Bloody Horowitz by Anthony Horowitz

him. He could feel them burning his brain.
    â€œAll right. Here it is.” Wayne paused. “Can you tell me the name of the biggest library in the world?”
    Total silence. It was as if the audience was no longer breathing. The clock had started ticking. In twenty seconds, Danny would either be very rich or very dead.
    But he knew the answer! Danny wanted to be a librarian, and he knew that it wasn’t the British Library. That was the second biggest, with over fourteen million books.
    â€œIt’s the American Library of Congress,” he said.
    Another long silence.
    â€œYou’re absolutely right!” Wayne said.
    Everything went crazy. The audience left their seats once again, cheering and shouting. The security men closed ranks, forming a barrier in front of the stage. Fireworks exploded and brightly colored streamers rained down. Two floor managers ran forward and released Danny from his shackles. For the first time, he realized that he was soaked in perspiration. He found it hard to move. Bridget, the blonde in the bikini, came back with the attaché case. Wayne strode forward and took Danny’s hand, at the same time thumping him on his back.
    â€œThis year’s winner, just sixteen years of age, is Danny Webster. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the youngest multimillionaire in the country!”
    More cheering. Somehow Danny’s parents had found their way onto the stage. His father was whooping with excitement while his mother smothered him in kisses.
    â€œI knew you could do it, son!” Gary exclaimed. “You’ve made us! We’re in the money!”
    The next five minutes were totally chaotic for Danny. His head wasn’t working. Nothing made sense anymore. He reached out as the attaché case was pressed into his hands and felt the diamonds rattling inside. Bridget kissed him. Wayne Howard embraced him. It seemed that everyone wanted to touch him, to congratulate him. His name was flashing on the screen in gold letters. The Wagner was playing again.
    The security men had formed a protective tunnel and somehow he was bundled out of the studio and into the cold night air. But even here it wasn’t over. There were two thousand people cheering in front of the giant plasma screen, which showed his own face, blinking, as he was led out. The world press was waiting for him. More than two hundred cameras were flashing in his face, blinding him, shattering the night sky. Reporters were shouting questions at him in a dozen languages. There was a stretch limo with a uniformed chauffeur holding the door for him, but there was no way he could move forward, not with so many people surrounding him. His father was laughing hysterically. His mother was posing and pirouetting for the cameras. The security men were still trying to clear the way. It was like the end of a war.
    And then, out of nowhere, a helicopter appeared. It came down so fast that Danny thought it was going to crash. What was it doing? Were there more newsmen trying to break in on the scene? He saw a rope ladder snaking down.
    Then something fell out of the sky. A grenade. Somebody screamed. A second later there was machine-gun fire. Danny saw several of the journalists being mown down. The grenade exploded. Yellow tear gas mushroomed out. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
    Two men, dressed in black from head to foot, their faces covered by balaclavas, were climbing down the rope ladder. They weren’t newsmen. One of them fired several shots into the crowd, killing the chauffeur and two of the security men. The other ran up to Danny and snatched the case. But Danny wouldn’t let it go. He had won the competition. Over the past months, he had answered hundreds of questions. The prize was his!
    The masked man pulled out a gun and shot him.
    And at that moment he heard a voice, amplified, coming out of a speaker system that must have been concealed somewhere outside the