Ark Angel - Anthony Horowitz [15]
“Whatever you say.” Alex got slowly to his feet. “Is it my imagination,” he asked, “or is your voice a little higher than it used to be?”
The hand with the gun twitched. “This way,” Spectacles muttered.
Alex followed him out into a corridor that was as dilapidated as the room where he had been confined. The walls were damp and peeling. Many of the ceiling tiles were missing, revealing great gaps filled with a tangle of wires and pipes. There were doors every ten or fifteen metres, some of them hanging off their hinges. Once, they would have opened into people’s flats. But it was obvious that – apart from rats and cockroaches – nobody had lived here for years.
Combat Jacket was waiting for them outside. He had recovered from his encounter with the medicine ball but there was an ugly bruise on the side of his head where he had hit the wall. The two of them marched Alex down the corridor to a door at the end.
“In!” Spectacles said.
Alex pushed open the door and went through.
He found himself in a large, open space with litter strewn across the floor and graffiti everywhere. There were windows on two sides, some of them covered by broken blinds. Alex guessed he was inside one of the flats, although the partition walls had been smashed through to make a single area. He could see an abandoned bath in one corner. In the middle, there was a table and two chairs. A man was sitting there, waiting for him. Spectacles prodded his gun into Alex’s back. Alex stepped forward and sat down.
With a shiver, he examined the man sitting opposite him. He was dressed in what might once have been a uniform but the jacket was torn and missing buttons. The man must have been about thirty years old but it was impossible to be sure. His face and head had been tattooed all over. Alex saw the United States of America reaching down one cheek, Europe on the other. His nose and the skin above his lips were blue, the colour of the Atlantic Ocean. Brazil and West Africa touched the corners of his mouth. If the man turned round, Alex knew he would see Russia and China. He had never seen anything quite so strange – or so revolting – in his life.
With difficulty, Alex tore his eyes away and looked around. Combat Jacket and Spectacles were standing on either side of the doorway. Silver Tooth was lurking in a corner. Alex hadn’t noticed him in the shadows, but now he stepped into the light and Alex saw that his neck was swollen, two angry red marks burned into the skin. There was no sign of Steel Watch. Perhaps they’d been unable to peel him off the Magnetom.
The man with the tattoos spoke. “You have caused us a great deal of annoyance,” he said. “In truth, you should be dead.”
Alex was silent. He wasn’t sure yet what to say.
“My name is Kaspar,” the man continued.
Alex shrugged. “You mean … like Casper the friendly ghost?”
The man didn’t smile. “Why were you out of your room last night?”
“I needed some air.”
“It would have been better if you had simply opened the window,” Kaspar said. When he spoke, whole continents moved. It occurred to Alex that if he sneezed it would set off a global earthquake. “Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“No,” Alex replied. “But it would be useful to have you around in a geography exam.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you were in any position to make jokes.” Kaspar’s voice was flat and unemotional. He gestured at the other men. “You have caused my colleagues a great deal of pain and inconvenience. They would like me to kill you. Perhaps I will.”
“What do you want me for?” Alex demanded.
“I will tell you.” Kaspar ran a finger down the side of his face. It travelled from Norway to Algeria. “I can see that you are surprised by my appearance. You may think it extreme. But these markings represent who I am and what I believe in. We are all part of this world. I have made the world part of me.”
He paused.
“I am what you might call a freedom fighter. But the freedom I believe in is a planet free of the exploitation and pollution