F OR THE TWO THIEVES ON the 200cc Vespa scooter, it was a case of the wrong victim, in the wrong place, on the wrong Sunday morning in August.

It seemed that all life had gathered in the Piazza Esmerelda, a few miles outside Venice. Church had just finished and whole families were strolling together in the brilliant sunlight; grandmothers in black, boys and girls in their best suits and Communion dresses. The coffee bars and ice cream shops had opened, spilling their customers onto the sidewalks and out into the street. A huge fountain—all naked gods and serpents—gushed jets of ice-cold water. And there was a market. Stalls had been set up selling kites, dried flowers, old postcards, clockwork birds, and packets of seed for the hundreds of pigeons that strutted and squawked around.

In the middle of all this, two English schoolboys sat at a table drinking lemon water ice. One was short and dark, with spiky black hair and bright blue eyes. The other was Alex Rider.

It was the beginning of September. A month had passed since Alex’s final confrontation with Damian Cray on Air Force One —the American presidential plane. It had been the end of an adventure that had taken him to Paris and Amsterdam and finally to the main runway at Heathrow Airport even as a dozen nuclear missiles had been fired at targets all around the world. Alex had managed to destroy the missiles. He had been there when Cray died. And at last he had gone home with the usual collection of bruises and scratches only to find a grim-faced and determined Jack Starbright waiting for him in the main living room. Jack was his housekeeper, but she was also his friend and, as always, she was worried about him.

“You can’t keep this up, Alex,” she said. “I mean, if you have to go out and save the world now and then, I’m not going to argue with that. But this is getting ridiculous. You come home bruised and battered and completely exhausted. You need a vacation! A week in the sun!”

“You’re right.” Alex was unusually quiet. Jack had noticed it at once. He had barely said anything about Cray or what had happened in those last minutes on the runway. “I want to go to Venice,” he announced suddenly.

“Venice?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ll get the tickets. If you like, we can visit Florence too—”

“Actually, Jack, I was thinking of going with a friend. Tom Harris. You know…he’s at Brookland. He’s got a brother living in Naples and he’s going over to visit him. He said I could come too.”

“Yeah. Sure.” For a moment Jack was disappointed. But then she brightened up. “That’s a great idea, Alex. You ought to spend more time with your own friends. Venice and Naples will be terrific. And the main thing is to make sure you have a real rest.”

Alex glanced at Tom now as they sipped their drinks in the Italian square. Tom Harris was his best friend at Brookland. A lot of the other children—and most of the teachers—thought he wasn’t too bright. It was certainly true that he was regularly bottom in everything. But the best thing about him was that he didn’t care. He always managed to be cheerful and he was always fun to be with. And what Tom lacked in the classroom, he made up for on the sports field. He was captain of the school soccer team and Alex’s main rival on sports day, beating him at hurdles, five hundred meters, and the pole vault.

Tom had been talking about this trip to Italy for some time, but it was only recently that Alex had discovered why he was so keen to go. His parents were going through a messy divorce and this summer things had come to a head with moving vans, lawyers’ letters, and long, bitter silences. Tom wanted to get as far away from it as he could and the invitation from his older brother couldn’t have come at a better time.

“What did you say this was called?” he asked, putting down his spoon.

“It’s a granita ,” Alex said. It was what he always ordered when he was in Italy: crushed ice with fresh lemon juice squeezed over it. It was halfway between an ice cream and a drink and there was nothing in the world more refreshing.

“It’s good.” Tom nodded. He was wearing Diesel light-sensitive sunglasses that he had bought for himself at Heathrow duty-free. They were one size too big for his face and kept slipping down his nose. “Are you going to be at school next term?” he asked suddenly.

Alex shrugged. “Of course.”

“You were hardly there last term—or the term before.”

“I was ill.”

Tom thought for a moment. “You do know that nobody believes that,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because nobody’s that ill. It’s just not possible.” Tom lowered his voice. “Do you know that there’s a rumor you’re a crook?”

“What?”

“That’s why you’re away so much. You’re in trouble with the police.”

“Is that what you think?”

“No. But Miss Bedfordshire asked me about you. She knows we’re mates. She said you got into trouble once for stealing a crane or something. She heard about that from someone and she thinks you’re in therapy.”

“Therapy?” Alex was staggered.

“Yeah. She’s quite sorry for you. She thinks that’s why you have to go away so much. You know…to see a shrink.”

Jane Bedfordshire was the school secretary, an attractive woman in her forties who had always had a soft spot for Alex. Alex couldn’t believe what Tom was telling him. Did she really believe he was mad?

“You don’t think that, do you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. You’re certainly very strange.”

“Thanks!”

