Crocodile Tears - Anthony Horowitz [64]
After Alex had gone, the rest of the school party had been taken to one of the laboratories, where an earnest young scientist with a neatly trimmed beard had shown them the chemical process that put new DNA into a single plant cell. Tom had barely listened. He didn’t find it easy to concentrate at the best of times. Now, his parents had recently separated. His father was living on his own in a motel in south London. His mother had taken up smoking again. They were both overachievers with a pile of diplomas between them, but what good had it done them? If Tom had his way, he would drop school entirely.
As they had moved from one laboratory to the next, Tom had passed a window and had found himself looking for Alex. There was nobody in sight. But during the next demonstration—something to do with plants freeze-dried in liquid nitrogen—he had noticed a red light begin to blink discreetly in the corner of the room. Beckett had clearly seen it too. Tom saw her face change, a look of concern creeping into her eyes. It was an alarm. He was sure of it.
And then, in the distance, he heard something. The sound of breaking glass—a lot of it. Everyone else was too busy listening, taking notes. But Tom knew what it meant. Alex was on the run. Part of him was tempted to sneak out and join him.
It was lucky he didn’t. As soon as the demonstration ended, Beckett insisted on a roll call to check that everyone was there, and—as promised—Tom stood in for Alex, doing a reasonable imitation of his voice.
“Rider?”
“Here, sir.”
Only James Hale, standing next to him, saw what was happening and glanced at him quizzically. Tom shrugged but gave nothing away.
And now they were in some workshop, two floors down, underground. Tom wondered if they had been brought here on purpose, to stop them from hearing or seeing anything that might be going on outside. Another scientist—this one young, female, and Chinese—had arrived to show them the famous gene gun, developed, they were told, by the director of Greenfields. It was a rather ordinary-looking piece of equipment that resembled a small metal safe with a glass door. Nonetheless, this was at the heart of GM technology, the woman said. She opened the door and placed a round petri dish inside.
“The gene gun is a very effective way to deliver new DNA into a plant,” she explained. “This is done by a system known as Biolistic Particle Delivery . . .”
As she continued, Tom noticed a guard, dressed in khaki, steal into the room. He approached Beckett and whispered urgently into her ear. Tom wasn’t surprised when, a moment later, she stepped forward, interrupting the talk.
“I am very sorry, boys and girls,” she exclaimed. “I am afraid we are going to have to end your visit to Greenfields. An emergency situation has arisen and you must return to your school bus at once.”
“Wait a minute . . . ,” Mr. Gilbert began. His face was indignant. They had driven a long way to visit the center and they had only been here for an hour.
“There will be no argument,” Beckett snapped. “We will take the back staircase. Your driver has been instructed to meet you around the side of the building.”
James moved closer to Tom. “This is about Alex, isn’t it,” he muttered.
“Alex is standing right next to me,” Tom replied.
“Yeah. Sure.” James nodded slowly.
The class was already filing out and the two of them followed behind.
The guards had seen him. If they had been carrying Uzis, he would have been dead already. One of them was coming after him, catching up fast. The other had stopped to talk into his radio, alerting the others.
Alex was getting tired. He was in pain. As he ran back toward the center of the complex, he was aware of just two things. He had to drop out of sight. And—if it wasn’t too late already—he had to find his way back to his friends. There was safety in numbers. So long as he was part of Brookland School, inside the group, there was nothing that Straik or anybody else could do.
But where were they? There was no bus, no sign of anyone, and definitely no way out of the Greenfields Bio Center.