Free Ark Angel by Anthony Horowitz Page B

I knew your father. I wasn’t allowed to tell you that before. I worked with him a couple of times.”
    “In the field?”
    “Yes. That was before…” Crawley ran a hand through his hair. “Well, I got hurt and had to stop. But you’re just like him. Remarkable. Anyway, I have a few questions and then I’ll leave you in peace.” He had turned the tape recorder off; now he switched it back on. “The man who interrogated you. You say he called himself Kaspar. Can you describe him?”
    “That’s easy, Mr Crawley. He hasn’t got the sort of face you’d forget.”
    “Tattoos?”
    “Yes.” Alex described the man who had come so close to removing his little finger.
    “And he definitely told you that he represented Force Three.”
    “Yes. He talked a lot about global warming and that sort of thing.”
    “I would have said he rather added to it by setting fire to the building.”
    “I thought so too.”
    “What else can you tell me about him? Did he speak with an accent?”
    Alex thought back. “I don’t think he was English. He might have had a slight French accent. I’m not sure.”
    Crawley nodded. “Just one more question. The other three men in the tower block. You call them Combat Jacket, Spectacles and Silver Tooth. Did you hear any names?”
    “No. I’m afraid not.”
    “Thank you, Alex.” Crawley pressed a button on the tape recorder. There was a click as it stopped turning.

    “So who is Kaspar? Who are Force Three? What was it all about?”
    “It’s a long story.”
    “I’m not going anywhere.”
    “Well,” Crawley began. “Let’s start with Nikolei Drevin. I suppose you know who he is.”
    “I’ve heard of him. He’s a Russian multimillionaire.”
    “Born in Russia, yes. But he’s more of a multi-billionaire, as a matter of fact. An absolutely wonderful man.
    He lives in England a lot of the time, and he’s made it clear that he likes to think of himself as English.”
    “He bought a football club.”
    “Stratford East. That’s right. Nobody had ever heard of them but he’s forked out for some of the best players in the world and now they’re in the Premiership. He has a huge place in Oxfordshire, a penthouse near Tower Bridge and houses all over the world. He even has his own island out in the Caribbean.
    Flamingo Bay. That’s where the launches take place.”
    “Ark Angel,” Alex said.
    “Ark Angel is the name of the space hotel that he’s building. It’s being put together piece by piece, and he has to send rockets up every now and then with the next component. You may not know this, Alex, but the British government are partners in the project and it means a great deal to them. The first hotel in space and it’ll be flying a British flag! Ten years from now, commercial space travel will be a reality. In fact, it already is. An American businessman has already gone into outer space. Paid twenty million dollars for the privilege. Once Ark Angel is up and running, more will follow. The most powerful and influential people in the world will be queuing up for tickets, and we’ll be the ones supplying them.”
    “Kaspar mentioned outer space,” Alex said. “He didn’t seem too happy about the idea.”

    “Kaspar is a fanatic,” Crawley replied. “It’s true that a few wild birds got wiped out on Flamingo Bay when the launch pad was set up. As a matter of fact, there aren’t any flamingos there any more. Friends of the Earth and the World Wildlife Fund got a bit upset about it, but you don’t see them going around murdering people. Force Three’s a different matter.”
    “What do you know about them?”
    Crawley scowled. “Not a lot. Before this year, nobody had ever heard of them. Then a woman in Germany wrote an article about them in Der Spiegel and a few days later she was shot in the street. The same thing happened in London just over a week ago. A chap by the name of Max Webber denounced them at a conference on international security and got blown up as