A clock struck twelve. Alex and Tom were staying in a youth hostel in the little town of San Lorenzo, just outside Venice itself. Tom’s parents had showered him with money—probably out of guilt, he said—but even so, it was cheaper to stay here than in the main city.

“So are you…?” Tom began.

He broke off. It had happened very quickly and both boys had seen it, on the opposite side of the square.

There was an elegantly dressed woman, out with her two children. She had just stepped off the sidewalk and was about to cross the road when a motorbike surged forward. It was a 200cc Vespa Granturismo, almost brand-new, with two men riding it. They were both dressed in jeans and loose, long-sleeved shirts. The passenger had a helmet and visor, as much to hide his identity as to protect him if they crashed. The driver—wearing sunglasses—steered toward the woman, as though he intended to run her over. But at the last moment he veered away. At the same time, the other man reached out and snatched her handbag. It was done so neatly that Alex knew the two men were professionals… scippatori , as they were known in Italy. Bag thieves.

Both her children had seen what had happened. One of them was shouting and pointing but there was nothing they could do. The bike was already accelerating away. The driver had his head low. His partner was cradling the leather bag in his lap. They were speeding diagonally across the square, heading toward Alex and Tom. It had seemed that there were people everywhere a few moments before, but suddenly the center of the square was empty and there was nothing to prevent their escape.

Alex got up and ran forward.

“Alex!” Tom called after him.

“Stay back!”

Briefly, Alex considered blocking the path of the Vespa. But it was hopeless. The driver would easily be able to swerve around him—and if he chose not to, Alex really would end up in the hospital. The bike was already doing about forty miles per hour, its single-cylinder, four-stroke engine carrying the two thieves effortlessly toward him. Alex certainly wasn’t going to stand in its way.

He looked around him, wondering if there was something he could throw. A net? A bucket of water? But there was no net and the fountain was too far away, although there were buckets….

The bike was less than twenty yards away, accelerating all the time. Alex ran forward and snatched a bucket from the flower stall, emptied it, scattering dried flowers across the sidewalk, and filled it with birdseed from the stall next door. Both the stall owners were shouting at him in Italian, but he ignored them. Without stopping, he swung around and hurled the birdseed at the Vespa just as it was about to go past him. Tom was watching…first in amazement, then with disappointment. If Alex had thought the great shower of seed would knock the two men off the bike, it hadn’t worked. They were continuing regardless.

But that hadn’t been his plan.

There must have been two or three hundred pigeons in the square and all of them had seen the seed shooting out of the bucket. The two riders were covered in it. Seed had lodged in the folds of their clothes, under their collars, and in the sides of their sneakers. There was a small pile of it caught in the driver’s crotch. Some had fallen into the woman’s bag. Some had become trapped in the driver’s hair.

For the pigeons, the bag thieves had suddenly become a meal on wheels. With a soft explosion of gray feathers, they came swooping out of the sky, falling on the two men from all directions. Suddenly the driver had a pigeon clinging to the side of his face with its claws while its beak hammered at his head, tearing the seed out of his hair. There was another pigeon at his throat, a third between his legs, pecking at the most sensitive area of all. His passenger had two pigeons on his neck, another one hanging off his shirt, another half-buried in the stolen bag. And more pigeons were joining in. There must have been at least twenty of them, flapping and batting around them, a twisting cloud of feathers, claws, and—triggered by greed and excitement—flying pellets of white bird droppings.

The driver was blinded, one hand on the handle-bars, the other tearing at his face. As Alex watched, the bike performed a 180-degree turn so that now it was coming back, heading straight toward them, moving faster than ever. For a moment he stood poised, waiting to throw himself aside. It looked as though he was going to be run over. But then the bike veered a second time and now it was heading for the fountain, the two men barely visible in a cloud of beating wings. The front wheel hit the fountain’s edge and the bike crumpled. Both men were thrown off. The birds scattered. In the brief second before he hit the water, the man who had grabbed the handbag yelled and let go of it. Almost in slow motion, the bag arced through the air. Alex took two steps forward and caught it.

And then it was all over. The two thieves were a tangled heap, half-submerged in cold water. The Vespa was lying, buckled and broken, on the ground. A pair of Italian policemen, who had arrived when it was almost too late, were hurrying toward them. The stall owners were laughing and applauding. Tom was staring. Alex went over to the woman and gave her the bag.

“I think this is yours,” he said.

The woman stared at him in astonishment. Alex turned and walked back to his friend. He sat down at the table.

“Alex…” Tom began. “How…?”

Alex smiled. “It was just something I picked up in therapy,” he said. GfavNzvUovfMtDvJyX5l0dulKDHO5KTiHYePqu0yOzFAX8lG8/cGZbEwQ055lrbQ