Eagle Strike by Anthony Horowitz

o‟clock.”
    There was a click as the man hung up.
    It was now ten past one. La Palette was a small, bustling café on the corner of a square, surrounded by art galleries. Waiters with long white aprons were sweeping in and out, carrying trays laden with drinks high above their heads. The place was packed but Alex and Jack had managed to get a table right on the edge, where they would be most conspicuous. Jack was drinking a glass of beer; Alex had a bright red fruit juice—a sirop de grenadine—with ice. It was his favourite drink when he was in France.
    He was beginning to wonder if the man he had spoken to on the telephone was going to show up.
    Or could he be here already? How were they going to find each other in this crowd? Then he noticed a motorcyclist sitting on a beaten-up Piaggio 125cc motorbike on the other side of the street; he was a young man in a leather jacket with black curly hair and stubble on his cheeks. He had pulled in a few minutes before but hadn‟t dismounted, as if he was waiting for someone.
    Alex met his eye; there was a flash of contact. The young man looked puzzled but then he got off his bike and came over, moving warily as if afraid of a trap.
    “You are Alex Rider?” he asked. He spoke English with an attractive accent, like an actor in a film.
    “Yes.”
    “I wasn‟t expecting a child.”

    “What difference does it make?” Jack demanded, coming to Alex‟s defence. “Are you Marc Antonio?” she asked.
    “No. My name is Robert Guppy.”
    “Do you know where he is?”
    “He asked me to take you to him.” Guppy glanced back at the Piaggio. “But I have only room for one.”
    “Well, you can forget it. I‟m not letting Alex go on his own.”
    “It‟s all right, Jack,” Alex cut in. He smiled at her. “It looks like you get to visit the Picasso Museum after all.”
    Jack sighed. Then she nodded. “All right,” she said. “But take care.”
    Robert Guppy drove through Paris like someone who knew the city well—or who wanted to die in it. He swerved in and out of the traffic, ignored red lights and spun across intersections with the blare of car horns echoing all around. Alex found himself clinging on for dear life. He had no idea where they were going but realized there was a reason for Guppy‟s dangerous driving. He was making sure they weren‟t being followed.
    They slowed down on the other side of the Seine, on the edge of the Marais, close to the Forum des Halles. Alex recognized the area. The last time he had been here, he had called himself Alex Friend and had been accompanying the hideous Mrs Stellenbosch on the way to the Point Blanc Academy. Now they slowed down and stopped in a street of typically Parisian houses—six storeys high with solid-looking doorways and tall frosted windows. Alex noticed a street sign: rue Britannia. The street went nowhere and half the buildings looked empty and dilapidated.

    Indeed, the ones at the far end were shored up by scaffolding and surrounded by wheelbarrows and cement mixers, with a plastic chute for debris.
    But there were no workmen in sight.
    Guppy got off the bike. He gestured at one of the doors. “This way,” he said. He glanced up and down the street one last time, then led Alex in.
    The door led to an inner courtyard with old furniture and a tangle of rusting bicycles in one corner. Alex followed Guppy up a short flight of steps and through another doorway. He found himself in a large, high-ceilinged room with whitewashed walls, windows on both sides and a dark wood floor. It was a photographer‟s studio. There were screens, complicated lamps on metal legs and silver umbrellas. But someone was also living here. To one side was a kitchen area with a pile of tins and dirty plates.
    Robert Guppy closed the door and a man appeared from behind one of the screens. He was barefoot, wearing a string vest and shapeless jeans. Alex guessed he must be about fifty. He was thin, unshaven, with a tangle of hair that was