Excerpt From "Ark Angel"

In Anthony Horowitz's "Ark Angel," 14-year-old spy Alex Rider is recuperating in a London hospital when he comes across four men who want to kidnap Paul Drevin, a teenage patient in the room next to Alex's:

Alex took the stairs two at a time, a hundred different thoughts tumbling through his mind. Who were the four men and why were they here? What did they want with Paul? The name Drevin meant something to him, but this wasn't the time to work out what it was. What could he do to stop them?

He came to a fire alarm in a red box on the wall and stopped beside it. For a few precious seconds his fist hovered over the glass. But he knew that setting off the alarm would do no good. For the moment, surprise was all he had on his side. The fire alarm would only tell the men that they had been seen, and then they would go about their work all the faster, killing or kidnapping the boy long before the police or fire trucks arrived.

Alex didn't want to confront the four men on his own. He was desperately tempted to call for help. But he knew it would come too late.

He continued up the stairs, one small piece of knowledge spurring him on.

The men had shown themselves to be single-minded and ruthless. But they had already made one mistake.

When they had set off, they had been moving in the direction of the elevator, and Alex knew something they didn't. The elevators at St. Dominic's were the original bed lifts, almost twenty years old. They were designed to carry patients up from the operating rooms on the first floor and had to stop without even the slightest shudder. For this reason they were very, very slow. It would take Alex less than twenty seconds to reach the second floor; it would take the men almost two minutes. That gave him one minute and forty seconds to do something.

But what?

He burst through the doors and into the nurses' area in front of his room.

There was still nobody around, which was strange. Perhaps the four men had created some sort of diversion. That would make sense. They could have gotten rid of the nurse with a single phone call and right now she could be anywhere in the hospital. Alex stood panting in the half-light, trying to get his brain to work. He could imagine the elevator making its way inch by inch toward him.

He was painfully aware of the unevenness of the competition. The men were professional killers. Alex would have known that even if he hadn't seen them murder the night receptionist. It was obvious from their body language, the way they smiled, the conversation he'd overheard. Killing was second nature to them. Alex couldn't possibly fight them. He was unarmed.

Worse, he was in pajamas and slippers with a chest wound held together by stitches and bandages. He had never been more helpless. Once he was seen, he would be finished. He didn't stand a chance.

And yet he had to do something. He thought about the strange, lonely boy in the room next to his. Paul Drevin was only just fourteen -- eight months younger than Alex. These men had come for him. Alex couldn't let them take him.

He looked at the open door of his own room -- number nine. It was exactly opposite the elevator, and was the first thing the men would see when they stepped out. Paul Drevin was asleep in the next room. His door was closed.

Their names were visible in the half-light: alex rider and paul drevin.

They were printed on plastic strips that fit into a slot on each door.

Underneath, also on strips, were the room numbers.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a plan started to form in Alex's mind.

Excerpted from "Ark Angel" by Anthony Horowitz. Copyright 2006, Anthony Horowitz. All rights reserved. Published by Philomel, an imprint of Penguin Group Inc.