After making you wait so long for the last chapter, I have written this one quite fast, but I do believe it is one of the best ones yet! So, happy reading folks and please keep a' reading and rating!


Chapter Eight - Escape

"What now!" The president cried, staring at Alex's hair. The boy was watching, transfixed as the people tried to get access to the room… they were like zombies… hungry for flesh. The glass was being shattered quickly, large chunks of the window were falling from the frame and shattering across the concrete floor.

"Give me a minute." Alex muttered "I'm thinking."

"What are we going to do?" He cried once again, clearly starting to panic. "They're going to get us! I know it!"

"Shut. Up." Alex quickly scanned the room with his eyes, looking for an escape. The walls were a bare, yellowish colour, but there was one section that didn't match the rest, it looked newer, as if it had just been plastered. Alex reached out and rapped on the different piece of wall, it was hollow. He then knocked on the normal wall; it was made from brick and made only a small sound when knocked on. Alex smiled at the president and stepped to the odd coloured piece of wall.

"What?" The president asked, confusion showing clearly in his voice. Alex said nothing, he just smiled, and then suddenly he brought his fist up and sent it crashing through the hollow piece of wall. It crumbled, giving them a tight escape route. Alex pushed the president through, right before crawling through himself, accidentally cutting his hand on a jagged edge.

They were out in the open sunlight, the large wooden wall was about 20 metres ahead and the area they were in was enclosed, giving them a slight advantage. Alex pulled the iPod mini from his belt, turned the click wheel and put the song "Mosh" on, it played for about a second... and then he then flung the whole device at the wall… things went into slow motion as all hell broke loose.

Somebody else stumbled through the hole in the ritual room, wielding a weapon. This man took a shot, the bullet landing in Alex's leg. He screamed in pain, before spinning around and shooting the gun-wielder, the bullet catching him in the chest. Blood oozed from a hole right below his shoulder. The iPod mini crashed into the wooden wall and exploded, sending flames and splinters of wood in all directions, one of these also landing in Alex's leg. The flames barrelled into the forest, setting some of the trees alight.

"RUN!" Alex screamed to the president, who ran into the jungle, grunting heavily. Another man exited through the hole in the wall, this one not carrying a gun. Alex tore the piece of wood from his leg and hurled it, impaling the newcomer through the head, and also nailing him to the wall in the process. The entrance was blocked… well, for now at least.

"That should hold the bastards off for a while…"

Alex limped to his feet and hobbled into the jungle, his leg bleeding heavily…


"What do you mean, 'tough luck?'" The man shouted sourly down the phone

"I mean tough luck as in 'if your man is not out in 90 minutes then he's dead' sort of tough luck"

"You son of a…-" Blunt muttered. Suddenly, a man entered the room, a bead of sweat was dribbling down his cheek and he looked agitated.

"Mr. Blunt, we have a serious problem."

"What is it? I'm busy." Alan looked up, annoyed at the sudden disruption.

"We've lost contact with Alex Rider."

"Oh hell…"

One minute, twenty-three seconds later and Alan Blunt was sitting in the communications room, being spoken to by a young man wearing funny spectacles, his face littered with spots.

"His iPod just… disappeared… kabloosh… gone."

"What do you mean, just gone?"

"We think he used it to destroy something."

"We'll just have to hope he gets out in time."

"Hope is a pretty big risk, Sir."

"There's nothing we can do"


Alex had found the president in a tree. How he got up there, Alex didn't know, but getting him down was the hard part. He kept snagging himself on tree branches and moaning about something to do with the American security bill, Alex began to laugh softly as the man tried to climb down the tree.

Finally, after several minutes of pure torture, the president finally managed to get down from the tree, only to put his hand on a piece of metal stuck in a tree.

"Ow! Christ, that hurt!"

"What?"

"I got pricked by a bit of metal." He muttered, tugging the jagged silver piece of steel from the tree. It was about eleven inches long and one side had a strange pattern on it.

"Give me that." Alex told the president

"Why?" He asked.

"I said give me it."

"But why?"

"Because if you don't, I'm going to leave you in the jungle to rot, be eaten alive by either the very large snakes or the cannibals." The president handed him the metal, Alex grinned.

Alex was surprised to see part of the American flag printed on the side of the metal, and, upon further inspection, there were loads of pieces of metal all over the floor.

"Follow me," Alex muttered, setting of into the jungle.

"Where are we going?"

"To the plane, maybe there's a radio there that we can use."

"Oh…" He stared at the ground and carried on walking, trying to think of something to say, finally, he spoke "So… who are you anyway?"

"My name is Alex Rider, and I am a spy for MI6."

"You're a spy?"

"That's what I said."

"And how old are you?"

"Fourteen"

"Jesus… isn't that dangerous?"

"If you've seen some of the crap I've seen, this is a walk in the park."

"Why? What's happened to you?"

"Well… my parents have been killed, my uncle - who was another MI6 spy - was murdered, my father, who I found out recently was an assassin was killed by an organisation called Scorpia, the same organisation that shot me in the chest four weeks ago. I've been kidnapped by a sadistic Russian madman, shot with arrows, I've been drugged, beaten up by members of a Chinese Triad, I've nearly drowned, almost fallen off the side of a hot air balloon, attacked by a large snake covered in spikes and a whole range of other awful things. Any more questions?"

"Holy… Shit…" The man muttered, his swearing very informal for a president.

Alex felt his feet crunch onto glass, he looked up and saw the remains of Air Force One…

The air strike would be fired in fifty-seven minutes exactly.