. How are you proposing to get anywhere near? Are you going to hide behind the pillows? Is that your big idea?”

  Alex didn’t answer. The schoolchildren were reappearing, each one of them holding a pillow made of thick foam, which they had taken from their beds. Jack was pleased that they had all decided to rally round Alex. They were young and they were afraid but they believed in him.

  Alex ignored the security man. “Let’s go,” he said.

  He led the way to the main door. There was activity all over the coke works, with men running in different directions, shouting orders at one another as if they had forgotten the walkie-talkies they all carried. The lights had come on in the block which Eduardo and Giovanni Grimaldi occupied. Alex swept his eyes across the tangled pipework, the huge tower with its slanting conveyor belt, the steel chimneys, the locomotive and the coach. For the moment, it seemed that the guards were concentrating their efforts on Sector Five, the area where Philby and Jason Green had been kept prisoner. The guard must have returned to find them missing and that was why he had raised the alarm. So far, it hadn’t occurred to the twins or to anyone else that the schoolchildren might be trying to escape. That would change soon enough. They had maybe two minutes to make their move before they were discovered.

  Alex looked back at the children, crowded together in the corridor, still in pairs. “I want you all to stay close together and look after each other,” he instructed them. “There may be gunfire but don’t be scared. Remember that these people need you alive. You’ve got a teacher with you. You’ve got Jack. And you’ve got the deputy head of security. So let’s go.”

  He stepped outside and ran the short distance to a cylindrical gas tank which he had noticed earlier and which would provide cover for all of them before they set off on the next part of the journey. The worst of it was that they were fully exposed for the first twenty paces and Alex counted every one of them, worried that someone would hear the crunch of so many footsteps on gravel. In fact, the noise of the sirens drowned out any sound and it occurred to Alex that the Grimaldis had made another mistake. Their own security system was working against them. Even so, he hardly dared breathe until the last of the children – two girls in pigtails, both of them clutching their pillows – had arrived, with Jack bringing up the rear.

  Meanwhile, Ted Philby took in his surroundings. The station platform with the locomotive train was directly in front of them. It was on the other side of the retort house, the concrete tower which rose fifty metres over their heads, blocking their way. The coach was parked right next to the locomotive, facing the same direction, as if the two technologies, one old and one new, were in competition with each other. If Alex really was determined to reach the coach – and Philby still thought it was suicide – he should go straight ahead. Instead, he veered over to the right, actually steering the children away from the relative safety of the platform.

  Philby caught up with Alex and hissed, “You’re going the wrong way! The coach is over there!”

  “We can’t go that way,” Alex said. “Look!”

  He pointed. There were two more guards, both armed with machine guns, positioned high up on a steel bridge that ran across the compound. They alone had remained where they were when the alarm broke out. They had a commanding view of the ground below them – and that included the open space beside the coach. If Alex tried to take the children that way, they would be mown down before they could get anywhere near.

  “OK.” Philby scowled. “That’s exactly what I told you. We can’t get anywhere near the coach. So let’s do this my way. Out through the fence…”

  But Alex was already moving. He had seen more guards moving through the latticework of light and shadow, approaching the accommodation block they had just left, finally coming to check up on their mos
t valuable prisoners. It was time to get out of here.

  He ran forward, not heading for the platform but the base of the retort tower and the door that led into it. Alex was gambling everything on the next few moments. If the door was locked, he would have to use the chisel – or worse still, the gun – to break it open and that would not just waste precious seconds, it might alert the guards as to where they were. He reached it ahead of the others and grabbed the handle. With a sense of relief, he felt it turn. The door was stiff but it opened. He went inside.

  He found himself in a vast brick chamber, with light shafting in through windows that rose all the way to the ceiling, at least eight storeys above his head. It was impossible to say how this building had once operated. Everything was black. The floor and the walls were covered with soot that hadn’t been touched for years. The very air stank of it. There were great lumps of machinery clinging to the brickwork, sitting on brackets. Pipes big enough for a man to crawl through ran past steel ovens suspended over what must have been a furnace. Alex guessed that this was where the whole process had taken place. The coal was brought in by steam trains. It was carried up the conveyor belt into the tower. It was heated and turned into coke with all the gases and other chemicals being separated before they were whisked away to other parts of the compound. He had arrived at what had once been the flaming heart of Smoke City. But the fires had gone out long ago and all that remained was blackened and dead.

  There was only one thing he had been hoping to see and there it was in front of him: a spiral staircase leading all the way to the loading platform at the top. It was made of steel, with a low rail twisting round and round. It looked safe. It would need to be, to take the weight of fifty-six people.

  Alex waited until all the children were assembled and Jack had closed the door behind them. The sirens were still wailing but they sounded more distant. The walls were thick, almost soundproof, and he could speak without fear of being overheard.

  “Is anyone afraid of heights?” he asked.