Tamara stared at the people in front of her. Her face was burning. One of the men was Brace; she was sure of it. Alex's face was smarting. Somebody had hit him across the cheek. The man with the bruised face was holding a thin canvas bag. It obviously didn't have much in it.

Brace walked towards Tamara.

"Keep your hands up," he said, nodding over his shoulder. "Or he dies."

Brace walked right up to Tamara. His breath stank. That didn't make any sense either. Tamara had known Brace a little bit from business. Not on first name terms or anything, but she had known that he had always brushed his teeth. He was also a very careful man. He had a desk job, so why was there a fading scar down his face? Unless it wasn't Brace . . .

Tamara was snapped out of her gaze when the man slapped her on the cheek. Her head snapped back.

"Which flat are you sleeping in?" the man asked again. "Lead the way, or you both die."

Alex edged out of the study. His head was reeling; none of the gadgets Smithers had given him could help, his own combat skills were no good against three fully grown men with guns and Tamara looked slightly dazed. She led the way out the door and upstairs to their flat.

"In," Brace said. Alex hadn't known Brace, so he couldn't tell that this was a fake. All he knew was that the man looked like Brace and had a gun. Tamara opened the door with the key. She made to go inside, but one of the men pulled her back.

"I go first," he said, with a sight French accent. He pulled the door out of Tamara's grip and stumped in. The others forced Tamara and Alex through and sat them down on the settee.

"Check the rooms. We can't afford to make any mistakes," Brace said. Even his voice was identical to Brace's.

"Mate, they can't have let the CIA know," the man with the accent said.

"You don't know. If the CIA arrives here later and they left something behind, they could be onto us. Kelly, check the bedrooms. I'll guard them here and Pascal, check the kitchen and bathroom."

Both men nodded and turned, heading to different rooms. Tamara decided to try sincerity.

"Brace, why are you doing this? Inkheart is planning to destroy the CIA, the people you worked for!"

Brace laughed, keeping his gun trained on Alex and Tamara.

"In case you haven't noticed, girly, I'm not Brace! I killed him two weeks ago and took his place!"

"Why? What's the point?"

The man who looked like Brace shook his finger at them.

"Inkheart was angry with Brace, so he killed and humiliated him," the man said. His face cracked into an insane grin. "Everyone thinks Brace betrayed the CIA!"

Kelly walked into the room.

"I found this in the room."

He was carrying a case. Alex's case.

"What's the combination, boy?"

A spark ignited Alex's mind.

"It's 24 on the first and 43 on the second," he said.

"Pascal!" the man called. "Get in here!"

Pascal ran in.

"I couldn't find anything," he said.

"Doesn't matter. Looks like its all in the case!" The three men stood around the table on which the case was lying on. Kelly slowly inserted the combination code, and then began to lift the lid.

BANG!

There was a blast of sound and light, smashing through the room like a stampede. Alex was smashed backwards by a shockwave from the case. He and Tamara were cushioned by the settee.

The men were less lucky. They had been standing up when the case exploded. They were thrown away effortlessly in different directions, and crashed straight into the walls of the flat. They slid down, their eyes closed.

Alex was first to recover. He waited until the world stopped spinning before choosing to get up. Tamara's eyes were still spinning. As Smithers had said, the lid of the case had been blown open, revealing the silver laptop below. Amazingly, it was intact. Alex grabbed it, tucking it under his arm, and shook Tamara.

"Quick, Tamara, we have to go."

Tamara's eyes rolled, she tipped forward and spewed a load of sick onto the carpet. She leaned back, and wiped her mouth.

"Shall we go, then?"

They sprinted out of the flat and down the stairs. Tamara rushed into Brace's room and grabbed the canvas bag of files.

"Come on! We can hide somewhere, then contact MI6!" Tamara said, leaping down the stairs leading up to the doors of the flat. Alex followed, and they sprinted round the corner of the building.

It was near midnight when they finally stopped running. Alex took the laptop from under his arm and flipped the lid. They were in an empty warehouse by the sea, and they could hear the water lapping gently up and down the walls. Tamara didn't like it. It could cover the footsteps of someone approaching. She was tense, and alert.

Alex double clicked the Internet icon. The screen blurred for a second, then slowly, a face came into focus. Mrs Jones was there herself.

"Alex!" she said. "What have you got?"

"We got inside the room," Alex said quickly, stumbling over the words. "The man wasn't Brace, it was a double. He and two other men captured us and took us back up to our flat, but we escaped with the Chimera."

"So it was the Chimera they were developing," Mrs Jones said.

"Listen," Tamara said. "There's more to this. Inkheart couldn't develop the detonation software last time, how are they this time?"

"There's only one explanation. Brace must have been developing it himself. Perhaps Inkheart spied on him and found out he was creating it for the CIA," Mrs Jones suggested. "We need to get to that computer. No, not you two, you've got to get inside Inkheart's base and destroy any backup copies."

"Where is it?" Tamara asked. "We can get started straight away."

"Unfortunately not," Mrs Jones said. "Send me your coordinates."