Thanks so much to Elizabeth Catworth, Fudge 1 (who inspires me as well as helps me but is very rude about Alex's teenage blues), alexiro1, Saynt Jimmy, Remussweetie and uranium for reviewing. I love you guys!

Chapter 5 Leap of Faith

After dinner, Alex returned to his room, and knew immediately that something else had been going on. He'd left one of the drawers slightly open, and now it was shut. One of his paperback books on Psychological Physics had been kicked under the bed. He'd put it on the floor purposefully. He knew that someone had been in there, probably to search his stuff, and thanked heaven that he'd kept the CD player in his pocket – it looked cheap and was not the sort of thing a young medical genius would carry around.

Dinner had been a quiet affair. There were only two of them there. He'd expected there to be more, but Elle had turned up halfway through and said that there was a counselling meeting with the other six pupils. The number of other teenagers at the Rosary School seemed to be receding fast.

Alex had not scanned the big dining hall for bugs, but he'd seen the cameras situated in each corner. Unsurprisingly, Lacey did not talk much, and Alex, who was used to Jack's chatter, felt uncomfortable and ate quickly.

From the window of his room, Alex could just about see the huge white bulk of the games hall. He thought to himself. Why would anyone put metalwork in the roof of a concrete building that was only meant for games? Metalwork roofs weren't in use anymore. They were an architect's nightmare from the 1930s. People just didn't do it nowadays. And Lacey had said the building was new.

Alex pulled the curtains, shaking himself. This case did not involve the spooky games hall. It involved stolen computer terminals, and that was it.

Then why did everything seem to be connected to the KSR?

Alex showered, noisily, and banged about the bedroom, keeping one eye on the bug. Then he turned off the light and sat by the window, watching the moon rise over the hill behind the school. It soon went behind a cloud and the courtyard below him was lit in an eerie, greyish glow.

He left his bedroom, locking the door behind him, and padded down the corridor. As he passed Lacey's room, something black and noiseless skidded out of it and caught him around the waist as it tried to regain its balance. It was Lacey, panting hard.

'Alex, did you see them?'

'See what?' he hissed back.

She disengaged her arms. Her face was alight, alive. She looked – Alex shook his head, disbelieving it, but it was true – she looked happy.

'The men,' she whispered back, between breaths.

'No,' he answered. Lacey's room was nearer the main entrance to his. He couldn't see much of the courtyard because of the great balustrade of carved stone that jutted out over the door.

'Where are you going?'

'What men?'

'Tell me first,' she demanded, regaining her old scorn.

'All right.' He lowered his voice. 'I'm going to the games hall.'

'I thought so,' she said. Her eyes glittered in the darkness of the hallway. 'These men … perhaps we should go into my room. I'm not sure about this hall. There's a bug in my bedroom, though.'

'How do you know?' he snapped.

'I have my ways,' she bit back, flushing.

'We'll stay here,' he said, relaxing a little. 'It's clean. I checked earlier.'

'All right,' she said. She glanced back into the open doorway of her room. A pale grey light filtered through the curtains and threw her face into shadow. 'I was planning to go out this evening too. So I stayed up, and I watched the courtyard. About half-past ten, a van drew up. Over to the left, under the hornbeam trees. You'll see it if we go out. I expect you can't see it from your room. Anyway, a man got out, dressed completely in black, and opened up the back, and out came another five men. They were all quite young and had cases with them. They were dressed in camouflage. They went up to the door and knocked and Elle came out, all dolled up and looking as if she was off to a party. They went in and shut the door, and five minutes later I heard the lift begin to clatter and go down. I expect they're staying here.'

'But why are they here?' Alex wondered. He shook himself. 'OK, Lacey. We have to get down and out. Where's the stairs?'

The two of them split and began to search the corridor, but every door was locked and every corner was a dead end. They rejoined outside the lift and gazed at each other in mystification.

'The lift,' Lacey said despairingly. 'It's the only way.'

'No, wait.' Alex looked at her, summing up her strength. 'We can't risk the lift, it's far too noisy. There's the ivy.'

'The ivy?'

'Don't do that; you sound like a parrot.'

She actually grinned, and flashed him what was an impossibly flirtatious smile. 'All right, Mr Rider, if you think you're up to it. We'll do it together. You can go first.'

At both ends of the corridor were large windows with heavy black curtains drawn across. The one at the left end of the corridor looked out over the modern red brick campus, but the one at the right end was only a matter of feet away from the wall of the games hall.

Alex opened the curtains and pushed back the window catch. Lacey looked at the wall opposite them. Then she tapped Alex's shoulder.

'Do you think we can get into the hall from the roof?'

'Why's that?'

'Look.'

She pointed. Alex followed her finger and noticed that there was a fire escape jutting out of the side of the building a few metres above them. It didn't seem to be finished yet, since it hung in mid-air, suspended only by some flimsy-looking scaffolding. However, it led right up onto the roof of the hall.

Alex nodded. He swung himself carefully out over the sill of the window and, holding onto the thick iron curtain rail, gazed up the side of the house. It was overgrown with thick ivy stalks, and an iron drainpipe wound its way up through them, making it all the easier.

Then Alex made the mistake of looking down.

