Point Blanc Read Online Free PDF

For a few seconds it clung by one edge to the deck.
Then the last metal rivet came loose.
    The five-ton barge had been sixty yards above the
ground. Now it began to fall.

    In the Putney Riverside Conference Center, the chief of
the Metropolitan Police was addressing a large crowd of journalists, TV
cameramen, civil servants, and government officials. He was a tall, thin man
who took himself very seriously. His dark blue uniform was immaculate, with
every piece of silver--from the studs on his epaulettes to his five
medals--polished until it gleamed. This was his big day. He was sharing
the platform with no less a personage than the home secretary himself. The
assistant chief of police was there as well as seven lower-ranking officers. A
slogan was being projected onto the wall behind him.
    WINNING THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS
    Silver letters on a blue background. The chief of
police had chosen the colors himself, knowing that they matched his uniform. He
liked the slogan. He knew it would be in all the major newspapers the next
day--along with, just as important, a photograph of himself.
    "We have overlooked nothing!" he was
saying, his voice echoing around the modern room. He could see the journalists
scribbling down his every word. The television cameras were all focused on him.
"Thanks to my personal involvement and efforts, we have never been more
successful." He smiled at the home secretary, who smiled toothily back. "But
we are not resting on our laurels. Oh, no! Any day now we hope to announce
another breakthrough."
    That was when the barge hit the glass roof of the
conference center. There was an explosion. The chief of police just had time to
dive for cover as a vast, dripping object plunged down toward him. The home
secretary was thrown backward, his glasses flying off his face. His security
men froze, helpless. The boat crashed into the space in front of them, between
the stage and the audience. The side of the cabin had been torn off, and there
was the laboratory, exposed, with the two dealers sprawled together in one
corner, staring dazedly at the hundreds of policemen and officials who now
surrounded them. A cloud of white powder mushroomed up and then fell onto the
dark blue uniform of the police chief, covering him from head to toe. The fire
alarms had all gone off. The lights blew out. Then the screaming began.
    Meanwhile, the first of the construction workers had
made it to the crane cabin and was gazing, astonished, at the fourteen-year-old
boy he had found there.
    "Do you...?" he stammered. "Do
you have any idea what you've just done?"
    Alex glanced at the empty hook and at the gaping hole
in the roof of the conference center, at the rising smoke and dust. He shrugged
apologetically.
    "I was just working on the crime figures,"
he said. "And I think there's been a drop."

    ----
SEARCH AND
REPORT
    ^ >>
    AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T have far to take him.
    Two men brought Alex down from the crane, one above
him on the ladder and one below. The police were waiting at the bottom. Watched
by the incredulous construction workers, he was marched away from the building
site and into the police station just a few doors away. As he passed the
conference center, he saw the crowds pouring out. Ambulances had already
arrived. The home secretary was being whisked away in a black limousine. For
the first time Alex was seriously worried, wondering if anyone had been killed.
He hadn't meant it to end like this.
    Once they got to the police station, everything
happened in a whirl of slamming doors, blank official faces, whitewashed walls,
forms, and phone calls. Alex was asked his name, his age, his address. He saw a
police sergeant tapping the details into a computer, but what happened next
took him by surprise. The sergeant pressed ENTER and visibly froze. He turned
and looked at Alex, then hastily left his seat. When Alex had entered the
police station, he had been the center of attention, but suddenly everyone was
avoiding his eye. A