The two walls, of the games hall and of the house, so close together, made him feel impossibly tight and claustrophobic. The ground seemed a very long way away. He swayed, cursing himself, and felt Lacey's arms around him, tugging him back through.

She gave him an appraising look.

'I'll go first.'

Lacey was a good climber. She didn't seem at all deterred by the height, and cut out of the window and up the ivy as if she were swinging off the monkey bars in a playground. Alex followed her lead, and stopped when she did, as she reached the level of the fire escape.

'Jump?' she asked him, peering down at him underneath her arm.

'Yes.'

He had two good footholds, and his left arm was wound around the drainpipe. So long as he didn't look down, he was safe.

He watched the muscles in Lacey's legs tense, and spring. She let go of the pipe and pushed off with her legs, sending her arms forward and wrapping her whole body, sloth-like, around the bar of the scaffolding as she reached it.

She slid over to the other side of the fire escape, and gave a shaky laugh.

'It's OK,' she said. 'Leap like little frog, Alex.'

Alex ground his teeth and climbed a little higher. The muscles in his arms stretched a little two much for comfort and his legs shook. He unwrapped one arm from the drainpipe, took a deep breath, and leapt.

He had miscalculated the jump, and missed the pole by a few centimetres. Instead, he sprawled on the fire escape itself, but too much of his body had gone too little distance, and he began to slide off. Lacey reached down and hooked her hands into his armpits, dragging him up into safety. The fire escape began wobbling dangerously. It was obviously very unsafe. One piece of scaffolding fell off. Lacey's eyes widened in fear. She seemed to sense what was coming next.

'Run!'

They ran. Behind them, it was as if an earthquake were erupting. The fire escape jangled helplessly in their wake, and as they reached the roof it gave way completely and fell, crashing against the sides of the two buildings as it ricocheted its way to the bottom.

They lay, shakily, on the concrete roof of the games hall. There was no sign of any metalwork anywhere, Alex noted, as he tried to get his breathing even again. Beside him, Lacey was moaning.

'Never again. Never, ever again …'

'It's OK,' he said. 'We're safe now.'

'Where's the door?' she asked, looking up.

'Erm …'

They were spreadeagled on a perfectly flat surface. There was no door and no other fire escapes of any sort to be seen.

'We're trapped,' Lacey said slowly.

'Not trapped,' Alex said. 'There's something here to get down. I know it.'

She gazed at him. There was definite strength in those grey eyes.

Alex got to his feet and began to walk along the edge of the roof, watching out for his feet and shuddering a little at the height. He met Lacey at the third corner.

'Nada,' she said, biting her lip.

'Hell.'

'There must be another way. Wait, I have an idea.'

He watched her as she lay down on her stomach and peered over the edge, gripping the coarse concrete with her fingernails. She let out a deep, drawn out sigh and wormed her way back. Then she sat up, dusted her hands off and grinned shakily.

'There's a way.'

'Where's that?'

'Down there is a window. And also down there is a large hornbeam tree.'

He got it. 'It's my turn to go first.' He braced himself for the leap, taking a deep breath and calculating the distance between the leafy top of the tree and the roof, but Lacey caught his hand.

'No! I'm lighter than you; I'll go first. I'll be fine. There's some smaller branches on the lower side anyhow. I can grab them if I miss.'

Before he could speak, could caution her to be careful, she had prepared herself and leapt wide out, her arms thrust up. She did indeed miss the higher, leafier canopy of the tree, but she caught a lower branch squarely in her fingers and squirmed her way up.

He couldn't see her now, just the odd flash of her pale hair and a glitter of her eyes. He thought he heard an owl hoot in the darkness. It was very lonely up there on the roof of the games hall.

Alex bent his legs, flexing the muscles in his already exhausted limbs, and jumped.

His stomach flipped and cartwheeled, and he very nearly left his arms lying limply at his sides, but as he crashed into the canopy he finally pushed them down and caught a branch, scraping his wrists and gasping with the pain. A branch sprang up and he backed up just in time to avoid it scratching his eye out; instead it caught him a long cut across his cheek.

'Alex?'

He wriggled down, feeling through the darkness for branches and footholds. He felt an arm encircle his waist. Lacey was peering at him through the darkness. She looked worse for wear too. There were several scratches on her face, and a deep, nasty-looking cut on her left shoulder.

'Want to go down?'

'No!'

Alex glanced across at the window. The ledge wasn't far. But what if it were locked?

'Come on,' Lacey said, reading his mind. 'Might as well go. Your turn to go first.'

'OK.'

He tried to rub some of the feeling back into his shaking legs. He was exhausted by now. His arms ached, and his head swam.

Alex jumped, for the last time.

In his light-headedness he had put too much power into his leap. He crashed into the window, and felt it give way behind him. In a shower of broken glass he toppled over the ledge and landed on the other side, groaning. A moment later Lacey shot through, shocked and caught unawares, and landed on top of him.

'Sorry,' she moaned, rolling off, and sitting up, massaging her elbows.

'Why the hell did that window break? Easy to get in here, isn't it?' Alex muttered furiously, trying to sit up without getting glass splinters down his shirt.

'You're right, it is.'

It wasn't Lacey who spoke. The voice came from the darkness in front of them, from behind the glint of cold steel.

It was Elle Vaughan, and she was holding a gun.